I'm a schizo with PTSD and a spilt personality. Do you have repressed memories that can return to your mind at random? I'm 37 with similar mental illness and i am forever reliving past events ranging from trauma to conversations i have had with people from when i was younger that some how my mind has chosen or sub-consciencely forgotten. As you would think anti-psychotic medication helps me cope with the returning memories but sometimes things get too much and i have a nervous break down that requires a hospital visit. So far fortunately a new set of meds get me functioning again. I'm used to the mental illness cycle that is my life but i normally get 7 good years between hospital visits (touch wood) Like everyone i have my good and bad days.
Yeah! Repressed memories are extremely common with DID. In fact in some cases including mine certain alters form specifically for the purposes of holding traumatic memories away from the awareness of the other alters. The memories repressed through my memory holding alter can't return to my awareness unless she is at last partially in control (and often that means I won't remember having been aware of them because even partial loss of control to an alter can trigger my amnesia) but I have memories of my own that I've dissociated from to a more minor degree that will return at random and can trigger flashbacks or other PTSD symptoms.
PTSD is at least partially caused by failure to process traumatic events (and thus being forced to relive them as the brain attempts to process them) and DID is considered by some doctors to be an extremely severe form of PTSD where the structural dissociation involved occurred before the age at which a person can form a singular identity. For this reason it's almost universal for anyone with DID to have repressed memories that sometimes come up when their brain thinks it's safe to begin processing them, the same thing occurs with both PTSD and C-PTSD just to a differing degree and sometimes with different resulting symptoms. Medication can help with this by minimizing the amount of associated anxiety however processing trauma memories in a safe therapeutic environment is the only way known to improve this long term.
It can be really really hard to live with these things, I'm sorry you struggle so much but I'm glad you've manged to get such long periods between hospitalizations! I'm going on my 5th year with no visits to the psych ward now. I did have to go to a crisis residential for a couple of days in 2016 but I've managed to stay away from inpatient hospitals and it's nice to be free of that environment.
Forgive me if this comment comes off as a bit trite Emptty, but have you ever seen the movie The Scribbler? I feel like you might enjoy it.
I really hope you are able to make your way in the mental health field, as I see you as becoming an amazing clinician one day! You have so much depth and insight, and you clearly have seen and experienced things most cannot imagine, it would be such a waste for you not to pursue your dreams and achieve your potential (as you yourself come to understand it).
Anyways, I just wanted to let you know you have yourself a fan in me (and I've no doubt there are others who can relate to you as well). Reading your well written posts give me much pleasure, please keep it up!
I've actually never heard of it but I looked it up and it looks pretty interesting, looks like it's on Netflix so I might give watching it a go tonight! I'm glad you enjoy reading what I write and I have to say my time on BL has encouraged me quite a bit to look into the mental health field as a career choice. I had considered it before but was also considering going into animal husbandry (I very much love raising reptiles as a hobby) and couldn't choose between the two, but I've started to recognize how much I have to offer with the perspective I have and I would love to see that help people like me someday.
I have a long way to go before I can be on that side of things in the mental health system but going back to college is definitely a goal of mine that I'd like to pursue when I'm sober and more stable.
If there is a main alter, do you think that they are in anyway aware? Perhaps present but quiet, or occasionally coming to the forfront as the predominant alter?
If by main you mean the one who is most willing to take control or interact with me that seems to change over time for us, it used to be I wasn't even the one usually in control. It took about a year after I formed for me to become the one that had primary control and I still suspect something happened around that time to cause the first primary alter to relinquish that position to me.
Aside from me right now I would think that the predominant alter is Cobi, I don't see tons of evidence of her taking control when I lose time and she's fairly quiet now but I do know she's the one that tends to show up when I'm under stress and is the one that my therapist has had the most interaction with. This is unsurprising as she's also the one who was primarily in control when I first came around, she now functions as a memory holder and a protector so she hangs onto traumatic memories and will take partial or full control if I'm faced with something that makes me fear for my safety. She's more eager to react to threats to my physical safety (either assault from others, potential for accidental injury or threats of self-harm) but has also reacted a few times to false threats like me feeling unsafe due to a flashback.
When communication is easier she is the one who speaks to me the most and takes or shares control the most, I remember as a young teenager I would have back and forth conversations with her all day (while the others chimed in occasionally) and it felt almost like sharing a body with my best friend. Things have changed over time of course due to traumatic events that have happened and biochemical changes we experienced due to medication or substance use but back then she was definitely the main and I'd say she probably is now too. Of all of us she has the most complex and developed identity even compared to me, I do believe she has direct relation to the original and may even have been the first alter to split.
From what I can tell she is very aware of the situation, actually of all of us the only ones that ever seem to lack awareness of the disorder or other alters are me (through lack of knowledge & periods of denial), Ryann (who only developed about a year ago) and the younger alters who I think just don't understand it all well since they understand things in the way children do. We have one alter called James whose primary purpose is holding onto information about our case of DID, about our alters and about our history. I believe most of the other alters are more able to communicate with him than I am which is why they're fairly aware of the situation, I have spoken with him some but it's hard for me to communicate with any alters these days and occasionally when we can talk he'll just answer my questions with a simple "It's best you don't know the answer to that". The point of his job being to keep order between us and to keep me able to function in daily life without interference from excessive knowledge of trauma or of my disorder. The other alters don't need to be as functional as I am since they have control less often so I'd imagine he's willing to share more complicated information about our situation with them.
If you mean aware of what happens when she's not in control, I think to a certain degree she is. In my experience it's possible for an alter to be conscious while another is in control and I think Cobi along with some of the others fade in and out of that state while James is in an almost constant state of co-consciousness. It's what happens to me when Niko is in control and has happened once when James was.
Do you think there are more alters hidden away?
Personally I don't believe so but I also have no real way to tell, I know within the past two years I've discovered 3 alters I hadn't spoken to before. It's hard to tell if they're newly split or just newly discovered but I believe that Ryann and Niko are both newly split which would mean only one of them was actually hidden from me. It's totally possible there are more and many people with DID discover hidden alters throughout their life especially as they start to receive treatment and explore the existence of their alters. Only time will really tell if there are any others hidden away, I'm hoping to learn more about the one I discovered but it's been hard as one of my other older alters is very set on preventing me from having contact with the newly discovered one. So far I know his age, gender and what he looks like (with DID some people have an
inner world which allows them to see their alters and allows alters to have appearances that differ from the body) but I have only spoken to him directly once and don't even know his name for sure. I'm under the impression that it's Joshua but haven't been able to confirm that.
Have you ever taken a powerful psychedelic? I'm think mainly salvia or DMT.
I haven't taken either of those, the only psychedelics I've had experience with are LSD and DOC. After my DOC trip I decided any psychedelic more powerful than a low dose of acid probably wasn't for me and chose not to experiment with any other psychedelic drugs.
Working with your alters with a trauma specialist psych? I have had some experience with inter-family systems therapy for PTSD and found it to be fairly helpful. Be careful about learning too much about different therapy styles before you seriously dig into your trauma. You may find yourself resisting the treatment unconsciously and it will be that much harder to find a psych 'sharp' enough to cut through that resistance.
Yup! I currently see a psychiatrist (who is an autism specialist but has been seeing me since I was 9 1/2 for medication management) and a therapist who specializes in trauma and personality disorders that I've been seeing since 2015. The therapist is who I am primarily working on my DID symptoms with since she's the trauma specialist but my psychiatrist knows of the diagnosis and takes it into account before suggesting a symptom be treated with meds.
I'm afraid it's a bit late to avoid learning about therapy styles. Our first experience with the mental health system was when we were 4 1/2 when my parents were seeking an autism diagnosis for us, since I formed when we were 12 I was basically born into living within the mental health system and over time I learned if I wanted to get the treatment I needed I had to know exactly what I needed because doctors rarely listen and often don't know what to do if you can't be fixed with meds. I got into a pretty strong habit of researching my diagnoses and their treatment and of questioning any professional I don't deeply trust (which is most of them). I've tried to learn with my current therapist to step back and let her treat me without questioning or resisting her to much but it takes a pretty high degree of trust (that she's lucky to have earned) and isn't something I'm used to doing. It's a conscious effort to not resist treatment but I feel it's one of the many things that I've managed to improve on with hard work and I expect to get better at it as I work with a therapist I trust.
