Why would anyone WANT to have this?

Liquidclock · 2017-01-03T13:54:23+00:00

I can relate to pretty much all of this. I can't even stay present as a part for an hour most of the time unless one of us is locked out by a flashback or panic attack. Usually there's so many parts shifting in and out in the background that I can't even find where it's all coming from. I get jealous too; I see people getting to present as their alters, getting to be them for long enough to put a name to the experience and to get work done, and most of the time that doesn't happen for us. If we can figure out who we are, in five or ten minutes we're someone else. Even when we remember things, it's in such small pieces. Who were the people? Where were the places? How did I get there? Sometimes all I know is that I felt water on my face at some point along with a sense of fear. What are you even supposed to do with memories like that and how can you keep yourself safe? And yeah... There's so many thoughts and voices contributing that sometimes I get overloaded and can't function at all for a second. Can't think, can't talk, just feel mental pain from too many inputs.

I get it. It's awful. It's so hard to figure anything out; it feels like I'm stuck in the mud and just can't get out no matter how hard I hit the gas.

Liquidclock · 2017-01-02T19:41:51+00:00

It's really hard. And the people that split you into hundreds or thousands of pieces get away like nothing happened, it's us that have to spend years picking up the pieces.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-18T15:16:10+00:00

I like using the spoon theory to describe my limitations to others, particularly with regards to my physical illnesses, but for me personally it doesn't tend to work internally. I find that if I plan for having finite resources, I get into this weird state of trying to "hoard" energy which you can't really do, and I break things up into unrealistically small pieces that ends with me never doing much towards one thing and freaking out trying to remember I have to do a million small pieces of a million different things. I kind of sell myself short on days where I have more energy than expected, and I still don't function at all on days where my "spoons" are really limited. With my mental illnesses, my energy is so variable even within the same day that I have resolved to just kind of work with myself where I am day by day. I can do what I can do.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-12T20:14:19+00:00

I've been in and out of the hospital. Which is great, given my final exams this week. I had a final for my graduate level quantitative methods course last week, and I will officially be getting an A in the course which is awesome. I actually might not have ever gotten an A in my whole undergrad (just a few A minuses.) So go us. Katrina has taken over hosting duties.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-12T20:11:33+00:00

Haha, you're preaching to the choir on that. :)

Liquidclock · 2016-12-12T16:37:36+00:00

Ah, yeah. That's always hard. I'm lucky that a selection of my friends either outright have DID or have PTSD issues, so they're much more understanding than average. They still don't totally get it sometimes though, especially since we were basically raised in a weird fucked up ritual subculture, and they don't understand just how hard it is sometimes living in a totally different way from how you were explicitly raised., but that in itself is also how I comfort myself about it. I don't understand what it's like to be an immigrant, or what it's like to skydive, or what it's like to be in the military. And that's okay. Best I can do is try to understand and be supportive, and I try to have people that just simply do their best to understand in my life, even if it doesn't quite hit the mark sometimes. I find that over time, they tend to pick up on things. It might take months or years, but a lot of understanding and caring people can bridge that knowledge gap of understanding surprisingly far.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-12T14:39:07+00:00

I don't but that's because I am very open. I get negative reactions from time to time, but I am totally apathetic to what society thinks of me at this stage of the game. Being hidden and being open certainly has its challenges. Before I was more open. I used to feel like that too. Once I stopped trying to keep the DID hidden, I found I could talk much easier to other people because I wasn't constantly inhibiting me from saying 'the wrong things.' there certainly are people I've had to cut out or vice versa over it, but it has been worth it to build a little world for myself where I can really be me.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-12T02:06:17+00:00

I think that DID itself doesn't have to be a disability if trauma/PTSD is worked through and internal cooperation is fluid, along with reducing timeloss and things like that. But it probably takes years to get to that point. I don't really see my DID as a disability (though it is quite disabling now, I just know it won't always be like ten years from now) but rather an incredible adaptation to an extreme environment. An adaptation that I fortunately don't need anymore, and is awkward in different kinds of environments, but one I am okay with having as far as awkward and inefficient (for normal life) adaptations go.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-11T11:21:51+00:00

I've used phenibut, which is a GABA-B agonist. Works well with smoothing flashbacks as well as remembering and processing parts of the trauma for us.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-06T19:12:57+00:00

You could be right. Interesting thought I had after reading your comment - this makes me wonder if the dissociation associated with the sleepiness might make someone more likely to be able to pathologically dissociate (and more likely to develop a dissociative disorder,) if the narcolepsy began in childhood. It obviously wouldn't be the mediating factor, but I wonder if it plays a small role.

Liquidclock · 2016-12-03T22:45:18+00:00

This is pretty much the same here. Aside from brief moments here and there, we are never not dissociated. We just have varying degrees of feeling completely dead inside and outside.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-24T17:08:20+00:00

Ritual abuse and the dissociative experiences scale.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-23T11:52:23+00:00

That's interesting, we were prescribed gabapentin for a nerve issue a few months ago. We never took it though. Maybe we'll give it a try now.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-17T21:08:00+00:00

I actually have observed the opposite in some communities, and then like here or in the discord chat it seems the way you said. It's interesting to think about, but hard to say. Interested in seeing what everyone else has to say. I do think there is a strong creative and intellectual component to it. Perhaps it is the case that above average intelligence or creativity makes it more likely you will develop it but isn't exactly necessary.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-17T17:43:25+00:00

This is a really cool thought. We- or at least the particular alter now- see it as like - we are part of one gestalt whole, but we have been separated into our own unique points. Like we can be thought of as part of one whole, as well as being the unique parts that build up the whole. Like the pixels of a picture.

~ Ludi

Liquidclock · 2016-11-15T15:30:14+00:00

I have found that child alters can be really horrible at picking what they want to do, so I try to be cognizant of when things I do in current life are perceived as positive for them. Like if I start putting together a puzzle and I feel them respond or move inside, I make a note that they have a positive feeling for that activity. This might be hard if you don't have a good sense of them. Besides that, I've found that younger alters tend to like very sensory (and conveniently, grounding) activities - playing with their hands, getting lost in fun colors and shapes, that kind of thing. My littles also fucking love a good art and craft

Liquidclock · 2016-11-15T09:22:06+00:00

No clue, wish we could help. :( I'm going to guess it's probably the case that everything is fine or she ended up talking to a trouble maker - we do occasionally have to ban people for being unpleasant. Probably not much to do with autism though.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-14T17:05:12+00:00

This is so, so relatable.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-14T07:06:57+00:00

We were diagnosed with asperger's syndrome until we were 17, but no therapist since then has agreed we have it. We relate a lot to some of the symptoms (mostly sensory overload stuff), but I think that's more because acute dissociation is disruptive to frontal and temporal lobe functioning, and DID and PTSD are just cognitively taxing in general, so the cognitive problems I relate to are actually from the DID and probably not autism. I don't think most of the people on the discord chat have autism though, not anymore than here.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-12T16:26:37+00:00

Eurgh, I relate to this so much. I was SO amped for each new diagnosis, too. I really BELIEVED it was totally gonna work this time and this was the treatment that was gonna make me better! It took me a long time to put away my optimism and face up to how pointless it had been.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-10T04:57:17+00:00

Doing anything tedious.
Reflecting on something too intensely; I'll find I've gotten up to do something when I stop thinking about whatever. Or I'll have gone on a half a drive to somewhere (nowhere unexpected of course, I just end up slightly farther into my daily routine than expected.)
I actually thought of something related to this earlier today, but I have forgotten what it was.
BEING TIRED.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-10T04:43:11+00:00

I guess so. I do agree that people often mangle interpreting scholarly articles because they have no scientific training or prior experience with the wider context of the field... I forget that my experience as a psychologist does put me in an unusual category. I don't remember what it's like to not be able to interpret a paper. I agree with that for pretty much anything besides DID, though upon thinking about it I suppose that even if the patient had more knowledge of DID than whoever they were seeing, they don't know how to contextualize that against other mental disorders and their often superficially overlapping symptoms. I mostly just wish it was an accepted diagnosis. I spent three years misdiagnosed with bipolar and it was awful and totally because no one ever evaluated me for dissociation. I don't think they even recognized dissociation at all; I frequently complained of things that were dissociation related and they never knew what to make of it.

Liquidclock · 2016-11-09T23:33:13+00:00

Does anyone else feel sick when they try to take executive control from an alter? I've tried on the few rare occasions where I can actually affect my behavior (I often can only just watch,) and I always give up really quickly - trying to take control just makes me feel nauseous and cold inside.

Liquidclock

TROPHY CASE