Quote:
Originally Posted by Amyjay
Yes, of course. They are fairly typical symptoms of DID.
Sometimes I experience as "hearing myself talking", especially in therapy, but also in other particular situations. Sometimes I (or another alter) can hear our "self" talking aloud to another person but are dissociated from the content of what is being said. In that instance we usually try to let T know that we are aware we were speaking but we have no idea what we were saying. At other times (again, especially in therapy) one of us might try to talk to T about something only to have our thoughts suddenly and immediately be inaccessible to us. Both thought insertions and thought withdrawal symptoms in us are unequivocally due to dissociative processes and amnestic barriers between alters. And both happen to us quite a lot.
|
@
Amyjay,
I see this post is older, but if you are around I would be grateful for an opinion. I have DPDR and D. amnesia, and I do have some parts, but I always thought it is more or less what everyone has, and I don't see it as a disorder. I tried to talk to my therapist twice on that subject, but he just rejected it, stating that I am structurally "normally developed" person. This very formulation bothered me, because I know I am not what he thinks that I am, and that would make me...what..I guess "abnormally developed", and I find that very outdated an opinion, but I do not have much choice in finding another therapist who would be willing to work with IFS or something like that, so I kind of gave up on that for now.
However, I have some extreme examples of dissociation, such as talking in front of 50 people at the conference that I organized, and dissociating so completely, that I can hear my voice, that does not lose focus or rhythm, and I am very impressed at how well I speak and how well I am prepared, but I have no idea what am I talking about, and it goes on an on, and feels like juggling, as if I can drop a juggling ball any second, but it also feels timeless, as I cannot tell how long it took, a second or ten minutes. Or in conversation with someone close to me, I dissociate, and I start hearing myself acutely, I know it is my voice, but at the same time it does not sound as me, and I am talking about something, and I know what I want to say, but the distance between what I am saying and thinking becomes wider and wider, as if two parts of the same train went down two different tracks, and finally the distance between them becomes too wide to keep stretching between them, and I disconnect from the conversation completely. I basically feel fake, as a friend, because too many things go below my radar, and people tell me same things over and over, but the thing is I seldom hear them from the beginning to the end, because I am kind of not there at least at some point, even though it seems that I am. My close friends and my partner know that about me, so I am not embarrassed any more to tell them I did not hear a word they said, and if they can repeat. After that conference that I mentioned, I watched the footage, and nothing seemed out of ordinary. I just felt very upset to watch it, as I knew how disconnected I felt when talking, while not really being in control of myself and the content of my speech. But I seemed super composed and in control!
My question was actually, how do you cope with that? I mean, I always had that, and it didn't bother me too much, because it never happened that I did or said something rude or out of context - I actually trust myself even with very specific situations such as lectures or presentations, that I will do well, because I always prepare everything so thoroughly that I can basically do it with "half of my mind", or less
. I am just bothered by not being present in my own life, I guess...
Take care,
A.