What are they like

All my voices are not voices but thoughts. They are random, internal, childlike sometimes (although it doesnt sound like s child as far as voice. Like I said they are thoughts not voices but they refer to people as mommy sometimes and I am 43) sometimes they are loud or absurd and it actually startles me. What are yours like?

Dnester please dont do this to yourself.

line in the sand it doesnt matter what our alters and voices were like,. what matters is thats how your alters/ parts/ voices are and in order to get the answers you are looking for about your alters / parts and voices you cant be trying to compare us to you.

the way to discover answers about your voices is by working with your own treatment providers.

thats how each of us have discovered who and what our alters/ parts and voices were and why.

Each of us is different. Some people find comfort in digging for answers and some people are driven crazy by it. Please don't let some anonymous voice on the internet tell you that there is only one way.

I discovered who and what my alters/parts and voices were and why on my own.

Honestly, most of what I think I know turns out to be wrong. Trying to "figure it out" leads to assumptions/filling in blanks.

My Parts/alters/whatever you want to call them communicate in the same way I do: they write, they take over & talk out loud, they act out. I do have internal dialogue, but I barely trust it to be accurate, because my own mind filters it.

If the question is "do I hear internal dialogue the same way I hear thoughts" the answer is "sort of." It's inside my head, I don't confuse it with audible voices. But, it is pretty inaccurate if I try at all to convey any of it to anyone outside. If I try to share it -- by the time it's out of my mouth, I've already filtered it through me, so it is not totally accurate.

I did provide my therapist with an example of internal conflict vs. conflict between Parts/alts by providing an example of two different shopping trips I went on.

Trip 1 -- internal conflict...
I found something I really liked. I thought "Ooh I really want this. Oh but we're trying to buy a house, so I shouldn't be spending money. But I really like it, and I won't find it again...maybe I should buy i t. Ohh but no saving is more important."

Trip 2 -- conflict between Parts/alts...
I'm in the bread aisle. I start to dissociate: can't feel my body, completely flat affect, can't feel much of anything really... I'm picking up a bread and hear in my head (yes, similarly to thought) "This one looks so good!" -- wham, panic, hits me -- angry 'thought' "NO that has way too many carbs" -- the bread is put back on the shelf -- start to walk away -- overwhelmed again, "no no I want it" -- back to the bread, picking it up again -- wham, panic, "NO stop it no bread NO BREAD" -- back on the shelf it goes, walking away again -- "but if we only have one slice, it's not so bad...please I want it please..." I'm back in front of the g*d*mned bread again, picking it up again -- PANIC -- "No no no no no PUT IT BACK" -- bread is back on the shelf again...

This will literally go on for an hour. Frequently, the dialogue becomes external, so the words come out of "my" mouth as the different parts hijack. Though they, thankfully, typically keep it quiet.

Now, I am there - I have co-consciousness - I will attempt to smooth it over - trying to propose compromises. Again, the dialogue can be in my head but typically slips out of my mouth, to be honest. As does theirs. I always wonder how nuts I must look to other people.... I do not black out and forget. (Typically. I do have a distinct memory of putting a certain shirt back on the shelf only to find it in my closet a week later, so...that happened.) But, anyways, I have a high level of co-consciousness typically meaning that I don't black out and just wake up places.

So, I hope that's somewhat helpful.

Thank you. I never black out either. I just kind of take the backseat. I can feel myself becoming different. Like for example my Psychologist was talking about using hypnosis. I started to feel like a totally different person. I felt this arrogant, skeptical persona come over me (yes I am generally skeptical but this was different) His name is Theodore. I am able to hide it when it happens though. No one can tell I'm switching. Im usually like what the heck just happened though. The thing is though my alters dont speak though. They just feel and think different when they are out. I dont have much internal dialogue like you are explaining sometimes I will have thoughts (I call them that because they are not voices but thoughts like thinking) that say things like my mommy is coming accompanied by she doesn't care about you. This happens when the owner of the building comes in because she is kind of like a mother to the whole group home. Whenever we have any type of problem we bring it to her. I dont even call my own mom mommy and I am 43 years old. So I know its coming from someone else. Or I will think things like come sit beside me reffering to myself. Sometimes like one day I was thinking about a crown that had broken on my tooth from eating a sugar daddy. Accompanied by I can't think about that I am cooking. When I was not cooking. Sometimes its very random like after dinner clouds out of the blue. Sometimes my thoughts or so loud they startle me. Sometimes I can stop them mid sentence.

Most systems are highly covert -- that is, nobody can tell "switching" is happening -- that is how they are designed to be as switching being obvious could be dangerous. And, huge amounts of self doubt are also part of it. DID is all about denial of one's own experience. It's a key part of how your brain is trying to keep you safe.

So are you OSDD? I'm still confused about why my diagnosis got changed from DDNOS to DID and not not OSDD because I have no present day amnesia.

I've been diagnosed with DID.
I was originally diagnosed about a decade ago. I spent the next 10 years fleeing from the diagnosis, denying it adamantly, and mostly ignoring it as a possibility.

Earlier this year, I finally sought out a second opinion from an expert in the field, and he confirmed the diagnosis.

I found him very helpful. He explained that most cases of DID do not present the way a lot of people "expect" them to because of media, etc. Most are highly covert - they won't just show up and say "I'm not Jack, I'm Will." Most experience "micro-amnesias," which he describes as not being able to recall what was just said, rather than massive present-day amnesia.

I have actually come to acknowledge that I have more present-day amnesia than I originally thought. Again, and this was the most important thing the psychiatrist really taught me, DID is allll about denial of one's own experience. Even now, I lapse into long periods of not believing any of it. It has been helpful for my therapist & I to associate that with a specific part.

Honestly, the diagnosis was super important to me for a time, but I'm growing to be able to accept the ambiguity....and that it's not the diagnosis, but whatever my individual experience is that matters. That I do not need to fit any sort of definition to be valid.

actually its the other way around...

DID is the one ............with............. amnesia / memory problems

OSDD is the one that has very little amnesia to no amnesia / memory problems....

Am I remembering right that not too long ago you posted somewhere your treatment providers read the DSM 5 for both disorders with you and that because when they went over it with you they said you fit DID because you do have amnesia, do have memory problems and do switch into alters.

if that has changed / improved since that posting a little bit ago....

my suggestion is that its ok for you to ask to go over the DSM 5 on these two disorders again. and if after going through it again with you and you fit the one that does not have amnesia (OSDD) they will be able to look at their list of OSDD disorders and tell you which one of those you have.

going from having amnesia and memory problems to now having no amnesia and very little to no memory problems is a great thing. it means you are on the right treatment plans for you, that your treatment providers are working with you in the way that they should be and that you are making a great amount of progress. way to go keep up the fantastic work on yourself.

I have never had any amnesia besides childhood. I dont have current day to day amnesia. I am always co-conscious when I switch. I feel like I am taking the backseat but I still remember everything. When I come back Im always like what was that? but i do remember it. I just never thought I had DID because I wasnt like Sybil. When I got diagnosed DDNOS in the early 2000s I had to stop seeing her because I didnt have the money. So I went to a CSB. My therapist there said you dont have that you have to have major switches in front of me. So I focused on my OCD for many years until stuff started to resurface. Im really not worried so much about the switching. I mean I am skeptical because thats me but I am more concerned about the voice thoughts I am having. I absolutely do not want to be schizophrenic. I do alot of reading and the voice seem to happen in bith DID and schizophrenia. My alters that come out dont talk just feel and act. The thought voices dont act and there feelings are limited. So it is very hard to tell if the thoughts voices are DID or schizophrenia.

thanks for clarifying for me.

yes years ago a person had to switch in front of their treatment providers to get the diagnosis of DID, but not any more. now the diagnostics say having alters can be observed by others or self reported meaning you can tell your treatment provider that you switch into alters and when and how. they dont have to see it happen any more. you still have to meet special diagnostics when you tell a therapist that you have DID or you have alters. they just dont have to see it happen anymore.

yes it is hard to tell the two apart. my suggestion is not to try. just continue working with your treatment providers and doing your IFS therapy and it will all make sense to you some day.

Do you havr to have present day amnesia to be labeled DID?

My undertanding is that, yes, present-day amnesia is required by the DSM to qualify for DID. BUT I'm not sure that the amnesia needs to be ABOUT present-day. The DSM says...
"Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events that are inconsistent with ordinary forgetting."

That last point is always confusing, because what if you have amnesia of trauma from the past?

However, the DSM is not the only guide for diagnosis - there is also the ICD, which is being revised, I believe.

I have heard that the ICD is possibly going to combine the OSDD-1 & DID diagnoses. OSDD-1 has two categories: 1b and 1a. OSDD-1b is basically DID without amnesia and OSDD-1a includes amnesia, but the alters are not complex/"fully formed" or whatever you'd like to call it.

All this is to say...
as much as I know it FEELS important, because validity, the truth is...the criteria for these diagnoses are just a bunch of old white dudes sitting in a room coming up with definitions. I know I, personally, struggle a lot with parts who are very very tied up in diagnoses and being "official"...but, the truth is, they freak out whether the answer is "yes, your DID is valid" or "no, you do not have DID." There is no answer that satisfies them, and there never will be.

As much as this is totally pot calling kettle black, my best advice is to try to sit with the ambiguity: maybe you have DID, maybe you don't. But one thing is for sure -- you exist, you have a way of experiencing & interacting with the world and with yourself, and that is something worth exploring -- a label shouldn't change any of that.

yes you do have to have amnesia today to get diagnosed today with it. but you need to remember that its not the every day garden variety of amnesia like forgetting your name or keys or what day it is that normal people tend to forget. amnesia with DID is a special kind of amnesia that goes beyond the typical and normal kinds of forgetting/ not remembering.

Since you have recently been rediagnosed as having DID then your treatment providers already have noticed this special kind of amnesia in you. You may not have noticed it but they did, other wise you wouldnt be diagnosed DID...

in other words dont worry about it, dont try and figure it out. since you just recently got your diagnosis switched from OSDD and Schizophrenia to DID that right there says they already asked you a mess of questions and based on how you answered their questions they determined that you do have this special kind of amnesia.

if you feel you no longer fit the diagnostic criteria for having DID you will need to talk with your treatment providers, they will go over again with you why they diagnosed you with DID and re diagnose you yet again if you have healed to the point of no longer fitting the diagnostic criteria anymore.

We talked more about this today. She said when you are co-conscious you still have some amnesia because you aren't totally present. Idk I dont think that makes sense because I remember everything about when I am co-con. She said amnesia is on a low to high spectrum. Anyway, today in session I was struggling between two parts that were fighting. It was extremely hard to sit there and try to look normal while all that was going on. It's not that I am afraid to show my therapist its just that I am used to hiding stuff like that in public so I dont scare people.

Dnester: I'm going to describe my inner world as it pertains to co-consciousness to see if you find it helpful.

So there is this school bus that has a wall up just behind the third seat. Whoever is driving is fronting at the moment. I am most often co-conscious with Sonseearae. If she is sitting on my lap as I drive, she will see and hear everything that is happening just like when she is driving. After all, the windshield is right there and she's sitting right in front of it. If she's sitting one row back behind me, she'll be able to see most things, although she'll miss a couple of things if the angle is wrong. Two seats back and she'll miss a few more things. Three seats back she can still hear most things and if something gets her attention, she can look up and see what's going on. Kind of like sitting in front of the television while you are sewing or doing crafts. Beyond that is the wall and if you open the door and go in the back, beyond the wall, you can't see or hear anything up front.

So, while we are co-conscious from her sitting on my lap to three seats back, her awareness is on a continuum. On my lap she see's, hears and feels just about everything I do - while three rows back she's in the room but misses stuff because her attention is split.

Gotcha, thanks!

Thanks for explaining your inside dialogue. Sometimes we can't find the proper words to explain ourselves. Once told T he would totally understand us if he could just come in for 5 minutes!! Not good at those emotional words either. So even tho our internal life maybe different, it helps us put words to ours. Even if it's in the negative...not like! A phrase we came across recently.:we are fragile...not like a flower. Like a bomb!!!!!!