Co-Consciousness and Denial

Hey Paul,
This is such a good writing! I have often had these feelings myself. Remember we are full of protective mechanisms with DID. Then entire structure of it was set up to protect us. I believe that our minds will only deliver to us what we are ready to handle and so we will learn about parts as we are ready to know them. Same with co-conscious. It comes to us in levels as we are ready to take it in and deal with it....once we are used to it and comfortable...off to the next level with it. Perhaps integrating that part? Everyday this feels unreal to me. Each day is different for me. I have often told my T that this feels like I live in other dimensions of time and places and travel back and forth. That is because I am in and out during the day with my dissociation. This diagnosis is real for all of us but each of us have different aspects and experiences with it. The diagnosis of DID then becomes a catagory for us but we make up the details of it. We do drift out and other parts of us step up to the plate when stress or other things are going on. Did I explain this okay? I always feel like this is not real and that DID is not real either.

I wonder Paul if many of us feel this way. Like we take part in other dimensions of time. I always had this feeling and it was so spooky to me until I began to understand DID after I was diagnosed. I was afraid alot of "ghosts"; "monsters". This all tied in together and this understanding made a huge difference for me. I was able to bring a lifetime of "other dimension feelings" and "ghost fears" together and settle it all in my mind. I had no idea what was happening to me...I just thought everyone was like this but I was too afraid to talk about it. When all this came together for me I felt a huge relief inside. So many years.

I guess I should ask you a question. If you were a "proper" multiple, what would that look like?

Over the years, I have questioned, denied, accepted, and even challenged that diagnosis. I spent years running from the label and here's what I have decided/learned: DID is not who I am, I am not DID - I experience dissociation. Psychs call it DID, it's their term, not mine. I hate it when I'm defined by DID - it's not what I am. DID is NOT a noun, it's a verb, it expresses action.

I don't believe we all have to strive to be integrated. Again, that is what psychs have decided (how many of them have DID and have admitted it?)

Dissociating is how I survived. It's like learning to stand on your toes to reach the water bottle. After a while, you always look up because you know you can reach the top shelf. I survive sometimes now by dissociating, not by choice. I don't think to myself, "Self, it's time to dissociate now," it just happens like when I want to stand on my toes to reach the top shelf, I don't have to consciously think about my back stiffening, my neck stretching, my calves tightening - all to lift my body to its toes. It just happens.

I've stopped questioning it all and focused instead on being happy. Now THAT takes concious thought, but it seems to help. You can't change that you dissociate, only learn how to live with it. I guess you can tell I don't like "labels". [steps off of soapbox and says as she closes the door, "It's nice to know that someone else questions whether they really have DID or not."]

I've always been co-conscious -- I've never lost time, or done any of the classic DID things. For a while, I questioned whether I was a proper multiple, and then I decided it was irrelevant -- if the treatment protocols for DID were working, it didn't really matter whether I was a proper multiple, or whether I was even multiple at all. Whatever works, works. I have found that the protocols for DIDers actually do work really well for non-DIDers as well, as far as sorting out their brains; the difference lies in how hard it is to get to other parts of the brain, and whether the owner of the brain perceives those parts to be other parts of the self, or entirely foreign entities.

But my point is simply that once I let go of caring about whether the diagnosis was right, wrong, or nonsense, and focused on the fact that the protocols were helpful, it ceased to be an issue. Sort of like ... you know how they accidentally discovered Dramamine because it was a component of allergy pills, and hay fever sufferers who used to get sick on trolley cars found they felt better when they were on their allergy meds? It's sort of like that. The diagnosis may or may not be wrong; but if the treatment works, it works, and that's all that matters.

Thanks Ivory...that was awesome! :)

When I get confused, I fall back on my belief that the dissociative disorders exist on a continuum. Some days, I can be high functioning with few triggers and experience a "wholeness" in relation to myself and the environment around me. Some days, I have obviously jumped on a train with a one way ticket to Dissociation City.

Despite these fluctuations, my overall experiences indicate that I have a dissociative disorder. Does it make me "less" of a dissociative when I experience good days, or have times of co-consciousness? I don't think so. But, I do hope that those increased moments of co-consciousness and awareness mean that I'm moving along the dissociative continuum towards a place of healing.

I often question myself about being a "proper dissociative". But then, I've felt like a fraud and impostor in my own body for so long, that I don't know what a "proper me" is; let alone a "proper" anything else.

Take care,
CG

Nansie,

You wrote: "I have often told my T that this feels like I live in other dimensions of time and places and travel back and forth." - If it weren't for Star Trek I would be hard pressed to explain what goes on some days. Using words and phrases such as "space-time continuum", "wormhole", "alpha quadrant", "subspace comunication", or "signal jammed at the source, Captain", describes quite well how I'm getting along at times. Even some of the characters help me put myself in perspective. My therapist loves that since she understands what I mean.

I feel that co-consciousness may cause us to question our DID diagnosis depending on who is co-consciousness with us.

Good question!

Lisa

Lisa,
Thanks so much for that response. It is so nice to be able to discover that these feelings are the norm for us. So much to discover and line up with my thinking and so nice to know that I fit in somewhere. Please read my blog if it is not too triggering for you. I think in the beginning when we are laying the groundwork for our blogs they can be triggering for others. I would love your feedback and any others who have info to share. I am new to blogging and maybe I go into more detail than I should? I don't know exactly where it is taking me but some days I feel really stupid even doing a blog in the first place. I am still all over the place with this diagnosis sometimes... there just seems to be no organizing it in my head? Then, trying to talk about it with my husband... a non DIDer feels uncomfortable to me. He doesn't understand it but tries to. I am afraid I will scare him with it. I don't talk about it with anyone else except my T. He is very good and I know I am safe with him. I think I spend more time wandering in the world than connecting. I am hoping that my blog will change this. Thanks again... we are kinda on the same page. :)

sometimes i question myself because i have always - as long as i can remember and likely since aged 3 - dissociated a lot. so for me dissociating IS normal. so i have always thought that i was just very very poor at time management, getting myself "together", functioning in general etc. this is because everyone around me always seemed/seems so with-it and able etc. things which took so much effort for me to do or even consider seemed to be so easy for other people. i used to think maybe i was missing a vital link somewhere. i am not dumb. my tested IQ is 140. i have a high level education etc but i have always not been the same as other people i know - i have always felt like an outsider in the world. and then one day i had a massive dissociative episode and became totally non-functional and could not work etc etc. then i found out that my normal is not most people's normal and all these years i had been struggling with comparing myself to them which was really comparing beans to oranges - no wonder i felt so much less able than my peers. anyway - my normal has a technical name and that is dissociative / DID. just like everyone else reading paul's blog. now that i know that i actually feel quite impressed with myself - that i achieved what i did before i "broke-down". and i feel less inclined to beat myself up about the fact that what i can achieve now looks so small compared to my sister /husband / peers etc. because i know now that what i achieve on a day to day basis is actually a miracle.

hi paul, i believe you know i'm not dissociative, but i still find myself relating to what you've written here. in terms of the questioning, and what seems to me an issue of external identification.

i think minimization may be a universal symptom of abuse. we are left wondering and questioning if what we feel, think and experience is "real" and whether or not our experiences correspond to what other people go through. and if our experiences, thoughts and feelings are not the same, are not mirrored and validated and understood by others, and certainly by the culture at large, it can be so confusing and alienating.

my thought on abuse recovery, including dissociation, is that we all suffer things to our own degree. so much goes into play in terms of how we react. our personality, our specific abuse experiences, our environment and experiences outside of the abuse, all of this factors into how we function and how unique our reality becomes.

i also think that the media and probably the medical community itself operates in terms of extremes. what they can "verify" and "prove" and "treat" because science is involved, needs to be described in ways that they can quantify, so they can do things like get funding and support from institutions that exist to help and support people who suffer, but when they come out with lists of "characteristics of people who suffer from xyz 'disorder'" often leave some of us feeling confused because maybe that's not quite how we see the world, or not what our experience was, or maybe the word disorder just feels offensive in itself.

sometimes i think everyone is grasping at straws, professionals included. i think you yourself paul, have shown tremendous insight and strength in how you see yourself and your experience of the world. i've seen you provide yourself with validation and that is something that i think is a wonderful ability that is vital to healing. i think it makes sense that dissociation wouldn't be the same for every person. because what makes people dissociate can be so vastly different. some people are abused in the home, with no safe place or person to turn. some people have a safe home or safe person in their life, and were abused elsewhere. factors like this i think matter in terms of how fragmented a person's consciousness can become, maybe because one person's mind needed more escape, had fewer places to turn for refuge, than anothers. but it doesn't mean that someone with less fragmentation is less of a sufferer. or has less of DID. it's just different for each person.

again, i'm not speaking from personal experience. but from my experience with people i have cared about who suffer from ptsd and did.

wishing you well today and always, paul~~~~

I'm so sorry I neglected to be part of the discussion for this post! That's a measure of how complicated the past week has been for me. I'm trying to reset things. I hear everything you all have to say and I value all thoughts. They show how much we have in common.

Time out is a good thing Paul! It means you are working on things and when you get to a better place with them I am sure you'll share with us. We are all here for you and can identify with what your doing. We all need a time out here and there to do inner work....Hang in there and your not alone!! Hugs!

Absolutely!! Yes, I struggle with this a lot. I often have to go back to those few 'classic DID' events in my life to prove to myself that I am indeed multiple. It also helps combat the denial when an alter comes out after a long hiatus and my husband recognises her - I figure if I was just acting then I couldn't be that consistent.

I also find it really hard to let go of executive control and tend to get in the way of parts who are trying to communicate, particularly with our therapist. I don't get flashbacks, instead memories are shared with me in a conversational way and I have to try really hard not to 'take over' the storytelling with my own imagination. Sometimes I think a little more 'classic' would be a good thing, but I do appreciate that I always know what's going on (99% of the time anyway).

As an aside, I have also gone a little off my usual track this week and asked my readers a question. It would be lovely if you could stop by to Does your therapist hug you?

Dawn