Addiction and DID my experience

[spreadingwings]

does anyone here, have DID? or multiple personality disorder as it was formally called. anyway, i do. it has been QUITE the experience getting clean. when i first started out, all the drs told me i would never be able to get clean because not all the different parts of me wanted to. my psych told me it was impossible becasuse i didn't have enough control over them.... i decided to try anyway, it has been a huge struggle, and i did have one relapse because of it, i was taking the bus through an old using neighbourhood and didn't make it out. i switched and the next thing i knew i was high. it was such a let down, i thought that because i had been able to control it during treatment, that i was ok. i felt completely hopeless. but i carred on. i'm now 7 months clean. yay! but there are still parts of me that are fighting every step of the way, sometimes it take all my energy just to keep those parts inside. it's so tiring, meetings are a chalenge too, at first i was afraid everytime i went, i was afraid that i would switch, and a few times i did. luckily we quickly came to an agreement that only the older alters would come out during meetings so no one would notice the change. but sometimes i just plain dissociate, and i go completely catatonic. i don't respond to anyone and ppl don't know how to get me back. it scares ppl. it has caused a lot of anxiety for me in the rooms. i find myself so unpredictable..... about half way through my recovery, i found out that i was actually the host ( the main personailty) for all my life i thought i was an alter, and one of the other ones was the host, but when she disappeared for 3 months, i had to take over. it was like stepping into soeone else's life and having to take over without anyone noticiing the difference. my first sponser was really great, she understood what was happening ot me, and allowed the other parts to come out around her. the one i have now does't, and i try t respect that, but when i get emotional or overwhelmed during step work or something, i don't always have enough control, so again there is an inner agreement that only older ones will coe out. but the problem is that i don't remember what happens when i switch, so a lot of the work i am doing with my sponser, i don't rmeember. it is all very frustrating. i have recently realised tht i have a secondary addiction, self harm. i have done it most of my life, but i'm just starting ot see how it really is an addiction for me. i go through all the same behaviours as when i was using. i'm currently working on that too now. i have almost three weeks! but i am craviong it, not because i'm upset, but just because i want to do it. and i never really had any drug cravuings before, i just hurt myself. but now that i'm not doing slef harm, i am craving like crazy!!!!! it's been almost constant in my head for 3 weeks, and i feel myself wearing doewn to it. like the other night when i let my friends use in front of me. i'm not sure how much longer i can put it off, and some other parts of me are breaking down even quicker than me, so the ratio of wanting to use vs not wanting to is gettingsmaller. anyway i hope to hear from someone soon, and it's nice to meet you all, my name is taima, and i';m an addict

[TheGirlInside]

Hi.

First, I'd like to say congratulations on your recovery thus far. I, for one, am impressed and proud of you for the work you've done. I'm sure I can only imagine the additional difficulties of feeling like you are "gone" so much of the time. That must be very difficult.

I have never been formally diagnosed with DID (I didn't know that the name had changed), but was accused of having multiple personalities by cruel people in my life. I majored in psychology in college (but then switched to sociology)...and the joke was that psychology majors choose that major to straighten ourselves out. I've since found out that the saying is more true than not.

I've always been fascinated by the disorder. Since learning in ACOA about my inner child issues and recovery, I compare my damaged inner children/teens/young adults to Multiple personality disorder. It's as though a part of me just "stopped" emotionally growing at certain ages in my life, and every now and again, those damaged parts come out, usually at the most inopportune times. I have come to a point where I can pinpont the ages and the reasons for the stunted growths, and sometimes imagine a "meeting" with these "selves" of mine inside myself, asking them what they think of certain events and situations and people in my life. I picture myself giving them hugs, telling them "I love you," and reminding them whose in charge...that I'll let them "come out and play" once in a while, if they let me, the adult, run the show most of the time.

I realize that these inner children I speak to are damaged parts of myself, so I don't necessarily follow their guidance, but I do acknowledge to "them" (myself) that their thoughts, feelings and wants are important.

I commend you for getting so far in such a short amount of time. The more you know and recognize (depressing as that may be at the time of the revelation), the more you will be able to heal.

Kari

"Did you wake up today? Then it's not too late." --Maya Angelou

[teke]

thank you so much for posting, this can be a start of something new for me to look more into, i had a referal earlier, after doing a little research, i am back here to find your post, some coencidence.

[leviathon]

Taima, welcome to SR.

I am not DID or anything like that... I have a low level depression, but that is it...

I really appreciate you sharing what you have. Sharing your experience, strength and hope and being able to share that of others is what this is all about. It is one of the keys to my sobriety, and I hope it can be for you too!

Congratulations on your accomplishment. You have every right to be proud... as for the doctors, whose says they know everything anyways... they say cancer can only be treated by chemo, etc., and it merely goes into remission, it is not cured. Despite this, some people do a homeopathic program and are actually cured!

I really believe that your body believes what your mind tells it to believe, the cells are too unsophisticated to know otherwise... in short, if you tell yourself long enough and have the support of your friends and family (including SR or AA or whatever), you can change anything in your life!

After all "hope springs eternal" and without hope there can be nothing!

Levi

[13NRcrew]

Hello, spreadingwings. It's nice to see you here.

YES, YES, YES! We have been diagnosed with DID, although we don't consider ourselves to be disordered anymore, so we choose to call ourselves "multiple" instead.

It is entirely possible for the system to recover. We have been sober for 19 years, so we are proof that it can happen. But it didn't happen by anyone controling anyone else. In fact, we've found that when anyone IS trying to cotrol anyone else in the system it just makes things worse.

The things you've described about being unpredictable in meetings...that's happened to us too. That is, it USED to happen to us. A lot of the chaos we've experienced (in and out of the meetings) were maily because of all the internal fighting. That is why control doesn't work. Cooperation is what works and the only way we know of getting cooperation is by first establising communication with everyone in the system.

We are dealing with a lot of things in our system. Some of us are alcoholic, some of us are anorexic, some self-injure. All of these things we need to be in recovery for, but the first thing we had to deal with was the substance abuse because without getting sober first, there was no way we could address anything else. Getting sober was also how we began to heal from the DID and all the chaos that we were in. That is, it made everything else possible.

RECOVERY IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE! As multiples, we have additional things we need to do and consider, but we are entirely capable of doing it. We are more than happy to answer any questions you want to ask and/or to tell you some of the specific things we done that have helped. We know how hard it is when you don't know any other multiples that are in recovery. Supportive people in the program are invaluable, but sometimes they just don't know what to do or how to help. Sometimes people try to be helpful but they actually end up making thigs worse because the don't truely understand what's going on inside of us.

There is hope.