Dissociative disorders. My case (personal experience)

I've  noticed that something is missing here in my blog,  this something is the information about my dissociative disorders.  It's spread out over the blog,  and it's quite uncomfortable to search for. 

To make it more simple and informative for my readers I decided to write a post,  where I've tried to collect all the basic questions and answers of this subject. The post is in the form of FAQ. I took some of the best comments from my blog post on sprosi.dirty.ru. 

Many sincere thanks to the commentators!

So here we go!

Q: What's the actual topic we are talking about?
A: I was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID), formerly referred to as multiple personality disorder.  In other words there are four (or more) of me living inside my head, we all are of a different nature, different characteristics and we do interact in a rather bizarre way. 

Q: How do you diagnose DID? What is it like having DID?
A: The first suggestion that I may have DID expressed K. (my girlfriend, a medical psychologist). One day she was rereading the classic work of Mc Williams,  devoted to psychoanalytic diagnosis, she noticed that there's a lot in common with the description of dissociative personality structure and my personality features. 

Back then I hadn't paid much attention to this fact and kept evaluating myself to be a schizophrenic. Well,  "flight ideas",  multiple internal dialogues,  disorganized thinking, even pseudo hallucinations. All the classic symptoms of schizophrenia,  I've had them. 

After a while,  reading the book (named above),  I've got to the chapter which describes the dissociative structure,  and was amazed how well it fits my personality characteristics. It made me think. 

Then I experienced my first dissociation under the influence of a psychoactive substance (THC + CBD). I was split into four "me". It was scary and interesting at once,  and brought indescribable feeling of repose.  It was more real than any feeling I have experienced before. 

Since the combination of THC and CBD effects are well studied and described in detail,  I made the conclusion that the substances aren't the cause of dissociation.

 After a while I took a DES test, with the result that I'm indeed in risk of having DID. Eventually but after accepting the fact I "us" felt greatly relieved.

Apart from that,  McWilliams writes in her book that  DID is not such a rarity as commonly known.  Simply due to difficulty of diagnosing it, many patients are classified into other nosological categories, like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or hysteria.  

Q: Can you tell us more about your experience of dissociation after trying THC +CBD?
A: At first nothing seemed unusual,  just the typical effects of the substances:  feeling of intoxication, enhanced mood. No other signs. And suddenly it triggered something.

First experience - my sight was divided into four parts like in the image.

Image 1.- the separation of the sight at the first time of the dissociation.

F1 - a normal sight, you can see the table and the door. F2 - the picture is fragmented into four, two large and two small ones. The segments are almost identical.

I admit I was somewhat frightened,  haven't experienced anything like that before. I've tried to figure out what is going on,  and then.... I'm not sure how to explain it,  but "me" was gone. I was divided by four of "me", four independent flow of thoughts,  feelings,  perceptions,  "we"  became present at the same time. 

Then each of us became attached with an image segment, and every each got a personal sight but all four at the same time.We didn't feel what is going on inside each other,  but we felt each other's presence.  

We remembered how we all tried to speak just with one mouth. But it wasn't possible or flexible enough to do so. We decided to alternate the management of our one physical body, and express ourselves one after another. 

One of us shared with K.  "It's four of us,  inside each one another four,  and so on,  countless multitude". 

It was for the first time that we all appeared above the surface. 

Since we trusted K.  so much, we decided to appear,  until then we mastered how to hide from everyone including ourselves. 

Further,  managing and operating our body one after another we shared with K. how we co exist and interact with each other. 

 Q: How much do you know about every of alternative personalities? How do you handle this inner chaos?  And where do you get information about the scheme of interaction of all your identities?
A: I'll start with the last question. I'm using the activation of 5-HT-2A receptors to communicate with sub personalities. 

Usually the Body is at any time under control of only one of them,  and they don't like to share I guess how it works exactly. Moreover, the awareness of being just one of the many who live in my head was coming to me just recently, before that it was very well hidden from reflection.

How much do I know about four of them? Well, that there are many of them. Initially they said that its four of them, but in following sessions that there are more. Simply speaking these four are the authorities , those who are allowed to appear.

Most interesting fact, they speak about the dissociative nature of each of them, but so far to achieve significant evidence failed that my components themselves are not monolithic.

These four found a very tricky way to split all of the available memory into three parts.

1. Available memory for only one of the sub personalities. Others do not see the events placed in this area. 

2. Memory available to all of the sub personalities. Sorts of common knowledge, facts, often they place here their life experiences. 

3. This area is not accessible to anyone. Here are horrible and traumatic memories left behind. It would be very interesting to climb up there and explore. But I don't know yet how to implement it.

Image 2. Memory separation schemes for each access of the sub personalities.

As I said above, they are four of them (or four of us): Schizo, Psycho, Hysteric and Child. 

Each one of us has his own character, own preferences, own ways of responding, own psycho pathologies, own accentuation.

Q: How do you know which personality will control the body?
A: Well, let's start with the fact that I (whatever we mean by "I" in this case) can't determine it. 

None of the personalities can control the process, instead there's like a sort of a mechanism to which everyone submits, and also it chooses the principal for the moment.

It works somewhat like a roulette. Only there's no spinning top in the center, and some stuff in the circle around the perimeter. Here's the image to make it more clear. 

Image 3. Methods of selection. C1 - in a calm situation, C2 - in an external stressful situation. 

The triangle is the indicator (number 3 on the image above) . If there's a need to select personality (to be honest, I don't have clue how to determine if there's such a need), pointer begins to spin. For a while it spins, then it stops and points to one of the sectors (2 in the image above). Each sub personality has its own sector, the pointer selects, until the next turn.

But this mechanism doesn't work randomly, it's much trickier. Like the scheme above applies to " ideal spherical vacuum". In most cases it's working like in the diagram displayed in the image 2 figure 2.

Before starting the rotation of the pointer, the sectors are changing their sizes depending on how relevant the sub personality is for the ongoing situation. For example, if you want to hold a public speech , the sector of the Hysteric will stretch to the maximum size, the Child's to the minimum. Thereafter , the chances to be chosen are changing with the sizes of the sectors. 

 Q: I know you personally (offline) why haven't I notice your "dissociation"?
A: Because of two reasons, first you know me not good enough ( I'm a very "closed" person, can't interact on a deeper level), second, you are not qualified to diagnose DID.

To look at it closer, DID personalities do hide their dissociative essence. Even William Stanley Milligan (who was fragmented much stronger than I am) wasn't quickly diagnosed.

Let's go back to the image number 1 . and let's look closer at the area of the common memory. Most of the acquired experience by the sub personalities gets in here. That's why even after switching the principal, I can remember everything while I was running the other ego states. 

Therefore to catch me in the "changing" state of mind is quite difficult ( but possible, for example my sister is doing it regularly). I get a kind of adjustment of the permanent ego-feeling, which has its flaws, but for the external communication (which I do have with most of my readers)  this is totally enough. People tend to pay much more attention to themselves than to others.

Let's take a look at the following image.

 Image 4. The interaction of "him" and "the four". D1 - the general scheme, D2 - when one of the sub personalities is "managing". 

This is ( if anyone couldn't decode my artistic way of drawing) a head. Just symbolically. The number one- a face, three points imply eyes and nose. Somewhat a face. 

Now the figure 4.d1 represents a basic scheme: "him" ( an entity which incarnates the interface to the body, he goes under number 1), here are also the connectors between him and the sub personalities (number 2) and sub personalities themselves (under 3).

So, figure 4.d2 shows us the management process of one of the sub personalities (section n.3) "Him" (goes under the 1) through a connector ( figure 2). While all the other sub personalities are "asleep" (you can see them in the circle, number 3)

So the thing is, because of "his" semi-intelligence, part of the actions and reactions goes lost and unprocessed for the sub personality which is managing the actual moment. That's why in some aspects (most of them so primitive just to be processed by "him") any changes when switching may not be visible at all.

 Q: How are you experiencing the manifestation of your dissociation?
A: Usually always different, I mentioned before having multiple internal dialogues, I'll describe them one more time.

A healthy person does have only one internal dialogue, like when you are saying about your own activities in your head " I'll get my groceries, I'll walk home after and ect." or "damn! I hate this traffic, how long is it gonna take to get home..."

A schizophrenic would hear different voices, they appear real to him. Vicarious voices which are criticizing him or pushing him to do something aggressive and obscene. 

In my case: multiple dialogues not just voices. Up to four dialogues at one time, and they would keep saying all kinds of garbage if I wouldn't take Amisulpride.  

It doesn't feel strange to me, it's still me talking but at the same time not me. The "me" feeling is there because what else should it be like, it's not extraneous. The feeling of not "me" , because I can't control more than one inner dialogue at once, even if I would try to say "hey dude!" Inside me it would be said by only one of them, but there's no way to know what the rest of them would respond. 

One more thing- the intrusive four, breaking out the unconscious depths. All these inner dialogues contain often the number four. Just as an example, while I was writing this post this was going on in my head - "four huge retaining mechanism differentiate a quarter modulator of the fourth module". 

As long as I can remember myself the number four always followed me. And for a long time I couldn't explain to myself what is going on. Me and K. used to interpret this Freudlike as the number of the family members, but we didn't like this kind of interpretation. 

And later I realized what this symbolic four was about, my brain just tried to report my condition. By the way, after I realized and accepted my dissociative nature, the four stopped bothering me. 

 Another thing about "him". The collective memory contains not only facts but also the reminiscence which is connected to the fact. And if you look closer at these memories, you will find a strange inconsistency. For example, I clearly remembered that lately I had this thought to cut off my stomach, I remember the sense of correctness and immutability of this decision. I even remember how it felt like, this correctness, it didn't require any proof. But now I can't explain why I felt this way. Again, memories are rather strange, they seem to be mine and not mine at the same time. But who's memories should they be? Some of them are so distant as if someone else experienced them for me and later placed into the memory. As one of my readers once said, I couldn't make a better example:  

"imagine that you are eating your favorite vanilla ice cream, like really enjoying it, and suddenly there's a car driving by, all your attention goes to the car, and then back to the ice cream. You realize that this is not the vanilla taste, it's pistachio , and you really dislike pistachio or are allergic to it! The cup lands in the trash can, and you can't explain to yourself how could you get a pistachio instead of vanilla ice cream". 

One more thing, obsessive ravings of splitting myself. I can imagine myself, that I'm hitting my head on a rock, wall or any other hard surface, and my head splits in four. Sometimes I wish to materialize it, or also to cut myself in four parts. 

Q: How does it look like from outside your dissociative behavior?
A: Unfortunately I can't observe myself from outside. But I asked K. (who knows me better than anyone) and see what she said.

 "You can tell that he is dissociative in every stressful situation. When I introduced him to my mother, just a second before there was an adult, who I'm used to and just a moment after I see a little frightened child standing next to me. He changes radically, he's expressing himself differently , he's reacting differently.

Also in certain situations the other personalities revel themselves.

The Hysterical -tends to show himself to the public,  is committed to social interaction. Basically he's manifested to the virtual reality. 

The Psycho - hates the world,  expresses paranoid conception of others, tends to use verbal and physical aggression. Uncontrollable,  hardly agreeable to corrections. He's appearing in the situations where V. (myself, ya-schizotypic) is in need of protection for himself or loved ones. 

The Schizoid - rational,  emotionless, isolated and not empathic. Supportive of V. in social interactions. In my opinion he's functioning as a kind of "wall"  between the core and the outside world: is able to prevent the inside of potentially dangerous stimulations,  leaving them at the level of rational perception. Which is most desirable to V. disabling the emotional sphere. 

The Child - in most cases scared,  squeezed and trying to become invisible.   Afraid of others.  Afraid of himself. Appears often in stressful situations, in V. opinion,  situations where he made a mistake.  Punishes himself by self aggression and auto-agression. In these moments it doesn't make sense to talk to V. like to an adult."

Q: How do you characterize every each one of them?
A: In simple words, Child is the most depressed personality of them all, he's custodian of the pain and the focus on guilt. He wants to destroy himself just to make the world a better place. 

Hysteric is the exact opposite, an extrovert with a high self esteem. Loves to receive attention and show off himself to the public.

Shizo is an aesthete, intellectual (as much it goes), loves abstract discourse. Doesn't have any interest in other people, he likes his solitude, is very harsh in his judgements.

Psycho is just stupid, aggressive, pointless and a coward. Take a look at what I said a little while ago in another discussion:

"Here's a simple example and the reason why I decided to write this post. 

It's a fresh and clear example. During the time since I managed this post I lived through every of personalities, and can remember the spectrum of the emotions. 

 Hysteric - I'm awesome! I did such a great post and everyone is reading me now! Let's see how many. Yeah cool, text me, ask me everyone should text me! I'm gonna blast the Internet!

 Psycho - Damn assholes! What, you guys don't like my post and what I have to say!? Wtf are you bitching about? You think you know better than I do? I wanna see you in the same situation you idiot! I'll find you and I'll dump you in the trash! You have no idea! 

 Child - I'm so scared, so scared. What if my father is going to find out and read it... I'll die. I was wrong. I'm such a bad person and before someone is going to punish me I'll punish myself. I'm so scared... What have I done... I better disconnect all devices... So scared... 

 Schizo - Hey dude what are you so proud of? Don't we live in 2016, everyone is able to write a post. Whatever since it's done let's see the comments, but we not gonna answer, no need for a conversation. Hmmm ... Ok, I disagree with what they are saying (and is leaving without answering any question)"

Q: Who is writing and answering right now?
A: Sure it's Hysteric, he's the only one who likes to show off.

Q: Who's the boss?
A: There's non, but there's some kind of order in the sectors, Childs sector is the smallest in most of the situations. And by the way, they always are trying to protect the child. 

Q: When you are saying "me", what exactly do you mean by that?
A: First of all "myself" in a legal and biological sense. But "we"do understand that we are created in one in the same brain, most of the population is used to the idea that there's only one personality in a brain or one mind. So the pronoun "me" sound just more understandable for identification of a subject. "We" are simply adjusted to the requirements of the society, but we would be more comfortable to say "we".

Q: And in general, how is it like to live in such a chaos?
A: It's not a chaos to us, so it's just a normal life, like everyone else. We got used to it.

Q: Your thing is called a disorder, so do you have any troubles in every day life? 
A: DID itself is not a terrible thing, more precisely, depression is much worse. Just there was one exception, it seemed to me that my mental block from working occurred exactly because of the inner dissociation, my knowledge and experience dissociated, and I couldn't use them anymore (and still can't). But in general there's no disability, besides of obsessive thoughts, spreading awareness, multiple inner dialogues. I think that's all. 

Yes it's uncomfortable and can be hard but it's quite easily adjusted with the meds (to a certain extent).

Q: So what are your plans or how do you see your future?
A: I don't, really, I used to believe that it would be better to unite them in one. But in the last psychedelic session with K. the Four said that they are afraid. 

Afraid to die. We understand that if we would unite, we would create a structure much stronger than now, but every each one would die and we don't believe in resurrection. So we simply don't want to die.

Additionally there's a possible death for the physical body too, we do not know how the death of the every each of us would affect the body and the brain substrate. Maybe this would be followed by coma, maybe death. Maybe nothing would happen or the brain will restart just like a computer. But it's frightening.

We consider to build up a better and more effective system of our co existence, but we don't know yet how to realize it. 

Q: I just want to know why are you this way and how did it happen, how you became four?
A: I can't explain it, K. have tried to figure it out, by asking directly every one of the sub personalities. But they just said that once there was a split of the One.

 Image 5. The split of the one. J1 - before, J2 - after.

An event, kind of Freudian phallic symbolic equivalent. They didn't want to give any statement about it because " it's forbidden to talk about". My knowledge of the psychiatry does agree that there might was an sexual assault (or its symbolic equivalent) in my childhood, but I do not remember this kind of episode in my past.

Q: Why are you calling the sub personalities as "us" or "them"?
A: Just because of grammatical or stylistic consideration.

Q: You said you are becoming a psycho consultant? But you are crazy yourself? 
A: Yes I'm crazy myself, and went through a lot, have seen and experienced a lot. And I believe my experience will be very usefull to my clients in various aspects. Starting with the fact that I can understand my client and also empathize. And it's fact that I studied a lot during my self therapy, and learned how to deal with different issues.

Q: If I have another questions what should I do?
A: Just ask anything you want and if I can I will respond.