Welcome to my Blog.

These are my ramblings in an attempt try and understand my Dissociative Identity Disorder. Thank you for reading my blog and I hope that together we can come to a better understanding of the human mind. If you have any questions or comments you are more than welcome to add them to my blog, or to email me. I would love to hear from you.

30 October, 2011

How does it all work in there?

Hi every one,
I haven't posted in a while, life has been a bit busy. I have had quite the social life, which is great. On top of that I have also lost a couple of days to Anxiety attacks, no fun at all. This week is looking to be a bit of a quieter week so hopefully I can catch up on a bit of blogging and share some of the great things I have been learning on this crazy journey.
As I may have mentioned previously I have a 13year old son who is very curious about my disorder, and asks me many questions about what it is like and how it works. During on of your deep chats about DID he asked me how all the Alters work together and change around. How do they function. I came up with an analogy that I think works pretty well and want to share it here so it may help others to get a better grasp of how a DID brain can work.
Imagine a Combi Van, grab a handful of people and put them in the van. One of those people will drive the van, one may sit next to them. The passenger may just watch where they are going of maybe give directions. They may even pull the steering wheel to try and get the driver to go where they want. The rest of the people are in the back of the van. depending on where they are sitting and if the can see out the windows they may or may not be aware of what is going on and where they are going. They may yell to the driver to go somewhere or slow down. Then right at the back of the van, you may have one or two fast asleep totally unaware of what is happening and where they are going. There may not really even be aware that there are others in the van. At various times throughout life's journey different people may want to drive, or have a greater say in what they do or where they go. They may chose to swap seats with the driver and the driver may be tired and go have asleep at the back.
I am sure you are getting the picture. The Combi van is obviously the mind/body and the people are the Alters. Depending on what is happening they may be relaxing at the back, or acting like kids in the back of the car. All wanting their voice to be heard on what they think should be happening.
It can get pretty noisy in there and chaotic, and good luck to the driver with all that going on. Not everyone with DID hears all the chaos but I think this is a pretty good description of how my situation works and from what I hear form others, it suits them too.
I hope that has given you a better understanding of how we work.
If you have DID and have any other analogies please share them here. I would love to hear your ideas.
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2 comments:

  1. Savannah5/11/12 7:38 pm

    Thank you for your post.

    I have been using the exact same analogy for many years to explain to other people what it feels like inside my head. The only difference is that there are only two of us in the car...a man (my genetic sex) and a woman.

    I have felt like I am two people all my life...but couldn't make sense of it. Part of me identified strongly as a boy...while another part identified as a girl.

    When I was 22 the girl started to venture out in public. At first I thought I must be a cross dresser...but never related to other cross dressers I met.

    Then I thought I must be transexual and wanted to transition and live full time as a woman, and actually started taking hormones and seeing surgeons. But then the male fought back.

    I then went into suppression...denying the female any form of expression...no dressing, no going out in public. That lasted four years...by the end, I was terribly depressed, overweight, very sad and almost bankrupt.

    The girl then fought back and took control...she restarted the hormones and plans to transition...convincing herself that she could rid herself of the male.

    The idea that we might have MPD/DID only really occurred to us in the past couple of years...as we believed that to have DID there must be childhood trauma and amnesia...

    We have recently learnt that childhood trauma is not a necessary pre-requisite and that we can be co-conscious...which is exactly how we identify.

    There's no denying that we are two distinctly different people in one body...our sexualities are different, our eyes change co our, our voices are different, our interests are totally different.

    Being able to now have a lable, a framework that we can point to and say..."that's what we are...we aren't alone, we aren't crazy" means so much to us, especially the male.

    Thank you for your great articles. They have really helped us.

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    Replies
    1. Lonnie6/11/12 5:38 pm

      Thanks you Savannah for your comment. It is great to hear from you. I am also very pleased that what I have written has helped you. Please feel free to update me on how you are travelling. Sounds like you have quite a challenging journey.

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