voices

[maelstrom]

hi.

just wondering if someone could help me

someone who's been there.

there are parts that talk to me and i to them

but that's not what i'm writing about.

is it normal that there are voices that

talk amongst themselves but they're not

talking to me?

and how come i can remember that they were

doing that but when i try to remember what they were saying

i have a very hard time?

why do they have to do that?

why do they get so loud at nite?

why do they have to talk over each other?

it really makes me dizzy and nauseaus when they do that.

do these parts not want to know me?

am i doing something wrong?

my t would like to see more internal communication

but i don't know how to do that other than

what i already do

which i think is a lot and i don't know how else to do it.

is there some way to have more control?

how do you know who's the real person?

t says we're all real. but that doesn't answer my question.

[wifezilla]

Hi maelstrom,

Sorry you are having a difficult time. I am going to see if I can get Abifae to stop by...she has actual real life experience with DID.

Her and some of the other crazyboard members have talked about this. If it helps, you aren't the only who has gone through this.

[abifae]

superconnie to the rescue!!!!!! YEA!!! she zooms from rooftop to rooftop and hears the cries of wifezilla "help this peoples out!!" and as she throws on her cape and dives from the roof to the computer... and faster than lightening she runs inside and screams for a big who can talk to people good! ZOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

well, all that is normal in HERE anyway. i don't know how to explain how it happens or why but it's normal.

when we try to fall asleep, whoever is stuck up front always gets stuck listening to everyone running around near the front. it's annoying. i don't know why people pick right when we're falling asleep to slip up and discuss deep philosophical issues like why is superman such a wuss and who would win in a fight: darkwing duck or bugs bunny... sighs.

i think we all talk to one another inside and leave everyone saying "why does everyone do that when I'm out??" but it's all pretty even.

i don't think it is personal.... i think whoever is up front sort of gets the most frontal brain activity and that makes you accidently hear a lot of what goes on that is near the front. if that makes any sense.

it doesn't matter WHO is up front in here, we always hear a lot of weird stuff from inside... random bits of conversations, bits of dreams float past from people who are sleeping, heated arguments....

as for who is real.... in here, we are all real. the "birth" person is so stripped of anything she doesn't really even exist anymore. so it's a free for all. i'm not sure how it works in your system, of course, but you're all probably as real as one another...

here is how i picture it in my head: it's like a grove of aspen trees... they are all from the same root, but they all grow into their own trees. they have to work together because any one tree disease can take them all down since they have the same root system, but you can still have individual trees

i'm kinda dopey today so i don't know if i'm making any sense. it doesn't help having connie running around screaming great superhero sayings today.... but hopefully it helps to at least know other people put up with it too...

abi

[maelstrom]

thank you. it does help to know others go through this

though it also sucks that others go through this.

t was saying how it might be helpful to talk to

other people going through this.

that's why i'm here.

i'm ok though. i mean i'm not in crisis mode.

superheros are not necessary

though always very much liked

and appreciated.

aspen trees!

i feel scared about the who is real stuff.

well also t is asking us when we're comfortable

to describe inside. so it's got me to thinking.

who am i? who are they? how does the puzzle fit together?

does it even?

i thought i knew a lot.

i know almost nothing.

i have a headache.

*edit to add*

it just occurred to me that maybe

how i wrote superheros aren't necessary

could be taken another way.

superhero's ARE necessary!

they're the best.

but i was just saying in my dumb

inarticulate way

that i am ok and not to worry

that there is a crisis or anything.

i'm sorry!

and thank you very much

for your help.

i really really needed that.

[abifae]

i understand that. sometimes we want to discuss things when we're NOT in crisis mode. it's nicest then. you don't feel so overwhelmed.

we have our system so charted out... you can see our autistic/ocd traits. *grins*

do you have a fairly big system, or smallish? ours is huge. it makes the noise incredible even when things are calm.

i really like how you write. very easy to read. i get overwhelmed by too many words together.

funny thing... the more i learn the more i realize i don't know.

truth is, i know more than most people i know, it just happens after you go through enough stuff... but i don't know ANYTHING really. it makes me laugh.

i hope you have a good night

abifae

[maelstrom]

hi abifae and thanks.

uh. i don't know the size of our system yet.

but it's not loud in here all the time

though it is loud much of the time.

there are moments of quiet,

which can be nice,

though unsettling too.

i don't know where you are

but if you're in the states

i hope you got through

thanksgiving ok.

next is christmas.

we hate holidays too.

this year i thought i'd try to make

christmas different.

but i don't think i have much control

over what happens.

or maybe i do. i dunno.

i'm pretty confused at the moment.

if it's ok to ask, do you see a therapist?

you just seem to have it so together.

sometimes i think i have it somewhat together

and then i find out i really don't at all.

i'm thankful for our t though

and our friends who know about us and still stay with us.

it wasn't that long ago that we had nobody at all

and then one somebody.

hope you are having a good weekend.

[abifae]

i honestly get terrified when it goes quiet in here.

it has happened a few times and it always means something bad. i'd rather cope with the noise!

thanksgiving was good i cooked! i love to cook. i really hate the holidays and had flashbacks the day after for some weird reason. ah well.

i hate christmas too. we don't celebrate it at all. in fact, i don't even celebrate birthdays. i hate obligatory gift giving. i think it is shallow and intrustive.

i don't think we have any control over what others do, or when we have flashbacks... but we can control a lot of what happens we can at least control our actions and try to make things as comfy as possible for ourselves. we still get pretty upset at christmas, but we do things like letting the littles cut out snowflakes and dye them, or draw pictures of santa on fire while trying to break into our house through the chimney.... it all helps

you can ask us anything. we don't tend to mind any type of questions.

we saw a therapist from the time i was seventeen until my early twenties. most of our "therapy" has been just us inside talking things out. i was with another girl raised in the same thing as i was and we spent five years deprogramming together. it was really rough.

and once we got through the programming, we realized we didn't even have a relationship to sustain us lol. all we'd had was the program. sighs. what a weird way to lose a lover. i don't think that is on paul simon's list.

sometimes we have it together. sometimes we are so lost we can't remember where we are. we have worked very hard to get to where we are, though. it takes a lot of cooperation in here to even make it to work every day.

if i didn't have mynate supporting us, we wouldn't be working right now. it's too hard. i end up in tears most days just at how hard the world is.

and yet this is an improvement!

i'm thankful for our friends who have stuck it out as well i don't know anyone i've been friends with for over five years... they've all drifted away cuz we're too crazy. but i have some good friends now who i think will outlast the five year mark someday...

sorry to babble

you have a good weekend too

abi

[abifae]

Curious? Do you have to hear "voices" to have DID? How are these different from, say, schizo voices? I always thought they were thoughts from alters that didn't come from you (For instance, alter tells you something you didn't know before and you're like, EPIPHANY! but it isn't like your brother talking to you.)

a lot of what they say are things i didn't know before, or snatches of their conversations with one another that got too loud.

i get voices outside my head to. i've been told that's more the schizo thing, because they are outside myself and often coming from someone i can see that no one else can. hell, i only found out this last year others didn't see them. sigh.

i don't think you have to hear voices to be did. it's a dissociative disorder. most of the symptoms are based on the dissociation - losing time, clear switches to another personality, feelings of unreality....

i used to think i had a clear idea of which voices went with which disorder, but i've since learned that the way i hear those outside voices isn't "normal" in any case lol. so now i have no clue. however, i can tell for sure whether the voices are inside or not, and usually who they are coming from (more or less), so i know they are from people inside and therefore a DID thing.

abi

[abifae]

Also, can you hyper-concentrate your voices away? or alters? For years (not knowing what I was doing) I did that. Not always successful, but I was using DBT for anxiety (didn't know it at the time ).

not really. if i'm inside i can, but if i'm up front, there's too much confusion to be able to.

abi

[Panz]

When I'm driving the short bus I hear chatter inside, and I also hallucinate pretty spectacularly. I drank/still binge drink to get away from everybody inside (I don't recommend it). Right now I am only periodically in control and people are zipping in and out of the front (driver's seat, as I think of it) It makes me have chills, headaches and visual distortions, dizzies and nausea. I hate it. They have inner dialogues and discussions, fights etc. and don't include me most of the time.

I'm not really the real me either. she mostly hides and is silent...I don't know who I am. I'm the hub, the projection of a really messed up woman, who cannot even talk anymore. I am merely the person that got left "Out", I call myself Panz and am learning to navigate life with out a map.

[abifae]

in "when rabbit howls" that up front person is the Paper Bag. i think that's very appropriate.

shelly used to be ours. she shared the job with aisling and sara. they quit though rofl.

one day they announced "we three are not paper bags. we are not just projections of what a person should look like. we are now going inside to find ourselves and you guys can handle the damned front" and away they went.

it was hilarious, actually, because no one else knew how to act "normal" and so we gave up trying at that point. it was a really healthy turning point for our system because that was the first time anyone inside gave up their "assigned" roles to become actual people.

all three of them used to drink too, panz. they quit when they quit the front. and then fayedd followed suit. she used to be a wall to keep us from negatively impacting the outside world. she walked a few weeks after the three paper bags did. hehehehe.

and we have so many littles come running through the front we have totally given up trying to keep track. they all steal lilone's name anyway so that they don't get in trouble.

abigail

[abifae]

Also, I say "driving", too!

"I let Y. drive today. It was easier."

we play "one two three NOT IT!"

abi