It is usually a defensive response to anything the system deems threatening. Sometimes it's noted with a headache or even migraine. You might sometimes experience the loss of a physical function without a medical cause, such as your sight, hearing, speech, or feelings of hunger. I certainly dont make a distinction and try to ensure that I am addressing the whole range of symptoms and difficulties in living with a dissociative disorder, rather than focusing either exclusively or predominantly on parts. We were a system of 13-14 alters and from my perspective there was very limited full switching. Thank you, always, for taking the time and energy to translate the unreadable into an understandable language. We have touched on two major differences already less elaboration or switching to distinct parts, and less amnesia. The belief that DID is iatrogenic rather than trauma-based. And there comes the second fact, I have three ANPs and identify highly with Polyfragmentation, and its a huge mystery to me on if I have OSDD or DID along with that. Indeed, Spiegel et al (2011, p.841) point out the inherent flaws in the current diagnostic criteria for dissociative disorders and say: If the diagnostic criteria for dissociative identity disorder were changed to reflect the typical clinical presentation of DID (ie a complex dissociative presentation with no confirmed alter identities), these complex DDNOS patients would meet diagnostic criteria for DID. (https://twitter.com/theringssystem/status/1325605823373074433?lang=en). Instead of developing one proper personality, this phase leads them towards forming several personalities that we call alters. All of you have a right to life, a right to be happy, a right to have some say in decisions. In fact, OSDD is meant to be a broad category that encompasses many partial DID experiences. In OSDD-1, severe childhood trauma causes different identities, known as alternate states of consciousness (alters) to form. Identifying or personal information is not collected on this website, and the data collected is not sold to or shared with third party services. It does cause distress, but that does not indicate what type of help I should be looking for. Has anyone researched whether, for example, potentially everyone has many voices/identities in their head, but never considered this an issue? Even switching is rarely as blatant or extreme as the media commonly portrays. Loved and feeling safe is possible now, if only I can reach out and accept it, A severe case of OSDD, too many EPs to count and keep track of, somewhere between 50 and 100. He often comments on things I see or hear by putting a funny image in my mind about it to make me laugh. It is a very dark place to be in. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. A fantastic video from Dr. Mike Lloyd from the CTAD Clinic on how alters/parts in DID/OSDD develop from complex trauma. it's when "you" just sort of "become" someone else, but you still feel like yourself. Answer - An OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder) system is a group of alters, formed by repeated childhood trauma from ages 1-12 usually. Also, at one moment, I would be okay with something someone said and then only for me to become intensely furious after an hour. also: switching and memory dont always get along, and brains like to fill in gaps in memory with fake memories. We and our advertising suppliers use these technologies to personalise the advertising you see. Both can be helped by similar approaches to therapy which encourage neuronal repair and result in brain growth such as increased hippocampal volume. They are separate diagnostic manuals and which diagnosis you get depends mostly on which manual your therapist is using. I think it would make sense for my experience to be a spectrum than necessarily one or the other. Other Specified Dissociative Disorder is a diagnosis which was introduced in the DSM-5 psychiatric manual, released in 2013. Going insane as a 6 y ear old is not something you want on your bucket list, Your email address will not be published. In OSDD-1, severe childhood trauma causes different identities, known as alternate states of consciousness (alters) to form. Switches can be consensual, forced, or triggered. When there is often a strong emphasis on the dissociative parts of the personality, people with OSDD can feel unheard and unseen, and so I feel that it is very important to validate the reality of the experience of people with the OSDD label. Some indicators that a switch may be about to occur include the following: feeling "spacey", depersonalized, or derealized; blurred vision; feeling distanced or slowed down; feeling an alter's presence; or feeling like time is beginning to jump (indicating minor episodes of time loss). This video goes together with an article and letter from The Plural Association. Honestly, you've described my early teens well. Generally Switches are grouped into three categories; consensual, forced and triggered. Now it is me, us, we and I. The trauma and disorganised attachment that leads to OSDD is incredibly severe, and so people in this area of the spectrum of dissociative distress need just as much understanding and recognition as people with dissociative identity disorder. Im far from full blown DID, although my present therapist may argue about that. Yes, its very common! But there is someone specific that just loves.thay jacket and we ended up wanting to cry over it, which we don't do about things so it was a very off guard feeling. The structural theory of dissociation would say that I have DID and leave it at that, but I feel as though that theory is incomplete and inaccurate to my experience. The only other.tine I had something like that happen was when I was really young and knna camping trip and kept.auddenky.thinking I was at home. While they do not occur in everyone who lives with DID, they are a painful reminder to many that they are burdened with the disorder. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. Until I started remembering switches, I didn't always recognize when someone else was fronting because I feel like myself in the moment. They are in no way associated with ddlg/clg/cgl-re. I mentioned my latest CPTSD hijack after having a really good, wholistic month (I went on a road trip to help someone else and found the trip was incredibly healing for me too; I felt nearly human and almost whole for the first time in my life, and then came triggering news and the crash of my good month. Ive also seen others who believe that DID/OSDD are just having alters and not liking themwhich is also not an accurate portrayal! Our works, including resources like this, are only possible because of support from Plurals and our allies. (the latter will also bring up a lot of worker/management negotiation stuff too. Will we be left behind? This website was last updated 11/29/2022. It does so much for you, and you deserve to have a break! This type of action chains is present in every person with a personality and is not exclusive to DID/OSDD. So to answer your original question: yes, at least for some time this was very much my experience. And you are incredibly valid. they're pure fucking evil and have ruined me in more ways than i can count but that's not the point. The information you share is spot on and deeply appreciated. In this article were using the terms interchangeably whilst mainly using the term OSDD for brevity. I don't think of things as like.. they "will get better" but moreso that they will change, and that is something to aim for. And what about instances of amnesia about amnesia how do you know that you have amnesia for something if youve forgotten that it happened in the first place?! Each person needs to weigh up the pros and cons on an individual basis and do what is right for them. My therapist described it as a dissociative mechanism, but has not labeled it exactly. This is rarer. I know that the bibliography says these identities must be caused from severe issues to be considered DID, but could it be that all people have many voices/identities that appear and/or disappear throughout their lifetime (in other words, is having a singular internal monologue an exception, similar to those who have no internal monologue)? Most often, weve heard the idea of one person stepping back and the other stepping forward, a complete loss of control for one and a complete gain of control for the other. I cannot describe the relief we felt knowing that there was a category of systems explicitly for those who did not fit neatly into the DID criteria. Horrible beyond belief, yet necessary. At times the pain so bad that the desire to die returned. Because change is inevitable when you're on this planet, no matter what. Sometimes for a split second, sometimes for hours, sometimes for a day. Please, feel free to leave comments or feedback in the comment section. Some individuals with OSDD-1 lack both amnesia and highly distinct parts, and other individuals with OSDD-1 have highly distinct parts but rarely or never switch between . no such thing as an outlier when everyone is so different lol. it quickly developed into them trying to traumatize me as much as possible to "break me" so they could "re-make" me as a person they'd want to have as their host. Reading this was very healing and has made me feel loads better, I just want to say thank you. All of them want to die. So what would be otherwise unbearable feelings or thoughts can be tested out in this alternative mindspace, before gradually being reconnected with. Sometimes, it might feel like you are numbing out pain or sensations. For example Colin Ross (2007, p.142) says: The dividing line between DID and most cases of dissociative disorder not otherwise specified is arbitrary. Thank you for writing this, it helps a lot. How can you distinguish this from modes in BPD? If you have alters, you've had them since childhood; systems only form due to severe repeated childhood trauma before age 9. yeah, but that doesn't mean they always differentiate early-in-life. So for some people, their alters or parts are only obvious to other people during times of crisis. Transition from one personality to another is referred to as "switching." This usually occurs within seconds to minutes, but can also be gradual, taking hours or days to complete. Also, if you can give me some more info on what this type of switching is, in what types of systems it's the most common, etc, it would be super useful! Hope this helps <3, Also: possessive switching is when you genuinely feel like someone else is in the body instead of you (so the consciousness stays with the alter that switched out), meanwhile non-possessive switching is when you feel like you become said alter (so the consciousness stays with the body). OSDD is from the DSM, P-DID is from the ICD. Its not like with GPs sending you to the right specialist, no, the mind is somehow way less easy to define than the human body, and way more complex. Like I was talking to friends the other day and brushing my teeth, and suddenly it felt like I was a different height and my own sink felt unfamiliar. All the same thing, yet each different, all part of a whole, yet still separate. But what is also there is that when, for example in conversation with a psychologist in the past, when he indicates that its just mood switching, I kind of start to feel hurt and unvalidated, as if parts of me, or moods want to be acknowledged separately, my angry mood gets angry because Im not the vulnerable self or Im not that weak, fearful, kind side of myself. Welcome to /r/AskDID, the sister subreddit of /r/DID which focuses on those that wish to ask questions about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) etc. No we will not be left behind, we will always be with him and a part of him. You might find that sometimes you cant remember important information about yourself or about those closest to you. Sometimes this may result in an unsafe or distressing situation. When not in distress, same.tbink but weaker. Memories that are transmitted through passive influence may not remain once the influence is over, leaving the fronting alter unable to recall what the memory contained. It is rarely accompanied by an alter changing what clothing the system is wearing, announcing themselves in public, or extreme whiplashes in behavior or personality. We went from being able to communicate internally very clearly but with strong amnesia walls and difficulty distinguishing switches happening between neutral and non-violent alters (and no switches happening for a while or ever for some alters), to having all but two of us go dormant and it just being a daily head-to-head assault of violence and abuse, to taking anti-psychosis which created communication barriers in the system but obviously didn't "cure us", to years later being confronted by the disorder again and seeing alters come back from dormancy changed or fused, to finally working together coherently, to now 6 of us in a happy system striving to make a life worth having fought for. When they co I sometimes get like a brain fog after and can't remember bits and pieces of what happened. Since DID/OSDD are more complex forms of PTSD, you or other alters might experience the symptoms of complex PTSD. You might have moments where youre unable to remember important life events, such as the day you got married. My brain creates vague replicas of people and it feels as though I become them (and it can feel horribly intrusive, it seems to be mingled with something obsessive compulsive), have their face and ways of behaving, but I dont take over the identity or names, so this is possibly a different mechanism. It should be said that OSDD systems who have shared memory with their system tend to have a leg up over systems who have memory gaps. There might have been times when you ended up in a different place but could not remember how you got there. Finally, triggered switches are not desired by any of the alters involved and occur when a stimulus has been registered that forces out an alter who can better handle it. She says: My advice to clinicians is that until they have met an alter, it is not DID. Im here looking for answers, because its all so confusing. Emotional neglect can lead to a pretty profound disconnection from yourself; depersonalization, depression, a sense of purposelessness. So if you have DID or OSDD, you will likely heavily dissociate, you'll have alters tied to repeated intense traumas, and even with OSDD-1b it's likely that you'd experience occasional dissociative amnesia/memory issues. Switches can be slow, quick, or uncontrollably rapid. In fact, there actually isnt a 1a or 1b in the DSM-V, its a community holdover from the outdated terms DDNOS-1a/1b. Additionally, switching can be more varied than many may be aware. In the harsh reality of the state of awareness of dissociative disorders in the UK today, we have to just keep moving in the right direction and not be dispirited at the challenges that still lay ahead. I dont know where I fit, but I do feel as if what you describe here is the nearest I have heard yet even then I doubt. In contrast, quick switches can be consensual, planned, forced, or triggered. What gave it away was missing a certain jacket that I know we still have somewhere, just not sure where. A psychiatrist finally asking is there some one there? Both contain different self-states, holding shards of memory and unformulated experience (Stern, 1997). The DSM-5 adds some detail to it, saying: This category includes identity disturbance associated with less-than-marked discontinuities in sense of self and agency, or alterations of identity or episodes of possession in an individual who reports no dissociative amnesia. In other words, OSDD often presents as not yet or not quite DID people who havent yet met the criteria for dissociative identity disorder but may well do so in the future, or people who have slightly atypical forms of DID, for example by not having amnesia. Thank you, this has been very informative. On the other hand, a switch that is forced is not wanted by one of the alters involved. People with OSDD need to understand that their experiences are valid and real and not inferior in any way to people with dissociative identity disorder. =). I havent read about this before but it has to be so that everyone is different. Furthermore, these are common but not required; a person does not need to experience all of these things to have DID/OSDD. The therapist in the zoom group asked a few probing questions; she concluded I had full blown DID, not DDNOS as I had believed. Previously called MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder), this disorder is categorized by the action of switching . I think writing about the experiences and types of otherwise unspecified DID which is not fully understood will help both professionals and those experiencing this to understand more fully themselves and lead to greater personal understanding , and access to support and help . Theyre as much of a person as you are. Back to the beginning of the mystery and its mulling around in my head again relentlessly! You might sometimes go catatonic or become paralyzed without a medical cause. Association is the first and only grassroots, volunteer and peer-led nonprofit empowering Plurals. When talking about a personality as a whole a sub system refers to emotional sub systems, or emotional action chains. These alters protect the main identity from awareness of trauma. Answer 1 of 8: I'm flying from New York to Croatia (Zadar airport, ideally) in July. then people in this range of the spectrum can feel unheard, unvalidated and as if they are the only one suffering with the symptoms they have. We feel younger at these times, but I couldnt put an age on it. The belief that DID is overdiagnosed & primarily diagnosed in America. People with OSDD may for example have had some good enough attachment experiences, or other mitigating factors. 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