How “fluid” is your DID? Talk about the “fluidity of DID”.
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
How “fluid” is your DID? Talk about the “fluidity of DID”.
My DID is NOT fluid! It’s jarring instead. I’m sure it is fluid sometimes, but most shifts from me to someone else, are harsh, painful, struggling. I think that once I’ve shifted though, that the shifts after that might be more fluid – not totally sure really. I think it’s hardest when it’s a transition from me to someone else.
huh. i thought the question was more like, does your experience of being multiple change. and *that* is fluid, or at least changes a lot. some parts experience it really differently from other parts.
I think that this was my question, actually. And I really meant more “how does your DID make YOU fluid?”
Are you aware of yourself changing over time? Do you have any consciousness of the “whole” that you are part of? Do you find yourself knowing things one day that you don’t know the next, and having no idea where that knowledge went? Do you feel like there’s this constant flux of personality states that exist in ADDITION to the actual parts that make up the whole?
Sometimes I’m aware of myself doing things that are unlike me. I’ll be cooking and intending to make burgers and suddenly I’ll make sloppy joes instead. Even though I’ve never HAD a sloppy joe that I can remember. And I’ve never made them. Ever. But they’ll come out absolutely amazing and the taste will be somehow familiar. And then the next week I’ll want to make them but I won’t remember how. Poking at that blank spot in my mind is frustrating. It’s like seeing a document where a bunch of words or whole paragraphs have been whited out. It’s more frustrating than full amnesia because you can SEE where the damned memories are supposed to be. They’re just not there. Poof.
oh. wow. i get that. the “seeing a document where a whole bunch of words or whole paragraphs have been whited out” is really making me think. i get that, except without the actual whiting out, in stuff that someone in my body has written. i mean, i found sections of an old journal–a journal that *I* used to write in!!–that i had never seen before. some of them were on the SAME PAGE where i had been writing, and then continued writing. pages that i later READ.
i have it happen with things like therapy, when my therapist is recapping something that someone else said, and not only do i not remember the original conversation, i can observe my memory being whited out as she speaks.
my *life* has been fluid, in the way you describe. where things are in this weird state. i’ll be in the middle of something, and then observe myself doing something totally different. i’ll have moments where it feels like “i” (or another part) has been sleeping through a car ride, wakes up, and wonders “wow! how did i wind up *here*?!” except that it’s with LIFE. like, i’ve had parts kind of wake up a little, and be all like “i’m THIRTY FOUR?! what am i doing in NEW YORK? i was gonna be a teacher in PORTLAND. what HAPPENED to THAT?!”
it’s not always bad. my method of getting through academic work has often been to sit down and make sure my eyes have passed over all of the words in a book i’m supposed to read, and then trust that i’ll understand it when it comes time to discuss. it’s this weird dreamlike state, where i don’t really know how to do something, yet somehow, i know how to do it when the time comes. one of the down-sides of having been diagnosed is that particular kind of fluidity seems to have reduced as we’ve known that there are other parts. the automatic switching, where the necessary part is just *there*… that doesn’t happen as easily any more.
“Fluidity” is kind of a loose term…is there really a definition or is that something this discussion is trying to establish?
Hmmm. For me, I would take that to mean a couple things. One, how easy do you switch, and then it depends on the parts like Ellis offered. Sometimes there is co-consciousness and the moves are slippery and easy. I don’t really notice right when it happens. Others are more violent like when triggered. Some I enter easily and have trouble leaving, and vice versa.
On the other hand, fluid could mean access to memories and continuity of life. Periods of blackout. No access to memories.
I wonder if there is a more concrete definition.
I am not the person who brought up this topic, so I don’t know if I know exactly what was meant by it. I think over all though, that most of our topics can be answered however works for you! So for me “fluidity” brought one thing to mind – and to someone else, it brought other things to mind.
I’m not sure there is an actual definition. But maybe the person who brought up the topic will comment more about what they meant.
I just know for me – I don’t feel like I’m very “fluid” in my shifting. Maybe it’s because most of my people, are quite a bit younger than me. It’s not like I can have “sally” go to work for me or something. I don’t have adults that really interchange around and do various jobs for me. Like I’ve heard of people who have someone who’s the house person, someone else goes to work, someone else has sex, etc. I don’t really have that. My people are a lot younger – so when they come around, it’s not so “fluid” and undetectable.
Anyhow – that’s how the “fluid” idea struck me….. it mostly struck me that I don’t feel like I am!
The person already did comment more on what she meant. 😉 Read up to my first post on this thread. It’s just above Jigsaw’s.
Although it *is* interesting to read how other people experience “fluid” and DID.
Fluid
I come into being as my foot touches down to pavement,
no idea where I’m coming from or where I am going.
I stumble momentarily as if tripping on a crack,
to passers-by, simply clumsy.
My disorientation is so normal I no longer panic.
Direction predetermined, I continue to walk
as I wait for some glimmer of understanding.
Why am I here? Where am I going? Where was I moments before?
My feet carry me, as if by bodily memory,
a puppet’s pace, I traipse on
and somehow arrive at my destination.
To sit on a comfortable leather chair
and talk to a man that I have never met before
but who is somehow familiar.
Somehow my mouth knows words
as my feet know direction
and I muddle through an hour
speaking of things that I quite simply do not know.
Hrm. I’m fluid in the sense that sometimes when I panic at unknown problems someone specific comes along and helps quick-like and people around me don’t seem to notice. Sometimes whomever it is just lurks which is an interesting feeling though I probably can’t always tell, although back in high school it seems someone else had a shot at responding instead, as they didn’t …sound quite the same? Either way I wasn’t specific enough in tossing out/going over things in my mind, the answer given ended up being wrong (was an odd situation, an English teacher I wasn’t fond of startled the hell out of me in the hallway after school when I was headed out the door, can’t remember why except I was having a horrid year and missed a lot of her class and I when I went to apologize (ie; head her off at the pass), I realized I didn’t have her name and sort of threw the info of the class (english) and room location back into the void that seems to be my brain. Unfortunately for me I had another english teacher that retired a year/two years earlier who used the same room, so …yeah, got screamed at for a few minutes for calling her the wrong name. It was the end of my senor year.