~DID and me

What is DID?

Well, for starters, it's a whole shit load of a better way to say that your head is fucked up than MPD. MPD gives people images of Sybil and someone bordering on Regan from the Exorcist. Sidran (Sidran.org) puts it this way:

"Recently considered rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosities, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder-MPD) and other Dissociative Disorders are now understood to be fairly common effects of severe trauma in early childhood, most typically extreme, repeated physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse."

I might add, kids do NOT have DID. They may be in the process of developing DID, but it is an adult disorder. Shoot, even with "normal" people the one personality doesn't solidify until the twenties.

Do I have DID? Well, the papers on file say I do. I suppose that if there's a such thing as DID, then I do actually have it. I've just met a lot of people who say they have DID who are completely full of shit. Lots of kids online pretending (boy does that ever piss me the fuck off) and attention seeking.

I have the stuff in my childhood to make for DID. I have the stuff in my adulthood to make for PTSD. I hate labels though... especially ones that make me a damn freak. I even have (extended) "family" who are so afraid of me that I've been cut out of their lives entirely.

I don't know what to call what's "wrong" with me. The docs picked DID and PTSD. I just know that my brain works differently than most other people's do. I'd be ok with that, except for that it keeps me from working, and that makes me nuts sometimes (pun intended). Most people think that not working would be wonderful. I'll tell you what, it's not a damn vacation. I'd give anything to be able to work again. Actually, even after being put on disability I kept trying to work. Finally, in '99 I was threatened with being locked up (again) if I didn't stop trying. So, I stopped trying (to work, anyway). You have no idea what it does to your self esteem... how worthless you end up feeling. Between not working and the stigma that goes along with being "mentally ill"... well, it's no picnic. Add that to the actual effects of the "disorder"? It's really difficult to maintain any self esteem at all.

My therapist says that I'm a "survivor". I roll my eyes at that. Survive what? Life? As if just about everyone else on the planet isn't doing a much better job of that than I am! Half the time I'm hiding from the world, the other half I'm protecting the world from myself.... it all comes down to me being fucked in the head... paranoid, suicidal, homicidal, violent, confused, lost, self destructive, delusional...

If I blame my parents, I want to kill them. If I blame myself, I want to kill myself. If I blame no one, it still doesn't change my reality, and that reality is often just downright torturous.

I do have my good days, and I've spent years getting to the point where I can tell when I'm about to "go off". I still do go off though, and depression and rage are still just about daily states of being. My living situation doesn't help, and not having a family sucks pretty bad too. Still, I try. I keep trying. I'll keep trying until I'm dead, I suppose. A "normal" life... as normal as possible, that is... is something I'd like to have one day. In the meanwhile, I'd settle for an abnormal one in which I can enjoy myself every now and again. I've become so bitter and miserable I can hardly stand myself most days.

Maybe, if I ever make it home...