Afraid, odd

Afraid, odd
F

FlyWM

Registrant
I think I may have a type of multiple personality and that scares the hell out of me. I mean I don't totally change, but when I have extreme emotions going on, I know what is happening, but I'm not in control, I do things without choosing to, but I know what I am doing, I don't know if that could be a type of multi persons, or maybe just brain going on "auto-pilot" I just don't know, and not knowing scares me almost as much as the possibility. BUt I just realized this, I mean I have always had the extreme emtions no control type thing, but last night I really hurt one of my best friends feelings, and I hate that, I know what happened, but I didn't choose to say it, I wasn't controlling it, I am so afraid of it all right now, and afraid he may not understand. I just neede to get this off my chest, sorry.

Scott
 
Scott,

No reason to be sorry for posting a concern.

There are times that our emotions can be overloaded. There are enough things on our minds on a daily basis, not counting this SA stuff.

It doesn't sound like multiple personalities to me, just a person overloaded with emotions. Many a time I have proceeded in "robot mode", continuing on with the functions of living, while my mind is stuck in its quagmire of feelings and worries. And when your running on auto-pilot, you don't think of what you are doing and the consequences thereof. You just run on the programming and experiences you have. And we have some screwed up programming and terrible experiences. This is a reason, not an excuse.

The only real way I can think of to avoid getting stuck in this situation over and over, is to void our minds of these feelings. Not hide or suppress them, but to truely let them go, by working through them. Talk of your feelings, honestly, and understand them. Find out what causes the bad feelings and how they affect you. Figure out how to avoid the cause(s) when possible and how to change the way you react to it in a positive way.

And when you do find yourself in that position again, worrying about it just furthers the sitituation. Instead work on getting out. Talk to your T, if you have one. Talk to your friends. Chat or post here at MS. Talk to someone that you can trust and will listen. Work through those feelings that are overloading you.

Take care,
Bill
 
Scott,
Bill said some good stuff. I know how you feel being out of control. I think that's why I always keep my emotions under armed guard. They are often too strong for the given situation.

Take care,
Ken
 
Scott:

I have found in the past that I too have this problem. Hey I still do. Yeh my mind goes on auto pilot but something else too for me.

When emotions start to become overwhelming I react in a preconditioned manner. I withdraw, become totally cold emotionally and reject any and all people around me. If they persist I go ballistic and all hell breaks loose. I think in my case it is conditioned behavior from my abuse and life as a prostitute. It is a hotwire.
 
Scott,

It's scary when I feel that I'm not in control. I had to talk about things like that in therapy recently. All I will say here is that I hurt someone very dear to me, I saw myself doing it, I asked myself why, I got no answer, I kept doing it. That incident is one of the lowest points of my life.

People sometimes "do things" for lots of reasons. I remember the hold that nicotine had on me. I would spend all my money on cigarettes when I had no food. I'm lucky it was cigarettes and not alcohol or something. (Yeah, I'd buy cigarettes before beer, too.)

I go back and forth, checking the locks at night, over and over. I go back across the parking lot to my car to see if it's locked, sometimes several times. The funny thing is when I get there and it's locked, I have to pretend I was going there for something. So I open it up, fiddle with some books or something, and leave. Then I wonder if I locked it. :D

Listen to these guys. Their advice is solid. All I would add is that if you can find a way to say sorry, tell your friend. Save the explanations for if they ask. If you're sorry, just tell them that much.

(outis back to edit -- If your friend accepts your apology, accept their acceptance and move on.)

Hang in there. Things will get better.

Joe
 
scot,
i do understand your concern about the similarites with mpd/did syptoms. i also have experienced this and discussed it with my therapist i had a year ago. in my research i came across a concept that described this aspect of dissociation in great detail. it has been awhile and i forget the term, but once i get the current project deadline i have out of the way early next week i will look it up and post it. the gist is that emotions can and do get fractured as do events which then can develop into personality structures. when it happens with emotions the splintered emotion in question becomes seperate in a similar fashion as the personalities. i discussed this at length with my therapist and she assured me that while the phenomenon does occur sometimes, it is not truly seperate from one's self. an example from my life is when i go into a true rage. there was one time when i witnessed this 13 yo child who hurt his ankle. his father is a schmuck of the first order and he comes over and starts probing the ankle. the family members of this child refused to do anything. i went into my zone and stepped in to put my hand on the scmuck's and quietly told him to stop. lady theo saw the look in my eye and tried to intervene without getting in the way. the schmuck asked me who in the h**l i thought i was interfering with a man and his son. i quietly told him i am a man who will not see an innocent child harmed. i still held his hand and he said to back off, that he was serious. i calmly looked him in the eye and quietly said, "so am i" fortunately the ambulance showed up then and when i knew they were right behind me and in charge of the situation i removed my hand and backed off. the point here is that while in the zone, i wanted him to try to stop me. the first thought i had when i stepped up to intervene was that i will take him down in an instant if he even so much as flinches. in essance, while in this zone of rage, i am not who i usually am. i am in total control on the surface, but had he moved only one of us would have walked away from that encounter. the rage is something that splintered off in the abuse of my childhood and is alien to my self perception of myself as i normally perceive myself, but, that rage was also controlled by some part of the real me who refused to arbitrarily sink to violence. i have no doubt of what would have happened had the ambulance not shown up when it did. the bottom line here, scot, is that emotions can get compartmentalized as with seperate personalities, but since there is no real personality behind the emotion the core that we are can have a large degree of control over its expression. had that been pure rage i would have went totally beserk, but it was tempered with that part of me that abhors violence for its sake. sorry for the extended reply, but i hope it helps.
 
Scot
I hope sharing the 'problem' has given you the strength to go and explain everything to your friend.
Friends understand each other most of the time, and don't let an occasional incident ruin something good.

I know what you mean about feeling like another person though, I felt like that when I was acting out.

The whole mess of emotions, the confusion, secrecy, the feelings of shame and guilt, they all span around and were both the cause and the after-effect of acting out. It was a desperatly mixed up period for me.

But in hindsight I can see that I was a 'seperate' person when things boiled over and I went cottaging.
I can remember the way the adreniline rush, and all the other things going into overdrive. And I walked into the toilets as another person.

And I don't say that lightly. I don't intend it to sound as though I'm making excuses, or finding some sort of justification for what I did. And I'm certainly not shirking any responsibility that is rightfully mine for my actions. Although I think the amount is small and debatable.

The point I'm making is that for me the overwhelming emotions and feelings that had erupted within me were powerful enough to seperate off into a completly irrational person.

Thankfully, that's gone. Although I still have times when I recognise that I'm heading that way.
The important thing is that I recognise it, and I get support.
It's not the sort of thing I could have dealt with alone, but how was I going to know that at the time ?

Dave
 
Scott,

your friend forgives you, and wishes you to feel better soon. You're always in my thoughts.

leosha
 
Thank you all for replying, it means a lot to me. I di say everythng that made me feel mulit persons, but other day I saw psych and when I discussed it with him, he told me what he has seen, and told me he thinks I have a form of multi persons, this fact is almost freeing.

Scott
 
Hey guys... sorry you are having such a tough time with this Fly.

This sort of thing is talked about a lot in the type of work my therapist does. She is trained in regression therapy and hypnotherapy. She's done quite a bit of work with me around what is called "sub-personalities."

Basically, the mind is naturally built to process things that other parts of the mind cannot handle. It becomes serious when the "parts" take over completely and are not aware of each other. But most of us have different parts arguing daily - even for the most mundane things. Think about when you are laying around doing nothing and "part" of yourself wants to stay there all day and another "part" of yourself is judging and saying, "Get up, lazy ass, and do something." It's pretty normal, and then when you think of what the parts of yourself had to endure through trauma, and what they must all be screaming - especially young parts that are still stuck in the abuse years - it starts to get LOUD.

This explanation always helped me in focusing on listening to what each part had to say and sometimes changing the focus or reaction. I hope this helps you a little too. Always made me feel less crazy when I had a bunch of parts screaming for different things.

-Sean
 
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