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TaetaeRyn

711d

So I haven’t been diagnosed with OSDD (or anything for that matter, I haven’t seen any clinical psychologist or anything), but I’ve been thinking for a long time about it, and I keep alternating between believing it’s a likely possibility and thinking it’s all just my imagination, like the way I’m sorting through my thoughts and emotions or something. Like, am I arguing with another personality or am I just conflicted? Am I actually switching more often or am I just losing my focus? I don’t have amnesia, but is my feeling disconnected from certain memories emotional amnesia from OSDD related dissociation or from some other trauma response? I also have DPD, and if I have OSDD most if not all of my alters do too. This means that I (or we) usually stick to what I/we feel I/we should be doing and disregard my/our opinions and emotions. Basically, if there is more than one of us, this would cause us to all behave in similar ways even if we have different interests and motivations. I think my question really is, when there isn’t full amnesia, how do you tell for sure you’re different personalities rather than different sides of the same personality?

Top reply
    • Prism_Starr

      678d

      I'm going through the same thing! I haven't been diagnosed but some stuff happened a few years ago that triggered everything(everyone) coming to the front and I spent a long time putting pieces together, and finding out how much plurality I had even as a child and how repeated trauma changed my presentation over the years, hiding the alters. I do also experience multiple trains of thought that get mixed up, I end up 'masking' or behaving how it is 'safe' but sometimes I feel like a different person and a LOT of the time I don't even know who I am.

    • Prism_Starr

      678d

      I'm going through the same thing! I haven't been diagnosed but some stuff happened a few years ago that triggered everything(everyone) coming to the front and I spent a long time putting pieces together, and finding out how much plurality I had even as a child and how repeated trauma changed my presentation over the years, hiding the alters. I do also experience multiple trains of thought that get mixed up, I end up 'masking' or behaving how it is 'safe' but sometimes I feel like a different person and a LOT of the time I don't even know who I am.

    • GoldenSystem

      698d

      We just feel different? We have OSDD-1B so we have low amnesia, and it does get really hard telling who is front, but some alters have phantom limbs, and some have different accents and ways of holding themself, honestly its more noticeable from the outside (if they know about the osdd) like my friend knows i have osdd and he can tell when my vibes change bc like, my resting face will change, or even my voice will lower an octave

      • TaetaeRyn

        695d

        @GoldenSystem (I apologize in advance for the long reply) The issue I’m having is that I’ve always been so hyper aware of how I was behaving—like voice, speech patterns, ways of walking or holding myself—it’s hard to tell what comes naturally and what’s been learned. And since I started trying to present as masculine, I’m having to think actively about these things even more. The things that make me think I might be switching are usually subtle and more inside my own mind—like sudden unexplained changes in mood or perspective, sudden increase, decrease, or change in motivation, and some shifts in how I view myself or the world. Sometimes, even though I can’t actually tell a difference, things will somehow appear different or sound different, and a selection of my facial muscles will tense or relax; the best way I can describe it is that it feels like switching gears. Usually this isn’t apparent from the outside since I—or we—are so aware of even subtle mannerisms that I/we don’t allow them to change. There are times, however, when it is a more apparent switch, mostly when I am around certain people. I haven’t found the exact pattern of who, since I do it around some people I know and some people I’ve never met, but I always—no matter how hard I try to fight it or prevent it—do it around customers (I work retail). I could be talking to a coworker, being completely naturally myself, with a customer right next to us overhearing everything, but as soon as they turn to ask me a question I snap into nice-mature-young-woman. I actively try to speak in a more masculine voice, but when I talk to customers I cannot make myself stop sounding feminine. It’s so weird and uncontrollable that when I do it in front of a coworker—like in the situation I just described—once the customer leaves and we go back to our conversation, I feel disoriented and a little embarrassed, usually trying to laugh it off as faking around customers. Although, since I have DPD, this could be explained by me just reverting to old habits around people I’m not comfortable with. The thing that makes me question that is the fact that this isn’t an issue around everyone I don’t know, and I’m not sure why it’s so prominent specifically with customers, since work is one of the places I feel most comfortable. Also, recently, my thoughts have been a lot more jumbled like I’m having more than one train of thought at once. This becomes apparent sometimes when I end up restarting a sentence over and over like I can’t decide how to phrase it (ex: “You know how… It’s like… No, I mean… Okay so… Well the thing is…). I’ve had anxiety for as long as I can remember, but this particular thing had never been a problem until recently. Sorry for the long rant, but I’m wondering if the things I’m describing are actually signs I have alters, or just a combination of stuff brought on by DPD and stuff that I didn’t know are actually completely normal.

    • sillyashell

      711d

      I don't know if this would help you, but what helped me figure it out is to not really think if you have different personalities per se but rather if there's different "people" in there. I also have overlaps between alters due to other disorders, but they have their own interests, own opinions on people we interact with, own opinions on how we should do things, some of which conflict with mine which causes further disorientation during dissociation. So I'm not sure if this would help you, but when questioning if my dissociation was me zoning out and if the dialogue and conflicts I had in my head and the time skips in my life was a result of a dissociative disorder, it helped to analyze and see that my alters were indeed separate "people" in a sense and I could not control their minds. Even if they disregard their own opinions for the other alters in the case of DPD, if they have varying levels of how far they'll go to disagree/varied interests in things (easier to recognize) maybe you'll figure out that they're alters. Hope that helps somewhat. Good luck on your journey.

☝ This content is generated by our users and it is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please consult with your physician before making any medical decision

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