u/HoldFederal3761

So I'm still for now a minor, but not for long, so I can't head for a diagnosis process without informing my parents, and I'm not sure if I want to look for a diagnosis, because I don't know if I want that label, but I'm starting to bring up StPD with my therapist and doing some research for myself, using this subreddit and other stuff, but really all I'd want from a diagnosis would be a way to explain to my family and friends what's different about me.

I've told my friends just fine, and as soon as they understood it they agreed and pointed out things about me that matched it, like from our childhood, and so I have their support and understanding, which I'm very lucky for, but it's my parents and brother that I know will be the problem.

I tried telling my mom the other day, saying I'd learned about this disorder and after a lot of investigation I feel like it really matches me and explains some things, and she told me I need to be careful not to self-diagnose myself with a bunch of conditions because I'm a psychology student. That was her only answer.

And I realized it'll be pretty hecking difficult to explain this because it's the most private thing about me. I have ASD/ADHD (former in assessment process) so any attempt to explain the social or strangeness side of things would be labelled as that, but the magical thinking, paranoia, and indeed the strangeness (I'm the weird one even in my autistic friend group) and all that comes with that I can't explain to them, because I've never let them find out about it, never told them or mentioned it, because while they're extremely supportive of the ASD/ADHD, I always thought this magical thinking I shouldn't tell them about, because I know it's not normal, I know it's mostly delusions, and I don't want them to know that about me. So how do I begin to explain it without seeming either completely insane or impacting their view of me because of them? It's a bit of a dilemma, so I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice.

(Tw derealisation/existentialism)

I find comfort in what disturbs most. I have two examples. First, the idea that some day, at the end of this long life, I'll die and nonexistence awaits me is honestly comforting, not in a suicidal way but I'm not afraid of death. If I didn't have so many ambitions and ideas for life that I wanted to do then I would embrace death at any moment. I don't feel any fear at the idea.

And any time I think about the universe, or the fact that we're statistically more likely to be a sentient brain or something floating through space than for this reality to be real, and just debating about every weird little trippy provocation of an existential crisis is so fun and comforting to me. Most people, like my one close friend, get very disturbed and anxious when I talk about it, like it breaks their brains, like they aren't meant for the knowledge or​ smth, they tell me it's a bad idea because it causes nihilism, but why is that a bad thing when it could teach you to enjoy what you have and give life meaning when it has none? I wish people would talk about it more.

Looking into the diagnosis process of schizotypal and while I do I'd prefer to research through actual human being experience over google, but I'm doing both

Just wondering If anyone knows If there is a crossover or differences between someone's disorganised thinking living with schizotypal, and someone living with ADHD?

Or, could people explain how they'd describe their thought patterns to someone with the neurotypical 'bland,' one-quiet thinking?

The messiah complex goes crazy

But hey at least I'm self-aware about it

I mean it's just that trippy thought of 'what if this delusional magical thinking is actually a higher connection with 'God', and society was made to test us by calling us ill so that the unworthy didn't try to enlighten themselves and end up going crazy'?

...Or am I just going crazy??

Idk man

Also I've never used the word enlightenment for this before today lol

Shoulda found this subreddit thing sooner

Hey, kind of thought about this stuff for a while so I just wanted to finally post something. I was always imaginative as a kid, escaping off into my mind or play to the point of daily dissociation, what I was escaping I don't know but either way the innocent part of my childhood, especially the age 5-9, brings me this deep comfort. And so every time I see a toy little me would've liked or a picture of little me or my clothes or the toys still in my room or blankets or songs or something like that, I get this feeling, it's like a 'returning' feeling. I never fully regress, like my brain has always been too meta-aware and I never get 'fuzzy,' but this feeling is stronger than nostalgia. It's hard to describe but I feel like I've reverted to that mindset, like all I want to do is play with toys and my friends and I don't care about any responsibilities, and I always get frustrated that I can't do any of the kid things I used to be able to do, because my brain is almost an adult's now, and so I couldn't do that stuff carefree anymore even if I tried. I just replay the times that come to mind, and it makes both the feeling and the frustration stronger. And something like shame has always stopped me from trying. But I never choose when I get this feeling. It's like I see a mlp build a bear or something and it hits me with this nostalgia type feeling that almost reverts my subconsciousness but not my consciousness. I think people here call it age dreaming.

But basically, is it normal for everyone (I mean not just people that age regress) to feel revert-y when they see something nostalgic? Or is that just nostalgia? Because sometimes I get nostalgia without the revert-y feeling. And the feeling can get triggered by small triggers. Idk I guess I've just always thought this was a normal thing? How do I know if it's not?

(TW: I talk about violence, sh, sa, suicide, homicide, toxicity etc)

Okay so obviously I didn't escape having zero childhood trauma (my older brother became chronically ill so we grew a lil distant even though we'd been close since I was born, and he's a mega genius so he gives me an inferiority complex, but genuinely that's not a lot, especially compared to what other people to through (but comparing like that isn't healthy, please don't, this story will tell you that, so whatever is affecting you is more than enough to do so)​).

My mom is amazing, more so than any other mom I know. My dad's a workaholic, but whose isn't, and he's generally a good dad. My brother's brotherly, used to make puppet shows with me, pushes me to do better and always, always beats me at video games and stuff, as a brother should. And I had the kind of childhood best friend you'd find in movies: we were attached at the hip, always getting into mischief and playing the most imaginative games (even if our elementary school wasn't the best for quality education per se, it was a great childhood experience, the teachers were funny and loved me and my best friend especially, we were infamous little shits that were cute enough to be let off after giving the teachers hugs whenever we saw them, and still to this day I miss it). If I write it out, I have the most normal and healthy childhood a kid could have in this day and age... and somehow that became my downfall. That and what I was watching.

Having snuck onto the internet as a kid (7-9), I started with watching slime making and squishy makeover videos and was soon watching gore and 🌽 a year later. The mlp cupcakes and rainbow factory videos that detailed mlp characters (tw: violence) getting kidnapped and tortured, one of rainbow dash getting her organs ripped out one by one, and of course the dreaded gacha phase that romanticized all kinds of things from SH, suicide, and toxicity in general. Add that to finding ao3 at 11, and I started romanticizing​ things like kidnapping, abusive relationships, and even r*pe. I was more interested in SA than any romance. At 11 years old. Bit fucked up?

I was suicidal by 10 and proud of it, started SHing at 12 (which is the age when things really kicked off), and I had been craving these kinds of things for years. I wanted trauma I could 'brag' about, because it was always a competition, online and in my friend group, because we were in middle school. But, of​ course, any time that passive-aggressive argument of "who has it worse" arose (and I was always the one starting it), I would be scraping for straws. I'd start finding small things about my mum that I didn't like, and dramatizing them, telling my friends she was verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, all kinds of crap. Saying my dad was never around, my brother was never around, things I hadn't really cared about before but suddenly spoke about constantly. I'd embellish on all sorts of lies just to one-up my friends who had actual problems like the ones I'd watched online and read about. A friend's mom was emotionally abusive, so mine had to be. A friend was planning suicide, so I had to be. A friend was punching their walls with anger issues, so I had to. I lied so often that I really started believing it, and soon I hated my mom so much I actually wanted to k*ll her. I bristled when I heard her voice, I swore at her in my mind or flipped her off when she wasn't looking, I argued with her all the time. I literally acted as if she'd been horrible to me or something, like my body and brain fully believed it, and I feel so guilty thinking back on​ it now because idk how I ever hated her or treated her that bad.

And not only that, I was an ass to my friends too. I was more of an ass than any of them ever were or have been since. Referring to that period of my life now my friends call it my 'emo phase,' but I've genuinely not seen any of my friends go through that same phase as dangerously as I did. Of course, they've dealt with those sorts of lashing-out dark periods, concerning us with their worsening states during those times, but they did it much less violently. Seriously, acting out for attention needs to be taken more seriously because I got a massive fucking thrill any time someone gave it to me and it made me do really stupid stuff to make sure I got it. Romanticizing suicide literally led me to trying to kill myself just so I could say I had, like it was some trump card.

If I hadn't been a coward or just a general dumbass (thought I could die by holding my breath, failing to realize that I would've just started breathing again if I'd passed out... although stressing the importance of keeping kids away from the internet one again, I was 10, holding a pair of scissors to my wrist and trying to summon the courage to slice them open, just to spite my mom who I'd just gotten into an argument with) I'd likely be dead by now. Genuinely, I'm surprised I didn't manage to actually do something stupid and final.

As well as that weird thrill I got when I thought about all those wrong things like kidnapping, toxic relationships, suicide, and SA, I became obsessed with the thought of having it happen to me. JUST so I could 'brag' about it. Literally wtf was I on. So anyway of course I realized myself over the years and how fucked up this was, and have since changed and matured, but I just wanted to share this strange paradox, because having no trauma made me romanticize it to the point of self-destruction, and I still have no excuse for how fucked up I am today.

I'm 16 now and I still subconsciously romanticize these things (whilst simultaneously being very very very much against all of them), even though now I'm actively trying to rewrite my brain so that I don't. I still find myself trying to one-up my friends when they vent, and it's driven me to obsess over my psychology.​ I still invent all kinds of lies about my trauma and that to fit in, to validate why I act so traumatized when nothing ever happened to me, because somehow, I'm ashamed to have had such a perfect childhood.

This post might be a bit disorganised and vague, but I'm just getting it out. I don't know what I'm expecting in return, some advice or someone relating or comfort maybe, I don't know.

I'm <18 (college age), and I've been dealing with this relapse of bad mental health (have had some dark periods throughout my life already) for just a year, and I'm burnt out in every aspect. I have this passion for life, but everything inside my mind is holding me back. I have OCD (haven't been diagnosed yet, but have been given CBT), the mental kind that invades my consciousness and sticks to my every thought, dirtying it and forcing me to expend what little energy I have in neutralizing the thought or replacing it with something else. I've tried everything to stop it. Ignoring the thoughts, trying my best to fill my head with new, cinematic thoughts that are easy to shield myself with, stuff from movies or a series, and it's still going. My brain has created the perfect hell for me, one thing happens to me and it makes sure that event lives with me in my every moment, good or bad. And I'm an ovethinker, of course. And not to mention the ADHD, diagnosed. And the ASD, which I'm in the process of an assessment for.

Just to clarify, I'm having therapy, my parents know I'm struggling, so do my friends. Normally, I'm a private person, I can keep this to myself, and work through it just fine (I learned a while ago that reaching out doesn't help much, because it's still you that has to put in the work, so now I just shoulder things), but you know it's getting bad when my parents, my friends, even my teachers, notice​. I'm just too tired to act okay. I have a boyfriend (bad idea lol, but we're both fucked up and we're kinda happy just ghosting each other most of the time so we're chill) and he told me he doesn't know what it is but he can just tell something's haunting me.

And my anxiety is through the roof. I used to be terrified to leave the house, had a panic attack nearly every day, constant flashbacks, and now it's better, but it's like I'm always tense, hypervigilant, but it's my brain I'm scared of, and what it will think of next to disturb me.

I'm absolutely resistant to suicide, because in my philosophy, even if everyone I love all died, and I was left alone with terrible mental health, life would still be better than death, because even if I don't enjoy life at that point, I can still be a robot-like worker that helps society or something. So I'm not a suicide risk anymore, not at all, but I've been having suicidal urges as of late, and if I'm having those urges, then I'm really concerned.

I also have depression, and it comes back in bouts, and is deciding to visit me again, but I'm not so worried about that because I know what to do by now, I've had two bad depressive episodes in my life by now, one at 12 and one at 14, so I know how to deal with it.

And the final thing is, of course, the trauma. I won't name it, but this is more about the aftermath anyway. It's made me religious, honestly. Like I have this personal relationship with the universe, and I can manipulate my reality by speaking to it. I ask for a clear sign, it gives me a clear coincidence that repeats for three consecutive days. I know I'm likely delusional, but I'm aware of that, and this superstition just feels so powerful. But I keep hesitating, thinking maybe all this magic thinking is my brain trying to rationalise it, give meaning to what happened. Because I can't accept that it was just an accident, and it had no greater purpose to happen to me. Because then all I feel is incredibly immense shame. I can't live with myself if it wasn't supposed to happen.

I keep trying to figure out what it is I'm missing, what that one label is that will explain everything I'm going through. BPD, OSDD, OSPD, PTSD, C-PTSD, schizotypal, some dissociative disorder, tulpamancy even, I keep adding to the list of possibilities, but none of them quite fit. It's like it's not enough. I need a perfect, all-encompassing label, and I don't know why. Do I need comfort? Validation that my reaction is as great as my trauma? But it isn't. It's nothing compared to others', and I know comparison doesn't help, but I can't just not do it. It's like my brain was born ready to be traumatised and nothing ever happened, and so it traumatised itself, and it's lusting for more. My friends have the trauma that somehow gets them respect in our group, from eating disorders to abuse, and it makes my heart hurt for them, I want to help, I feel so bad for them, but then why do I also envy them? It's sick. But it's like there's a kind of respect there that no one talks about, maybe just when you're a teen, even if I feel like I'm much older than a teen mentally, which this post probably isn't showing. But still, why do I want more trauma? 'Better' trauma? Do I need someone to see me? Pity me? Envy me? It makes me invent these tales about what happened to me that I tell my friends and myself so they can respect me too, so I can win in the competition I've made it into, when really I traumatised myself. I'm the one to blame. I was doing it to myself.

And now I'm so dissociated I keep tripping balls, everything doesn't feel real. And my brain is so fragmented, I romanticize my trauma and that works so well, but then I get these periods where I'm in the mindset I had before it happened, and it feels innocent, it makes me feel real, the world feels real, I love it. But then I remember what happened. I realise the mindset that I've adapted to survive it. And then I feel that real, innocent part of me screaming, and I just wanna go back, and then I feel like a kid, but I'm not age regressing because I'm still here, still in control of myself, but I just feel this kind of yearning I can't describe, and I want to return to what I used to find fun as a kid, playing with my toys and running about pretending to be something else. It feels like I'm on the edge of regressing but I can't ever do those comforting things because I'm not a kid anymore and it doesn't work, my brain is too loud to enjoy it without ruining it.

And I have so many responsibilities and ambitions now, and I don't have the time or the energy for this, and I don't know if it'll ever get better anymore. I feel empty, sad, and tired. I don't know what to do.

Made another post before this but I'm just starting to learn about my system and the alters inside it and I'm wondering how people found out the names of their alters or gave them names when you can't clearly communicate with them?

I'm questioning OSDD-1b, and will be talking to my therapist about it soon, but I'm just asking what worked for you? In my experience, I'll get a thought, feeling, or opinion type thing invade my awareness but I rarely get full conversations anymore, used to but now everything's a little too dissociated for me to do so if that makes sense. I was told about this RV analogy and I feel like my hands are always on the wheel, and I never get left any notes or anything, and any of their thoughts I get don't mention their names, which is super helpful. There's no one going "oh, I'm so and so."

Are you like allowed to give them names or are they supposed to already have names? Like a few I call by whatever name I was going with when I thought I was trans cuz they were fronting a lot, and that feels right for them, and others I have names for, like the one created by me accidentally inhaling a dandelion I called Dandy, and she doesn't feel annoyed when I call her that. And I hear a lot about people working through their DID/OSDD, what exactly does that mean for different people or systems?

Idk how to start this, but I feel like I'm going crazy trying to work out what I/we am/are. TW: csa, abuse, and a load of confusion.

Um this post is about what types of DID/OSDD there are and which I should be looking into more?? I haven't been researching this stuff for more than a few months, and I'm building the confidence to talk to my therapist about it, but she's already suspecting it, so ig it won't be long before I say something, just looking for some extra advice until then, but talking to my therapist is imminent​.

So here's my/our dilemma:

When I was a kid, and dealing with csa by a trusted adult and a healthy dose of emotional, sometimes physical abuse from my parents, I was very aware of my alters, could speak with them, play with them, see them in my head, all that stuff. But then as I grew up, we grew apart if that makes sense? My abuser stopped eventually, probably when I got too old for him, yucky guy, and it was just my parents giving me stress, so there were a few times when I did the whole dissociating hard enough that I'm tripping balls and feeling like somebody else trick, but mostly I was in control of myself, besides some pretty debilitating, daily flashbacks that had my anxiety at a constant high.

And with this newfound calm, broken here and there by fights with friends, fights with my parents, and even sa, I sort of... forgot about my alters? It's like they were just wiped from my memory and awareness. I even forgot about the csa (I still can't remember it, I just know that it happened and I remember the aftermath of each time, the blood or pain I stopped feeling and all that). My alters were less like individual selves and more like individual states of being, and I could sort of merge with each of them, but they were always each the exact same as the last time I merged with them, and I never did any of it on purpose. I always just took it as stages of my life, like I had several trans crises over this. And I was never aware of them. Completely kept in the dark. I have no clue if I'm even the original or not.

So after an event I won't detail that happened about a year ago, suddenly these alters woke up, like I could feel all of them come alive in response to the trauma, and everything was jumbled for months, everyone in my life could see I was barely functioning, I even missed some school for it, got a new therapist too

And the thing is, I never experienced amnesia per se, like the finding myself somewhere random bit. Things get completely blocked from my brain, but it happens a while after the event, like my brain waits for the event to be over so it can make sure everything gets blocked out, if that makes any sense. As well as that, I've heard other people's thoughts in my brain, sometimes I'm able to identify patterns between them now, but they've always been very weak in terms of are they mine or others​? Which leads me to the most confusing thing, and my sort of hypothesis.

I've heard of gatekeepers, but does anyone know if it's possible for them to front? or co-front? And can they also be other roles? Like a protector that's harming me/us but thinks they're protecting us? An anti-protector? Because I have this hunch and I'm not sure if it's possible, like how powerful a gatekeeper is, but I feel like my alters are very suppressed. They don't really come out unless I'm stressed or excited or actually feeling something for once because normally I'm apathetic and dissociated, but I can actually feel like I'm a person when they're co-fronting.

Can a gatekeeper suppress alters? Because I have a VERY difficult time trying to communicate or identify any alters, and it feels like there's a block on them as well as my traumatic memories. Since the event last year, I feel like I've merged with something apathetic that has control in my brain, because last year I was much more like myself, and now I feel like a completely different person, awkward to be in my own mind and body, wanting to escape, constantly dissociating, mind all over the place tryna figure this thing out. I feel very alone inside my brain, like I'm the only one in it, but then my behaviour changes constantly and yet sticks to different patterns, like a fuzzy-feeling kid that wants to play, a calm lady, a hyper-feminine chick (there are so many girls), a trucker guy, a human bear hybrid with ex issues, two angsty 13/4yos (one of them highly self-destructive), a literal robot, and a partridge in a pear tree. There are so many more, my brain makes them so easily, even one from accidentally breathing in a dandelion, but these are the ones I can identify the easiest. I haven't been able to get names from them or anything like that, nothing I haven't worked out myself, but how do you work out a name? I can't tell if I'm making some of them up or not. Another issue. Yay.

Oh, yeah, my other question, can the original merge​ with another alter? Cuz I feel like I have. And why am I never in the back of the mind/brain? I'm always fronting. They can be fronting with me, and get in a thought or mainly feeling or want or two, but I'm always there, even when I really don't want to be. I had another question but I can't remember it (I'm a little dissociated writing this) so I'll leave it at that unless I remember everything. Cheers for reading, I'm at a loss. Might update if my therapist tells me anything.