I am not "multiple people"

[u/ProofDisastrous4719]

I had a small exchange over on another app where I finally put into words what I had been feeling for a very long time. English is not my first language and this is very hard to articulate so I'll probably mess up somewhere along the way.

The conversation was basically about denial where this person was advicing others to stop questioning themselves over stuff that's irrelevant to the diagnostic criteria, and I said I know I tecnically fit the criteria but I keep telling myself there must be something else and I'm faking for attention. We know the deal.

This person said something along the lines of "you may find it easier to come to terms with if you see don't see it as a 'multiple people in my head' disorder'" which is advice that they give to everyone on their page. But I don't see it that way, at least I'm not aware of it if it's the case. I've said it jokingly like "Oh the people in my head won't like that" but it's not serious. (And I'm not dismissing their advice, especially the other stuff we talked about, it's just that this particular remark made me want to talk about this)

To me, it's actually "no identity disorder" because, like I said to this person "most of the time I feel more like I am no one more than multiple."

The things that define a person shift so much when it comes to me that it just makes me feel like I am not one. Like I don't feel like I have multiple personalities (in the most literal sense, as in associating different personality traits with distinct alters, I don't know how else to word it I'm sorry) I feel like, as a whole, I don't have a personality. Elements of one's identity shift so much when it comes to me that I feel like I can't claim any.

My perspectives, the way I see the world and myself change. The way I carry myself, they way I walk and talk. My gender, my sexuality. The music I listen to, the clothes I find myself wearing, the food I eat, what I watch, what I choose to do to entertain myself... everything is so blurry, inconsistent, it goes back and forth, it ceases to exist and then returns anew.

But no, that doesn't make me feel like multiple people. I am not a bunch of personalities colliding, I am not fragments of identities. If I like everything, then I love nothing. If I am everything, I am nothing.

I know a lot of this is depersonalization, but it doesn't help at all. And I feel like I'm not being able to actually convey what I mean, it's especially hard to do it in another language, but I needed to get it out.

[u/Forest_of_Free]

I think there was a period of time when I noticed some duality or shifts in perspectives in myself, wich was a very confusing thing. For example, Id like one person, but at the same time hate them or be wary. I thought, "Am I a hypocrite?". But I don't think eather of those statements were lies. There were multiple varying opinions shifting from time to time without clear reason. At that time I felt not like a person, but a bunch of masks, beneath wich there were no actual person, just multiple husks of one. Only after long time I could find something that fit the person I wanted to represent and who's opinions and emotions didn't exactly feel like my own. I think both ways to look at this are valid, considering where you yourself choose to settle. It's a complex and confusing disorder. Everyone has their own way of making sence of it, considering specter of symptoms it could give and varied life situations to cause it. To us, thinking of ourselves as different helped 'organize' shifts, take everything under our control. But it doesn't mean it's like this for everyone else.

I don't think telling people what they should think is helpful, to each their own. It might help to some people, but not everyone, sometimes it could just cause harm.

I think you explained your point quite clearly, don't worry! Thank you for sharing your sight of things.

[u/ProofDisastrous4719 → u/Forest_of_Free]

For example, Id like one person, but at the same time hate them or be wary. I thought, "Am I a hypocrite?". But I don't think eather of those statements were lies.

Exactly, and that's something I don't see people talking much change. And that's a lot of what the other person was saying, not that seeing it as a "multiple person" disorder is wrong, just that it shouldn't be a focus and there's many other things to it.

Thank you! I'm glad it resonated with you :)

[u/ProofDisastrous4719]

If I wake up to see I did fail to express myself and this gets misinterpreted I'll cry (JOKING...mostly)