# Identity crisis inherent in DP?



## shazada (jonathan) (Sep 22, 2004)

DP is a form of dissociative disorder, right? 
Well hearing about other people who have for example, dissociative identity disorder, and the multiple personalities they have makes me wonder.

Something inherent in DP is the loss of the self, which feels like you're having an identity crisis all the time, or when you space out heaps, and the intensity increases past the level you might be accustomed to.

I've noticed at these times that I sometimes become another person completely, or feel like I could become another person with incredible ease - in the sense that being overwhelmed by a surging wave of DP can wash away the desires, beliefs, attitudes and other stuff that helps define who we are. When this happens it feels like I am no longer the person I knew - as though the Jonathan i knew has in fact died, and now there exists in his place someone physically the same, but with a different, sometimes mencaing personality. Kind of like an alternative version of oneself not constrained by the beliefs you might hold dear.

The ease with which I can slide into these other (for want of a better word) 'personalities' can simultaneously be morbidly frightening and exhilirating (maybe not for some).

I'm sure everyone can relate to this.

So if DP is a dissociative disorder, is this feeling as described above somehow connected to the dissociative?

And if so/or not so, what does it mean?


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## flat (Jun 18, 2006)

I know what you mean by thinking we somehow lost our self and aquired another personality. But I think that is just an illusion cuz we would probably lose all our memories of our past self if we changed that severely. We are definitely changed and we did lose a lot of emotions which affect our usual interests and pleasures that we had in the past. It's like someone pulled the plug out from us and we are now an android devoid of everything that we were. But depression can do that as well. If you long for your old self then you are still in contact with it and have never left it completely.


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## Visual (Oct 13, 2010)

shazada (jonathan) said:


> DP is a form of dissociative disorder, right?
> Well hearing about other people who have for example, dissociative identity disorder, and the multiple personalities they have makes me wonder.
> 
> Something inherent in DP is the loss of the self, which feels like you're having an identity crisis all the time, or when you space out heaps, and the intensity increases past the level you might be accustomed to.
> ...


Dissociation comes in all degrees and forms. It isn't just black or white. The question to ask now is do you think you know what caused your DP? When/How did it start?


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

My DP started when I had an identity crisis so I definitely think the two are connected. It's interesting you posted this as it was something I was thinking about earlier.

Working with my parts and healing my inner child is something that has been most effective in my recovery. Still though, long ways to go yet


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## Guest (Jan 31, 2011)

Good grief, had to edit as I make so many mistakes ....

I always wonder about a term like "identity crisis." I associate it wish say a middle aged man, who has dedicated his life to making money on the stock market regrets not having spent time with his children, and wished he had focused on other passions such as music. Or in a more dramatic sense, I suppose someone coming to terms with being gay (which I believe is biological) may have an "identity crisis." But that isn't really a medical term.

I was badly abused, and I could say, I don't know how I am supposed to behave in certain situations. I've had trouble speaking up for myself, I've gotten treated poorly, and tried to please people. I'm trying to prove I'm a "good girl." But I am also an adult who has accomplished a lot in my life. I think I KNOW who I am. I could best be that person, who DOES exist, if I weren't ill, especially my severe anxiety and DP/DR.

From the Merck Manual again: http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/sec15/ch197/ch197a.html

"Everyone occasionally experiences a failure in the *normal automatic integration of memories, perceptions, identity, and consciousness.* For example, people may drive somewhere and then realize that they do not remember many aspects of the drive because they are preoccupied with personal concerns, a program on the radio, or conversation with a passenger. Typically, such a failure, referred to as nonpathologic dissociation, does not disrupt everyday activities.
*
People with a dissociative disorder may totally forget a series of normal behaviors occupying minutes or hours and may sense missing a period of time in their experience. Dissociation thus disrupts the continuity of self and the recollection of life events. People may experience the following:*

*
Poorly integrated memory (dissociative amnesia)
*
Fragmentation of identity and memory (dissociative fugue or dissociative identity disorder)
*
Disruption of experience and self-perception (depersonalization disorder)"

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I have some problem with this definition. It was updated in 2008. But I don't think the cause MUST be some crisis of identity. It doesn't have to be from psychological trauma. It MIGHT be in some cases from physical head injury. From a traumatic life event or series of events.

But MPD has been dismissed essentially and redefined as Dissociative Identity Disorder and would seem to far more uncommon than it was thought to be during the 50s through the 90s.

In DP/DR I feel no "slipping" from one personality to each other, I feel "loss of self" "loss of my body" I feel I am "not alive." I am still ME, but so detached I cannot experience the world. The world seems to be a product of my own mind. I know I shouldn't feel that way. And it is so severe I can only see it as a bad neurological glitch.

I associate it with chronic anxiety in my case.

Dissociative fugue is very rare. I think dissociative amnesia is as well. DID is in debate -- there was a long debate about this a while back, where it may be associated with Borderline Personality Disorder.

I feel I am experiencing loss of Self. Not loss of Sandy, me, but loss of the proper perception of Self as it is schematically created in my brain. It is like having horrible deja vu. And as we know if it is distracted daydreaming in one's car, or "playing possum" in a fight/flight response ... that is NORMAL. We have an exaggeration of that mechanism, which is necessary for survival. The mechanism is "stuck on."

IMHO ... DP/DR are Dissociative Disorders, just as PTSD is an Anxiety Disorder. Depression is a Mood Disorder. These are categories ... umbrella categories grouping similar events/experiences/feelings. I do not see DP/DR as DID at all. And again, MPD is no longer a viable medical term, and is no longer in the DSM, Merck Manual, etc.


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## Guest (Jan 31, 2011)

Note, though I have chronic DP and DR and was abused, I do not have lapses in memory and don't experience any distortions in the experience of time. I also recall all of the verbal abuse, mental gaslighting, threats of abandonment, lack of love and neglect I experienced. I have no "repressed or hidden conflicts" about these things.

I have worked in many forms of therapy over the years -- I'm 52, and that includes psychoanalysis. That guy could have told me I had multiple personality (in the '80s) but he didn't. And in theory his background and focus was on trauma and MPD. I fit "the mold" and yet that is not what is wrong with me.

My full diagnosis is Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Depersonalization Disorder (w/Derealization), and Clinical Depression.

1. Many here came from very loving families or are the only mentally ill individual in their family
2. My family is packed with individuals with mental illness. Both of my parents, and a ton of cousins.

Cause and effect here are not clear.

To me DP/DR is a perceptual distortion of "SELF" ... just like an individual born without limbs can "feel" a phantom limb ... we are not "filling in our SELF" so something is sort of the opposite there. Instead of a phantom limb that is not there, we experience our "Self" disintegrating. What is happening in the brain is NOT clear. So many mechanisms are involved.


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## Guest (Jan 31, 2011)

never_giving_up said:


> My DP started when I had an identity crisis so I definitely think the two are connected. It's interesting you posted this as it was something I was thinking about earlier.
> 
> Working with my parts and healing my inner child is something that has been most effective in my recovery. Still though, long ways to go yet


*Never Giving Up*

1. Can you point me to a description of your identity crisis -- a story here, posts? Or could you talk about it. I'm curious.
2. Also, I love your banana on the llama. I tried to steal it but it won't "move" ...

Nite


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## shazada (jonathan) (Sep 22, 2004)

Hi everyone thanks for the replies - even for viewing my post!

Much appreciated.

In my case I know what caused the DP. It was not from an identity crisis though.

I always try and remind myself of this, and reason out why I am the way I am, especially when things 'intensify', and it feels once more like I have transcended everything.



> We are definitely changed and we did lose a lot of emotions which affect our usual interests and pleasures that we had in the past. It's like someone pulled the plug out from us and we are now an android devoid of everything that we were. But depression can do that as well. If you long for your old self then you are still in contact with it and have never left it completely.


flat - I think your description hits the nail on the head.

It definitely feels like a plug has been pulled out somewhere. Like I'm back to square one in a way. Maybe it is depression, I don't know.

I've noticed it all happens in cycles. I'll be going ok for a while, having adjusted to the current DP level, then after a while it seems as though the DP intensifies, at which point it feels like I've hit the identity crisis level, or have had the plug pulled out. At this point it feels like everything falls apart, and usually I haven't got the mental energy to convince myself otherwise, and 'pull my socks up'.

I still do the things I do normally, but doing them becomes meaningless, and I would much rather do other things - which I might not normally do.

It usually takes a long time for me to adjust to the new intensity (?), at which point the whole process inevitably repeats itself.

It is this occurence which gave rise to my question about some sort of connection between dissociation and identity loss.

I can totally relate to your comments tho Dreamer about the feeling of disintegration. Perhaps that is a better way to describe the feelings related to loss of the self, than to say it is an identity crisis.


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