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[tigrin.livejournal.com]

hey everyone... I've been debating about posting here for a while... I've been lurking for maybe a few weeks now and figured I should introduce myself. or something.

my name is Krystina and I'm 16 years old... I'm turning 17 on June 11th. I don't want to bore everyone with a long complicated description of myself and my condition so I'll try and keep this brief, sorry... well, short history... I have a fraternal twin sister, she's two minutes older than me and almost my complete opposite... my parents divorced when I was 8 but I see both of them regularly... as far as I can remember (which isn't saying much as my memory is terrible) I've always been very creative and just... strange. I was always making up stories when I was little, and would pretend I was different animals... I think that started when my dog died when I was 6 and I sort of took up the role. I used to pretend my stuffed animals were real people, and I had dozens of "imaginary friends" I would talk to and would talk to me back and so forth... to this day I still have internal conversations a lot. but I don't remember too much about how I used to be. my memory was actually pretty good when I was younger but it seems to have degenerated to almost useless recently... which is why I started keeping a daily online journal three years ago... though I've been keeping journals since I was 7.

rambling. anyways. I found out about dissociative disorders last September. At the time, I don't know what I was looking for... a couple months before that I kept having weird trigger episodes, where I kept feeling like I was feeling someone else's feelings and thoughts... to be more specific, one of my "character"'s feelings, Tai, who I've had for almost four years now. and I think at one point someone mentioned "multiple personalities" around me... I found out about DID and started finding websites and books on it and such. eventually I told my mother about it, and while she just thinks I'm being extremely weird, she helped me find a therapist through Sidran. I told my stepmother and my father about it around the same time... my stepmother seemed really sympathetic, I think at one point she was especially borderline... my dad seemed really diffident like it was the biggest bunch of crap he'd ever heard. I've never told my sister, that would be like mental suicide... she doesn't understand "weird" things.

ever since September it's been something of a rollercoaster with me. in some ways I'm inclined to believe a lot of what I'm experiencing and have experienced is mood swings, teen angst, or typical teenage identity confusion. or that I might even be faking it, considering how much information I've absorbed about dissociation and multiplicity... however, it doesn't really concide with the fact that a lot of what I've experienced, I was unaware of what was happening at the time, or did not know it had any connection to dissociation... it doesn't explain my history and the events with Tai before I found out everything I know. I'm not saying I'm multiple but I'm not saying I'm not, either. though now it's starting to get more of a concern because I've been having triggered suicidal episodes and now Teri's thinking I should be put on medication.


I guess the real point of this pointless introduction is... how do you know? how do you know if it's just mood swings or teen angst or an ear infection or not? would it be better for me to go with it and try and find out more about who I really am, or ignore it and write it off as just me being weird and making a big deal out of nothing? hard questions, sorry... I'm not asking for a diagnosis or anything, just your opinions... thank you for reading, anyway.

Comments

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

You have good points, thanks... I did jump to extreme conclusions when I first found about it and eventually stopped and wondered what the hell I was doing. because the more I poked at it the more it kind of scared them away. and it has given me a good deal of backlash when I started acting so dramatic. I know there's a middle ground and I'm trying to just let things work out on their own. Teri has never mentioned any diagnosis around me and I don't want one... fitting into labels is not always such a great idea. so I'm trying to stay really open about it and I'm not making any conclusions anymore...