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Help! Identity Confusion with ASD, multiple personalities???

Confused Stingray

Background knowledge: I am in the process of being diagnosed with ASD and ADD. I also have gender dysphoria. I am concerned that I may also have OSDD 1-b, and therefore multiple personalities. 

Here is what I know:

  • I feel multiple "mental presences" that "push up" against mine and alter my thoughts and emotions.
  • My mental presences feel like they have different genders, ages, beliefs, and emotions.  
  • My mental presences' thoughts and emotions feel like they are coming from outside my self, but from inside my brain. 
  • Most of the time, I do not feel like a singular person, I feel like a blurry mix of people with a shifting gender identity.
  • When I do have moments of clarity where I feel singular, I am male. 
  • I do not act drastically different in different situations or around different people. 
  • I have very little amnesia- I have never woken up in a strange situation not knowing how I got there. 
  • I have no physical evidence of these presences taking over my body. 
  • I do not hear voices. 
  • I have not yet had a successful communication with these presences. 
  • I do not have psychosis, schizophrenia, or BPD. 

If you have ASD and identity confusion and know how to help, please do!  If you have an idea of what this is, please share it! If you know how to make it go away, please tell me! Thank you!

(Also, I am an older teen if that helps.)

Parents

  • Hi

    Since having to cope with school as far back as I remember I used to 'become someone else' in order to cope with school and social situations. Now I'm quite a bit older than you (in my 50's now) and back then my parents didn't know I had autism. I was in my twenties when I got my autism diagnosis. but even then PDA was not known about or mentioned and I'd always been told not to tell anyone about my 'secret world' I used to fantasize intensely as a child and barely lived in reality. Even the trip to the supermarket was somehow turned into a fantasy to cope with it  I think it was because i had extreme sound sensitivity and the only way I could cope was to shut the world out.

    When I got to about 16 I experienced hearing loss due to a medical problem, it was absolute bliss for me! I could function, I could hear myself think and learn! I decided I never wanted to be hearing again. when they gave me hearing aids I'd put them in but leave them switched off or dud batteries in! This triggered the creation of my first full time alter who then dealt with all life expectations (going to college, work etc) for most of the rest of my life.

    I don't have a confirmed dx of whether its PDA though I fit most of the symptoms list even from birth (been an extremely passive baby and having developmental and speech delays then suddenly 'catching up' with peers) but then I also fit many symptoms list of OSDD

    I'm not entirely sure  if I copied other people's behaviour and mannerisms because it was just an obsession with that person or because their 'personality template' was used to create an alter(as in DID).  If its DID its closer to OSDD where I'm still me but different versions of me in different situations and some major life events triggered major differences in an alters physical abilities too.

    What I learned was all children dissociate when very young (think of toddlers pretending to be unicorns or something daft) but they grow out of it by a certain age.  However autistic kids often retain the ability for alot longer to 'live in their own world' and if its a child with average or above intelligence with a rich imagination(due to PDA) the ability to dissociate will then be retained and possibly 'as in my case' used as a complete coping strategy to get round daily demands and situations they struggle with by creating other alters to 'handle the situation for them'.

    So I guess technically one can lead to the other!  So you end up having both conditions or it could be just one of them.  If you want a confirmed diagnosis though you're going to need a specialist in BOTH area's to rule one or the other out.

    Hope that makes sense

    Kit

  • in reply to Kit McDaydream

    also try  https://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/

    loads of useful information and people with fascinating systems!

    Edited to add, they also have an Autism forum on there under the 'Developmental' tab (top right of page) and have several members who have both Autism and DID.

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