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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

    Oh, thank you. That makes a lot of sense.

    I'm a very creative person with lots of imagination, and I remember my "scenarios" starting around the age of 10. This was around the same time I started bed-wetting. I must have been extremely stressed and used my "scenarios" to cope, huh. They started from actual play-time just before going to sleep and evolved into thoughts where I existed in another world. 

    When I went to secondary school (the bed-wetting had stopped by then), I would think about my "scenarios" constantly throughout the day as a way to escape the stress of school life. I would make up an alternate life for me during car journeys and such. I went through a period where the main alternate persona was a different person and had a completely different life to me. 

    Today, more than a decade since it started, I tend to have my "scenarios" in work when the shop floor is empty bar me; before going to sleep and after I wake up; during travel journeys; while winding down in bed after masking; and while I'm listening to music, also in bed. My bed is my safe space as I grew up having to share a room, and my siblings would take over the rest of the bedroom. I have 2 main people that I have "scenarios" about. One is me, but with things that will likely not happen taking place (like dragons). The other person is not me, but a person of the opposite gender that I created when I was around 14. He has a name and a family and a career. 

    The only voice in my head is me, but when I have a "scenario" as him, it's him that is in my head. I'm controlling his life and how he thinks. 

    One of my siblings has been diagnosed with maladaptive behaviour and Social Anxiety Disorder. It's from her that I've gotten the word "scenario" from. 

    This site defines what maladaptive behaviour is: https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Maladaptive+Behaviors 

    =)

Reply
  • in reply to Kit McDaydream

    Oh, thank you. That makes a lot of sense.

    I'm a very creative person with lots of imagination, and I remember my "scenarios" starting around the age of 10. This was around the same time I started bed-wetting. I must have been extremely stressed and used my "scenarios" to cope, huh. They started from actual play-time just before going to sleep and evolved into thoughts where I existed in another world. 

    When I went to secondary school (the bed-wetting had stopped by then), I would think about my "scenarios" constantly throughout the day as a way to escape the stress of school life. I would make up an alternate life for me during car journeys and such. I went through a period where the main alternate persona was a different person and had a completely different life to me. 

    Today, more than a decade since it started, I tend to have my "scenarios" in work when the shop floor is empty bar me; before going to sleep and after I wake up; during travel journeys; while winding down in bed after masking; and while I'm listening to music, also in bed. My bed is my safe space as I grew up having to share a room, and my siblings would take over the rest of the bedroom. I have 2 main people that I have "scenarios" about. One is me, but with things that will likely not happen taking place (like dragons). The other person is not me, but a person of the opposite gender that I created when I was around 14. He has a name and a family and a career. 

    The only voice in my head is me, but when I have a "scenario" as him, it's him that is in my head. I'm controlling his life and how he thinks. 

    One of my siblings has been diagnosed with maladaptive behaviour and Social Anxiety Disorder. It's from her that I've gotten the word "scenario" from. 

    This site defines what maladaptive behaviour is: https://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Maladaptive+Behaviors 

    =)

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