Question:
Hi, I’m new to talking about these things and I have no idea what alters are, I’m not even sure if I’m in the right place but…. I’ve been suffering panic and sleep disorder and anxiety for about 4 years now, I get really scared sometimes, one thing I hate is when I’m looking through my eyes but I feel so separate from what’s going on, it seems so unreal, intense, bright. People talking but I miss the words, it makes me feel like running away to where I won’t be of any trouble to anyone, sounds irrational I know….I get this feeling that if I stay in certain situations where I’m either trapped or theres too much going on I’ll go crazy or something. I dislike myself for my problem, it’s like my energy is out of balance I drift between states, I’m avoiding people and it makes me feel even worse, it’s making me feel really sick. Can someone direct me to where I should go about this ? I need some suggestions for help, I thought it might be dissociation, I don’t know. — Mark S-D
Response:
Hi and welcome to the group! So much of what you describe used to be so familiar to me. 
ALot of it sounds like what I’ve always thought of as anxiety/panic. My t’pists call it either anxiety or post traumatic stress reactions. Also, it sounds like dissociation. Especially feeling separate from everything and it feels unreal. Thanks to about four years in therapy and some miserably hard work I don’t have nearly as many of these problems as I used to. Of course I have replaced some of them with _other_ problems, but… 
~~~ I was diagnosed with a learning disability that is probably part of the dissociation because of my problem with not hearing/understanding what people say at times. Overall, I can’t tell you what you ‘have’ but you sound enough like me that I figure you are in the right group (confused grin). Other than that, alters are one term for the other personalities (parts, others, people, facets, etc.) living in a person’s body. This generally refers to someone with multiplicity (used to be called multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder). If a person feels/believes that the others in the body are aspects of themself or feels connected to the others inside in some what that indicates that these others aren’t separate personalities they are generally considered to be not alters. However, these terms are all just technical babbling and really don’t mean alot in real life (as if _I_ know what real life is right now *very big grin*). Basically, you can call the different internal aspects of yourself anything you want (unless they have names they prefer you use of course *grin*) and consider yourself as dissociative as you’d like to. It really doesn’t matter in the end because the paths for healing will still be the same overall. So, welcome and I hope you can learn to feel connected and a part of this group! 
Rainbow Colors (Jill) – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Hi, I’m new to talking about these things and I have no idea what alters are, I’m not even sure if I’m in the right place but…. I’ve been suffering panic and sleep disorder and anxiety for about 4 years now, I get really scared sometimes, one thing I hate is when I’m looking through my eyes but I feel so separate from what’s going on, it seems so unreal, intense, bright. People talking but I miss the words, it makes me feel like running away to where I won’t be of any trouble to anyone, sounds irrational I know….I get this feeling that if I stay in certain situations where I’m either trapped or theres too much going on I’ll go crazy or something. I dislike myself for my problem, it’s like my energy is out of balance I drift between states, I’m avoiding people and it makes me feel even worse, it’s making me feel really sick. Can someone direct me to where I should go about this ? I need some suggestions for help, I thought it might be dissociation, I don’t know. — Mark S-D
– I am in the process of becoming, so this space is blank.
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