Letters to Myselves

I have recently come to understand myself as having a dissociative identity disorder.

I initially identified as not having amnesia because I do not feel emotionally disconnected from any significant aspect of my life. But I have come to believe that my central identity shares an emotional space with everyone else, but not much episodic memory.

I can sometimes trigger a memory with the right feeling, to connect me and whoever lived it. I can reason what things might have lead to a feeling I do remember. But it’s quite difficult for me to create an accurate narrative memory of my life as I change among roles. Which is what people with better perspective might call amnesia.

It’s difficult to get perspective on one’s self without diverse social assistance. I grew up in a place where switching identities literally went unnoticed, not just by everyone else but by me. I couldn’t tell.

Even looking back I can’t feel it, because at the time I didn’t know anyone had a different experience, and my environment did not provide any obvious examples.

Thank you for talking about amnesia in a way I could feel and connect with, even before I was prepared to know and perceive it.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.

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