Switching

So let’s take a minute to talk about switching and what that entails for both the clinician and the patient and my personal experiences of switches as some examples. Also switching can be consensual, forced, or triggered. Switches can be slow or fast. Slower ones usually being more consensual while more rapid ones tending to be triggered or forced switches.

So switching also know as changing alters can occur for a multitude of reasons. Mainly though in my experience some memory whether it’s implicit or explicit memory. Explicit memory is a memory that can be intentionally and consciously recalled. This is your memory of riding a bike, of falling over the handlebars and skinning your knee. The other is implicit memory, which is an experiential or functional form of memory that cannot be consciously recalled. So usually it can be anything from talking with my counselor about previous trauma’s to even an environmental flashback that can be a trigger for a switch.

Switching is usually unconsciously done by people with DID at least when starting treatment. As you start to grow and understand your system you can start to develop co-consciousness of switches. What helped me and helps me see my switching the most currently is journaling where I can visibly see my handwriting, grammar, and syntax change and even feelings as I am journaling change.

Personal Switching Experiences and Examples

I still currently have some switching that leaves me confused, disoriented, or even if really trigger I can experience amnesia of complete hours. For example not to long in I decided to see a friend of mine and drive my dad’s car without a license which was fine I am a great driver just didn’t pay parking tickets and lost it a while back anyways it was fine until he ended up doing airduster blacking out which I disliked being around and felt abandoned by him and therefore triggering me because he would blackout and forget I’d asked him to stop doing it so we could talk about some stuff and hang out. I then switched to another child/pre-teen alter who was triggered by abandonment took over my body and cussed at my friend and was not good because as I was doing that I crashed the car into the garage by accident kids can’t drive. I had no memory of the incident till the next day when I went for a walk and saw the garage door all messed up. So you can imagine how my dad reacted he doesn’t quite understand my diagnosis or that I literally am not 25 sometimes and have amnesia about things I say or do. Switching can also be more subtle. Like when my therapist is talking about the previous incident my protector/caretaker alter Jakob came out and I was co-conscious then and said “Why doesn’t my dad understand that I protect the kids but sometimes I fail and they call the kids liars because they don’t get it?” Or something to that effect.

Physical Signs of Switching

• Daydreaming, spacing out, or eyes glazed over
• Acting different, or using a different tone of voice or different gestures
• Suddenly switching between emotions or reactions to an event, such as appearing frightened and timid, then becoming bombastic and violent.
• Heavy blinking as if just waking up from sleep
• Mild muscle spasms or jerks as if a mild seizure
• Disorientation or confusion with surroundings
• Checking the clock or ones watch constantly
• Headaches mild or severe
• Adjusting clothing or posture
• Changes in syntax, tone, or vocabulary

Internal Changes With Switching

• Spacing out
• Depersonalization
• Derealization
• Blurred vision
• Feeling distanced or slowed down
• Feeling an alters presence
• Feeling time jumping
• Memory loss
• Sometimes even out of body experiences can occur

Two of those I need to go into more depth are depersonalization which is “the persistent feeling of observing oneself from outside one’s body or having a sense that one’s surroundings aren’t real.”. And Derealization which is ” Derealization is an alteration in the. perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Other symptoms include feeling as though one’s environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring, and depth.”

Why Switches Can Confuse Therpists, Families, and Friends?

So obviously I’ve written a lot about my experiences and signs of switching but why is it sometimes confusing, scary, or even at times unsafe for the people we care about or the therapists that are supposed to help use understand ourselves more?

I asked my first therapist treating me with DID this question and many times my alters have brought it up in therapy even before I was diagnosed with a simple “Why do my parents and friends sometimes say I do or say things and then accuse me of lying later when I say I had no memory of that happening?”

The simplest answer is it’s disconcerting for someone to overreact sometimes even drastically to a environmental or social situation or act childish when your a 25 year old male and you throw a temper tantrum and then have no memory of that occurring.

The more experience your therapist is with DID or trauma work in general will be a life saver when it comes to them understanding and being able to pick up on. To be a great therapist with this specific disorder you have to be a great body language reader and see the cracks before the patient does. Most therapists can engineer switches to occur and are taught to do this but only to ensure the safety of the system. For example, I used to be a self-mutilating and purging guy one of my alters still is though not anymore her name is Eabha and she’s 12. But this is how the conversation went something along these lines.

Host: I’m here because I’ve been cutting and purging again and I don’t know why I can’t stop.

********

Therapist: *recognized switch* Who am I talking to right now? And why have you been cutting yourself and making Andrew throw up?

Eabha: Eabha (childlike posture grabbed pillow to hug) Andrew (host) gets so emotional all the time and can’t handle the anxiety and depression so I help him numb it by cutting and purging because it ends the constant emotional stuff we go through constantly. I just want him to be happy. Life is tough but it makes him calm down we all calm down after that’s why. It’s not like I do it on purpose I just need a break and it’s easier.

Therapist: Eabha I understand you all feel so much but hurting yourself and making yourself sick is really not healthy is it?

Eabha: Guess not but works.

Therapist: How about this why don’t I teach you and Andrew some ways to deal with it without doing those things and you promise me to not do them for a week and just use them? And if they don’t work we can find something that does but you could’ve killed Andrew I understand you want a emotional break and are just trying to help so let me help you help him?

Eabha: Really? *shyly*

Therapist: Yes so can I speak to Andrew and you stay and listen carefully?.

Eabha: Okay I’ll do it for Andrew and everyone else *crying* (Side note I’m hazy but my therapist gave me her notes but this is where I became co-conscious for the first time)

Therapist: Andrew?

Me: Yes? *a little confused*

Therapist: Is Eabha listening?

Me: Yes *less hazy*

So that’s how a switch can be engaged would be a better word then engineered I think to be honest. But anyways my therapist taught me a EMDR coping mechanism called Containment Visualization where you contain your emotions or flashbacks or thoughts (be it a mind castle, house, or in my case I choose the titanic and a big safe sunken under the water) that you can’t handle until the next session and then can discuss them in a safe space. Therefore my therapist was able to let Eabha protect me and also able to protect my body and let Andrew eat and not damage my beautiful pale skin.

Summary

So sometimes my posts will have different syntax, vocabulary, or tone to them and that could be a sign that another alters present or as I did in this one I was co-conscient with Eabha to write about engaging other alters in therapy. The point I want to let be run home to all people with DID is that your alters are there for you they were adaptive coping mechanisms and yes switching at times can be scary even for me who is studying psychology and mostly know when it happens. But your alters are your biggest allies always going to be there to fight and protect you even those you think don’t serve a purpose or are hurting you are doing that for a reason. Now I have been diagnosed with DID for little over 2 years now and am just starting to become co-conscient and sometimes I do slip back as with my dad, my friend, and the car showed but the point is progress and Rome wasn’t built in a day neither were We so its going to take some time to rebuild and rekindle parts of ourselves through therapy work. Remember loving all your parts is the biggest and hardest step to take it took me a year and a half and 6 psych programs and 4 therapists to do so just take it slow. Get a good therapist that doesn’t judge you or classify you and one especially one you can talk to and all of your system can open up too eventually. It’s a tall order but We got this. DID PRIDE!!😊