[ThoughtOnFire]

Do you feel that people don't know the real you? And that people haven't actually "met" you since onset of DPDR? And also that you haven't met or know people while dissociated?

 

[forestx5]

I wasn't the "real me" for forty years. The person that people saw was something of an act. During my lifetime, I had some lovely people try to connect with me on a meaningful level, but I rebuffed them and kept my distance.

I was hiding something ugly. Since I didn't understand it, I couldn't hope that anyone else could understand it either, so I kept up my defenses. I didn't want to, but felt like I had to.

I'm reminded of Ecclesiastes 3.1: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,"

An illness which spans four decades can have a significant impact on the seasons of life. It was painful to watch the time pass, knowing my seasons were changing and

my purpose was going unfulfilled.

 

[leminaseri]

Do you feel that people don't know the real you? And that people haven't actually "met" you since onset of DPDR? And also that you haven't met or know people while dissociated?

my brother said yesterday to me „even you do laugh, i can see on your eyes your inner is broken"...

 

[Absent]

Do you feel that people don't know the real you? And that people haven't actually "met" you since onset of DPDR? And also that you haven't met or know people while dissociated?

The real me is in such retreat within DPDR and that is in a tension with the need to interact outwardly (to get by socially). So I have to present a 'version' of me and I learnt how to appear to others, even though I don't emotionally experience my presence in whatever setting we meet. In that way I do represent my true self, but people only know that representation. It is not dishonest to who I am but I would say they are not knowing the real me. [People often say I seem fine and that they would not have guessed that I have a problem]. I cannot know how they feel about meeting me, I am not even 'there'. I don't retain having met people, they are generally 'shapes' and I struggle to know them. BUT it counts a lot that I know who I care about even though the feeling is negated in DPDR. It is going to be fascinating when I get back to realness but meanwhile meeting people is very contradictory in meaning, both ways.

 

[AnnaGiulia]

People who love me irl would tell me that they would still see "me" while I was DPd. My main issue was complete detachment from my identity, so it meant something to me, to know that at least superficially I am still the same person to them. However, they felt hurt by my non-responsiveness, as they really could not understand my profound detachment from myself. It tells me that people tend to maintain their image of you, even while you are DPd, but if they never experienced DP, they cannot understand that you cannot be there for them emotionally as you used to, because on some level you are not really there.