34(F) Earlier this year I saw a trauma therapist for EMDR and I ended up being diagnosed with OSDD. My presentation is extremely vague and I'm still trying to grasp and recognise exactly what this means.

I always feel like myself and I don't see distinct separate parts. Overtime I have noticed that I have parts that have conflicting opinions or slightly different tweaks in personalities. Occasionally I feel like dressing more like I did when I was a teen, rock/punk and it reminds me of the mood that I was in with the thought process when I was a teen but I don't myself feel like a team I still feel like the 34 year old mum of two children. This doesn't seem super on typical as people dress differently on the day depending on how they feel. I have started noticing that I have behaviors that I'm not super in control of more like I'm just behind the front and I'm on autopilot not understanding what's driving my actions it usually happens when I'm triggered but it's very hard to identify and have insite into. More recently I've come to see behaviors that are triggered and come out when my 'manager thinking' is activated.

This is like when somebody gives me feedback I believe that I am truly open and welcome feedback, in fact I ask for it, but I am hidden from myself and don't realize that when I receive feedback I then become defensive and start to justify myself or back myself making the feedback harder to get in, I still hear it but there's definitely a defensive part that jumps to my aid to defend me. This happens a lot with close relationships which can inadvertently trigger me and then I act one way while thinking another. It's only when people reassure me or call me out for the behaviour that I am able to see it for what it is accept it and learn and grow.

Also since the diagnosis I've gone back in time to some historical encounters and periods and realized I've had whole conversations with people that I don't recall, have even caught up with someone and don't have that memory. I wouldn't have thought that I experienced some amnesic barriers but when I look back historically there's a whole bunch of the timeline that I just don't have well or if I do have certain memories they're very vague and fuzzy. I had always noticed that my memory was never great but didn't think anything more than just your typical standard ADHD overstressed overworked memory lapses. I still despite grounding techniques don't have any internal communication and like I said there's definitely different sort of flavors or masks that I can see that come automatically without me realizing which I'm able to recognize better but it's still hard to grasp the diagnosis.

One of the best parts of awareness I've been able to capture is the disassociative disorder diagnosis and that I've realized that 90% of my time is spent in chronic disassociation, and it now make sense why she said I'm not able to do EMDR yet, I need to address the disassociation because if I go to reprocess the traumatic memories my mind will just disassociate and then it won't allow the process to happen.

I feel like every time I make a breakthrough I remember the aha moment but I don't remember what it was about and I keep hiding from myself even though I'm slowly unwrappingly layers of the onion. It was very validating to be told that my effect of the traumas I've experienced are significant because every other therapist I've had in the last 20 years have all thought that I'm doing just fine because I have such a high level of functionality and that I function so well that there's no red flags, just depression just anxiety, but I've always known there's more.

This trauma therapist saw through all of that and realized straight away that I have a full-blown disassociative disorder and then when talking about certain scenarios she identified the OSDD and cPTSD. I'm also neuro spicy and was diagnosed with ADHD and autism after my daughter was, but this is likely due to truama. This was also very insightful but I think the one diagnosis that takes the cake is the disassociative disorder.

Does anyone else have OSDD present vague and not distinct like mine, is it because my parts don't trust me and don't feel safe that they don't allow me access to realise what's happening I'm only allowed to peel one layer of the onion at a time and it's been very slow.

I'm definitely an intellectualiser, so have started concentrating on the feelings trapped in my body I'm disassociating from. Regularly during therapy sessions as soon as I explore my body, which feels very unsafe it's like the parts jump out and all of a sudden I'll be hopelessly in tears or extremely triggered, I don't know if this is technically switching that's happening in front of this therapist but I'm only really able to gain that state with her guidance so I can feel safe to explore it, the disassociation usually kicks in pretty quickly though and then we just focus on that small snippet that's been able to come to surface. Not sure if that's more the cptsd, that there's no threat in the room but there's emotion stored up that doesn't fit the current situation.

I'm curious to hear others thoughts or insights to help me process.