How do I tell them???

Trigger Warning

Ok Imma give you guys a quick little background before I dive in.

I currently have four different personalities. I have Alex, Taylor, Katie, and Ken. Alex has been known the longest. He is the bad one. Only he is not bad to others, he is bad to me. I feel like he gets pleasure from hurting me, emotionally and physically. But it's using physically. By the way, Alex has been with me since I was at least 11.

Katie, Taylor, and Ken all have shown up recently. Taylor I've had without knowing it but the other two are new.

Katie is pretty much a soft-voiced girl. She is kinda OCD, and sometimes she comes out when I'm cleaning which I know is really weird but it seems to be a thing?? She is also the one that will try (now I have Taylor too but Katie was the first) to try to switch from Alex to her to protect me. Katie has been around for a couple months. Taylor is the very protective one, she is now the one that will switch from Alex to her if she can. Taylor comes out when we feel threatened or someone/something is threatening a loved one. She is a very tough, won't back down kinda gal. She is also Irish, so there is an accent. So Xander (my partner) knows when she comes out. Taylor is also very nice, definitely in a 'im not gonna take shit' mood constantly. When Xander and their roommate were fighting, Taylor came out and we just stood between them because we felt Xander was in danger. Xander was outside of the home and we were with them in the car driving away before I came back. That's when we felt Xander was safe. She came about two weeks ago.

Ken came literally last Monday, so about 5-6 days ago. Ken is a very silent type. He is also a flirt, so Xander hasn't met him yet but I probably know it's gonna be kinda weird haha. He came out when I was super p*****. He is more calm being mad. I wasn't even fully in rage but still was pretty angry, so he came out so I wouldn't say something I regretted to my boss.

The reason I was so mad was because the week started with Xander leaving for a trip, which they won't be back till the 17th, ugh. I almost fainted on several different occasions because of over-heating, my car currently has no A/C and my apartment does not either. Plus when vacuuming buildings for work, I have a vacuum backpack I wear and I'm already bad with heat. Also mixed with that I've been having exhaustion problems, I will suddenly become very exhausted and have bad dizzy spells. It's gotten to the point where Xander has had to catch me from falling while standing up, and help me up the stairs to the bed. When cleaning a laundry room a black trash bag full of used cat litter someone threw in there ripped at the bottom and it went everywhere. My tire blew because I had to slam on my brakes (my brakes suck) cause someone slammed on theirs in front of me and I swerved into the curb, which literally put a whole in my tire. My boss was already pissed at me (next thing) so I literally had to DRIVE ON MY FLAT to work. Luckily it was 2 minutes away so it wasn't far, but it was horrible. My boss is being a total b**** because I put my 2 week notice in since I'm moving to a different location. And I'm not gonna drive an hour one way, two times a day every weekday. That's just plain stupid. I was looking for a new job a couple months before, but when she literally told me I couldn't go to my therapy appointments for three weeks straight, I was done. Plus all of them she told me the morning of the appointment, so I got a cancelation fee each time. I am just done with her. There is A LOT more about my boss that's f***** up, but I won't tell all of it, its too much haha.

Anyways, back to the original topic. The last is Alex, as I said before he has been with me for many years. He is the a****** I wish would leave. He is very rude and just an over-all dick. He can be very violent. But only towards me. Like self-harm and such. When I was younger and had my first suicide attempt, Alex was the one in my head pushing me to do it. He has always pushed me to hurt myself, mentally and physically. He still is constantly telling me to hurt myself, not eat/purge, and just general things to do that I used to do to damage myself. Probably the worst one was when we hit ourselves with a mental base ball bat, wasn't fun. Xander has met him a few times, and they're actually really good at handling him. They usually just hold him down, or sit on him. Xander used to weight lift a lot so they're MUCH stronger than me. The only time Alex is pushy or violent to others, is if they're holding him back from hurting me. I'm trying to learn how to some-what control him. I've started to get good at making him come out on command or a bit after I kinda want him to, but the really hard part is to make him go away. Right now if he comes out, he chooses when he leaves. I literally don't have control when he leaves. He is also the worst because with the other three, I can somewhat choose when I want to come back, they're nice about it. But Alex only leaves when he wants to. I also have no control of my actions or what I'm saying when he is out, which also unlike the others I have a bit of control with them. But their good to me and others so it's not necessary. That's the most difficult part with him really, not having control. When I try to not let him out, I pretty much go into a panic/spaz/trembling episode that can last hours. And it's just not good. He's not good in general.

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about/ask is a big question. So Xander and I are going to be staying with their dad until we find a new place to live. Xander knows how to handle my switches, they've experienced them (except Ken). But Xander is literally out of the country until the 17th. So 11 more days. But Pat (their dad) doesn't know ANYTHING about my switches. Xander and I talked about maybe I should talk to him a little bit about them, just so he is aware. But I don't know what to say or how to say it. "Yeah now that I might be living with you in your house with Xander, I wanted to tell you that I have four other personalities and one is constantly trying to hurt me when he comes out. Ok? Good talk, see ya later" It's not something I'm looking forward to. I might be fine for the next 11 days, but just in case I might need to warn him sooner than later. Cause if something happens and I tell him after it happens, it's gonna be a worse outcome I feel.

But also the hard part about this is, my current therapist and the last one are the only like adult adults I've talked to about Alex and the others. So literally no one in my family knows, not even my parents. My brother doesn't know. Most of my friends don't know. Literally probably around 5 people know in real life know at least a bit about my switches. And a few I've talked to on sites like this. So I need to tell Pat I feel like, but I'm more worried about telling my parents. My dad doesn't really understand mental health. He didn't realize I was actually having depression or suicidal thoughts or anything until mom and him came home to find the ambulance there with an EMT checking my thighs to make sure I didn't need stitches. Also after I went to the mental hospital, I started to go to therapy and take meds for it. The first time I went to Pine Rest was about 6 years ago in December. About a year or so after that my dad asked me when we were eating dinner when I'm going to stop going to therapy. Shortly after that he asked me how long I'd be on my pills. So me having four other people in my body/head would confuse the hell out of him. Plus I don't know if he would believe it. I mean, I lived with them till I was about 18 - 19 years old, and they never saw him come out. I would always 'go for a run' which was me running outback (120ish acres) until I couldn't breathe and collapsed, or would hide somewhere. That was how I used to deal with Alex, I would a) hurt myself as he wanted b) ran until I collapsed and couldn't get up or c) work out until I couldn't anymore. By the working out, I mean till I'm exhausted and can't anymore or I've hurt myself. My dad stopped letting me use the punching bag after a few times of me almost legitimately breaking my hand. But now I live in a city. So I won't do A, I'm recovering from self-harm and I refuse to do it again. I can't/won't do B, its not a good/safe place to just go running, especially to that extent. And I can't do C at the moment either, maybe after Xander and I get our own place I can start working out again, but not to that extent either. My mom doesn't know either I talk to her more about stuff because my dad and I don't have the best relationship due to past issues, but I don't tell her the really bad stuff. I let it slip when I was breaking down on the phone with her that I was molested, but I didn't tell her who or where or what exactly happened so I think she shrugged it off. When I went to Pine Rest the first time and my parents came to get me, we went over the safety plan for when I go home. I had to comfort my mother while she was there with me crying. That's how it seems to work sometimes, I comfort her when there is a bad situation. Which isn't entirely bad, I just don't want her to have to deal with this also.

So yeah, I want to know how you guys think I should handle this. Telling my parents is something I need to do, but not right away I don't think. Telling Pat I feel like should be done soon, especially with the way I've been feeling lately. I just don't know how to even start, or talk about it, or even finish. I enjoy educating people on my issues, IF THEY ASK. When it comes to just kind of randomly telling someone about them, it doesn't happen, ever. But uh yeah. Anyone have any advice or have gone through something similar? Anything will help. Thank you so much guys.

[MAS_Nurse]

Hello Damehook

Thank you for your message. You have such a lot going on and I can see your difficulty letting your family know.

You are right that they need to know. Do you think you could tell Pat for now as Xander is away and you may need more support?

Our members may have some experiences that they could share, so members please get back to Dame hook if possible.

I put a trigger warning at the beginning of your message as there was some content and descriptions that could upset more vulnerable members.

Please do keep in touch with us especially while Xander is away. We are here for you.

Take care and best wishes

[Stilltrying_]

Hi Damehook and thank you so much for sharing on here. I can see the dilemna you are in. Unfortunately many people are uneducated or scared about this condition and you can unwittingly experience prejudice from people who are simply scared of anything they don't know or doesn't make sense to them.

For this reason and for your own self protection I would be minimal in what you say to Pat about this. The last thing you need is for the whole thing to be misinterpreted through others ignorance. I would say that you sometimes get mood swings and you apologise in advance if you do or say anything a bit "weird". If Pat asks you what you mean just be vague and say that you are a bit moody and not to be worried about it.

To tell someone in the longterm you need to be very careful. There is nothing wrong with your condition at all. It is a perfectly understandable reaction to repeted childhood trauma and has protected you over many years; but for some people they don't understand so call you "crazy" or just stop associating with you.

This is the reason why it's important to only share with people who are going to support you.

It sounds like you are all getting help with this which is great. There are books you can get which tell you how to explain in the longterm if you really need to ; but being honest I would be very wary of that. You need to protect yourself.

xx

[Bonkersy in reply to Stilltrying_]

Hi, I'm sorry in that I hate to see you having so much going on in addition to what is already a challenging life (lives), I can't pretend to understand the how's and whys of multiple personalities, but I used to have a friend who had a similar life. I'm sorry I'm sounding very clumsy here.

I really just wanted to say that not everyone will judge you harshly, only you can know how your family would react if you opened up and told them about your lives, but I wish you all the best future, and I'm sat here rooting for you xxxx