Good News and Bad

I think a lot of people have issues with being "alone" in their head, which is why so much of our society is geared towards distraction these days. I don't really know what helps with that--a few of my friends are very big believers in meditation, which in a way is like a structured exercise to use that very quietness inside to help us out psychologically (and spiritually, depending on where you're coming from).

My next comments involve quite a few IFs which I'm gonna state with big caveats:

So IF you are suffering from DID (as I brought up in your other thread on this topic) and IF I understand how DID works correctly (and seriously, I'm a total layperson when it comes to mental illness so please only take my comments as those of someone concerned but quite possibly wrong) then Dean is not really a separate person from you but rather some distinct facet or facets of you that owing to trauma "dissociated" from your core personality. As far as I know, how DID is usually treated or approached is there is an attempt made to integrate the one or more extra personality back into the main personality (which would be "you") which usually involves attempting to figure out and address the traumatic event(s) which led to the splintering of the person's personality/psyche in the first place.

So then if all those IFs are somewhat accurate, you are a part of Dean and Dean is a part of you... you just "work" separately and express as different people. Hopefully that makes some kind of sense and is not just the ramblings of someone woefully ill-informed.

What really makes me think you're coping with DID is how you describe Dean as wanting to protect the two of you and how he "takes over" when you are in some kind of conflict with someone else. I mean that sounds like classic dissociative identity disorder where another personality emerges specifically to protect or shelter the main identity.

Anyway, whether I'm talking out of my arse or not about your symptoms, I think you're incredibly brave for working with someone on this--I know there is a shitload of stigma attached to any kind of mental "issues" and I'm sure it can't have been easy to be labelled as "crazy" by some of your schoolmates and to have had to spend time in a mental hospital/institution. Getting help and trying to sort through whatever is going on is way more than many people are able to manage and while I know it must be tough, and probably will stay tough for a certain period of time as you work through stuff, you really deserve a lot of congratulations.

Hopefully you can take some comfort in the fact that, kinda like with being gay, struggling with mental illness or issues or problems or whatever you want to call it is not a struggle unique to you, so essentially you are not alone. There have been many, many brilliant people who have done wonderful and impressive things throughout history who have struggled, if not with exactly what you're struggling with, then definitely with stuff of similar seriousness. So if you at times feel isolated, remind yourself that you're actually not. (*hug*)