DID

[Mr. E]

Would DID be covered in this topic area ... I have heard it described as "complex ptsd" which is less stigmatized by far than DID.

[Cheldoll]

I think so! I honestly don't know much about it myself, so I'd love to hear your experiences.

[RSRA]

It seems appropriate to me! I think that A LOT more people dissociate when they experience trauma than will admit it, specifically because of the stigma it carries. I for one would be very curious about your experiences with this if you're willing to share!

[Mr. E]

We will share about anything you might wish to know.

First of all we usually use the plural "we" since it feels more appropriate to us. Most of the time the "person" the world "sees" is actually 3 to 4 of us working in tandem, depending on the situation and what we need to be at the moment. It's rare when one alter will come all the way forward. I (the host personality) rarely lose more than an hour or two here and there, an improvement that has come about after working in therapy to achieve co-consciousness with main alters.

Up to a point in our lives we thought that everyone heard voices in their head and things like that. Why wouldn't we think so since we had nothing to compare it to.

Growing up "in the church" we were thought to be possessed by demons. Excorcism (sp?) was tried twice, to no avail of course, and we were told that we were evil. That we had sinned and allowed the devil inside us. That we must renounce the devil and all this other stuff.

We started going to a counselor when we were about 10 (we think anyway).

We were diagnosed at age 11 or around there originally. That person stopped counseling with us after 3 years because the mother of us said that we were not making "progress". We later found out that this person wasn't really qualified to help. We wish she would have sent us to someone else. We then lived 19 years thinking we were schizophrenic but too afraid to say anything about it for fear of what people's reactions would be.

We started counseling with our current therapist in 2010 or 2011. We went to him originally for severe depression and anxiety. Approximately 8 months later he decided we had DID. Keep in mind that we never told him about the original diagnosis or any of our history really.

Angel, one of our protectors (male age 22), made himself known to us.

It was really scary and confusing because we had convinced ourselves that he was imaginary, and in fact all the voices and other things were imaginary and that we were just deluded. (Okay I should clarify here that I mostly thought these things. Some of my others knew, Angel had known since when we were dxed)

We have been counseling with the same therapist for almost 3 years now.

This last December we hit a point where we just gave up. We tried really hard to convince him that we made it all up. That we have been lying and we are crazy and none of it was real. So he allowed us to get a second opinion. The other therapist only confirmed the dx. So we decided to accept it, finally, maybe. LOL

There seems to be a lot of misinformation out there about DID. Multiples (as some like to call us) do not suddenly "switch" in public. We do not suddenly become someone else and demand to be called by another name or announce that we are now someone else. Having DID developed from a need to "hide" from abusers. To be invisible. To blend into our environment and avoid attention. Most multiples remain unknown to their friends and family and even our therapist has a has a hard time telling when we switch. DID is also a spectrum disorder. So different people have it to varying degrees. A person can have 1 to as many as over 100 alters, which blows my mind personally, we are 13 in number as far as we are aware. Generally the more alters a person has the more severe the abuse but everyone is different so I hate to make generalizations.


So any and all questions are welcome. If we cannot answer your question or do not know the answer we will say so and we will ask some of our DID contacts if they know the answer. Also we will try and find some links to sites with info. if anyone would be interested.

Thank you for your responses and polite interest. We look forward to getting to know you all better.

[Cheldoll]

Wow, fascinating! Sounds like a hard journey just to get a diagnosis. I literally winced when I read that they tried exorcism. And twice?? Because one failed time wasn't traumatic enough?

You mentioned your mother sent you to a bad counselor and basically gave up after a few years. I'd like to know more about how your friends/family have reacted and treated you. Was there anyone that was actually supportive?

[Mr. E]

Chel,

The excorcisms were pretty awful. We were... 8 the first time and maybe 12 the second time??? Although we can't be sure of age. The persons involved were well meaning of course but uneducated as far as mental health is concerned. We forgive them. They did what they knew how to do with what they thought they were seeing.

"We are legion for we are many" LOL

Okay some of us forgive them anyway.

We don't think the mother believes the dx but her last comment on it was "I just want to see you happy" ha ha but that's better than denial out right. I don't have access to the memories from that time so I have no idea what really happened or why the counselor stopped seeing us. I have no idea what we said to her or why she came to believe that we had/have DID. I've tried to contact her and have not been able to get a hold of her. It would be interesting to see her notes on us if she still has them.

The sister of us went to the same psych 101 class we did in which we watched a documentary that "proved" that DID is not a valid diagnosis. She adamantly refuses to believe it and always drags out the extreme cases that have come into the public eye. We don't talk to her much about it anymore. Our T (therapist) says that it's because she would have to accept that the father did what he did. Which really hurts some a lot because she was the closest 3D person we had and her denial is a permanent space between us. We have never questioned her bi-polar dx and have even tried to be supportive, so it's stunning that she cannot do the same for us.

If not for our T and the website we discovered for those dx'd with DID we wouldn't still be here. Not being melodramatic. Just a matter of fact. T and the others on the website/forum have been our main source of social support.

We are excited about being here though as we feel it's important to reach out and get to know more people who struggle with different things.

It is hard to be DID and be a single parent. I would not be afraid to be open about who we are but I have two young children and I am terrified that at some point someone might use my dx against me. My ex is very vindictive and sneaky. And not a safe person for my children to be with. SO there is always that fear. My T has always said that if he felt we endangered the children in any way he would tell us straight out and take action. (He used to work for Child and Youth) And we trust him and believe that this is so and respect him because he values the children.

Okay sorry perhaps we got a bit off topic there! ha ha

Why don't you tell us something about you?

[ghughes1980]

Wow, props go to you for managing this, seriously amazing. Has anyone figured out why you are this way? Do you have insight into the initial trauma? I'm not asking for details that's way too personal just a yes or no is fine. Traumatic stress has always fascinated me and I often wonder why the brain does what it does when confronted with situations that are severe. Disassociation particularly since I do that and I'm not 100% sure on the mechanics of triggers, why some things send the message to completely shut down and escape but other things just set off horrendous "climb the walls" panic.

[Mr. E]

ha ha ha thank you
hmmmm.... well as you can imagine at first this was something we (she) could not accept
according to most credible sources DID develops in people when they are emotionally/physically/sexually abused in such a way that the mind protects itself by escaping
by going away while "someone else" suffers the abuse
people who have it tend to dissociate more easily than other people so we wonder if there is a genetic component
we have long suspected that the parts of the brain that deal with sleep also play a major role in the "disorder"
our theory seems to be supported by the principles of EMDR therapy (something we have just begun reading about)
Anway
we know it is similar to PTSD in that memories are stored with all the emotional and physical experiences left in tact
only the actual things that happened are "stored" in different parts of "us"
Do we know for sure what happened to us? No, sometimes we want to know, sometimes she thinks suicide would have been better than therapy as things have definetley gotten more challenging for us as we first became aware of each other and then had to find ways to work together (unpleasant for her mostly ha ha )
Those of us who are here at the front writing this know that we were abused sexually and physically by the father and possibly others and mentally and emotionally (and sometimes physically) by the mother.
We "know" what we know from the bits and pieces that have come out in therapy and amongst ourselves.
We have had flashbacks and abreactions of things that we don't want to think could possibly be true.
We know there was an enduring and unhealthy fascination with sex and sexual things from an age where there should have been none and others bits and pieces.
Hard to really describe. We know something happened. We know we are afraid of things we should have no reason to fear.

Hope that answers your question? We get lost sometimes. And we are used to talking to the others on the DID forum and so we don't know how much you already know and how much we should say. SO apologies if the explanation was tedious.

[ghughes1980]

Thank you for sharing, I know it's hard to even write things down with the risk of making experiences being made real again.

[Cheldoll]

I feel useless since I know so little about DID and even PTSD, but this is really interesting. I can definitely relate to family and religion not being supportive. If I had a nickel for every time one of my devoutly Catholic family members told me that people who commit suicide go to Hell and that I should just rely on God, I'd be able to afford all the food in the world that I won't eat thanks to the anorexia that developed alongside the depression and anxiety.

I never actually got to take my First Communion because I couldn't stand my confirmation classes -- they taught that the sin of sloth (or it's predecessor, acedia... which is essentially depression) was the deadliest of the seven because it denied God in favor of listlessness and despair. Yeah, it's very easy to lose faith in God when you feel empty inside. Nobody tried to perform an exorcism on me, but I have no doubt that my church friends and family still saw me as evil.

I have to give you a hug. All of you.