I have Dissociative Identity Disorder - AMA.

[Hawkie]

As the title says...

Fucking hell Hawkie, no wonder your mind did what it needed to survive.

To all of you, does integration mean making all the seperate alters into one personality/one voice?
If so, this doesn't seem the best option to me. Would you be able to cope without them? Assuming each one arrived to cope with a specific trigger.

@Hawkie

My reasons aren't as horrible as that. Right now I'm in a headspace that nothing particularly bad has ever happened to me, and feeling like quite a fraud. That's not really the truth of it, but when I'm in this functional adult frame of mind, I can't seem to really think of the past, other than the good parts.

does integration mean making all the seperate alters into one personality/one voice?

As far as I understand, integration would mean that all things and facets of the person that are currently fragmented into these separate bits would just all come together into one "you". You could access all the memories and emotions normally. I find it a hard idea to grasp.

You’ve mentioned how difficult friendships can be (understandably). What could have been better/what advice would you give someone wanting to support and maintain a relationship with a friend with DID? Thank you

Hawkie Oh god, that’s awful. I can completely understand how these identities came about. I don’t have it but I did used to have outer body experiences during my trauma, I would feel like I was watching it happen to me from a different perspective. So even though I could feel and see what was happening I could almost disappear and ignore it but be watching it happening, if you see what I mean? I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through though and can’t imagine your pain.

Oh God Hawkie, you poor thing. I hope you're OK today.

@Hawkie I hope you know you're not obliged to share anything on your thread - if anything makes you feel uncomfortable/vulnerable please don't think anyone has expectations of you here.
I know you happily started it, but if your mind changes at any time, you can ignore us! xx

Thank you, I am not ignoring you (well I am but not meaning too). Hawkie World is going through a very difficult time at the moment. Each day we hope it will be better but unfortunately not yet.

Thank you for this thread Hawkie. It's so brave of you, and so helpful to challenge the publics idea of DID.

Thinking of you (all)

Did you have any other diagnosis before being diagnosed? Had you spent time in therapy before hand? Have you found any advantages of being diagnosed?

Did you have any other diagnosis before being diagnosed?

I was diagnosed with PTSD originally.

Had you spent time in therapy before hand?

Yes - it was a disaster that left us feeling like we were untreatable. Most of the therapy was short term therapy based on PTSD which actually made me feel worse (therapy does this, even therapy that works can make you feel worse), but this worse was actually damaging. I then spent a long period of time being passed from service to service to charity to charity; this part was truly awful.

Have you found any advantages of being diagnosed?

Yes, the main one is now people understand things a little more about me (those that know and those that believe and understand the illness). It is also advantageous to be getting very good support and excellent treatment which means there is actually have a chance to have a fairly normal day-to-day life when we're not swtichy switchy and not in a bad patch.

Thank you for all the kind words (again).

Stupid question and I have a bit of knowledge psychology wise but no idea on this answer.

Can you develop DID as an adult?

Say for example a 35 year old woman got kidnapped/trafficked - could she develop these alters as a coping mechanism too, although it's not a developmental delay. But them regressing to a happier time (maybe a child) or a wise old lady (who has had many years to deal with the trauma)?

Can you develop DID as an adult?

I don't think so as the basis of DID is a developing personality - which only occurs in childhood. However, it is correct that DID is more likely to surface in adulthood than in childhood.

Can you develop DID as an adult?

All the ones I've come across (online, I don't know that I'd know anyone with it personally) have a history of serious long term trauma in early childhood. I think it's to do with how your brain develops in its formative years under overwhelming circumstances.

There was a blogger I used to read years ago (I can't remember who), who wrote about her DID and was a big advocate for the idea that DID doesn't mean serious child abuse, and can just come about in various ways at various times of life. She was adamant hers was the result of a single adult trauma event. She actually stopped blogging in some point, and then returned to say "by the way, I totally lied, I was sexually abused for years as a small child, sorry, I just couldn't deal with admitting it." (I totally understand that, too!)

@ZispinAndMushroomTea Perfectly understandable and that's not taking into account what the alters believed.

I just wonder what would happen in the case of someone who is adult and goes through repetitive traumatic events. Probably dissociative amnesia.

So sorry about your childhood. That is horrific.

Toys

We have age appropriate toys, but not so many. Favourites are the soft cuddly toys, colouring books, local trampoline place, swings, story books and scrap books. With the small identities they have a soft toy or a blanket.

Christmas

Everyone gets something, but not necessarily on Christmas Day. Christmas is actually quite a difficult time so it's usually spread out in the weeks before and it's a book (everyone gets) and two other things.

How long does an alter stay?

I mean are they 'you' for a few minutes, hours, days etc?

How does your husband deal with younger parts?

There’s no set time that identies stay “out”... it changes and isn’t something that has a pattern to it.

I don’t have a husband :-)

Thank you for sharing, this is a very interesting thread, I'm just so sorry what happened to you to have created this DID.

Sorry to reignite an old thread but have found this so interesting. Have a relative that suspects a diagnosis of DiD, has yet to see anyone ‘official’ about it yet but think it’s on the horizon as recent stressful events have sort of brought everything to a head.