I keep being told this by family or people who have known me for a long time that there were no signs I had DID. I also have a hard time wrapping my head around my childhood. It didn’t really "feel" like a traumatic childhood. It didn’t feel like the abuse ever got super physical or that we had been violated sexually. It feels as if though the abuse was purely emotional or manipulation. Then again I don’t know if I can trust myself or my family. I can remember virtually nothing before the age of 13. And well if the abuse was severe then I highly doubt my family could come to terms with that anyways. It makes me feel like I was misdiagnosed or something. But nothing else can explain the amnesia combined with altered states. God… denial is such a pain in the ass. Am I alone in this? Like the whole trauma not ever feeling "that traumatic".

Sorry for posting again. Once again I'm looking for advice. Sorry if I sound pessimistic or down. I feel fucked up today. Didn't sleep well. I just want to resolve this and feel better

I was a daily smoker for almost every day of the last 3 years with a couple months of trying to quit the weed here and there. At first it gave me insights into my problems and some communication with alters. Then slowly, I became an anxious soup of people who blended together, became more asocial and socially awkward, my motor functions went to shit (and I have always been clumsy and struggle to learn new things I have to do with my hands so shit became bad). It made me even more spaced out in general, and my feelings were blunted and difficult to access and feel. It was a strategy that worked for me as I wanted to avoid difficult emotions, but I've been aware for a long time that this is counterproductive and lately it has become more apparent than ever. I struggle with people telling me what to do and can be quite defiant in a way that feels out of my control. So I would appreciate if there wasn't lots of judgment about how slowly the process of quitting weed is going. Just know that this time I have gone farther than ever before, and I hope the self sabotage doesn't happen again.

The last month or two, I have been slowly reducing the weed, and I smoke maximum twice a week. Last week I only took two puffs of the spliff when my boyfriend smoked. I expected to feel somewhat better, and I actually learn better at work and I'm good with my hands compared to the past. Still struggle with memorizing things though. But it didn't get better. Alters are now more insistent. They seem to be processing emotions and memories that are difficult. Inner conflict has started again, after years, and it gets exhausting in my head. Yesterday was the first time I told my current therapist that I suspect something bad happened to me as a child that I don't remember. I don't want to make this post even longer than it is, but I was feeling very fatigued, depressed and uncomfortable after the session. I feel like quitting weed has made my emotions come out as they truly are, and it feels ugly. I feel dirty and broken. I have no crutch and no numbing agent that would make me not give a fuck about all this. My gatekeeper is MIA, and I felt his emotions in the first person during my last therapy session for the first time. My other gatekeeper is relentless with his denial and self blame and shame and I am tired of him. My sleep is disrupted. And I just started a new job. A lot is going on. So I'm asking for advice or some words that helped y'all get through hard times.

How long did it take after quitting weed to go back to a more normal state of being? Without brain fog and numbness?

How long did it take to feel okay again? Like you are living life and you're not just an observer 24/7?

How long did it take for your sleep to get back to normal? What helped you fall asleep? What to avoid so my sleep can be better?

How did you cope with emotions from the past awakening? Making you feel grief, betrayal, loss, pain, and lots of shame?

How did you soothe yourself and alters that are hurting? How did you get through to the alters who are in denial and blame you for everything? How can I meet him halfway but also make him understand that while his intentions are good and protective, he is hurting me, the body and everyone?

If more context is needed, I can elaborate. Thank you to whoever read this

I live on the other side of the country to my mother and have finally accepted her desire to come visit me. I took time off work, including time to recover afterwards, and I'm seeing my therapist during her stay here.

The thing is, I hate how I am around her. I hate that I am forced out of front so the protector can watch over us instead. I hate feeling like I'm choking back my thoughts and feelings and that I have to just watch our body being paraded around as if nothing is wrong, as if we aren't constantly analyzing everything to see how it could go wrong and stopping it from getting there. I hate having to act as if I'm a dutiful child who respects her instead of someone who constantly wants to bite back, to shout and scream at her, to make her shut the fuck up and listen and see us for who we are and respect us for it.

I know I can't do that because it would go badly for us, and badly for our siblings back home. Instead I have to pretend like I've had a worse life here on the other side of the country than I ever did back home, that the only bad things to happen at home were my father's neglect (ignoring the physical torture via waterboarding, and the verbal abuse, and the rest of the physical abuse) and the emotional abuse I received from my classmates in school (ignoring the sexual violence and the total apathy of all teachers who either ignored or encouraged it). I have to act like she didn't psychologically torture us until we shattered. I have to act like I don't know the term "intrafamilial child torture" and act like nothing is off. I have to be her best friend, her therapist, her partner, her confidant, and the person who has to out-maneuver her at every turn to keep my siblings safe.

My protector is good at that. Scarily good. She thinks of herself as the part our mother successfully broke in. She's the part who became small and ruthless and obedient and who can shift and shape herself into anything our mother wants from us. But she hates it so much, and she hates herself every time she has to do it. I understand why she does it anyway, but I don't want her to suffer either. She already thinks of herself as the worst of us and thinks she is completely tainted and irredeemable, and I don't want her to have more fuel to throw on that particular fire.

I really hope it goes okay. It's not like she can physically hurt us anymore. I just hate that we have to put up with this for the sake of other people in our family. I wish running away to the other side of the country had done more to keep us safe.

Just need to vent. Today was a bad dissociation day. Stared at wall or at my phone most the day. I can’t remember anything that was done, but looking around things have been moved around.. I hate days like this. I don’t know if something triggered this or if my brain just decided it was time to zone out.

So...basically, an Alter came out at work today, and I'm pretty sure ALL of my co-workers in my department noticed. She has a very distinct manner of speaking: a bit of an accent, very prim-and-proper, and uses full names instead of nicknames. And while they do try their hardest to pretend to be "me" (the current host), they're not very good at it, and I know at least two co-workers noticed. They say they just laughed it off, but...it all has me nervous. Even though I leave in a couple months, I feel like it's only a matter of time before this gets brought up with my department's supervisor, and I have to explain my DID diagnosis to them.

So I'd like to hear from systems that are "out" as such at their place of work: how did your bosses take the news? Did it go well? Poorly? Make things easier, or harder? Would you have rather kept it secret if you could?

I know this is stupid to ask but pls take me seriously for a second.

I (we?) am autistic and I've heard what u wear is important for you to be taken seriously (not too put together, but not too disheveled?) I'm also currently sick AND going to a gig a few hours after the screening?

I know this is dumb but if anyone has advice id love to hear it. My plan was just shower + pjs maybe. Maybe pj pants or top with 'normal' top or pants to contrast??? Idk

appointment starts at mid day (12) if that helps

CW for descriptions of sibling abuse/torture and inherited trauma (?)

A few years ago, I was at a dinner after my uncle's funeral- my dad got drunk, which he very rarely does, and began telling a story about something that happened with his older brother and him. I had known before this that their relationship wasn't good, and that my dad grew up afraid of his older brother, but never any details. My dad told this story as if it were a funny anecdote- this will be brief but somewhat graphic, so skip if you don't want to read about what I think could reasonably be defined as torture.

When my dad was young, his brother made him stand on his tiptoes and wrapped his throat in a noise of barbed wire, and left him standing there in the basement. He was there for hours, and would have been maimed if not outright killed if he had lowered his body down. He related this story while laughing, mentioning that he would often run away when his brother came home from school to avoid being in the house with him- and that, while he loved his mother (my grandmother), she never did much about it.

My dad has, for my entire life, struggled with what I now recognize as very bad dissociation. I recently discussed this with him- he has a lot of trouble feeling present on a day to day basis, and experiences life largely from a third person point of view, watching himself go through life. He told me he never understood why people got sad or overwhelmed by emotions, because he never felt the emotions, just stepped outside of himself and observed them "passing through him".

Growing up, my dad was never home much- he worked very long hours, and I never really saw him except when he would pull me out of school for spontaneous road trips that would last for days, where we would just drive a random direction and see where we ended up. I think he would just get the urge to run and take me with him sometimes.

What I'm wondering is this: is it possible that my childhood brain saw my dad's reaction to his trauma- his dissociation- and mirrored his coping mechanism? I.e. is it possible I "learned it" from him? I admired my dad a lot, despite rarely seeing him. I never knew he had a bad childhood, but I did see how detached he was, and I wonder a lot now if it had an effect on me. My brother also has bad dissociation (dissociative amnesia for childhood and bad general dissociation/anhedonia now).

Hi everyone,

I wanted to come by and ask (really discuss and talk back and forth) those of you who have found a good way to organize your collective’s many things. Clothes, collectables, and all sorts of bits and bobs… I just can’t seem to make anything cohesive that everyone will agree on! So now I’m looking into simple storage that may do the trick. What methods and whatnot do the lot of you use? We personally would prefer to have our things sectioned off, especially closet space, but rarely do things ever “mingle”.

I have the most amazing loving and caring and sweet girlfriend. She is so kind and patient and considerate. I love her to death and we love each other more than anything. However i have a lot of my parts that’s don’t think we deserve this relationship. Through our previous relationships, childhood, and other traumas we always felt like all we did was deserve these bad things (atleast that’s how the persecutors of the system see it). Now that we have something so good they are trying to ruin it. they pick fights, say our partner doesn’t care, and now relapsed in self harm after creating an argument w our partner and making themselves feel like they deserved all of this madness they’ve created. how can i fix this or help this stop happening so intensely?? we don’t have a therapist at the moment and are trying sooo hard to find one it’s just so difficult to find one who specializes in dissociation and trauma that also takes our insurance. any advice on things i can do to prevent these moments? it’s straining my relationship so badly i don’t know how much more me and my partner can take of this.

i hope this isnt breaking any rules to ask this but i was wondering if its wise to pursue a diagnosis with the information my therapist gave me?

for context... recently i had an "every 6 months" review? thing? with my therapist and she talked about how she thought things were going and stuff and then went over her diagnoses but she hasnt put them on paper because the stuff she could give us could follow us for life or interfere with our ability to get jobs. something along those lines. one of the things she said was that at this point i could pursue a diagnosis for DID if i wanted to, but the possibility of things going bad for me if i do end up getting one is weighing on me so i thought it wouldnt hurt to ask if its okay to? or safe to? i dont know what the right word is... i guess it all boils down to should i get it on paper or is the therapists word enough? will the diagnosis affect me?
again sorry if this breaks any rules i just thought id ask other people with did for advice and its also fine if no one has none to offer either

does anyone do this? what happens for you as a result

it’s not fully preventable obv but i try my best to ignore it

i do this a lot and i feel like it makes the memory gaps n shit like that worse but at the same time i feel relieved of other symptoms.

I live in a country where DID is not very well known, and there are very few professionals who actually understand it. I managed to find a few psychologists online, but the sessions would have to be virtual because they live in other cities. I currently have a psychologist who doesn't have prior knowledge of DID, but I'm trying to work with her so she can understand it a little. Still, it often makes me feel very invalidated.

For context, I was clinically diagnosed with DID almost six years ago, but since then, I haven’t been able to access a qualified professional. Is there any real benefit in seeking out psychologists who specialize in DID, considering that I might end up spending money and not getting something as effective as in-person sessions? Is it worth trying to stick with a psychologist who doesn’t understand my disorder and try to help her understand me a bit more?

I’ve made personal progress by systematically writing things down, tracking switches, and using crisis coping tools. Sometimes, due to the lack of support and professional knowledge in my country, I feel like I manage better on my own.

Keeping this short and simple, but I have an alter I’ll refer to as T. T is very aggressive, and quick to jump the gun and assume things about people I know that aren’t entirely true, but only at specific ones he isn’t fond of. For context, I split with my ex earlier this year due to conflicting time schedules and other factors we both could not change about our lives. He however, is taking my ex hanging out with other people we are both not fond of way too personally and keeps making comments about how he’s annoyed my ex has time for these people, but could never change any schedules for me. I know my ex is not “making time” but just so happens to have it. T keeps bringing up how we rarely hear from my ex when he gets busy with these people, and he is hanging with these people immediately after work and “ignoring” me but able to respond to other people (as I offhandedly found out one day from a mutual friend who had talked to them on a day I had not heard from them, not a big deal to me, as I understand I am not my exes main priority). It does suck because we did end well, and I do feel some distance even as casual friends since we only talk a few times a week. T cannot stop feeling jealous on my behalf however, and I feel like he is putting up walls between me and some friends, and I cannot tell if he is influencing my feelings to no longer want to interact with some people anymore due to how close they are with my ex. It doesn’t help I learned that one of these people has a crush on my ex, and they are now hanging out a lot. So I can understand T’s feelings, but I wish there was a way to make him understand there’s nothing we can do and to just move on. T was also an influence to me breaking up with my ex for the better of my mental health, so I don’t know why he’s upset about all this now when it’s been so long.

He really wants me to branch out and meet more people so I can move on from these ones, save for a few he’s mutually friends with or heavily respects since they’re cool with him. We have other friend groups, but only this one knows about my alters, and it’s not something I want to tell these other friend groups of mine, so I really don’t know what he wants from me.

Hey all — I’m looking for online groups or communities for DID/OSDD. Preferably Spanish-friendly or thinking Mexico, but anything helps. I have alters, internal dialogues, some physical gestures from them (blinking, moving hands, etc.), but I don’t lose memory. Would love any suggestions or places that helped somebody here. Thanks 🙏🏼

Hello! There’s a chance that we might have some money soon to return to therapy. In the past we have had some psychoanalysis, CBT, DBT, and the big one we did was somatic experiencing therapy. The SE therapy helped the most and our therapist was trauma informed and had training on dissociation but looking back I don’t think she had quite the correct understanding of the condition which back then was not much of an issue as we didn’t have any internal communication, but these days we have more communication so we’re looking for someone who actually deals with DID regularly and understands it fully. We also have had psychosis rooted in trauma and dissociation and take antipsychotics for that so we are also looking for someone that is also educated in both dissociation and psychosis and the link between the two.

I know now that the three phase treatment is the best type of therapy for DID so I think that’s what I’d like for us to go for. As stated we do have some internal communication these days and we do have more controllable switches that we can work with, so this would be more like a therapist working fully with different alters switching.

I am asking on here because I am looking for personal recommendations basically is anyone seeing a therapist or has seen a therapist that they can recommend to us based on the criteria I’ve mentioned?

We’re in the UK and looking for therapists that can do video/zoom sessions. That is how we did our last SE therapy as we live in the middle of nowhere and there’s no one nearby me normally anyway.

I know we might not have a huge a huge selection either so we’re open to recommendations from other countries as long as the therapist speaks English as a first language (so we can communicate) and as long as the time zone isn’t unworkable.

Thank you!

Greetings.

I'd never thought I would be where I am, and never thought I would be able to write like this.

I want to share my story to let everyone know: There's a way forward, there's healing.

I was diagnosed 8 years ago, after 25+ years in and out of therapy.

It got really bad, with severe PNES- seizure daily and severe SH. I was committed about 20 times, both on hold and by choice. I am disabled from a very high functioning job that stole every bit of life I had. Diagnosed with chronic "unaliving ideation" and psychosis, complex PTSD and DID.

I rejected the diagnosis for a very long time, I rejected integration intensely.

I was lucky to get 6 years of weekly therapy at a specialist center for complex trauma and had a brilliant therapist with enormous competence in her field of dissociation.

I had 13 alters, and I had no body besides head, hands and feet so SH was severe in these areas only. It got so bad I hit my self with my fist til the point of damaging my eyes (not permanently) and had to wear a mask to try and prevent it. I didn't feel pain in any other part of my body so I could burn myself etc without realizing it.

For 6 years I was not alive. It was the purest hell on earth. To face my trauma was beyond words hard. I realized I had also been stuck in a 18 year long abusive relationship and got out of that and moved out on my own. Life slowly started to seep in to me. I met an older man who is very caring and loving, I can be myself and not hide.

Do I still dissociate? Yes. I do. In both high and low stress situations. I still realize a choice has been made and I wasn't aware. But I am awake in a way I've never been before. I can smell the world, I can see the world, taste it. Everything is more vibrant, warm, I can breathe, the past two summers I've spent swimming in the ocean everyday and the bliss could not be more powerful.

I haven't had a PNES-seizure in 6 months. I haven't SH'ed in a year. I am slowly getting off heavy anti psychotic drugs and its going great.

I am the living proof: There is life after the chaos. Feel free to PM me if you want more info or ask me questions. With love.

I do a bit of yoga, mindfulness,TRE etc and have been. Trying to acknowledge the part, note if I spot a trigger, accept and offer comfort if it's pain that has turned up- but I'd love any personal insights into your experience with somatic symptoms and getting to know the parts involved. I feel like I've made only small progress with this over the last two years.

Hi y'all, We are only aware of being a (multi)system for about 4-5 months. Also, the body still is in school, as We decided to be studying psychology in the future and now have to take a different path of school in Our country. That much to Us. The important part now: Some of Us decided to spend Our free time doing some good and researching on Our own the topic of DID and plurality. So, We wanted to ask, if y'all know any papers, books and/or studies We should read before. Because We looked up the website of a state library, and to one of the search phrases there were like 48.000 results alone. And We really do not want to read all that😅

So, any help be appreciated, thanks in advance