Dissociative Identity Disorder with @DichotomousDetia
Happy Mental Health Awareness Week everyone! I recently had the privilege of catching up with @DichotomousDetia to talk about Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short. I learned a lot through interviewing them and I know others will too. Thank you for taking the time to share your story DichotomousDetia!
Question (1): How did you discover you had DID, and what was the process like to get diagnosed?
Answer: Initially I had a classmate who had Overt/Florid symptoms and I decided to check inside which established communication for the first time with a protector who claimed to have always been around. I wasn’t sure if it was true and what was happening but now that he knew I could talk to him he wasn’t going to go quietly because he was very tired of being isolated. It was 10 years later that I was hospitalized and the hospital happened to have a trauma program. My roommate had DID and there were many people with OSDD/DID in the trauma program. I saw a lot of familiar behaviors and challenges and tried hiding it. My roommate called me out on it while I was reading a book about the Wounded Inner Child. I snapped at her, afraid for my freedom and well-being and she was calm and collected. I apologized and I argued that I can’t have DID because I don’t have amnesia, so I must be schizophrenic or something. She assured me that it’s not necessary to always have amnesia. Although I was unwilling to admit that as I learned about how family dynamics can be abusive and what Triangulation looked like… I started noticing gaps and holes in my otherwise pleasant childhood.
Then I was hospitalized 2 years later for a for suicidal ideation and self-harm that I met a psychiatrist who noticed the differences in patterns between meetings, at the time two protector alters and adult protector and a kid protector had been fronting frequently because we had unwanted romantic attention from other patients.
I again argued, we don’t have amnesia so we can’t have DID. She gentle informed me and drew a diagram of how integration(different from fusion) works, that as dissociative barriers come down we have access to more emotions, and more memories. That it was a good sign that we could remember what the other was doing from moment to moment. She gave the diagnosis.
Question (2): What changes did you have to make in your life, if any?
Answer: I had to be willing to be self-compassionate, to use journals and visual methods of communicating with those who had amnesiac barriers between each other. I had to be willing to self-advocate for proper treatment and care. I had to be willing to educate all of my therapists. I had to be willing to dedicate to long-term therapy. I started explaining to friends what I was dealing with so that they understood why I would accidentally double-book plans or how I could lose track of plans and day so easily. I had to be willing to set boundaries and advocate for alters who were not so well-spoken or so assertive. I had to be willing to let the others do their thing and trust them. To keep the things in my collection that I didn’t remember buying. To allow clothing, make-up, and other items that generally repulsed me because I didn’t identify with them and never wanted to wear or use them.
Question (3): How did the changes affect you?
Answer: It was stressful, I felt like I was feeding into a delusion at first. But the more harmony between the alters, the more we were willing to accommodate each other and stand up for each other the more confidence and ability I gained. When someone was afraid or angry at a person on the outside it was genuinely a sign that they were perceiving a mistreatment and we had to problem-solve the best method of handling the conflict. I felt like I was lying to myself or losing myself allowing clothing styles that weren’t my own, but getting rid of these items would usually upset other members of the system to a detrimental degree and we would have less communication and awareness of what the others were doing. More acting and lashing out behaviors, more self-destructive coping. So learning to accommodate and allow each other brought more peace and solidarity and team-work.
Question (4): What were your major concerns during this change/was there anything you were worried about?
Answer: Self-harm, suicidal ideation and behavior, abuse of prescription drugs, being labeled delusional, not having touch with reality, being put in a mental-health hospital long-term.
Question (5): If so, how has DID had an effect on those around you?
Answer: Yes, it always has. People always thought we were an eccentric intelligent creative person with many quirks. No one descriptor could be used for us we were called ‘weird’ ‘odd’ ‘eccentric’ and ‘unique’. Many people couldn’t understand what was happening and would rather consider us a manipulative liar. Family kept it under wraps and were willing to dismiss it at all costs because they didn’t want to take accountability for their actions.
I’m not entirely sure how it impacted those around me but I imagined often that they found me unreliable and flakey because I didn’t always follow through on scheduled plans. Probably were confused and sometimes felt manipulated or lied to because alters of different opinions would assert different boundaries.
Question (6): What is something you discovered about DID that would be beneficial for other to know?
Answer: Everyone in the system is an alter. The host is an alter. There’s rarely an original. Some systems identify an original but the research shows that we are born with multiple self-states that learn to integrate if we have a safe and protective environment at the important developmental ages.
I learned that the subconscious really has no limit for symbology. A certain trauma could generate a single alter or generate a whole group of alters. Any alter could be literally anything of the imagination and Jungian Psychology and the concept of subconscious symbols and individuation is a great insight into this. You can have alters of all shapes forms and types. Some alters might not have a physical identity, some might be a blob, some might identify as a person-shape, some might identify as an animal, a mythical creature, a tree, a bridge, a stone, etc.
No alter is truly evil, all behaviors are self-protective. It can be hard to understand even the alter who’s the most abusive to other alters and frightening, the alter who’s willing to get into a shouting match, the alter who is always compliant in the face of danger and lets bad things happen. All of these are different expressions of self-protection. Everyone in the system deserves support, understanding, and compassion. Punitive measures for most systems is just another form of self-abuse and keeps the disruptive behaviors locked into the system.
Question (7): Did you have to educate yourself on DID, was it difficult finding a community with similar experiences?
Answer: I ABSOLUTELY had to educate myself on DID through various resources such as the ISST-D [https://www.isst-d.org/about-isstd/], Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation by Boone, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Using google scholar to read materials from Kluft and others who studied the disorder. Reading A Fractured Mind by Robert B. Oxnam. I have effectively been studying dissociation and complex trauma since before I was diagnosed in 2015.
It was not difficult at all to find a community with similar experiences. The recorded statistical prevalence rating of DID is 1-3% of the population which is considered a low estimate due to lack of professionals trained in diagnosing this disorder and a high rate of misdiagnosis of this disorder. There’s always a community or group out there and at the time I had forums and facebook groups to choose from, very many at that. 1-3% is comparable with Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. It’s 1 in every 100 people. If we lowball it at 1% of the population of the USA alone (considered “Common” in disease statistics, “very rare” would be 0.002%) you will have three million two hundred ninety-five thousand people with DID.
Question (8): What is something people misunderstand about you? (in relation to DID)
Answer: Misunderstanding about me personally?
That I’m competent but still need respectful and compassionate support that honors my weaknesses as well as my abilities. That anyone dealing with this will does and has found ways to cope functionally and this kind of situation isn’t going to make you a blubbering hysteric. Humans are more resilient than we’re given credit for and this situation is a lot more relatable than people give it credit for.
Question (9): Do you have anything you would like to say to people who may be struggling with coping with DID?
Answer: Hey you, take your time and take it gentle and easy with yourself. The more you learn to communicate with the others and find ways to compromise, show each other compassion an respect the easier symptoms and system-conflict will get to manage.
Denial spells are incredibly common. You might always feel like you’re making it all up and faking it, you might always feel like no one understands. You’re not alone, there are so many of us with our own variations of the disorder. Everyone is different. If an alter comes to you in the form of a shoe then accept them.
Don’t dig and prod and pick the scab, you will get the memories in time. First you need to manage your collective stress and help each person learn their own coping skills that help their particular set of stressors and traumas. You don’t have to know the trauma.
Finally something that was really important for me to learn is that you might not have anything external to prove to you it was ‘bad enough’ to develop this disorder, it’s called external corroboration and it’s incredibly hard to get with this disorder. Just know that you are ‘the smoking gun’. Your symptoms and experiences enough alone are proof. You don’t have to remember the trauma or have anyone validate the trauma in order to be valid. Your system is here for you, they’ve always been looking out for you even if they don’t know the best way of doing it, even if their way of doing it is to tell you how awful you are. You can do this.
Question (10): Is there anything you would like to add/include? (stories, resources, etc)
Answer:
Educational and Self-Help
https://www.isst-d.org/resources/dissociation-faqs/
https://did-research.org/resources/index.html
https://www.discussingdissociation.com/2010/10/turning-self-injury-into-self-soothing/
https://www.engagingmultiples.com/
http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeidentitydisorder
https://di.org.au/language-definitions-and-common-terms/
Books:
Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation Workbook
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
A Fractured Mind by Robert B Oxnam
Videos:
DID Simulation by Multiplicity and Me:
Why “Bad Alters” aren’t Bad
How Alters Communicate
Myths and Misconceptions by Rings System
Calion Smith, DID Education, Fusion experience and Unfusion
https://www.youtube.com/c/Calion
DID for Beginners Playlist by Entropy System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw4332GVKv0&list=PLkyMdbf5QIPF-xuh90wEMJ6hixqDo7gz_
@wonderfulRainbow817 @DichotomousDeita
Wow, what a wonderful interview! I feel like I learned so much, thank you both for doing this 💚💛 DID is definitely more common than people realize, and I love the awareness that posts like this are able to create.
I hope you're able to get this post alerted so many others can read as well!
There's a book called No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz, and it isn't strictly about DID but it does have these themes of an "internal family system", and how by treating them with curiosity and respect, we can find healing. It's a good read :)
Big thank you Deita for taking the time out of your day to answer these questions, and a big thank you to Rainbow for putting this together and creating such a marvelous post. You really are wonderful 💚
@WarmLightXO
Thank you! I find Internal Family Systems to have a lot of helpful and relatable advice. I think it can help people who don't have dissociative systems understand better what we're going through. Many people with DID are uncomfortable with the terminology suggested in Internal Family Systems but I don't see the harm in exploring. I'm happy you're familiar with RichardSchwartz's work!
@wonderfulRainbow817Oh wow, I learned a lot!
@DichotomousDetia Thank you for being so open and sharing your experiences! You've shared some great things that people can do if they are experiencing something similar.
@DichotomousDetia thank you for this interview,
In 2019, I had no idea with DID was. I made time to learn about it, by watching interviews on youtube and reading about it online. I am still interested in learning more, so I can support people better.
I also read the numerous informative posts in the personality disorder forums. I think it's important to be enlightened on these subjects. Thank you for teaching me a bit more, but mostly for your insights❤️
@wonderfulRainbow817 thank you for doing this interview, I have yet to set out an alert but I will this week.
@wonderfulRainbow817
Such an interesting and educative interview! Thank you very much for sharing your story @DichotomousDetia.