Last year, I was officially diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, and let me tell you that I was shocked.
After getting misdiagnosed with almost everything out there, I was diagnosed with something that I never thought I could have, ever.
A couple of months later, I started going into the self doubt spiral.
This is my advice for systems doubting themselves:
Doubting yourself is completely normal. DID is meant to be covert and hidden, it’s a defense mechanism after all, almost every system out there doubted their experience at some point, it’s okay.
NOT EVERY SYSTEM IS LIKE SYSTEMS ON TUMBLR. Oh my god, I WISH someone would have told me this last year. You don’t have to have a bed in your room for each alter. You don’t have to have perfect communication with your alters. You don’t have to talk with them on a daily basis and switch 1000 times a day, just no. My communication with my alters is terrible. I sometimes go months without fully switching, days and even weeks without alters talking in my head. My alters mostly work through passive influence and that’s okay. You really don’t have to have a system like the ones you see on here to be valid, please remember that.
Not everything’s “you’re valid uwu”, no. Sometimes you make mistakes, sometimes doctors make mistakes and it’s okay. There are a lot of disorders that might have a similar presentation to DID like BPD, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. You need to be completely honest with yourself about your experiences. You really don’t want to get misdiagnosed and get treated for something that you don’t have “terrible idea, believe me”. If you’re honest with yourself about your experience, then there’s nothing to worry about.
Please don’t obsess over labels. There was this time when I was almost always co conscious with my protector and I kept wondering if I actually have OSDD, and it made me really depressed. It does not matter whether you have DID or OSDD, they’re almost the same thing and the point is, you have gone through trauma that fractured your identity so it really doesn’t matter what you have. Doctors treat symptoms, not labels. It’s okay to be confused for a while ❤️.
Yes, alters can go dormant for a lot of time and that’s completely normal. No, that doesn’t mean that you’re faking.
Sometimes you can switch without knowing or noticing the switch, so don’t obsess over why you aren’t switching too often.
It takes A LOT of time to have a good communication with your alters. It really isn’t as easy as tumblr makes it seems to be.
You don’t have to have obvious and overt symptoms of DID to be valid. I haven’t had so many proofs of my amnesia, only 4 times or something. I have also never experienced dissociative fugue, and that’s okay.
Amnesia for your own amnesia. Sometimes you don’t even notice that you lost time or that you said something that you have no memory of until someone points it out. So again don’t obsess over not switching too often.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT focus too much on your alters or your disorder. Do not go googling symptoms of DID and reading tons of articles for hours. This is just gonna make your self doubt much worse. It’s okay to learn about your disorder, just don’t do it too much because everyone experiences DID differently and that might increase your doubt.
Always keep in mind that DID is different for everyone. My best friend has DID and our systems are completely different. He switches much more often and he has no idea how many alters does he have, doesn’t know their names or anything about them, however my amnesia is much worse than his. Seeing systems acting differently doesn’t mean that you’re fake.
Since I brought this up, it’s okay not to know anything about your alters. I have around 16 alters and maybe more, I only know and have communicated with 6 of them. Again, it’s not as easy as tumblr makes it seems.
It’s okay not to feel like you’re a multiple. It’s okay not to refer to yourself as “we”. I personally never refer to myself as we unless I’m talking specifically about me and my alters.
It’s okay to have more overt symptoms after getting your diagnosis, and it’s also okay for your symptoms to be less after diagnosis. It’s really common that alters start being much more visible after diagnosis, that doesn’t mean you’re faking. Despite being less common but it’s okay to have less symptoms after getting diagnosed. Your alters might be just scared, I have experienced this and it made me feel like I was faking it all, but it doesn’t. Sometimes, your alters are as scared as you, maybe even more.
I wish someone would have told me this last year, so here I am, telling you why you shouldn’t worry, this too shall pass, trust me.
Also, feel free to add your own advice.
If you need anything, don’t hesitate to message us, we’d be more than glad to help!
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