There is this false narrative that Complex Dissociative Disorders are only caused by the most extreme trauma imaginable, when that isnāt true for most pw/CDDs.
Though it does happen, pw/CDDs do not usually have histories including the most horrific actions recorded in history, and this belief is often dangerous to people with the disorder.
Everyone with a CDD has severe trauma response. However, development of CDDs is not related to the severity of trauma, but instead to the complexity of trauma. This is why disorganised attachment to caregivers is common in pw/CDDs, because the shift of adapting from extreme kindness to cruelty is too complex for children to manage.
In most situations, dissociative responses to trauma are due to feeling like a situation is inescapable. Children may experience abuse, neglect or multiple āless horrificā traumatic events, and feel as though they cannot escape the situation, usually due to a combination of repeated trauma and lack of an adequate support system. Due to this feeling, children dissociate, since it is the only method of escaping the overwhelming feeling when other escape routes are not accessible. Missing a support system to overcome traumatic events or stressful feelings and situations is a recognised central cause of dissociative responses.
Itās also important to mention that children have a higher predisposition to dissociation, due to already having a less cohesive identity. For this reason, children may experience dissociative responses to situations that adults (without a history of dissociation) would not.
When adults experience complex trauma, for example domestic abuse, itās not uncommon for them to mention feeling as though they ālost themselvesā or āneed to rebuild themselvesā because they already have a cohesive self, but their trauma made them dissociate from that self. Children, however, do not have a cohesive self to āloseā and therefore the threshold for dissociation is lower.
Many people with CDDs do not recognise their trauma as being severe enough to qualify for a dissociative disorder. This is due to dissociation, and denial, but also because the false narratives about how CDDs appear, and what our trauma looks like, because people will often only listen to stories which can be turned into a spectacle for consumption. Your trauma is enough, regardless of what it may be, and you donāt need to doubt yourself.
TLDR ā Development of DID is not exclusively connected to severity of trauma, and not everyone with DID has experienced the most extreme, horrific actions of human malice. Its development is more connected to complexity of trauma, feeling of inescapability, and lack of adequate support systems. Your trauma is always valid, and enough.
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