It's been eleven years (wow) since the original 30 Days of DID ask meme was created, and there Still isn't one that is not largely parts-focused. So I made my own.
Some questions still pertain to parts but they are much more few and far between than the original ask meme. Answer what you want to, skip over what you don't like. This is all in the name of getting to know yourself better and sharing only what you feel comfortable sharing.
To be clear because unfortunately I have to be, this ask meme is for those with a complex dissociative disorder (so not just DID!) whose experiences with parts are inherently disordered.
When and how did you find out you have DID?
How do you experience DID? Do you find your symptoms manifest more physically, emotionally, mentally, etc?
What does healing look like for you?
Do you have a specific type of therapy that is your favourite and that works best for you? What types of therapy haven't worked in the past?
Have you shared your diagnosis with anyone outside of your care team? If so, who and why?
Are you, as a whole, in a relationship? How does romantic partnership work for you?
How long have you been in treatment for DID?
When did you first learn/hear about DID, if it was prior to your diagnosis?
What misinformation about DID irks you the most?
What are some ways that depersonalization and derealization appear in your day to day life?
Do you have a favourite model of dissociation (eg. BASK, ToSD, 4D model)? Why?
How do you keep track of your symptoms and experiences?
What was your last therapy session like?
What is your favourite sense to ground yourself with? Olfactory, tactile, auditory, etc?
What are some ways that memory gaps appear in your day to day life?
Prior to your DID diagnosis, had you been misdiagnosed with other conditions?
Do you have a favourite movie, TV show, book, or video game that has a character with DID, or one that you believe has DID?
How do you experience emotions in relation to your DID? For you, how are emotions affected by dissociation?
How much internal communication do you have with parts? How do you, as a whole, prefer to communicate?
What are some ways that identity confusion appears in your day to day life?
What songs or specific lyrics do you relate to your experience with DID?
Are you diagnosed with other conditions? How do those conditions affect your DID, and vice versa?
Where is the safest place you can imagine for yourself as a whole?
How do you experience passive influence? How are you able to identify passive influence now, vs. when you first discovered your DID?
Have you read books on DID? If so, what are some of your favourites? What are some books you would like to read in the future?
How do you experience denial in relation to your DID? How do you deal with it?
Do you experience variation in skill correlating to levels of dissociation? If so, what skills stand out as most affected by dissociation?
In your experience, what are the hardest things about having DID in your day to day life?
Do you have a common trait amongst parts, such as a trauma response (or if you want to be less personal, hobbies or interests, etc)?
What is something you feel should be written about that was not asked here?
Healing changed everything. It saved my life and gave me my mind back.
Before, we were in and out of hospitals and homelessness, and now we are gainfully employed with secure, stable housing. Our last hospitalization was sixteen years ago, we are med-free, and no longer dysfunctional, disordered, or disabled.
I have a healthy marriage and a solid community surrounding me in real life. I have a job I love, hobbies I enjoy, and lifelong dreams I am finally beginning to actualize.
We are laying to rest the pains of our past so they no longer control us. We are accepting our history, accepting our experiences, and moving beyond them together. We are rescuing the hurt and the abandoned, and we are bringing the lost pieces of ourselves home.
I am happy, I am at peace, and I am unchained. By embracing all our separate parts and the disparate lives we’d led, and building a shared, unified future, we are becoming unstoppable.
#3.5 - Day Three: What are your thoughts on integration? Do you wish to integrate? (2015):
There is no healing without integration.
I am keenly aware of the fear surrounding integration and fusion. I remember hearing it fifteen-plus years ago (and getting caught up in it), and I still see it circulated today, almost verbatim. And I completely understand that fear (and wrote a whole post about it.)
In healing, integration is inevitable.
System communication is integration. Functional multiplicity requires integration. Integration removes the walls and gives us the ability to cooperate, gives us co-consciousness, gives us the ability to share space and skills.
I am an integrated multiple. We have been multiple for as far back as we can remember, and our goal was always functional multiplicity. We used to think final fusion was completely off the table for us, an impossible idea. Now… we’re not so sure.
#2 - How do you experience DID? Do you find your symptoms manifest more physically, emotionally, mentally, etc? (2026):
If you asked me fifteen years ago, this answer would have been very, very different.
Before, I felt crazy and out of control. There were too many me’s, and I was never the right one at the right time. My mind either too loud to hear myself think, or a howling, jumbled numbness.
Before, I heard voices. I saw shadows. Walls changed colors and the carpets breathed. I became immobilized with fear for no reason, paranoid and convinced I was going to die. I couldn’t sleep; I slept too much. I’d feel things, taste things, smell things; I’d choke on things that weren’t there.
Before, I struggled with eating disorders, impulsivity, and self harm. My relationships were unstable at best and toxic at worst. I would forget my schedule, my job, my address, my friends, my style, my self. I feared myself. I feared losing control. My goals changed. My name changed. The Universe changed. Nothing worked. Nothing fit. I didn’t fit.
Now, most of our distressing symptoms are gone. Flashbacks and dissociative phenomena don’t freak us out anymore because we understand what is happening and how to help.
Now, Our daily memory is the strongest it's ever been, and we’re no longer stuck in a permanent fog. Communication is easy; we can switch, compartmentalize, and contain at will, and can still function through what we cannot fully put away in the moment. Even our chronic anxiety seems to be on its way out the door.
Now, I’d say, most everything manifests somatically, in the body, or emotionally via passive influence. Occasionally mentally, but these days, unless faced with unavoidable life stress, unexpected triggers, or a flood of memory processing, we’re hardly symptomatic at all.
Except our handwriting. That’s still the worst.
#2.5 - Who knows about your system? Who do you want to know? What do you feel like it’s like coming out as multiple? (2015):
Lighthouse is the one person who still works with and talks to Motley members directly on a regular basis. Nowadays, our DID only matters while on the therapist’s couch.
PeanutButter knows because we married him. It would have been impossible to have a serious relationship where our spouse didn’t know.
We used to want friends to know about us, but not anymore. Before I wised up and stopped telling people, reactions varied. From those in my personal life, I got a lot of “That explains so much!” and “I don’t doubt it one bit.” Unfortunately, it rarely ended well.
I think I’d be okay, maybe, with certain, select people knowing about our DID diagnosis – but not the details of the Motley. I’d be okay discussing DID as a concept using our experiences as examples, but nobody needs to know our inner names or how we function or who is around when.
Outsiders knowing that information feels violating, and it’s not always healthy for the other person(s) either. Plus, you can’t control how people react to it or any further spreading of it, so being choosy with disclosure is imperative.
Our recovery blog is public, of course, but carefully and deliberately anonymous. Nobody in my real life needs to know, and I don’t need them to know. I am so much more than my DID, and while I identify as a multiple, being a multiple isn’t my identity.
#1 - When and how did you find out you have DID? (2026):
Didn’t know definitively until 2013, but was seriously suspicious by 2006 or 2007. The potentiality was mentioned in passing a few times in the six-ish years prior, and there was plenty of “What, do you have multiple personalities or something?” throughout my life.
By 2010 or 2011 it was clear that whatever I was dealing with wasn’t what I’d been diagnosed with (read: everything except DID), but it took me until 2013 to seek a local specialist to find out for sure.
That specialist was Lighthouse, I was thirty-one years old, and the rest is history.
#1.5 - Describe your system. What kind of system, how big, anything you feel is a good introduction. (2015):
We are different now than when we first began, yet we are still the same.
We were polyfragmented into the thousands — with strong individual alters, and layers upon layers of fragments — but the numbers never mattered.
We used to work in teams we called clusters. Or bubbles. Or strings. Inside-facing and outside-facing. Hierarchies and relationships. Responsibilities and reactions. Specialized parts for specific tasks. Memories from different viewpoints.
Currently, our center has expanded, and we have consolidated and coalesced. We communicate easily, cooperate seamlessly, are collectively co-conscious, and can stay present with our most traumatized parts.
We present as one (“T.W.”) while embracing our multiplicity (“the Motley”) in all the various ways we’ve experienced it. We are distinct but not separate. We are a choir, a rain cloud, a flock of Gallimimus.
