A lot of people have been emphasizing recently that DID, and other CDDs, are dissociative disorders, and not trauma disorders. This is true, though I also wanted to add the addition: complex dissociative disorders are also not "the most extreme" trauma disorders, as many people believe.
Complex Dissociative Disorders describe disorders which have a severe, complex dissociative response to trauma. This describes a specific pattern of trauma responses, which is often related to needing an escape from a situation that is experienced as inescapable.
This is no different to other disorders which originate in trauma, such as Personality Disorders.
Personality Disorders are usually* developed due to childhood trauma. Similarly to a CDD, they are specific patterns of recognized trauma responses. Most, for example, have a recognized pattern of relationships with themselves, others and the world, as informed by trauma. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, for example, is often rooted in the belief someone is worthless or will not have their needs met by caretakers, and causes narcissistic patterns to be ingrained into coping mechanisms, as a trauma response.
None of these exist on a spectrum from least to most severe trauma, they are all just recognizable patterns of trauma responses.
*There are exceptions to this. Such as Schizotypal being recognized in some people without trauma, who have a family member with a Schizspec disorder. Generally this is true, however. There is also an implied note here about bias in medicine and diagnoses in general being a social construct.
