Yeah, I think I'm gonna delete this blog eventually, once I archive some posts, delete any I don't want up anymore, etc. (This process is going to take ages, btw, so don't think it's going to be deleted anytime soon in the next couple of days or weeks. In the meantime, you can still send me asks, I encourage it. Maybe you've always wanted to send me an ask, but felt too shy or something, now's your chance lol).
Remember you can still follow my main @me-and-my-mes-and-my-mes-and-my
I'm really, really glad I've made such an impact on so many people. I'm glad I got to share the things I've shared here.
There are some posts of mine I really like actually & want to still have available & want to be able to have on my main blog, & I actually think I'll re-make some of them on my main blog with some changes (there are some posts that I'd love to re-post with some changes to them, such as my Huuuuge post about "what you're all getting wrong about DID")
you were one of the only people with DID that I felt I could truly relate to and understand, who would voice many things that I also felt myself. now that you are moving on, I feel very alone again, but i am so happy for your recovery progress and I wish you a very happy and peaceful life. thank you for all your posts and insights, they have made me feel much less alone in the world.
š„ŗš„ŗš„ŗ This is so sweet, I appreciate this so much, this made me so so happy.
For the most part, I think I just plan on moving onto a different account at some point. Since I got this anon, I do want to give a life update though :')
The main reason I haven't really been using this account is because I simply didn't really have anything to post. I kind of felt like progress with regards to figuring out my alters, my switches, and so on has been halted for pretty much all of 2025, however this isn't true, it's just not the way it used to be.
I've made a LOT of progress.
I can catch when I switch much, much, MUCH more often in therapy, I can accept them as switches as they are instead of how I used to be where I would constantly go "I don't know, IF this is another alter/IF this is a switch, I don't know though, I'm just assuming, I could probably be wrong!!" etc. I still don't really notice them at home, but in therapy? I notice them very frequently.
Just yesterday I simply looked away from my therapist for a moment and pretty much nothing gave me the impression that I switched other than a vague feeling of feeling like I had just "come to" (holy shit typing that out actually only JUST now made me realize that that's what that means... It doesn't mean literally as if I just woke up like I always thought that meant lmao) and just a feeling of "did I switch?" And I wasn't sure at first, but I looked back at my therapist and asked her if she felt like I switched and she said yes NFNDSKA
Yesterday I actually caught some of the most switches I've been able to notice. I even noticed parts around too??? Who weren't necessarily fronting, just around.
I've been eating a lot better too. I don't know if anyone remembers, but I was struggling horrifically to eat, I suspected I had/have ARFID or something, along with my other problems that make eating hard like my IBS.
When I was watching a YouTube video ages ago about EDs, she explained basically that eating small snacks throughout the day is actually really helpful and good for you and how it provides necessary fuel even if it's small. For some reason that made so many things click for me.
A big reason why I wouldn't want to eat something was because "it's not really a full meal, I'm just going to be hungry again in 5 minutes :/" like it didn't feel worth it to eat a sandwich or a few grapes or so on.
After I watched that video, I decided to try and stop doing that. And I think that that helped me a LOT??
I still have my bad days, and of course part of it too was just having to find food I do actively like and can eat, which I have! I started to notice other things too, like, I used to think I didn't really like yogurt, but I realized that I actually love yogurt, just. With sliced fruit in it and granola. I've been eating strawberry yogurt with strawberry slices and french vanilla granola pieces nearly every day and it's delicious. It made me realize that it's just the added texture is hat makes me like it, rather than just plain yogurt on its own. I've also been eating this beef stew with carrots, potatoes, celery and green onions nearly every day. These two things are my current safe foods lol
I'm gonna try a new recipe today too, hopefully I like it.
Hmm, other than that, I'm gonna marry my gf! We will be married on Halloween :) It's not anything big, no big party or something, it's literally just getting it legally done is all. It's mainly so I can get on her insurance instead of shitty fucking medicaid. The Planned Parenthood I go to for testosterone is no longer taking my insurance so :') And also getting married so that I can have protections against my parents in case anything were to happen in the future (like I've heard stories about how they can just take all your stuff after you die or prevent others from visiting you in the hospital etc.).
My mood in general has been a million times more stable as well.
I visited my QPP recently (for the second time), for context we're mostly online friends but we met up in person back in.. April I think last year? I can't even remember lmfao but it was nice, but this time we met up weeks ago and stayed at a hotel and hung out and it was really great (I think you still follow this blog, you know who you are hehehe).
Maybe I can just revive this account, but I'm not sure what I'd post. If people have any further questions they wanna ask, doesn't even have to be about DID, you can even just ask me more questions about myself or what. Maybe give me ideas for posts :P Maybe this anon will inspire me to revive this account lol
If I were to make more big posts about DID and CDDs in general, trauma, etc., I'd be making them on my new main blog @miscellaneous-constellations !
What they don't tell you about DID #2 is that almost everyone you see online who appears super confident with their alters and system and everything? They, too, just like you, are also just doin' a lot of guesswork and assumptions.
"DID is most often hidden and unnoticeable" as in "MANY symptoms of DID, including the symptom of switching from one alter to another, are easily passed off as something else more 'normal' and not readily understood as switching from one alter to another" but you people seem to think that it means "alters don't really have differences actually and if you're allowing yourselves as different alters to know yourselves and express yourselves, you're lying/faking/wrongly self-diagnosed/glorifying DID/romanticizing DID-"
What part of dissociative IDENTITY disorder don't you understand?
You see someone with DID simply existing as themselves (alters existing as themselves) and see someone faking or roleplaying DID or wrongly self-diagnosing or "making DID their whole identity" when really it is literally no different from somebody expressing a side of themself to a friend that they otherwise feel scared to express. It is literally just self-expression.
Tea is an alter in my system who is extremely hyperactive, energetic, exciteable. She stands out. And one of the first times she was fronting in therapy, when I was noticing how different I was and how hyperactive I was, I felt embarrassed and switched immediately. And then many months later, the next time Tea was fronting, and me and our therapist realized it was her who was fronting, we didn't switch! We/she, felt safe and okay enough to behave the ways she does. I didn't switch in order to not behave in those "weird" ways, and I didn't try to suppress the ways I wanted to behave and just Be.
This is huge! It was a huge thing for us in that therapy session. And we've only been continuing our journey with finding ourselves, finding out who we are, and allowing myself to "be" "different."
Alters expressing themselves differently is merely allowing yourself the right to self-expression. It is allowing yourself to truly "be cringe." It is allowing yourself to know yourself. To know who you really are. It is an important and huge aspect of recovery with DID.
Alters are not Nothing, that is an entire aspect of this brain's identity that could not integrate into the rest of the brain's identity.
You people continue to see DID as "the actual person versus the alters that just influence that Real person" when it is more like "all of us are That Real Person. That Real Person is different alters sometimes" like people will say these things about DID being treated like an "identity quirk" just because you see an alter expressing themself when in reality what you are doing is not that different from someone making fun of some kid because they're pretending to be a cat.
You are seeing somebody with DID merely expressing an aspect of their identity, merely expressing themself, and that's bad to you because you continue to incorrectly view DID as "the actual, real person and their alters" when those alters ARE "the real person", just dissociated into its own box.
You continue to see "The actual person, the Host, who is actually a person, oh they can express themselves! :)" but it's suddenly bad when it's not what you think is "the host/the Real/Actual Person" because, again, you people are continuing to incorrectly view alters as these Side things that just pop up and they can't self-express or have their own names or have hobbies and interests or Tumblr side blogs and act like that's bad and it means someone is "roleplaying DID" or faking or "romanticizing" when it is LITERALLY, and I mean this SO literally. It is LITERALLY just expressing another side of yourself.
Alters learning to expressing themselves and Be Themselves and learning about yourselves is a huge and important part of therapy when you have DID.
We are also learning to know ourselves and be ourselves, be our full, authentic selves, as our own 'individuals', and it has come along with lessening dissociative barriers, and the more we break these barriers down, the more we will be capable of knowing ourselves and BEING ourselves.
im confused, mostly abt the second part of this. is this saying that being covert is like...bad? we went through therapy w a DID specialist, we recovered a lot, we function day to day, and were all very happy and content being covert. its uncomfortable that this is worded as if to say that we still need to recover just cuz were covert? i think some systems are Just Covert and it isnt that deep. obvs the way OP describes it, it was unhelpful for them, but its really presumptious to act like being covert=non functioning.
please let me know if im misinterpreting this. i try not to respond to things with any sort of "well i specifically am exempt from this statement because-" because most of the time i just assume whatever the statement is just isnt about me, but this one has me confused and a little concerned (that either we are doing something wrong or that this is phrased in a way that others could interpret similiarly and incorrectly believe they are doing something wrong.)
tldr: is this post saying being covert is always an unhealthy way to exist with DID?
I think itās more meant to say that becoming more overt can be a sign of comfort and healing, not necessarily that covertness is evidence of the absence of those things.
My apologies for being incapable of having short responses, ha.
For one, this post is mainly addressing a common sentiment I've been seeing throughout the years online with regards to DID about people seeming to think that seeing alters, say, have their own names and Tumblr side blogs and pronouns and profiles as a bad thing.
A lot of people see alters expressing themselves online and will fake-claim that system, will claim that this is "glorifying" DID or "romanticizing" it.
I see this CONSTANTLY! I see this on Tumblr, I see it on Reddit, I'm certain it's on plenty of other websites I don't use.
Because these types of people have a grave misunderstanding of what DID is, how it works, what and who alters even ARE. They see alters as the side thing that just happens to DID, when the person with DID is always an alter. These people will sit here and act like the mere act of, say, me expressing and introducing myself online as a specific alter and they'll look at that and fake-claim and act like it's romanticizing or glorifying DID and, pray tell, I just have to ask these people what part of me am I allowed to express? Do you see DID as "the host, and then the alters" and you think I'm a host right now, and it's acceptable to express myself because you think I'm a host, as if "host" is "the main/actual/real person" and not just another alter? What part of me is acceptable to express? What part of me is allowed to be expressed, online or not, and which parts of me aren't?
I never brought up anything about covert or overt, and that's actually for a very specific reason (the tags mentioned covert/overt, but that was that person specifically, not us). We haven't said a single thing about overt or covert in this entire post, and this is actually partially why - what I'm saying and what I'm talking about is being incorrectly conflated with meaning "Being Overt" or "being separate, distinct People" when that isn't what I was saying or implying. Being covert or overt has nothing to do with this.
I'm talking about alters expressing themselves, and I think this is incorrectly being conflated to meaning overt or meaning "distinct, separate people" when that's not what it means.
Let's take away the DID and alter stuff for a moment:
Humans express themselves through many ways - we express ourselves with our names and having our own hobbies and interests, yes, but we also express ourselves just in terms of, like. Talking to a friend about the stress we're going through.
When you, as a person with DID, are expressing yourself - by talking about your trauma to your therapist; by communicating with the different parts in your system; by allowing parts to simply BE who they are instead of suppressing them and trying to hide them - it is alters expressing themself.
That means nothing about whether or not those parts exist with a separate name, separate hobbies, or just generally are their own "distinct person."
Remember my example with my part 'Tea' - I came into therapy one day, very excitable, energetic. I felt embarrassed for Being The Way I Was in that moment and my brain switched to someone else almost immediately, because of that embarrassment.
Months later (or even a year later, I don't even know anymore lmfao), I came into therapy pretty energetic and excitable again. But this time, I felt safer and more comfortable. We didn't switch to another part out of embarrassment, I felt safe to be myself in that moment.
This is what I mean.
Overt/covert has nothing to do with it.
What self-expression means to me is going to be different from other people, and what self-expression means to them is going to be different from me. For us, it means allowing ourselves to exist as we are and not trying to force us into a closed-off box of "Being One Person." For you, maybe it means simply ripping up paper to express anger (i.e. a specific part in your system ripping up paper to express the anger they feel). And that's still self-expression, and that's GOOD!
I will clarify, though, that my second addition/reblog was more talking about my personal thing about our own journey, just as an added ramble-conversation to do with what the tags said. It was not meant to be applied to other people - I did feel that that person's tags were important, but it's not meant to be a generalized Rule of "everybody with DID must be like this to heal." I did not feel the need to put disclaimers about "just to be clear, this isn't about covertness or overtness, and being covert or overt has nothing to do with this" because it didn't feel necessary, but to clarify:
Being "overt" does NOT mean "lower dissociative barriers"
Being "covert" does NOT mean "higher dissociative barriers"
Alters expressing themselves does NOT mean "overt"
Having lowered dissociative barriers simply means communication between parts has improved, amnesia has been lowered, etc.
Whether or not a system is "covert" or "overt" is less to do with dissociative barriers, although it CAN play a role, whether or not a system is "covert" or "overt" is actually more dependent on that specific person - their life, the trauma they went through, the environments they were raised in.
Nearly every single ""OVERT"" system I have known have had very specific life experiences that have lead them to develop this presentation. When you hear about these systems and they explain things about their life, how they were raised, their trauma, it becomes clear that the presentation their DID took the form of had way more to do with their personal, specific life experiences and less to do with anything about how high or low their dissociative barriers were. Although, yes, again, that CAN play a role, but not as big of a role as you might assume - MANY, MANY "overt" systems have very high dissociative barriers.
To be a bit more clearer: alters expressing themselves can give an idea of whether or not a system is "overt" or "covert" (I think this terms are shaky and muddy and blurry anyways and ultimately don't think they're very helpful, but that's a discussion for another day), but alters expressing themselves doesn't mean anything about being overt. It just means expressing themselves, and that can be in "big" ways (having your own name, pronouns, and personal hobbies and interests) or "small" ways (allowing yourself to express your anger in a healthy way; talking to your therapist about trauma and finally feeling safe enough to do so, etc.).
It took awhile to write this post, and I hope this helps.
"DID is most often hidden and unnoticeable" as in "MANY symptoms of DID, including the symptom of switching from one alter to another, are easily passed off as something else more 'normal' and not readily understood as switching from one alter to another" but you people seem to think that it means "alters don't really have differences actually and if you're allowing yourselves as different alters to know yourselves and express yourselves, you're lying/faking/wrongly self-diagnosed/glorifying DID/romanticizing DID-"
What part of dissociative IDENTITY disorder don't you understand?
You see someone with DID simply existing as themselves (alters existing as themselves) and see someone faking or roleplaying DID or wrongly self-diagnosing or "making DID their whole identity" when really it is literally no different from somebody expressing a side of themself to a friend that they otherwise feel scared to express. It is literally just self-expression.
Tea is an alter in my system who is extremely hyperactive, energetic, exciteable. She stands out. And one of the first times she was fronting in therapy, when I was noticing how different I was and how hyperactive I was, I felt embarrassed and switched immediately. And then many months later, the next time Tea was fronting, and me and our therapist realized it was her who was fronting, we didn't switch! We/she, felt safe and okay enough to behave the ways she does. I didn't switch in order to not behave in those "weird" ways, and I didn't try to suppress the ways I wanted to behave and just Be.
This is huge! It was a huge thing for us in that therapy session. And we've only been continuing our journey with finding ourselves, finding out who we are, and allowing myself to "be" "different."
Alters expressing themselves differently is merely allowing yourself the right to self-expression. It is allowing yourself to truly "be cringe." It is allowing yourself to know yourself. To know who you really are. It is an important and huge aspect of recovery with DID.
Alters are not Nothing, that is an entire aspect of this brain's identity that could not integrate into the rest of the brain's identity.
You people continue to see DID as "the actual person versus the alters that just influence that Real person" when it is more like "all of us are That Real Person. That Real Person is different alters sometimes" like people will say these things about DID being treated like an "identity quirk" just because you see an alter expressing themself when in reality what you are doing is not that different from someone making fun of some kid because they're pretending to be a cat.
You are seeing somebody with DID merely expressing an aspect of their identity, merely expressing themself, and that's bad to you because you continue to incorrectly view DID as "the actual, real person and their alters" when those alters ARE "the real person", just dissociated into its own box.
You continue to see "The actual person, the Host, who is actually a person, oh they can express themselves! :)" but it's suddenly bad when it's not what you think is "the host/the Real/Actual Person" because, again, you people are continuing to incorrectly view alters as these Side things that just pop up and they can't self-express or have their own names or have hobbies and interests or Tumblr side blogs and act like that's bad and it means someone is "roleplaying DID" or faking or "romanticizing" when it is LITERALLY, and I mean this SO literally. It is LITERALLY just expressing another side of yourself.
What they don't tell you about DID is that almost everything is just vibes. Literally just vibes. System mapping, inner world, knowledge about alters in general - vibes.
I think more than anything else, being so traumatized is just really fucking exhausting and sad. Like it's sad and exhausting that I have a brain that is constantly on edge and on alert, I feel like life would be way more relaxing if that wasn't the case. It's exhausting and it's sad that the "smallest" things are so triggering sometimes. It's exhausting and it's sad that everything sets us off and you and your body and your brain can never calm down or relax. I feel like a constantly shaking chihuahua in a cartoon or something.
The whole "stop romanticizing DID!!1!!11!!!" is obviously just annoying and stupid for several reasons, but it's really baffling and weird to me specifically.
To the average, uneducated person (which is what everybody who says this is - uneducated), DID is:
The extremely rare trauma disorder that is so rare that basically no-one has it and it's only caused by the most extreme things and it's horrible, you never want DID!!1!11!!!
Totally separate people sharing one body, they all have different names, ages, genders, sexualities, clothing styles, body language, voices, etc. Also it's caused by severe trauma and it's a super horrible and debilitating condition that you could never, ever possibly want!
And the people who say shit like "ugh, people are ROMANTICIZING DID!!1!!" are people who seem to fall into like the complete opposite almost sometimes where they understand that most people with CDDs are not like that second bullet point, and CDDs are covert and hidden and largely unnoticeable, but these people act like NOBODY with a CDD exists like the second bullet point, and that anybody who DOES exist like that is faking/lying, roleplaying/pretending, confused/mistaken, and that they are romanticizing DID.
Disclaimers of "yes I know DID is all parts of a whole, yes I know trying to force separation is damaging, yadda yadda yadda yadda" aside, so nobody misconstrue me here.
Alters very much are and can be extremely complex and vast in a lot of the same ways any singlet person is (obviously there's a lot of limitations, I know that, again, please don't misconstrue me here), and although most people with CDDs do not exist like the second bullet point, many people with CDDs actually do exist that way in varying degrees and in different ways, in a sense that like.
By DID's very nature, alters DO have different... Body languages, opinions, likes, dislikes, interests... To varying degrees, and in different ways, but that is quite literally what DID is??? Like that's . That's literally what DID is. Like yes DID is covert/hidden, but that doesn't mean "people with DID do not experience having different voices, body languages, likes, dislikes, food preferences, etc.", DID is covert/hidden in a sense that, like, if somebody has DID, and you do not know about DID, you aren't educated, aren't a therapist, don't have it yourself, etc., you won't know it (even IF you DO know a lot about DID/have it/etc., you STILL might not even know).
We aren't saying that people with DID do not, and never can or will have drastic changes in body language, voice, opinions, interests, etc., we're saying that you won't know somebody has DID most of the time BECAUSE MANY OF THOSE VERY CHANGES CAN BE AND ARE EXPLAINED AWAY AND DISMISSED AS OTHER, MORE "NORMAL" THINGS, like being "moody", being forgetful, not having a stable sense of self, etc.
It isn't "romanticizing" DID or something for the alters in a system to express themselves through 'aesthetics' online or wearing different clothes or making sideblogs or just making silly TikTok videos or social media posts just fucking around and having fun.
Like that's literally just called self-expression and . like. Existing In The World.
Human beings exist in the world and engage with the world and with people and they express themselves and laugh and make friends. But suddenly because it's an alter, it's romanticizing DID.
Also you need to understand that when you have a friend or know someone with DID, you.. You ARE speaking to an alter..? You're always speaking to an alter when you are speaking to somebody with DID. Do you think they shouldn't express themselves? Or do you only think they shouldn't express themselves so long as they aren't what you think is ""the real/actual/original person/the host""? š¤Ø
(Repost 'cause I messed up the OG post) I wanted to share some of the stuff I shared with my therapist that we've written.. (Don't reblog this post please, I just have it rebloggable for me lol)
Big trigger warning for sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, mention of being drugged, being forced into CSEM/CSAM. Fairly graphic.
I'm always worried that my partner doesn't actually believe these things happened to me, not even because of anything she's said or done, just yeah. But I asked if she ended up reading this post, reading any of it, and she said "I had to stop reading because it was just too fucked up" and I'm not gonna live that down.
I constantly feel like anybody would read these things and feel that they're fake. I always feel like these things I've written about come across as Very Fake and Laughable like they are made up stories of someone's attempt at what they Think these things look like and feel like etc. when they have no idea what they're talking about. But uhm I guess they ! do not. come across that way.
(Repost 'cause I messed up the OG post) I wanted to share some of the stuff I shared with my therapist that we've written.. (Don't reblog this post please, I just have it rebloggable for me lol)
Big trigger warning for sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, mention of being drugged, being forced into CSEM/CSAM. Fairly graphic.
(Content warning: sexual abuse. This might be really uncomfortable to read, I'm unsure how to warn further).
Do you love me? I love this. It hurts. Keep going. Am I good? I hate this. Please kill me. More. MORE. STOP. STOP. PLEASE STOP. I love you. I want a mom. This feels really good. Am I doing a good job? I feel like I am going to die. Am I doing well? Do they feel good? Does he love me? Please stop. I hate you. I'm sorry. I hate myself. More. STOP. Am I going to die? I love this. Kill me. I feel like I am being ripped apart. I love you. Is there a God? Will he save me? I'm horrible. I hate you. I love feeling good. It hurts. Am I doing this right? Can I go home? I wish I had a mom. Will God save me? I hate you. I love him. Are we done yet? I never want this to end. I'm bad. I love you. This feels really good. Like this? I feel happy. Thank you.
(Content warning: sexual abuse. This might be really uncomfortable to read, I'm unsure how to warn further).
Do you love me? I love this. It hurts. Keep going. Am I good? I hate this. Please kill me. More. MORE. STOP. STOP. PLEASE STOP. I love you. I want a mom. This feels really good. Am I doing a good job? I feel like I am going to die. Am I doing well? Do they feel good? Does he love me? Please stop. I hate you. I'm sorry. I hate myself. More. STOP. Am I going to die? I love this. Kill me. I feel like I am being ripped apart. I love you. Is there a God? Will he save me? I'm horrible. I hate you. I love feeling good. It hurts. Am I doing this right? Can I go home? I wish I had a mom. Will God save me? I hate you. I love him. Are we done yet? I never want this to end. I'm bad. I love you. This feels really good. Like this? I feel happy. Thank you.
I keep going from "thank you for believing me, thank you for not calling me a liar" and "surely this is some kind of prank or joke somehow. Surely she doesn't actually believe any of these things. Surely this is a joke. Is she just playing along just because? Is this some sick joke? I keep feeling like I have dreamt up or made up her believing me, like her believing all of this is something I made up.
.
Content warning: sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, child sexual exploitation material.
This is only a brief summary of only Some stuff I talked with her about.. I.. Really feel like sharing, but I'm scared to.
My dad sexually abused since I was extremely young; I was basically groomed into believing he and I were in a romantic and sexual relationship. He would sexually abuse me nearly every day; he sexually abused both me and my brother together and taught me how to pleasure my brother and my brother how to pleasure me. He took me to ""parties"" at his friends' houses and there were other kids and I'd be taught how to "be" ""different people"", like I was acting, but it.. Was alters, obviously without anyone realizing. I had to "pretend" to be "different people" to play different roles for sex videos and do different poses and they would pose me in different ways themselves for photos and I'd get dressed in different outfits and costumes for whatever they wanted.
There.. Is a lot more that I talked about with my therapist, but I'm not comfortable sharing right now. I feel like I still want to ask people "am I insane? Am I lying? Did this happen? Have I made this up?"
What do u MEANNN she believes me?? She believes I went through horrific stuff? There are no words in the universe that I can think of to describe the dissonance between "my life was fairly average and fairly normal, nothing too bad happened, nothing bad really happened at all in general" and genuinely feeling and believing this to my core, but writing all this stuff in my notes app on my phone about horrible sexual abuse, programming, organized abuse and someone actually believes me and believes that they happened to me, that they're real. Like wait my therapist actually believes this? Believes these things, believe they happened? I can. Call myself a survivor of organized abuse? Programming? What? Actually I'm mostly just glad that I'm experiencing the joys of "oh someone believes I feel like I can finally breathe" and have yet to experience The Horrors from all of this.
Dissociative amnesia is characterised by an inability to recall important autobiographical memories, typically of recent traumatic or stressful events, that is inconsistent with ordinary forgetting. āDissociative Amnesia, ICD-11
The key thing about dissociative amnesia is that you typically won't know about it because by amnesia's very nature and definition, you don't remember what you don't remember.
Most patients are partly or completely unaware that they have gaps in their memory. They become aware only when personal identity is lost or when circumstances make them awareāeg, when others tell them or ask them about events they cannot remember.
You frequently forget what you do/talk about in therapy sessions, or can only vaguely remember some stuff about your therapy sessions.
You don't remember most of your childhood, or life in general
Memory gaps for your adult life are particularly notable.
You've forgetten positive/good/happy memories as well as traumatic ones
People talk to you about things like what happened on vacation with you, funny times in school together, etc., and you don't remember much of it, and/or you might misremembered some of the details (which often furthers our distrust of ourselves and of our memories).
Some subtle signs:
You often find yourself 'guessing' your memories; "I think (xyz) happened, but I don't know/I can't really remember", "I think I vaguely remember (xyz), but I don't know", "it might be a memory, but it just feels like a dream, so I can't be sure that it's a real memory", etc.
Never trusting your memories in general, always second-guessing, triple-guessing... Never Being Sure, always questioning the legitimacy of how you remember things and what you remember
You frequently need to "jog" your memory, and it often takes a lot of work to do so
Never trusting your memory, and needing to check over and over, even if you're certain you're remember something right (for example, calling the doctor's office to remember what time an upcoming appointment is, even though you're sure you wrote down the correct time) - this could also be a possible symptom of OCD
You find yourself constantly looking at your calendar, "out of habit"; you find yourself relying on a calendar to remember everything, like upcoming appointments, special dates, what the day of the week is, what month it is, etc.
You question if a lot of your memories are real or not
You sometimes feel like trying to remember something is really difficult, almost as if something or someone is 'blocking' you/when attempting to remember something, it feels like there's a "mental wall", "mental block", etc.
You might struggle with aphantasia, which can make it harder to "see"/remember your memories.
Your memories are in the third person
Your memories feel like somebody else's memories, like a totally different person, etc.
Every day "feels like a new day."
People close to you feel like strangers. They aren't LITERALLY strangers (although this can happen sometimes with some people with DID), but they FEEL like it, even though you know who they are.
Time is Distorted
The day goes by extremely fast
A week or month or year goes by extremely fast
Something that happened recently feels like it happened a very long time ago. On the other hand - something that happened a very long time ago feels recent.
Emotions are Absent
You remember things with little to no emotions attached, including positive/good/happy memories. Struggling to remember how you felt, what happened, how something happened, what happened before, or after, etc.
Alexithymia; you struggle to know how you feel, how you felt; you struggle to identify emotions, and express them
You may use describe your emotions in "odd" or "strange" ways
You may have to rely on an outside source to help you identify and figure out how you feel (such as looking at a wheel of emotions and looking at them until you feel like you found something that fits)
Relaying your memories in a very "factual" way; you may feel as if you're 'relaying' what you have been told, rather than talking about what you truly "remember"
"I don't think I could have DID/OSDD because none of my alters are distinctly different people! I never feel like a separate person!" and a basic explanation of what DID actually is
"As far as she remembers, she did not hear voices as a child or overtly switch identity states (to her knowledge or to the observation of others). Even though she did derive substantial benefit from several decades of psychotherapy, she still did not know that she had dissociated identities. All she knew was that she had struggled for many years to overcome an extraordinarily difficult childhood [. . .] This is the case with many who are dealing with dissociative identity disorder (DID). They have lived confusing, often crisis-ridden, terrifying, and quite routinely painfulāeven if sometimes outwardly successfulālives. Frequently, they had no idea of what was really the matter with them until some revelatory crisis took place." -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (p. 16)
Let me get this out of the way first: DID does not involve a totally distinct person taking over someone else's mind and body. It can feel and look this way for some people, but that is not what is actually happening.
The whole person is made up of alters that switch between each other. There is no singular person who is simply being "taken over" by their alters. Rather, the person is a different alter at different times.
"The part of the self who is in executive control most of the time is generally called the host. I prefer not to use the term host because of the inference that the person is possessed and that exorcism is the cure and because of the association of host with parasites. In addition, the association of host at a dinner party or for houseguests suggests that this part of the person is hosting the other parts" -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (p. 81)
Take, for example, your friend with DID named Katie. However, Katie is not just "Katie", but instead, they are "Katie" and another alter named "Freddie." Or they might be many more different alters than that.
Even though you may have known this friend as Katie your whole life, the truth is that Katie is only one alter out of the possible MANY alters that can occur within a DID system. Freddie is not an "extension" of Katie and they are not an outside entity who comes to possess and take over Katie's consciousness. Rather, the whole individual person - as Katie AND as Freddie - switches between these two alters, or many more alters, if there exists more.
Before somebody realizes they have DID, all or many of the alters also will not know it (you can't know you have DID unless you know it, after all. Your alters cannot know things that your entire "self" have never known or experienced).
What this means is that once you find out you have DID, it becomes a process of those alters starting to find out who they are.
Alters may confuse themself for one another (Alter C thought they were alter B; Alter N thought they were Alter C; etc.). This is common and normal (especially common amongst polyfragmented systems, I've noticed), and it can often be the case at first.
You might notice that you feel like a wolf sometimes, and with now realizing you have DID, you can then give a name to that feeling and recognize that to be an alter. Of course simply feeling like a wolf sometimes is not indicative of DID, but I'm talking about specifically when you DO have DID.
This is often how switches and alters are experienced for people before they realize they have DID - "I felt really angry at my dad and felt like a wolf, I had the urge to growl and bark." Once that person realizes they have DID, they can then say "Oh! I switched to an angry wolf alter and they were angry at my dad!"
This is, personally, how I prefer to describe what DID is and what it's like.
People always assume that switches between alters means that the alters are self-aware of themselves, know they exist, have names for themselves, but really, it takes becoming aware that they exist at all in order for them to even give themself a name or something.
There's a lot of nuance and complexities to this, but I hope my point is getting across.
"The most important point about the ANP and the EP is that they are dissociated, as separate dissociative parts of the personality. Even though the ANP may often appear to have a larger scope and greater functionality, once there is an EP, the ANP can only be a part of the personality. It is not correct to say that the EP is dissociated from the ANP as if the ANP is whole and unaffected except for those intrusive troublemakers, the EPs" -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (pgs. 91-92)
This does not mean that alters are not, and cannot, be their own individual people.
Only 5-6% of people with DID have a "florid" presentation in which their alters are overtly distinct in a way in which others notice drastic, dramatic personality switches. For the vast majority of people with DID, switches are hidden and unobservable and it often takes a trained eye to notice any changes.
"Many clinicians and lay people believe that DID presents with dramatic, florid personality states with obvious state transitions (switching). These florid presentations are likely based on media stereotypes, but actually occur in only about 5% of DID patient. The vast majority of DID patients have subtle presentations characterized by a mixture of dissociative and PTSD symptoms embedded with other symptoms such as posttraumatic depression, substance abuse, somatoform symptoms, eating disorders, personality disorders, and self-destructive and impulsive behaviors." -- Chronic Complex Dissociative Disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder: Disorders of Emotion Dysregulation?
"Changes between identities cause confusion and disruption in awareness and āsense of selfā. Sometimes others will observe changes. However, such symptoms can also be hidden from others. [. . .] These symptoms vary between individuals with DID (just like other mental health conditions have individual differences). For example, some people have obvious signs of identity change, but others have very few outward signs." -- Fact Sheet: What are the Dissociative Disorders?
Some people have a presentation of DID that is very "overt" where their alters all have vastly different personalities, names, voices, etc. Other people do not.
Systems can, in fact, have a presentation that is highly overt where they are highly aware of their alters. This is a real and valid experience that many people with DID have, and it does not indicate faking and it does not invalid your experience if you happen to be a part of that demographic of people who DO have a very overt presentation with alters who are highly aware of themselves and who present as their own separate people.
All systems are different, no two experiences will ever be the same, and it's okay if your experiences do not fall in line with the experiences that other systems have, whether your alters are quite distinct and different or not.
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"I don't think I could have DID because (I didn't have it that bad/I wasn't sexually/physically abused/etc.)"
"The traumatic experiences that may result in dissociative disorders do not always stem from sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Disorganized attachment which often underlies the dissociative structure of dissociative disorders may result from overwhelming experiences in the infantās interpersonal environment that are not caused by parental maltreatment. Parental illness, depression, or problematic attachment styles may be psychically overwhelming and lead to disorganized attachment. In addition, medical trauma may be dissociogenic." -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (pgs. 18-19)
"Milder presentations of DID are sometimes associated with traumatization that is covert, such as enduring severely dysfunctional communication and relationship styles in family members, including subtle forms of emotional neglect. In a study conducted on a large group of college students, Åar et al demonstrated that emotional neglect predicted a dissociative disorder (including DID) diagnosis. KrĆ¼ger and Fletcher demonstrated that self-reported emotional neglect by biological parents or siblings in childhood was the strongest individual predictor of an adult diagnosis of a dissociative disorder (including DID) in psychiatric patients (out of all other combinations of abuse type and abuser-abused relational ties)." -- Revisiting the Etiological Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder: a Biopsychosocial Perspective
"Abuse, however painful and horrible, is not necessarily affectively or cognitively overwhelming of itself. [. . .] An individual can endure terrible circumstances, even life-threatening events, but they are not necessarily perceived or experienced as traumatic to that person. Many variables may be at stake, including past history of trauma, overall resilience, and the social context, to name a few. For example, if one has the opportunity and ability to communicate emotions about the event to another person who is responsive and caring, it may link the traumatic event with oneās ongoing life experience and with interpersonal connection, thus lessening the extent to which the experience is overwhelming and making it more tolerable. This does not mean that abuse is not bad. Abuse is terrible and unacceptable, but it does not always result in trauma. When it does, in my view the effect of that trauma is dissociation. [. . .] It is not only the ātraumatic eventā in isolation but also the context of the event that makes something traumatic. It can make all the difference if a traumatized child can tell a sympathetic caregiving figure what happened and receive support." -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (p. 107)
And, no, experiencing ""less bad"" trauma or something does not mean you have OSDD. People diagnosed with OSDD have experienced a lot of trauma! They do not deserve to be thrown under the bus and treated like their diagnosis means they experienced "less bad" trauma.
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"I don't think I could have DID/OSDD because (I don't have amnesia/my amnesia isn't that bad/etc.)!"
"I don't have amnesia/my amnesia is rare/my amnesia isn't that bad - does that mean I have OSDD instead?"
"Dissociative amnesia, a psychiatric disorder in which patients have an inability to retrieve specific (unpleasant) memories. . . It usually follows a traumatic or stressful autobiographical event and is not due to any direct physiological effects of a neurological or other general medical condition and is, therefore, presumed to be psychogenic in origin. Dissociative amnesia often occurs very soon after traumatic events (i.e., insoluble and intolerable problems) but sometimes arises in association with continuous internal conflict or an ongoing intolerable situation" -- Memory Repression: Brain Mechanisms underlying Dissociative Amnesia
"In addition to an inability to recall personal information, DA may also involve the loss and recovery of semantic and procedural memories. Semantic memory lacks the reflective aspect (i.e., one knows something to be a fact without linking a personal episode to this knowledge). Procedural memory, in contrast, concerns motor repertoires. The experimental literature reports that in DA, the forgotten information is still present and often influences the personās behavior." -- Dissociative Amnesia in Dissociative Disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder: Self-Rating Assessment in a College Population
" Although the forgotten information may be inaccessible to consciousness, it sometimes continues to influence behavior (eg, a woman who was raped in an elevator refuses to ride in elevators even though she cannot recall the rape).
Most patients are partly or completely unaware that they have gaps in their memory. They become aware only when personal identity is lost or when circumstances make them aware, such as when others tell them or ask them about events they cannot remember
Some patients report flashbacks, as occur in PTSD; flashbacks may alternate with amnesia for the contents of the flashbacks. Some patients develop PTSD later, especially when they become aware of the traumatic or stressful events that triggered their amnesia.
Most patients recover their missing memories, and amnesia resolves. However, some are never able to reconstruct their missing past. "
-- Dissociative Amnesia
The DSM-5 states clearly that the criteria for "dissociative amnesia" includes things like amnesia for past traumatic events and what happened during the day, and not just dissociative fugue states or finding that you've done/said something with no memory of it. The ICD-11 also backs this up and states that in order to meet the criteria for dissociative amnesia for DID, amnesia must have been present at some point during your life with DID, again supporting that amnesia for the past is enough to meet the criteria. So, if your amnesia only presents as amnesia for your childhood, that is "enough" to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of DID.
Also, the idea of switching from one alter to another and having total, complete amnesia for every possible thing that the previous fronting alter did, said, felt, and thought isn't really what you might think it is, and is, again, not a requirement for having DID.
"Alternation between distinct personality states is not always associated with amnesia. That is, one personality state may have awareness and recollection of the activities of another personality state during a particular episode. However, substantial episodes of amnesia are typically present at some point during the course of the disorder." -- The ICD-11 about DID
"The dissociative amnesia of individuals with dissociative identity disorder manifests in three primary ways: as 1) gaps in remote memory of personal life events (e.g., periods of childhood or adolescence; some important life events, such as the death of a grandparent, getting married, giving birth); 2) lapses in dependable memory (e.g., of what happened today, of well-learned skills such as how to do their job, use a computer, read, drive); and 3) discovery of evidence of their everyday actions and tasks that they do not recollect doing (e.g., finding unexplained objects in their shopping bags or among their possessions; finding perplexing writings or drawings that they must have created; discovering injuries; ācoming toā in the midst of doing something). Dissociative fugues, wherein the person discovers dissociated travel, are common. Thus, individuals with dissociative identity disorder may report that they have suddenly found themselves at the beach, at work, in a nightclub, or somewhere at home (e.g., in the closet, on a bed or sofa, in the corner) with no memory of how they came to be there. Amnesia in individuals with dissociative identity disorder is not limited to stressful or traumatic events; these individuals often cannot recall everyday events as well.
Individuals with dissociative identity disorder vary in their awareness and attitude toward their amnesias. It is common for these individuals to minimize their amnestic symptoms. Some of their amnestic behaviors may be apparent to othersāas when these persons do not recall something they were witnessed to have done or said, when they cannot remember their own name, or when they do not recognize their spouse, children, or close friends." -- DSM-5, page 293
Having minimal amnesia does not mean that you have OSDD.
People can often believe that they do not experience amnesia, when in reality they do, they are just forgetting it and are not aware of their amnesia. This is the case for many people.
The question becomes "do you really not have amnesia, or are you just not aware of that amnesia/are you forgetting/etc.?"
This is such a tricky question to answer, and many people will not realize or recognize or notice or be aware of ANY amnesia until they are further along in recovery.
In reality, a system can experience quite severe amnesia while telling people "I have no amnesia/I have minimal amnesia." This is a common case for many people with DID.
Many will also dismiss and minimize and excuse their amnesia - it becomes even harder when you have a condition that DOES cause memory problems outside of DID, such as ADHD.
Sometimes other people are not pointing out our memory lapses, and so we believe that we don't have amnesia because nobody is pointing it out. In reality, they might be noticing, but not be telling you or saying anything.
Amnesia can hide itself so well that you can sincerely, fully believe and say with your full chest that you have little to no memory problems, only to find out that that was never true.
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So what is OSDD?
When somebody is diagnosed with OSDD, it is because they do not meet the full criteria of any other dissociative disorder. The reasons for this may be documented by the clinician who has given the diagnosis. There may be many different reasons for somebody to be diagnosed with OSDD.
"This category applies to presentations in which symptoms characteristic of a dissociative disorder that cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning predominate but do not meet the full criteria for any of the disorders in the dissociative disorders diagnostic class. The other specified dissociative disorder category is used in situations in which the clinician chooses to communicate the specific reason that the presentation does not meet the criteria for any specific dissociative disorder. This is done by recording āother specified dissociative disorderā followed by the specific reason (e.g., ādissociative tranceā)." -- The DSM-5 about Other Specified Dissociative Disorder
OSDD-1a and OSDD-1b are community-made terms. You cannot be diagnosed with "OSDD-1a" or "OSDD-1b."
The question of "is this DID or OSDD?" is a pointless, useless question, because what IS OSDD in the first place? It is a diagnosis of exclusion. You do not get diagnosed with OSDD because you specifically meet the criteria for OSDD - you get diagnosed with OSDD because you DO NOT meet the criteria for ANY OTHER DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER (which is more than just DID, by the way).
Stop asking if something is "DID or OSDD" because you aren't asking a question that makes sense.
More often than not, whether or not you get diagnosed with DID or OSDD depends entirely on the clinician diagnosing you. What one clinician says is OSDD, another will say is DID.
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All About Alters:
"Among the most commonly encountered parts, or alters, are (a) the part who is in executive control most of the time (i.e., the host); (b) child parts; (c) abuser or persecutor parts, including parts modeled after the abusers; (d) differently gendered parts; (e) seductive parts; (f) protector, rescuer, or soother parts; and (g) a manager. There are also commonly adolescent parts; angry and terrified parts of different ages; homicidal and suicidal parts; parts named Satan, Lucifer, Devil, Demon, and such; parts named No One; mute parts; dead parts; extremely functional and efficient parts; parts who know a language or a skill that others do not know; gatekeeper parts who keep other traumatized parts from emerging; parts who have various other functions such as The One Who Watches and Remembers; and sometimes animal parts. There are also often parts who are really just fragments with one isolated function, such as The One Who Cooks, The One Who Cleans, and so on. Parts may change in the way they function and in their positions in the system over time." -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (p. 81)
There's almost no limit to how alters can feel, experience themselves, identify, look, think, remember...
Systems may or may not have a host; they may have multiple hosts, or 'co-hosts', or they may not have any singular alter who fronts most of the time. Some systems may "technically" "have a host" but may not want to use the word "host" to describe their alters for any number of reasons.
Systems may or may not have alters that relate to any of the common "roles" that many other systems may have - for example, a system may feel that their alters cannot be described using words like "persecutor" or "caretaker" or "self-soother". Instead, a system may come up with their own words to use for themself, or they may find different words to use, or they may not use any kind of terminology to describe an alter's "role" within the system.
It's important to note that terms like "caretaker", "persecutor", "protector", "gatekeeper" and more are not scientific medical terms, rather terms that many systems may relate to. This isn't always the case, and a system who does not like, relate to, or feel that such terms are fitting for them is not faking or lying somehow, nor is it proof that somebody doesn't have DID or OSDD.
Some systems may not even use terms like "alters" or "parts" for a multitude of reasons, and may opt for other terms instead. Some people with DID or OSDD may even prefer to be referred to as that - a person with DID or OSDD - or they may or may not like to refer to themself as a system. They may choose a different word instead. Personally, I like to refer to myself as a Multiple, which was what people with 'MPD' were referred to as.
Again, every system is different and people should be allowed to use their own individual, unique terminology for themself. There is no "right" or "wrong" terminology and it's important to adapt to a system's individual terminology.
Names
Sometimes alters might not have names, and they may or may not decide to choose a name for themself
Sometimes alters will all have their own separate names
Sometimes alters might all share one singular name, or a 'group' of alters might share a name together (for example, 3 alters sharing the same name, or 5 alters sharing the same name, etc.)
Sometimes alters won't know what their name is, or if they even have one
Alters may have multiple names for themself, and/or change their name
They may have letters/numbers for names, or colors or flowers, etc.
They may have descriptors instead of names, such as "The Cook" because that alter likes to cook, or a depressed alter being called "The Depressed One."
Alters can have ANY kind of name for themself, no matter how "weird" or "strange."
It's important to note that an alter's name may not be the most appropriate name to use, for example, if the name is taken by a closed culture and/or is taken from a culture that you (as a whole person) have not been a part of and/or have not been genuinely educated on and/or involved with. Try to be as respectful of other cultures as much as possible.
Gender, Sex, and Sexuality
"Many people with DID have differently gendered parts. These are often highly stereotyped, not only as gender tends to be but also in accordance with the fact that young children rely more heavily on stereotypes than do adults" -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (p. 86)
Alters may be any gender and use any gender labels for themself
Alters may identify with no gender
Alters may identify with neopronouns, xenogenders, or have any other kind of "weird" experience with gender
Alters may or may not experience dysphoria towards your body
Alters may be any sexuality and use any sexuality labels for themself
Alters may identify with "weird" sexuality labels, contradictory sexuality labels, etc.
Again, one should be careful when it comes to using certain terminology if they do not belong to a group of people who CAN use the term (for example: alters should not call themselves intersex if the entire person themself is not intersex, etc.)
Ages
Alters may be older, younger, or the same age as your body
Alters may be as young as infant age
Alters may be "stuck"/"frozen" at an age, due to trauma reasons, or due to non-direct traumatic circumstances
Alters may be an age that does NOT match the age of traumatization (i.e. an alter may identify with the age of 10, but they hold feelings from abuse they experienced at age 5)
Alters may experience themself as "having no age" or any other kind of "weird" age ("infinite age", "billions of years old", etc.)
Alters may age up along with your body
Alters may experience their age "symbolically", rather than actually feeling/being/identifying as/with that age
Alters may believe they are a different age than your body, and be surprised to learn that they are a completely different age than what they thought
Alters may feel as if they change ages/that their age is fluid (they may sometimes feel that they are 7-years-old, and other times feel as if they are 17, etc.)
Alters may not have a specific age, but have an age "range" (such as an alter who says they are anywhere from 5-8-years-old, or even a wider range, such as anywhere from 15-23)
Alters may or may not "act" the way that one might expect them to act due to their age (example: an alter who is 3-years-old may still behave like a "normal" adult, or an alter who is 14-years-old may behave as if they are much younger than that, etc.)
Most importantly: CHILD ALTERS ARE NOT THE SAME AS REAL, BIOLOGICAL CHILDREN!
Alters, no matter their age, may or may not be able to consent to adult activities, including doing drugs, having sex, drinking alcohol, driving, and more, including alters who may be constituted as 'child alters', AS LONG AS THE PERSON'S BODY MEETS THE REQUIRED AGE OF CONSENT TO DO THESE THINGS, AND IS DOING THEM IN A SAFE AND CONSENSUAL WAY THAT IS NOT HARMING ANYONE, AND IF AND WHEN AND ONLY IF AND WHEN THAT ALTER IS CAPABLE OF CONSENTING.
This is a very tricky topic that has a lot of nuance! As many topics do!
It is up to the individual person, the individual system, to decide whether or not an alter is capable of consenting to something like sex, drinking alcohol, etc. Some systems will have alters who can consent to having sex. Other systems will have alters who cannot consent to having sex. It's not about the age, but "how vulnerable is this alter? Are they capable of consenting to this, and if so, why/how?"
"Although it may seem odd to say this, one should keep in mind that child alters are not real children. Even while speaking in childlike ways, child alters often understand abstract concepts and long words. As Shusta-Hochberg (2004) noted: "It is important to remember that the patient is an adult, despite the childlike ego states. These parts are not actual children". This is in agreement with Rossās (1997) statement that āchild alters are not packets of childness retained in a surrounding sea of adult psyche. They are stylized packets of adult psycheā -- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (pgs. 83-84)
Child alters are going to be different depending on the individual system. It's important to always remember that each and every single system is different.
Species
"Some people with DID have animal parts. While in animal identity states, they may exhibit animal-like behaviors, such as growling, scratching, or running on all fours. They may also hear animal calls inside the head or have visual flashbacks involving animal identities. Other clinical cues that may indicate the presence of animal identities include excessive fear of animals, excessive involvement with a pet, and cruelty to animals
Children often identify with animals and experience them as peers and friends. Abused children may develop animal parts they experience as protectors, peers, or both in an environment where there was no protection. Or, the patient may have identified through loss with a beloved pet that was lost, innocently killed, or murdered to terrify the child, to demonstrate the abuserās omnipotence, or to enforce silence. Sometimes, parts named after the cat family (leopard, cougar, tiger) may serve as protector states that are allowed to express the emotion the host cannot. [. . .] On the other hand, the presence of cat-family parts, or other animal parts, may be more serious and indicate the possibility of dangerous violenceāsomething that should be assessed. Animal identities may also be self-representations that are consistent with the abuserās treatment and labeling of the child. For example, the child may have been treated like an animal. Dog parts are not infrequent identifications. A part named Dog may represent how the patient was treated like a dog and forced to bark like a dog by her abusers. Or, the child may have been forced into sexual behaviors with animals, leading to a view of the self as an animal or as bestial and inhuman.
[. . .] Animal parts may also express evaluations of oneās own experience metaphorically. My patient Anna experiences herself at times as a fish and as different kinds of snakes. This probably derives from the fact that she grew up in a coastal village where many people fished for a living. Sometimes, she awakens from sleep, feeling that she is wriggling like a fish, and is unable to use her arms and legs for a few minutes. Perhaps the brutal way she was treated, often with her arms and legs pinned down, made her feel like a ābeast of prey,ā and she understood this feeling in terms of something with which she was more familiarāas if she were one of the fish that were so much a part of her home environment."
-- Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach (pgs. 87-89)
Alters may experience themself as something other than human, or partially human. This can happen for many reasons. There is no "right" or "wrong" way for a nonhuman alter to Be and there is no right or wrong reason for a nonhuman alter to form.
Alters may be an animal (cat, dog, wolf, deer, elephant, etc.)
Alters may be an object (a tree, a flower, a toy, etc.)
Alters may be a mythical creature, an extinct animal, a ghost, a vampire, etc - anything
When a nonhuman alter fronts, they may or may not act the same/similar to the nonhuman 'entity' that they are/that they're based off of. For example, a cat alter fronts and the person acts like a cat by only walking on all fours, meowing, purring, etc. Sometimes a nonhuman alter will not act like the nonhuman 'entity' that they are/they they're based off of. Each system is different and no two nonhuman alters will be the same for everyone, even within a system.
Sometimes an alter won't consider themself "nonhuman", even if they identify as something that isn't human/etc.; they may reject the label of nonhuman for themself if they feel it isn't a label they resonate with.
Animal alters can form for ANY reason, and it is not always for reasons related to trauma. Maybe the person identifies with cats because they have always loved cats, grew up around cats, find comfort around cats, etc. Or maybe the person experienced trauma surrounding a certain animal. Again, they can form for ANY reason, and there are no right or wrong reasons.
Introjects
Introjection is "a process in which an individual unconsciously incorporates aspects of external reality into the self, particularly the attitudes, values, and qualities of another person or a part of another personās personality" (The American Psychological Association's definition of "introjection.")
In DID and OSDD, an introject is an alter that is based off of a real or fictional person, character, animal, etc. It is taking the attitudes, values, and qualities of a person, animal, etc., real or fictional, and developing an alter based upon your perception of that person, animal, etc.
The animal, person, etc. that an alter is based off of is oftentimes referred to as a "source."
For example: somebody starts to watch a new show for the first time, and they strongly relate to one of the characters. This character may have attitudes, values, qualities, etc. that the person may introject, and an alter may form based around that character.
Introject alters may be based off of a fictional character, even if you yourself created that character, or a friend created the character, or it's someone else's character online that you saw, etc.
Introjects may be based off of a real person that you know or once knew
Introjects may be based off of a real person whom you have never met (such as introjects based off of a famous celebrity, etc.)
Introjects may or may not genuinely believe that they are the source that they are based off of.
Introjects may be extremely similar to the thing(s) they are based off of, or they may be completely different.
Introjects may use the name that their source uses, or have a different name.
Introjects may have the same gender or a completely different gender from the one from their source
Introjects may love, hate, or otherwise have mixed feelings about their source. Introjects may want nothing to do with their source.
Sometimes, an alter might not really be an introject, but may identify with the source for one reason or another, but not consider themself to be an introject of that source. For example, an alter might just really like a certain character from a show you like and might express themselves through or as that character, but consider themself different from that character.
It is a completely normal, and common, experience for an alter to "become" an introject and latch onto an outside source to form an identity around, especially if that alter struggled to know who or what they were in the first place. It's completely fine to consider these alters introjects if you want to. Some people say that this is not a "true" or "real" introject, but frankly, I don't really care, and it's a silly hill to die on.
Just like any other alter, introject alters may happen for any reason.
There is no "right" or "wrong" way for an alter to be an introject, and introject alters are not "bad", even if their source is something bad (such as an introject alter based off of a widely known serial killer, or an introject alter based off of a television series with highly questionable material in them, etc.).
It's important to remember that somebody having an introject of someone/something associated with racism, homophobia, etc. DOES NOT MEAN that that person themself is racist, homophobic, etc.
Please do not judge a person based off of an introject they have. You do not know why that introject exists and it is incredibly harmful to assume that that person is a bad person simply because of the introject(s) they have. Please be mindful and do not assume. Again, every system is different and unique.
The formation of an alter and the "reasons" for why they exist are going to be different for different systems, and there is no singular reason for a specific "type" of alter to form. In other words, the "reason" for an alter's existence is going to be different for everyone. Whatever the reason for an alter existing and being the way they are, that reason is valid and it is real, and does not mean you're faking or wrong about having DID.
Inner World
The inner world is commonly referred to as an internal space where alters can communicate and interact with one another.
Systems may have a vivid and clear inner world that might feel incredibly real
Systems may have NO inner world
Systems may started out without an inner world, but then develop one - or vice versa
Systems may experience trauma from things that happened in the inner world, but did not happen in their real life
Systems may experience things happening in the inner world as incredibly real and vivid
Systems may communicate with other alters in the inner world, or they may struggle to do so. They may communicate in the inner world through sharing thoughts, "speaking" internally, sending images, or any other way.
Systems may be able to hear the voices of their alters, or NOT hear any voices of their alters.
"These voices are usually, but by no means always, located āāin the head.āā A small minority of persons who have DID deny hearing voices; some of the latter actually do hear voices, but they have reframed or rationalized them (eg, āāitās me,āā āāitās just my conscienceāā). Nevertheless, some persons who have DID genuinely do not hear voices." -- A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder
To be honest, if I wrote everything that could possibly happen in an inner world, this post would be a dictionary book.
Whatever happens and/or has happened in your inner world, I want to validate it - you aren't weird or cringe and it's not stupid or silly.
Other
". . .many patients who have DID hear or see what some personalities say or do when they are āāout.āā Many clinicians have incorrectly assumed that a person who has DID can never be aware of the activities of another personality. This assumption, which is supported by the classic view of DID, is often cited as a reason for ruling out the diagnosis of DID (ie, if the patient remembers what an alter personality did or said, then the patient, supposedly, does not have DID). The Dissociative Disorders Interview Schedule (DDIS) and the SCID-D-R inquire about the personās subjective awareness of other personalities. The 4DELL DSM-IV does not mention that patients who have DID typically have subjective awareness of other personalities." -- A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Alters may have different voices - speak in different tones, speak in different accents, etc.
Alters may be completely unable to speak
Alters may speak different languages
Alters may have very different personalities, similar personalities, smaller differences in personalities...
Alters may have different likes and dislikes
Alters may have different hobbies/interests
Alters may have different food preferences, clothing preferences, etc.
Alters may have different religions
Alters may have different relationships (platonic, romantic, sexual, familial, etc.), internally with other alters and/or externally with other people
Alters may have relationships between one another that, while completely healthy and fine in-system, would be incredibly abusive if played out in real life (because remember: an alter's age is no relevant. It is the age of your entire self, body that matters. So, yes, maybe a child alter is in a relationship with an adult alter. Maybe for trauma-related reasons! Or maybe for a different reason. It's not your business, don't assume, and oftentimes it's not like the system/those alters can change it.)
Alters may have neurobiological/physiological/psychobiological/etc. differences (different eyesight prescriptions, different reactions to medication, different blood pressure readings, etc.)
Systems may have many alters of a specific kind of alter (such as many child alters, many animal alters, many introjects of the same characters, etc.)
Systems may choose to achieve final fusion
Systems may choose to stay separate and only work on general integration and symptom management
Systems might be incredibly large, not very large, or incredibly small.
About Switching
Systems may switch frequently
Systems may rarely switch/only switch under specific circumstances
Systems may switch very easily and smoothly
Systems may switch without realizing or knowing/noticing they've switched
Systems may experience painful/disorienting/difficult switches
Systems may have switches that take a long time
Systems may switch INSTANTANEOUSLY withing SECONDS
Systems may be very aware, or unaware, of their switches
Systems may or may not know which alter they have switched to
Systems may essentially never know which alter is fronting
Systems may always/almost always or frequently know which alter is fronting and have high amounts of self-awareness to be able to know when they switch and who they've switched to
". . .a switch may become apparent within minutes to hours."
". . .alter personality switches typically occur within five minutes"
"If one studies videotapes of alter personality switches in MPD patients using facial changes as end-point markers, some switches appear to occur within a few seconds."
-- The Switch Process in Multiple Personality Disorder and Other State-Change Disorders
"Switching between alternate identities has been reported to take anywhere from a few seconds, to 30 sec, to brief times less than 2ā5 min. . .the switches that occurred during this study were rapid and appeared instantaneous. Some switches were readily apparent, while others were not. . ." -- Measuring Fragmentation in Dissociative Identity Disorder: the Integration Measure and Relationship to Switching and Time in Therapy
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My favorite resource to send to people as an absolute starter for learning about DID is BeautyAfterBruises - DID Myths and Misconceptions (2017). I enjoy the other posts on this website as well.
Carolyn Spring is also a great place to learn about CDDs, similar to BeautyAfterBruises and other similar blogs/websites! I recommend "DID or OSDD: Does it Matter?", "What are the signs and symptoms of dissociative identity disorder?", and other posts they have about CDDs!
DiscussingDissociation and TraumaDissociation
An Infinite Mind
Sheppard Pratt - Dissociative Identity Disorder - This one is also a favorite of mine, but I don't really see anyone share it around, it's a lesser known one out of the other stuff on this list.
Dissociation FAQs, What are the Dissociative Disorders?, Trauma and Trauma FAQs by the ISST-D
Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision by the ISST-D
What Are Dissociative Disorders? and the definition of dissociative identity disorder on the APA website
The DSM-5 and The ICD-11
The Merck Manual website
Dissociation: Progress on the Dissociative Disorders. "The official journal of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), published between 1988 and 1997."
This entire thing has all sorts of stuff to read. I am only sharing a very small portion of the stuff in this that I really liked, but definitely check out the others! I read a bunch of these, I just wanted to share these main ones.
*Keep in mind the time period! There may be words/terminology used that may be offensive and/or inaccurate in present times.
Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 004-023 -- (1988) Bennett G. Braun; The BASK Model of Dissociation
Vol. No. 2, p. 016-023 -- (1988) Bennett G. Braun; The BASK Model of Dissociation: Part II- Treatment
Beauty After Bruises also has a post going over the BASK model that I recommend
Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 027-033 -- (1988) Jean Franklin; Diagnosis Of Covert And Subtle Forms Of Multiple Personality Disorder Through Dissociative Signs (I absolutely love this and have always wanted to do a deep dive on stuff like this, since my DID is so hidden. If you relate to my experiences, if your DID experiences happen to be incredibly subtle, this might validate you)
Vol. 1, No. 4, p. 047-058 -- (1988) Richard P. Kluft; The Phenomenology and Treatment of Extremely Complex Multiple Personality Disorder One of the only few research papers on polyfragmented DID specifically (also known as complex DID, or MPD as it used to be called).
(1991) Richard P. Kluft; Clinical Presentations of Multiple Personality DIsorder and a webpage that goes along with this
(2006) A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder
(2014) Chronic Complex Dissociative Disorders and Borderline Personality Disorder: Disorders of Emotion Dysregulation?
(2014) Dissociative Identity Disorder: An Empirical Overview
(2016) Separating Fact from Fiction: An Empirical Examination of Six Myths About Dissociative Identity Disorder
(2017) Revisiting the Etiological Aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Biopsychosocial Perspective
(2018) Dissociation Debates: Everything You Know is Wrong
Sc-Hub allows you to access research papers that you might otherwise be unable to access. Of course it won't work for every single research paper ever, but it's extremely reliable.
12ft and Unpaywall (Firefox extension) for bypassing paywalls. Unpaywall in particular is extremely reliable for me, and if you aren't using Firefox, then there's probably a similar extension for whatever browser you use if you just search up "remove paywall" or something in your browser extension search.
RefSeek - Academic search engine.
Listen, I could list research papers all day. Instead, I will link these:
You can check the Wikipedia page for a list of academic databases and search engines. Here are some that are frequently used, and ones I use most often, but you should definitely check out the Wikipedia page for more:
PubMed/National Library of Medicine
ResearchGate
Google Scholar
Semantic Scholar
ScienceDirect
BASE Search
PLOSone
Frontiersin
You can also ask the author(s) for the paper, and most of the time, they'll give it to you for free! Just email them! If you need some sort of script to follow of what to say, literally just anything like "Hello! I was wondering if I could have access to (research paper/link/etc.)? Thank you very much!" that's probably fine.
Also, check the cited sources to easily and quickly find more research papers to read! It's a very easy and quick way to find more research papers, and I do mean it when I say that it is the main way I find research papers to begin with. You read one research paper and then go to the citations and then you find yourself reading 15 more research papers.
I hope this post has educated you all and informed you. Definitely feel free to share further resources, I encourage it!
There is so much more I could have added to this post, but I think this is enough.
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