Reminder (mostly to myself) that you can talk about having the experiences and symptoms of something without staking the validity of your experiences on having that official diagnosis.
People who experience symptoms of depression are free to talk about their experiences without proving themselves with a specific diagnosis of a type of depression. After they get diagnosed they aren’t suddenly granted the right to talk about how they spent the weekend laying in bed because they couldn’t find the will to get up. They could always talk about it. It was an experience they had.
It’s a mouthful to say “I have dissociated parts” rather than “I have DID,” but that’s what I prefer. That’s where a fair bit of my denial springs from, I think–if someone refers to me as “a person with DID,” there’s this immediate rejection of the idea.
I honestly don’t know how much of my reaction comes from the amount of time I’ve spent tangentially connected to DID spaces through friends throughout the years. In those spaces, there’s been a very real and pervasive attitude against anything remotely “self-diagnosis” regarding dissociative disorders. Because they’re stigmatized, and people find them “fascinating” for all the wrong reasons, and they’re tricky to recognize even when you know what you’re looking for, etc, etc, etc. And yes, of course I will advocate for anyone in the position to get checked out by a mental health professional to do so.
I dunno, man. It’s just got me thinking about how many people with dissociated parts have been in my situation. Except, I’ve got the benefit of having friends with DID who have a stronger-than-usual grasp of the mechanics of dissociation. You could say they’ve provided me with the knowledge a therapist normally would. (And we’ve done a fair bit of research on our own.) But without those friends, where would I have ended up? Feeling ostracized from the group of people who share my experiences, aka among those with DID/OSDD, what communities would I have turned to for camaraderie instead?
I just want to be more welcoming to the people like me, who exist in the grey area of undiagnosed dissociative experiences. I can talk about my experiences with adequately informed language because I’ve been entrenched in learning about this stuff for years thanks to my friends. (Insert that one Marge Simpson meme: “I just think systems are neat.”) But there are other people like me who maybe found other influences, less scientific- and recovery-based ones, who maybe just need some compassion and guidance. Maybe all they need to hear is that they can have dissociated parts without trying to prove to themselves (and others) that they have DID/OSDD. And that it’s okay to exist in this grey area with us.
–Razael, Tristan, + Scholar
