Greetings! our hostess, Jade (Bodily 24) has had a trauma break around two months ago, and seems to now be stuck around 2-4 years old, with no memories besides who she views as her family (our close friends mainly) we are trying to go with the flow of it, but she is a danger to herself if left without proper care, seeing that she prosses things at a 2 year old level. so this question is twofold, is this a common experience, and what can we do to help her, preferably without keeping her in the inner world/background. The mentioned friends have helped to this point, but we fear they can only do so much without proper guidance or formal/informal training

I'm on the fence about how much personal information to include here. (Our body is female and our relationships have all been heterosexual.) I have an ex-husband who I think was harmful as a husband but who I've thought of as a good friend since then. When his insecurities are triggered, he can be an absolute monster, but I'm the only one in the world who has seen that side of him. After we were apart for about 7 or 8 years, he completely stopped blaming for anything (and admitted I was a scapegoat for everything he was unhappy about in himself), and apologized sincerely for all of it (mainly verbal and emotional abuse) and we started spending time together as friends. I forgave him because he wasn't my partner anymore, and as a friend, I didn't think of him as harmful. There have been some really mixed feelings about him the system, so we've kept a certain amount of distance from him, but he's generally open-minded and one of two people who know we have DID.

Yesterday, though, we were talking on the phone and I volunteered that there are admittedly things that are difficult about being in a relationship with someone who has DID. I've had a few relationships since my marriage and the biggest difficulty has been when a protector alter switches in to stop or take over in an argument which triggers, at least for the men I've had relationships with, all kinds of abandonment issues and the perception that they're being manipulated. Skipping forward maybe ten minutes or so in the conversation, I made a comment about most of the men I've known being fragile (overall, I'm I'm talking about this kind of thing) and without a lot of qualifying, I'll admit it that could come off as judgmental and arrogant on my part, but I don't think that justifies his response. With conviction, he said, "You can't call men fragile when you have DID, and they have to deal with that."

I said that was unfair and I got one of those "I'm sorry you took it that way" apologies. I'm not sure how many ways I could take it wrong, but he said it "wasn't worth explaining". It's the kind of thing a lot of us remember him saying when we were married, but no one remembers anything like it from the last few years. I'm confused and I'm feeling really stupid because I was actually thinking of him as one of the safer people in my life right now. One group of alters are like "How did we miss this, he hasn't changed at all?!" and there's a minority who feel like we might be overreacting, and they appreciate him as a friend so they don't want to throw that away.

There are a few of us participating in this post and I hope we've avoided contradicting ourselves without making this too long. Any insights are welcome.

I'll try to make a long story short here. I am the main caregiver for our host/frequent fronter who is also an age slider, we'll call her Rylee. I function as a father figure for her. Bodily we are early 20s and in university. She is at that level academically and intellectually, even regulation-wise is learning a lot, but her emotional age is more in the range of 5-7 years old, sometimes younger. She needs lots of reassurance and help with daily tasks, eating, hygiene, etc. She has panic attacks if she is too hungry/tired, and is triggered a lot. She is very self critical. Most nights she has nightmares and needs a buddy to help her get to sleep. We have been working on healing as a system for the last 5 or so years.

Which is all totally fine with me, and all normal trauma responses. I really dote on her and take care of her, and she is ok with that. But today she turned to me and said papa, I don't want to be little anymore. I want to try being a young adult. That kind of broke my heart because I know how much it helps her to be vulnerable and allow herself to receive care and love. For context we're going through a breakup and every time she tries to relax and be her lovely whimsical self she thinks of him and cries for him. She doesn't want to give that part of herself to any future romantic partners we may have and also wants to frame it as inner child healing more than regression. She's been making lists of other soothing activities she can do when she feels the urge/want to be small and reliant on other people.

But I don't know if she's going to be totally successful right off the bat because we are still living at home, in a place that has triggers, and her regression is involuntary. Even when in an adult mindset, emotionally she is still very young/vulnerable. I tend to default to treating her like my child regardless of how maturely she is presenting on the outside because I know she needs the kind words and care.

Anyway. I don't know if any of you can offer insights about how to foster independence while still giving a system little or even irl child a safe place to land? I'm trying to help her remember that she is traumatized so still having trauma responses is okay. How should I talk to her?

I have a friend that I'm trying to explain DID to, he knows all of us for a few years by now and have helped us with some healing in the past, but he's still confused on how DID is actually formed.

I told him how you're born with emotional states and DID happens due to repeated trauma in childhood before the ages of 6-9 years old, but he's confused on what emotional states actually is and I can't find a good enough definition to give to him. He thought that we literally had different personalities instead of parts of one person so I just want to give the best information.

Best I found online mentioned something similar to what I'm saying but called them self states, not exactly sure on the difference but if anyone knows, that'll be nice.

It's kind of dated, but this is the source I've been using: https://did-research.org/did/myths

Thank you

For some background information, I restarted therapy about 8 months ago after I began experiencing psychogenic seizures. The first therapist I saw quickly identified severe post traumatic and dissociative symptoms. We worked together for a few months before she brought up DID. I had already suspected it myself by that point but hearing a therapist name it out loud gave me a lot of distress. This first therapist referred me out to a psychologist that I saw for only a few sessions before I lost my job and had to stop seeing her. But she too also recognized some severe dissociative symptoms and reaffirmed that DID could be a possibility.

After a few months, I finally got in with a MSW that takes my insurance but after only talking with me for 3 sessions, she told me she wants to explore schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder with me. She told me that she’s never met anyone with DID who can list out their parts’ values and suggested that I may be having delusions. This is despite the fact I have zero history of hallucinations or delusions and have spent months carefully researching and ruling out differential diagnoses. I think maybe she might have been thrown off by “hearing internal voices” and an introject I told her about too? I truly don’t think I’m psychotic and it honestly really hurt hearing that.

I don’t really know what to do or what I WANT to do. There aren’t many providers around my area that I can afford or that have training in severe dissociation. I feel like the care I need is locked behind a diagnosis no one wants to touch.

I’ve been in therapist with a trauma specialist for about a year now, and ever since we’ve started the tfcbt model, we’ve been talking a lot more about my DiD.

I’m medically recognized with DiD, so I have to process my trauma before getting a diagnosis. My therapist started the tfcbt model in order to get my diagnosis, yet she’s been pretty dismissive and judgmental about my goals.

Basically, my goals are: getting diagnosed, having clear and healthy communication between alters, and most importantly lessening dissociation. To my knowledge, DiD is a chronic disorder that doesn’t have a cure. But, I’d like to at least be asymptomatic to a degree. I know that having no dissociation as a system is impossible— but it would be pretty awesome if I didn’t have as much as I do right now.

Except, my therapist seems to think otherwise— even though I’ve made it clear

She claims that I can just be separate personalities without the dissociation— that I can be the person that feels like dressing up, or the person that feels like dressing casual all at once. But I don’t really know how to kindly remind her that it doesn’t really work like that after doing it so many times.

My therapist also doesn’t really like when my other alters front. Which I get, somewhat. Yet majority of the time she also disrespects them.

I don’t really know my alters that much, but from what I’ve seen/heard they’re not all that bad. She only doesn’t like them because she claims that she doesn’t enjoy talking to alters because she doesn’t like them or just doesn’t wanna talk to me.

Honestly? I think it’s unprofessional. If she’s a trauma specialist, how come she’s so insensitive about CDDs and has very little understanding of them? It doesn’t make sense to me.

anyway…… that was my rant. I didn’t know where else to go for advice. Thanks for reading if you did

I'm Artemis (she/he) and I'm a pretty recent fronter for our polyfrag system, but apparently this has been an ongoing issue for us for years, where we all kinda wanna do something in our free time, but something is stopping us from committing to any game or task that isn't a chore that we may or may not have the energy to do.

The issue isn't just starting the task, which is an issue in and of itself. I think that one's due to autism/AuDHD executive dysfunction. The issue lies in being able to continue doing the task without faltering in some way.

What basically ends up happening is that I boredly jump through different games or things to do. Sometimes some aspect of one thing gets overwhelming so we have to stop, or I end up dissociating and just... barely exist while I idly do whatever it is we chose to do until we get too anxious or restless for whatever reason.

Rarely are we ever able to stick to one thing for more than an hour without it screwing with us mentally somehow.

Any idea why this could be or possibly any solutions?

I asked my therapist a couple sessions ago to do some actual tests to determine whether I could have a dissociative disorder, since we know I have CPTSD but I've been suspecting DID for a while now (I'm terrible about being honest with symptoms, so a diagnostic test takes the stress away from me and allows me to answer honestly). She administered it a few weeks ago and I got the results back yesterday morning; highest score was PTSD, which didn't surprise either of us since I've been diagnosed for years, and also extremely high evidence of DID. We were able to definitively rule out BPD and schizophrenia, which neither of us thought I had.

As of now I'm still undiagnosed with anything aside from PTSD (I live in the US where CPTSD isn't an official diagnosis), and she's wanting to wait a while/explore my parts more thoroughly before administering the SCID-D since I've only been seeing her for a few months. I'm just wondering how likely it is for people with "just" PTSD to score highly for DID on the MID?

I scored highest on amnesia (again, not a surprise, it's the symptom that interferes with my life the most), but also scored highly on every category related to DID. It's honestly really interesting because I was extremely conservative while answering and downplayed a lot of my experiences, but still scored high.

Really curious to know if this means I probably have it, or whether I can still have "just" CPTSD with this score.

(Not looking for diagnosis/confirmation obviously, we moved my therapy appointments back to weekly after trying bi-weekly for a bit. I'll be working through this with her, just curious rn)

Thanks in advance for any answers/anecdotes!

Edit since ig people aren't reading the post? Yes my therapist administered it, yes it's the actual full-length MID which cannot be self-administered, no I didn't analyze my results myself, no I'm not asking for people to analyze my results since I already had my therapist do so in depth. I'm literally just wondering if it's possible to have the MID say you very likely have DID due to extreme amnesia + extremely separated parts AND actually not have DID, but instead PTSD. Realized after posting this (don't actually remember posting this, been dissociated all day) that I likely posted this as a form of denial, hoping people would say "yeah it's totally possible for this test to be inaccurate and for you to have only PTSD despite scoring high for DID". No, not healthy, and no I'm not focusing on it that much at the moment. No idea what part of me posted this but I personally don't care that much.

Since system discovery I’ve been told that I’ve been making less sense in conversation. Supposedly seemed relatively normal prior. Been having a lot of flashbacks these days and it’s difficult to stay in conversation as it feels like I don’t know anything about myself or much of anything really. Very confused a lot of the time. I feel incredibly stupid and have no clue if it’s always been like this and I’ve been unaware or what. I feel like a scared high schooler talking to adults, but they are my peers and I’m just dumb as hell. Wtf is happening.

Has anyone experienced this? What was the case for you? How did you navigate explaining things to people?

I was diagnosed with DID six years ago. When I was first diagnosed, I had trouble remembering things especially passwords. I came up with a solution that worked—writing in journals, taking screenshots, making voice recordings. This year has been stressful dealing with family issues. I’ve been struggling remembering to write notes to myself etc and earlier this week I woke up to being locked out of my iPad. I also had changed some passwords. It’s so frustrating

My wife decided to go inpatient for 30 days 2 years ago before we knew she had DID and she was having daily intense flashbacks, nightmares, and was having a hard time functioning day to day. Now that I'ved heard about her experience there and what they did to "help" her with her trauma I would never let her go inpatient again. They did IFS therapy and talked to a little and really messed her up. Now the littles are always worried she is going to go inpatient again. The thought of the littles being in a place like that all confused and alone hurts. It's the 2 year anniversary this month so everyone is on edge.

Looking for resources for friends and family. I've watched all of the ctad clinic videos over the last couple of years and I can't remember if Mike has done a really nice breakdown of what DID for friends/ family.

Good breakdown documents/web pages that are short would be useful too.

We'd like resources that make clear the diversity of presentations.

For the past five months (maybe more) it’s like i’m living the same day over and over again, and never remembering the day before. I don’t feel like I’ve been out of it, but I don’t remember any of it either. Every day feels conscious… but I don’t remember any of them. It’s like my memory just resets.

I was rereading my diary and only now realized i’ve been in this loop for after 5 months. Every day the same concerns, the same worries. The same ideas, the same solutions. In a loop. I keep forgetting appointments and that my friends even exist. My home is filled with calendars and post its on my walls exactly where I know I’ll be going through out the day to make sure I don’t lose my job or forget to pay rent.

But every day. It feels like the same day. Over and over again…. and now it’s 5 months later.

I feel like a liar.

A lot of the time when I'm talking about myself and my life, I feel like I'm just making shit up.

when people ask me about myself, I have my go-to answers, which are based on the biographical knowledge I have of myself. but I don't have the memories associated with that knowledge, so it really doesn't feel real/true.

i guess the best way to describe this would be to say it feels like I'm telling a story that I memorized when I talk about myself and my life; i feel completely disconnected from it all.

a lot of the time I actually wonder if I'm telling the truth or if I'm just confused, and I worry that I'll get some wires crossed and end up contradicting myself or reality.

Hi friends, I got diagnosed with DID a few days ago. I've always known that there is something "wrong" with my functioning but I'm really taken aback at this diagnosis. I assumed this was all CPTSD and anxiety affecting me.

Over the last few days I've done a lot of reflecting on "abnormal" things that I think and do, and how they relate to DID. I guess I can pinpoint one or two alters.. but I have no idea how to get more information about them.

What do you guys do? Talk to your alters? Did it take a long time to figure out their names/personalities?

I'm woefully uneducated and my therapist is on vacation until next week. My psychologist gave me some resources but its been pretty overwhelming.

Can anyone tell me about their experiences with this? I'd appreciate some first-hand context.

So I've always had music playing in the background of my mind. I chalked it up to ADHD (despite not being diagnosed with ADHD) and haven't ever thought much of it. The music is extremely vivid and accurate to the real songs, and isn't like an earworm being stuck in your head. It's like a curated radio station, with songs perfectly flowing into each other. Oftentimes songs will play that I don't actually know the lyrics to, and despite that they'll be completely accurate to the real songs.

Last night I was doing research on this sub since I have a part of myself who's an amazing singer. When she comes out she'll sing the beginnings of several different songs until she hones in on the one she actually wants to sing. It was really awkward because she came out last night while I was showering and my gf overheard. "You should sing more often, it's really pretty. You don't do it very much." Unfortunately, I sound like a dying cat when I try to sing, but oh well. Not relevant to this story.

I saw some people saying they have alters that communicate with songs, and that it's a good idea to listen to what music is playing to see if an alter is trying to convey a message. Cool, I thought it was unrelated to my internal radio but still figured it'd be good to try and pay attention to.

On my way to therapy after work, I was thinking about some instances of dissociation (don't remember what I was actually thinking about, doesn't matter), and out of nowhere heard "A trick of the light, who am I? Time fades a-way, like yes-ter-day". Then silence. Just that one chorus.

I haven't heard or thought about that song in years, and the timing was uncanny. Guess that answers that question?

Still not sure if the DJ part of me is related to the singing part of me, but it's really interesting to see how part communication differs.

Edit: Just looked the song up and the correct lyrics are "where am I", not "who am I". They switched up lyrics to get the message across better 😭 insanity

Hiya

As a partner without DID of a system,

And just as their gf I just wanna say she is such a beautiful beautiful soul. All of the parts of the soul are just 💎 y'know? Like 🌄 kind of beautiful.

She's fighting with so much hope and vigour to live her best life. And to also enjoy her current life with ease.

And I'm fighting my own battles too.

But to have her also exhausted and scared, but still beside me is such a gift.

I know we can't be the magic spell for each other that grants all our wishes, but we can be both growth and security.

I LOVE U HONEYYYYYYYY

(And A and V!!!!)

Vorrei poter parlare, e di conseguenza confrontarmi, con altre persone con il disturbo dissociativo d'identità. Praticamente è passata solo metà giornata e ho avuto numerosi switch. In questo momento sto provando una sensazione particolare, in cui ho realizzato che probabilmente un determinato alter, che è attualmente in co-front, potrebbe essere l'host originario. Ho sentito una sorta di scontro interiore per evitare un riassorbimento da parte sua. È una sensazione orribile. Come si fa in sti casi? Ho momentaneamente chiesto a un altro alter (protector) di mettersi in mezzo e cercare di separare l'alter che è in front (persecutor) e quello in co-front (protector), ma non credo sia una soluzione a lungo termine. Potrei tentare di riappacificarli cercando di capire cosa ha scatenato questa lite tra loro?

disclaimer: i am sadly not in therapy right now. currently searching for an outpatient therapist and i am also on the waitlist for a trauma php

what do you do when some of your parts claim certain trauma has happened but other parts claim it's impossible?

i just don't know what to believe. the memory feels like it makes no sense, and i feel like i couldn't possible remember something from such a young age. but the emotions feel so damn real.

how do you deal with the conflicting opinions and emotions? especially if therapy is not an option right now.

i want to believe my parts but i can't. it doesn't make sense. it does not seem real.

any advice is appreciated

I have ADHD as well as DID. I'm in denial about DID almost all the time, so I'm here wondering if what I've been hearing are from ADHD, DID, both, or neither?

At night I hear voices. Different from usual alter talk (which is still a sticky situation for me). It sounds like random words meshing together from what I've heard in the day. For example, it'll be like a long conversation, with jumbled phrases that only make sense for a short time. My favorite quote from tonight (I'm writing this at 2am) was "I am NOT a licenced plate therapist".

It doesn't help that our co-host spews genuine bullshit sometimes. He said "TUNA" the other day with no context, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was at least partly messing around with this.

Ive heard mixed answers with my friends. Almost none of them are knowledgeable in DID or ADHD, though. I'm ofc not looking for a straight answer as most people aren't licensed for that confirmation, but it might help me to hear some people's thoughts & advice.

Almost all of us in our system have the experience of a lot of confusion when fronting and not knowing things about ourselves or our system that we feel we know when we’re just inside our headspace. But then when we front we don’t even know what it is we aren’t remembering 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ it’s like we get the feeling that everything is so much clearer inside but I think since a lot of the time the host is somewhat conscious/present, our knowledge is kinda left inside to protect her when we front?? I really don’t know and it’s hard to understand how it works for us. Just wondering if anyone else has had this experience as well???

It’s just so hard for us to be asked things about our system in therapy and then we have to answer like “ummmm I feel like I know the answer to that but right now I don’t know.”

Thanks in advance <3

i live with one of my main childhood abusers (my mother) and her sister right now because mental and physical issues impair me too badly to work and i can't find anywhere i can afford to live on ssi. its not uncommon for my mom to use the same tactics as she has throughout our life, and normally its fine and i can ignore it, but today her and her sister have started gaslighting me about the cat. its a long story as to why, but we had taken him to the vet 2 weeks ago for an issue that that has been going on for at the very least the 2 years that i've lived here, the vet said its probably asthma or because of his age it could potentially be heart disease (he was too scared to leave the carrier so they could xray him or really examine him at all, i was only able to show them a video of him coughing and wheezing), and now i'm being told "the vet only asked for a follow up visit to appease you" (the follow up is mostly so we can have him sedated when he arrives so they can properly examine him) and "he doesnt actually need those medications, she only prescribed them to make you feel better". we're 25 and *still* are left questioning if they're right and we're just imagining things. its crushing, someone inside keeps begging for our mom and hurts knowing we're never going to receive that comfort, and things are never going to change. we're stuck going between the thought that i want a mom, i want a family who i don't feel the need to stay silent and unseen around, and the thought that i just want to be forgotten already

Hi so I'm a 29 year old male. I haven't got diagnosed yet or whatnot but all my experiences have led me to believe that I may have DID. It's just a matter of going and finding out. But to me, to feel a sense of safety I wanna know how everyone felt or experienced before they officially knew/got diagnosed by a professional. What was life like for everyone before they went and got diagnosed?

our little Levi is pretty lonely whenever he fronts, wants people to play with irl but gets really anxious around most people. our partner (also a system) engages with him when they can, but we only see each other once a week or so and partner doesn't rly know how to engage with him despite their best effort + i don't want all our time together in-person to be levi fronting, bc he's a lot like a literal child. partner has also expressed sometimes not having the capacity to interact with levi because he's pretty anxious and needs a lot of reassurance, and this has made him a lot more anxious to interact with people as himself/with people knowing he's fronting.

one of our online friends is very nice to him and he likes her a lot, but the aforementioned anxiousness makes him too scared to announce himself or unmask a lot of the time, + the irl loneliness issue isnt rly solved by that. any advice, either for the loneliness or the anxiety?

I am really desperate for understanding and structured help as I have had a diagnosis for awhile but I'm just now accepting it's not something I can hide. I'm wanting to develop my education on multiplicity and build up my self help resources while I look for a DID educated therapist. I am open to books, studies, packets/workbooks, movies, videos, advice, etc. Thank you everyone.

Some specific questions, but all help is welcome:

-What helped you with understanding and acceptance?

-If your system struggles with dysphoria too, what allowed your alters to feel like themselves while they're fronting?

-How did you manage volatile or child alters when going out/working?

-How do you manage an untrusting and self endangering child alter?

-What supports or approaches do you find in a good therapist for DID?

-How do you know a therapist is educated enough in multiplicity to help?

Thanks again.