When did you first learn or suspect that you had DID?
The first signs that something was wrong were that she was losing track of big chunks of time, people were telling her that she had said or done things that she couldn’t remember doing, people she didn’t know were acting like they knew her, and she was finding journals, poetry, and art that she didn’t recognize.
The first signs that something was wrong were that she was losing track of big chunks of time, people were telling her that she had said or done things that she couldn’t remember doing, people she didn’t know were acting like they knew her, and she was finding journals, poetry, and art that she didn’t recognize.
What causes someone to have DID?
DID is a trauma-based disorder.
The most popular explanation for the etiology of DID is that when a child experiences truly horrific trauma, they invent other identities to cope with that trauma. The child essentially says to themselves, “That didn’t happen to me. That happened to another little girl. It wasn’t me.”
Dissociation during traumatic events is fairly common. You’ll hear survivors of car crashes say that it all felt surreal, like it was in slow motion, like they remember it as if they were detached from their body or viewing it from a detached perspective. Now imagine being in a car crash over and over, every single day. If you enter that detached state over and over again at a young age when your sense of self and your concept of identity is being formed, you develop a fragmented sense of self. Being a child, you give names to those fragments. Over time, the fragments develop their own sense of self.
Have you been diagnosed by a professional? What was that process like?
I feel really fortunate that the diagnosis process for us was shorter than most. DID is a very stigmatized disorder so it can be a slow process for most people.
At 14 we were referred to therapy because of problems at school. Our initial diagnosis was PTSD, but our therapist quickly began to suspect a dissociative disorder. Because of our young age, she chose to formally diagnose us with Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified rather than DID. She wanted to take a “wait and see” approach to diagnosis. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to continue therapy with her for long because we lost our insurance.
In college we were formally diagnosed, but by that point it was not a surprise at all. By then, we were very aware of each other and had been working on improving our communication and working together.
How do you feel about the fact that you have DID?
I guess acceptance is the best way to describe it. I don’t know anything else, so this is normal for me.
How many alters do you have? Are you comfortable describing them or any of their traits? How are they different from you?
I’ll start with myself. My name is Quin. I am not the original identity, but I think I have been around the longest. I currently do most of the fronting. I keep everyone organized and try to keep this system running smoothly.
Morgan is our original identity. Until we moved away from our family of origin, she was the one fronting most of the time. Ever since we moved away, she stopped fronting. Right now we don’t know if that’s a temporary thing or if it’s permanent, but it seems like the best decision for everyone.
Emma is a childlike alter who will tell you that she is four years old. She likes to play with toys and play Facebook games like Candy Crush.
Hailey is our other childlike alter. We think that she is emotionally about eight. She likes to watch Disney movies, but also likes to watch upsetting TV shows that are way too mature for her.
Storm has the emotional maturity of a teenager. I have previously joked about her being a little edgelord with a name to match, but that’s a bit mean. I honestly don’t know what she’s into at the moment.
Caden is a little ball of sunshine, according to one of our friends. I don’t actually know how old Caden is? He gets along with everyone. He’s silly and friendly and impossible to dislike, even when he’s being a bit of a jerk. I think he does it so that he can get away with doing whatever he wants to do.
Zoe is creative and smart. I’ve previously said she wasn’t very friendly, but that’s not very accurate. She’s not very friendly to me and she’s not very trusting, but she’s actually very social and more interested in socializing than I am. Zoe is very emotional and a little hot-headed.
Hannah is one of the most mature alters in our group. For a long time I couldn’t get a read on her and I didn’t know what was going on with her. She kept herself closed off from me for some reason, but I’ve gotten to know her more recently. She holds a lot of our memories and seems to be trying to figure out what to do with them. When she fronts, she takes care of lots of self-care type tasks and household things. She seems kind of like the mom of the group.
Carrie is an alter that I know exists, but I haven’t interacted with in a long time. I don’t really know much about her.
Arlo is one of our newest alters. They still haven’t told us if they are are a boy or a girl, but maybe they aren’t either? Arlo fronts when we are overwhelmed. They like to play video games. Arlo is extremely stubborn.
We also have an unnamed alter who exists mainly to harass and persecute us, but since they don’t front, I won’t go into detail about them.
Describe your relationship with your alters.
Our relationships with each other vary quite a bit, but I think we are a lot like a family. There’s some occasional friction and tension, but everyone has the same goal. We’re all just trying to survive.
What does it feel like to switch to another alter?
I absolutely hate answering this question every time it’s asked, so I’m going to skip it.
Do you always change clothes/hair/makeup/hats when you switch?
No, that’s really more of a media thing. I think it’s done in film and tv so that the audience can tell which alter is present. In reality, it would be exhausting to run to our closet for a wardrobe change every time there was a switch.
That said, we do have some different clothing preferences. If Zoe is planning on being in control all day long, she might dress more feminine than I would normally dress. If Arlo is fronting, they are almost always wearing their favorite hoodie. But it’s not like wearing that hoodie is a for sure indication that Arlo is currently fronting.
Do you have any abilities or skills that your alters don’t, or vice versa?
Only myself and a few others are able to do our work tasks. Hannah is a better cook than most. Only Hailey knows how to play the flute. Zoe is a creative writer.
Do different alters have different physical conditions or traits (for example, different eyesight, allergies or hand preference)?
No, and others may disagree with me on this but I personally believe that this is (for the most part) a media myth. The physical body is the physical body. The only physical differences that you can have between alters are the ones that can be impacted by emotional/psychological state, like placebo and conversion disorders. It’s not like the movie Split where one alter can be diabetic when the others aren’t. However, if the body has diabetes then different alters could have different blood sugar levels because your stress levels can cause your blood sugar to go up and down.
How frequently do you experience gaps in your memory? What is that like? How do you cope with it on a daily basis?
This really depends on how well we are coping with our current life stress. When we’re doing well, memories are shared and co-consciousness is common. When the stress level rises and we’re struggling to cope, amnesia and memory gaps become more common.
Amnesia can be really frightening, especially “waking up” some place you don’t expect to be. It’s not so bad if I’m just at home and I’ve lost a few hours, but if I’m suddenly at the grocery store and the last thing I remember is being at home in bed, it’s pretty alarming.
I cope with it by trying to stick to a schedule, journaling, using notes and calendars to keep track of everything. I try to stay really organized to compensate for everything.
How do you communicate with your alters?
This sounds ridiculous, but internal communication is as simple as “thinking at” the other alters. When internal communication breaks down, we use journals and things like Google Keep to talk to each other.
Do your alters have different relationships, i.e. friendships or romantic partners? If you’re married or in a relationship, how do your alters feel about your SO?
We basically have the same friends, but we have different relationships with those friends.
All of us have a good relationship with our SO.
Are you co-conscious with any/all of your alters? What does co-consciousness feel like?
Most of us are able to experience co-consciousness with each other. Not all of us are “drift compatible” with each other, to borrow a term from Pacific Rim.
Are you aware of an internal world or inside space?
No, we have never experienced an internal world.
Have you told friends/family about your diagnosis? Why or why not?
When we were in our early 20s we were more open about our diagnosis, but we experienced some real negative consequences because of that. People tend to see us only as our diagnosis. It’s very difficult for people to understand. It’s hard to live a normal life when people know. We much prefer that people don’t know.
What do you wish everyone without DID knew or understood better about you?
It’s nothing like (most of) the media depictions. When it’s what you’ve lived with your whole life, it just feels normal.
What is the worst or most embarrassing thing to ever happen to you as the result of an alter’s actions?
I won’t embarrass myself by going into details, but it can be hard having childlike alters. It was a bigger problem when we were younger, and things are much better controlled now, but there were some embarrassing moments.
Describe a time when one of your alters saved your ass.
I don’t give her enough credit, so I’ll use this opportunity to talk about Storm. We’ve been joking lately about how Storm is a “fire alarm” that goes off when something isn’t right, but she’s kind of a shitty fire alarm because if you don’t pay attention to her fast enough she’ll just spray gasoline in the whole building and burn the whole place down (metaphorically, of course) to make sure you are really aware of the fire.
But the truth is, Storm probably has saved my ass dozens of times and she would have saved my ass dozens more if I had just listened to her more. She’s really good at knowing when situations are unsafe and knowing when something is wrong. She’s one of the few of us who is brave enough to use her voice and really scream and stand up for herself. I’m sure that at least a few of the times she’s screamed “Get the fuck away from me!” could have turned out really badly if she hadn’t.
Has an alter ever done something illegal or immoral?
Illegal? No. Immoral? Depending on your standards of morality, absolutely. We have disagreements about moral behavior all the time. Zoe constantly does things that I find unacceptable.
Have you experienced bullying, discrimination or stigma because of your DID?
When we were open about it, yes. That’s why we have chosen not to tell most people.
Does DID interfere with your ability to have a family, a career, or to achieve the kind of life you want?
This isn’t the feel good answer people probably want, but yes.
We are childfree mostly because of DID. There are alters in our system who wanted children very badly, but we felt that having children was the wrong choice for us because of our condition.
DID also interfered with our education throughout high school and college. We were able to finish our undergraduate degree, but ultimately it did stop us from completing our masters program and working in the field that we intended to work in.
At our current level of functioning, I don’t think we could hold down a traditional 9 to 5 job. We currently work from home and are really happy with our career, but we are lucky that this is an option for us.
I don’t know if this is the case for everyone else with DID, but we choose not to drive because of the severity of our dissociation. The risk of dissociating while driving is just too much for us, so we are reliant on other people for transportation.
What are your biggest challenges living with DID?
Honestly, it’s not the DID itself, it’s working through the underlying issues that caused the DID. Unpacking all of that trauma can be exhausting and disruptive. Just when you think you’ve found homeostasis with your system, someone finds a bunch of new baggage to unpack.
What are some of the positives that have come out of having DID?
We survived.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.