Hi Peaches. Are you familiar with the theory of structural dissociation at all? If not, look it up. It seems to be the direction that scientific thought about dissociative disorders is heading.
Basically the theory of structural dissociation suggests that in dissociative disorders the personality is dissociated not as a result of splitting, but rather a result of failing to integrate in the normal way. What the researchers are saying is that human beings are born with a fragmented set of emotional states (angry, sad, content etc). In the course of typical development (with appropriate parenting) they learn to integrate these emotional states and form a single cohesive sense of self. (ie, parents teach their children how to express and process their emotions appropriately and thus return to a stable emotional baseline state, aloowing the child to 'own' all emotional aspects of the self).
When this goes wrong (parents punish emotional expression, emotions are ignored, child is abused or maltreated with no corrective experiences, child is abandoned (the list goes on)) the developing child is unable to integrate these emotional states. Unable to be processed or integrated into the child's everyday experiences, these emotional states remain separate, undeveloped and unaccepted by the child.
In the case of severe or repeated abuses these emotional states are aroused and unprocessed, time and time again. They are disowned by the child (the child has not been taught the skills to cope with them) and yet they are repeatedly needed to function as a part of the child during abusive experiences. The only 'solution' to this dilemma is for the child assign them their own sense of identity and 'block out' all awareness of them (knowledge is a threat to emotional survival, as the child is unable to cope with the experiences or emotions). According to this theory that is roughly how DID comes about. Not as a result of 'splitting' or external possession or any other myriad of things that some people believe, but as a result of the failure of normal emotional states to integrate, due to abuse and / or long term emotional neglect.
But there is that continuum: The emotional states can fail to integrate without the need for them to assume a fully independent self-identity. This sounds to me what might have happened for you? The emotional states remain separate and unintegrated, but you don't experience the loss of time or identity states that are typical of dissociative identity disorder. According to the theory of structural dissociation severe abuse is not a prerequisite of dissociative disorders. The emotional states can remain dissociated and unintegrated as a result of something as 'simple' as a parent who punishes the expression of anger, or is emotionally absent from the child.

What do you think?