Hi kris -- I've felt comfortable lurking around the DID forum even though I'm bipolar. I have personalities in my head that take over at different times. Sometimes they argue and I can't figure out who gets through. They have their own personalities. I have blacked out on occasion. I am dissociative by nature and learning these dissociative "sub-personalities" of myself. My therapist is using IFS therapy to help me befriend all the dissociated parts of myself so we can all just get along.
I believe the dissociated parts are myself, of myself. Kind of like string cheese. I started as a piece of string cheese and the the dissociates are like shreds being peeled off the string cheese but not quite being pulled totally apart. "hanging on by a shred"

its weird feeling maybe it helps, maybe not- best of luck to you though