yes once a DID always a DID. The way it was explained to me is that dissociation is normal brain activity. Dissociation is daydreaming yourself out of a situation like driving a car down a street you have been on many times before so instead of focusing on hit the brake here, turn this corner, turn on the flasher and direction lights and other physical mechanics of driving the car the person daydreams - I have to remember to pick up milk at the store, boy I had so much fun last night and so on of the daydream. The person driving the car gets to the destination safely because their brain is running on the stored memories of what to do when the eyes see this sign this corner and so on.

Because a person can always dissociate ( daydream) they can always use that skill they had previously unconsciously used to daydream their self out of the abuse situations and into their mental safe places during the abuse which resulted in their memories of that abuse being stored at the unconscious level of thinking.

Once a memory that has been unconsciously stored has been restored as a conscious memory (co consciousness and integration process) that memory of that abuse situation is forever now stored in the conscious level of awareness.

A person will always remember that thet piece of memory was at one point known as for example "Mary". They will always know how the memory piece known as mary got stored unconsciously by using dissociation (daydreaming).

So then when a new situation that is perceived as being too stressful and abusive that person can again use their dissociation (daydreaming) abilities to daydream thier self out of that new situation and into their safe place. Which would result in the memory of that new situation being stored at the unconscious level of thinking.

that does not mean that the original "Mary" memory pieces are unintegrating back out of the conscious level of thinking. For short of a physical accident like getting hit in the head and having brain cells die those memories in the conscious level of thinking are stored there forever because they are no longer considered a dissociated memory. they are now just normal memories.

what it does mean is that the person dissociated during a situation that they percieved as being stressful and abusive which resulted in NEW memory pieces being stored at the unconscious level of thinking.

It is because of this that therapists work with DID clients on grounding techniques and relaxation techniques BEFORE getting into the harder memories. If the client was constantly perceiving thier present life as abusive there would never be full integration because the person would continue to use dissociation to escape their present life situations and new situations would continue to be dissociated (stored at the unconscious level of thinking) being piled on top of what the therapist and client are trying to take care of of the past memories. this would result in no past memories being remembered because they would be so busy working on present day problems. Because therapist work on present day problems before working on the past so that the client is standing on firm ground first that they would never get to working on the past unconscious memories being acted out.

Which is why therapy for DID is not just for in the therapy room but is a 24/7 type thing. Being DID because dissociation effects every part of my life I have no chioce but to ccarry over what I am learning in therapy into my outside of therapy life.

I can't just use my grounding and relaxation techniques just in the therapy room and then walk out the door and leave therapy in that room.

I also have to use my grounding and relaxation techniques at home, at the library, basically in everything that I am doing I have to constantly and consciously check in with myself to make sure I am grounded and not dissociated. Otherwise my present life situations that I may percieve as abusive and stressful will be stored at my unconscious level of thinking as NEW pieces of memories to be acted out unconsciously.

For example like back in 2004 because of the stress of the holidays and the emotional abuse I was put through by a DHS caseworker (that has since been fired) I totally dissocaited that I had a child. People would ask me how is (childs name) and I would say who? or lie to them because I had no idea who they were talking about. All I knew was there are pictures on my wall of me and this child together and this childs toys are around the house. I started finding pictures around the house with this childs name on it. After working on memory recall work I now remember I have a child with that name but even now there is a huge chunk of memories about my child that I don't have any memory of. So I have no doubt that back in 2004 a memory piece probably with my childs name and my biological age then was created.

this situation happening does not mean that what memories that have already been integrated have come apart. it just means my mind percieved that situation as abusive and I was unable to handle that emotional abuse by the caseworker so my brain stored those memories about my child in my unconscious level of thinking as NEW memory pieces.