um not sure where you are located so what I post might not fit your situation. I am located in the USA. here DID is a mental disorder that happens in very young children (my locations mental health statistics\ demographics\ periodic census taking america goes through) documents before the age of 5.

what does that mean in relation to your question...it means every adult who has DID or OSDD (the dissociative disorders where a person has or may have alters) have gone their whole life time with alters taking control, a whole life time of alters being in contact with family friends strangers teachers doctors you name it.

as for the pretending side of this some people with DID and OSDD have the kind of system where their alters sense of agency is to pretend for many different reasons and others have the kind of system where they do not pretend, instead they just rapidly switch from one alter to another, and still others have a combination of these two types of systems where their alters switch sometimes and pretend other times.

you can read more about these mental disorders and sense of agency in my links at the bottom of my post.

heres where you can find more on discussions on systems that pretend see this thread, http://forums.psychcentral.com/disso...retending.html in this thread the poster was more interested in systems like their own (those that do pretend)

so another thread was made to include others that used rapid switching or mostly rapid switching heres where you can find more discussions on systems that use only rapid switching or mostly just switching see this thread... http://forums.psychcentral.com/disso...retending.html