Question.... how have you and your alters handled your friendships all these years since the first alter creation?


this is something that my own treatment provider asked me one time when after diagnosis I became a bit uncertain about what to tell people and whether I should accept this childhood friends facebook request, or call this or that childhood friend...


my answer was I had no control over this... if my alters wanted to contact their childhood friends they did. they had their own sense of agency including who their friends were and what they could and could not do. all my life they have had their friends, did things with their friends, ....


my siblings love to tell me about the time when I was this age or that age calling someone just to sit on the phone talking for hours, As rainy I had this one friend in kindergarten I would call and we would tell each other stories and plan play dates.... I can I come over, lets play this......As a teenager as thelma I would be doing the teen age dating, talking about homework and so on that normal teen agers do.....


my point since the very first alter creation my alters were taking control any time I could not handle something and doing their own thing. nothing changed this after I was diagnosed... if someone wanted to talk to their friends or do things with their friends they did it any time I dissociated and they were in control. just the way DID worked for me.


that was also the point of my therapist when she asked me how we handled this situation before I was diagnosed...


After integration things just continued normally. I hang out with all the friends I have had over the years. we dont talk about my being DID, why should we, our friendships were not built on whether or not I was DID, they were not my friends because of my having DID. they were my friends because we all had things in common. this friend and Rainy became friends because they liked to play in the sand box, this friend and thelma became friends because they liked the same music, ....


top that off there is no legal reason why I have to tell my friends that I had DID. in fact america has privacy laws that say no one needs to know.


in other words I dont base my friendships on my having had DID and my alters didnt when we were not integrated. for me and my alters there was no urge or need for people to know we were mentally ill.


Even if I felt that way my alters would not have because it wasnt part of their sense of agency. as a child I never had this need and want to tell people anything like this... I mean what 5 yr old child goes around telling their friends guess what Im mentally ill, I have DID, I have others in my head. What teen ager tells their friends yea Im crazy, i got people in my head that talk to me. my alters were no different.


Add to that me and my alters followed the abusers code of conduct... do not tell or else this or that would happen. so for me there was no need, want or necessity for my alters to tell their's or my friends that I had DID. we didnt even know about DID until I was an adult so to me its normal for me not to want to or need to tell others.


that said I not my alters chose to tell some very close friends that were part of my every day life. Some reacted very well and others were confused because to them all they saw was how i have always been. its not like they were able to read my mind and know that when we went to the movies with them they were with Thelma... the DID was a mental factor of my mind not a physical thing, I didnt physically shape shift or morph like you see in cartoons and movies.


Im rambling so will end with a suggestion...maybe instead of trying to figure out what to do... think about how friendships were handled all these years with you and your alters. maybe those that want to be in contact with their friends will just do it.