yes this is hard to understand.... this may help its what my own therapist explained to me...

watch adults do they have ability to think like very young child.... most not because they have life experiences and coping tools that determine what they think and do...

a childs mind doesnt have all the limits and coping tools that an adult has... an adult when they feel like they are being abused can walk away from that bully or abuser. a child doest have that freedom to walk away from their abuser. an adult can go to the police, a child cant go to the police they have to go to their parents or sometimes their abuser. the only thing a very young child has to help them escape their abuse is their own minds natural dissociation.

they dont set out to split their mind (they dont say ok that hurt Im going to dissocciate into two people now so that the pain doesnt hurt me anymore.)

it happens on an unconscious level where the child is in so much emotional and physical pain beyond what their very young brain can handle. their brain naturally protects itself through the natural normal dissociation process where it shuts off the childs physical and emotional feelings, and senses to what is happening. (that normal dissociation symptom of numbing out, spacing out) over time and as the abuse intensifies so does the brains reactions to unconsciously protecting that child. until one day the abuse is so physically and emotionally severe that the brains natural dissociation response is forgetting beyond normal forgetfulness. blocking things out beyond the nornal blocking things out.

then my therapist had me do an experiment...

take a food that makes you gag.
the first day take that food and just barely touch it with your tongue
the next day do the same thing for just a bit longer
the next do the same thing for just a bit longer.

after you can hold that offending food on your tongue. bite into it (dont take the bite off just barely bite into it....

the process goes on and on. eventually that offending food can be eaten without the gag reaction. doesnt mean you like it just that your brain has learned to protect you from it emotionally and physically. it desensitized you from it.

well the kind of extreme trauma that it takes to create DID is the kind that most adults can handle but children cant. Adults can handle adult stuff, Childrens brains were not meant to handle adult situations. so like that offending food the brain protected the child (took care of what the child could not handle).

made sense to me when my treatment provider explained it to me.