I was in pretty intense therapy for about 3 years before I was diagnosed with DID. I was 48 years old. I am now 55 and still in treatment. Slowly improving.

The people around me didn't realize what was going on, nor did the therapist that I was seeing 5 days a week. My psychiatrist suspected it when I showed him a picture I had drawn (I kind of knew that was what he would think) and convinced me to go to an inpatient trauma unit and while I was there I did a whole bunch of testing and interviewing and was diagnosed then with DID. I don't think I would have been willing to be honest about my symptoms before that; I spent a lot of time hiding them (and still do, sometimes). I was ashamed of them.