This is my first post here, and with it I have no intention to offend or be hurtful. So, if I do say something that is hurtful, please, I ask your forgiveness in advance. I will try to not let my emotions get the best of me.

As I’ve been reading the threads around here I’ve noticed several instances in which members have considered their condition a true gift. I understand that that is because in compartmentalizing personalities and creating alters it is a way to cope with very traumatic experiences that a single unified “personality” may not be able to cope with. I also understand that even those who would claim it to be a gift recognize it has its downsides and is not always easy. But I find that to say it is a gift is a very self(s)-centered way of viewing DID. DID does not merely affect those diagnosed with it, as I’m sure anyone on this message board would not hesitate to admit. And perhaps the situation in which I am writing is an extraordinary circumstance and not at all typical to other patients' experiences.

I do not have DID, nor does anyone in my family. I have no firsthand experience with the disorder nor have I ever had a personal relationship with anyone with the disorder. However, I am a close friend of someone who’s mother has been diagnosed with DID. Since the diagnosis I’ve watched her lose friendship after friendship because of the care that her mother required, and the expectations to “help out” around the house put on her by her siblings. And she feels like she can never say "no" because of her mother's condition. She fears that by going against what is expected of her in her family she will only contribute to the emotional distress her mother experiences. As it seems every single night her mother experiences a very severe depression all over again. Furthermore, my friend also recently felt compelled to break up with her boyfriend, not because they stopped caring about each other, in fact from my understanding their relationship was moving along quite well. And not because anything she did or he did, but because she couldn’t handle the daily burden of constantly being available to care for her mother & her family and what she felt her boyfriend deserved. Since she can’t dump her mom, she dumped her boyfriend. Which happens. I understand. But now that makes me her last close friend and she hasn’t responded to my calls in over a month. She is so distressed over her DID mother and her responsibilities to care for her mother that she has, at least for the time being, given up entirely on extra-familial personal relationships. She even stated that she feels like she has no room in the situation to have a personal life of her own. So she is brokenhearted, and is constantly giving up pursuit of what she wants in her own life.
So while DID may be a gift for her mother to deal with whatever it is exactly that her mother is dealing with, I think it would be incredibly insensitive to say that is a gift as far as my friend, her daughter, is considered, or my friend’s ex-boyfriend who is still in love with this girl, or me who is now worried about losing a best friend. Furthermore, her mother has recently refused to see her therapist in months and has decided she would reduce dosages of her own medications. Her mother doesn’t seem to want to get better at all, and as a result is consuming rapidly more and more of her daughter’s life. But what other choice does my friend have? This is her mother, who is not well. As far as I can tell DID may have helped her mother cope with a traumatic past, but it has also acted as a conduit to carry pain and hurt onto her family and even beyond her family. I would say that DID is not anything close to a “gift”. At least in this situation.

It is like an adage I once heard, “Hurt people hurt people.” And I suppose the amount of pain is proportionate. But where does it end? And why is the devotion and self-sacrificing care of her mother by my friend not enough to quell the storm?

If DID is helping you cope and is acting as a tremendous gift as it has been described on this forum then I am happy for you, but I would hope that it’s not at too great an expense to those who love you. Because when people love you, they are in pain when you are in pain. So, if you have the opportunity to seek healing, and you’re debating whether to pursue it or not, I would suggest you do it. If not for your own sake, for the sake of those who love you.

Again, sorry if this seemed irrelevant, or possibly hurtful to anyone. It was not my intention to be caustic, here. I’m just very frustrated when I see situations in which love isn’t enough, and perhaps I am too much of a romantic/idealist, and perhaps that’s just not how life works (everyone seems to enjoy reminding me of that) but I don’t have anything else to hope in. Hopefully, this was helpful to someone, or maybe someone else out there can at least relate. And please, please forgive me if I’ve offended anyone. There aren’t many support threads for friends of family of someone with DID. And it would seem this isn’t even the appropriate place for it, and if that’s the case would someone please point me in the right direction?

(I apologize for the lengthiness)