[heytex]

I have a really good friend that has chosen me to reveal her DID to and all her beautiful alters. Basically my friend, lets call her alice has gone away and I miss her deeply. I have befriended and equally as deep her alters.So from 1 friend I now have 5 equally vibrant individuals that have also become very dear to me. I sometimes feel sad and miss alice but they assure me she is there just refuses to come out. I don't know exactly what it is like for DID's but is she still there? Just to let all know each one is like talking to a totally different person and I find myself treating them as such. Maybe that is all they want is to be "actualized" the right to be who they are.
I am posting here knowing they are looking and hoping to prove to her it is a safe place to be a part of a community.

[nothemama8]

You and your friend are safe and welcome here
Angie and the girls

[Rhapsody]

Yes, Alice is still there and she is listening & watching.... when she feels safe again she will come back out to interact with you and the world. You must be a very special person to Alice, for her to feel safe enough to reveal her secret with you, thanks for caring so much for her and for not judging - accepting her as she is.

Please do keep in mind that all the alters are fragmented parts of the REAL PERSON you call Alice - she just needs find her way back home....

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

Yes Alice is still there. You can find alot of information on what is going on with your friend in my blog here on this site. At the top of this page you will see the word blogs. click on it. then along the side of the next page you will see the words - get your own. click on that. Then you will see a page of blog entries. along the side you will see catagories - most active , most comented, and most read. Click on Me, myself and I. That will bring you to my main blog page. Along the side you will find a list of my entries.

Basically what is happening is your friend Alice encountered a "trigger" - something that made her feel upset and uncomfortable so she mentally dissociated - she is busy thinking about her daydream safe place and her body is functioning by rerunning and acting out memories based on matching what is giong on around her. for example her brain is still recording what she is smelling. her nose smells coffee so the brain reruns coffee smell memories. When you ask your friend "how are you? The brain matches that question that it heard and replays the memories of being asked and responses of that question - the mouth and voice answers ok. the hands move based on what that memory is. If she picked up something in that memory that object is picked up again. The brain is like a computer and the body can only do what it is programmed to do. like a pre- kindergarten who is never taught to read cant read until they learn how. Alice is very safe. her brain will keep matching everything her senses of smell taste, hearing, sight, touch and feelings, and switching her from memory to memory like putting a movie on a player and rewind and fast ward and play matching and replaying physical actions. If she is really DID you will start noticing that the behaviors, tone of speech, language and so on will be repeating every time she encounters the same thing - every time you ask her how are you she will answer exactly the same way, same language, words, movements, tone of voice. If asked to do something she will do it the same exact way every time. She is not a complete diffeerent person, her brain is just on physical instant reply. Once she mentally feels comfortable again she will think about what is physically going on around her again but right now she feels upset so is daydreaming about things that make her feel comfortable.

There is no reason to treat her any differently She is still Alice. She has not been possessed with "invasion of the body snatchers" or spirits and so on. She is the same person that she was before you knew of her diagnosis. in fact if she is truly DID you would not see a difference in her behavior before she told you she was DID and after she told you because you would have already been in contact with her during stressful times so she would have been in contaact with you already at times while she was on physical replay while mentally daydreaming to get away from the stresses.

When my friend who had daily contact with me found out I had DID just laughed and said "that explains everything. She had noticed sometimes she had to repeat conversations, and Sometimes when we were out in public she had to order at restraunts for me because I couldnt seem to make up my mind (I couldnt do it because there were no abuse memories of my ordering meals in restraunts. so my brain kept rerunning the words "I don't know" ), Sometimes I wore clothes she knew I hated and never wore and sometimes were outdated. But she did not treat me any differently after knowing the diagnosis then she did before knowing because I was still the me that she had contact with daily. I did not do anything different after she knew of the diagnosis that I didnt do before she knew the diagnosis.

Getting the diagnosis doesnt make the person change their behaviors and so on it just explains them and once the person accepts the disorder and starts orking with the therapist or professional that diagnosed them they are better able to control their behavior, not act out more then before revieling the diagnosis. A person is DID all their life. It isn't like a cold where you suddenly wake up one day as an adult with it. Its there and has always been there and the behaviors, actions, language, tones of voice, and so on have always been there from childhood. so you should not and would not see a difference now then before you knew the diagnosis. So there is no reason why you should be treating her different.

if anything treating a disclosed DID different from before disclosure puts stress on them because the brain takes in the changes of friends attitudes, behaviors and so on. Even though she is mentally in her daydream world, physically the heart is still beating, the lungs are still breathing, the senses - hearing, taste, sight, smells touch and emotions around the person are still being recorded in her brain. a change in how people treat her registers as something is wrong, which registers theres still something to be afraid of so the person remains mentally day dreaming and physically on match and replay.

The fact that she told you says she is past the denial stage and is starting to work on the problems so she should be gaining more control not showing even more loss of control.

Telling you also means she trusted you not to treat her any differently. That she felt you accepted her no matter what as the person you have always known and loved to have contact with.

Don't keep proving to her she was wrong to trust you. Go back to treating her like you nromally did and you will find she will mentally leave the daydream safe place and mentally reconnect with her body senses again.