What is DID like?

I'm just curious.

Are you aware of all your multiple personalities?

When you're in a certain personality, do you remember what you did while in that personality. And when you shift to a different one, do you remember what you did in the previous personality? Is there a concrete, central you? (Sorry. This paragraph is somewhat redundant.)

What is that like? Is it confusing?

Just wondering.

short version here in the USA there are now two dissociative disorders where a person may have alternate personalities....DID and OSDD (other Specified Dissociative Disorder) OSDD has less than marked problems associated with things like loss of time (not knowing/not remembering what happens when the alters are in control.) where as a person with DID has more memory problems associated with when the alters are in control, personal information and such...

that said with both disorders there is something called co consciousness. thats the psychological term for knowing /hearing and sharing what the alters are saying, doing and knowing. some people have more and others have less and some people have no co consciousness. its all individualized according to how each persons system of alters are comprised, and what each of the alters jobs, purposes and reasons for being created are.

here where I live yes there is always a concrete central person, here that is called a host (person in which the alters reside/live with in. that said with some people with DID there has been so much trauma/abuse that the central person has been so traumatized that the host person is so buried in side that there are alters who's job, purpose,reason for being is to take turns being in control while the core/central/ host (which ever term applies) remains unreachable/ protected/hidden/ and in some cases unknown to the alters to where they dont know there is a core/central person..

think of it this way if there wasnt a central/core person there wouldnt be any alters because the alters had to come from somewhere. the alters are parts of a whole...kind of like you cant get orange slices from nothing. there has to be an orange in order to have orange slices, there has to be a physical person (core/central /host) in order to have alters. the alters are created when a child (core/host/central) has been through extreme abuse before the age of 5 (according to my locations documented statistics)

with DID reality testing remains intact meaning yes the alters know what they did when in control of the body example rainy knew she would cry when she was in control of the body, would know that she was talking with my wife or my therapist, would know her doll was in her arms, would know what she was saying after she had said something.

it was me the aware self that did not know what went on when rainy was in control due to my lack of co consciousness. Reality testing remains intact for the aware self too (I knew and still know whats real and what isnt and knew what I was saying and doing when I was not dissociated., wasnt hallucinating (was not seeing and hearing things that were not real....)...

other locations and treatment providers may explain DID and your questions in a different way.

if you feel you have DID or any other mental disorder you will need to contact a treatment provider who can diagnose that with in you and help you get into the treatment plan that is right for you.

I haven't ever tried to explain to a nonDID what it's like. So it might be beneficial to try. Most I think would run from your question. Wondering why u want to know + fearing ridicule cuz it's really been used as a plot line for so many Hollywood stories. Herschel Walker, the football great, has just released a book about his DID. It's different for everyone but is the result of intolerable abuse for everyone. This is how it is for us. It's like a multigenerational family living in one house. Only we may not be cognizant of everyone. Think a college student who has a 4 year old brother at home. Not much of a relationship but still a member of the family.Each member has different likes, dislikes,abilities,jobs within the family, fears. Big football player-like brother comes out to protect his little sister from a bully for example. Some pay the bills, clean the house, fix the car. One may be allergic to strawberries. Just like in any family. There are males and females regardless of the body wherein we live. We have a female body. A male alter went when a MD unexpectedly ordered a blood test. The MD started to go over the results with us, suddenly stopped, and said the lab had mixed up the tests. These were obviously from a male. So DID is not just something made up in our head. Our goal is to be a functioning happy, successful inside and out in the world family. A great many DIDs are very successful, highly functioning, multi-talented individuals. Like Herschel Walker. But to reach that goal means we have to know each member of the family, understand their contribution to the history of the family, their role in the operation of the family now. That's the biggest hurdle. A DID may not know about all the others. How the bills got paid..don't remember doing it...don't recognize the handwriting OR don't know about the bills. Certainly don't know how that ugly dress ended up in my closet cuz wouldn't be caught dead wearing it. Just think of the complexities of getting a multigenerational family working or a big committee completing daily tasks! Add to that the fact that many members have emotional problems,even physical problems from severe abuse. Hope this gives u a framework to understand it. And no we may not be aware of our others when one is out doing their thing. Know also DIDs are strong. They survived the abuse when many others did not.

Thanks for the responses.

I absolutely did not ask to be judgmental or to ridicule anyone. And of course I think it's something real and not made up.

It's still hard for me to understand, even with the explanations you both provided.

It's probably something I'd have to have in order to truly understand it.

I'm just one, alter-less person, and have trouble combining the different parts of my personality! (Like, the happy me, and the depressed me, etc.). I couldn't imagine really having different alters. I'd be so confused.

Anyway, so I didn't ask to scare anyone. Please don't be scared to answer my question.

Thanks for the responses.

I absolutely did not ask to be judgmental or to ridicule anyone. And of course I think it's something real and not made up.

It's still hard for me to understand, even with the explanations you both provided.

It's probably something I'd have to have in order to truly understand it.

I'm just one, alter-less person, and have trouble combining the different parts of my personality! (Like, the happy me, and the depressed me, etc.). I couldn't imagine really having different alters. I'd be so confused.

Anyway, so I didn't ask to scare anyone. Please don't be scared to answer my question.

Everyone's system is different hun. I would be co-conscience, aware of my other parts. We are also in co-operation which means we discuss, vote, debate, collaborate on things for the betterment of the system, at least most of us do. We are family, and like all families, you have your black sheeps, rivalries, jealousies, etc.

We are aware of our switches on a conscious level, and most of them are seamless, but if there is a huge contrast in personality types, it feels more like possession.

I've been looping on this one, when I say "I", who is "I"? I become someone different, the head voice changes, the walk, talk, motion, gesturing, everything, then there is a new "I". If I weren't aware, this would be no problem.

I feel like we just bounce along life doing whatever without any real direction or goal acting and reacting because we've never been any good at goal setting, things are always changing. Every alter has a job, so for each job encountered, the alters whose specialty is for that job steps up front. A job can be like dealing with people, mechanizing, parenting, relaxing, cooking, etc. Sometimes I feel like a Rolodex and someone gave it one big spin.

I can't say I get missing time, I just can't remember what happened moments to hours ago, let alone yesterday or last week. My days are segmented with holes in it. Memories stay with the alter that experiences them. Memories are like dreamlike snapshots, just a few tiles floating around against a black background giving me the feeling of a no past. We do have memory sharing, especially for the pertinent stuff like medical, enuff to appear "singular" somewhat, only if they wanna, but it takes awhile. I appear "slow" at times.

We can all be working in direction, then another part might pop out and decide that it wants to go this way instead. We just deal with it and move on. We have a general idea of what another might of done, but the details are not there.

I hope this helps. You can't imagine, you're so lucky. I can either embrace it, or feel sorry for myself. I embrace it. If anything, it has made me a multi talented person, an expert in most things. My problem solving skills are exponential because I have an entire team committed to solving each problem!

Just thought of this one:

A person has to where many different hats, but a person with DID needs several other persons to wear them same hats.

I might be a little question but I don't think I would be able to give it a comprehensive answer. So many details are involved. It kinda like answering "How long is a piece of string?".

One part of it is like walking through a jungle that is the home to many many trip wires. You never know when you will step on a trip wire and it all happens so suddenly when you do. The moment you step on an invisible trip wire a switch gets flicked on and somebody else inside pushes their way to the front. For me that means my speech changes and I may or may not remember what is said. My control goes out the window.

That's my perspective.

For me, pre-somewhat integrated, 'I' was never 'in' a certain personality. 'I' was always me. Others were others. For them, they were themselves, their own 'I'.

Some of us were aware of each other, and some of us were not, but each of us was quite adamantly our own self and NOT 'those other selves'. I think what I am trying to say is pre-'somewhat integrated' there was no continuous sense of self, although each self had their own unchanging histories.

During and after therapy we gained co-consciousness amongst many alters, and over time many of us became aware of each other and gained longer and more continuous awareness of time as well. This became stronger and stronger over many years.

Eventually we gained 'integration of some sort' and gained what I call ownership of the 'I's. All those individual 'I's that used to be so adamantly separate and 'not-eachother' became more and more familiar, like family, and eventually we came to accept and understand each other as all part of ONE 'I'. Now we are fully co-conscious. We still recognise parts of this 'I' as 'the I previously known as Jess' for instance - and this 'I' can even let previously known 'I's be themselves for a while, but we (I!) consider ourselves to be mostly integrated and operating as just one 'I' for the most part.

I hope that made sense!

Its like constantly being in one room with a bunch of different people all at once. All the time. Doesnt matter if you cant stand each other, youre still stuck with them. Then you all have to figure out a way to share and get along and communicat effectlively...without destroying each other.

For me, I was not aware of my Alters until my early 20s, although when I look back on my childhood/teenage years a lot of things make sense; TONS of missing time, comments from family and friends that seemed out of place at that time, etc. It was a traumatic event in my adult-years that broke open my "pandora's box" of internal family to my own consciousness. Before then, I simply considered my mind very 'busy', inconsistent, spacey, incredibly ADD, moody and unpredictable.

I share consciousness with certain Alters, and some I do not. Some I do not share consciousness with because that's just the way it's always been, and some I do not because we've agreed we want it that way; it's a respect thing. That has evolved over time as I have worked in therapy. Some shifts between Alters are seamless and comfortable, others are internally jarring and make me feel.... IDK.... just, off.

I hope that made sense.

Sometimes it feels like a lottery.

sometimes i remember but sometimes i don't. sometimes i remember the actions but it's very much like it happened to someone else. there's no emotional remembering? or... it's just completely disconnected. i can't imagine trying to understand it without experiencing it. it's like breathing. and now we've got to relearn how.
but then again before i became aware i had no idea. and i'd read books on DID so there u go. but it didn't click until i had a part become dominant that knew enough to **** up the system till it was all forced into the light. we were forced to look at our life.
my mom was my hero. i spent almost every waking moment hanging out with her. we were best friends.
you can imagine why none of them wanted to let me know about all the abuse
everything is confusing. my life is suddenly 200x more confusing while making 500x more sense.
excitement around every corner!
:/