questions: dissociative disorders version

I'm just now learning about myself. I don't even know how to identify my triggers yet. I always just thought I was moody or forgetful. That there was something wrong with me but I didn't know what. I can learn a lot from you guys here.

At what age did you realize your feelings and seek help?

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by age six we knew something was wrong with us- in so many ways.
in high school and college we really wanted him
wasnt til after we got married and away from family we finally got brave and got help

what is something you all have in common?

we all share the same body...which sometimes feels middle aged but quite often either childlike or teenagerish.

if you have an angry protector, what is the worst thing they ever did?

An angry kid protector physically attacked people a couple of times.
We have another protector who we are told is very menacing and people give him a wide berth. People just don't come close when he's out.

Do you have a part of you who is childlike and seemingly carefree?

well, the littles (or did you mean apart from them?)

do you have any insiders that share the same name?. (either as the body or with 1 another)

yes, i have 2 angry protectors who have the same name or a variant on the name. one is an angry child protector who goes by the formal name and the other is an adult angry protector who goes by the shorten version of that name. i suspect that the angry child protector is actually my adult angry protector but they are just stuck in two different times...if that makes sense???

do you ever have dreams where one of your insiders/alters is the main person in the dream? or is the one having the dream?

Hmm, I don't think so. I don' t remember dreams much anymore because of medication I take.

If you have been diagnosed, how long did it take your t to figure it out?

It took many doctors to even mention dissociative disorder. For the longest time I had medication just thrown at me. I'm just now starting to get in depth help.

Do you ever worry incessantly about where you're headed in life?

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some of us.

we all want diffrent things

stacy's lucky- she's a therapist, but the rest of us..
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ugg we just don't know

how has today been for you on the hole?

Surprisingly good. I've been desperate for some open and honest conversations for a long time and I feel like today took a small step towards getting what I really need. On the hole I'm quite excited - a very new feeling for me I'm looking forward to exploring further.

Is openness and honesty more important to you than to the non DID'ers in your life?

Hmm, I'm not sure, because I don't know how it is for other people in their own lives.
I know for me I strive to be authentic... meaning I do my best to deal with the reality of a situation and to view things without defenses. I strongly value honesty, integrity, and the truth as one sees it (while acknowledging that 'truth' is subjective... the same experience may have a different 'truth' for different people).
I do believe in openness and honesty in life. I am sure any DIDer would know how extremely damaging secrets can be.
I guess I believe that you do not know the truth you can not hope to deal with it... life becomes a falsehood.

Do you have a special talent?

We love this thread so much but haven't participated because we can never think of a question.

We can play blindfold chess. My little holds the picture of the board in her head and I can see it and determine the best move. We've played up to three such games simultaneously.

Do any of you have separate birthdays?

In the event that anyone is enjoying this thread as much as I have and wondering if they missed anything, there have been one hundred questions asked so far. Here they are:

1. Who is your most dominant alter?
2. How long ago were you diagnosed with a dissociative disorder?
3. How young is your youngest alter?
4. Does anyone have a service dog and how does the animal help you cope with DID or other disorders?
5. Which alter is your eldest?
6. Throughout your life, how often would a "complete stranger" insist that you have a "lost identical twin"...?
7. What is the strangest place/ situation that you have "come to" and found your self in?
8. How many kids 10 years old and younger in the system ?
9. Are you stable in your current day to day life?
10. Do you have any opposing political or religious views fighting it out inside you?
11. Have you ever had someone come up to you insisting that your child alters/ adult alters, are actually real friends/relatives and then they ask for phone numbers/ pictures/ locations of them?
12. What grounding skills work for you and your system?
13. Are all your insiders the same gender?
14. Do you currently have a T?
15. how many are in your system
16. How did you find out about your alters and their names?
17. How many people in your life know you have parts/alters?
18. Out of all the Ts you may have seen, how many do you think were competent (or at least willing to learn) about working with clients with dissociative disorders?
19. what is the weirdest thing that is happened when you have not been in control?
20. If you are in therapy, how many total years have you been in therapy?
21. Do you have a formal diagnosis of a dissociative disorder?
22. what is something you and your insiders like to do together?
23. what do your teens like to do?
24. is your T able to recognize when you switch and who you have switched to in sessions?
25. what is the longest you have ever been on ward?
26. How old were you / the system when you first learned about dissociation?
27. are your insiders mainly calm and collective, or angry
28. Have you even taken the SCID-D?
29. Do you email/phone with you t in between sessions? If yes, how often?
30. Are you compassionate towards the other parts of yourself?
31. do you have anything in your system that's not a person?.
32. Are you still in the process of figuring out how dissociation affects you?
33. Are you able to control whether your alters can come front and or force you to say things if you have a 'main front'person?
34. do any of your insiders claim to have mentaal health issues that you yourself don't have?
35. Did your T tell you you had dissociation issues, or did you tell your T?
36. what is 1 real dislike of your system
37. Do you have at least one person in your life you can trust?
38. Do you have internal fights about what is calming and if so, what do you do when life is overwhelming to try to cope when nothing is going to make everyone feel better?
39. have you recently discovered any more alters?
40. Do you 'roll away' from things you are not yet able to know?
41. does your system have a name?
42. Do you respond differently to meds?
43. Do you ever feel your dissociative disorder took entirely too long to be diagnosed?
44. How long ago were you diagnosed?
45. Do you have a teddy bear for your littles?
46. When you feel like a child, what do you see when you look at your physical body?
47. Do you like to cook?
48. Do you have a part of you that likes to cook?
49. Do you like it when you spend ages cooking something you are really looking forward to eating and then someone else eats it for you?
50. what do you do to calm down an inside child who is upset?
51. have you disclosed to your family of origin about your DID?
52. has another insider ever put you in hospital?
53. Do you have inside jokes going on in your head that are so funny you bust out laughing during unfunny moments and everyone looks at you weird?
54. what does your inside world look like?
55. Do you and your parts/alters/bits of self aim to integrate eventually?
56. If you have complex PTSD and OSDD-1 or DID do you ever confuse emotional flashbacks with fragments or alters?
57. do you feel that some of your insiders/alters/parts are trying to sabotage your therapy or the relationship with your T?
58. Do you know any other people in your daily life who have a dissociative disorder?
59. Do you believe it is possible for someone with DID to ever recover and lead a happy life?
60. What is one trait about any one side / part / alter / aspect of yourself that you admire or like?
61. what is 1 thing you wish you could know about your alters which you don't currently know
62. Do you like to eat chips?!
63. do your littles like drawing?
64. Do you have an alter or part or side of you that likes to learn stuff? Any stuff. But a part that thrives on learning.
65. when you meet someone for the first time, do you tell them that you have alters, or do you usually wait for them to find out
66. Did you ever watch United States of Tara?
67. do you have anyone who can speak other languages?
68. do you have a hard time remembering what you have done from day to day or week to week?
69. how is your day going?
70. what is the longest period of time where you have not been in control?
71. How do you regain control?
72. Do you trance out a lot?
73. what has been the most embarrassing place you have switched?
74. do your littles take a stuffie or teddy bear or blanket to T to help them feel safe?
75. does your system have a protector?, and do they do a good job
76. How do you deal with the embarrassment when (or should I say - after) you act out?
77. Can you ever feel comfortable?
78. do you listen to your alters?
79. do your alters seem to have their own preference or style in how they like to dress?
80. what do you like about having DID?
81. How does the next person deal with menus / eating out/ picking sandwiches in a shop?
82. does your family know you have DID?
83. many of you talk about playing with and comforting your others, but did you always want to take care of them or did you start out hating them or wanting nothing to do with then
84. So, do you find comfort in a dog/cat/horse?
85. How frequently do you dissociate / switch / otherwise experience dissociative type symptoms?
86. are you happy with your therapist?
87. Can you see a time when you will be happy / content?
88. have you figured out all your triggers?
89. At what age did you realize your feelings and seek help?
90. what is something you all have in common
91. if you have an angry protector, what is the worst thing they ever did?
92. Do you have a part of you who is childlike and seemingly carefree?
93. do you have any insiders that share the same name?
94. do you ever have dreams where one of your insiders/alters is the main person in the dream? or is the one having the dream?
95. If you have been diagnosed, how long did it take your t to figure it out?
96. Do you ever worry incessantly about where you're headed in life?
97. how has today been for you on the hole?
98. Is openness and honesty more important to you than to the non DID'ers in your life?
99. Do you have a special talent?
100. Do any of you have separate birthdays?

I have answered them all for ourselves and am e-mailing the questions and our answers to T.

I reckon you could jump in and answer any question you want any time you like, even if you can't think of a question to ask. You could just hand off to the next person if you like. I have trouble thinking up questions too. (Maybe I'll just rehash some old ones!)

We do not have separate birthdays. Birthdays were traumatic and frightening. One a year is quite enough to get through, thankyouverymuch!

A question....hmmm...

What do you think of yagr's list? A round of applause is due, yes?

well, i sure didn't expect every question on the thread to be listed, clearly they really love this post!

what do i think of it being posted here?

suppose it's devotion, but also... i'm not sure it was needed.d
does losing time embarrass you?

sometimes losing time embarrasses me, especially if it effects my job or my kids. my co-workers must think i'm a bit flaky at times and my kids get frustrated when they have to explain something to me again when they already told me about it...

what is your favorite PC emoticon?

all of these ones!!!!!


This is a tough question.
If you have a history of abuse, did you always know about it or were you completely unaware? ?

Nobody is effing answering so I will.
I knew about some of it, but had forgotten it. The re-remembering of that was triggered by the possibility of someone we cared about being abused by the same person.
Other stuff by other abusers we (front group) didn't know about at all until we were in therapy.

Are you aware of any of your other family members having a dissociative disorder?

I am sorry Luce; it was the same issue for me again - couldn't think of a question worth asking though I did want to answer the question. I knew about a great deal of the abuse but not the primary and most prolific abuser. I was twenty-seven when I discovered the missing pieces. Here's how it happened:

I knew something was wrong with me. Who (barring alcohol or drug usage) suddenly doesn't know where they are, how they got there and what day it is on a regular basis? Who goes to sleep and wakes up and their entire room is colored with crayons they didn't know they had? So yeah, I knew...but I didn't know what it was that I didn't know. I had been told about my strange behavior during those times I didn't remember - 'it was like you were someone else'. So I set out to figure out who this someone else was.

I decided to talk to whomever it was for the last fifteen minutes of every day for thirty days. I had trouble figuring out where to focus my 'talk' and so I picked a stuffed animal, sat it on a chair and talked to the stuffed (mountain lion) animal. Thirty days came and went without any headway and I was about to end the experiment. I joked to it about wasting seven and a half hours that I'd never get back (fifteen minutes a day for thirty days) and surmised that I'd probably done stupider things with seven and a half hours but if I had, I probably couldn't remember it. Then I said good night and turned out the lights. The moment I did, she screamed. She was afraid of the dark. I felt the fear and choked on it.

I threw on the light and well...it was awkward. She was so very angry but wanted to reach back but didn't know how. I asked questions, made awkward jokes...and failed epically. She just kept getting angrier. I told her that I would shut up and stay with her. The anger began to subside and my previous questions hung in the air. Suddenly without warning, she played the tapes and I saw and remembered everything.

No. To the best of my knowledge, they do not. I am sorry that I do not have a question...

edited: OMG I thought up a question! Woo-hoo!! Okay, I hear all the time from other posters that so and so is a protector but for us (there are only two of us) today we both protect each other. Is there anyone else for whom their system has morphed into mutual protection?

That was a great answer about how you came to find out, yagr.

Hmm, I think perhaps we are mutual protectors of ourselves. At least on the front side (the group that I am part of). There is another group that is still separate from us front ones, and I assume they still have individual protector types.

Now I can't think of a question.
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<<< Twiddling my thumbs >>>

In therapy do you find it challenging to speak? Do you have parts of yourself that actively block you talking? Do you have parts that protect the secrets?

it can be very challenging for some of us. some are very afraid to tell secrets of course. theyre protective of secrets and also afraid. we have a few (maybe 3-4) who are big bullies and do anything they can to block secrets from coming out.

what would your ideal day be like?

i'd spend it in disney land california.

i've never been, and would love to go... it's the original disney after all, where it all started

thanks to my agoraphobia and fear of flying i've not gotten their yet

name something positive about having mental illness (did or otherwise)

It can help learn you compassion for others. You never know what other people are going through in secret.

Does your dissociation make you vulnerable in the present day?

I wanted to answer this question immediately but hesitated before I did. I don't want to give the impression that there are no difficulties but no, we don't feel vulnerable these days. We both watch out and protect each other these days and so, we've never actually felt so safe and loved. If I had a frame of reference for what life would be like without dissociation, I might change my mind but all I've got is us before the founding of Team Us and us now. Now is awesome comparatively.

What is the biggest thing that you've ever done (or given up) for an alter when it wasn't forced?

i.e. Ended a relationship you wanted to be in because the person triggered a little one. Quit smoking/drinking/etc. because the habit disturbed someone inside. Etc.