QUESTION TWO – How do you experience #DissociativeIdentityDisorder ? Do you find your symptoms manifest more physically, emotionally, mentally, etc?
If you asked me fifteen years ago, this answer would have been very, very different.
Before, I felt crazy and out of control. There were too many me’s, and I was never the right one at the right time. My mind either too loud to hear myself think, or a howling, jumbled numbness.
Before, I heard voices. I saw silhouettes. Walls changed colors and the carpets breathed. I became immobilized with fear for no reason, paranoid and convinced I was going to die. I couldn’t sleep; I slept too much. I’d feel things, taste things, smell things; I’d choke on things that weren’t there.
Before, I struggled with eating disorders, impulsivity, and self harm. My relationships were unstable at best and toxic at worst. I would forget my schedule, my job, my address, my friends, my style, my self. I feared myself. I feared losing control. My goals changed. My name changed. The Universe changed. Nothing worked. Nothing fit. I didn’t fit.
Now, our daily memory is the strongest its ever been, and we’re no longer stuck in a permanent fog. Communication is easy; we can switch, compartmentalize, and contain at will, and can still function through what we cannot fully put away in the moment. Even our chronic anxiety seems to be on its way out the door.
Now, most of our distressing symptoms are gone. Flashbacks and dissociative phenomena don’t freak us out anymore because we understand what is happening and how to help.
Now, I’d say, most everything manifests somatically, in the body, or emotionally via passive influence. Occasionally mentally, but these days, unless faced with unavoidable life stress, unexpected triggers, or a flood of memory processing, we’re hardly symptomatic at all.
Except our handwriting. That’s still the worst.
QUESTION TWO-and-a-HALF – Who knows about your system? Who do you want to know? What [does it feel] like coming out as multiple?
Lighthouse is the one person who still works with and talks to Motley members directly on a regular basis. Nowadays, our DID only matters while on the therapist’s couch.
PeanutButter knows because we married him. It would have been impossible to have a serious relationship where our spouse didn’t know.
We used to want friends to know about us, but not anymore. Before I wised up and stopped telling people, reactions varied. From those in my personal life, I got a lot of “That explains so much!” and “I don’t doubt it one bit.” Unfortunately, it rarely ended well.
I think I’d be okay, maybe, with certain, select people knowing about our DID diagnosis – but not the details of the Motley. I’d be okay discussing DID as a concept using our experiences as examples, but nobody needs to know our inner names or how we function or who is around when.
Outsiders knowing that information feels violating, and it’s not always healthy for the other person(s) either. Plus, you can’t control how people react to it or any further spreading of it, so being choosy with disclosure is imperative.
Our blog is public, of course, but carefully and deliberately anonymous. Nobody in my real life needs to know, and I don’t need them to know. I am so much more than my DID, and while I identify as a multiple, being a multiple isn’t my identity.
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30 Days of DID survey credits go to tumblr user "shihkas", and wordpress blogger "catalyticconvergence". Links can be found in the original post ("Snapshots into DID") on our website.
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