The page on this site entitled DID focused on what this diagnosis is clinically. This page will focus on living with DID from various online sources. This will expose the reader to the various lifestyles and backgrounds of multiples. The reader will also note the many methods survivors use to cope with day-to-day living and the struggles they face as multiples in a disbelieving world. At the bottom of this page is a menu of other pages throughout the site that pertain to those who have DID/MPD; they are very informative and helpful.
http://www.2multiples.com/twcrew/
http://www.wholeperson-counseling.org/testimonies/mpdtowholeness.html
http://astraeasweb.net/plural/
http://www.geocities.com/jacobthemoose/aboutme.html
http://www.geocities.com/kcstars_99/index.html
There are many more wonderful sites out there on the web that are easy enough to find. The best search engine to find them is Google.com, using the keywords "MPD" and "DID". I would give info on each of the links, but it is easy enough to tell what they are about once clicked on and I simply do not have the patience. :o)
If you are DID and want to add to or read the "manual" written by lots of other DID people, here's the link: http://www.kinhost.org/wiki/Main/ManualTOC
What is living with DID like for me? Well, knowing that I am DID has made life a whole lot eaiser and explains so many things, like memory troubles, missing most of my life, feeling "spaced out" frequently, being drawn to kids toys and tv shows and other childish things, doing things with no idea why I did them, and having completely differing thoughts or beliefs on some subjects. Once everyone started to come out, it was as if my life fell into place. I can now heal easier when I address each insider's concerns and needs.
Some therapists damage multiples by not addressing each alter, or recognizing their existance. They will ignore someone who is not what the therapist conciders the "host", and tell them to go away, they will only speak to that host. Isn't this a lot like the abuse first suffered? To be shunned and rejected, or to be told that that person is not important. Those parts that tried to reach out for help and understanding, being hurt again, retreat inside, issues not addressed, no healing done. The therapist, seeing that they "disappear", claim that client is cured, and send them on thier way, and that person continues to carry the pain with them, so deeply buried and hidden for as long as they manage to live. Surviving isn't thriving.
Another way therapists can do damage is to force integration. Multiples became multiple to survive. This system has worked for them their entire lives and usually only a trauma or a stressful point in life brings the alters forward and "out". Integration should be a naturally occurring thing once an insider has healed, shared memories, and is no longer needed to perform certain functions. Integration that is forced will not hold. Therapists commonly believe that healing means integration only. This is very damaging. Healing is defined by the survivor ONLY. Only that survivor will know when they are ready to take a step towards integration. The therapist may then help the survivor if needed. In some cases it happens naturally, without direction or guidance. Many multiples work just fine as a system and have no desire or need to integrate. Being multiple is not an illness, it's a defense mechanisim that helps a person function in a traumatic environment. It is who a person is made up as, that is why it is called an identity disorder and not a psychosis. Disorder means things are out of their natural order. If the natural order is a system of people working together without destructiveness, then nothing is wrong. At this point I have decided that I reject the idea of forced integration unless it is desired by someone(s) inside. I will allow anyone to integrate if they want to, but I won't force it. I have forced an integration before, and it was a bad match and eventually they seperated again. Integration MUST be a natural process. I've heard time and again about many forced integrations that fell apart at a later stressful time. I have argued with therapists who wanted to convince me I was terribly ill with a disease and can only heal through integration (and apparently NOT by addressing issues and other therapies one would experience with a non-multiple). They are very staunch in their preconceived ideas and feel I am very ill indeed to want to heal everyone in the way each needs to be healed!
Some views by multiples of themselves are very negative. They call their insiders "alters" or "parts," which really depersonalizes them, and is degrading in my system's opinion. Many views that cause this are outdated, the fault of disbelieving and uneducated individuals in the medical community. They think they are crazy, which is what they were told, unfortunately. I have heard people say "someone triggered the DID out of me." This is an impossibility, as someone who is DID is always DID and never has a moment when they are not DID unless they are integrated correctly. It is not the dissociation someone is really suffering from, it is the abuse, the reliving of it, the lasting scars that are the real damage. A DID person does not "regress" to a child, they stay exactly how they are: it is the child within that comes "out" or "front." There is no change in the adult, it only appears that way because the adult moves back inside, and when the child takes over, the body acts like the child. Also, many singletons (people who are not multiple, a.k.a. monominds) fear multiplicity because they view it first, as an uncontrolled disorder, and second, fear of the unknown always means fear of possible danger. It is the multiple's duty to educate those close around them so there is no misunderstanding. When a suicidal insider is discovered, it is not a person to be feared or hated. That person is someone who hurts more than the "host" can imagine, and is trying to deal with the pain the only way they can, if no support is there. Remember, they had to live the life, the abuse, that you could not live, so give them the respect due to them, because they saved your life and sanity. Let them heal and experience the good things in life.
I just recently (6-4-05) bought the book Sybil. It's interesting to note that she had otherkin - a fairy (fae) and a pixie- and two males. This is typical of multiple systems! I get really ticked when I tell someone I am multiple (which is rarely) and get asked "Like Sybil?" I will now reply "Are you like Hannibal? Then why would you think I am like Sybil?" People think they see a movie LOOSELY based on reality and consider themselves experts. "Oh, I knew someone like that! You just have to integrate and you'll be fine." Why, thank you very much for your imput! And to think I've been doing all these years of therapy and all I had to do was ask you. *Dripping with sarcasm* Also, I never saw a tv show, movie, or documentary about MPD, nor read a book about it, until AFTER I found out about everyone. I was not influenced by anyone or anything.
People, even especially doctors, consistently fail to realize that I am the expert of my own self, including dx's. They cannot convince me I am something I am not. All they are doing is try to make me and my system conform to their idea of MPD/DID, or if they refuse to accept DID, I'm instantly a schizophrenic. I am the same person walking out of the office that I was walking in, but afterwards they expect me to conform to their own diagnosis for me. Few, very few people realize that the diagnosis of schizophrenia is a catch-all, the official term for general "craziness". It is any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizo-affective means simply, a depressed schizophrenic. I simply do not fit those dx's, whereas I fit DID, PTSD, and depression to a T. It's funny, because it's not just doctors who feel fit to diagnose people, Joe Sixpack does it often as well.
It's a common myth that multiples "became" multiples during therapy, especially through hypnosis. If one didn't get officially diagnosed by a doctor before saying what that one had, then s/he is making it up for attention. I found out about all of me and us long before I found a therapist and I have never been hypnotized. I have never gotten any gain from my "claims" and I never will. I go to great lengths to keep everyone a secret because I know if it got out, no one would accept me as an intelligent, clear-thinking human being. I would simply be "crazy" and thereafter to be ignored, pitied, and never taken seriously. All this because of the ignorance and fear that anyone "crazy" can suddenly attack or do scary things and is of diminished intelligence. Nonsense. By the by, my IQ is 131. No genius, but no idiot, either.
There is another myth that all multiples are geniouses. That's bull, too. I've met some reeeeaaaallly dumb multiples. Multiples, just like people with depression, cancer, PTSD, those who use wheelchairs, are a cross-section of America, just like everyone else. There's dumb ones, smart ones, mean and bad ones, kind and good ones, just all kinds. If you ever hear that some group of people are all something, don't believe it. Generalizations are generally false.
There are fakers, I have met a number of them. But there are more fakers that fake depression, PTSD, schizophrenia and others, taken singly in each category, than there are faking DID. I still don't understand what they get out of it; they sure aren't winning any friends. I think they just like the drama they can stir up. The only ones that question me are people I meet in real life. They expect alters to pop out all the time and to generally act totally different from "normal" people. Again, I don't fit the preconception. I look and act intelligent, in control of myself and all in all, healthy.
Realizing I was dissociative was shocking at first, but as I learned how logical it was, how it really saved my sanity and how enjoyable it was to get to know different "parts of me" and see life through the eyes of a child again sometimes, I decided not to fight it, to feel ashamed, or to hate myself. Accepting it has brought so much healing in areas of my life that otherwise would have been closed off forever. It's a choice every multiple is faced with: make yourself suffer and blame everything on it, or go with the flow and be gentle to yourself and those within. I'd much rather be multiple than have a host of other mental problems as a result of the abuse I suffered. Refer to my Psychological Effects page. Remember, it's not the DID you suffer from, it's the trauma. DID is a coping mechanism that you usually don't need anymore, if you're safe and reading this.
My route of healing is to find out what happened in those big blank periods in my life, and figure out what was wrong in the times I do remember. I need to know that I was not deserving of the abuse, and perhaps why it happened at all. I need to know within me that it was wrong. I need to know how to stop the legacy of abuse and be sure that I don't repeat what I learned upon my own children. I need to learn to live without fear, or rage. I need to know what healthy relationships are. I need to know who I am. I want to learn how to forgive and not live in anger and resentment all my life. I struggle with agoraphobia, generalized anxiety disorder, major clinical depression, PTSD, some light OCD, and lots of ADHD, as well as the DID. I want to be integrated at some point after lots of working through and healing issues. I don't set a deadline, though. I need to know how to recover from PTSD and all it umbrellas under it. I have general, frequent pain in different parts of my body that will remain untreated (whoever heard of traveling pain syndrome?) that, when I did work, required me to take lots of OTC pain pills just to get through a shift. I get frequent migraines that are... bad. Very bad. I need to know how to live normally and recover as best I can from my trials. I was asked "Don't you want to work and be like the rest of us?" That person will never know how hurtful that comment is. All my life I wanted to be like "the rest of us"! "If your body were hurting, people would send you flowers, But if your mind is hurting they throw bricks." ~ "Come Here" By Richard Berendzen.
I won't, I can't give up, I survived many things in my life, and I will survive more; maybe not from simply strength but dogged determination and stubbornness.
