What It's Like to Live With Dissociative Identity Disorder Did

I'm 52 years old now, and I spent most of my life living every bit multiple, with what is technically called dissociative identity disorder (DID).

I was officially diagnosed in early 2002, when I was in my late 30s. I had been quite successful in my study and my career. I had a family.

I thought my life was going well, to be honest, or at least the parts of myself who were living my life at that stage thought things were going well.

Acting normal

None of my parts ever showed themselves blatantly as unlike or separate to anyone else, other than my therapist. You want to pretend and act every bit if y'all are normal.

In my late teenage years, when I was still in an calumniating environment, I was diagnosed as bipolar. Information technology was interpreted equally: "Oh, her mood is changing. Suddenly she is depressed; suddenly she is manic."

They weren't seeing that I was switching from a close-down and traumatised part to suddenly being a part that is extroverted and having fun.

Nobody bothered to enquire what was happening to me.

Extroverts and introverts

At that place were a lot of identities. It would be hard to describe them all.

At that place was one who just liked to take fun, who was good at sport, things similar going skiing. She was good at teasing people and being social.

There was some other who was good academically, who had no connection with the body at all, who wouldn't have been able to ski for the life of her.

Some people say in that location are parts that accept no memory at all and no knowledge of what others do. Others say in that location is overlap where parts accept awareness of others.

For me information technology was mixed. Some parts knew there were other parts, others didn't. Some parts did have some awareness of what others were doing and what others felt, whereas other parts didn't.

An artistic photograph shows a hand on a piece of wood with the image of a teddy bear on it. — "The trauma was centred on what happened in my nuclear family."( Supplied: Kallena )

Where the trauma came from

The trauma was centred on what happened in my nuclear family. It was extremely dysfunctional.

Starting from when I was an baby, I was treated in ways that were hurtful and painful and terrifying. It was physical, sexual and emotional abuse for over 20 years.

A lot of times I believed I was going to die. I think that is at the core of why a lot of these separations happen, that you believe you're going to die.

For much of my life there were parts who had no idea that much of this happened, and when people asked, answered that: "I had a fine childhood, I grew up in a good family, and everything was fine."

Discovering the disorder

Although I had been diagnosed every bit bipolar, parts of me knew that was wrong because the so-called symptoms disappeared when I travelled overseas, which isn't supposed to happen if yous are bipolar.

Being overseas, the parts that were distressed had no reason to bear witness themselves considering I wasn't at run a risk from the people who had been my abusers.

Eventually I started my ain family. My children were still young, but they reached the age at which item forms of corruption started for me.

At that point that reminder was likewise powerful a trigger to remain subconscious. These parts who had experienced things for me at those ages started to announced and show themselves.

I was very distressed and needed help. Simply I had no idea what I needed help for.

The treatment

The treatment is best described as long-term psychotherapy.

We began to larn that someone else could be rubber enough for all the different parts to show themselves and develop a human relationship with them. Gradually the parts feel prophylactic enough to limited more and more of what they know, what they experience.

As all the parts speak to one consistent other person, who is expert plenty in how they relate to all parts and respects all equally, the parts begin to learn to cooperate.

We wrote in journals, so other parts would be able to read what 1 function had written or what i was doing. We'd keep rails and learn to communicate inside our head more.

I worked through to exist able to incorporate co-consciousness, when all parts are nowadays and aware of what's happening in the world and performance together cooperatively. We gradually learned to tolerate the overwhelming feelings contained in split up parts.

Finally, for me, with no effort or intention or anything, the parts just blended together. I have one whole self now and have had for some time.

In the movies

I haven't seen the movie Split, and I'm absolutely not going to. I'thou appalled particularly because it portrays the person with dissociative identity disorder equally a perpetrator of abuse of children.

I spent a lifetime doing absolutely everything I could to non be like those people who abused me. Every single bit of free energy was put into being different to them, fifty-fifty though I had parts who would have been capable of beingness aggressive.

I believe that people with DID accept an overall personality, because all the parts work as a organization. Even if a function may desire to do bad things or hurt someone else, if that behaviour is unacceptable to the system, that part won't be immune out to do it.

I discover that the most hurtful attribute of this motion-picture show. It's extraordinary abuse of people who are already extremely marginalised, because the corporeality of stigma and sensationalism about dissociative identity disorder in the community is extreme already.

An artistic image of broken glass and chains. — "I spent a lifetime doing everything to non be like those people who driveling me."( Supplied: Kallena )

What information technology'southward like to exist treated

I feel improve in myself now, but it's a controversial question because it's something that's not right for everyone.

I wouldn't want to suggest that anybody with parts should fifty-fifty aim for or even consider it. I certainly don't retrieve I aimed for it. It only ended upward that way.

I miss my parts at times. At that place was comfort in having others inside y'all who you know and can communicate with, a sense of never being lone.

There are times I miss this sense of, "oh, I've had enough of this, someone else come and take over for me". But overall I'm glad I'm like this at present.

Kallena is a Melbourne-based social worker, counsellor and advocate for survivors of babyhood trauma. The art used in this commodity was produced while she was in therapy.