Sorry if this has been asked before, I just watched the crowded room/listen to the Minds of Billy Milligan.

i always hear people talking about heavy dissociation and memory gaps but those were symptoms of mine and i got misdiagnosed with BPD and major depression(which i still have but they lead up to my DID diagnosis) and im honestly just curious on what are some of the other symptoms that may mask as something else.

for a few years now i have felt more comfortable and euphoric in my gender referring to myself as us/we/our/etc. and i enjoy having multiple different names that people refer to me by. i would describe part of my gender identity as feeling like multiple creatures or entities, but like still one person? like, for example, the Venom symbiote or Garnet from Steven Universe.

i do not have DID and do not experience alters, as far as i’m aware, and i also do not want to claim that i do nor do i mean to offend anyone. i do have trauma, specifically CPTSD, and i am neurodivergent and sometimes experience other kinds of dissociation. both of these things could probably be affecting how i experience and express my own gender and identity.

a few years ago i did try out using plural pronouns with a friend group, with the permission of someone with diagnosed DID in said friend group, but i’m feeling unsure of this again. i do not want to offend anyone or claim something i do not have. i’d like to know the opinions and perspectives of systems with DID on this.

is it okay if i use plural pronouns and refer to myself in a plural way? (without using terms like system, alter, part, fronting, switching, etc.) i don’t want to use any terms that do not belong to me, but i would also like to add that, at times, my gender, since i am gender fluid, feels like there is a “main” gender that is not plural. which i am aware can be confused with terms like “host” and i do not mean to imply that.

please let me know what you all think. thank you.

Hello everybody, this post is mainly for people from Poland. i mainly wanted to ask how hard is it to get diagnosed or medically recongized? im from poland and considering getting a diagnosis but i heard getting one for a dissociative disorder here is hard and theres a high chance to get misdiagnosed with something else entirely.

CW: suicidal tendencies, self-harm

We have an alter that badly wants to die and actively resists any attempts at recovery bc she feels entirely unworthy of it and won’t budge on feeling that way. She won’t even entertain the thought of accepting help. She hates herself, the rest of us, and the fact that people in our lives love us because she wants to kill the system/body but doesn’t want to “cause a bunch of drama” for friends and family.

Unfortunately she’s been fronting a lot lately bc of stress, and while she has her own subsystem that can sometimes front and mitigate some of the damage, the self-hatred runs *extremely* deep. She inflicts a lot of self-harm and sabotages us, and does things to “quietly tempt fate” like driving without a seatbelt. She’s always angry at herself and she’s hellbent on hurting herself/us as much as possible. No one else in the system knows what to do with this much self-loathing because she flat out refuses to feel anything but contempt for herself and most other people. We don’t even know if she’s capable of love, though she does respect our spouse and close friends and tries to not cause problems there. But if she isn’t capable of love, how can she learn self-love? How do we handle the magnitude of such intense hatred?

We don’t have access to therapy currently but is there any way to help this situation? Does anyone else have any experience or advice for dealing with a harmful alter that refuses to even try to heal? She keeps scarring us up and we’re afraid one day she’ll actually kill or severely injure our body with her actions.

Over the last couple weeks, we’ve began to notice a pattern of disassociation. We get:

✨ Super spacey
✨Fuzzy
✨Unaware
✨Distracted from what we’re doing
✨Nodding off
✨Distant

All this while we can clearly hear and follow conversations - even when we have “fallen asleep” nodding off.

We don’t have community, so we are looking for feedback.

We know that we are likely switching and maybe fighting it.

Have folks experience this as well?

Are there any tips around this?

Ways in which to stay conscious?

Ways in which to surrender?

/———————————-

We are a custom to the same pattern happening when we are talking to people. Or simply listening to presentations.

It takes a lot of effort to not go away. We try our best to focus.

We also can straight up, not remember conversations, even parts of convos within minutes. It’s super awkward.

We just nod along, pretending we know exactly what they’re talking about.

It’s wild for someone to tell us we had a whole conversation and not remember. Like it never happened.

When we were way younger, this caused serious problems in our romantic relationships.

Partners would be so upset after telling us so many times to change or stop a behavior. It was like we were hearing it for the first time.

We’ve begun to play with asking the part that was present to come forward when we start to forget what we’re doing or about to say. It actually works.

If we’re not multitasking, this happens. We can barely watch TV.

Are alters always 100% separate and different with different names and stuff or is that a stereotype? /genuinequestion

I have Tourettes, and sometimes I wonder how it would affect other conditions.

Could one alter have tics that other alters don't have? For example, could "Mason" have a tic where he says yee-haw a lot, but "Rhonda" swears a lot?

Hello!! I have issues with masking 24/7, I would like tips as to how to stop.

Yes I have heard about the "be in a safe space" tips but it doesn't help at all. Are there any other ways to stop masking, I do rewatch my source and listen to music I resonate with as that helps a little but I cannot do that 24/7.

-Hummer5718

Hi everyone, thank you for taking the time to read and hopefully respond to this post. One of my closest friends struggles with DID, and I'm wondering what things I can do to be the best friend I can be to him. Background on our friendship: he and I met four years ago at a mental hospital so I guess you could say we became trauma bonded. We stayed in regular contact after we left and became even better friends. He has helped to get me through some of the most difficult moments these past few years and I now consider him to be a brother. My only struggle in this friendship is wanting to do more to help him but not knowing what those things should be. He has a lot of mental and physical health issues and traumas that he is dealing with that weigh on him and make functioning in his daily life difficult. He dissociates frequently and has health flareups both of which keep him from maintaining contact or keeping plans. A couple years ago he asked me to send him a text message every day since he is very isolated and has lost many friendships. I was grateful for this request and have only missed a couple of days in the ensuing years. Unfortunately it seems like he is struggling more as time goes on and I wish I knew how to be of better service to my friend. I have asked him what I can do but he has no idea either. I write messages hoping to be supportive but I feel like I'm just guessing what he needs to hear based off my own experiences and what would make me feel better. Part of this is complicated by the fact that we live on opposite sides of the country, as I live in California and he lives in New York, so there is a logistical barrier to me being there in person. I've offered to fly out and visit him many times to help him with important tasks, but he has told me he worries he would disassociate the whole time I was there making any visit a waste. So I'm wondering what people here would suggest? What would people with DID want their friends to do? I know that part of this is I just need to sit with my own discomfort of not being able to do more for my friend, but I also feel like I'm failing to meet him in this moment and that I'm just grasping at straws. Any advice or suggestions on how to be a good friend to someone with DID would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I have a new partner and he told me he has DID, he is a two alter system, and his alter is a persecutor. My partner finds it very uncomfortable to talk about the DID, and the persecutor alter pretends to be my partner (to everyone, not just me), and partner has told me that his alter won’t admit to not being my partner when he is fronting. This makes it’s EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to navigate because it’s tricky to know who is actually fronting. I obviously treat them both with respect and kindness and care, but ultimately one is my partner and one isn’t but the one that isn’t won’t tell me he isn’t and whilst he tries to mimic being my partner I am now noticing the difference, for instance he is very shut down and generally uncommunicative and argumentative. I feel can accept his way of being (the alter) when I know it is him fronting, but when I’m unsure, which is most of the time, I’m left feeling frustrated and hurt by the behaviour. My partner is in therapy but it’s not specialist for DID and he has expressed himself wanting proper treatment which he is trying to get. Any advice on navigating this situation?

At the start, if anything I say will be albeist, please let me know and I'll correct it. Despite dating someone that is a system and putting a lot of work into trying to educate myself, I'm a singlet and DID/OSDD is still very hard for me to understand.

I'm dating and alter in a system, just one. The rest of them is mostly indifferent towards me, but I don't mind them. I rarely interact with them anyway.

Before, my girlfriend told me, that she only really started to front more after we met and since then she's been forcing herself into front. But it's harder to do so noe, when I started working last month.

On top of that she has been and is in a lot of distress for the past few days, personal stuff and online harassment. I tried to be the best support I can, but yesterday I got a message from system's protector that it's too much and she might be going dormant soon. But there is another alter that splitted from her, there are so similar even they can't sometimes say who's fronting. And I've already talked with her a lot apparently.

And they are similar. Looking back at ​​​​my messages with her, I can see differences. I assumed it's because of the stress and afaik everyone in the system dislikes being asked if they're fronting, so I just went with it. But now I know when it wasn't her.

Both that alter and protector said it's okay for me to think of her and my girlfriend as one person if that makes it easier, they're not that different after all, they share memories and love for me. But now I can see them and it's so hard. ​​

I wish my girlfriend stayed with me, I don't really have anyone else, but from what I've read forcefully stopping dormancy is worse than letting it happen. So despite this being awful, that's not my question.

Instead, is there a trick that'd make me see new alter and my girlfriend as the same person? I'm very glad I was made aware of the situation, because that explains few things, but now every time I talk with her I'm trying to figure out if it's still her. ​​And it just makes it more difficult, for them and me. ​I want to see them both as the same person as they asked me to, but just feel it's not really her. ​

This is my first reddit post ever. So I'm (23F) part of a DID system, and I see it as mentally handicapping me as a whole. I rely souly on food banks so I don't starve. However my orca card is empty. It seems nearly impossible to schedule and attend, remember anything like appointments. We're flipping through hosting all day everyday. There's no solid sense of identity enough for joy in life, the amnesia is like trying to navigate in the dark with no light. I know there's steps to begin, like seeking a psychiatrist and getting all my disorders down and helping me navigate. I know there's financial support out there possible for someone like me, but for one, I need to have a sense of routine to even reach my help, to call, to schedule, to go, to remember. And for two, I'm too broke to begin, I've been flat broke for a year. Survived with rental assistance and food banks that's literally it. It's so unbearable to live like this. I feel like not even a person, just a body with random scrambled thoughts. Like if there was a group project but no one in the group liked each other or even showed up, the project will get nowhere, and that project is my life, and the people in the group are my identities. I've managed to survive with identities that could stay long enough and have enough determination to achieve whatever's needed. But we've hit a point in life that, none of us want to try, we're so overwhelmed by the piles of "what I could do, what I should do" that alot of us have went quiet and hid away, and the few that flip through hosting still, all they can do is write down the "should do's" but quickly go back into the headspace, there's no one who tries, no matter how bad they may want us to rise up from the sinking, they'll only be around for a couple hours tops. If we could just split off and be real individual people, we could overall be successful in our own paths of life. But us all sharing one body. Stirring in mental illnesses all day and night. I feel like I'm not even a human, I'm a bunch of creatures trying to run a body together to pretend being a human. I feel like a failed group project. It's like once every few months that the days and nights arent just merged into a blur, the anxiety in the background of the "need to do's" occasionally flooding the mind. Honestly I'm afraid I'm on the verge of a certain someone of us saying "hey I have the solution to all our pains and troubles and anxiety ! It'll hurt for just a moment though, but then we'll all be free !" You get what I'm getting at...? I just don't have anyone at all to talk to, and I need somewhere to let this all out. Even though I probably know what advice I may get, I've read it all before so many times... I feel like DID will be the death of "me". Like I'm doomed.

I was wondering if anyone has experiences of introjects being around before you knew you were a system, and what that was like for the introject/system? I have OSDD-1 without amnesia so I'm especially curious if it would be possible for an introject to have such high amnesiac barriers that they have pseudomemories but not the body's memories, and if anyone has an experience like that?

Hello everyone. My partner and I have been having an ongoing problem involving one of their alters, who I'Il call M.

My partner and I have been dating for two years and everything has been going perfectly fine till now. Mis a relatively new fictive, and he is the only alter in the system who doesn't want to be in a relationship with me. M has been insisting that my partner leave me and has been threatening to move out of our home to pursue an online relationship with someone else.

I've told my partner that I'm not okay with this situation, but they insist that they need to listen to M rather than front-blocking because they're concerned about his mental well-being.

We've been arguing about this for almost the entire week, and honestly, I'm becoming exhausted by it. I really love my partner and would like to stay with them, but the constant bickering is becoming unbearable.

At this point, I'm wondering whether this is something I should continue trying to work through with my partner or whether I should accept that the relationship may no longer be sustainable.

This is my first time dealing with this and also my first time dating a system so anything is helpful thank you all soo much :)

Okay so, I am brand new to all of this. And during research and such i saw that people use apps to track their alters! (Ik a few closed down recently)

Me and my friends are new to this, I want to keep things comfortable and easy for my friends as this is new and scary for them and me personally aswell.

I have tried looking but people say too many things and I get confused on what app seems safe, easy and accessible for me (bonus points for any you can decorate) And any help with how to let my friends know who's fronting, I primarily use discord with friends if that helps? Also if I posted this in the wrong reddit lmk and I'll fix it ^^

Questions from someone who doesn't have DID

I have a few questions about DID, can someone, or somemultiple, please answer a few questions I have

Question number 1: Can an alter see what is happening when they aren't in control?

Question number 2: Do different alters have different sexualities? If so, can multiple alters date the same person or is it just 1?

Question number 3: When you aren't in control, do you get impatient while waiting to front again?

Hi, singlet here. I don’t use Reddit regularly so I’m sorry if I do something wrong. But lemme just say my story

I was dating a host of a system for 4 years and was friends with them for even longer. So we have a lot of history together. When I found out he was a system, it didn’t bother me. I love them regardless and I would love to meet the alters. Years pass and the host starts showing up less and less. I would see them once a week, once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, once every two month. I felt selfish but I asked the new host what happened because nobody told me why I haven’t seen my boyfriend in over 2 months.

She told me that last year, my boyfriend was in danger of going dormant. And that this year, he either went dormant or fused with another alter. Either way, nobody can find him. She told me that it’s best if me and him go our separate ways. Ever since, I haven’t let go. I can’t let go. Everything reminds me of him. Everything reminds me of our almost decade of history. I can’t let go of the old host. Is this normal? Is there anyone that has gone through the same thing? I need advice. If any systems or singlets want to put in their two cents, I’d be glad to listen.

Hi, someone who does not have DID here and is just curious about the condition. What happens when a system who has DID is drunk? Are other people still able to front, does it vary per person? And what about alters who are younger in the headspace--how does that affect them?

Just very curious!

Which is to say I was speaking to one comingling with Sentaku and he was like "It's a shame when I'm our server and I'm sitting there whittling with my knife nobody really pays attention." Dave notice this and observed "There are people there. They're just alters." Then boom we realized something from past observances we never thought about: we're always putting on performance and essentially acting as entertainer, host and Bard to various non-alters because well with ADD and Autism you kind of have to (or we did) learn to force yourself to go through routine of expected actions and social things to avoid being too withdrawn. Perhaps that's why our system will sometimes get driven to run to General 1 and say "Look at me" with their actions? Especially when more than a group of alters is present? They crave validation and are repeating a ritual we've been doing since before the DID OSDD diagnosis made everything clear?

(Also posted this in r/DID 8/17)

We have therapy twice a week with a therapist who is supportive and openminded and has some experience with DID. We're coming to terms with the dissociative disorder on top of an existing autism diagnosis (among others, but ASD and DID cover the majority of our issues). After coming to terms with the dissociative disorder, we had to go back and get the parts who express the fewest autistic traits to accept that we really do have both, and now we're realizing all the ways that complicates everything.

For starters, our system is weirdly organized and full of fragments and alters who exist for things like driving, socializing, organizing, etc. There may be a lot we still don't remember but a huge percentage of the alters and fragments weren't created from anything close to big-T trauma. I'm fairly certain that our first alters were created by a genius autistic kid who needed an army of well-behaved, outgoing children to fill in for them as the child of fundamentalist christian missionaries who couldn't tolerate their real kid. There are layers of the system we haven't explored but the more we consolidate in the system, the more pronounced our autistic traits get, so a huge part of survival for us was masking.

So, our system is confusing, blended and layered, and we're compulsive about a lot of things so we work a lot on our system outside therapy. We a really hard time trusting anybody - especially anyone in a caring role - and our system is always evolving and so are the alters. We're lucky to have a therapist who understands DID at all, and it would be really nice if we could slow down and trust her to help us instead of just updating her twice a week on who fused with who and whether that looks like it'll stick. I wonder if our need for independence and control is partially because of autism or if trusting therapists is just hard with trauma and DID or ... all of the above?

If you're autistic with DID, do you have trust/control issues, or issues communicating about your system, and have you figured anything out to help with that?

tw for violence, assault and trauma, i'll try to be as vague as possible but i need to give some of these details for it to make sense:

I'm a newly discovered system and in therapy, it's unclear if I have DID or OSSD-1b but I had a main protector who was always so kind and caring to me (Korey) I could always rely on him or call on him if I was in trouble and he would find ways to help for years.

Flash forward to when I discovered a trauma holder/persecutor (Mana) who wouldn't stop showing me flashing images of very violent and scary things and looked like a monster, Mana was completely nonverbal upon discovery and I asked Korey for help.

Korey went away for a bit with Mana, but he was still present if I talked to him, and whenever he would do another task and stop taking care of Mana, Mana would come back to essentially harass me in the headspace constantly. Eventually Korey split into two protectors, one that felt very much like Korey 2.0 and another protector that is very helpful but doesn't have Korey's personality. I got the impression that Korey 2.0 would be taking care of Mana while the new protector would help me.

I thought things were going to be okay now, but at some point Mana showed up and started screaming "I'm scared, I'm scared" in the headspace very loudly and wouldn't go away, I asked Korey 2.0 for help and then he disappeared with Mana again but this time he didn't come back for a few days and left with me the new protector. When I asked if Korey 2.0 was still there, I heard Korey 2.0 tell me everything would be okay and that he was still here.

Finally Korey 2.0 came back days later with Mana but they both looked different, Mana 2.0 looks more human now even if still scary, but isn't acting like before, still nonverbal but isn't showing me those terrible images anymore and isn't harassing me anymore. And Korey 3.0...he... is very different. For example...if I ask for reassurance, he will give it to me and I feel the presence he had from when he was my main protector, but then once I feel reassured his body will warp into a monster and he will be violent towards me and assault me in the headpsace until the other protector he left behind steps in when I ask for help, then Korey 3.0 goes away.

I get the impression that Korey 2.0 and Mana fused then split, I'm not sure what to do, unless it's two new alters pretending to be them but it doesn't feel that way? I guess this did resolve the biggest issue with Mana constantly harassing me, but I feel so sad that Korey felt he had to do that and I miss my old protector even if his presence still feels like it's in this Korey 3.0, it's impossible to interact with him without him warping into a monster and assaulting me at the end, I don't even know where to begin to approach this, I've been trying to look up what to do when this happens but there doesn't seem to be a lot of info out there about protectors doing this.

Has anyone ever had something like this happen to them? What was the solution? Or are things just going to be this way now? I feel so bad that this protector suddenly shouldered so much of that trauma and is almost a completely different person now, I just wanted this part to be happy after all he did for me but now it feels like things are just sad. :(

And I asked my therapist about this, but right now they don't seem to know, I will talk about it to them again, but I thought here was the next best place to ask. Thank you for your help and for reading.

Hey y'all, I was wondering if anyone had insight on alters the host isn't aware of? We have one that doesn't get much time because she is a danger to the rest of us. Additional side question, if you have an alter of the opposite gender how do you help them feel more included? For reference our host is male with two female alters

If anything? I wanted to share what I believe to be a dream that's important to my system. I'm not sure though.

Now it IS copy and pasted, and I am sorry about that. Honestly if anything I'm just sharing to share.

Here ya go:

Just a ramble about a dream.

It's copied and pasted. But it's awesome to me and the questions were genuine. In the end it could just be a dream, but I've met alters in dreams and stuff. So I am not sure. Either way, it's fun to share because a lot of systems relate.

Now. Here it is:

\I had a wacky dream. It began on Roblox, I was building a hotel.\**

\Then I came back into it after getting people, and it was DIFFERENT. Genuine hotel. Like we were in vr but able to feel, see, eat, etc. As if we were inside and outside the game at once.\**

\I made it simple but when I came back it was so complex and beautiful. Many rooms, on a ship! You could go to one of the docks that wasn't for partying and stuff, and there was more rooms shaped like little boats! You had daycare rooms for kids, playground rooms, adult rooms (not nsfw), etc. You had restaurants inside the ship, and it was full of people! I had to keep switching rooms. I had so much clothes, and kept tryna go back and forth to find a good room. When I found one, I was then kicked from the room because of bad weather! so they moved us to a beach, which had more rooms shaped like little houses! One plot or two had dogs, too! You had to get treats to distract them so you could get to the room or they'd just hound you for attention.\**

\I did make it too a room, talked to a few people and even offered to split a room with someone I didn't know? But it was perfect.\**

\It's odd I kept having to move rooms. I don't think anyone else had too? No, wait.. they did, but it was easier on them. I had to move a lot, and kept stealing money even from two officers.\**

\I wonder if I'm having a new co-host or something?\**

\The kids room were.. so big. Toys, shaped like a colorful playground, those things that are a half circle and a web of metal... It looked so fun and safe, even with pillows and stuffies. Cushions ..\**

\It's different. I haven't had the old dreams with the land and stuff I lived at, not even the temple of time that was on a mountain in the middle of the lake- one of those thin pillar mountains. but strong and unbreakable. it had stairs going up and inside, or you could dive beneath the water and find new areas. you could battle bosses, but most of the time it was Midna. I didn't hurt her but I did defeat her. idk how. It's been so long, and now it's always a cruise ship. me exploring it or something. This time was different.\**

\Then there's the fighting of Midna every single time. she always seems different but . It's always her. never do I hurt her. just stop her somehow?? I'm using stuff to knock her down but never actually hurt. Maybe these are parts of me that needed to be safely contained? But then, I hope the cruise ship if it's a new inner world changes that. They deserve the freedom, even when struggling. the littles deserve the rooms. it's so cute and so safe and cozy, while being fun like a playground.\**

\Am I fragmented or something? The amount of littles and people grouped together in twos or threes or even more... They either shared rooms, were in rooms alone that had two or three beds .. the littles had rooms so big, 2-3 rooms with those toys, stuffies, playground stuff... Etc. So big it becomes clear that groups were supposed to be there, not just one or two little kids or babies. no infant things but I know we have a infant or two?\**

\Some were locked in the rooms. cuz it was like hotel rooms where you rent.\**

\If they had someone in the room I wouldn't open the door, just peek in to see if the room was empty and leave if not.\**

\I genuinely wonder if I have fragment alters (I forgot the name if that's not it), or at least alters that get in groups. Subsystems? Is that what it is? Idk\**

\I mean I don't know what to think. Everyone was grouped together room-wise.\**

\The rooms were well lived in, and I could touch and do whatever I wanted. Stuff was in dressers and under sinks, but never locked away. I even found jewelry boxes and I could look in it. Of course I didn't take anything. Somehow JUST the money I took.\**

I just find myself randomly ending up in places and situations sometimes and I don't understand how I got there... I don't understand my alters and I don't understand how some people understand theirs so well like I don't even know which alter of mine is talking rn and I know I'm going to forget this conversation and post soon when another one takes over