u/RadiantSolarWeasel

I genuinely think that a non-zero amount of the people who vehemently insist that DID isn't real, or is extremely rare, are people who have DID and are in denial about it. I think that's especially true of mental health professionals, because of the number of people in the mental health field who end up working there because of their own struggles.

I agree that it's likely a combination of both, I just wouldn't want to make strong claims about it without some kind of data, and in our current society it's kind of impossible to separate the two.

As for rates, damn near every trans person I know has DID or at least possible signs of it, both online and off. Granted it would be unwise to extrapolate from my personal social circles, but genuinely I would not be shocked if the rates of DID in at least autistic trans people were >50%

Not all trans people have DID, but we definitely have it at way, way higher rates than the general population, so I think dysphoria is a common causative factor for DID, though I'd hesitate to speculate as to whether it's the dysphoria itself or the abusive ways society treats kids who can't perform their assigned gender or some combination thereof that leads to such high incidence rates of DID

I think it's extremely common for systems early-ish in recovery to have parts who are insulated from the trauma who feel like they can handle whatever it is and who get curious, who then come into conflict with parts who have knowledge of the trauma and are terrified of what will happen if it gets discovered too soon. It took me quite some time to convince the curious parts to slow down, and they really only finally listened when they drove us to breaking point. That's now left me with an additional layer of trauma to work through.

IMO, try to trust your gatekeepers/editors. They're you, after all, and they have better knowledge of what's really going on than the frequently fronting parts and the trauma holders. If the "you" that knows what's going on behind the scenes thinks you aren't ready to handle it yet, you should probably trust that "you" over the "you" who wants to know, no matter the cost. It's frustrating and slow, but you have to build up your non-dissociative coping mechanisms if you want to have a hope of actually dealing with that buried knowledge. And it sucks for the child parts of you to not be able to share their stories, but you have to be able to cope with helping them before you try, or you'll make things worse for both them and yourself ❤️‍🩹

Just because "who is out" feels like a mess, that doesn't mean you don't have functioning gatekeepers. Your gatekeepers may simply have different priorities than the frequently fronting parts of you.

I would assume the latter. One cannot generally hold actual conversations with one's subconscious.

I think this is reasonably common for systems without total amnesia between switches. Parts have to "leave behind" sensitive memories when fronting in order to keep everything compartmentalised, lest some part that isn't ready remember another part remembering something. At least, I strongly suspect that's what's happening with me, and I've heard editor-type alters in other systems indicate something similar is happening.

That's really rough, and you have my sympathies. Best advice I could give without knowing you better is that you can always try HRT for a few weeks and stop if you don't like what it's doing. Whatever you choose though, I hope you find some clarity 💙

I was like that for basically my whole life until I transitioned. It's still inconsistent, but at least some of the time now I have a sense of what my face and body look like. I obviously have zero clue whether yours could be related to dysphoria or not like mine was, but it was definitely a kind of depersonalisation

Here's the thing: if she's unwilling to even go to therapy, then there's nothing on earth than can force her to get better when she doesn't want to. The whole situation sucks immensely, but you couldn't possibly have "toughed it out until she got better" because she clearly doesn't want to get better, and won't ever improve until that changes. Your duty of care expired long ago at this point, and you owe it to yourself to disentangle from all this and to start working on processing the damage the situation did to you ❤️‍🩹

I know this might sound absurd, but you tend to actually make progress much faster when you go slower. If you're constantly pushing your limits, then your nervous system never gets a chance to rest and relax, and it's much, much harder to un-learn trauma responses while your nervous system is stressed out. It's uncomfortable at first, but the more I've taken the pressure to heal off myself, the faster I've healed 💙

Sometimes focusing too much on trying to pin down which alter is which is unhelpful, especially in a larger system. I've found that I've made a lot more progress so far just focusing on self-soothing, distress tolerance, grounding, acceptance, etc. so that I can handle stressful things without dissociating every time. My system is still huge and messy and feels impossible to understand, but I've still made huge improvements in my life, and I'm doing way better than I was a year ago. Try to focus less on which part of you is feeling something, and more on what's being felt. At least, that's what's worked for me, even though it's still very disorienting not knowing who I am a lot of the time 💙

Lanyards and keychains. If the thing is physically tethered to you, you can't put it down and walk away, because it will come with you 💙

You do it slowly, a little bit at a time. You literally can't force yourself to accept it all at once, and if you try then your own mind will fight against it because all the walls and denial are there for a reason. You let it in just a little bit, and then you take notice that nothing bad happened, and you work on your emotional regulation skills, and you do your best to establish a sense of safety, and then you let a little bit more in, and so on. Acceptance isn't a switch you flick, it's a skill you learn and perfect over a long period of time 💙

The other day I nearly deadnamed myself to a cashier when she asked for a name for my order. I've barely even thought about that name for years, but I reached for "my name" and got my old one instead of the new one. It's wild how the mind works when you're dissociated

I din't think you should do what he wants, in this instance. What he's asking is wildly unreasonable ❤️‍🩹

You can't control how other people think about you. If someone thinks you're faking, then all you can really do is keep your distance and disregard their opinion. Other people will sometimes think all kinds of untrue things about you, but none of that changes who you are or what you're experiencing.

I would strongly recommend ditching that therapist ASAP. Therapy is important, yes, but no therapy is much better than bad therapy when you have something as complex as DID, and your therapist sounds like she's completely clueless about DID (or worse, knows just enough to think she knows what she's doing but without all the expertise needed to avoid making things worse). You gotta get out of there ❤️‍🩹

A friend of mine who also has DID has described it as having to leave parts of yourself behind when you front for safety reasons. I assume it's something that happens to prevent parts who aren't supposed to know things from remembering other parts remembering the thing. That's just a guess tho, YMMV

Because it's something I struggle with too, lol. Wishing you the best 💙

It can be very difficult to get a protective alter who thinks everything is fine to stop hogging the front in therapy, but again, that should have been doable right now if your parent actually wanted to change. Some people just aren't willing to confront their own flaws, and so will never heal

I suspect I'm in a similar boat, but have no way to know for certain. Like you I've been kind of afraid of learning the full extent of my system (well, parts of me are afraid), and I think that fear itself is a large part of what prevents me from learning it. I wish I had some advice to give, but you sound like you're a little further along than I am, so I'll just say good luck 💙

Congratulations on having the hard conversation! I'm happy your friend was receptive and understanding 💖

You're allowed to be angry that you didn't get the care you needed as a child, though. Even if you can have compassion for the struggles your parent was facing, you as a child still deserved better than that. Besides, there's a middle-ground between "holding onto anger your whole life" and "not letting yourself be angry at all." It's normal and healthy to be angry when you've been wronged, even if you don't express that anger to your parents.

If they've been in therapy that long without significant improvement of symptoms then either they aren't getting the right therapy, or they aren't willing to change, and if it's the latter there's really nothing you can do other than protect yourself however you need to ❤️‍🩹