I am DID having been diagnosed 11 years ago but am highly functional and learning to accept my disability with as much grace as possible. Many of us live full active lives without anyone being aware that we are multiple but it is not always easy.

Karle

there are times when the child in me comes out and i speak as a child and feel lost and scared. there is a very aggresive alter and this one comes out with my sister or i will make some very nasty remark about someone; usually something so cruel. then there is the sweet , religious alter. there is an alter who is intelligent, well-spoken, is able to socialize. then there is the one who can hardly put a sentence together. stutters, stammers, shy, cant think straight.

i am also bipolar, mixed so this combination is hell to live with. therapy, psychiatrists, hospitals have been a way of life for me.
my therapist is a wonderful woman who has been working with me for 20 yrs. the psychiatrists prescribes meds needed for the mood swings associated with the bipolar illness.

my life is crazy, i live alone and it seems i always will since i am 56 yrs old and have such a long way to go. there are times i have wanted to committ suicide due to both the did and the bipolar illness. my life is just a jumble of thoughts and feelings running around inside my head.

my heart goes out to all people suffering, and i do mean suffering with this did diagnosis. it goes out also to family and friends and oh my, how difficult their lives are too.

therapy is a lifesaver for me and i am grateful for being able to have this therapy all these yrs. (good insurance)

it is so troubling that many people in the mental health field do not accept the did diagnosis. it is hard at times to believe u have it and therefore harder to treat. when u hear someone in the field say its not a real disorder you really start questioning yourself more.

thanks to Herschel Walker for having the courage to come out.

One is that there was a time when it was fashionable to consider anyone experiencing certain things to have DID. Some psychology students decided to tell me I had it, when I was really experiencing something else. They encouraged me to see every nightmare spawned from abuse as a recovered memory and every shift in mood as a different person. The problem was it wasn't real. I was only ever one person. I had childhood trauma, I had ordinary dissociation of the kind where nothing feels real, I had depression, and I had epilepsy, but I was not multiple.

Later in my life, though, I got to know people who really were multiple. They were genuine, nobody had forced them into believing they had it. Many of them had asked to be called different names since they were children. The interesting thing was that only some of them were formed as different people due to trauma. Some of them just happened to be that way to begin with. Therapists tried to make many of them uncover trauma that didn't even exist, because if there were more than one of them then there had to be trauma. According to doctrine of the time and of now. Others of them did form the way they did due to trauma.

Their lives were not like the textbooks in more ways than even that. Many of them had total awareness, should they choose, of what was going on when the other ones were "fronting". Others were less aware of each other, but used systems like post-it notes to keep track of what everyone was doing. Nearly all of them were functioning well in society through what they called operating systems. Many were upset that psychiatry was now considering them to not really be people, just pieces of people. They considered themselves well-rounded people with different tastes and personalities, and the capability of experiencing all emotions. Most considered the term 'DID' an insult to that experience. Only some wished to integrate. Others functioned just fine without it. Some had been made to try, only to find themselves just finding better ways of pretending to be singletons.

None of the people I know have made a penny of money off of having this experience.

Far from doing this to get attention, most of them are incredibly secretive. They know that people will judge them as so many things. Dangerous criminals lurking inside each other's minds. People who only want attention. People who have been duped by therapists, even if they've never been to therapy. People who have become this way through trauma even if they were there prior to any trauma or never had any trauma. People who belong in therapy even if they don't want to.

They are selective about who they tell.

They have ways of pretending they are one person. Some of them torturous to them, but better than being found out as many.

Their stories won't make the news because they'd never come out of the closet.

Their stories won't be written about by therapists because most of them would never allow themselves to be put in therapy.

They understand that what happens to me happened to a lot of people, that so many single people are convinced to act multiple by well-meaning therapists.

And I understand that what happens to them happens to a lot of people. Probably a large portion of the population. Possibly through something in their innate neurological or cognitive structures at least as often as through abuse. But as children who are multiple grow too old to be dismissed as having overactive imaginations, old enough to be called crazy or fraudulent for having this experience, they learn to hide it. As other children are socialized in their own ways, these children learn to develop a single voice and a consistent set of mannerisms and language use, to call themselves all by the same name. Or they learn to cover for everyone else. Some create an entire persona that everyone's words and deeds are filtered through. Some become actors and hide their differences among roles on stage. I've never met any who didn't have to hide though.

Their experiences and my experiences are as much part of the world of multiplicity as the official criteria are. Please don't forget the messy realities outside of the psychiatry textbooks.

I grew up in the midwest, in an abusive adoptive home having 8 kids total, me being the third oldest. In addition to beatings we were also not allowed to interact with society, with our only social contact limited only to the few hours of school during the day, throughout highschool. Some kids were heavily medicated with legal drugs and placed on punishment for 70% of their childhood. Others removed from extra curicular activites in which they excelled either to perform subservient duties or due to plain ole parental apathy. Yet, others not allowed to attend school at all. As expected, the majority of us have had what appears to most to be a difficult time coping true society.

In my case, there has always been a "way to act" outside of the closed door for almost as long as I remember. This then became a "way to act" at school, a "way to act" at church, etc...What I found myself doing was finding what I called a "way to act" dependnent on the situation. A new situation was always the most nerve racking, to the point where I have been, what feels like, unable to slow down my thoughts enough to vocalize, thus I sit there 95% of the time completely silent and nervous (physically shaking at times). This led to planning to avoid as much social contact as possible, e.g. – walking completely around a building to get to the other side just because a group of bystanders are in front of you (minding their own business. lol. ), as one of many ridiculous examples. The problem was, at times, very few times I would say 2/10 where I WAS actually able to do this with NO problem. This led to a constant struggle of trying to make that ratio 10/10.

After a recent tramatic experience, I got to the point that my mind felt like it was racing outta control. To the point where I began recording and keeping a diary of my various thoughts over the course of a year. I had thoughts ranging from extreme anger and despair to extreme happiness. After recording my mindstate during various times and playing them back later, I couldnt understand or remember WHY i was , for example, so angry at a certain thing which in reality was minor; and also so overjoyed at things which didnt make sense. The extreme thoughts of anger started me thinking about what I was really angry about, and it was about this point where I began confronting my many issues which, the best way i can describe it, seems like were blocked out. AllI can say is its amazing what your brain remembers when you really think back searching for answers.

The reason I decided to write this today is because Herschel Walkers story reminded me very much of my own. It is obvious that the host found the story unbelievable, but this is truly an example of why people in the public eye should speak out; for people like me who are having these same thoughts, it gives them hope and credence. I would be interested in knowing if there was a tramatic experience which predicated his extreme behavior.

I love my mother wish i could get help for her. I have my own problems to deal with tho ranging from PTSD,Anxiety, depresion and possibly some disasociation. I dont thind I have other personalities just a lack of one cohesive set personality. Thats different than DID isnt it. If anyone knows the best place for me to get help. Please email me cmorrow@yahoo.com