In light of recent events, I'd like to share more about DiD to everyone. DiD is different for everyone and these are just my experiences with DiD. When a child from ages 1-8 experiences a repeated traumatic event, they split their personalities as a coping mechanism. People can have alters of all sorts, ranging from humans of all walks of life , to animals including animals from myths like mermaids, dragons etc. Some alters can also be in the form of a non-living object. It is hard to understand why people create these alters but it is all something they've created based on their childhood experiences! For example, a child who grew up loving dragons , they may create a dragon alter because they see a dragon as a protector of them. It's might be a guardian figure for them. Everyone is different and so every alter will be different! I'd also like to mention here that every alter shares the physical body but not the same mind. When you change alters, the "host" will get amnesia like experiences, where theyll be parts where the host doesn't remember what happened. Sometimes, this can be dangerous for the host because there are situations that could get very messy because of this. To cope with this, at least for me, I ensure that we all keep a journal. It's one journal where we "report" when we are on , and write about what we have done while we took over the physical body. Some alters might not cooperate but that's the best we can do to cope. I'd be really interested if anyone has any of coping mechanisms to share! I'm going to introduce my alters and I hope you like them. Firstly, there's Joel, he is 25 and he speaks really formally. He is a strict but caring alter and he has been with the host (Lyra) Since she was 6. He is her first protector and the protector from verbal abuse. He takes on the body when Lyra is facing someone who isn't being the nicest to her or when she gets very upset with what someone is saying that it stresses her out like crazy. It's hard to know when he comes out or anyone in fact to come out and hard to know when lyra is facing any potential harm, but he takes over regularly to about the environment for her and try to read our journal to know what's going on. It's the same for every alter. Then there's Matthew! He is the brother of Melissa who is me. Matthew doesn't really talk much but he takes the physical pain from Lyra. Again, it is hard to know when but as we progressed over the 12 years we become more aware of our surroundings even when we aren't "online" . He is 20 and we are Japanese-Americans! Then there's me, Melissa!I'm the most " online" now because I speak most like Lyra . I help her with her communication issues, all the girly stuff and basically I'm the one that makes the system most seem like like a 20 year old girl. Even tho I'm like 15. When I say I help her, I mean that when we have a scheduled event to go to where we need to dress up, I make sure she goes in style. Hehe. It's hard to explain how this works but it does. Then there's Hazel! I forgot to mention but we were created because of the sexual abuse we got from a family member that I won't mention for a long period of time. Hazel was made , at least we think she was made because Lyra had a fear of all that sex stuff and used Hazel as a mechanism to keep her away from that. Hazel is the sexual alter if you didn't already guess. She is one interesting character that our system hasn't really got our finger around. She's 20 and she's a Chinese. Finally, there's Eddie, I have kind of mentioned him in another post but he is also a protector. He is the youngest of us , being 12. Eddie always has lyras best interests at heart but he doesn't know how to show that and ends up hurting her more than helping her. Most of the time ,Lyra has to clean up the mess she made like the recent events I have that occurred. Eddie is an adorable boy who's just trying his best! There's one more alter that I haven't shared with anyone, even the ones that I've explained my whole disorder to personally. Because we are still not sure who this alter is we aren't sure we want to share about it but just as to educate y'all, we suspect it's a dog alter. Sometimes my friend says I act like a dog when I play with my own dog to the extent where it's ridiculous, she says that it seems like I'm just joking around but honestly I never remembered doing such things. It's something we are still exploring so I'm sorry if the details are vague. That's all I can think of for now! I'll update you guys if I see something interesting to share about. If you have any questions feel free to ask away. Again, I'd like to mention that my experiences may be different from yours or anyone else's so be open minded when u read all this! What the DSM says and what I'm describing could definitely different because I'd like to say it again, every individual is different. thanks for reading!
im glad your alters are pretty decent, i know some people who have some pretty bad alters. a girl in my support group has a really bad one that messes up a lot of stuff. glad ya dont have to really deal with that! but plz think about giving trigger warnings at the top for if youre gonna bring up that abuse stuff ty
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why we must reopen the traditional mental institutions for the health, safety & well being of all. Lock her up.
I don’t think they meant “create” as in you shape and make the alter like a drawing or imaginary friend, but “create” as in.. the brain still creates the alter based around something the person may need, like in their example.
Yes what warmth said! I meant that the brain of Lyra formed the alter due to specific reasons. "Created" is just an easier and shorter way to say it
The earlier thread using mental illness as an excuse for shitty behaviour bothered me but I chose to ignore it bc I don’t know you and you never fucked me over. But. This is just offensive.
I don't know you, OP. But I am aware of the trigger for this thread. Thank you for taking the time to explain a little bit about this. I have seen a couple of videos of other people with this disorder too and it's really intriguing to see how some people cope with trauma in this way. I wish other people wouldn't make negative comments on mental health, regardless of whether you believe OP or not. It's already a difficult subject to talk about when you suffer from it, people need to be more positive and understanding when someone decides to open up.
I ignored the other post thinking okay OP has issues, we all have smth we are dealing with. Those issues she says she has however is DID or smth entirely different I don’t know. And this thread? As for DID?, my prof once said the disorder itself is highly controversial. Just bcoz it’s in the DSM, people thinking we are living in split movie. Feel free to hmu for readings and papers on that. DID is still debated and not scientifically proven or supported to say the least. Js
Can anyone on here actually truly verify op has an "illness" or is just playing very hard on an excuse? Op did all these things supposedly so who's to say this isn't just another thing? Maybe it's all real, maybe it's not. People who take the side of it being real only wanna protect op in their illness, y'all the ones who accept those foreign country money scams probably too
They're probably lying, their idea of DID comes off more as the movie version of DID than the actual disorder. Either way, it doesn't affect us so o well
hi! id like to say that ive shared this really based off my experiences, if you think that this is based off movies or im faking it all, i understand! But dont mention it here because other people who suffer did much like me may find it offensive! Id appreciate if yoh guys keep negativity off this thread as this is mainly to educate people based on MY experiences with did. Please do not diagnose me base off a forum thread without meeting me irl. thanm you so much!