DID Newly diagnosed d.i.d., sexual issue

[zeckster81]

TW

An email I sent to my therapist but sort of need advice/comments sooner than he can get back to me. Dave is my husband. Emily is 5 year old alter. I'm DID. Newly diagnosed.

Judd,

I asked Dave many times not to have sex or be sexual in anyway when alters are forward. I could hear Emily screaming so I came forward to Dave having an orgasm while having sex with me. Emily will not come forward and talk to me or journal. I'm very very upset. I feel as though he raped me. Is this considered rape? Even if Emily agreed which I doubt she did. I asked him not to have sex with any alter at anytime no matter what. What do I do? I hear her crying and feel sick to my stomach. Im rocking back and forth. I'm kind of conscious with her a little. I'm confused by this. She is really really upset. I don't know what to do. It's like she is feeling the emotion, I'm feeling the physical. I don't get it. Is this normal?

Will you please respond if this is normal for DID because I've never felt like this before. If you don't know just tell me...but please respond. I would have called but it's late and I didn't want to wake you, Jenn or the twins.

Thanks so much!!!


Sent from my iPhone

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. I do not have altars so please don't be upset by my questions. When your altars are forward, is it evident for others (well, in this case, your husband) to know that it is an altar that is forward and not you? I will wait for your response before commenting further. (I am in NO way blaming you for any of this, rather I just want clarification.)

 

[joeylittle]

Hi, @zeckster81 - I wanted to let you know that I re-titled your thread to be more specific and eliminate the trigger warning (we don't use them here).

I'm also really sorry that happened to you; I hope your therapist can give you some good grounding strategies.

Have you considered bringing your husband in for a joint session?

 

[Seagreen]

I don't have alters but hope I can be of some help anyway.

I would be very upset too. Your have had your boundries violated. Whatever you feel is valid.

What did your husband say about it?

I hope your therapist is able to get in touch soon.

 

[Friday]

If you're newly diagnosed... Then this is something also probably quite new to your husband. Most people I know with DID are fairly subtle about their changes, rather than United States of Tara. It's not always, or even often, immediately apparent who is forward. My friend(s) C/S/Sy is also fairly notorious for double shifts: SY-S. But C comes back from S and totally misses SY, leaving a very important gap: when he switched to SY & when he switched to S. All he knows is coming out of S. Even if it was just a 5 minute conversation that begins with him? He doesn't remember that portion. Nor the second switch. Just the coming out of it. Meaning that he can start something as himself, and end it as himself... And be completely furious thinking that he didn't / that an alter was driving. Until he processes everything out later. It's confusing for him, and he's been at this ages, but even more confusing for those around him. I'm just reminded, as his ex-wife used to set up nanny-cams, in order to prove this to him / show that there was no way for her to have known what was going on in his head from his affect. Especially surrounding intimacy.

Clearly don't know either of you, but off the cuff, would be inclined to cut your husband some slack. Especially if this is new for him. Changing patterns takes time.

 

[Justmehere]

I do not have DID myself, but I do have some dissociative experiences with amnesia. If I was coming out of a dissociative state in the middle of sex and I didn't recall telling my partner it was ok, I would find it really awful and tough to sort out. It makes sense that part of you would feel very violated.

Have you had any other experiences that alarmed you and made you concerned your husband Dave could be capable of committing rape?

I know you may not be looking at this from a legal angle, but rape is a crime and so we could look at this from that angle. If any part of you said no, and there was no later sign of consent from any part of you, then that would be rape. However, if an alter consented, then it generally would not be rape, even if it is an alter, even if it is a younger alter. Under the law, adults with disassociative parts are accountable, as adults, for what they do, even in when the dissociative parts are forward, even younger dissociative parts. Right or wrong, that it is how the legal system would view it. (This is what was explained to a trauma therapy group that included people with DID, and it is backed up by case law. It surprised some people in the room.)

That doesn't mean it was right for Dave to have sex with you. If he did have sex with an alter and knew it was an alter, that is boundary violation.

If I had a partner with DID and they told me in one state to not have sex with any alters and then an alter said they wanted sex, I would find it really confusing, but I would seek to respect the one who said no sex with the alters. It would take time for me to sort it all out.

It can also be very difficult to tell when an alter is forward, and possible for alters to switch during the act of sex too, which makes it even more of a challenge when the switching happens in the heat of passion.

In terms of defining Dave's responsibility in terms of if he committed rape of you or if he violated your boundaries, it may be very important to consider if Dave knows when an alter is forward or not. I have a friend who has DID and it's not always easy or obvious to tell when different alters are forward.

Sometimes it is impossible for me to tell, even though I'm super sensitive and I have known this friend for many years. It can be impossible for me to tell, even when it feels quite obvious for her in her experience of herself that an alter is forward. In the end, even when an alter is forward, to me, it's all her. It's hard for me to see her as not her. You know?

DID doesn't usually present in every day life like it does in the movies or on TV where the switching is very obvious to untrained people. This is part of why some people can have DID for awhile before it is recognized and diagnosed.

If Dave didn't know an alter was forward, maybe Dave could hold off on all sex with all parts of you for the time being. Sex is known for being a huge trigger for PTSD symptoms for many suffers, so it makes sense that the act could even start with you and later end with an alter or vice versa. It may be very hard for a partner to figure it all out in the heat of the moment which part of you in forward and not.

In the end, it sounds like the current plan of asking Dave repeatedly to not have sex with the alters isn't working. It sounds like you are trying really hard at communicating this and it had to be heartbreaking to experience that it didn't work.

It would be good to work out further in therapy why this isn't working and what needs to change so that all your parts feel a lot safer. Maybe your alters will need to work out a plan over time with each other about when any alter will consent to sex and when they will not. My friend had to work out how to make such agreements with her own parts to keep herself from ending up in situations where things where happening to her that she didn't want. She actually had an alter engage in an affair that she didn't want, etc. It took some time, but eventually her and her husband both worked it out in therapy separately and together.

I'm not saying any of this to excuse anything that your husband did, just thinking it through from different angles and possible answers your posted question about if this event is rape or not. In the end, you are the best person to know. I can see why you would feel so violated, and so protective of Emily too. I hope your therapist gets back to you soon and is able to help you work through this very difficult thing.

 

[shandemonium]

I have read a lot about DID, mostly through the books on SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse). I know that's grim and I apologize if I set anyone off.

My only point is that I read a lot about how alters are created and the link to the occult families (and the many DID people they have created) might help you find some good resources that are more specific to your needs.

It's hard enough finding a good therapist for PTSD, and I imagine even harder for DID. If you feel like Judd is not giving you the help you need, perhaps finding therapist who works with SRA survivors would have more experience specifically with DID patients.

Again, I mean no ill-will to your therapist! You need extra love and care and a real expert and I really hope you find someone to really help you and Emily find peace and maybe eventually merge back together (slowly and over time).

There are also some good books written by people recovering from DID. If you'd like, I can look them up and send a couple titles. I have read a couple of memoirs from SRA survivors too, and it helped me with my recovery and finding forgiveness for my sadistic mother.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

You may be in a situation where you need to abstain from sex COMPLETELY while you are healing. I'm guessing that your husband didn't know an alter was forward. Actually, I'm guessing complete abstinence is your best bet, as all it takes is for Dave to not know an alter is forward and you're in this situation all over again. I've been in the hospital with quite a few DID people and I could never tell when an alter was forward in any of them. What everyone else perhaps sees as a slight shift in personality (that everyone does) could be a "switch" for you.

 

[zeckster81]

Hi Everyone,

My husband said he was aware Lacy was forward and said he is very attracted to Lacy and personalilty because she is fun and sexual. I am thinking about making a marriage counseling session to discus this.

 

[shandemonium]

My husband said he was aware Lacy was forward and said he is very attracted to Lacy...I am thinking about making a marriage counseling session to discus this.

My only thought here is that an MFT would not have the skills to factor in your D.I.D. There's a million MFT and LCSW and a plethora of other letters... all of them have been a great disappointment in terms of treating PTSD for me.

Your husband admitting that he was aware of the alter and chose to have sex with her against your wishes is definitely worth 'marriage counseling' but perhaps a marriage counselor is not the best for the job. I agree with @Solara about maybe abstaining from all sex for awhile until things feel safer.

 

[Ronin]

Seconding that advise of 'it might be best to abstain for a while altogether'.
(In D.I.D. specific communities, child alters are pretty much considered children for the mindset of the person corresponds to patterns of actual children, even if the body is adult. Same rules for interaction apply, safest for all sides.)
You'll need to figure boundaries within your own body/life first, communicate them with your partner, communicate over what happened and how to not have it happen again, before doing anything else in that relationship.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I'd say this is definitely outside of the realm of 99% of marriage counselors as they deal with typical marriage problems like "we fight over what TV shows to watch!" Ok so maybe not quite but you get my point. The thing is that what a marriage counselor may advise you to do could quite possibly be contrary to what a PTSD/DID specialist would advise you to do as our treatment definitely has special requirements in that what helps most actually hurts us.