DID Question for DID people - Do your parts have… ?

Actually, I'm in my early 20s and I suspect DID because of dissociative symptoms. I don't know if I have different parts, I suffered some emotional abuse as a child, such as domestic discord. I can be quite childish at times and serious at other times, my memory is terrible but I never waste any time and my therapists never dwell on that.
tbc i didn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with being early 20s, just that this is the age group doing it.

i think it’s normal to not know your parts at first. some people will and some people won’t. “childish at times and serious at other times” doesn’t necessarily mean DID parts, it depends what you mean. and cptsd can have high dissociation without being DID. the best thing to do is talk to a clinician about what’s going on.

Good luck on your recovery journey, is having childhood ptsd enough for DID? What does this trauma severity depend on? Could emotional trauma or family conflict cause it?
cptsd from childhood is implicitly a prereq for DID. i think of DID as a particular development and expression of cptsd from childhood. trauma severity plays a part in that but it’s not the whole story. it's very complex. sometimes we also don’t remember everything, and minimize our trauma that we remember, both of which are very common in dissociative disorders. it’s best not to compare trauma severity, which is subjective, and focus on the symptoms.
 
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I didn't even know I had trauma until recently, it's not like I denied my trauma because it wasn't really about me. So I don't even know how to approach this

Also, does processing and recovering from the trauma reduce or to end the symptoms? I'm considering starting to work with a trauma therapist
That's the end goal, but trauma processing usually makes anyone go a heck of a lot worse before any chance of better, that's the nature of the beast. Any T who knows what they are doing will spend a hell of alot if time working on stabilisation and grounding first, before going anywhere near trauma content. Don't trust anyone who claims to 'cure' trauma in an afternoon... It's a long process and slowly is the only way without it all completely overwhelming your brain.
 
1. Our parts span a broad range of ages. We have both female and male parts, including a part that switched genders. They also have a range of sexualities.

2. Yes, division continued to happen into adulthood. Our first marriage was deeply traumatic and echoed our childhood trauma, and we have a handful of parts from that time. Last fall was stressful, and we had a partial split. Our therapist has recently suggested that we now have the resources as a system to deal with problems that come up without splitting off a part--in other words, to move away intentionally from splitting as a trauma defense mechanism.

3. All of our alters are me, period. A big step in therapy was recognizing that the main part in charge, Big Wendell, was in fact only one of many parts. A bigger step than that was realizing that Big Wendell in some senses was farther behind in development and more affected by trauma than other parts.

4. The more we are aware of all our parts, the happier and more well-adjusted we are. Our "holistic identity" is as a communicating system of parts. We also feel deeply that that community of parts is our true self. We don't feel nearly as close to our peers at work, for example, as we do to our DID friends with whom we can share the experiences of all our parts. We are having parts that blend together, are change in age so as to group together with similar ages, so we can see how some folks do have a reduction in parts. But for us, that is incidental to the increased sense of communication and working together that we seek.


Yes. We have been sexually and physically abused, but it's very clear to us that the really deep and damaging stuff was emotional neglect tied to family conflict.
In my opinion, it cannot be said that I was neglected, but it is clear that I was exposed to emotional trauma. Because the fights my mother and father had when I was little still cause me to dissociate when I hear loud noises.
 
1. Our parts span a broad range of ages. We have both female and male parts, including a part that switched genders. They also have a range of sexualities.

2. Yes, division continued to happen into adulthood. Our first marriage was deeply traumatic and echoed our childhood trauma, and we have a handful of parts from that time. Last fall was stressful, and we had a partial split. Our therapist has recently suggested that we now have the resources as a system to deal with problems that come up without splitting off a part--in other words, to move away intentionally from splitting as a trauma defense mechanism.

3. All of our alters are me, period. A big step in therapy was recognizing that the main part in charge, Big Wendell, was in fact only one of many parts. A bigger step than that was realizing that Big Wendell in some senses was farther behind in development and more affected by trauma than other parts.

4. The more we are aware of all our parts, the happier and more well-adjusted we are. Our "holistic identity" is as a communicating system of parts. We also feel deeply that that community of parts is our true self. We don't feel nearly as close to our peers at work, for example, as we do to our DID friends with whom we can share the experiences of all our parts. We are having parts that blend together, are change in age so as to group together with similar ages, so we can see how some folks do have a reduction in parts. But for us, that is incidental to the increased sense of communication and working together that we seek.


Yes. We have been sexually and physically abused, but it's very clear to us that the really deep and damaging stuff was emotional neglect tied to family conflict.
Do you experience things similar to mine during times of stress? Is this a requirement for DID? For example, dissociating in stressful moments.
 
As @Sideways points out, dissociation is really common. We think of DID as a very particular pattern of dissociation. There is a continuum of dissociative responses, and the diagnostic labels are somewhat arbitrary classifications of the subranges and variants of that continuum. Diagnoses can be helpful if they help you heal. For us, learning that we had parts (some very obviously/some a bit hidden) really helped us make therapeutic process. My therapist hasn't diagnosed me beyond "CPTSD + some type of dissociative disorder".
 
agree with the others and also “dissociation” is an umbrella term for a lot of responses. it’s a very broad term. so when you say that i don’t necessarily know what you’re meaning.
 
As @Sideways points out, dissociation is really common. We think of DID as a very particular pattern of dissociation. There is a continuum of dissociative responses, and the diagnostic labels are somewhat arbitrary classifications of the subranges and variants of that continuum. Diagnoses can be helpful if they help you heal. For us, learning that we had parts (some very obviously/some a bit hidden) really helped us make therapeutic process. My therapist hasn't diagnosed me beyond "CPTSD + some type of dissociative disorder".
Do u have alters
 
Dissociating is one of the most common ways of dealing with intense or overwhelming stress, with or without a mental health disorder. When someone asks “why do humans dissociate?”, one of the answers is “as a way to deal with stress”.
But i am always disossciating, constantly. I always experience dpdr.
 
I always experience dpdr.
Derealisation used to plague me. I didn’t experience depersonalisation very often, but getting stuck with DR, and it got pretty hairy and dangerous there for a while (walking out in front of traffic because the cars weren’t ‘real’). It was pure stress.

And the answer is to pull out your grounding skills and get your stress levels under control.
 
Derealisation used to plague me. I didn’t experience depersonalisation very often, but getting stuck with DR, and it got pretty hairy and dangerous there for a while (walking out in front of traffic because the cars weren’t ‘real’). It was pure stress.

And the answer is to pull out your grounding skills and get your stress levels under control.
Is it connected to DID ? Expriencing dpdr and dissociating?
 

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