Happy Dissociative Identity Response Awareness Day!

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Awareness Day is March 5

Today is Dissociative Identity Awareness Day; a day to bring awareness education, understanding, and compassion to one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized mental health disorders. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a condition where more than one being shares a body. This is often in response to early childhood trauma. Most People with DID hide their experiences from clinicians, friends, and people in their lives because of previous negative encounters with therapists, societal stigma, and a denial of their own experiences.

Young children can develop multiple identities in order to survive severe and repeated trauma. This gives them the ability to participate in their life and have an internal support system. While this is helpful it is seen as a disorder when people experience amnesia, distress, internal conflict, and ways the trauma affects functioning. Even though I understand the use of the term disorder when describing a condition that prevents one from living a full and meaningful life and causes distress, when talking about something that came as the result of trauma I prefer the word “response” to “disorder”. Dissociative Identity Response is a brilliant adaptation to an impossible set of circumstances and pain.

In the past, when I heard people say, “You are not your diagnosis,” I thought this didn’t applied to me because I have DID and being multiple people is an integral part of who I am. Then I realized that the disordered part of Dissociative Identity Disorder has to do with lack of communication, conflict among my people, and the ways complex trauma affects our functioning. Being a “we” instead of a “me” is not a disorder, it is a brilliant way of responding to an unbearable situation.

On average people with DID are in the mental health system 7-10 years before being correctly diagnosed and 70% attempt suicide. They are often diagnosed Bipolar, Schizophrenia or Borderline. Even with the under-diagnosing and misdiagnoses the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) gives a prevalence for Dissociative Identity Disorder at 1.5%. For Context Schizophrenia has a prevalence of 0.3%-0.7% and Bipolar I and II combined is 1.4%. This lack of awareness has led to people not getting the help or care they need. Even skilled trauma therapists miss the signs and don’t know how to work with the condition. Many people are denied treatment because the person who goes to the intake speaks and appears all together, while others in the system are falling apart.

After 10 years of therapy I was diagnosed with DID. This was overwhelming, but also relieving because finally someone recognized and understood what was going on with me. It explained years of struggle. I felt hopeful because I knew that with the right support people with multiplicity can experience healing, begin working together as a collective and live satisfying life. For me, healing has been and continues to be a long and painful journey, with many obstacles and setbacks. The good news is I don’t have to do this alone. I have found many peer support groups with others who are multiple and am working with therapist who specializes in DID.  In addition to the external supports I’ve spent many years learning to work together with the others in my collective/system. We still struggle at times, but are learning to share time, work together to make sure everyone gets their needs met, and resolve conflict.

Because DID is most often the result of child abuse, perpetrators and society have gone to great lengths to attack, minimize, and ignore this condition. Whole societies have formed to convince the public that multiplicity isn’t real, is a ploy for attention, or created by therapists. Professionals, especially those in the mental health field can be attacked and have their licenses threatened and I’ve known students who’ve been kicked out of psychology graduate programs after coming out as having Dissociative identity Disorder. Coming out as multiple is not without risk. Despite the continued stigma and pushback, more and more therapists and students getting the courage to talk about their experiences and who they are. They are proudly proclaiming, “Nothing About Us Without Us” and are taking their place at the decision-making table.

In the last several years people with DID have created a movement to advocate for quality mental health care. They have taken it upon themselves to educate their community and the world through conferences, podcasts, youtube videos, and Facebook groups. Some have gone into research to dispel the myths, others have become therapists, doctors, and professors.

If you are someone with Dissociative Identities please know that you are not alone in this world. Recognizing and coming to terms with there being more than one consciousness and being multiple people can be overwhelming, but I perhaps as more of us put content out into the world you will find stories that you relate to. This can be the start of finding community, a shared language, and explanation for years of struggle.

Today I hope to not only bring awareness to the struggle and pain that living with a history of complex trauma and multiplicity in a singlet-centered world has been, but to also express a profound gratitude for the others in my system/collective and the way together we have accomplished what we could never do if there was just one of us. So everyone out there I am celebrating being multiple and redefining a disorder as a brilliant response. Happy Dissociative Identity Response Awareness Day!