Trigger Warning: suicide
Note: Please note that throughout this article, I may switch between personal pronouns. This is on purpose, which will hopefully be explained by the article’s topic (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Typically, ‘I’ describes a specific alter, whereas ‘we’ is used for our collective system in this shared body. A glossary of terms used is at the end of this article.
Recently, we marked two years since our last hospitalisation for a suicide attempt. During such hospitalisations, we had to receive treatment that made us feel more unwell than what we already did. We were treated cruelly by hospital security teams, who seemed to deem us dangerous simply because of our diagnosis, despite the fact that we were out of harm’s way and just crying in the corner. We had to see the emergency department psychiatrists, who seemed to have no care for anything except getting you out of their department, ignoring you when begging for help. I do not at all wish to discourage people from seeking help from A&E: they did their job and saved our life. For that, I will always be grateful. Whether they did it kindly or with compassion is another matter. For that, I will always resent them.
At that point in our life, our only mechanism to survive was, ironically, to cause ourselves harm. Systems often have alters known as persecutors: ‘alters that purposefully harm the body, system, host, core, or other alters, sabotage the system’s goals or healing, or work to assist the system’s abuser(s)’. In my system, our persecutors are primarily internal in that they harm the body or system rather than other people (friends, etc). I, Evelyn, began my journey in the system as a persecutor; it was often me that led to us being in hospital. Yet, with time and therapy, I became our primary protector and now the system host. Now, I can recognise that this was my way of coping with trauma: to hurt us before someone else could, to gain control over the pain and make it my own. We still struggle as a system with self-harm behaviours and, at times, suicidal thoughts. It’s hardly a surprise. When growing up experiencing extensive trauma, survival is strange and difficult. Indeed, DID as a survival mechanism is beyond the realm of most people’s understanding: the pain we experienced fragmented our mind, forcing us to depend on dissociative and amnesiac barriers to avoid being overwhelmed by trauma and to continue through daily life. However, surviving the unthinkable leaves you with what one of our alters termed in a poem we wrote as ‘a post-traumatic inability to hope’.
The first time we attempted suicide, we were 17 and in the middle of our A-Level exams. To this day, very few people know this, as we got up the next day and sat an exam. By all measurements, we had everything to live for: we were on track for 3 A*s, had secured an offer to Oxford, and had our whole life ahead of us. Yet, we were struggling – grappling with an eating disorder and severe anxiety, which was later diagnosed as Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) and DID. Now, five or so years later, we are starting to look at life after university, applying for master’s programs and jobs. We have made new friends, we are dating, we are thinking about where we would want to live! We are finally trying to plan for the future, a future which we never thought we would have. Suddenly, our life has expanded beyond those oppressing hospital walls. No wonder we are floundering slightly! We didn’t think we would be alive past 17, so in some ways, we are starting life all over again: building a new life post-trauma. In support groups for people with PTSD, many people talk about wanting to return to their ‘pre-trauma self’. However, living with CPTSD and DID, there is no ‘pre-trauma self’ for us to return to, because we have not known a time without trauma. As I mentioned earlier, DID forms because of severe and enduring trauma before the age of 7 to 9. This is the age the personality fuses for children without adverse childhood experiences. Before this point, all children have different self-states (think of the depiction of different emotions taking over the control centre in the Inside Out movies); for those with DID, this continues and becomes more pronounced, with alters having different names, ages, and personalities, as well as roles. We were never ‘one person’, and this is not our goal for treatment (what is known as final fusion, and is a very valid goal for systems who choose this). Instead, we are aiming for functional multiplicity: to live as a system, but without the intrusion of severe amnesia or other ‘disordered’ aspects of a trauma and dissociative condition. There is no ‘pre-trauma self’ for us to return to, which is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because we do not know who we are, and in fact, it feels like our whole purpose up to this point has to be hurt, abused, and traumatised. The blessing is that we have a blank slate, that we may have hit rock bottom, but that is a solid foundation to start from.
There is no right way to survive trauma, and I certainly agree with the adage that those who wounded you get no say in how you clean up the blood. We are learning that living our life loudly, freely, and joyfully is our best revenge: to live, rather than merely survive. We are stronger, but not because ‘our trauma made us stronger’. Our strength is entirely our own, no thanks to them. Our abusers took our childhood from us, but I will not let them take our future.
Glossary:
DID: Dissociative Identity Disorder, previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder. A condition where a child’s brain, due to extreme and ongoing trauma throughout childhood, does not form the same way as most people, leaving a person with distinct identity parts and a level of amnesia between them.
System: the term people with DID typically use to describe themselves as a collection of alters.
Alter: a distinct identity part within the system. Others may call these parts, identity states, headmates, or simply people. Some still use the term personalities, though this is less common and can cause controversy. Alters can be different ages and genders, look different internally, use different names, and have different interests and personalities.
Protector: an alter who protects the system, the body, other alters, etc. We have a number of types of protectors including verbal protectors who may take verbal abuse or attempt to counter verbal attacks and spiritual protectors who usually have strong faith and connection to a higher power (for us, we are Christian) which they use to guide the system through difficult times.
Host: the alter in the system who fronts most often. For some, this is the alter who identifies most with the body; some systems do not have a single host or any at all.
Fronting: a term used for when a specific alter is out and doing things as themselves.
CPTSD: complex post-traumatic stress disorder, typically develops after repeated trauma (often in childhood) rather than single incident trauma which usually results in PTSD.
Final fusion: the term used by systems who aim to integrate their alters and become ‘one person’. Some fusions happen naturally, as alters resolve their individual traumas. This was previously viewed as the only treatment by psychiatric professionals.
Functional multiplicity: an alternative treatment goal, which focuses on communication between alters and allowing the system to flourish as many alters working together, without the ‘disordered’ aspects of DID.
Resources on DID:
FPP charity (legacy site) https://www.firstpersonplural.org.uk/dissociation/complex-dissociative-disorders/
@dissociation.info (Instagram)