Thread by @write_or_ty

For the final day of #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek, I'll be sharing several pieces written by people living with dissociative identity disorder: a highly stigmatised and misunderstood diagnosis that, unlike anxiety and depression, people rarely feel able to open up about.

DID is caused by chronic, repeated trauma in early childhood. The trauma can be physical, emotional, sexual and/or a combination of all three in nature with the perpetrator/s often a child's caregiver/s (parents, relatives, carers...) More about it here: traumadissociation.com/dissociativeid…

While the most well-known element of DID is the existence of dissociated identity states or alters, some of the many additional symptoms include daily amnesia, dissociation, chronic fatigue, migraines and flashbacks. DID also almost always coincides with complex PTSD.

There is no medication that can remove DID or alters, but medications can be helpful in managing some of the above symptoms. The treatment for DID is removal from the traumatic situation (if the person with DID is still in it) and longterm specialist targeted therapy.

All that said, here are a few articles written by people with DID. Note that, even if it wasn't stigmatised, DID doesn't lend itself well to exposure as its innate purpose is to remain a secret from outsiders and even from those who have it. These are very brave people.

1. "I ... would sometimes speak and converse [as] the version [of me] that was confident, loud and fun, with the ‘real’ me literally staring at myself from some kind of sunken place, watching this version of myself socialise." – @StephanieYeboah stephanieyeboah.com/2021/02/dissoc…

2. "If on World Mental Health Day ... I casually slipped it into conversation that sometimes I become a completely different person with no memory of it, the response would likely be one of fear or salacious curiosity." – @ChloeSapter mentalhealthtoday.co.uk/blog/awareness…

3. "The symptoms of DID are the symptoms of unhealed suffering and that suffering manifests in a variety of ways, not just in the presence of parts." – @CarolynSpring carolynspring.com/blog/parts-are…

4. "I was disconnected from my body, disconnected from the world around me." – @AWonderBall

"[DID] enables the individual to carry on growing without the constant knowledge or reminder or memory of [trauma]." – Gill Frost
bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

For more information on DID:
- did-research.org
- dis-sos.com
- carolynspring.com/blog/
- traumadissociation.wordpress.com

Charities and research:
- firstpersonplural.org.uk
- isst-d.org
- estd.org
- dissociation.co.uk