yeah, i think if she doesn't want to front it's totally good to respect that, i just wasn't sure where you were coming from. that said, i will point out that things like suicidal thoughts and extreme depression don't generally just disappear, and so Y will need to deal with them eventually (and that kind of internal emotional work almost always has to be done while fronting in my experience) but that's something that should come on her schedule.

in terms of the taking responsibility thing, i feel that; there was a time when we had a similar dynamic. personally i've found the best thing to be encouraging/helping people to work on being more comfortable fronting during stressful situations (ie more people started fronting during studying, then working, etc) which both lightens the stress-load on you and makes it so that more people get more opportunity to front. i do personally feel like in the long term it's never good to just have one person controlling, but it is so related to personal system dynamics i don't wanna tell you what to do or anything because it might work for you. i'm glad you're thinking about it though and i think maybe just spending more time processing--take a few hours a week at least to check in with everybody in the system, see how they're feeling about how things are going, what changes they might wanna make in terms of system dynamics or life course. (weed and other drugs like dxm can be really helpful for this sometimes but ymmv)

in terms of healing--really, it's a long and arduous process, i think it's one that's also totally necessary. there's a lot of good self-help resources out there; for starters i'd recommend something like The Depression Book. therapy can help, so can talking with supportive people. communication is very helpful, so if you can find people you can comfortably communicate with about your trauma that's good. communicating amongst system members and writing things down in journals is always helpful too but it sounds like you're already doing that.

good luck ~

Feelings:

As a friend/partner/family member, your feelings are valid. The truth is, Dissociative Identity Disorder carries a lot of misinformation and social stigma. So, if you recently discovered your loved one has DID, you may be going through a lot of feelings right now based on negative perceptions of the diagnosis. Your feelings are still valid and you will need to monitor them and create your own safe space to process them.

Shock

As you begin to understand DID with your loved on, you are going to realize s/he has been through significant trauma. The impact of the trauma is going to play out in your relationship. This is because childhood abuse often involves a violation of trust, and as you build a trusting relationship with one another, some of the effects of trauma will begin to show. The best thing to do here is support the person with DID, encourage them to seek/continue therapy, because it takes a long time for victims of trauma to learn how to live in healthy relationships.

Because the nature of DID is also secretive, you may be in shock that your loved one has multiple identities.

Some other little idiosyncrasies about your loved one may suddenly start to make sense: his/her forgetfulness, moodiness, and general unpredictability.

Denial

It is not recommended to deny the existence of your loved one's parts (or alters). To do so would reinforce something this person is struggling with: their reality is not real and they are simply "crazy." It's going to be difficult, but it is so important to do your best not to ignore parts' existences. The best thing to do is respond, support, and learn more about your loved one.

Your loved one is not "the sick one"

Just because your loved one may have parts/alters, does not mean s/he is the source of the problems in your relationship. If your relationship has problems, it is more likely due to difficulty communicating or a lack of honesty. Remember, we all bring our own baggage to relationships and we must work on ourselves first and foremost to make a relationship work.

You can't fix everything

Your loved one is going to have ups and down, good day and bad days. Your responsibility is to be supportive, loving, communicative, and kind. It is absolutely okay to try and understand what your loved one is going through, but it is not your responsibility to change it. If your loved one needs more support than you can provide, you may assist him/her find a qualified therapist.

Here are resources that you may find interesting:

• What is a Dissociative Disorder?
  
  
• My -Spouse, Sibling, Coworker, etc.- has a dissociative disorder.
  
  
• I am Dating a Person with a Dissociative Disorder. What do I need to know?
  
  
• The Effects of DID on Children of Trauma Survivors
  
  
• Parents as Partners
  
  
• The Significant Other's Guide to Dissociative Identity Disorder
  
  
• HELP! My friend has multiple personalities! How can I help?
  
  
• Healing Together: A Couple's Guide to Coping with Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress

Hey! Alright, so I'll go ahead and start with a disclaimer: I'm formally diagnosed with DDNOS, though it's close enough to DID (I'll point out where it differs) that I typically just call myself DID.

There are four of us:

• Little One is about 5-6 years old. She's adorable and everyone loves her. She scares easy -- thunderstorms while driving can be difficult.
  
  
• Melody is the problem one. She's 14 and we fight a lot. She's pretty suicidal, and when she's super active is when I have problems (used to cut, etc).
  
  
• Okay, this one's a little weird. We call him/her Guardian. I use both male/female pronouns because I'm pretty sure it's just one personality, but I always refer to Guardian as male but Little One refers to him as a female. Pronouns get confusing. Guardian is the one that takes over when shit hits the fan. If I'm in a job interview or at work or in a public place and something happens, Guardian will take over and calmly handle the situation.
  
  
• Uh.. me! Right. I'm less sure how to describe myself haha. I'm as emotional as a typical early-20s female, but I don't handle drama well. I have a long fuse but once I get pissed off, I really snap. I'm out most of the time, often co-conscious with Guardian and/or Little One.
  
  I'm almost exclusively co-conscious with the others. This is the primary reason that I'm diagnosed DDNOS. What that means is that when another alter is in "control", so to speak, I'm either partially present or at the least aware of what's going on. I have occasionally gone completely inside, but it is very rare. For those with DID proper, it's much more common for them to have full switches, and they may not even be aware that the alters exist because they are never co-conscious and there is little communication.
  
  That said, when I look in the mirror while another alter is out, I don't see myself as I typically would. I see the alter. It's hard to explain, really. I used to look quite a bit different from Melody (I was blonde, she has dark hair) so it used to be much more of a contrast. There are a couple of pictures that I'm in that I literally do not recognize myself at first because it is an alter out. I started dying my hair dark auburn a few years ago, and now the difference is less noticeable to me, but I am still 100% aware that it is her. My boyfriend can quite consistently tell which of us it is -- without us speaking. He says it's something in the eyes.
  
  I don't have a gatekeeper, persay, but Guardian will take care of Little One at times and make sure she doesn't come out at an inappropriate time. I pretty much just have to reason with Melody in order to get her to stay in if I need her to.
  
  I have seen US of Tara. I liked it a lot. It's obviously kinda over-the-top with the depictions of the alters, but that's kinda what's necessary for TV, which I can understand.
  
  Here's some reading material I recommend:
  
  
• Switching Time -- This is an account of a woman's DID from the point of view of the therapist. Reads like a novel. VERY highly recommended. This is the only one that I've asked my boyfriend to read.
  
  
• The Stranger in the Mirror -- This one's more informational, less story-based, but explains a lot.
  
  
• Multiplicity -- This one I would not necessarily recommend to people with DID, but it's definitely great for those that are trying to understand it. It's not about DID, but about the elements of multiple personality that most everyone can relate to.
  
  You can AMA. I enjoy educating people about DID.
  
  EDIT: Formatting.
  
  

There's a significant overlap between BPD and dissociative disorders: It's been found that between 48.5-70% of those with DID also meet the criteria for BPD, that 26-76% of those with BPD meet the criteria for a dissociative disorder, and that 2.5-27% of those with BPD meet the criteria for DID.

My view of BPD aligns with what Colin Ross wrote in his book on dissociation:

>I think that Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a form of DDNOS with defined EPs in virtually all, if not all cases. However, I think that people with BPD can also switch states without a fully separate identity taking over. The behavior changes dramatically, along with the mood state, the degree of arousal, the cognition, perception, and speech. When someone with BPD switches, it is like another person is there, except there isn’t another person. There is a dissociated psychic fragment in executive control: whether we call this an intrusion or a switch is a bit arbitrary. In my view, much of the phenomenology of BPD is due to EPs, but not all.
>
>As far as I can tell, all clinicians familiar with BPD, and all experts on it, regard the person with BPD as highly internally fragmented. This is called splitting rather than dissociation in much of the BPD literature, but splitting seems like a subset of dissociation to me, if we consider the general systems theory meaning of dissociation.

Source: Structural Dissociation, by Colin Ross

Labels can be useful in helping you find language to describe your experiences and a community that has shared experience, but it's easy to get lost in trying to find out what exactly you "have". It's well established that the DSM diagnostic entities have no "validity" in the technical sense, ie they are useful in connecting people with certain clustering of symptoms to effective treatment, but they don't denote what you "have" with any scientific rigour. Since the disorders don't map out to any natural categories of mental illness, labels become merely means to access appropriate treatment. You're free to investigate the nature of your symptomatology, and ask what are the effective treatments for my cluster of symptoms.

Been there! It sucks losing an argument with yourself XD.

My 💡ah-ha moment was realizing that I had one person freaking the fuck out, and another insisting "we're fine, nothing to see here" and a third going "what do you mean 'we'...?"

Chances are, you're not overreacting. Yes, people go through phases or have difficulty with identity confusion after major life events (teen-years, divorce, new baby, etc.) but what you're describing certainly sounds more like a median system, which is common in DDNOS/OSDD.

I'd strongly recommend doing a little reading on the topic: Stranger in the Mirror and The Myth of Sanity helped me feel a lot more secure in "yes this is actually the thing, and it's like 'normal'/healthy people may experience, but more so." Stranger in the Mirror has an adaptation of the SCID-D that you can use to gauge the severity of certain symptom clusters, and instructions on how to interpret that.

Love to get the little new stickers, and more coloring stuff (special, unique crayons or stationary). My SO recently got her these which are awesome for little-crafting!
https://www.amazon.com/Hxytech-Correction-Machines-Stationery-Scrapbooking/dp/B073SP679B/ref=pd_sim_229_5?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B073SP679B&pd_rd_r=HBSTE60T39X3HXD440VJ&pd_rd_w=zV2R5&pd_rd_wg=3iJkP&psc=1&refRID=HBSTE60T39X3HXD440VJ

I also like the idea of getting an old, used Gameboy at a thrift, pawn, or used game shop. You can get them for super cheap and find great used games with it!

Also caannddyy and desserts...

I think I'm getting hints from my little at this point >.<

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BV7H517/ref=sspa_mw_detail_6?psc=1 .

a bunch of little squishy animals.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B06ZZJBH52/ref=mp_s_a_1_38?ie=UTF8&qid=1527362005&sr=8-38&keywords=small+plush&dpPl=1&dpID=51y9LI-IHPL&ref=plSrch .

I know that these are technically doggy toys but they're cute plush food and they make squeaky noises.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075DTXZZQ/ref=sspa_mw_detail_5?psc=1 .

Some poppy beans!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01MXY4YIG/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1527363187&sr=8-6&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=finger+puppets&dpPl=1&dpID=51BQG0dQNqL&ref=plSrch .

A bunch of finger Puppets.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0756CFK3V/ref=pd_aw_sbs_21_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=W8NXM8QPGF8YW6FMC46N&dpPl=1&dpID=71MdM6C6V3L .

A bunch of windup toys.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C6RV51R/ref=sspa_mw_detail_0?psc=1 .

Some more windup toys.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0007R4J30/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stppvp_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527364207&sr=2&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=2056238293673378570&pd_rd_wg=LFdnD&pf_rd_r=NR8AZPMVWXET96D1QWJ0&pf_rd_s=mobile-sx-bottom-slot&pf_rd_t=9701&pd_rd_i=B0007R4J30&pd_rd_w=lMQMT&pf_rd_i=race+car+pack&pd_rd_r=b8de0b8f-1115-458f-8144-7cf9474516cc&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65 .

A big pack of Hot wheels (I dunno about your little but I personally love rolling them back and fourth across a flat surface).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B073PW29V5/ref=pd_aw_fbt_267_img_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=777PPGT17MY1G488KVAM .

I know the carrying carton is pretty big but the eggs themselves don't look too large and they squeak when you press them.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00001QEAD/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stppvp_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1527364810&sr=2&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=2056238293673378570&pd_rd_wg=b1WM0&pf_rd_r=7EBRB646R0WXG5PFQHHG&pf_rd_s=mobile-sx-bottom-slot&pf_rd_t=9701&pd_rd_i=B00001QEAD&pd_rd_w=C3pcy&pf_rd_i=tiny+plush+animals&pd_rd_r=bdaf5912-9f2b-4a9d-9ab5-ee53eb8a2668&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65 .

Beanie baby dragon!!




Sorry if I included alot of noise making fidgets, I make alot of noise stimming myself

ngl i wouldn't trust youtubers like this. There's a huge issue with that right now, and something about the entropy system really rubs me the wrong way. A lot of youtube videos that are very..."entertainment" centered like "SWITCH CAUGHT ON CAMERA :O" are extremely voyeuristic and fetishistic of us and our struggles.

​

I would recommend this DID sourcebook, that can be bought on amazon, as a ways to learn about the others and about yourself. It was made for therapists and DID systems alike.

I also recommend some autobiographies. Though these can be triggering and graphic, the few i've read have helped me understand my selves better. Truddi Chase, Kim Noble, Christine Pattillo... Three different people with 3 starkly different experiences and ways their disorder works with them.

I also recommend TV segments and documentaries. Kim Noble's artwork, Kim Noble's Interview (though not as good), this Netflix Doc (though outdated and slightly misinformational as well as talks to abuse apologists at the "false memory institute".), Truddi's Interview, and this old Documentary from the 90's about 3 different DID systems (old but informational, though triggering so please be careful).

I also recommend Special Books By Special Kids, an incredibly heartwarming group on youtube where a man goes and meets with people with disabilities / disorders and lets them talk about their life and experiences.

This is the book used in a support group I'm part of, which is dual-diagnosis for trauma/substance.

Recovery from Trauma, Addiction or Both (if you want to help yourself, the frogcabaret part)

Seeking Safety (therapists book, if you want to learn to help all your parts by also coaching them through these tough topics)

Both cover dissociation in detail, but neither go into dissociative disorders. For that, this book is best in class (IMO):

Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation

Gl,

Dee

It doesn’t appear connected to Dissociation, and instead some neurobiological deficit. However lucid dreaming has a weak correlation to dissociation but shares some neurobiological substrates. If it’s psychogenic and another part can imagine, then it might fall under something like somatization.

Also maybe a deficit in your thalamus which is the part of your brain that transfers all sensory information sans smell to your higher cortices.
That has been theorized to be related to possible experiences of DP/DR. Along with changes in the Anterior Cingulate, which determines if people -and environments feel safe. Something something Occipital lobe, and parietal lobe, play a part.

Then we take into account maybe it’s something like an encoding or retrieval error, trying to retrieve the mental imagery from your hippocampus.

I’m really reaching right now though, from what I understand it has only been identified and given a name recently.

Edit: sources.

Neurobiology of Traumatic Dissociation

Lucid Dream, Psychosis, Dissociation, and insight

Edit 2: More digging suggest maybe depersonalization as a possible cause. Which would share all those pesky substrates I mentioned. I’m done for now. There’s just not enough research I can find.

Last link. it’s 23 pages and I haven’t finished read it yet.

When I first started reading about DID after I was diagnosed, it was when the new term was just beginning to be used widely, and a lot of the discussion about it was still along the lines of "is this real or not." I was treated by the dude who wrote this book, and I highly recommend it: http://www.amazon.com/Rebuilding-Shattered-Lives-Dissociative-Disorders/dp/0470768746

Edit: he didn't actually treat me with meds or therapy, just diagnosed me and then consulted on my treatment.

I am so sorry this happened. You have every right to feel how you feel. You have every right to protect yourselves from this toxicity. This is classic, get others to do their dirty work for them. If they can't reach you, they'll send in people they can manipulate to do it for them. They calculate these things. They actively think about ways to control and manipulate others. She's projecting her ugliness onto you. Your friend was sent in as bait. A pawn sent in retaliation for your going no contact. There are so many books written about this type of abuse. There's one written for victims specifically that helped me understand the psychological abuse in prior relationships as well as how to stay no contact and protect myself. The reason it helps to learn about, is it gives a name to what they are doing and provides you with tools to stay effectively no contact. You deserve your freedom and peace from these toxic people.


https://www.amazon.com/Psychopath-Free-Expanded-Emotionally-Relationships/dp/0425279995/ref=sr_1_2?crid=NICJ2OFLL5F5&keywords=psychopath+free&qid=1550433412&s=gateway&sprefix=psychopath+free%27%2Caps%2C206&sr=8-2

My advice is to find a therapist who specializes in dissociative disorders. There are a lot of therapists out there who want to help, will take you on as a client, accept your money, but will not provide the right type of therapy for you. DID is a complex disorder. So many doctors are not trained in the specific therapeutic skills that you might need.

If you are struggling to find a therapist, you could start reading self-help books in the meantime. Here's some good ones:

https://www.amazon.com/Amongst-Ourselves-Self-Help-Dissociative-Identity/dp/1572241225

https://www.amazon.com/Insiders-Managing-Successfully-Dissociative-Identity/dp/1932690034/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0FHHASZHRBA7H2K6KBEE

https://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Interpersonal-Neurobiology/dp/039370646X/ref=pd_sim_14_3?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=0FHHASZHRBA7H2K6KBEE

An article I've dug up to re-post a few times regarding persecutor alters, and a theory about why the exist, and how to interact with them. Note: the article has explicit examples of persecutor alters. It's aimed at therapists, but it's easy to transfer to you interacting with your own system.

It's a bit of a weird thought, but I would also recommend reading some traumatic brain injury literature. The tips they have for people with suddenly much shorter attention spans and memory issues are can be re-worked and transferred to make an external communication system, and can help you make external coping tips. A lot of DID literature I read focuses on system cohesion, survival, the controversy, and so on. Traumatic brain injury literature will cover how to reorganize your life physically when you're not "there" for most of it. (With tips such as calendars, medication sorters, and so on.) I ended up reading this one.

> aspects of my abuse required me to extinguish my empathy and do things very far away from my core beliefs

The alters who handled that for you had a critical role in your survival. People who aren't able to dissociate and who experience this kind of abuse get pretty permanently messed up - meaning, think about the fact that if you didn't have those alters to step in, YOU would probably have become what they are. I think a persecutor generally IS a protector, the mindf*ck being that they learned the best way to protect you/others is by becoming the abuser. What they went through was trauma in the form of psychological torture, and I guarantee none of them see it that way. But as far as healing goes, that's how it ought to be approached with them.

The empathy piece is tricky. I read this book a while ago that really helped me understand more about how and why it can get shut off. It's called The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty. At the time I read it I was struggling with my own (lack of?) empathy but also trying to get a handle on how our abuser(s) could behave like a normal human being in one setting but then carry out unspeakable abuse in another.

I ended up getting back into meditation when the pain was bad and I had a useless doctor. A lot of standard meditation advice doesn't work for me (btw there ARE dangers, especially with trauma), so I had to throw out a lot of it and sorta flail about until I found what worked for me. There' a book that I suspect might overlap a lot with what I worked out, but I haven't got around to reading it yet: https://www.amazon.ca/Trauma-Sensitive-Mindfulness-Practices-Safe-Healing/product-reviews/0393709787/ref=dpx_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1

My own approach was... ugh words are hard... I often thought of it as "balancing on a knife edge in a hurricane". it was partially.. um.. the one where you don't try and control your attention, you just try and be aware of where it is (which would quite easily settle on the pain, because pain). also part insight meditation. and it was like the pain was behind a giant dam, and I was letting just a tiny trickle through and figuring out how to process that and sorta.. surf/float on top of it instead of being sucked in.

What really helped was getting a better doctor and finally finding medication that worked, that got the pain down to a level where I could process it faster than it came in, and start draining that massive backlog. a couple of years of that and I actually got off the pain meds in the end :) :) although I do still have to be careful and I'm still not well enough to work.

Oh, and there were also times I focused more on teaching my muscles to relax, since their tension seemed to be causing the pain, and I had to retrain them to not do that.. but my laundry alarm went off minutes ago, I should go.

edit: oh, as a bonus my pain management seems to work on emotional pain too! yay!

as for the muscles... well, pain would make them tense and tension would cause pain. aren't feedback loops fun? :P I didn't start training them out of it until I found out I had a bladder problem ruining my quality of sleep (omg sleep is important) and had to retrain muscles to cure that. then I just sorta... applied what worked on them to the rest of my body a bit at a time. when one finally started to relax it'd go through a twitchy phase that felt kinda creepy... but if I could get through that, then it was a much happier muscle and if I could avoid pissing it off for a while it'd be much less likely to join in the spasms. The hardest have been the neck and jaw muscles; I'm still working on those even now, with the help of a physiotherapist (finally found one that's not a quack, yay). they are fucking stubborn, and when I do relax them they'll tense back up again, faster if I'm trying to focus at all. trying to think while relaxing them is like trying to walk in two different directions at once. :/ but hey, not being in constant pain is still pretty awesome. :)

Books:

• Treating Trauma Related Dissociation
  
• Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation.
  
• Trauma and Recovery- Judith Herman, M.D.
  
• Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
  
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
  
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma
  
• Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach
  
• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation
  
• The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)
  
• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
  
• It Wasn't Your Fault: Freeing Yourself from the Shame of Childhood Abuse with the Power of Self-Compassion
  
• Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
  
• The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
  
• The Stranger In The Mirror by Marlene Steinberg M.D.
  
• Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders
  
• Dissociation in Children and Adolescents: A Developmental Perspective
  
• Feeling Unreal: Depersonalization Disorder and the Loss of the Self
  
• Dissociative Identity Disorder: Diagnosis, Clinical Features, and Treatment of Multiple Personality (Wiley Series in General and Clinical Psychiatry) 2nd Edition