Greetings fellow travellers! I am so glad you found your way here. I want to take you on a journey into my life. Or should I say "our" lives. You see, there isn't just one of me in my mind. There are many of us. We have Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder. This uncommon and highly misunderstood disorder is formed in childhood as a means to protect the child from abuse and trauma. Before the child reaches around 7-9 years old, their mind has not yet coalesced into a single, cohesive identity. If severe, repeated abuse and trauma happens to that child before that age, their minds will split to protect them. Although this is classed as a "disorder", it is really a rather remarkable safety mechanism, and it works.
Memories, experiences and various life events are compartmentalised and stored within the brain separately. The mind splits into Parts, or Alters, to deal with these memories and experiences. In this way, walls of amnesia form, which is part of the safety mechanism. The trauma was too hard for the core host to cope with, so those events are hidden from the child.
In this blog, I not only want to share my own journey through the fragments of my mind, but also to educate and explain what D.I.D. is, how it works and how to help someone with the disorder.
I hope you'll stick around and join me on this journey!