Resources to learn about multiple personalities / DID
July 17, 2020 2:28 PM   Subscribe

If you have experience with this, where would you point someone wanting to understand more? General advice or stories would be great too.
posted by Preemptive Distress to Human Relations (10 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
This tumblr is better than a lot of the general informational websites.

PODS is also a good site.
posted by crunchy potato at 2:54 PM on July 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


https://redwoodscircle.com/faq/ - fascinating blog by someone who identifies as multiple (that being a preferred term for the experience of DID)
posted by danceswithlight at 3:40 PM on July 17, 2020


What kind of resources are you looking for? Therapeutic, general, supporter...?
posted by warriorqueen at 3:46 PM on July 17, 2020


My friend with depersonalization disorder (a related diagnosis) said this film made her feel like less of a freak.

It's not very good, but I can see how some moments gave her some hope.
posted by j_curiouser at 5:21 PM on July 17, 2020


I learned a ton from this thread a year or so ago.
posted by slenderloris at 6:01 PM on July 17, 2020


This is a person I used to talk to. We don't talk anymore for reasons. She blogs extensively as well as shares her art.
posted by kathrynm at 6:17 PM on July 17, 2020


I'm on a phone so I can't link, but if you're looking for any of the academic research, google "the haunted self pdf". You'll find a free PDF for a fairly accessible book written by one of the big leaders in this field. My therapist recommended it and I found it pretty illuminating.
posted by phoenix_courage at 6:25 PM on July 17, 2020


When I started EMDR I was assessed as being at high risk for DID due to fairly consistent disassociation from an early age. I don't experience this as anything like alters or a system but the risk was that by doing EMDR it would trigger that kind of separation between trauma self, disassociated self, and coping self. It didn't happen, EMDR was super helpful for me, but when I did research I was highly put off by the very specified alters/systems/identities being talked about by a lot of research.

I am still prone to disassociation and I function well in that state. I have empathy and connection for the self who was hurt and traumatised. I still have a level of disconnect between those selves and can disassociate as a tool in order to keep on with work after a triggering nightmare, or whatever. I don't experience those states as a shift in who I am, or identity, and getting a better understanding of disassociation (during or after trauma) helped me understand what happened and what was happening. So a lot of the support and research is alienating to me.

But my tendency to disassociate was not in response to a severe childhood trauma. It was a...thing I did as an introverted, bookish, anxious child with auditory processing issues, whose family is 90% extroverted and very very close knit. So I learned to just retreat away. Which meant later when I was experiencing trauma, and anxious turned into anxiety, it was a habitual response to unwanted stimuli.

I think I still nudge into the borders of DID when assessed by my therapist. But without the explicit "this is the coping identity who is different in these ways" very little of the tools and techniques actually help me.
posted by geek anachronism at 6:55 PM on July 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


the Twitter tag #pluralgang and the tumblr #positivelyplural and #actuallyplural are places where systems chat, you might learn something there.

fyi 'multiple personalities' has fallen out of favor. more commonly people now refer to a system and its members. some people like the term 'alters', some do not.

DID is the medical term, 'dissociative identity disorder.' some plural systems identify with this term and some do not. some just prefer to call ourselves multiple, plural, or systems.

like many systems, i believe plurality can be beneficial, harmful, or some combination. i don't think it's inherently a mental illness that belongs in the DSM. i think, like autism or being gay or trans, it's a natural human variation that's been pathologized. people who suffer from problems related to being a system absolutely deserve help with that. people who are happy as systems and don't want to be pathologized for it should be left alone.

feel free to DM me if you have questions! i like talking about this stuff.
posted by squiddish at 11:00 AM on July 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks all! I've got a lot to read now, and I really appreciate the pointers on terminology and offers to chat more.

I had a very interesting conversation with myself recently, and I think I mostly wanted to get a feel for what the modern thinking on the topic is. My therapist is good, but there's only so much you can cover in an hour, and he's not inclined to label things, so I was largely going off the wikipedia page.
posted by Preemptive Distress at 11:40 AM on July 20, 2020


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