Content warning for mentions of ableism and sexual violence (no details).
There are three things you need to know about me:
I am 29 years old.
I identify as a cis queer woman.
And I have Dissociative Identity Disorder.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a psychiatric disorder characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more distinct identity states (dissociative identities [personalities]) associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency. Each personality state includes its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment. At least two distinct personality states recurrently take executive control of the individual’s consciousness and functioning in interacting with others or with the environment, such as in the performance of specific aspects of daily life such as parenting, or work, or in response to specific situations (e.g., those that are perceived as threatening). Changes in personality state are accompanied by related alterations in sensation, perception, affect, cognition, memory, motor control, and behaviour. There are typically episodes of amnesia, which may be severe. The symptoms are not better explained by another mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorder and are not due to the direct effects of a substance or medication on the central nervous system, including withdrawal effects, and are not due to a disease of the nervous system or a sleep-wake disorder. The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other critical areas of functioning.
I struggled with DID my entire life, but wasn’t diagnosed until my mid-20s and soon I will celebrate my 6th year of diagnosis. I had gone through essentially the first quarter of my life completely oblivious that the life I thought and believed was mine was shared with, at the time, 3 alternative identities (alters). My life is still a struggle, but the diagnosis is earth-shattering. Finally, I had a label that helped me get access to specific treatment paths that had previously been denied to me. But it also labelled me as “insane,” “crazy,” and incapable.
My continued struggle further cemented these adverse labels to medical personnel who categorically ignored the continuing trauma and violence I experienced as a mentally ill queer woman who after diagnosis experience heinous sexual violence. Instead, I became “uncooperative,” and “untreatable” a label used with great prejudice after I fought for my social work education and eventual licensure.
Because of these stigmas and reoccurring ableism, I was forced to take the treatment of my DID into my own hands. Many DID systems face two separate possibilities of cohesion: integrate or co-consciousness. Integration is the process of the all or some alters to become one unique identity either with the host or core (the original personality) or another alter. Co-conscious is a process where both the alters and the host work together, and there are more flexibility and choice. To put it simply; the analogy of driving a car can be used to describe co-consciousness. Right now as I write this, I am in charge, driving the car, and the goal is in the passenger seat with a full view of what is happening. Or be in the back seat, not a full view but still have an idea of what is happening. As it is right now when one of my alters starts ‘driving’; I’m in the trunk. No memory, no idea what has transpired. Zero context available to me.
My goal is co-conscious. I want to be in the passenger seat or the back seat. The trunk is dark and somewhat traumatising. To achieve this has required countless hours in therapy, passive-aggressive comments that treatment is not ‘working’ by ‘well-meaning’ family members who have no clue. For co-conscious to be possible means that everyone has to want it.
