~DID I already write this?

DSM-IV code: 300.14
Dissociative Identity Disorder
(My primary diagnosis)

Info bit #1 - Dissociation, NOT diSAssociation!

Info bit #2 - DID was once called MPD

Info bit #3 - DID/MPD is NOT schizophrenia! Most people think that schizophrenia means "split personality." Actually, this is totally incorrect. "Split Personality" is DID/MPD, not schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic form of psychosis due to a biochemical/genetic disorder of the brain. SCHIZOPHRENICS DO NOT HAVE OTHER PERSONALITIES. Schizophrenia is not caused by trauma, and does not involve amnesia and flashbacks.

Info bit #4 - After being diagnosed, it takes at least 5 years to be able to even chuckle at a Sybil joke... and even then, it depends on which alter hears the joke. Always approach a person with DID in the same manner you'd approach a ticking time bomb.

Info bit #5 - According to many, there is no such thing as "Integration"... and therefor no "cure" for MPD/DID. People who do not believe in integration believe more in learning how to live and function as a multiple as the way to become "abled".

DSM-IV code: 309.81
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder
(My secondary diagnosis)

Info bit - (In brief) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is a psychiatric disorder that can occur following the experience or witnessing of life-threatening events such as military combat, natural disasters, terrorist incidents, serious accidents, or violent personal assaults like rape. People who suffer from PTSD often relive the experience through nightmares and flashbacks, have difficulty sleeping, and feel detached or estranged, and these symptoms can be severe enough and last long enough to significantly impair the person’s daily life.


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Learning to live with a mental disability (to me) seems more difficult because of the stigma and the "invisibility". With a physical disability, it's often rather apparent. With a mental disability, it's often invisible... and rather than people understanding you, they either fear you or accuse you of just being a "bad person".

I was first diagnosed in (I think it was) '94. As with most people with DID, it's difficult to diagnose and I was first diagnosed as having a number of other mental illnesses. It's pretty tricky... depending on which "alter" is in the front at the time of being assesed, a person can seem 100% ok, and then another day they have OCD, then the next they have major depression, then Borderline Personality disorder, and on and on.

I came to the realization that I might have MPD when I met someone else who was, and spent some time talking with her. We had a mutual friend, and she introduced us, because she suspected that I had MPD as well. Once I went to a professional who knew what MPD was, it took all of a few minutes for me to receive the glorious label. Actually, once I realized what MPD was, it enabled me to actually make a lot more sense of my behaviors and problems. (Black outs, "forgetting" things, being accused of constantly contradicting myself, varying accents, changes in stature and appearance, vanishing health problems, varying blood types, getting lost, etc.)

I've spent the last years attempting to figure out how to live with my "disability". It's not been easy. I spent some time hospitalized. I lost many family members to fear. It's been a bumpy road. It's still a bumpy road.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to "function", but I keep trying to. The stigma alone, however, has held me back quite a bit... and no one wants to be around a contradictory person who loves you one minute, and the next has no clue who you are. It's tough to ask for patience or understanding, or even help. I can't offer guarantees... but yet often I do. I'll seem just fine one minute, and the next I'm a shitting myself mess.

Over the years, I've tried to work on seeming more consistent... to get my "system" to function as more of a democracy... but still, the second I think things are going fine, everything falls apart. One of us wants school, the other wants drugs. One of us falls in love, the other uses people like most use paper towels. One of us has a disgustingly high IQ, the other can't spell IQ.

There are very few people who can stick around me long enough to be called a source of "support". It takes the patience of a saint and the understanding of a "soul mate". That's a lot to ask for in a person.

When I/we first came online, I/we tried to explain to people that the best thing to do would be to keep in mind that there were many of us using the same screen name... and that sometimes "I" meant "we"... but people seem to have trouble relating to me/us that way.

Now, it's easier to just let people think "I'm" an asshole or that "I'm" sick. It's all most people will ever be able to understand. "Multiplicity" is just too broad a concept for most people to grasp.

(Depending on when you ask me, of course) I don't know that I really believe in "integration". If you're multiple, you're multiple. You just learn how to live with yourselves.

I often view this (again, depending on when you ask me, of course) as a spiritual thing. There's one body that is home to many spirits. Could we combine and become one spirit? Maybe, but I don't know that we'd want to. Some of us really don't even get along too well. We have a common "job" right now, but I think that we all value our seperate "identities". It's interesting to think that maybe I'll be reincarnated as my own best friend or worst enemy in the next life... puts a whole new slant on the way one can view the world. We may have been an I in a past life. We may be one in the next. We may become an I with 20 other people. Sort of helps in that whole "attempting to care about other people" thing... promotes the notion that "we're all in this together".

Could you imagine being "trapped" in a body with your own worst enemy? Now there's a challenge. It makes sense though. What better way to spiritually grow?

I can also sometimes see MPD/DID as "spirit integration". At the end of this life, we will actually be one spirit, one soul. It's a theory that we started off our spiritual life as an "I", then we split and had separate lives, in order to grow... now we're recombining to "compare notes" and become one "advanced" spirit for the next life, or next level of existence. (This explains the fact that many of us have past life memories that "overlap" with one another's) That theory would make "integration" a reality, and then it's possible to say that the "cure" for MPD/DID is integration... and the purpose of it is to move to the "next level".

It's all just theories. Truth is, all I truly know 100% (another way of saying that: all we can all agree on) is that J____ B_____ W______ is currently disabled because of not being able to function like most other people.

You should hear my head. The above was typed, and a round of "I can too!" was heard, followed by "Shut up!", then "Yeah, well that's because you won't let me", then "Read the sentence, it doesn't say you, it says J____ B_____ W______ and that means all of us!", and finally "Stop analyzing the sentence. That's as accurate as we can get." *muffled words, grunts, groans and whatevers*

My head... our head.. is a very noisy place.

Yes, some of us hear voices, etc. like thoughts, some of us actually "hear" voices, etc. Some of us hear nothing.

At this point, we are a WE. No one is more important than the other. It's a democracy, not a monarchy. Attempting to make it such causes revolution. The spokesperson for the system varies with the situation. Our strengths and weaknesses vary. Often though, it is the case that we compete for "center stage". As a general rule, when someone wants to take center stage, they are allowed to. Pulling someone off stage results in the person who did the pulling being tossed into the orchestra pit.

I often describe it as riding in a car. Sometimes I'm the driver, sometimes the navigator, sometimes the passenger. When it's someone else's turn to drive, and I won't give up the wheel, I get thrown in the trunk. We have to share the car. There's only one.

When you're in the trunk, you can't see where the car is going. You lose time/black out.

Because we've spent so long working on this, black outs are a lot more rare than they used to be... but it still does not allow me/us to live a very "productive" life. Holding down a job requires holding some sort of schedule. A schedule requires telling someone else that they can't have the wheel. It's only a matter of time before you get tossed into the trunk.


(8/02)