Being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a real struggle.
First, I’ve had to work at coming to grips with the diagnosis itself. Then there is my struggle with the alters – I have to find out who they are. I know they’re there, but I don’t know much about them. I have learned the names and ages of some, but not all of them. I am slowly learning their likes and dislikes and why they are there. They all hold memories of my abuse. Memories that I can’t recall.
There is a power struggle. I am the host, and I need to be in control, but some of them think that I still need to be protected so they come out to “save” me. They are parts of me stuck in the past. They don’t know what year it is and often times don’t even know what month or day it is either. I have to talk to them and remind them that I am the host and that I am married and my husband and I have seven kids. It really complicates things when one of them has a crush on my brother in-law.
I don’t tell many people about my DID because it’s a stigma.
Society has a warped idea of DID. Most people still call it Multiple Personality Disorder because they don’t realize that the name (and diagnostic criteria) has been changed. Hollywood often portrays it as a situation in which there is often one very violent alter; that’s not the case for me.
If you want to see what living with Dissociative Identity Disorder is like for me, I’d recommend watching the movie Sybil with Sally Fields. It’s a very accurate description of my experiences with DID.
I watched my father have several affairs when I was growing up. By “watched,” I mean he took me to his girlfriend’s house(s), where I sat in the front room reading a book while they disappeared into the back room for an extended period of time.
The conversation in the car when we left was always the same: “Don’t tell your mom we were at XXX’s house – she wouldn’t understand.”
“Okay, Daddy.” The day I said my first “okay” was the day I became keeper of my father’s secrets.
There were times I heard my parents fighting. My mom, yelling out accusations that he had been spending time with this woman or that woman, while my father denied it.
I stayed quiet.
I didn’t fully understand at six or even ten-years old what exactly was going on, or why my mom didn’t want us to be friends with all those nice women. But in my teen years, it started to make more sense.
When I was seventeen, I cheated on my boyfriend. I pushed down thoughts that what I was doing was the same thing my father had done years before.
It became easier a few months later, when I cheated with a second person. And even easier when I went back to the first guy I had cheated with and did it again. I kept it a secret.
My boyfriend started talking about marriage after I turned 18 – we went ring shopping. That night, I left his house and spent the night with someone else, where I also talked about marriage (we had been seeing each other for six months, and he had no idea about my boyfriend-turned-fiancée).
I poured out my heart in my journal.
Was I just like my dad? Would I ever be able to have a relationship that I wouldn’t screw up? I had to make a choice…right?
Instead of a choice, I added a fourth guy to the mix.
In our ten years, I have been faithful. (The fact that my husband is a very jealous guy helps – he would figure out something was going on quickly.) I don’t often think of my cheating past or worry that I will turn out like my father anymore, but today I read a book that brought it all crashing back – a book about a cheating mom and her daughter who grew up to cheat, just like Mom.
I felt the tightening in my chest. And unbidden thoughts of a guy who works at Starbucks that flirted with me two weeks ago come to mind. I have avoided that Starbucks like the plague since he gave me a free scone and told me I have beautiful eyes.
I don’t want to cheat on my husband.
But I realized today, I am still terrified that, one day, I will be unfaithful.
