WTF - is this contagious?

Hello everyone,

I'm new here and trying to make sense of what is going on in my head. Please indulge me if any of this sounds confused - you probably know what it's like. Sorry also for length...

So - I, personally, have always considered myself alone in here, although apparently it turns out I'm just one of the long term fronts. I also seem to have been one of the last to find out what is going on, and only after some of my fellow residents massively screwed up. Now they're back inside trying to sort out the chaos and have given me back the driving seat, so at this stage I'm trying to patch together wtf happened.

I have pretty consistent memory from the body age of about 11. I know the one who came before me "called" or "created" me in some way because she couldn't cope anymore. We have diaries from the time to prove this. Since then I have been running the show regularly, although not always and was firmly convinced I was the only one. I did hear voices and have conversations with them, but I seriously didn't consider this an issue, I thought it was a harmless quirk. Of course, there was weirder stuff (such as the imaginary boyfriend I had at age 13), but since we've always been told we have an extremely vivid imagination (cue denial), I thought I was just a bit eccentric. Also, on the whole I (we) have always been pretty functional, have a degree, a job etc - nothing to imply "mental illness".

All went t*ts up about a year ago when we met what I think of today as another system - at the time I just thought this guy was the weirdest thing ever. I could see him switch right before my eyes, his behaviour just did.not.make.any.logical.sense (and I know a fair share of weirdos, but he was off the scales). At the time, I didn't even know DID existed, but I could clearly see this guy wasn't just one person.

I ended up dating him/them for a few months and during that time all hell broke lose in here. It was like everyone was waking up at the same time. Various of our lot formed various different relationships with various of their lot (all without me - front - having the slightest idea where all this craziness came from). Eventually one of us and one of them had a massive argument and we left them.

At this stage I had looked into what dissociation is and concluded that this was what I was experiencing. My personal interpretation was that this had been an abusive relationship (which it was, on at least one axis) and that I was experiencing PTSD. Went and found a therapist. regained control. Felt like "me" again. Moved on.

Until, and i $#%^ you not, I was confronted by a committee of my headmates who have apparently decided we need more democracy in here and they want to get back with the other system. I can't believe I'm even typing this, but I swear I'm not joking. Apparently a whole group of them have been looking into "empowered multiplicity" and formed a collective. Trouble is, most of them have spent all their time inside and haven't got the faintest idea how to deal with the outside world. So here's me back front again, trying to sort out this mess and see what we should do now.

In that sense, my immediate question is this - could it be that a more or less integrated person "develops" DID through contact with a multiple, by way of mirroring or so? I've read it is possible for therapists to "induce" DID, could the other guys (inadvertedly) have influenced me to split? Or is it more likely that we were all always there and contact with the other system finally pushed us over the edge of awareness?

Of course, it does not make a massive difference but the question does matter to me personally did "I" just lose the plot or did "we" just finally start talking to each other?

I'd really appreciate your thoughts,
thanks, Ruby

Hello and welcome.

DID forms in childhood and so no, it's not possible to "catch" it from someone else through mirroring of them. The others would have been hidden from you for a long time, until an appropriate time presented itself to them to let them introduce themselves to you.

That's about all I've got time to say right at the moment but hello and welcome and it sounds like you are in the right place to start learning and discovering more.

hi saltedlipstick,

thank you. Just to get this straight: the voices in my head have formed a socialist collective and presented me with sound scientific evidence as to how it is possible we're all here and not crazy.
I don't even know what to say.
Ruby
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hello,

may I just interject with Ruby's permission (because I'm a little worried that her sarcastic comments could be seen as making fun of people's experiences here) that there is indeed a sound explanation for the socialism bit. Several of our previous fronts have been involved in grassroots politics over the last decade and have filled our collective memory with rather a lot of (lefty) political theory and knowledge about group dynamics etc. So in a sense, this is the only way we know how to organise - collectivise our resources, have meetings, make consensus decisions. I do admit the idea of rotating front was not entirely thought through though...
I hope not to offend other's political beliefs on here. It's really just us.

Gabriel

I have pretty consistent memory from the body age of about 11. I know the one who came before me "called" or "created" me in some way because she couldn't cope anymore. We have diaries from the time to prove this.

This is sound proof that this was here before this other person came into your life.

DID is hard to accept, but when it's there it's there, and it's been there since childhood. I'm sorry I'm not more helpful, I haven't really been out for a few days and I'm kinda tired now.

I want to say welcome here though This is a great place to have and get support

Hi Ruby, Gabriel, et al. Welcome to the DID Forum. My story has some parallels to yours. I didn't know about my multiplicity, or about DID more generally, before I met a man who activated my parts and internal chaos ensued. Some parts of my system have been around "forever" but one was formed in my teens and one was formed in midlife in 2010.

This is all situation normal for DID. Just like some personal stories on this forum, the professional literature on DID has many reports of multiples being drawn intensely to each other, of being able to detect each other, etc. See for example our thread Do you have DID-dar? For a very accurate fictional account, see the novel Set this House in Order by Matt Ruff.

hey,

wow Una+, nice timing - we ordered that this minute from amazon.

yeah, right away i thought I was going a bit mental because i "knew" for a fact they had been abused. I was like, there is no way you could know this about a guy you just met. now, looks like there is...

yesterday we heard from a friend that they (or one of them) are dating someone else. Result: complete system crisis. Hence why I'm back now, because I'm apparently the only one who doesn't join the controversy.

"It's complicated" doesn't even begin to cover it...

Just remember dating is a discovery process. He may be unavailable now but that is for him to tell you, not for you to assume about him. Even if he were married he might still be available to you in some way that would be mutually satisfactory. The key here is communication.

Do you think he is aware of his multiplicity? This is a really important piece of information. Do you know about the technique called talking through? Is this something your therapist does with you? See our thread How do you to talk through the host to an insider?

Good luck!

Hi Una+,

well, my humble opinion is that at this stage we should be coming to terms with ourselves rather than inviting more trouble, but I can see I'm in a minority position here.

We're not currently with our therapist any more b/c we moved cities. We did bring up some of our expriences to her although at that stage we weren't 100% convinced we had DID. I'm getting a sense she did not believe us/thought we were talking in metaphors when i said something about "other parts of me", but then that could be a security issue (as in "no one will believe you so don't even bother").

as to whether they're aware - at least one of them is because Gabriel had several conversations with him both above my head and that of their front - weirdest feeling ever. so yeah, i know what you mean by "talking trough". Problem is, this guy (the one who knows) is a bit of an unsavoury character. we think he is the one who has taken the most crap and is now acting out by being an alcoholic, abusive and a massive misogynist. He really pissed off our security, which is why she evacuated us last time. He has also admitted to terrorizing some of the children in there, but at least we know he knows they're there. I'm just not sure if he's much of an ally.

Other than that, we know our friends are in there, but we don't know if they're aware. We also think they have a new front (judging from reports about radical life changes they've made) and we don't know who he is or how much he knows. For all we know, he could have never met us before, in which case he's in for a surprise...

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added: this actually makes for quite a sensitive situation, b/c we cannot just suggest to them what we think - we might run into a firewall of denial, or even if they embrace the idea, they might end up believing we "caused them" to think they're DID at a later stage, a bit like Ruby did above. Also, we wouldn't want to destabilise them if they're not ready, we don't know what internal measures they have in place in case of for "discovery". Tricky.

Gabriel

Nope. Not contagious. And it's not possible to "accidentally force" yourself into acting like or believing you have it, either. You either do, and the signs are there, or you don't.

Here's two threads that might be helpful to you:

-- DDNOS/DID Resources: symptoms, common questions, etc: dissociative-identity/topic100829.html (This thread contains resource websites along with organized threads from this site that discuss discovery experiences, communication, common questions, conflicts, therapy issues, and much more. Just so no one misses them, there are additions/updates on the 2nd page).

-- For all who question how they have DID/think their's is weird: dissociative-identity/topic104081.html (This thread focuses on the "causes" of DID, the development of DID, switching/co-consciousness/co-hosting, issues with doubt/denial, and has a couple good threads on communicating/accepting/working with alters).



Other than that, hello and welcome! We hope you find this place helpful.

~A mixture of us(?)

Hi tomboy24,

thanks! that's some quite exhaustive stuff to work through.

Yeah, I suppose if one explanation makes everything one has never understood about one's life suddenly make sense, there probably is something to it. I'm just probing every possible avenue here...

it is exceptionally weird to have such different levels of understanding in here - I have barely wrapped my head around the fact that this is really happening while over in the nerd department they're apparently halfway through a neuroscience thesis.

well, at least so far everyone is only mildly annoying...