NeWbIe here: SO of someone w/DID

Hello everyone.

I'm excited to join this forum and to have found it...I am thankful for all of you all who have posted things, questions that I have which have made me think that my husband is the only one and the questions that I haven't thought of.

I TRULY believe w/my very life that DID is a life saving disorder and am so thankful for my husband's people who helped save him.

We just discovered he had DID in June. They all started to come out after he fell and hit is head in March. We have been through so much and learned so much it's just amazing. His system though seems to be different than other cases that I have read. I LOVE my husbands insiders! To date I have met 59 so far and still have quite a few to go.

The brain is a fascinating and awesome creation!

I really hope that being here I can find answers to my questions since the T is new and knows nothing about DID (I think that I know more than she does) but she spends time with him and the others talking about their concerns and we appreciate her and they like her.

My hubby is in college now and one of the ones that took 2-5, 7th grades Nickie goes to college and everyone LOVES her and Ivy go to school to take his 2 classes. He goes once in a while but they really enjoy it.

My kids love the ones they have met. I have a 6, 8, 10 & 20 yr old. OH I have a question that others on other forums have not answered, maybe someone here knows it, I will post it again later, BUT... has anyone heard if insiders can be born in our kids? I know that might sounds weird but my kids personalities are so similar to those insiders who are no longer w/my husband. I want to write more on that but if anyone has any thoughts I would love to hear them.

Another, should those who have the role as FUNCTIONS have feelings? Have you heard of them going rogue like in the movie Eagle Eye?

I have many more interesting questions and thought pondering thoughts which if someone could help me sort them out would be sooooo wonderful!! I'm a mom, 35 w/3 kids, 1 step-son, husband 43 and THEN I have heard I have 25 kids (I have met 10 of them), many teenagers & then the adults whom I take care of, well mainly the kids. So, any help I could get means a little less searching through books and medical documents that I have to do.

Again, I'm excited to be w/you all and hope that I can gain something and maybe add a little something to the forum.

Thanks again.

I just wanted to say hi, I am also an SO of a man with DID. He is unfortunately not in therapy, so I cannot relate in that way, except to say I'm really happy that your husband is. That is going to make all the difference in the world. My guy has a much smaller system, roughly 8-10, I'd say, though I probably haven't met them all.

Welcome to the forum and I look forward to hearing more from you It's always nice to hear from other supporters as we have limited resources.

Hello Simply Monet, welcome to the DID Forum. I think this is a really outstanding support group, partly because it is not compartmentalized. People with DID already experience way too much of that, without it being reinforced in online support groups that segregate participants. So please feel welcome: you, your SO, even your SO's T are welcome here.

This post is actually my second attempt. I wrote a long reply then accidentally refreshed the window and it went bye-bye. Unfortunately I am short on time so cannot write as much.

Like your husband I found out about my DID in my 40's. You can read much of my story in my very long thread here. See my signature below for the link. Briefly, for me the tipping point was meeting a man who triggered me to such an extent that I experienced a "DID crisis" as my system became overt. We think this man is a multiple too.

For decades my insiders hid from me and from others, trapped in a prison of fear and denial and toxic shame received from my family of origin. And then one day we met this man and they saw (1) he is just like us and (2) he is beautiful and (3) he can see us and we are just as beautiful as he is. This gave them the desire and courage to come out of the closet.

Simply Monet wrote:has anyone heard if insiders can be born in our kids? I know that might sounds weird but my kids personalities are so similar to those insiders who are no longer w/my husband. I want to write more on that but if anyone has any thoughts I would love to hear them.

Short answer: yes! Please do write more about that, perhaps in another thread.

To find our many old threads about this, use a web search engine to search the DID Forum for introject and projective identification. The search engine here on psychforums.com is really bad, so don't use it. In Google you can search the DID Forum by adding this to your search terms: site:http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/

Simply Monet wrote:Another, should those who have the role as FUNCTIONS have feelings? Have you heard of them going rogue like in the movie Eagle Eye?

Or like HAL in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey? Yes, that can happen. In a DID crisis much weirdness can happen. Many special function alters are more or less emotionless, but there are exceptions. And there are blendings, fusions, and awakenings. See our various DID Forum threads about structural dissociation into emotional parts (EPs) and apparently normal parts (ANPs).

How are you doing? Do you have a good support network for yourself? Do you have a therapist or a pastoral counselor to help you?

what is a SO?
~Kate

SO = significant other

Thank you for your welcomes. I do appreciate it and I'm looking forward to helping and getting help.

So much has been going on in the last couple of weeks, I guess somethings I will share on the post w/others.

I hope everyone's weekend was good and for those who's weekend wasn't so great, hang in there. It gets better.

To answer the questions in your PM to me:

I have the same husband now as when I first arrived here. He is a singleton, and very stable. He has taken in stride all the revelations about my DID and system, including our attachment to another man who we think has DID. Meeting this other man is how I became aware of being a multiple. My entire system was activated and I became very symptomatic. I even heard voices in my head yelling that this other man was just like me. At first I had no clue how he was like me, but as soon as I learned about the signs and symptoms of DID I knew that was it. Now with the benefit of experiencing other multiples online and in person, I can say with confidence that if a multiple says you too are a multiple, you probably are. I have seen this happen so often, it no longer surprises me.

As far as your children go, yes they may also develop dissociative disorders due to having parents with DID. Many people diagnosed with DID turn out to have at least one parent who also has DID. One first step would be to have your children evaluated by an experienced professional to check for dissociation. For that you don't need a local therapist; you could travel to an expert. Then if it seems your children would benefit from therapy, probably you can find a local licensed marriage and family therapist (MFT) or clinical psychologist who works a lot with children, who is willing to consult the expert.

My current therapist is gifted and very experienced in her specialty but I am her first long term DID client so she is having to consult others and read up on DID. I do not know who she consults, only that she does consult other therapists about me. One very good resource for a therapist is to join ISSTD. ISSTD publishes a high-quality journal and many training materials and tools.

What about your extended family? Do they show signs of DID? Your husband's parents and yours? Your siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins?

There are many good books about DID available in print, written for therapists. Look for authors such as Frank Putnam, Richard Kluft, Marlene Steinberg, Colin Ross. I use Amazon.com to find the publication data and then interlibrary loan to borrow the books through my local public library.