Looking for Answers: Child of Parent with DID

Una+ wrote:

Teatime wrote:I was jut wondering how you deal with the conundrum of an "abuser" who only ever had your best intention in mind?

What you are doing right now is called splitting or black and white thinking. It is what children do, and often when as adults we revisit issues from childhood we find our childhood thinking about those issues is still in effect.

The solution is to mentally step outside the dilemma and see that this whole equation is wrong. It is not a choice between good mother, bad child or bad mother, good child. Instead the equation looks more like good mother and bad mother. We all have failings, we all do harm, whether we mean to or not.

Wikipedia: Splitting (psychology)

Thanks una
I guess that should have been obvious to me - thanks for pointing it out.
In an odd sense I feel as if I were mourning.

Teatime wrote:In an odd sense I feel as if I were mourning.

I think mourning is exactly the right word for that feeling. I know I mourned the loss of innocence, the loss of the "good mother" as in my heart as she began to merge with the "bad mother". This is a natural and necessary part of integration in its broadest sense, integration that is a developmental process all humans must go through to become fully mature.

I don't really have anything to add but wanted to thank you for making this thread. I hadn't really put thought into how did may affect my baby when he's older. I feel this will be especially tough because his father also has did and our alters can have some unpredictable encounters with each other. I had thought I'm grateful for having extra hands so to speak when my patience runs thin but I have to wonder how my boy will handle having two parents that are both not always themselves. I haven't run into any of my alters having any issues with the baby thus far but I know that some have deep seated unhealthy behaviors that are being worked on in therapy. The worst I've dealt with is they have their own ideas of how to parent but doesn't almost everyone have their own way with that. Anyways this has given me something for my brains to chew on and to start asking my therapist about for advice on handling it before its too big an issue.

Here are some scholarly articles on the topic of parent (mother) / child dyads in which DID is a factor:

J Trauma Dissociation. 2006;7(4):75-89. Development of dissociation: examining the relationship between parenting, maternal trauma and child dissociation. Chu A, Deprince AP.

Abstract

While many studies have demonstrated relationships between trauma and dissociation, relatively little is known about other factors that may increase children's risk for developing dissociative symptoms. Drawing on betrayal trauma theory and Discrete Behavioral States frameworks, the current study examined the contributions of maternal factors (including mothers' dissociation, betrayal trauma experiences, and inconsistent parenting) to children's dissociation. Seventy-two mother-child dyads completed self-report questionnaires. Maternal dissociation was found to relate positively to maternal betrayal trauma history. Additionally, both mothers' and children's betrayal trauma history were found to significantly predict children's dissociation. Implications for the intergenerational transmission of betrayal trauma and dissociation are discussed.

PMID: 17182494; free PDF download

Sidran.org: The Effects of DID on Children of Trauma Survivors

Exerpt:

The standards of practice guidelines of the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation suggests that the children of dissociative parents also be evaluated by a professional familiar with the indicators for dissociative disorders and child abuse. [...] Fortunately, if dissociative disorders are diagnosed in children, treatment tends to be quick and successful.

PeterBarach.com: Multiple Personality Disorder as an Attachment Disorder

Exerpt:

In addition to the sadistic, invasive, ritualistic, and humiliating traumatic experiences reported by MPD patients, clinical material suggests that another kind of childhood trauma may be ubiquitous. Within the total traumatic environment (Giovacchini, 1986), another type of trauma, which I am calling "the parents' failure to respond," profoundly influences the development of dissociative psychopathology. Under this rubric I am including (1) the parents' failure to protect the child from abuse, and (2) the parents' tendency to dissociate or otherwise detach from emotional involvement with the child. Though physical neglect can follow (Wilbur, 1985), the mother's chronic failure to respond to indications of distress or emotional need in the child is by itself traumatic, eventually causing a corresponding detachment in the child. The child's reactive detachment sets the stage for reliance on dissociation as a response to "active abuse."

ISSTD guidelines strongly recommend professional evaluation and family therapy for children of all parents diagnosed with DID.

I took those guidelines to heart and had my children evaluated by a highly qualified Marriage and Family Therapist who has special training and experience with DID in children. I have also informed other caregivers (physicians, educators, etc) of my children about my diagnosis and the consequent risk my children face. Finally, I closely supervise and limit the contacts my children have with my family of origin (FOO). My FOO is not safe for my children.

Sidran's article describes mom and me. Haven't read the last one and think I've had enough for today.. Thanks for dropping the links Una.

Here I link to a blog collection of posts by adult children of women with DID. Be advised: this is a biased selection of posts from various other sites, and some of the posts are very angry. Some of the mothers described clearly had severe mental illness in addition to DID, but the adult children seem unaware that their experiences were not typical.

My Mom has Multiple Personalities: What the kids say

First, let me say, I am a mom (of a Kindergartener, and one on the way), diagnosed with DID. I have never been one to have a lot of unpredictable switching. I have to be massively triggered for it to happen without me blocking it. It does sometimes happen, but almost never outside of therapy at this point. So, while I do worry about my DID making me an unpredictable or unstable mother, the hardest thing I think is my occasional crises, which require extra therapy and more help from my H, and make me less able to live up to the high parenting standards I have for myself and I was able to do when more heavily dissociated from childhood parts and their stuff.

Second, I'd like to say, like some others, it sounds like your mother is my mom. Now, my mom has no diagnosis that I know of, of any kind. But, the screaming, throwing, invalidating (both memories of events and the validity of my own sense of self, feelings, etc.), different public representation of herself (not at my school, because she never bothered with that stuff, but at her work, where she is known as some amazing mother). Mostly, I managed to keep myself from the direct line of fire, and my oldest sister was the one who pushed against it and had the brunt of her reactions. I think I learned by watching what to do and not do, and split a lot of my needs off into other parts to avoid being vulnerable to her attacks. I also relate, because somehow I ended up pushing through and getting my B.A. from an Ivy League sort of University.

My mom had a tough upbringing, was abused by a neighbor, had instability in her parents marriage, and kind of crazy mom and a narcissistic dad. I know she loves her kids and probably wants to be the mom that they needed, but was incapable. She just wasn't able to be a safe person. I'm sad for her. Anyway, due to her stuff from at least toddlerhood and her revolving relationships with unsafe men, and inconsistent attachment potential by having so many people in and out of my life, I developed DID. Does my mom have it? I don't know. My T says she sound narcissistic and sociopathic. She probably has at least CPTSD and I have seen her dissociate before. She remembers things differently than they happened, but it's a pattern in my family, and a real mind-f---, for people to do that, and I can't tell if it's plain old denial, manipulation, or dissociation-related.

One thing I will say is that it is probably difficult to not grow up with some real challenges when you're raised by someone who is incapable of being a consistent attachment figure. It's good you had one in your dad, though his lack of availability from working presented some challenges there. We learn the world is a safe place when we are consistently responded to with care, have our basic needs met, etc. When we are responded to by the people we need with erratic or fear-inducing behavior, especially at early ages, it will cause problems. There can be parents who do so, because of DID, and parents without DID who do this. For example, I'm pretty sure, even though I blow it on the regular with my kid, that she is securely attached to me, and I have DID. I think it really depends on the person, their background, their triggers, and what sort of support they have. I was diagnosed when my daughter was 2.5. A lot of the triggers that she has presented in reaching certain ages hadn't come up yet, so I was very lucky to know what was going on when I started getting triggered in my interactions with my child, and have the support of a good therapist, friends at church who I could trust with my diagnosis, etc.

As for telling my child, there is a lot that would go into that decision. As of now, she's too young to understand. If she were actually encountering other "parts" of me, I think it would need to be explained. But, she does not. My system seems to work in a way that prioritizes my role as her Mommy when with her, always. And, for the most part, my alters feel safest just coming fully out in therapy, though have at home around my H and in other situations when massively triggered. She does know that I see a "Dr" whose job is to talk to me and help me work through how I feel about different things. This Dr also sees my H (her dad), because his issue actually triggered the dissociation episode that led to my diagnosis, so I went to see HIS T. She has met him, knows him to be a kind, fun person, who mom and dad both trust.

We also talk a lot about how mom and dad make mistakes and respond badly to things sometimes when we get upset, just like she sometimes does, so that she understands it's not her "fault" when we make bad choices (even if she was misbehaving at the time, it was our mistake), and go out of my way to validate her feelings and experiences. Because a majority of my dissociation and denial seems to have manifested due to my own experience of invalidation, this has always been an important part of parenting for me, though less so for my H.

When she is older, and can understand, and especially if I am still in therapy for it, I will probably tell her about the diagnosis itself, rather than the vagueness of my needing help to work through things. By then, she would be able to understand what it is, and what situations would be appropriate to discuss it (with a close confidante) vs. not (commencement speech, anyone?).

I guess I think, as long as you're giving the message that mom and dad aren't perfect, and they (as children) are not responsible for mom and dad's bad behavior, and not invalidating the bad behavior as if it never happened, or excusing it by blaming the child for it, that would facilitate the point of sharing the diagnosis itself. I mean, sometimes when a kid behaves a certain way, in the real world, people will react and make mistakes, and it's not realistic for a parent to respond perfectly every time, and that will not prepare them for the real world...but that doesn't mean you get to blame the kid for your less-than-optimal response and it's important that a parent be able to deal with their failure, own it, acknowledge it, validate the child. My mom being unable to reconcile her parenting failures with the ideal self she needed to see herself as was the source of my being invalidated repeatedly.

Anyway, off-topic there, sorry. In the case where a parent switches frequently and has no memory, I can see where it would be more important to communicate about the actual diagnosis at an age-appropriate time, though. Otherwise, the contradictions in behavior and memory would be crazy-making for the poor child. Only a parent (maybe along with their therapeutic team) would be able to make the call about what is right for that family, and even each child, when they might be ready to understand...

Sorry for writing so much. As a parent with DID, and as a child who experienced a similar upbringing to yours in some ways, I wanted to reply in depth.