What if we don’t have trauma?

We’ve been debating posting on this forum because a DID specialist didn’t think we had it (might be Cat’s fault for lying though?). But we are definitely multiple and just... how does one handle the feeling of being multiple without having a definitive reason? The only things that could be traumas occurred long after we actually became multiple.

Repressed memories of trauma? Unlikely. I at least don’t think there would be zero signs. Multiplicity is just a natural state for us.

Our symptoms seem to match somewhat with OSDD-1b but of course I won’t self-diagnose. The fact we can’t properly switch is a massive difficulty. But is it really... real, if we weren’t traumatized? Does it count? That question eats Yeti up sometimes... and I guess also me.

-Selva

(all real names withheld)

If it bothers you that you have been told you don't have DID look into getting a 2nd opinion because misdiagnosises do occur, I can't know if that's the case with you however.

Trauma is a subjective experience not an objective one. So the trauma can be something you now don't view as traumatic now as an adult or because you don't have access to the emotional part of the memories. Also traumatic memories causing DID or OSDD likely occurred when you were a young child or infant, and memories from that age are typically incomplete or missing because memory is something that develops as you grow.

Neglect is another known cause.

Though the mind can also do a "fantastic" job of memory suppression. Something that was originally for your own good to survive, but hard to "turn off" when you are ready.

Or misdiagnosis. DID is tricky.

I had out of body experiences as a child, when I had to walk in front of our classroom to show where certain city is on the map. It was so stressful for me to be looked at by whole class I couldn't stay inside my body.

As a preschooler it was certainly re-traumatizing when I needed to pour milk to fill other kids' mugs. All the other kids hoped they could be the one who gets to do it, but for me it was so overwhelming, I didn't want to go inside that building at all. I cried and hoped I wouldn't have to, but I had to. And I really wasn't a kid who would say "no" to adults, so crying and asking for not needing to do it was like all brave I had. It didn't help. So I poured milk.

It sounds very little to be a trauma, to need to pour milk. I visited that building one time as an adult, and there was the same smell there was when I was a kid. It got me REALLY anxious right away. I was so anxious all the time as a kid, I couldn't handle normal things in life.

My main trauma is not from pouring milk or needing to know where foreign countries cities are. The fact they were re-traumatizing events, tell the story about how fragile I was and how non-existing my self esteem was, because of other things. It was a struggle to pretend to be like others, and standing out any way was overwhelming. And that is why normal everyday things came traumatizing.

About the same age real trauma things didn't feel traumatizing anymore. I could decide not to feel, and just play regardless what was happening around me. So, yes, trauma is subjective. When you can dissociate, it doesn't feel like traumatizing anymore.

(late reply is late)

I’ve speculated that our first “trauma” occurred shortly after birth, because it took mom at least a day to figure out she wasn’t lactating, and hunger seems pretty traumatic for a baby. Does that seem traumatic to anyone? :/

Complicating things is that we sort of have two sets of multiples. I’m not the original host; when the body was 13, the original just shut down and suddenly I was fronting, and have been ever since without even being able to switch. Which certainly is a trauma, and there was an earlier one at age 11. But I was multiple before that. Maybe Athena wasn’t? I don’t know, I’m so confused. x.x

-Yeti

It would be traumatic for an infant to not have there hunger satisfied but birth is probably also traumatic. Picking your life apart for traumatic events that could have caused this isn't going to help you. It's likely alters will share there pain with you when they are ready.

DID isn't something caused by a single incident of trauma there isn't a braking point. It is a never making a single identity, a prosess that takes years. So there needs to be years of dissociation and an environment that is in someway causing the need for it and no attachment figures helping you deal with your distress in a better way.

Not to be rude but if you don't have trauma of some description (neglect counts as tramua in my eyes) you can't have did. However as others have said above the mind and other parts can do a pretty ducking good job of supression so it'd be hard for you to know. Again like others above have said DID forms after multiple counts of trauma. That doesn't mean you don't have DID or likewise. Trying to "search" for a reason now will either push parts away or push parts to share things you aren't ready for. Neither of which will be good.

To reply to your recent post that doesn't sound like two sets of multiples if that's even a thing. Subsystems are a thing but I don't know if that term would apply here. I think a alter can have different parts that break of them to form other parts we've had it happen before but it doesn't mean that that part IS a multiple. It still comes from the same core. Similar to a domino effect. I'm no psychologist though.

Also. From our personal research in part of our quest to create a personal timeline for ourselves we have learnt that DID tends to begin to form from between 3-9 - when the personality would normally merge to create a single. We read somewhere that babies tend to be fluid as they begin to develop a sense of self, so it would be highly likely that newborn hunger would form DID even if it could be formed from a one off event.

For us, I've been around a pretty damn long time. For as long as the child could remember I reckon. Used to think I was her imaginary friend called Dorothy before I had to shut up to protect her. Those days of hiding from her are obviously gone now, she knows even if that's not what we thought best at the time. She's starting to flourish. We all are. Point being tramautic events (bad ones) have been in our life for as long as the body can remember and according to the cores mother before memory as well. Up until 8 or 9. Then we went through medical $#%^, after the bad $#%^ before and developing the system every little $#%^ that happens causes the core to split. We're working on it. Even if it's not bad $#%^ stressful stuff causes it as well. We live in a stable environment but our health and needs cause life to be a bit crazy.

DID forms over long time and sticks around forever. Even if a system integrates the person will still have the disorder.

Nadia.

Selva and Yeti, I would start with your subjective experience, that there is some degree of multiplicity. If I had a "top five things you should know" for newcomers here, one would be "just because you don't now remember one iota of trauma doesn't mean you won't later."

That also doesn't mean anyone who visits this site will eventually recall things they don't now. It's just that it completely normal for someone with DID not to recall any trauma. I was well into my 30s before I got an inkling of anything I would have labeled abuse or trauma, yet it was massive throughout my childhood.

I've noticed I've been drawn to an inordinate number of people in life who had an early period of neglect, for example, being fed and clothed but not much more. Not that these people had DID, but their erratic attachment patterns felt familiar to me. Attachment problems to some degree are extremely common in multiples. Does that have any resonance for you?

After giving birth, a new mother's milk doesn't come in immediately. It took me at least a day to start producing milk. It's perfectly normal. And the baby is just fine.

Maybe there is trauma you don't remember and maybe there isn't. But don't go searching for trauma that you don't remember. Attend to the current issues in your life.

We worry about this too. Trauma comes in many guises, though, and it isn't always helpful to seek it out. Evidently there's something. If you're multiple, there's something, but you may not remember nor ever remember. That's okay. What matters is looking forward. If that means one day sitting down in therapy and identifying that trauma, that's great. If that means you never quite know, that's okay too - as long as your'e able to live and function and it isn't causing you anything detrimental. Theoretically.