How well can you hide your DID?

I second what michiru7422 said. It's not so much hiding it as playing off your inconsistencies as messing around or "just something I do". A lot of my colleagues get really confused when I switch accents in a conversation, and I just tell them "I pick up accents very easy, it's just something I do." As long as you pretend it's normal, people usually just go with it. I also play off my episodes or having to leave class as stress. It works surprisingly well. Thank god. lol

Being co-concious definitely helps too, and my alters and I also have sort of a database that we can pull info from about each others memories and people that we know that helps us fill in the gaps. We also try to brief each other on the outside situation during a switch. It took us a long time to get to this point, but if you can set up a system like that it can make these situations and networking with others much easier.

I did manage to "hide" it from close friends for a while, but I think it was more that they didn't know what the hell my issues could be and less that I was good at hiding it.

Everyone typically shares everything with Plan who is always co-present with me or whoever is fronting at the time. So other than body language or vocabulary used or way of speaking everything is the same.
-Elliot

Extremely well. Mostly I'm co-conscious, so that makes it easier; also, many only come out in certain situations and places (like certain club meetings or classes), so usually the people there think whatever part out is how I always act. People close to me often assume if I act differently it's due to my bipolar, since I'm more comfortable sharing that than my dissociative stuff, and most people don't see me all the time anyway enough to notice stuff related to it, other than my memory having blanks sometimes. Only one person knows I have it other than me and my doctor (my parents don't know, they're both oblivious and my mom denyed I had anything until I had a breakdown freshman year of college, so telling them wouldn't be good). The one who knows is my boyfriend, since he has similar diagnoses as me and understands it well. He's the only person who really noticed it. Sometimes I wish I could tell more people, but I'm so afraid that they'll see me diffeerently due to it, stereotypes and all.

In my experience there is a whole lot of "hiding in plain sight" going on. Most people don't recognize the signs of DID and don't catch on even when a DID system is quite overt. Most people don't notice unless the system is really florid, for example in the middle of a conversation disavowing the host's name and saying their name is ___. Or suddenly seeming to have no recollection of what was being discussed just seconds or minutes earlier.

On the other hand, even a very covert multiple may not be able to hide from another multiple.

I wonder what other multiples would think of me. . . I'm not always convinced that I have DID. But I have someone in my life that has noticed the differences but passes it off as me being stressed that day, or sick, or happy, etc. But goodness I must seem to have a lot of "moods" to him!

It is really hard feeling like people are seeing your craziness, when in fact they probably aren't. People will excuse it away or shrug their shoulders it seems.

Being co conscious, I can see most of the changes and their various affects, and to me my voice and mannerisms and predilections all obviously shift in focus...yet some people seem completely oblivious to it. Or maybe they understate it because they are worried that it'd bother me to know how maskless I am to those who get to know me long enough to see the inconsistencies. I try to take their words at face value, but I have to admit I do find it very confusing.

On the other hand, we are able to put a pretty consistent front when the need requires it.

I can't. I don't know anyone and I can't hide my feelings well.

We hide ours fairly well until you get to know us then I guess people catch on to something isn't quite right. But it works out okay for us because the only one who's ever bothered to get to know us knew before Mommy (the host) did.

Munchkin11 wrote:We hide ours fairly well until you get to know us then I guess people catch on to something isn't quite right.

This is the same for us too. Some people just catch on to the voice being different or the face being different, or just acting slightly different in general. It's the little things they catch.

I'm having more trouble lately. It was probably less obvious when I just didn't know and couldn't remember--I just went with everything and everyone around me did, too. I think WHO comes out and does what for how long has also changed with increased awareness, adding to the air of something being different from before (friends/family [and myself] used to one set of alters/idiosyncrasies now having to adjust to another, without them knowing the reasons for it.) There's a lot of rapid switching with co-hosts; I'm sure that's awkward to witness (vocal pitch going from valley girl to Brian Blessed sentence-to-sentence during dinner conversation)

The people closest tend to think I'm 'weird,' and that's been the best cover- it does far more for staying hidden than any alter could accomplish by themselves.

Havoctoria wrote:^Convenient Odinsleep!

That's the best use of that term