Signs of DID from when you were a child?

We just wanted to ask, do you have some kind of stories or moments from when you were a child that made you go "oh, that makes sense now" when you found out you had DID?

I was around 14. My Aunt used to degrade my cousin to the point he would cry and I would like to listen but I also felt she was mean and I was sad he cried. That is the first time I experienced duality that I can remember. I didnt know what it was I was experirncing till now though.

When I was playing at school with a girl called Karen and a thought popped into my head "we can't play with her she's called Karen, that's my name" and I thought back "that's not my name" and there was a bit of a thought argument and I didn't play with the girl again.

Also I had imaginary friends. One was called Batcho, which is one of the twins. I don't remember my other imaginary friends or if they were my alters but it's possible and Batcho definitely is.

We have dozens and dozens of these, memories we've always had, and memories that returned once we started to meet each other. Cumulatively these have kept me anchored to the awareness that I have DID. The memories I myself or someone else had are often only part of a more complex reality.

Just an example. In 2nd grade, I told the truth about how many books I'd read that year...just a few. The teacher said I was wrong and went through a list with me. I felt great pressure and heard myself begin to lie, saying "yes" to reading books I knew I hadn't. We won a prize and I felt shame about that cheated win for decades. A few years ago I learned that Jonathan had read them all for us and was the one who answered yes, accurately.

I also have a lot of somatic memories, phobias, flashbacks, and bizarre images or dreams which turn out to have been a part of an event. Many alters have had similar "aha" moments in learning about our past. I recall sometimes being reassured by my own "guardian angel," who turns out to have been Sphinx. Later I learned that another childhood host, Luke, heard from him in a similar way but referred to him as "the voice."

I remember being born and being excited about it and trying to explain it to my Mom. I told her it was like in the Wizard of Oz movie when Dorothy woke up in Oz and everything went from black and white to color. I had been there before I was born, but now I was truly alive!

KK

I guess other people would have said I had imaginary friends but they weren't imaginary to me cos I'd 'hear' their thoughts in the same sense I'd hear another person speak who I had no influence over and no idea what they may say.

As I got older I'd 'become someone else' in certain situations until a fully developed alter took over in my teens as a new 'public persona'. I didn't get much alone time back then so 'Thea' was up front most of the time dealing with everything for years. I didn't know about Autism and dissociation though and only learned about DID recently in my late 40's.

Mostly, from the 8-11 range I've got memories of playing "dress up" and "cheerleader" with the girls in the neighborhood that _I_ don't remember doing... things I've only recently begun to remember.

Also, when we were very young (first grade age), Mom had us in ballet... brother and I were the only boys but I remember it vaguely, and part of me even then wished we'd be in the pretty leotards and whites and pinks of the girls... and part of us to this day (two of us actually) LOVE ballet and wish we'd kept up with it, "even as icky boring boy parts".

I had a lot of trouble in first grade (held back actually) with "maturity issues" b/c I would, at times, be acting like a kid younger than I was, I'd talk to myself and "be imagining with myself" as if with friends... this continued even into adulthood, but was most noted in 1st-3rd grades (we moved in middle of third grade and to a place where mostly girls on our street to play with- the dress-up and cheerleader games were then). But even as an adult, I was getting comments from instructors (one of my military instructors noted it in my file even) that I was "imaginative" and "hard to keep concentrating/focused" and would "day dream" or "zone out" in class at times.

BUT until as recent as a year ago, I was entirely unaware of being dissociative, of the others being real as part of me, and none of it really flagged as "odd" or jumped out at me b/c the mind just glossed over the "danger" or "oddity" of it- likely b/c to our mind it wasn't alarming, we KNEW subconsciously, I suppose.

There are memories, normally host noticed that we felt off, but we didn't know what it was. It would feel like looking at the world in a fog, then we would have the best alter for the situation come forward. I vividly remember coming to once when I was around seven, we lived in Jacksonville at the time. I was sitting on my bed, just staring into space. There was a instinctive agreement that we were different. It wasn't a bad thing in my mind, my alters were hidden from the host at the time, and then I switched and sometimes I'm not aware of that moment.
I had an alter that would take over when I was around of a ton of people, I would act differently then than I would when I was alone, when the rest of the alters decided we were safe enough to let the host front. I didn't even realize I had other alters until literally a week ago. Now that the host is aware, we are able to start healing us all. I remember a specific alter being born, I refer to him as Sai. He takes over when the others are overwhelmed and he pretends we are okay, he makes it so the others can go into the back and hide. I remember, I was around 14 when he started fronting a lot more. I know that's not really childhood, but it's when I was younger.

I have a very clear memory of my sister (often referred to as the sister) telling 'me' to stop speaking in a baby voice and I had no clue what she was talking about. Also at the beginning of my awareness I remembered that one of my little people used to see a black dog that kept her safe. She could see the dog but the rest couldn't.

Later in life a friend asked me why I was so disconnected. I had no idea what she was talking about.

I think that being present but also not being present at the same time felt 'normal' from a very early age. Am 54 (body) now and occasionally my T says, 'with someone who is severely dissociated' and I am never always surprised and never sure if she is talking about me!

A little older than childhood, but shortly after getting to high school, during my freshman year, I discovered RRPs and the escapism that provided. Imagine that, a person dissociating would find it enjoyable diving into other personas in fictional worlds in a socially acceptable way.