Christianity

Hey everyone. We were just wondering if there was someone out there who struggles with DID and is a Christian. I've been having lots of questions lately and would really like to chat with someone who has similar beliefs/values.

I am

Would you mind sharing some of your story with me? How did you come to learn you had DID? How long have you been a Christian? What affect did the one have on the other?

I noticed a first long amnesia at about age 15/16. but forgot about it again. At age 18/19 one of us created a pretty big mess that I had to face. that is when I kind of knew there were others. and they had their own opinions.
I became a christian at age 13. it was that or give up on life and kill myself. my family was not christian, but I started to go to a protestant church regularly. they had really good youth work, which helped me thru some very tough years.
for me, faith has always been the reason why I kept hoping and believing in a better future for us. not everyone in the system shares my faith but they respect it as something that is obviously getting us thru the really tough times.
I am currently not going to a church because they are no good at dealing with traumatized people. but I meet with other christians regularly. they do know about the DID and it is not a problem.

(may I add that you get better answers if you just describe your struggle and ask the questions you have about that specifically. she is super willing to discuss things but you are not giving her anything to discuss. she is good at explaining religious stuff, but you are playing it super safe, not letting her know anything about you and that is not how she can help you much)

Sorry, things are just really rough right now. I'm super depressed and between crying and sleeping I'm not getting much accomplished. I am deeply struggling with an internal conflict that seems to be unresolvable!

I am. If you are talking about why would God allow this. I cant really tell you that. I wonder the same things as well. Why do children get cancer? Why are some people OCD? Why am I DID? I dont have the answers but I believe we all have our crosses to bare. The thing with DID is it actually protected you. I dont know if ghis helps becaus3 your question is so vague.

KingdomSysterhood wrote: I am deeply struggling with an internal conflict that seems to be unresolvable!

well I am here whenever you are ready to talk about it. Take your time.

I am sorry you are struggling so much with this. I get it ... I think, atleast from my point of view. This is a very triggering topic to parts of me, but also very important. I grew up between two outside worlds so to speak. The abusive one and the one I was sent away to on Sundays to get out of the other ones hair. I also have SRA mixed in there. The safest place I was was in a very right wing evangelical church early on and later ... well let's just say someone there destroyed my trust in G*d.

I personally think people with DID as a coping skill are quite spiritual as we had to be in order for something bigger then us to step in and help us survive. This is where my parts came from IMO.

Unfortunately, for me Christianity taught me to judge myself to be like others and that my body had to be a certain way to be the temple of G*d. I cannot hold onto those exact beliefs and begin healing the parts of me that long to feel joy and freedom. I just know for me I needed a wider lens to view things.

I look forward to where my spirituality will take everyone in my system someday. For now I deal with what is right in front of me at the moments I feel capable. I am not sure this will help you at all.

I hope you start feeling better soon.

Okay, so I'll take a chance be vulnerable. There are 23 of us in total. We are all co-conscious, get along well and the younger ones have undergone a great amount of healing. At first I tried to do it my way. When we would visit my parents I treated my dad like I always have. He has been my best friend since my late teens. He is my hero and role model. I have never questioned God as to why things happened to me when I was little. I understand we live in a fallen world and bad things happen to good people. I have been fortunate in that all of my insiders know, love and have a good relationship with the Lord. I have a couple of inside sisters in particular that it has been their job to ask the tough questions (concerning life & God). This has never really been a problem. For my part my faith has always been unshakable. I have looked everywhere I know, (books, scholarly articles, my T...) to learn about how to heal from childhood trauma and DID. I have been able to integrate with a couple of the older sisters. Unfortunately I have been unable to have any sort of integration with the younger ones who endured the sexual abuse from my dad. Things got so bad trying to do it my way, I was forced to change our circumstances. In the past as we visited my dad things got progressively worse for the younger ones. So bad that self harm, substance use and even suicidal ideations became overwhelming. Therefore to bring peace I cut off all ties with my dad for the sake of the younger ones. This has been complicated since spending time with my girls in AR & the grandchildren mean we are 200 yards from my parents. We always spend Christmas in AR and this year was a complete nightmare for me. I stayed at my daughters home (next door) while my family went to my parents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner. I know people think I'm a complete idiot for feeling guilty, but the guilt has been so overwhelming that I spent most of the holidays hiding in my room in tears. I guess over the last few months it's just grown. We had to go back to AR in March for the birth of my newest granddaughter. I sent an email to my dad beforehand letting him know that it was just not okay with the insiders to see him. I felt horrible sending it, but I also wanted to do right by the insiders. Plus I needed things to be calm inside so I could be there for my daughter. All went well. As a matter of fact I guess just the fact that the insiders knew we would not encounter my dad gave us all great peace. But since then I have grown more and more distant from the insiders. At the same time I have begun having great struggles with God. I just don't understand why He won't just change my heart. I really want to believe my dad did these things to me, but I don't know how. I know that sounds stupid, but I honestly can't make myself believe. I'm not angry at God that bad things happened, I just don't know why He won't help me to believe the others inside so that we can all get along and integrate. I know it's my fault that the walls are still up between us. Until I can find a way to believe them we will always be separated and that is not my desire.