Can DID form on its own without abuse?

My mother and I got into a nasty spat and she said that I "created" this problem when I was a child. That from birth I've always been messed up.

Is this gaslighting?


I know that I've always had issues but I know that they stem from home and bullying. I have no idea if I could be born with DID.

Is that possible?

No, you can not be born with DID. You are born with different, seperate ego states such as „i‘m hungry“ „i need comfort“ „i need to sleep“, as you age and make experiences those ego states normally merge together and become one personality. DID happens when this integration is disturbed by severe trauma before the age of 6-9. If you have DID, then something traumatic happened to you, I‘m afraid. But if you have DID, you might not know about any trauma as other personalities might keep those memories.

Regarding your mother, I am sorry she reacted that way, does she understand how DID develops? If not explaining it might help her understand that this is very much NOT your fault but a defense mechanism your brain developed for dealing with a terrible situation.

DID doesn‘t only stem from abuse, any trauma in childhood might cause it. A list of traumas (*TRIGGER WARNING MENTION OF TRAUMA TYPES*) witnessing domestic abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, rape, neglect, physical abuse, natural disasters, imprisonment, car accident, near-death-experiences... (*END OF TRIGGER WARNING*), now the list goes on and on, but know that you are in no way responsible for your DID and your mother should try to understand that aswell.

all the best

You can't "create" something after birth and have it from birth. That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I'd call that gaslighting.

Also, what lartiste said.

A few things come to mind.

DID comes from (early childhood) trauma, which can be caused by abuse, but trauma can come from other things too, as lartiste pointed out.

We'll also add, emotional neglect is another big one. A child's physical needs can be met while their emotional needs are neglected, and that is traumatic.

Trauma is also subjective, so what one child finds traumatizing, another might not.

Since DID forms in early childhood, families or caregivers often play a big part in this. It's a huge oversimplification but we've read "DID = bad family".

Sounds to us like your mother is trying to blame you for something that is not and cannot be your fault.

Some researchers do suggest that in some cases DID results from causes other than overt parental abuse: medical trauma, severe neglect (especially neglect enabling abuse by other persons), a caregiver who is very frightening or frightened. But many of these other causes point to inadequate parental care.

In some cases parental care is recognized to be inadequate only in hindsight; at the time it seemed adequate. All kinds of things used to be done routinely to infants and young children, and considered acceptable at the time, that now are considered to be abusive.

Natural disasters, war, genocide can be extremely traumatizing, and in studies of holocaust survivor families there is emerging evidence of familial transmission of vicarious trauma.

Anyway, don't play a "hot potato game" where someone has to hold the blame: if not you then your mother, if not your mother then you. Do you see how that works? Let the hot potato drop to the ground, let go of the blame and the blameshifting, and cherish one another.

Some children are born with nervous systems that are more sensitive than average. They may be more challenging to care for when they are very young because everything effects them more intensively, but that doesn't mean they are flawed. It means they're more sensitive to the environment around them. Things effect them more deeply. They need more time or support to process information because their minds absorb more. Some parents cannot handle the child's needs and blame them. DID is a creative adaptation to unbearable circumstances.

WeAreOne420 wrote:My mother and I got into a nasty spat and she said that I "created" this problem when I was a child. That from birth I've always been messed up.

Is this gaslighting?


I know that I've always had issues but I know that they stem from home and bullying. I have no idea if I could be born with DID.

Is that possible?

I'm not sure what gaslighting means in this context? (thought it had something to do with' fracking' when companies dig for oil!)

However dissociation can be caused by other conditions which could in turn lead to you developing alters to be able to cope. Autism would be an example where the brain is wired differently to start so childhood experiences considered 'normal' to most maybe processed by the autistic child as 'traumatic', especially if there's no escape eg constant sensory overload due to severely sensitive hearing or other processing issues (inc visual and tactile processing).

I read somewhere a person who had childhood disrupted constantly due to medical testing/conditions ie frequent hospitalisation or conditions like epilepsy that could cause periods of memory loss can make you more likely to develop symptoms of dissociation or depersonalisation etc.

My worse periods of dissociation and memory loss coincide with being on medication for epilepsy at those times, but I also have autism.

I never suffered from abuse at the hands of my parents, but I did get badly bullied/made fun of on a daily basis throughout my school years (particuarly secondary school 11-16), which didn't particuarly help with all my already compromised ability to relate to people and learn social rules to fit in!

DID is always caused by trauma. Even with autistic children and hyper senses, their experiences are traumatic to them. They do not understand if painful things or other sensory overload stuff is done to them or happens to them because it's normal to other people, or with vicious meaning. Later on in life, when you process the trauma, it is a different thing tho to understand no one meant to hurt you. It still doesn't mean it's somehow their own fault, they didn't choose to be traumatized.

I know my parents didn't mean to hurt me. They treated us better than they themselves were treated as kids. Because of lack of care in their own lives, they understood nothing about children's emotional needs tho, they understood food. And we had plenty of treats always. It wasn't enough, so we grew up to be traumatized anyway. And now we don't interact with my parents anymore, since they lack boundaries so badly, and I do too. I can try again after I'm stronger, if I still then want to.

My mom is thinking now Sami is some bad guy taking over my life and stealing her daughter from her. I explained that is not how this works thousand times to her before he did anything, but they understand what they choose to understand, and some people learn only what they are ready to learn. And even that only if they want to. In our case it's not that bad, Sami doesn't mind to be the bad guy, it's me that gets annoyed when people don't get things explained to them. If they'd wanna, they could do their own research. But they choose not to. It's their choice, and our job is to understand what it means they choose not to. Your job is to understand what your mom is doing to you now, and make your own moves based on that reality.

DID is what severe emotional trauma does to brains. If your mom chooses to blame you, it's the lamest excuse. It only means she doesn't have anyone else to blame, so she tries to attack you and save her ass with it. Things are only traumatic if there is no way out of it, other than dissociation. People don't create DID in response to normal development. I can not tell if she's manipulative or just scared, if she's full blown abuser or victim herself too, you know her better. She's still talking full bs and choosing ignorance and attack over learning and understanding. You don't have to listen to people like that. You do know it, do you? That's when you walk out of their house, end the phone call or what ever you were using to have a connect. You don't have to bring any evidence to them. Your job is to take care of you, all of you, and that's it. Your parents need to deal with their own guilt themselves.