Circles of trust

Hi everyone, I’m new to the forum and am looking forward to linking in with people who understand trauma and DID. A quick bio: I’m married, have one child and have been on leave from work for over a year due to my mental health. I’ve been diagnosed with complex PTSD and major depression. I’m on meds for these and go to treatment once per week.

I’ve recently been diagnosed with DID and I’m questioning and doubting myself. The other 2 conditions were diagnosed 8 years ago. I’ve been hospitalised 3 times during this period and a diagnosis happens now? I feel confused so did some research after my diagnosis. This is why I’m confused. I have these circles of trust - I’ve called them that forever. Each circle of trust has a role to play in supporting me to function at a high level. To me it’s like the circles can change or become the most dominant, depending on the circumstances. I have a protector (big on wiping memories on the fly), a persecutor, what I call a joker and a small dark unknown circle cut off from everything. I’m scared of what is filed there.
I read other’s stories and they have such specific names and details for alters. I don’t have that and feel as though the whole thing has been hidden for a very long time. Did anyone else experience similar - I.e not knowing the names or gender or alters to begin with? I just thought I had those shifting roles in my head. I will buy clothes and not recognise them, get lost going to a place I’ve been to a million times. My husband has said for years that it’s really eerie: I sit up in bed and start having fluent intelligible conversations while still asleep. He said the conversations are so clear he wakes up thinking I’m talking to him. But it’s all going down when I sleep. Lately I’ve had insomnia a thousand times worse and when I doze off, I wake up startled and feel disoriented.

I have a lot more to add but I’m blanking our. I’m just really interested if anyone else has had similar and can share their story with me? Because I don’t have names and the whole thing has been covert for such a long time, it’s easily hidden from me. And others.

**trigger alert - self harm**

At the beginning of the week I had overwhelming triggers. I think I felt sad but ended up in front of the mirror, looking at my face and yelling really unpleasant insults directed to me. I then beat my face with my fists until my eyes and cheek bones were swollen. I woke up the next morning and felt like a new person. I was completely different. Until bedtime when I keep waking up disoriented and super uncomfortable mentally.

^*end of trigger material**

I’m really looking forward to being part of this community and finding a connection I seem to need so much at the moment. ☺️

hello

it is very common to not have much detail about an alter or even all of your alters

as for not knowing about the DID until now... the disorder develops to go unnoticed. it is safer for it to be hidden even from the mind that has DID. Sometimes people don't know about it until their 70s even. For us, some of our parts are very unknown to us, vague or only a few details, or even if we know them for awhile and then they retreat, it is hard to tell if they are still the same as they were when we saw them regularly.

two crows

Hi there,
Situation normal.
You pretty much describe the classic process of discovering DID.

Like SeveralCrows said, DID is meant to be a hidden disorder. It can also be a very confusing and blurry experience. In the media and online, there are systems who present differently to that, but it's actually not the common experience described in the literature.

Online, there is also an element of group pressure to it. People are less likely to admit their experiences are vague and confusing, that they don't have words for things, that it isn't always clear-cut "who" is there at a given time.

It is also very normal to have denial, even with a professional diagnosis. I still fall into that sometimes, even though I've worked with alters for years by now. Another explanation is desirable. No one wants to have childhood trauma. There is also a misconception that this trauma would have to have been Extremely awful, while in fact it merely must have pervasively occurred when a person is very young, and support was lacking.

Welcome on this site. It is largely supportive and helpful for many people.

we read a lot of literature for therapists and they have a lot of case examples.
it is very common in these examples that parts don't have an obvious name. the part who is working with the therapist often gives them nicknames like 'The Sad Girl' or 'The Frozen Ball Inside' or sometimes name them after their attutide like 'Total Surrender' or 'I Don't care'. It would totally fit in to call a part 'The Dark Circle'. It is not rare for parts to pick a name later.
There is no need to know a name or have a distinctive idea of your parts to be able to work with what is going on inside. It is actually more important to work with what really is inside, just the way it is, than trying to make it match any idea we got how DID has to look like. I didn't believe I had DID for a long time because it didn't look like the DID I saw in the media. Now I understand it looks different for everyone and the media (and many social media platforms) or not a good representation.
as Fireheart said, what you describe sounds rather classic