Do you have DID-dar?

I was old enough to be a grandmother myself before anyone in my family informed me of our multi-generational history of father-daughter incest. The things done to my grandmother, that she kept secret until near the end of her life...! She imagined she was the only victim until she began sharing her secrets and others shared their own secrets. It explains so much. It explains why, when I told my parents some of what had been done to me, they turned away and pretended I had not spoken and left me alone in my fear and shame.

Denial is a mental illness.

So anyway, let's get back to the original topic of this thread. Do you recognize DID in others when you first meet them? What is it that gives them away?

I started this thread over 2 years ago. At that point in time my own diagnosis and awareness of DID in general was still new. And I was astounded to be discovering more and more multiples around me. Since then, this has become such a frequent event that I no longer am surprised by it. Now I am just astounded that I never knew this about other people before. How could I have been so unaware?

For me the first clue that someone is a multiple usually is an energetic quality about the person, not any observable behavior. Their energy often manifests in me in the form of a visual hallucination. The other person suddenly appears to change in some dramatic and physically impossible way. I am aware it is just a hallucination, meaning that I know it is my own subjective experience and other people cannot see what I see, but wow the things I see...

For me the first clue that someone is a multiple usually is an energetic quality about the person, not any observable behavior. Their energy often manifests in me in the form of a visual hallucination. The other person suddenly appears to change in some dramatic and physically impossible way. I am aware it is just a hallucination, meaning that I know it is my own subjective experience and other people cannot see what I see, but wow the things I see...

I find that with a small handful of people, my minds eye has more than one perception of their persona, but with most people this is singular.

Has anybody ever detected DID in a therapist? I read a report of a study that found the prevalence is the same as in the general community and that such therapists accounted for about 60% of boundary violations in a sample. I shall try and did up that paper.

Yes I have detected DID in a therapist. I saw her insiders mocking me and I don't think she was even aware of this happening. I don't think a person with unhealed DID like hers has any business being a therapist.

I have detected DID in a therapist. This therapist later spontaneously disclosed having DDNOS but denied having DID, claiming to be fully co-conscious. (Um, no.) I have also been informed by more than one other therapists that they and/or certain colleagues have DID. Some contributors here on the DID Forum, who just like most of us are in the process of discovering their DID and beginning treatment for it, are established therapists.

From what I have read and my personal experience, an aware multiple has the potential to be a safe and phenomenally effective therapist. An UNaware multiple has the potential to be a serious risk to his/her clients, but this is not necessarily the case.

From what I have read, DID may be more prevalent among therapists than in the general population.

Very thought engaging topic. I do seem to have a radar for it, although i only met one person about whom i really felt they have DID. The insider to insider communication is mind blowing and it took a while getting used to.

Have you always have this DID-dar? Or was it switched on after realizing you had DID?

For me it was always there but i became aware of it when i learned i had DID. It also made more sense, until then it was very confusing and a little frustrating.

Seangel wrote:Have you always have this DID-dar? Or was it switched on after realizing you had DID?

Somewhere in between? DID is not rare, so in the past I must have interacted with many people with DID and not noticed. As I said before in this thread, it was contact with a multiple that caused me to become aware of my own DID. Not only was he strange, but we resonated. We were somehow alike.

By many accounts the awareness of DID in another person develops with experience.