Losing Five Years
My name is Carol and I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. Five years ago, my counselor informed that I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short. It was a very stressful time in my life. I was going through a divorce from Mr. Nightmare and had recently severed all contact with my stepmother.
This stepmother was someone I grew believing was my mother, but later learned otherwise. It turns out that I am my father’s bastard, born of an affair between him and his wife’s twin sister. As a result, my stepmother has hated me from day one. She tortured and abused me. With my birth mother halfway around the world in Vietnam where I was born, my hate filled stepmother was the only mother I knew.
Looking back, I realize that my counselor either knew or strongly suspected that I had DID way before he ever broke the news to me. In the instant that he told me, I could feel myself slipping away from my body. Time lost all meaning and I felt like I was drifting deep in the safety of my inner world. That inner world was a world that I created to escape the rampant torture and rapes that were inflicted upon me as a small child.
Shame Trigger
What went wrong so that I dissociated for five years without my knowledge or consent? All I can remember is the overwhelming shame and brokenness that I felt. I now realize that parts can influence how I see the world and flood me with their feelings without fully dissociating me. So were those my feelings or was I overwhelmed by the feelings of one of my parts?
Despite my world standing still, time marched on and the world kept spinning without me. My parts did what my parts were designed to do. They took over in my absence while I stewed in a shame spiral that took me to a very dark and lonely place deep inside my mind. I wasn’t left completely in the dark though. I was vaguely aware of most things, but I just wasn’t in control of my body. At the three year mark, I came back long enough to ask questions to try to figure out how much time I had lost, but was quickly put back into dissociation yet again.
For two more years, I fought to come back. I only succeeded when I was finally able to set down the shame of having DID. I worried that feeling shame could trigger yet another bout of dissociation so I worked furiously to publicly own my diagnosis of DID to try to prevent losing more time. I started writing about it in my blog, my Facebook page, and my YouTube channel. While I can’t stop my parts from dissociating me if they want to, I refuse to go down without a fight.
What Went Wrong
I can’t fix what I don’t understand so I need to get to the bottom of this. Borrowing from Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS), I asked questions. Which of my parts thought I had to be protected from feeling shame? What was this part afraid would happen if she didn’t protect me?
My former critical part known as Grace acknowledged that she is the one who dissociated me. She once used self-criticism to avoid being shamed by our stepmother, but swore to never be self-critical again after learning that she was hurting us with it. I realize now that I stripped her of her primary weapon for keeping us safe from being shamed, but she still carried the same responsibility to protect us. With no other way to save us, she went straight to dissociation.
Grace dissociated me for five years because she viewed my shame as life threatening if left unchecked. Five freaking years. She knows that my last shame spiral led to me having a shotgun in my mouth. She loves me and wants to protect me. I truly appreciate having her on my side.
Processing Shame
Healing will require that I deal with traumatic and shameful things I would rather stay in denial about. My parts deserve that healing. I deserve that healing. So how do I give myself the room to process that trauma and that shame without being locked away in a dissociative prison for my own protection?
I asked Grace to stand down so I can work through those hard emotions without being involuntarily dissociated again. Before she could answer, I was immediately hit with a splitting headache and my heart pounded so hard that it felt like I was having a panic attack. A wave of pure primal fear hit me so hard and fast that it left me staggering.
This time, I got the message loud and clear. I was messing around with things that were beyond my understanding. It turns out that me and my parts have a lot in common. They won’t go down without a fight either.
Healing Help
I believe IFS will be great method to help me heal, but I will need help and guidance. It gives me hope that I am not broken beyond repair. My mind is my most powerful weapon in my fight for survival. Now I just need to figure out how to go from surviving to thriving.
I know I have so much work to do. Accepting my diagnosis of DID is only the first step. Now the real work of healing begins. To say that I am terrified is an understatement.
I am grateful that I have a counselor who hasn’t given up on me, who didn’t throw in the towel when things got tough or when progress was slow to none. Thank you to my counselor Jay. You saved my life. I truly hope God will grant me the honor of being able to humbly serve in kind and pay it forward in his name.
Thank You
One thing I would like for people to remember is that people who are diagnosed with DID have truly suffered repeated, inescapable traumatic rape and abuse starting at a very young age with those crimes being committed by the very same caretakers who were supposed to love and protect them.
The people who would normally seek justice and provide mental health support to that young terrorized child have a vested interest in hiding their crimes. Due to this, people who grow up to be diagnosed with DID are revictimized when outsiders choose to believe the denials of the perpetrators over the suffering of their victims. It’s easier to believe a convenient lie than a harsh truth. This leaves the victims to suffer a chronic and profound lack of meaningful compassion and support. The family that a person would normally turn to for love and support shun and disown the victim for exposing the truth.
I truly hope that reading about my story encourages more people to have compassion for those who struggle with DID. I also hope that more people go into the field of mental health services with a mind to help people like myself who are desperate for healing.
Thank you so much for reading to the end. It means so much to me that there are people in the world who care. Click the links below if you want to follow me on Facebook or YouTube. I truly appreciate your interest and your support.