And, so now its time to pause and learn a little about whats wrong with me. i have dissociative identity disorder, DID for short. This used to be called multiple personality disorder, and that is much more descriptive if a bit misleading. Let me try to give you an extremely brief overview.DID is usually caused by severe and continuous child abuse. It generally cannot developed after age five or so. To put it in layman's terms, the conditions usually have to be: a fairly intelligent young child with a life that is unbearable and inescapable. The child creates an escape hatch in their own mind by creating alternate states of consciousness. These "alters" protect the child by allowing them to escape the abuse for a period of time and keeping them from remembering things that would make life too frightening and hopeless.From what i can tell (with the help of those lovely mental heal professionals and J, who actually is usually a lot more help) i developed this condition around the age of 3. For as long as i can remember i have lost time, been told i did things i had no memory of doing, and been told i called myself by different names and not remembered doing so. i didn't actually get my diagnosis until i was 21 years old. J had an inkling before that, but i was stubborn and wouldn't believe him.i have over 100 waking parts. Fragments of a life shattered over and over. The ages of those parts vary from 2 to 42. A few parts age, but the great majority do not. A three year old is three forever. Forever trapped in the trauma that caused my child's mind to create it. By far and large the most of my parts are in one of two age ranges. They are either very young children (ages 3 to 8) or very young teens(ages 11 to 14.) i know i have lost many of you. Maybe even most of you. For a variety of reasons. Its complicated, it sounds like science fiction, the stigma attached to mental illness, blah blah blah. It doesn't matter. We cannot continue this story until you understand that there were parts of me that were (and are) still children.And, to be honest... there is one other reason you, my faithful readers who have made it this far, should know all of this. i try to tell these stories with as much detachment as i can. If i let every little thing destroy me, i'll never get it all told. But, it did and does affect me. Greatly.
