Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

When I decided I wanted to be an author and be out in the world as a pseudo-public figure, at least in some small way, I realized I would have to make a big decision. Do I hide one of my greatest secrets? One that impacts my life and my art more than any other aspect of me. Or do I stop hiding so that people can actually see who I really am? So that maybe I can help others like me feel seen, or help those who are different understand a little more? Well, I made the decision, a terrifying one. It’s an extremely vulnerable thing for me to do, but I feel I have to share it.

I have DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder.

It means my mind is split into separate personalities. I call them my parts. I prefer that term to alters, but it’s just what I am used to. Often, my disorder becomes a spectacle. It’s stigmatized. When it’s portrayed in the media, people like me are treated like we are dangerous. We’re not. As I write this, I’m a little stilted, less personable than I might like to be, and that’s because I’m terrified. I don’t know how to write something like this without being vulnerable. I hide this from acquaintances, yet I’m outing myself to the internet?

It feels strange.

DID is an odd thing to me. How do I explain my experience? DID, which varies depending on the person, is an amalgamation of personality to me. It’s confusing, it’s messy, it’s rarely very clear to me “who I am” or quite how I feel. It flips quickly and what feels like, with no warning. It’s blendy, and it’s strange, it’s subtle and distinct, beautiful and frustrating.

I always felt like I was a story and not a character. I wasn’t sure what that meant until one day it clicked. I’m not really just one person. I’m a collection of parts with their own set of beliefs, mannerisms, and feelings. Many are scared that I am being so vulnerable as to share this, while others feel like hiding is a painful cage. Some of us hope our stories reach people like us and make them feel seen. Others wish to undo the stigma against people like me. A lot of my parts are frightened that I will be called fake and be hurt like when I was abused in childhood. Because yes, having DID means carrying a history of childhood trauma, and like anyone else with DID, I’m not without my scars.

But I’m going to talk to everyone and to no one. I’ll talk to myself (which I’m good at) and maybe one day it will do some good. I figure I would start here, with the strange core of who I am, of who we (the Aetherias system) are.

Yeah, that’s where we got our name. Though day by day when we talk to people and don’t want to share (or don’t know) our individual names, we go by Aether. See, our birth name doesn’t quite sit with most of us. The part that claims that name isn’t around too often and so we came up with a name for the body to use. It’s fair, because it’s no one's name and yet it’s all of ours.

So hello! We’re Aether aka Aetherias Moon.

I won’t deny that this will meander, but it will at least be honest. (I think this idea is stupid - angry part). I’m shying away from names because we are still very sensitive about them. I won’t make any of my parts share their name if they aren’t comfortable. The person writing now is Esme, and it’s nice to write to the world, to spread my name like stretching my toes in the sand for the first time.

To be honest, I’m scared and unsure why anyone would want to read this. Or really anything that we write at all. I’m kind of hoping this never sees the light of day -Luna.

I like how we say we won't share names and then immediately do, one after another -Wraithe

I’m not sure how to write something like this. What’s hard about writing with DID is the fear that everything will disappear. Sometimes you won’t be around for a project you started on, or by the time it's over, you’ve changed completely. Sometimes, while writing, you aren’t sure how to do it. You feel fake and wrong, it’s messy like you…but also sometimes, for once in your life, everything makes sense. You can't control yourself, but you can control what's on the page. If you mess up, you can go back and right the world. It’s peaceful and nice. Except when you become scared of writing. When you forget yourself.

I wonder if we’ll be brave enough to post this. Or more likely, some part will get excited and post this and the rest of us will live with the horrors that this is out in the world. This vulnerable piece of us. Because writing is always collaborative and an exploration of ourselves. It’s a space for us to exist when we can’t exist in the real world (even though we can). For us, when it’s going well, to write with DID is to finally feel some peace. One day maybe we’ll wrangle our system together enough that things are less messy and incomplete, but for now our writing is where we can put something together that makes sense. Because our head is just too confusing.

Not that we hate our DID, I don’t want it to come off that way. I love the joking, the camaraderie that I have at times, but I wish someone could come into my brain and make sense of everything for me. I just want peace. I want things to be clear.

One day we’ll get there.

Living with DID is hard. We don’t understand ourselves. The confusion is the worst part…outside of the trauma and PTSD. I don’t like not knowing who I am or not remembering my day. I don’t like the pain from the migraine's switching causes or the disorientation of dissociation. It’s like being so unfocused that we’re lightheaded. Sometimes, it feels like the inside of our mind is a vast, unlit ocean where our identities hide. Other times, things are as clear as day as we wander through a meadow and chat to one another.

We were diagnosed back in early 2022 and we suspected it in the summer of 2021, but even three years later, we are still trying to make sense of ourselves. We are scared to put ourselves out there because we don’t know what’s going on inside ourselves. Who we are is a blurry mess. We’re confused and a little frightened, but we’ve decided not to hide anymore. We aren’t far enough along in our journey of healing where we feel capable of unmasking all the time. Sometimes we pretend we don’t have it, other times we are in denial of having it.

Despite that, I know we are strong and capable. Even though some of my parts are frightened and traumatized, they carry their own strength. I know that even though we are still confused that we can start this journey.

Kira is here, and he is very anxious. He doesn’t like that I’m writing this or that I plan on sharing it with the world. The system has already come to a consensus about us doing this, but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy. Some parts get overruled by the majority and they have to live with decisions that others have made. They will have to live with the ramifications of my actions, and that doesn’t really seem fair. We can’t do anything about it though. We can only do our best to compromise.

Mina is telling me that this is a waste of time. That it’s embarrassing that I’m writing this, and that I’m also a bad writer (don’t listen to her).

Their anxiety and negativity are being shared with me. This is called passive influence, and it's difficult to manage. It’s part of our blendiness as a system. Our feelings seem to bleed and mix like a watercolor painting, rippling out and changing each other's colors.

Then there is more direct communication.

People are going to say that we don’t have DID -Kira

That’s cause we don’t -Mina

You’re literally talking to me right now! -Nirina

This is so embarrassing -Kira

It’s educational -Esme

Stop recording what we are saying! -Kira

Things like that. Sometimes I hear it in my head and other times we have to sit down and write it out. Sometimes I say it’s like I’m a medium except all the ghosts are just…me. It’s a silly metaphor.

I don’t feel qualified to educate you on DID as a whole. I’ll leave sources down below if you would like to get to know more about people like me, but as for this post I’m just telling you about what my DID looks like. DID and OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder) can look different depending on the person. So, my singlet friends out there (aka people who don't have DID) don’t assume that everyone with DID is like me. For my system friends out there (people with DID), I may differ from you in some ways, but I hope hearing from me is at least somewhat cathartic.

To be honest, my experiences with DID is something that is too big to cover in a single blog post. A single, terrifying post, that will likely never feel complete or good enough. See, I’m blurry now. Who even knows whose feelings these were (likely mine-Kira)? I only wish to be as honest as I can about who I am. About who we are.

I think it’s important for me to be open about my struggles. As an artist, we put all of ourselves into our work. DID is a huge part of our existence. It completely filters how we perceive and act in this world. How could we not let the world know about our truth? I won’t deny that it’s not an easy thing to do, but here I am.

Here we are.

-Aetherias Moon (The Aetherias System)