How do you deal with feelings of having DID when your siblings don’t seem to have it?  And what if you remember things that they don’t?
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
having DID when my siblings don’t… that’s one i’ve thought about. sometimes, i hear this voice in my head saying, “well, it couldn’t have been *that* bad, since none of your siblings have DID, and if it comes from trauma….”
but then, a more rational thought intercedes.
first, there is one sister who mentioned (once) about 12 years ago that her therapist had said she had DID. she never brought it up again, and my relationship with my family isn’t the kind where i’d feel safe mentioning it, because i don’t trust that it wouldn’t get used against me.
but more than that, my siblings *do* all have the aftereffects of abuse, just not DID. there are ones who are borderline, there are alcoholics, there are ones who live lives that are just full of dysfunction. pretty much all of them, to one degree or another.
but with DID? i got to be functional for a long time, and hopefully will get to be functional again. i made it through college. i’m in a stable, healthy relationship (yes, a stable, healthy relationship can include couples’ counseling, despite so many people who hear we’re in couples’ counseling and assume that our relationship is falling apart!).
what DID did for me was giving me an ability to cope without having to do drugs, or act out in dangerous ways. it allowed me to have parts who were able to create a really safe, healthy life for myself. and it seems like the chaos and disruption of things kind of falling apart haven’t been able to mess up that safe, healthy life.
as for remembering things the others don’t, or remembering differently, i tend to be the one in the family who doesn’t remember as much, or who only remembers things vaguely. so i don’t have that as a problem so much anyways. there are things i do remember, but i don’t talk about them, because i just don’t trust my family much. and we’re not the kind of family where others talk about things that much. sometimes, someone will, and there’s this mix of denial and recognition, but my relationship with my siblings isn’t the kind where i’d bring the stuff up with them. it’s just not safe for me, and we don’t talk often enough that they’d bring it up with me.
My experience has been similar to yours. My siblings have been diagnosed with complex PTSD and dissociative issues. They also have dysfunction in most areas of their lives. We do talk about it some, though. One sibling remembers everything. Two of us remember very little other than what we have in flashbacks and other trigger related things. Family is hard. It’s triggering a lot of the time and interactions are not always remembered by us at all. We keep hoping someday a family might actually exist, a real one with kids who have recovered and healed and the rest of what goes with a family. The kids don’t much talk to one another unless there is a big issue going on. We’re kind of like people who only know how to be a family and support one another when something challenging is going on. We’re awesome for one another in a challenge but we don’t know how to interact with the good things. No one knows anything about the other’s lives except in those instances where we have challenges. We hope some day all the kids can share their lives in good things and learn about full relationships not trauma relationships.