Talk about your thoughts related to being ‘out’ as a DID person, or coming ‘out’.
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
Talk about your thoughts related to being ‘out’ as a DID person, or coming ‘out’.
i think this one is complicated. i’m “out” to a lot of the people in my day-to-day life, like friends and my partner. this is mostly because 1, i trust them to be safe people to tell, and 2, because it’s important to me that the people in my life know what’s going on with me. also, there’s the fact that they are close enough to know *something* is going on, and i make a lot more sense to them when they know that it’s multiple personalities, since they’re already familiar with better-known mental illnesses. so in a way, telling them about me having DID/MPD is partly a way of explaining why the things they’re familiar with doing for mental illness aren’t going to work the same way with me.
i’m also pretty out online, because i don’t use my real name, and it feels pretty safe to do it. i mean, if someone knew me, and found my websites or other things i’ve posted online, they would probably have an easy time figuring out that it’s me, but it’s not something that would let someone who *doesn’t* know me figure out who i am.
as for being “out” with, say, my family, or with total strangers… that’s more complicated. i don’t go around coming out to everyone, for a lot of different reasons. partly, it’s because i’m nervous about doing it. partly, it’s because it’s something that’s more personal than i usually get with people i don’t know well. and partly, it’s that i’m afraid of the reactions. and probably other reasons, but those are the ones that come to mind.
at the same time, i do have the button for DID/MPD awareness, and i keep it on my backpack. i figure, if someone asks me about it, and i don’t feel like telling them what it really is, i can just say it’s for “multiple issues,” which is also true. i mean… right? i *do* have “multiple issues.” 😉
but i wear it in part so that if people already know what the ribbon means, then they will know they aren’t the only person there who is multiple, or who supports someone who is. and i think that’s one of the big reasons this disorder is so hard to cope with, because it’s so easily hidden, and then we feel like we’re the only people who have it.
but at the same time, i’ve read that as many as 1% of the population has DID/MPD, which is a LOT of people. it’s just that most of us aren’t out about it, and we hide what’s happening. so it’s possible that we pass people who are multiple every single day, but we just don’t know that’s going on. and maybe we’d feel less ashamed and worried about what would happen when we came out if more people were coming out, and if we knew we weren’t alone.
so i figure having some small symbol we wear means that at least we’ll know when there’s someone else around us who is dealing with some of the same issues.
Not out much. We have one friend who knows about “us” but she has her own issues (bipolar and borderline) and rarely ever calls back if we call. We also see the same T so it causes problems sometimes.
T told me last night we’re going to make a good therapist some day because we have been through so much. We’re in school majoring in psych. Please don’t laugh. We love it and do well and have a 4.0, but being a psychologist is WAY off, years off in the future.