It’s hard for DID people to find others who can relate to them. This can lead to isolation. Talk about your issues of isolation and why you have become isolated at one time or another (if you have at all).
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
there is nobody where i live, to my knowledge,with this. no support groups. so all i want/need to do is “come out”. cant trust most people though.
we have experienced the “i feel so alone yet we’re standing in the middle of a crowd of people (inside and outside)” type of alone-ness alot. we have been around lots of people during several parts of our life – yet rarely have felt understood or known.
very thankful for the few people who have been able to reach inside and find us. who weren’t scared to look us in the eye and see who we really were.
there are some people we trust now – and who really know us. it’s an amazing feeling to feel like we can be ourselves around certain people and at certain times.
i’ve been thinking about isolation a lot, and i think for me a lot of it goes back to family. what i learned growing up was to isolate and to be isolated. it was like i was taught that there were things i couldn’t talk about. my mom even did a lot to foster isolation between siblings. my younger sister and i were talking about that recently, and really marveling at the ways we didn’t even really notice it happening, but how we were kept apart, both emotionally (within a fairly small house, literally).
but at the same time, there are things my family did unintentionally that made it easier for me to be less isolated as a multiple now that i’m an adult. most of the stuff about multiplicity was so normalized for me that it didn’t occur to me to hide it happening, because i assumed it was just how people were. and for all the messed up things about my family, they have always been good about accepting weirdness, which means that even though i haven’t told them i’m multiple, they are accustomed to me doing things because of little kid parts.
for me, learning to break out of the isolation has been about learning to build trust with people. i’ve been lucky, in that there are about a dozen people, or more, that i know in person who know i’m multiple. it’s not the center of our relationship, and with a lot of them i haven’t even talked about it, but it’s not something i feel like i have to hide, which makes it easier for me to be less isolated.
but even after 17 years of working against isolation and learning to open up to people, i’m only just beginning to be able to do that.
as for other multiples… that’s one that’s frustrating for me. it’s why i made the did/mpd ribbon and awareness stuff, because i feel like there have got to be a ton of multiples out there who just think they’re the only one, and if there were a ribbon or something, maybe we’d notice it on someone else, and feel less alone.
i didnt discover that i was multiple utill 1988, (in the army,) and it wasnt until about 4 years ago that i was able to start learning about this. i started by picking up a book at the library. up till that moment, if i had tried to pick up that book, i would have had a complete switch and walked right out of there. there was always an unspoken threat; i would never be allowed to learn more. maybe they feard that i would intergrate them, effectivly killing them. and 2 days ago i saw the ribbon on the website. i geuss im finaly at a point where im ready to be aware of other multiples. but i wonder how many people are like i used to be. trapped. held hostage by there own parts?
I used to feel hostage to them and my relationship with them was a bit hostile. Or, more like – ignoring them and trying to pretend they weren’t really there. I suppose that would be denial. Anyway – then every time they came out I got frustrated and upset at the fact that I couldn’t seem to control it/them. I couldn’t not shift. I tried for 3 years to NOT shift…. ha! – ya, that worked really well – or not. I felt afraid to be too involved with the world because I might shift at the wrong time, etc. So ya – I guess I felt hostage to them.
Since I’ve accepted their existence, and begun working on actually acknowledging them – things have been better. And I don’t feel like such a hostage. Now it’s more of a – hmmm – working relationship? If I feel a pull to do something or hear them wanting something, I actually try to listen and see what we can do to make it happen – assuming it’s not hurtful to anyone including ourselves. So we might negotiate and come up with a time for so-and-so to do the thing they wanna do.
My life is much less chaotic this way. Accepting my “aliens”. And – its much less isolated. I’m out in the world quite a bit more now because I’m not afraid of shifting at the wrong times. Also – finding others like me/us – was a God send. Just to meet them and know they exist was/is profound for me. …. I’m never really alone – there are others like me… wow
Oh – and books. Stories of others like me. Those have been invaluable too. Its like finding a new friend every time I read another story of a dissociative person. That’s been great too. We are definitely not alone.
I feel isolated right now. Because im not co present at the moment.
it’s quite a paradox for me, this isolatiion. I often long for solitude just so I can relax and relieve the stress of being with others. At the same time part of me cries out for the company of these same people whom I have isolated myself from so that I will not feel so alone. Achieving balance between these 2 opposing needs is an art that I will continually struggle to master.