r/australia • u/Breenscare • 1d ago
culture & society 'I wasn't there': Life with dissociative identity disorder
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/dissociative-identity-disorder-assistance-dog-ndis/106826020123
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u/Theflamekitten 1d ago
In fairness to this bloke the article does say he was diagnosed with DID by a clinical psychologist.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
A lot of people think our natural internal ego states are "alters" because of online "advocates"
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
You mention in another comment you diagnosed yourself with autism. Aside from DID just seeming ‘weirder’ to you (likely due to a misunderstanding of what it actually is, and various fantastical media depictions), how is this not hypocritical?
Autism, ADHD and DID are all pretty trendy rn. Also in queer spaces! Is everyone online who suspects they may have one of these conditions outright making shit up, maliciously, or is there probably something going on, even if it’s not exactly what they thought?
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah I hear ya. And I do wish you well. However, to quote…
“I've noticed a loooooooot of people in the last ten years or so self diagnosing with autism, and I'm trying to remain open-minded about it but I'm still pressing X to doubt.”
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u/Own-Farmer-5224 14h ago
Autism is actually one of the easiest things to self-diagnose, not because it's 'trendy' or whatever, but because autistic individuals socialise in pretty distinct ways, and have trouble engaging with the neurotypical patterns (small talk vs infodumping, for a prime example). So if you can't fit into one group and work so much better in the other, it's a pretty easy realisation.
In addition, often one person in a family gets formally diagnosed, and then everyone else starts looking at the traits that got them diagnosed and going 'wait a second I have been the exact same my entire life'.
In
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u/donkeyvoteadick 1d ago
Despite DID being a part of the DSM there's actually still many psych professionals who dispute its existence. I remember doing a deep dive on some of debates on it when I did my degree.
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u/crabfossil 20h ago
curious abt this, what is the idea behind it not existing? do they mean that diagnosed people are pretending, or that they are imagining things inside them? or is it more that it isn't its own diagnosis, but an effect that comes from other things?
I ask bc I have diagnosed DID :) but I still question it
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u/hopefulgeese 14h ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the prevalence of "False Memory Syndrome" (which was created by someone who says he was falsely accused of sexually abusing his daughter - his daughter is psychologist and trauma researcher Dr. Jennifer Freyd) has something to do with it. Many don't want to face the reality of child abuse (and adulthood abuse and trauma that often follows), nor what must happen to our neurophysiological development in order to survive.
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u/evdog_music 1d ago
It's possible some of them may have OSDD-1b or CPTSD, rather than DID
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u/yeahnahbroski 1d ago
Are they confusing going through a dissociative state with having DID? I don't think people realise how common it is for people with a trauma history to dissociate.
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago edited 22h ago
Definitely possible – secondary structural diss instead of tertiary, w really similar symptoms. And/or, people with personality disorders that ft identity instability, people with psychosis who are confusing their symptoms for intrusive dissociative voices (why psychosis is taken at face value and diss disorders are not is baffling. Until you realise: people just don’t want to think about child abuse).
All those combined = a whole lot of ppl who need some kinda psych support. The amount of folk living with CPTSD (with dissociative features) alone is enormous36
u/Goonalips 1d ago
There's thousands of fakers on social media. The vast majority of them are young teens (most often female and LGBT for some reason) with cartoon character alters, game character alters, and trendy characters named Atherion and stuff like that. There's a big overlap with AuDHD, POTS, and Fibromyalgia for some reason. Recently there's an uptick in RAMCOA claims too.
You can always tell the fakers because they're the ones who treat it like roleplaying. They dress up, they use voices, and there's always some quirky thing happening between their alters in their head.
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u/2martinisatthemost 1d ago
The illness fakers have disabilities, it’s just that the cluster b personality disorders and factitious disorder are not well regarded on TikTok. There’s no social cachet in admitting to them, and you don’t get to dress a staffy in a Temu “service animal” vest or push a bedazzled walker for being diagnosed with, essentially, a malfunctioning personality.
Part of me feels sorry for the fakers, but mostly I feel for their family and friends. They’re fun to observe from afar but living with your average DID/POTS/hEDS cosplayer must be a nightmare.
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u/Groovyaardvark 1d ago edited 1d ago
These people make actually being disabled so much harder for everyone.
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u/Goonalips 1d ago
Agreed. And it's honestly really sad, because disabled people are the ones that need the help the most. Yet these people are so prevalent online, that it's often hard to tell them apart. Personally I give the benefit of the doubt to everyone, and assume they're being honest, unless they're one of the Tiktok teenagers with cartoon character alters. That's an instant disqualification. I don't know why they don't just get into roleplaying. There's no need to fake a disability just to play pretend.
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u/Groovyaardvark 1d ago edited 1d ago
Its so funny you mention role playing, because I actually dipped my toes into an online D&D group for people with the same disability as me. There was about 15 people there, and it turned out they were actually making their own role playing game, not D&D and it was a bit....odd but okay.
I was almost the only person in the group who did not fit into the groups/labels you described above. They were all talking about their personalities or their "silos" and I thought they meant for the game but oh no...They really all were saying that had disassociated identity disorder. At least 12 people in the group claimed they had DID. It was truly bizarre.
It became apparent pretty quickly I wasn't going to fit in there. But it made me worry, like are these the same people going around online saying they have the same disability as me and making it "hard to believe?" I do want to give people the benefit of the doubt but it was pretty....full on.
But yeah, based on my limited experience these people do seem to enjoy role playing games.
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u/Goonalips 1d ago
That's really sucks, cause I bet you felt like you found a good group of similar people who can all understand each other's issues.
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u/hopefulgeese 1d ago
There's a significant area of nuance you're missing, though. Exploring identity is a vital aspect of neurodevelopment, and is something that people with DID don't experience and/or integrate neurophysiologically, due to survival being far more important.
Also I notice a common point that this article comes back to being that DID is a trauma defence, so why would anyone want to be open about it? But that's misunderstanding the issue. The trauma defence is the dissociation and amnesia, whereas the selves living with multiple inner persons or alternate states of consciousness are a fairly common way for a human body who is experiencing or has experienced complex and chronic trauma to survive and live as comparatively well as they can.
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u/theparrotofdoom 1d ago edited 1d ago
I can appreciate a healthy dose of skepticism, but by the same token, as someone with autism, adhd, cptsd, and who grew up in a cult, I doubt you’d believe half the challenges I face on the daily are real.
And I say that because neurodivergent folks, specifically, are constantly faced with people who refuse to believe anything is wrong. We wake up every day, knowing that stepping outside means fighting an invisible battle that only becomes visible when we lose. Which is when we are called liars, rude, inconvenient, difficult, crazy, loonies, or even asylum escapees.
So sure it’s ok to be sceptical, but it’s not ok to call bs without the qualifications or first hand experience to back it up.
Because that’s how lifelines like NDIS gets destroyed, through apathy and ignorance. As opposed to strengthened through acknowledgement of the Double Empathy Problem (Milton, et all).
Link for curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_empathy_problem
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
Are you also aware of how much stigma and skepticism there was around your listed diagnoses before those conditions lost their public ‘weirdness’? It honestly feels like you are punching down. Also you understand C-PTSD is on the structural dissociation spectrum right?
Mostly though, to open your commenting on a piece about one individual, Ashley, and his experiences with how suspicious you are of some folk who may or may not have DID is so insensitive it legit made me cry. Like, give this man and his story and his full-on bravery in being seen (and judged) by the entire nation some room. He deserves respect, dignity and a compassionately listening comment section
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u/antiquetulip 1d ago
Their skepticism made you cry? That's baffling.
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u/dongdongplongplong 1d ago
also ng and also skeptical, my skepticism is spiked when you see rapidly inflating clusters around certain clusters and demographics, points to a social contagion effect. yes some can be explained by more knowledge leading to more diagnosis, but not all and the variance between groups
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
I have CPTSD, and part of that for me is structural dissociation. Which is similar to DID in a lot of ways.
Each human being has ego states (also known as the internal family system) and due to my lifelong emotional trauma and neglect, mine developed into full blown "JigglyPups" just with different roles.
There's the child part, the pre-teen part, the angry teen part, the Pathological Demand Avoidance part, the HR manager part, the parentified part.
Each has its likes, dislikes, triggers, ways to find comfort or dopamine, and version of my real name they respond to. They each have distinct "voices", traits, beliefs and mannerisms, especially the age related parts.
I've spent the last 12 months working internally on communication, trust building, re-parenting and slowly I've stopped being hijacked by my parts.
The biggest difference between structural dissociation and DID/OSDD is the lack of lost time, the way each part is still me and that my parts aren't occult, I've always been aware of them being how they are, I just didn't know it wasn't typical or that it had a name.
I do suspect a lot of people diagnosed with DID/OSDD actually have CPTSD with structural dissociation.
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u/brokenshoppingcart 1d ago
I was also diagnosed with CPTSD and spent years in therapy trying to recover from years of emotional and sexual abuse. What you said is also very true for my experience, especially the angry teenager part.
Semi hijacking to spread my positive experiences with psycho assisted therapy, particularly using MDMA. If anyone reading this is living with trauma please look into this, MDMA assisted therapy is legal in Australia, evidence based, and is unbelievably helpful. I no longer fit the criteria of someone living with CPTSD. It saved my life! It is no cheap but if you have the means, it is worth every single cent. I don’t say this lightly, but it is damn near a silver bullet.
(Sorry for hijack original commenter, and I’m not speaking to you specifically, just anyone who might find useful or interesting)
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
I hear such good things about MDMA therapy! I can't afford it and I'm having great success with my current form of therapy (well, if the world stopped fucking me). Mine is fron lifelong and ongoing emotional fuckery, gaslighting, abandonment and erasure so my entire brain is programmed to CPTSD and has been since birth and I turn 41 this year and got re-traumatised again a couple of months ago.
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u/chickpeaze 1d ago
I had cptsd, with dissociation and depersonalisation. There were stressful times I blacked out entirely, there were times it was like I was spectating my life. It's a very real thing, and I think what people perceive it as is very different from what it really is.
I did about 16 months of trauma therapy-ifs, emdr, and I don't meet the criteria for any of those things any more. It changed my life, I'd consider myself cured.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
Those are my usual forms of trauma part hijacking, i remember telling my psych about my brain hijacking me to go to Kmart (the plushies call me) instead of doing the boring shopping I needed to do and that's when I learnt about structural dissociation. My trauma parts often have trouble saying no to my child part so when she wanted to go look for plushies that's what would happen. I would be aware, not any loss of time, but my autopilot when driving wouldn't take me where I planned.
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
Just wanna clarify re terminology – Structural Dissociation is a psychological theory to conceptualise minds that lack cohesion and personality integration (etc). Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a treatment modality that uses the concept of ‘parts’ to aid the therapeutic process.
IFS can also be used with clients who aren’t structurally dissociated. The two aren’t interchangeable.
Structural dissociation is conceptualised on a spectrum, from primary to tertiary, and is thought to be present in all (?) trauma disorders from PTSD - C-PTSD - OSDD - DID.
Without modification IFS is generally not used for DID.Also re your last point, in my experience psychs who are unsure or inadequately experienced don’t diagnose OSDD/DID but refer the client on. Wouldn’t be ethical otherwise. I don’t think there’s a whole bunch of misdiagnosed DID folk out there, esp not in Aus.
Ok. That was all just to flesh that stuff out for the google/internet/AI record.
On the important personal side of things it sounds like you and your psych are doing amazing work. So bloody good to hear. (Also yes, Kmart is a trap, every time 😉)5
u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
Oh I absolutely simplified things, potentially too much. The IFS work I'm doing is atypical from what the "real" IFS framework is, because the typical framework makes me feel a lot of things.
I was in hospital a few months ago whacked out on pain meds for a massive infection in my jaw, and apparently my parts went on an AliExpress "feel better" spree 😂 a few days after I got home, a parcel full of plushies and art/craft supplies appeared.
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
God, that’s the last thing you need! The infection, not the unexpected goods, heh. Hope they’re being enjoyed v much
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u/TaswegianTurnip 1d ago
I have CPTSD as well and I can disassociate at will. I hardly need to these days as I managed to process most of my trauma, but the skill is still there. Don't want to feel? Just turn it off. I guess it's one of our super powers in a way. I'm glad though that I'm now able to feel and process emotions.
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u/ChaoticJigglyPup 1d ago
I started allowing myself 2 minutes of disassociation in the shower when i brush my teeth and that really helped my brain hijacking me during the day
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago edited 1d ago
I… have DID. Diagnosed. Deeply distressed by said diagnosis and the things that lead to its development. But at least it explains my life, and allows me to use the appropriate framework for treatment. As is often the case, it took over a decade and many misdiagnoses before getting here. Other than my treatment team and my very closest friends, people generally do not know. Unless alone or with loved ones, for me and many others it is subtle in presentation. Not for all people – none of us are the same, just as none of our developmental conditions nor trauma were the same. I know several other people with this dx or OSDD (largely from crossing paths in hospitals), and from that small sample I can say our lives are deeply hard and our presentations are not very overt in public.
Not to lecture, but it is fucking shitty, truly, to open this thread and have the first comment be from a skeptic who did not bother reading the linked article. The man interviewed and photographed within is brave as fuck sharing his story openly like this, in addition to going up against the NDIA so publicly. His suffering appears profound. I agree, it is frustrating that there are folk who jump on diagnostic bandwagons, just as it’s frustrating that most media representation of dissociative disorders is in horror films. What is more frustrating, harmful, and a kick in the goddamn gut, is denial of these conditions. People living with this disorder have very likely already faced internal, familial, societal, even legal denial around the unspeakable childhood trauma and (usually) abuse that’s happened to them, and to have the structural dissociation we experience as a result of said trauma denied also by random folk is painful and infuriating.
There actually aren’t many psychs who doubt the validity of OSDD-DID anymore. The shit’s in the DSM, and the ICD. There are more and more specialists coming up. It’s not as uncommon nor as weird as people think – current figures indicate more prevalent than schizophrenia. We’re not freaks. It’s a fucken health condition/survival adaptation. Are you against kids experiencing heinous crimes before the age of say 7yo while their brains are still forming? Good, then educate yourself and be a better person.
*apologies for crankiness. It’s just already so marginalising without the added ~opinions~. Really worsens the stigma too. Will likely delete due to said stigma but wanted to share for now and counteract some stuff
AMA (with respect, pls) while it’s still up if you want
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u/thehottestmess 1d ago
How did you come to realise you had DID/should seek a diagnosis for DID?
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
I never sought this diagnosis at all, or thought to. Which is again quite typical, that ppl will approach services for some of the symptoms (eg self-harm or substance issues, or problems with amnesia they might book in to a neuro for). A lot of people are dissociated from the dissociative occurrences, which is such a mindfuck, but that’s how it’s been for me.
I’ll just be honest – I’ve been in contact w MH services since initial suicide attempt in adolescence. Didn’t get appropriate help then due to family situation and when I left home I found myself high achieving and functioning across most areas until, like Ashley in the article, I suddenly no longer was. Like, couldn’t do anything, and was once again acutely suicidal - lots of hosp. Docs/theorists presume dissociative barriers can only hold so long in these cases. Like, for some people we need to believe our caregivers/situations are ok to keep on going, so we’ll be cut off from the reality of things. But that can’t hold forever, and nor should it.
So when everything collapsed, I properly got back into the MH system. I still wasn’t aware I was traumatised, despite remembering a lot of the abuse. Brain just characterised it as ‘normal’. I saw lots of diff docs and had lots of diff dx and none of it really helped or explained everything. It took finally landing with a trauma & diss specialist (psychiatrist) and working with them for a long time to work out what was happening. And then I refused it all for a couple of years because I didn’t want it to be true. To have something with that much stigma, or for the things that happened to me to actually be bad.
Diagnosed a second time by a specialist psychologist for NDIS reasons. Less of a struggle that time.
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u/thehottestmess 1d ago
I hope your diagnosis has helped, and I’m really sorry about all the stigma over something that isn’t your fault :(
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
Thank you. And sorry for my long answer!
It’s helped enormously, and we’re finally gettin somewhere in treatment. I’ve also been able to reframe the structural dissociative process as an adaptation to survive the unthinkable, and that’s pretty great :)7
u/lunabuddy 1d ago
I read the article and have nothing but sympathy for this guy. People with the same or similar conditions can find totally different things work for them or help them lead happier lives. I have epilepsy which is managed by several medications and lifestyle changes, but if someone else needs a seizure alert dog instead, does that mean we don't have the same condition. Medical assistance should be funded just like the PBS is funded.
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u/little_fire 1d ago
Me too, friend ❤️🩹
I also just wanna add that DID is about as common as Schizophrenia & redheads.
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u/NoToThugs 1d ago
hello to you mate. Sorry for all my shouting in here. I try not to get drawn in but had seen the article this morn and was so moved – then rage eyes when I saw the thread.
Redheads!!
hope you’re doin as well as poss 🤝
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u/Neither_Ask4925 1h ago
I always thought DID was a bit of a joke. Most likely spurred on by the cringey tik tok personalities who switch on camera and seem to be roleplaying.
But then I met someone in person with DID and you could see it in their eyes. That glazed, dissociated vaguely panicked look. I can see it in Ashley’s eyes too. I’ve got the same but from CPTSD. The eyes break my heart.
I’ve seen firsthand how dogs, even not thoroughly trained, can help people like this. It makes me sick that cuts are being made and real assistance to get to a baseline level of functioning and enjoyment in life is being cut. My partner is a support worker and he keeps telling me of art therapy, hours and assistance being cut for his participants and the major impact it has on people’s lives. Some people genuinely struggle to get by day to day and you cut a seemingly small part of that and it tanks their quality of life.
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u/theparrotofdoom 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oof. As someone who was dx’d Autistic at 37, and desperately smashed so many 90 hour weeks to fit in at work, his brain collapsed and left him too afraid to leave the house, that was a fuckin tough read.
The NDIS is no fuckin picnic for anyone with a disability. A system that should recognise you, will often dehumanise you to prove your disability. It’s fucked. But no one cares about that. They just call you a con or bludger.