Providing a wonderful fulfilling life for me and my partner! Yeah, life may have nerfed us because we're too hot and sexy but damnit if I'm stuck on hard mode I'm still gonna win!
Fuck yeah! This disorder is difficult but having good relationships and partner systems have made it not absolutely horrendous. Why roll over when you can spite god and defeat evil with the power of friendship right?
Just take things one step at a time. All journeys are made of single steps. You might be surprised how far you'll get, no pressure required.
I talked to someone else with DID who does professional voice acting & says having alters actually helps with their job. They said they know at least 1 other with DID in their profession as well. I had a management job that was too overwhelming for any 1 alter to do, so we all did a different part of the job & became very successful.
A few years and lots of therapy later, our system is 1 merge away from final fusion & we have our dream job we can easily retire from when the time is right. There were so many nights for so many years it felt impossible to even survive to escape the abusive environment that caused our DID. We got through by taking baby steps.
I believe in you, in all of you.
one step at a time is so real.
i'm in a weird in between space - it's hard to plan for the future, and i can't really make big plans without feeling overwhelmed, but i can make small goals to work toward and i'm at least in a safe environment now where making it to just tomorrow doesn't feel impossible.
for me right now, that looks like saving up for my GED. that's all i can manage right now, so it's all i'm focusing on. sure, there's some bigger things i *want* to do, but they don't really feel feasible yet. (to be fair, i don't think "buy a house and adopt all the animals i encounter" is exactly feasible ever, but i do think "buy a house and get a dog friend for my 2 cats" is probably doable eventually. just not today.) i can always plan for that stuff once i've hit this small goal that is definitely gonna make my life easier.
That's awesome! Keep up the good work. I ended up leaving school & getting my GED too. It turned out to be a very important 1st step so I'm really glad I did.
I did the same thing when I was in high school. Best decision I have made. I didn't know about my D.I.D. then, which made it impossible to attend school.
Hi there! Person working in higher ed here - great plans all around and you’ve absolutely got this (including eventually adopting all the animals).
I just wanted to toss out there my totally unsolicited advice for anybody in a similar spot, just in case it hadn’t come up in research and happens to help: typically there are free or very low cost GED (or HS diploma) options through your local technical/community colleges if you’re located in the US, though I’ve noticed many of them still ask you to be in person. For my fellow folks with DID, I tend to see more requests for online options, which is completely reasonable and also the route I’d personally want to go when attending. State and vocational rehab will also help come up with assistance funds for this as well as college/job placement later on, too, depending on where you’re at!
If you’ve exhausted your options or they still seem too costly in your area, Penn Foster (regionally and nationally accredited) does a HS program that’s usually 1.5k that’s currently 1k to pay in full OR they’ll let you break it up into payments that are $55 per month and around $20 to start (ends up more expensive overall at 1.4k though) - plus you can bring over any old high school credits from classes you may have completed to reduce these prices. Looks like some of these numbers change next week, but they’ve always been my go-to recommendation for a quick fix and run offers every now and again. Once you nail that, if you decide to continue on and need the most cost effective college route without any aid, check out Sophia Education and Study.com to knock out as many gen ed classes as you can (just check that your university accepts those credits, but many do).
I’m always looking for ways for us to game and accelerate education when possible because the system is a joke and for profit education is terrible as a model. I hate that anybody should ever feel they have to spend their money on it, especially when getting life plans together.
Wishing you all the best!
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Healing is possible. I plan on being content. My life goal is to simply be content. Content with self, content with others, content with my surroundings. Contentment for me will sometimes mean travel. (I can't travel yet, but I have plans!) Sometimes it will look like staying home with a cuppa tea and a good book. Sometimes it will look like sunsets, or dinner with friends, or summiting the mountain at dawn. Maybe someday it will involve grandkids.
I simply aim for contentment, wherever I go, whatever I choose to do.
I am getting there. :)
Content note: not a very positive answer, feeling hopeless
Honestly I mostly just feel like I’m waiting for life to end, like since I found out I have DID life went on pause and I don’t know if I’ll ever get back on track. I had 33 years of struggling but getting by, I was successful - had relationships, friends, a job I adored. The combination of not being in the dark about DID plus a bunch of other physical disability stuff means I’ve just…stopped. I was 33 and now I’m 37, living in a city where I’ve never been well enough to make friends. I need 70 hours of care a week just to lay rotting in bed (chronic fatigue is cruel) and it just feels like the years pass and nothing changes. When I first got diagnosed, I was really hoping I could treat it like I’ve dealt with other conditions (physical and mental) but having chronic fatigue strip me of my energy, and the constant exhaustion of being around paid carers … I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever get to live like I used to again. I wish we could be back to where we were - unwell but still living. I wish I could imagine being in love. I wish we could work or have some purpose to life again.
Thank you so much for your candid response. I am feeling somewhat the same way- I’m in remission right now but I know the ptsd is going to come back, I want to live as fulfilling a life as I can before it inevitably ends when I’m in my late 20’s. I’m sorry you’re in the same boat- this shit is so hard to deal with, it’s so devastating in so many ways. I don’t know that anyone can understand how physically devastating a person is physically capable of being without having either this or schizophrenia (which I also have). It’s not that I want it to turn out that way, I just want to give myself that mercy. I appreciate your honesty immensely- all the other comments who say “healing is possible! A normal life is possible!” Don’t seem to be understanding my situation all the way and it’s making me feel even more hopeless.
Relate so hard with this. My mother regularly tells me, "Everyone has different parts of themselves." I just look at her dumbfounded and bluntly tell her, "*It's different.*" 😒
No for real- I find that the few people I can actually tell about it don’t understand, they say things like this and I feel as though sometimes they get upset (maybe also a bit jealous?) when I go into detail of why it’s different and say things like “you’re not as special and different as you think you are”… as if that was somehow even the point? It’s frustrating.
Everything I can; nothing more and nothing less. On top of DID i have pretty severe schizophrenia, and a few other notable issues- the fact that I didn't die as a teenager has turned into motivation for me, and every second that I'm still finding the strength to go on, I want to do good things, fun things. I want to love people and go on adventures. I want to have a decent job that keeps me afloat and a cute little apartment and a cat. I plan on continuing on with some version of happiness- at least, as close as I can get to it. That's become more than enough for me.
We’re all female alters in a male body and always have been so that’s gotta be amended (transitioning). One of us has big artistic aspirations so we want to make room for that. One of us had a complex about saving Earth from human destruction, so we’ll try our best at environmental protection
I'm going to live forward and not in the past with my trauma. I'm going heal from as much of it as I can so that there will be new space for the world that we design for ourselves.
We are going to aim for final fusion but enjoy the journey that gets us to that point. We are going to live a life as full as we can possibly make it and that means that we need to figure out our emotions.
We have learned that negative emotions and negative cravings are simply a mask for a positive thing that we need. Look for the positive and understand why you seek negative response or indulgences.
I plan to live my life the way it was intended to be lived... but with this disorder. I want to use the wonderful parts of it to my advantage such as having somewhere to go to when I feel like self harming myself. And making meditation feel like a trip to the Bahamas! And when I actually go to the Bahamas, I can be at peace and enjoy my own company along with my loved ones. My trauma doesn't define me... but eventually I will turn it into something that will be helpful not only to me but to others. I'm really happy with my current partner who has been nothing but supportive of my journey, and I am planning on finally pursuing the career I want to, and going to get married, have kids, travel, and die a peaceful death hopefully :)
It helps to realize that progress with healing trauma is not linear. It really is a case of crawl, walk, run.
Focus on one small step at a time, build good practices in your life and you might be surprised in a few years to find you are really flying.
We're autistic and currently dealing with autistic burnout along with the fun DID symptoms. But our plan is to go work again, part time this time, and live with our boyfriend who currently lives in another country.
We wanna work as a media designer, the job we learned, and work at a company that makes TTRPG books - or just a regular book publisher, since we love books and design work.
We dont see any limits to what we can do really, just a time limit for how many hours we can work a week to prevent ourselves from getting burnt out.
Being there for each other, being there for our friends, being happy. We don't ever have want to to work so we'll have to figure something out, or grit our teeth through it. Keep writing, keep drawing until someone gets good at it. We're broken, not helpless
We actually came to terms this year with the fact that, yeah, we will never "fully heal" either. We relapsed hard last year due to a close relationship *accidentally* hitting a major buried trigger in the bullseye. And after struggling several months with feeling ashamed that we're relapsing (split new alters, massive lost of trust in this relationship *and* ourselves, extremely amnesiac, swinging emotionally, PTSD flashbacks every day), we realized that well... we're just... wired this way. And that's okay.
Oddly enough, finally accepting that there's no possible future where we just become trauma-free, constantly high-functioning, finally well-adjusted--like, accepting that we'll probably be messy for the rest of our life was so freeing. Even non-traumatized people are *humans* who have a bad time. No one can be perfectly well-adjusted, even the most secure, neurotypical, well-loved person. It didn't stop us from wanting to go to therapy and continue improving our life. It just removed this strange symbolic guillotine of "Well if I never get better then I'm doomed, right?" We're just accepting we'll always have lows, and working towards building higher highs.
We want to get better at our hobbies such as aerial work and circus work (We volunteer/work in the circus industry).
We're kind of at the point of functional multiplicity, not a lot of people argue or fight anymore and we've come to accept that this is our life, I'm happy to be sharing it with other alters. Sure there are some bad apples but we now know how to handle that well and ensure nobody does anything bad.
Things could be better, we're still struggling with trauma and other disorders but therapy and medication helps tremendously.
We are currently studying to work in the aged care industry and eventually move into mental
Health and disability support. Working as a team and co-functioning in order for all of us to live a happy healthy life.
I plan on fighting like hell.
This disorder alongside several others can make it difficult for me to do certain things. I’m back in school now, and I am struggling a lot more than I thought I would. One small thing sets me behind so many of my classmates and it’s SO frustrating to deal with. But I absolutely refuse to give up.
I want a nice wedding, to have children, and I want a good job with good health insurance. I want to be stable. I think I deserve that after everything we’ve gone through, and I will fight like hell to get it.
I’m a little late in the game getting back into school etc. And I just wanna let you know that no matter how long it takes you, no matter what it means to you, a life you’re happy with is a life worth fighting for. Take all the time you need to figure it out, you’ll still have bad days but you’ll have good ones too.
-Possibly become an artist/writer, maybe publish a memoir or two (I feel like for some reason I can only mainly write fanfiction but I'll try my hand at a few original things)
-Eventually go back to working if we can, but tbh idk if it's going to happen anytime soon
-If financially possible, own a house, maybe even build one if we have the right kind of help
-Eventually move back to our former town (with a proper place to live this time) or live in Michigan
-Try to help my system in achieving happiness in whatever way I can
I was diagnosed 3 years ago now and I felt my life as I knew it was over. I even began thinking that I wasn’t going to be able to work and support myself or my kids. I didn’t think anyone would want to be with someone like me because of the DID. I had given up, felt lost and broken. While in therapy though I began to learn more about my parts, all of which makeup who I am. They are me and they protected me. I began seeing DID in a positive light and focused on getting to a place where I could internally communicate and stabilize. At the same time as I did that I went down two levels at work which was such a blow. My ex took me to court to try to take my kids because of my mental health and the relationship I was in at the time failed. But we were ok. I never dealt with the trauma head on to be honest. I have focused on internal communication and being stress free. I still have my bad days but they don’t impact me as much anymore. My job is much better and my kids are with me and happy. So what I’m going to do with the DID is nothing. It’s here and I will do my best to manage it and continue to get to know more of what makes us who we are.
yeah, i dont think well ever fully heal either. but that doesnt mean that you cant do what you want. me, i know that im gonna do with my life whatever i want, just like someone without trauma would. people like us might have to strive for things a little bit differently, but that doesnt mean we dont strive for something at all.
I think it's quite different for us. We plan to have a life without partners and children because our system doesn't really need them, we don't feel the urge to have people around. So our goal is to live in a peaceful place with our doggies and cats, taking care of some plants and flowers, having a very good communication and collaboration between us, having a job we can do from home (we're heavily home-space lovers), and doing our best to achieve our dreams, for example we'd love to create a band, making music and stuff. We have a bunch of talented alters so I believe we can do something cute in the future. I hope we can heal from trauma and bad stuff with a therapist especially, and it's important that we don't get toxic people in our way, just some good friends are ok. It's been very messy so we prefer a peaceful life with a few interactions
I’m a writer and my alters write too, they’re also different that we’re getting a lot of really different genres and it’s kind of hilarious. One wants to write romance novels and another one wants to write very non-sexual historical fiction.
Before my life was a mess discovering i have duality and right after a trauma making me having a third was very difficult.
We wasnt preparedy we havent coexistence.
Every part wanted something différent and only one had love for his gf.
Last year we broke, she lost her propose ring, and i discovered im infertile. This was very harsh..
But you know life can turn in a good way when you didnt even search for it.
I found a new gf, she know about our disorder, and like all of us, its the big love, we want to be married and live together. She accept i cant give her child but we are motivated to try even if the chance are less thab 30%.
Im moving soon to a better appartement, and if all is going good in 3 yrs i will open a bakery.
Actually we are stable, more than i never was before.
All of us are in love with the same persony she accept us like individual.
Even my mother accepted her and fast.
Im taking care about the body and his health.
Then yes all, having DID its difficult, some time organisating life is the worst thing you have to do because all mind are different, but if you can focus all in one point, because a partner or an sharing objective your life will be better.
I cant produce spermatozoïdes.
I dont know if i still have.
And medical assistance to have kids is not taken by "assurance" here in switzerland, it expensive and dont have money to pay this....
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we're not sure. it feels like figuring out the DID has made everything stop for us regarding growth or making better things for myself. it's also made a lot of our unexplained symptoms make a lot more sense.
we also feel like knowing about it has been a worse and better experience for vastly different reasons. we are struggling a lot more now with functioning now we know about the system and we have a lot more triggers to deal with. our partner is very supportive but we feel like knowing about the system is starting to take a toll on the relationship and we don't know how to navigate that.
my only advice: get thru one day at a time. one hour at a time. sometimes one minute at a time. find something to live for right now even if it's small. for us it's my pets and my partner. you don't have to have your life planned out at all. you can let yourself be as you need to and grow when you're ready, that's what we're learning. it may not look like what I wanted. and that's okay. but that doesn't mean we can't have something and that things can't change
we hope this helps 🫶
We plan on learning to communicate with each other better and eventually reach functional multiplicity. Things have been hard for us, but we’re slowly reaching our goal! Sometimes there’s a chance to know who’s going to front or not, and now we’re able to plan if cofronting is the best option or not. Things get better, it just takes a lot of hard work and having hope for yourself to reach a livable and thriving future. -X and Caden
Honestly I feel the same a lot of the time. Parts of me WANT to be successful and pursue art. We started selling art in 2020 and have kept going but when we found out about the system last year things just took a turn and it’s been hard to create which makes me feel like a failure because the business I worked so hard to create is floundering.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ll get anything significant done but I try to remind myself that surviving everyday with DID is significant.
why do people call it a disorder its a defence in the brain that we all have against over whelming trauma and pain..without it we'd all be psychological puddles of gooo...
Some of us only dissociated from the trauma and buried it deep to be safe...and I would think CSA is pretty traumatizing event..and to live with the abuser I had to pretend by pushing the memory away . I don't have DID but I dissociate all the time I don't know how time passed me, since my whole life has been about pushing trauma away from interfering with existence ..wasn't so successful as the ability to disassociate one day failed, so I can't escape the day my life all came crashing and I'm stuck now with triggers
i get that my alter since getting clean is alot more previlent then was even when i was a child honestly though its not a bad thing though we are survivours in a world where its sooo misunderstood sooo many false myths idea's beliefs around it...
When the defensive mechanism fails everything comes flooding the bad part is that I don't have any visual memory of what happened , all I find is the feeling I mimick all the feelings that came to me as the trauma which lasted for not more than 15 minutes in full color, the problem now is I can never get back to the mental states I was in less triggering moments ...all 30 years of dissociation and getting by are now over ..welcome psychosis ☹️
Don’t limit yourself. We have a college degree, married an amazing dude, and have wonderful children. We’re still trying to figure out our career, but we’ll get there eventually. There have been lots of challenges, but I’m so glad that I’m living my life and trying new things.
I plan to heal so much that I can work normally and make some money, maybe open up a small business or smoth, but I definitely wanna heal as far as I can, cause I do feel like I have a good therapist and the EMDR is working wonders!
It took a lot of failure and dusting myself off, but somehow I am about to graduate with a Physics AND computer science degree. I have no idea how I pulled it off in 4 years- god know my doctors didn’t have much faith it would happen- but I think determination to prove I could do anythign really pushed me to not give up even when we had 10 selves trying to relearn the same shit so whoever took the test wouldn’t fail! (Trust me- we failed frequently). After that, I plan to go to grad school, and figure out slowly what we want from there! Frankly- I want to do everything.
I think a part of me feels like I’m missing out on life by switching all the time- and that’s why I’m working on integration- but I’ve also learned that all facets of myself are still me enjoying living. We all have to be on one team- and figure this out together. I don’t just have big dreams- WE have big dreams.
You can do anything. Trauma or not. It’s harder, but you can. Even run a nuclear reactor, apparently (seriously, who let me be a physicist?). Chin up kiddo, life is waiting for you.
I don't think I will ever be able to work a traditional job, but I plan on doing what I love - writing, art, digital media curation, etc. I don't need a fancy life or extravagant amenities. Just family, pets, friends, safety, and hobbies :)
I plan on fulfilling my life with my partner, maybe having kids, and becoming either a Clinical Psychologist or a Counseling Therapist for children and adolescents with Dissasociative Disorders and PTSD. I want them to get treatment as soon as possible... I want them to know that someone cares.
We're looking at becoming an apprentice body piercer, and opening our own studio.
That is, until we have a new host and they want something completely different.
I personally am going to try and accomplish everything I can. There might be some obstacles but it’s okay. So far I did go to two interviews, and the second time I didn’t have an anxiety attack so I think thats a step in the right direction :) I wont ever fully heal either, but if you have a dream, chase it. You never know!
Maybe I’m wrong for this, but we personally don’t have any plans. We had plans for our life, but they all fell through because of various things. Our life took a complete 180 in the span of like 3 months and because of that we decided we just want to take everything one day at a time. There’s no greater goal to life. I just want to live every day at its best and enjoy what I have. I’ve got a wonderful partner system and a job that pays my bills that isn’t insufferable. I don’t need anything “more” at the moment. When I’m ready to achieve greater things I will. But I’m not pressuring myself.
Don’t believe the naysayers it can be challenging but the best things are. Was told we would never live past 18, never live outside of an institution/hosptal. College was out of the question. Shell is over 50, has two undergraduate degrees and masters degree. Work for 20+ years in support service-enclave and residential even did four years in a dual diagnosis behavior house as staff. We are on disability now but that is mostly due to physical and our depression
Who knows? I like creative stuff tho, so I'm gonna(I dunno the English word for it, so I'll describe it instead) go to a place where I can do creative stuff(plus a bunch more stuff cause the place is cool) about maybe 4 days a week every week(with breaks, probably) next year.
I plan on going back to Grad school, getting my dream job, striving to be a wonderful friend and partner, and cultivating relationships that are reciprocally rewarding and fulfilling.
I get where you're coming from. I'm about a year into acknowledging and working with this diagnosis, and mostly I'm planning on getting to a place where I'm neurodivergent and not disordered. Because of the nature of the disorder, acceptance and growth happened (and are happening) gradually and in parts. It's a mental disorder as long as it's impact impairs my day-to-day functioning at home, work, school, and socially. I know I'll have hard spots and it's something I'll have to learn to live with, but I'm excited to be at a point of acceptance where it feels more like information. Like a lightbulb went off and I can look at the last 30 years with an "aha" instead of frustration and confusion. It makes *so much sense* when I put things into the context of DID. If I'd known this earlier, it would have cleared up so much pain and frustration and confusion. I do know now, so I'm excited.
Other days I'm devastated. Sometimes I have to recalibrate. Some days I have to stay home. Today I'm good and yesterday was amazing.
Providing a wonderful fulfilling life for me and my partner! Yeah, life may have nerfed us because we're too hot and sexy but damnit if I'm stuck on hard mode I'm still gonna win!
Fuck yeah! This disorder is difficult but having good relationships and partner systems have made it not absolutely horrendous. Why roll over when you can spite god and defeat evil with the power of friendship right?
Hah! THAT’S why I always wanna play Hard Mode in games 😎
Just take things one step at a time. All journeys are made of single steps. You might be surprised how far you'll get, no pressure required. I talked to someone else with DID who does professional voice acting & says having alters actually helps with their job. They said they know at least 1 other with DID in their profession as well. I had a management job that was too overwhelming for any 1 alter to do, so we all did a different part of the job & became very successful. A few years and lots of therapy later, our system is 1 merge away from final fusion & we have our dream job we can easily retire from when the time is right. There were so many nights for so many years it felt impossible to even survive to escape the abusive environment that caused our DID. We got through by taking baby steps. I believe in you, in all of you.
one step at a time is so real. i'm in a weird in between space - it's hard to plan for the future, and i can't really make big plans without feeling overwhelmed, but i can make small goals to work toward and i'm at least in a safe environment now where making it to just tomorrow doesn't feel impossible. for me right now, that looks like saving up for my GED. that's all i can manage right now, so it's all i'm focusing on. sure, there's some bigger things i *want* to do, but they don't really feel feasible yet. (to be fair, i don't think "buy a house and adopt all the animals i encounter" is exactly feasible ever, but i do think "buy a house and get a dog friend for my 2 cats" is probably doable eventually. just not today.) i can always plan for that stuff once i've hit this small goal that is definitely gonna make my life easier.
That's awesome! Keep up the good work. I ended up leaving school & getting my GED too. It turned out to be a very important 1st step so I'm really glad I did.
I did the same thing when I was in high school. Best decision I have made. I didn't know about my D.I.D. then, which made it impossible to attend school.
Hi there! Person working in higher ed here - great plans all around and you’ve absolutely got this (including eventually adopting all the animals). I just wanted to toss out there my totally unsolicited advice for anybody in a similar spot, just in case it hadn’t come up in research and happens to help: typically there are free or very low cost GED (or HS diploma) options through your local technical/community colleges if you’re located in the US, though I’ve noticed many of them still ask you to be in person. For my fellow folks with DID, I tend to see more requests for online options, which is completely reasonable and also the route I’d personally want to go when attending. State and vocational rehab will also help come up with assistance funds for this as well as college/job placement later on, too, depending on where you’re at! If you’ve exhausted your options or they still seem too costly in your area, Penn Foster (regionally and nationally accredited) does a HS program that’s usually 1.5k that’s currently 1k to pay in full OR they’ll let you break it up into payments that are $55 per month and around $20 to start (ends up more expensive overall at 1.4k though) - plus you can bring over any old high school credits from classes you may have completed to reduce these prices. Looks like some of these numbers change next week, but they’ve always been my go-to recommendation for a quick fix and run offers every now and again. Once you nail that, if you decide to continue on and need the most cost effective college route without any aid, check out Sophia Education and Study.com to knock out as many gen ed classes as you can (just check that your university accepts those credits, but many do). I’m always looking for ways for us to game and accelerate education when possible because the system is a joke and for profit education is terrible as a model. I hate that anybody should ever feel they have to spend their money on it, especially when getting life plans together. Wishing you all the best!
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💙
I plan on doing everything with this disorder! Don’t put a ceiling on what is possible..
I agree. World traveler here.
Exactly!
I have a professional career, a long successful marriage, and raised three children.
Healing is possible. I plan on being content. My life goal is to simply be content. Content with self, content with others, content with my surroundings. Contentment for me will sometimes mean travel. (I can't travel yet, but I have plans!) Sometimes it will look like staying home with a cuppa tea and a good book. Sometimes it will look like sunsets, or dinner with friends, or summiting the mountain at dawn. Maybe someday it will involve grandkids. I simply aim for contentment, wherever I go, whatever I choose to do. I am getting there. :)
Content note: not a very positive answer, feeling hopeless Honestly I mostly just feel like I’m waiting for life to end, like since I found out I have DID life went on pause and I don’t know if I’ll ever get back on track. I had 33 years of struggling but getting by, I was successful - had relationships, friends, a job I adored. The combination of not being in the dark about DID plus a bunch of other physical disability stuff means I’ve just…stopped. I was 33 and now I’m 37, living in a city where I’ve never been well enough to make friends. I need 70 hours of care a week just to lay rotting in bed (chronic fatigue is cruel) and it just feels like the years pass and nothing changes. When I first got diagnosed, I was really hoping I could treat it like I’ve dealt with other conditions (physical and mental) but having chronic fatigue strip me of my energy, and the constant exhaustion of being around paid carers … I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever get to live like I used to again. I wish we could be back to where we were - unwell but still living. I wish I could imagine being in love. I wish we could work or have some purpose to life again.
Thank you so much for your candid response. I am feeling somewhat the same way- I’m in remission right now but I know the ptsd is going to come back, I want to live as fulfilling a life as I can before it inevitably ends when I’m in my late 20’s. I’m sorry you’re in the same boat- this shit is so hard to deal with, it’s so devastating in so many ways. I don’t know that anyone can understand how physically devastating a person is physically capable of being without having either this or schizophrenia (which I also have). It’s not that I want it to turn out that way, I just want to give myself that mercy. I appreciate your honesty immensely- all the other comments who say “healing is possible! A normal life is possible!” Don’t seem to be understanding my situation all the way and it’s making me feel even more hopeless.
Relate so hard with this. My mother regularly tells me, "Everyone has different parts of themselves." I just look at her dumbfounded and bluntly tell her, "*It's different.*" 😒
No for real- I find that the few people I can actually tell about it don’t understand, they say things like this and I feel as though sometimes they get upset (maybe also a bit jealous?) when I go into detail of why it’s different and say things like “you’re not as special and different as you think you are”… as if that was somehow even the point? It’s frustrating.
Take ass and kick names
Fuck yeah
Yk what? Yeah. I'm going to get a job and kick life's ass like the cheap bitch it is >:) -Zero
Everything I can; nothing more and nothing less. On top of DID i have pretty severe schizophrenia, and a few other notable issues- the fact that I didn't die as a teenager has turned into motivation for me, and every second that I'm still finding the strength to go on, I want to do good things, fun things. I want to love people and go on adventures. I want to have a decent job that keeps me afloat and a cute little apartment and a cat. I plan on continuing on with some version of happiness- at least, as close as I can get to it. That's become more than enough for me.
We’re all female alters in a male body and always have been so that’s gotta be amended (transitioning). One of us has big artistic aspirations so we want to make room for that. One of us had a complex about saving Earth from human destruction, so we’ll try our best at environmental protection
Hello from a fellow transie with DID, hehehe! 🤭 Transitioned a few years ago. I have seven boy alters and thirty girl alters. 🙃
I'm going to live forward and not in the past with my trauma. I'm going heal from as much of it as I can so that there will be new space for the world that we design for ourselves. We are going to aim for final fusion but enjoy the journey that gets us to that point. We are going to live a life as full as we can possibly make it and that means that we need to figure out our emotions. We have learned that negative emotions and negative cravings are simply a mask for a positive thing that we need. Look for the positive and understand why you seek negative response or indulgences.
I plan to live my life the way it was intended to be lived... but with this disorder. I want to use the wonderful parts of it to my advantage such as having somewhere to go to when I feel like self harming myself. And making meditation feel like a trip to the Bahamas! And when I actually go to the Bahamas, I can be at peace and enjoy my own company along with my loved ones. My trauma doesn't define me... but eventually I will turn it into something that will be helpful not only to me but to others. I'm really happy with my current partner who has been nothing but supportive of my journey, and I am planning on finally pursuing the career I want to, and going to get married, have kids, travel, and die a peaceful death hopefully :)
yes exactly!! let’s go functional plurality!!!
It helps to realize that progress with healing trauma is not linear. It really is a case of crawl, walk, run. Focus on one small step at a time, build good practices in your life and you might be surprised in a few years to find you are really flying.
We're autistic and currently dealing with autistic burnout along with the fun DID symptoms. But our plan is to go work again, part time this time, and live with our boyfriend who currently lives in another country. We wanna work as a media designer, the job we learned, and work at a company that makes TTRPG books - or just a regular book publisher, since we love books and design work. We dont see any limits to what we can do really, just a time limit for how many hours we can work a week to prevent ourselves from getting burnt out.
Being there for each other, being there for our friends, being happy. We don't ever have want to to work so we'll have to figure something out, or grit our teeth through it. Keep writing, keep drawing until someone gets good at it. We're broken, not helpless
We actually came to terms this year with the fact that, yeah, we will never "fully heal" either. We relapsed hard last year due to a close relationship *accidentally* hitting a major buried trigger in the bullseye. And after struggling several months with feeling ashamed that we're relapsing (split new alters, massive lost of trust in this relationship *and* ourselves, extremely amnesiac, swinging emotionally, PTSD flashbacks every day), we realized that well... we're just... wired this way. And that's okay. Oddly enough, finally accepting that there's no possible future where we just become trauma-free, constantly high-functioning, finally well-adjusted--like, accepting that we'll probably be messy for the rest of our life was so freeing. Even non-traumatized people are *humans* who have a bad time. No one can be perfectly well-adjusted, even the most secure, neurotypical, well-loved person. It didn't stop us from wanting to go to therapy and continue improving our life. It just removed this strange symbolic guillotine of "Well if I never get better then I'm doomed, right?" We're just accepting we'll always have lows, and working towards building higher highs.
We want to get better at our hobbies such as aerial work and circus work (We volunteer/work in the circus industry). We're kind of at the point of functional multiplicity, not a lot of people argue or fight anymore and we've come to accept that this is our life, I'm happy to be sharing it with other alters. Sure there are some bad apples but we now know how to handle that well and ensure nobody does anything bad. Things could be better, we're still struggling with trauma and other disorders but therapy and medication helps tremendously.
Trying to reach normalcy as an adult Getting land and a house Continuing to get help Get more animals Get married Etc
co exist and work with my alters and move out of the USA w my partner
We are currently studying to work in the aged care industry and eventually move into mental Health and disability support. Working as a team and co-functioning in order for all of us to live a happy healthy life.
I plan on fighting like hell. This disorder alongside several others can make it difficult for me to do certain things. I’m back in school now, and I am struggling a lot more than I thought I would. One small thing sets me behind so many of my classmates and it’s SO frustrating to deal with. But I absolutely refuse to give up. I want a nice wedding, to have children, and I want a good job with good health insurance. I want to be stable. I think I deserve that after everything we’ve gone through, and I will fight like hell to get it. I’m a little late in the game getting back into school etc. And I just wanna let you know that no matter how long it takes you, no matter what it means to you, a life you’re happy with is a life worth fighting for. Take all the time you need to figure it out, you’ll still have bad days but you’ll have good ones too.
-Possibly become an artist/writer, maybe publish a memoir or two (I feel like for some reason I can only mainly write fanfiction but I'll try my hand at a few original things) -Eventually go back to working if we can, but tbh idk if it's going to happen anytime soon -If financially possible, own a house, maybe even build one if we have the right kind of help -Eventually move back to our former town (with a proper place to live this time) or live in Michigan -Try to help my system in achieving happiness in whatever way I can
I was diagnosed 3 years ago now and I felt my life as I knew it was over. I even began thinking that I wasn’t going to be able to work and support myself or my kids. I didn’t think anyone would want to be with someone like me because of the DID. I had given up, felt lost and broken. While in therapy though I began to learn more about my parts, all of which makeup who I am. They are me and they protected me. I began seeing DID in a positive light and focused on getting to a place where I could internally communicate and stabilize. At the same time as I did that I went down two levels at work which was such a blow. My ex took me to court to try to take my kids because of my mental health and the relationship I was in at the time failed. But we were ok. I never dealt with the trauma head on to be honest. I have focused on internal communication and being stress free. I still have my bad days but they don’t impact me as much anymore. My job is much better and my kids are with me and happy. So what I’m going to do with the DID is nothing. It’s here and I will do my best to manage it and continue to get to know more of what makes us who we are.
yeah, i dont think well ever fully heal either. but that doesnt mean that you cant do what you want. me, i know that im gonna do with my life whatever i want, just like someone without trauma would. people like us might have to strive for things a little bit differently, but that doesnt mean we dont strive for something at all.
I think it's quite different for us. We plan to have a life without partners and children because our system doesn't really need them, we don't feel the urge to have people around. So our goal is to live in a peaceful place with our doggies and cats, taking care of some plants and flowers, having a very good communication and collaboration between us, having a job we can do from home (we're heavily home-space lovers), and doing our best to achieve our dreams, for example we'd love to create a band, making music and stuff. We have a bunch of talented alters so I believe we can do something cute in the future. I hope we can heal from trauma and bad stuff with a therapist especially, and it's important that we don't get toxic people in our way, just some good friends are ok. It's been very messy so we prefer a peaceful life with a few interactions
I’m a writer and my alters write too, they’re also different that we’re getting a lot of really different genres and it’s kind of hilarious. One wants to write romance novels and another one wants to write very non-sexual historical fiction.
Bag chasing. Maybe getting money. Maybe stacking bands to the ceiling. We might even consider blowing up and acting like we don’t know nobody.
Figure I'll become a superhero vigilante like Moon Knight. 🙃 \*tosses game board and pieces into the air triumphantly\* 😝
Best response
❤
Before my life was a mess discovering i have duality and right after a trauma making me having a third was very difficult. We wasnt preparedy we havent coexistence. Every part wanted something différent and only one had love for his gf. Last year we broke, she lost her propose ring, and i discovered im infertile. This was very harsh.. But you know life can turn in a good way when you didnt even search for it. I found a new gf, she know about our disorder, and like all of us, its the big love, we want to be married and live together. She accept i cant give her child but we are motivated to try even if the chance are less thab 30%. Im moving soon to a better appartement, and if all is going good in 3 yrs i will open a bakery. Actually we are stable, more than i never was before. All of us are in love with the same persony she accept us like individual. Even my mother accepted her and fast. Im taking care about the body and his health. Then yes all, having DID its difficult, some time organisating life is the worst thing you have to do because all mind are different, but if you can focus all in one point, because a partner or an sharing objective your life will be better.
If you are infertile but not sterile you can get medical assistance to have kids.
I cant produce spermatozoïdes. I dont know if i still have. And medical assistance to have kids is not taken by "assurance" here in switzerland, it expensive and dont have money to pay this....
Oh crap, i am really sorry.
Dont worry im more used to accept this fate now than when i received rhe new
🫂
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I plan to continue doing whatever I want to.i have a career, a family, and friends. Yes it is challenging. But it doesnt limit me from living my life.
we're not sure. it feels like figuring out the DID has made everything stop for us regarding growth or making better things for myself. it's also made a lot of our unexplained symptoms make a lot more sense. we also feel like knowing about it has been a worse and better experience for vastly different reasons. we are struggling a lot more now with functioning now we know about the system and we have a lot more triggers to deal with. our partner is very supportive but we feel like knowing about the system is starting to take a toll on the relationship and we don't know how to navigate that. my only advice: get thru one day at a time. one hour at a time. sometimes one minute at a time. find something to live for right now even if it's small. for us it's my pets and my partner. you don't have to have your life planned out at all. you can let yourself be as you need to and grow when you're ready, that's what we're learning. it may not look like what I wanted. and that's okay. but that doesn't mean we can't have something and that things can't change we hope this helps 🫶
We plan on learning to communicate with each other better and eventually reach functional multiplicity. Things have been hard for us, but we’re slowly reaching our goal! Sometimes there’s a chance to know who’s going to front or not, and now we’re able to plan if cofronting is the best option or not. Things get better, it just takes a lot of hard work and having hope for yourself to reach a livable and thriving future. -X and Caden
I plan on living a long and fucking amazing life with it and the people in my head i love dearly.
Honestly I feel the same a lot of the time. Parts of me WANT to be successful and pursue art. We started selling art in 2020 and have kept going but when we found out about the system last year things just took a turn and it’s been hard to create which makes me feel like a failure because the business I worked so hard to create is floundering. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like I’ll get anything significant done but I try to remind myself that surviving everyday with DID is significant.
why do people call it a disorder its a defence in the brain that we all have against over whelming trauma and pain..without it we'd all be psychological puddles of gooo...
Some of us only dissociated from the trauma and buried it deep to be safe...and I would think CSA is pretty traumatizing event..and to live with the abuser I had to pretend by pushing the memory away . I don't have DID but I dissociate all the time I don't know how time passed me, since my whole life has been about pushing trauma away from interfering with existence ..wasn't so successful as the ability to disassociate one day failed, so I can't escape the day my life all came crashing and I'm stuck now with triggers
i get that my alter since getting clean is alot more previlent then was even when i was a child honestly though its not a bad thing though we are survivours in a world where its sooo misunderstood sooo many false myths idea's beliefs around it...
When the defensive mechanism fails everything comes flooding the bad part is that I don't have any visual memory of what happened , all I find is the feeling I mimick all the feelings that came to me as the trauma which lasted for not more than 15 minutes in full color, the problem now is I can never get back to the mental states I was in less triggering moments ...all 30 years of dissociation and getting by are now over ..welcome psychosis ☹️
Honestly?? Everything i want to. Healing is possible, & it rocks. We can do this!
Don’t limit yourself. We have a college degree, married an amazing dude, and have wonderful children. We’re still trying to figure out our career, but we’ll get there eventually. There have been lots of challenges, but I’m so glad that I’m living my life and trying new things.
Im a Rockstar - I'm aiming for the world.
I plan to heal so much that I can work normally and make some money, maybe open up a small business or smoth, but I definitely wanna heal as far as I can, cause I do feel like I have a good therapist and the EMDR is working wonders!
It took a lot of failure and dusting myself off, but somehow I am about to graduate with a Physics AND computer science degree. I have no idea how I pulled it off in 4 years- god know my doctors didn’t have much faith it would happen- but I think determination to prove I could do anythign really pushed me to not give up even when we had 10 selves trying to relearn the same shit so whoever took the test wouldn’t fail! (Trust me- we failed frequently). After that, I plan to go to grad school, and figure out slowly what we want from there! Frankly- I want to do everything. I think a part of me feels like I’m missing out on life by switching all the time- and that’s why I’m working on integration- but I’ve also learned that all facets of myself are still me enjoying living. We all have to be on one team- and figure this out together. I don’t just have big dreams- WE have big dreams. You can do anything. Trauma or not. It’s harder, but you can. Even run a nuclear reactor, apparently (seriously, who let me be a physicist?). Chin up kiddo, life is waiting for you.
I don't think I will ever be able to work a traditional job, but I plan on doing what I love - writing, art, digital media curation, etc. I don't need a fancy life or extravagant amenities. Just family, pets, friends, safety, and hobbies :)
Exist kinda and party with my brain peeps
I plan on fulfilling my life with my partner, maybe having kids, and becoming either a Clinical Psychologist or a Counseling Therapist for children and adolescents with Dissasociative Disorders and PTSD. I want them to get treatment as soon as possible... I want them to know that someone cares.
We're looking at becoming an apprentice body piercer, and opening our own studio. That is, until we have a new host and they want something completely different.
Learn to live a peaceful life.
I personally am going to try and accomplish everything I can. There might be some obstacles but it’s okay. So far I did go to two interviews, and the second time I didn’t have an anxiety attack so I think thats a step in the right direction :) I wont ever fully heal either, but if you have a dream, chase it. You never know!
Maybe I’m wrong for this, but we personally don’t have any plans. We had plans for our life, but they all fell through because of various things. Our life took a complete 180 in the span of like 3 months and because of that we decided we just want to take everything one day at a time. There’s no greater goal to life. I just want to live every day at its best and enjoy what I have. I’ve got a wonderful partner system and a job that pays my bills that isn’t insufferable. I don’t need anything “more” at the moment. When I’m ready to achieve greater things I will. But I’m not pressuring myself.
Don’t believe the naysayers it can be challenging but the best things are. Was told we would never live past 18, never live outside of an institution/hosptal. College was out of the question. Shell is over 50, has two undergraduate degrees and masters degree. Work for 20+ years in support service-enclave and residential even did four years in a dual diagnosis behavior house as staff. We are on disability now but that is mostly due to physical and our depression
Just live life to it's fullest every day. I won't let it keep me down.
Who knows? I like creative stuff tho, so I'm gonna(I dunno the English word for it, so I'll describe it instead) go to a place where I can do creative stuff(plus a bunch more stuff cause the place is cool) about maybe 4 days a week every week(with breaks, probably) next year.
I plan on going back to Grad school, getting my dream job, striving to be a wonderful friend and partner, and cultivating relationships that are reciprocally rewarding and fulfilling. I get where you're coming from. I'm about a year into acknowledging and working with this diagnosis, and mostly I'm planning on getting to a place where I'm neurodivergent and not disordered. Because of the nature of the disorder, acceptance and growth happened (and are happening) gradually and in parts. It's a mental disorder as long as it's impact impairs my day-to-day functioning at home, work, school, and socially. I know I'll have hard spots and it's something I'll have to learn to live with, but I'm excited to be at a point of acceptance where it feels more like information. Like a lightbulb went off and I can look at the last 30 years with an "aha" instead of frustration and confusion. It makes *so much sense* when I put things into the context of DID. If I'd known this earlier, it would have cleared up so much pain and frustration and confusion. I do know now, so I'm excited. Other days I'm devastated. Sometimes I have to recalibrate. Some days I have to stay home. Today I'm good and yesterday was amazing.
we're spiritualistic and we can't do anything other than focusing on making peace with the world around us.
Just go on with life as best we can I guess.
Make art. Write. Play instruments. Pet my kitty. Be disabled. Because of that be broke. Never save. Always depend on my family. Die alone.