December 2023
The sensationalized conceptualization of DID
Dissociative identity disorder is often conceptualized through the dominant cultural narrative of “multiple people living in the same body”. However, this framework is not the only way to understand the disorder, nor does it reflect everyone’s lived experience. In this post, I critique the sensationalized portrayal of DID and explore how this narrative has been shaped by therapeutic techniques, social influences, and media representation. I share my personal perspective as someone with DID who experiences dissociation as a compartmentalization of internal states rather than as separate identities. By distinguishing between the disorder itself and the cultural framework often used to describe it, I argue for a more nuanced, individualized understanding of DID—one that allows for diverse experiences rather than reinforcing a singular, dramatized portrayal.
autism conceptualization culture DID identity language narrative
15 minutes
March 2023
Why do I call myself “polyfragmented”?
The word I like best to describe my flavor of DID is polyfragmented. Polyfragmented is most commonly referred to to mean someone who has a lot of parts and/or splits parts in a complex manner. I believe I exhibit both. In a more traditional case of DID, it is my understanding that a person has a relatively small number parts that are more well defined. They only have a few compartments of memory, thus allowing them to spend more time in each compartment, so each compartment has more time to develop a distinct way of being.
autism DID polyfragmented reddit symptoms
6 minutes
Parts are created from trauma, not necessarily abuse
Pretty early on in my DID discovery journey, I realized that my handwriting was different depending on which part of me was writing. This was very useful information, as I had taken well-catalogued academic notes for years prior to starting therapy, so I had a solid bank of data of which I could look back on and see which parts of me were active at different times of my life.
autism DID mechanism narrative trauma
5 minutes