February 2025

Can you have DID without “alters”?

The identity-based model is one way to conceptualize dissociation, but it is not the only way. The assumption that DID inherently involves “alters” is a product of the DSM-5 framework, media portrayals, and community narratives—not an intrinsic feature of the disorder. DID is more accurately understood as a disorder of compartmentalization rather than identity fragmentation. Personifying dissociative states as “alters” is a cultural interpretation—one possible framing, but not an essential feature of DID.

Bromberg compartmentalization conceptualization culture DID identity

4 minutes

Amnesia in DID is really just disavowal

Dissociative amnesia is often seen as an unavoidable loss of memory, but it is better understood as an active act of disavowal—a psychological rejection of unbearable experiences rather than passive forgetting. By understanding and deconstructing the mechanism behind my amnesia, I was able to significantly reduce it. Healing has not been about retrieving lost memories but about dismantling the barriers that kept them inaccessible in the first place.

amnesia conceptualization DID mechanism narrative symptoms

7 minutes

January 2025

Percepts and concepts

The way we understand dissociative experiences is shaped by the interplay between percepts (raw experiences) and concepts (interpretive frameworks). DID is not the experience itself but a concept that organizes dissociative percepts within a cultural framework. Once adopted, concepts like DID shape how individuals perceive and recall their experiences, reinforcing a feedback loop. Drawing on ideas from William James and Ian Hacking, I explore how the diagnostic label of DID not only describes experiences but actively shapes them. Recognizing this allows for a more flexible, open-ended approach to dissociation beyond a singular framework.

conceptualization DID Hacking James philosophy

5 minutes

October 2024

Internal vs external reality

One of the ways I like to think about my dissociative experiences is through the concepts of internal reality and external reality. I think of external reality as being the objective aspects of one’s external environment, including physical surroundings, social interactions, and events. On the other hand, I think of internal reality as being one’s subjective internal experience, which includes one’s thoughts, memories, and emotions. One’s center of focus is usually balanced between their internal and external realities—they are aware of and are able to interact with their external reality while simultaneously being able to perceive and connect with their internal reality.

conceptualization DID narrative reality symptoms

4 minutes

June 2024

DID is (mostly) a culture-bound disorder

DID is a culture-bound disorder, meaning cultural narratives heavily shape how it is understood and experienced. While the underlying dissociative phenomena are real, the “multiple people in one body” model is not inherent but a learned framework shaped by cultural expectations. How one conceptualizes their dissociation influences how it manifests, reinforcing a feedback loop. Given these strong cultural influences, the diagnostic criteria for DID should be reworked to remove bias and better reflect the underlying dissociative experiences.

conceptualization culture DID Hacking identity looping kinds

3 minutes

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

September 2023

Escaping my reality

One’s early childhood experiences can majorly influence how they perceive the word. Because I experienced repeated trauma in my early years, my brain wired with the knowledge that the world around me was not safe and my experiences were not in my control. In order to cope with this, I learned to escape my external reality by curating my own internal reality—I created a world that only I could control, which was only limited by my own imagination.

conceptualization DID narrative symptoms

5 minutes

August 2023

Learning about my system with data

Life is moving very rapidly right now. I wrote the previous post (Waking up to the present) six weeks ago, shortly after I had split a new cluster of parts. Then, three weeks ago, I split a whole new cluster of parts. Both six weeks ago and three weeks ago I had very distinct changes in my behavioral patterns and how I operate. I have two very distinct “jumps” in my continuity of memory both three and six weeks ago.

conceptualization cycle data DID polyfragmented symptoms

5 minutes

April 2023

Finding my language

Have you thought about how you conceptualize your internal experience, or the language you use to describe it? I personally hadn’t given either much thought until I learned I had DID. Since then, I’ve had a long journey of learning to understand how I operate, which has required me to think deeply about how to convey my experiences to others who likely do not operate in the same way that I do.

conceptualization DID language

6 minutes