“How can family members, friends, and mental health professionals best support and help someone with DID?” -My therapist
My therapist, folks. Asking the hard questions right out of the gate. Have I mentioned that we love our therapist? I wish this was an easy question to answer, but it’s just as hard to answer as it would be if depression were replacing DID in the question. Well, I suppose it’s not as hard since depression has started being accepted as legitimate, and people are no longer being shunned by the majority for taking medicine to help with it. Plurality isn’t something to medicate away, in my experience. It hasn’t been something to medicate away in any of my friends’ systems either. Plurality is ridiculously weird, but it has been so much easier to handle once we started learning more about ourselves in a non-judgmental way and talking with other systems. The most important thing we’ve learned is my system can experience one thin ten times, in ten different ways. Another system can experience that same thing in maybe 100 different ways. Every single way is right. There’s no wrong way to be plural, and you are the authority on your own experiences.
This is really important for mental health professionals to remember. You may have been taught what has been studied about DID/MPD(Dissociative Identity Disorder or Multiple Personality Disorder) in the shiny DSM IV, but our disorder honestly hasn’t been studied from the right side in my opinion, and in most plural peoples’ opinions. Many systems don’t refer to this as a disorder for a really simple to understand reason. Their lives are not disordered as a result of being plural. Not every system was born of trauma. If the system in your care tells you they have no memory of trauma, so they conclude they have to be naturally occurring, believe them. Give your patients the benefit of the doubt. Your patients are experiencing what they’re saying, and it’s at least overwhelming. They need validation. Their experiences are their reality.
This reminds me to bring up another really important point that is a bit of a hot button in the multiplicity community. Some systems that exist were born of trauma. Dissociation is one of the base natural instincts to protect a brain from trauma, and one of the earliest instincts to kick in. I have three major points on this topic. 1. If a system is born from trauma, their dissociation probably saved their life. 2. If a system is born of trauma and denies it even if given proof, forcing them to re-associate with and remember their trauma is re-traumatizing them, and can do further damage. 3. A system can naturally form without trauma.
For any mental health pros that try to tell plural patients that being a natural system is impossible, I have a few points to consider: 1. You are not experiencing what they are. You have no empirical way to disprove their experience. 2. Research claims that trauma needs to be before age 4 to cause DID – this isn’t an easy age to remember to start with, and if a system has locked away the memories using dissociation, it’s unlikely to actually recover anything reliable. 3. WHY DOES IT MATTER? If your patient does not remember trauma, just treat it with the same skepticism that you would if a patient who was depressed said they don’t remember trauma. Not every depressed person has a cause or trigger. Human brains are weird, and there are so many pathways for the brain to build. Trauma is not the only way to tinker with it. Unless your patient is concerned that they may have been traumatized and they WANT to look into it, believe them.
Best course of action #1: Believe your patients and get to know their system members if you’re allowed to. If you go into therapy or care with a patient and actually believe them, you will not only gain your patients’ trust (if you are genuine), but you will also learn a lot about how a plural brain can exist. Every single one is different, and some systems shift and change over time as well. The needs of a system are always changing, the same as the needs of an individual is always changing.
Best course of action #2: Always let the system determine how they want to handle their therapy. Some systems may want to integrate (not all will, and not all can), some want better communication, and some just need a system mediator. Or maybe they’re coming to you for help with other issues and don’t even want you to focus on their plurality. Let them decide the direction, as it should always be with mental health journeys.
Best course of action #3: If you’ve been introduced to more than one system member, ask about preferences. Ask the system if you can take notes. For example, if there is a preferred way the system likes to be addressed/thought of, what name they go by, etc. Some systems agree on a set name, some systems have 15 different names. Some systems prefer they/them as a plural pronoun, some prefer separate he/him, she/her, xe/xir etc. Systems that prefer separate pronouns will likely have some system in place to help their friends know who is out. Personally, we use emoji to identify who is talking with our therapist (text based).
Plurality as a whole should be studied, but it has to be done from the perspective of the system’s side. If you’re going to understand how a country works, you probably want to talk to the citizens, right? Well, that’s what we are, and we all have a perspective on how life is in Spectra. We discuss it whenever the topic comes up with my therapist, and it’s as natural as a group chat. Some systems won’t want it to be that open, but it’s what I prefer.
So, TLDR? Ask the system in question personally. 🐝
Ask About Plurality 