A video is currently circulating on Konbini, a person testifying there as having dissociative identity disorder:
It makes me angry ! Really annoys me !!
I am not a psychiatric professional, I am not in a position to make a diagnosis or even to judge a person and what he is going through. I do not have to forbid nor my say on who testifies on what. It is a fact and I am aware of it. Everyone is free. Everyone is free to express themselves and describe their perception of their own reality.
But this does not prevent this kind of testimony from exasperating me to the highest point.
Why ? What annoys me about this? What reactivates me to this point? What are my triggers?
I would say the very first is the fear of being silenced. Again. Finding the strength to speak up and bear witness is a very long road for a TDI, or for me anyway! I went through years and years of silence. No voluntary silences! NO !
Silences because my entourage, the people I knew refused to see me, to hear me, to hear my suffering, my despair, my distress, my calls for help, the clues or the words that I could say or let see throughout my childhood testifying to what I was undergoing ...
Silences because society refuses to hear testimonies of violence suffered in childhood and is still very much in denial.
Silences because my loved ones, the people in whom I have placed my trust, for the most part turned their heels on hearing my testimony, out of fear, cowardice, selfishness, by way of survival ...
Silences because the professionals to whom I turned either denied my testimony, or I had to keep quiet and hide my experience and who I was because testifying could have represented a danger for me (custody of my daughters, my divorce. ..) ...
Silences because inside I was not ready to face my past. It took me several years to come to terms with my diagnosis of DID. I myself went through many stages, doubts, questions. I refused to accept. It was very painful for me to have to accept two reality that coexisted in me. The people I depended on as a child could have been good at times and at others hurt me. These two realities, these two experiences were so incomprehensible that I refused again and again that it could have been possible. Can a person have said "love me", that I was his "adopted daughter" and raped me, tortured me at the same time? How could this be possible? Can a human being do this?
Silences because internally we were building ourselves. The "camps" of the parties who wish to speak and say, to be seen versus the "camps" of those who have tried many different ways of speaking and seeking help in the past and carry the "knowledge", the memory of the "punishments" I suffered for daring to do so. Say and be free against being silent and surviving.
Why does the kind of testimony like this woman on Konbini make me angry and reactivate my own fears?
On the one hand, because testifying, for her, seems to be very easy, very "funny". Whereas I, when I testify, am overcome with internal battles before, during and after my testimony. Her freedom is like a slap that she puts right in my face.
Secondly, because it reactivates my own feelings of internal shame and guilt. I often feel ashamed when certain dissociative parts come and speak in front of outside people. When I lose my skills because one of my small parts has reactivated and comes in front, then I am ashamed !! I feel ashamed for behaving like a little girl.
I feel internal anger because I am afraid of presenting myself vulnerable and fragile in front of someone and this reactivates my fears of putting myself in danger, that person could or could take advantage of it and hurt me . This reactivates my internal anger also of my intellectual parts who hate that we do not believe in their capacities, their skills, their qualities and are afraid that we are taken for an asshole or a moron, a madwoman ...
This woman presents the "switches" between parts as something "fantastic", "funny" but my reality, the reality of my switches is very different! It is made up of suffering, physical, emotional pain, voices and thoughts that invade my head and my body and over which I sometimes have no control! It is very scary, very trying and tiring !!!
To succeed in testifying on this site, it took me several years before my parties accepted that we do it without my being prevented from doing so or being invaded by crises of anxiety and gigantic terror! Bear witness is not funny or funny for me. It's a fight, a struggle, a day-to-day victory ... A day-to-day victory over my tormentors who instilled the fear of speaking and the belief that I am in permanent danger ... It is a victory every day to tell me "today is over, today I am free, today I do not suffer anything, today I am safe" ...
What I want to say is:
The TDI allowed me to survive in a sect, to survive multiple daily violence in this sect.
It's not a hip thing. I'm not all dapper and makeup. I do not put myself on the scene!
A TDI can be seen on the face, the micro expressions, the gestures, the posture of the body and what we say but it is very subtle mostly hidden ... It takes many years of practice for a shrink to detect. A TDI is CAMOUFLAGE !!! One way to survive.
For dissociative parts to form in a person with dissociative identity disorder it is because the person experiences a trauma of such violence, such horror, an event that overwhelms them so much that they can continue to do so. to live, to be able to survive, his identity is split. A part to continue the "normal life" and "to forget", a part which carries this experience, this atrocious and unimaginable event, indigestible, that we cannot assimilate in our memory ...
My dissociative parts did not appear one day and suddenly as if suddenly I had started to change my dress style, makeup, hairstyle ... I switch all day, very often. But I keep the same clothes, I don't wear makeup and I don't change my hairstyle. People I meet who are not aware that I have a DID may not realize it.
My dissociative parts have all saved me.
I survived because we divided the pain between dissociative parts, because we forgot and put aside the most atrocious experiences in order to be able to continue living ... because we divided the survival strategies according to the rapists we met ....
This is the reality of a TDI. It is not a game!
And to present DID in this way, for me, is to make it invisible and discredit and deny the suffering associated with it.
Make it invisible because suddenly people with IDD, the external signs they could show and which would allow them to come out of solitude and silences would not be seen, recognized since they would not look like this caricature!
To discredit him because it is a little ridiculous, laughable, funny or fantastic, sensational ... And suddenly either people will have a negative image of it by saying that we are simulating or are fabricators, actresses. Either they will have a very imaginary "positive" image of it which would be very far from what is the reality of everyday life and the suffering that a person with TDI can feel!
The TDI is amazing! Not in the magical sense, superhero or that sort of thing! But incredible as a force of life and survival! We have survived the worst, atrocious, painful, unlivable things! And we deserve that our strength and our courage be recognized at its true value !!!