On my blog entry entitled Encouraging One Another after Child Abuse, a reader posted the following comment:
I’ve read things on this page that discussed topics that I’ve never seen anyone brave enough to take on before and I am amazed. I am 43 and have been in therapy more than 2 years now but even my therapist, who is experienced with multiples, has trouble understanding my polyfragmented system and how it operates. I’m scared there is no place in this world for me. ~ Cam
I have not yet discussed polyfragmented Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) on my blog, so I thought this would make a good series, both for Cam as well as other people with polyfragmented DID who are reading my blog.
So, what is polyfragmented DID? Let’s start by talking about “standard” DID, and then I will tell you the differences.
People with DID dissociate to such a degree that they compartmentalize their memories, feelings, and emotions into different alter parts. People with DID might have only two alter parts, or they might have several.
The difference between standard DID and polyfragmented DID is a matter of degree. Rather than splitting into three or four alter parts, someone with polyfragmented DID might fragment into 100 or even 1,000 alter parts. Many of these alter parts might be personality fragments, which means that they are more one-dimensional than three-dimensional.
For example, an alter part might feel like a “separate personality” with more depth. A personality fragment might only hold one memory or one emotion. It is generally more challenging to integrate an alter personality than a personality fragment. The terminology “polyfragmented DID” simply helps to describe a more fragmented reaction to severe abuse.
While many people might assume that polyfragmented DID is harder to heal from, that has not been my experience. By being polyfragmented, I was able to heal a little at a time, whereas friends who only had two parts really struggled with the “all or nothing” integration process, which was excruciatingly painful for them.
I have been successful in healing from polyfragmented DID, so I know that it is possible. If you have been diagnosed with polyfragmented DID, you can heal, too. The key is learning how to love and accept each part as “me.”
Suggested Reading:
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Does it have to be 100 or more? I’m wondering because I have somewhere around 80-90 alters. As for fragments, how do you identify these? Someone made up a list of those inside, page after page of names. But fragments wouldn’t have names, would they?
I know, it’s not like I really need another label, but I like to be precise about these things.
Hi Faith,
Great thread. May i ask you a question Faith??? During the more intense times of your integration/healing did you ever take prescribed medication or get it recommended to you??
I know its a personal question, so its fine if you dont want to reveal.
Its just that my doctor has advised me a temporary drug might be very beneficial. Ive trusted him so far and hes great, but because getting drugged and spiked was part of my abuse as a child im scared of taking drugs.
I wondered if you had experienced similar feelings Faith???
Take care, Simon.
I didnt mean my doctor i meant my Therapist!!!
Hi, Simon.
My therapist did recommend taking some sort of drug to get me through the deep despair when I would have suicidal urges. I resisted for a long time. I finally agreed that I would do it if it got really bad again.
When it did, my therapist referred me to a psychiatrist to prescribe the drug. He turned out to be a quack. I left in tears and called my therapist, who immediately removed the man from his referral list. (This was the first time his office had used the quack.) After that , I was unwilling to talk with anyone else except my therapist, who did not have the power to prescribe medication. So, I went through the process unmedicated.
In retrospect, if I could have trusted an MD, taking something like a mild Xanax might have been a good idea. Instead, I managed the pain through binge eating and self-injury.
Take care,
– Faith
“Does it have to be 100 or more? I’m wondering because I have somewhere around 80-90 alters. As for fragments, how do you identify these? Someone made up a list of those inside, page after page of names. But fragments wouldn’t have names, would they?”
According to this article:
http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/spectrum.htm
Polyfragmented DID means over 100 parts. However, remember that it all runs on a continuum. Having 80 or 90 parts would be on just “this side” of a polyfragmented diagnosis. Also, those are just the ones you know about to date. I kept “discovering” further layers of parts as I healed.
Most of my fragments did not have names. Or maybe they did, but it was not important for me to identify them. I went through a rapid phase of healing where I would integrate four personality fragments each night before I went to bed. I did this by telling each one, “I love you. You are safe. I’m sorry.” I would then invite them in.
The next morning, I would feel different. Sometimes, I would feel hypervigilent. Other times, I would feel very sad. I just depended upon what “new” emotions I was “owning” as “me.” I never felt a need to get into names because that was about keeping them separate. I wanted them to be “me,” so their names were not important.
Take care,
– Faith
Hi Faith, you pretty much described what i fear! We are hoping the G.P. will perscribe me the drugs just on my T’s advice.
Im very reluctant becoz ive got this far (doing the same as you!) and i have coped. But my T is awesome, so i must trust him.
Thanks for your reply Faith,
Simon
Thank you so much for taking on this subject! I have alters, and my alters have alters, and there are indeed fragments who are not alters but who hold specific memory states or pieces which even the alters can’t deal with. Just wanted you to know I found and read this and found it quite accurate and interesting indeed.
Thank you.
Cam
Dear Cam,
You are certainly not alone in this! Some of my primary parts have divided into nearly seventy parts. All in all, I have over fourteen hundred and still healing. It seems that many or overflow parts, designed to carry small amounts of pain or nuances of a specific traumatic event. The good news is that they seem to heal very quickly. I’d rather have seven hundred parts carrying a tea spoon of pain than seven parts lugging around gallons of the stuff. I think the healing time will be about the same, but my process seems less drastic because I don’t have parts on the edge of craziness all the time. I think my system was smart to divide up my pain so it’s not so intense.
I’m not sure what’s started me up again, but I have a thousand questions. Does “did” classify a person as schizophrenic?
Also, is it possible to only have minor memory issues? I remember that I watched a movie, but sometimes cannot remember what it was or what it was about. I’m only 38 and yet I forgot every single password and/or pin and the bad thing is that most of them I’ve used for years. I also find changed pins/pw’s and more regularly find that I don’t remember doing it, or that I changed it to something different recently but it’s changed to another I use.
There are very much more disturbing things I have go on, but not knowing any of you and not being very trusting of computer wireless networks, I cannot go on right now. Suffice it to say that most are related to sex and supernatural things. I feel comfortable enough to say that I have incubus experiences with communication through my own inner thought processes. Nothing auditory.
I have memories only of mistakes I made that led to a couple of extremely traumatic experiences, but none were ongoing to my memory. Again, these are traceable things that I can only piece together parts of, but my thoughts and occasional very creepy fantasies always go to the same places. There are very particular events in each and every fear or fantasy.
I also feel like my life’s events have led me to places where I will be closest to some of my traumatic memories. A very good example is that I’m in a job that I never dreamt of doing, but it’s excellent. Only thing….one of my traumas is directly related to this type of business. So at times I feel stronger d/t my position and being in those places (I go to several locations of the same type of business), but other times I feel like it’s tearing at me and everyone is the enemy. I’ve even had hostile thoughts towards certain types of people.
I remember the event connected, but don’t remember several days leading up to it, nor after and the event itself strangely comes to me in different ways. So I feel like a liar when I tell one story or the next. I never know if I’m telling the truth when I tell the story!!
I have no recollection of others in me or anything like that, but I have what some have termed an “inner voice” X11. I am a 38 year old woman, but it seems like these thoughts come there is only one woman amongst the 10 men.
I function fairly well, but it’s by forcing myself most of the time. I also suffer from chronic hep c, and seronegative arthritis, and so deal with a lot of pain, nausea and sleepiness regularly, but it’s not the full reason for my inability to function at time.
I sometimes set the clock with full intentions of leaving at a certain time, but even though I have full memory of the hours passing, find myself chastising myself for doing everything besides leave. It’s totally conscious, yet I feel no control. Difficult to explain.
I have let over 500 men use my body, but not within the last 16 years. I have been with only my husband for the first 10 and then the other 6 I was with one other. Only thing, I did cheat with 3 men during the first 10 years. I believe it’s connected for sure.
I go through spurts where I hate sex and/or intimacy and the have seemingly normal comfort levels and then the promiscuous me. No matter what level I was at, the incubus experiences came. In the last few years it even happens when I’m awake. Sometimes when I’m at other locations (besides home) I have others I’ve never “met” attempt to use my body. They don’t “follow me home” though.
I’m convinced something is going on. I had a therapist willing to talk to me one night several months ago, for almost 6 hours on the phone. He told me after the fact that he wouldn’t see me, but believed that I have fragmented. He said nothing more and will not communicate with me. I feel like it’s made things worse. I’m really concerned.
Since that night I’m regularly, almost daily suicidal, with no actions yet, but a plan at all times just in case. I recently broke up with my 6 year relationship and so now the incubus experiences are extremely magnified. I can now “call” them to me.
In times of my promiscuous self, I have no fear of much at all and have injured myself in private places or they’ve injured me (if that’s possible). Last night was particularly bad. I’ve been bleeding since….from both sides. I’m sorry to be so explicit.
In times of hating sex or when there’s a lot of stress in my life, I fear everything and feel like I’m being stalked in my own home. I must say that the hating sex times…there’s a major trait that stands out. My breasts feel weird. No way of explaining it, but if even I touch them I feel like throwing up sometimes and other times I just get this all over “dirty” feeling.
In “normal” times, I sometimes have the ability to talk myself out of the fear, but other times I am just as terrified as my sex-hating part.
I have extreme highs and lows, but am never really depressed if that makes sense. I feel like my values & moods change together. Clothes I want to wear, people I’m attracted to in normal settings (not just sexual).
I’m certain something is wrong. I WILL NOT be medicated any more. I already have to take a plethura of pain meds to make me even functional, and I’ve taken the psych meds. Weight gain and depression and a basic numbness/apathy for anything were all I saw change.
If some think that’s better than my “changes”, than they’re outta their minds! It only has one outcome and that’s to make me miserable with myself.
I have ocd traits, but nothing really dramatic and they come and go. Sometimes I can’t go to sleep with a cabinet or drawer open, and other times I could care less. Sometimes I feel the need to not step on cracks or split poles…superstitious stuff…and other times I do it purposely.
I’m aware of most at least to the extent that I don’t have people questioning who I am, but my teen children have begun to notice my memory issues and mostly laugh about it because usually it’s mundane stuff, but my regular doc has put me on a drug to enhance my memory and help me stay alert.
I know that you can’t diagnose me, but if you can relate, please do let me know. I’m kind of desperate. I’m in a particularly self-destructive mode and the experiences have caused me to not sleep in almost 3 days now and I forget to eat. I get obsessed with whatever I’m doing to the point that I’ll sit down at morning light and realize in what only seems like minutes sometimes or a few hours at best that it’s already nighttime and I’ve not cooked or cleaned and sometimes I’ve not gone to work.
My job is such that I can play with my time and reschedule work, but it doesn’t work forever. People are getting irritated.
Please help me. I’m desperate. Please. I don’t want to be hospitalized or drugged. How do I find someone that will work with me on my terms? If I say anything about the self-destructive stuff, they immediately refuse to continue seeing me unless I’m medicated.
I think I need help, but maybe it’s actually what I think…. Maybe there are ghosts or something after me. Maybe I’m not actually having this disorder, but rather that these symptoms I have are just part of a compilation of symptoms from my other illnesses.
I just can’t figure it anymore and after having months of not even being interested in sex and now I’ve got some guy coming here for quickies and I’m “calling” the incubus when they’re not attacking, I’m scared.
Hi, lucidpsi.
Thank you for sharing so much of what you are struggling with. I am so sorry for all that you are going through.
DID is NOT a form of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that has a biological basis. DID only occurs as a result of severe and ongoing trauma, typically beginning before age 6.
I am recovering from DID. I integrated my “core” and do not lose time, but I still have “parts” that I am working on integrating. I have never been hospitalized or placed on medication for DID. I have chosen to have a Xanax prescription to help me with my anxiety due to some issues I am facing this year (will see my mother/abuser for the first time in six years), but I did not take ANY medication for the three years that I was in therapy healing from DID.
You are correct that I cannot diagnose you. All I can tell you is that I relate and that, in light of my own history, I see many red flags in your experience. I would not be surprised at all for you be diagnosed with DID.
I found a therapist through a referral after I started recovering flashbacks of mother-daughter sexual abuse. His focus was on healing from the trauma. My therapist saw the DID as a symptom, not the problem in and of itself.
I would keep trying to find a therapist. You can also read through my blog for more information about DID.
– Faith
Thank you Faith. I really appreciate your commenting so quickly.
I’m sorry for my rambling. I have no memory of anything happening before 6 at all. I have minor memories, but none terrible.
I will say that I have an excellent memory for the years before 8 years old, but yet have difficulty with the the years of I believe 5-7. Only bits available in the memory banks and they’re very strange bits at that.
Wondering if I can find the answers with self-hypnosis through meditation?
The things I have full memory of begin around 8 or 9 I believe.
Here’s the thing. I know I’m dx’d with PTSD, but that’s drawn from what I remember and those events I’ve never fully dealt with either. I kind of have about a 10 year span where I probably had something terrible happen monthly if not more. And when I say terrible I’m not talking about being arrested shoplifting or anything so minor.
I will research your site more. I’m scared to be found out looking at it. I’m single, but even my kids finding out what I’m looking at scares me. I feel so caught in between a rock and hard place.
I may seek out a therapist, but again the med issue bothers me and I just can’t begin “spilling” it all again to find that the person is going to drop me. It’s happened 3x now and another passed away.
How can I be honest in therapy without talking about my suicidal stuff? I’ve even written promises to not hold them responsible if I made that choice…..still dropped.
Oh well….I’m out for now. More reading.
Hi, lucidpsi.
Normal memory is remembering at least one major detail at home and at school beginning by age five at the latest. I can tell you the names of all of my teachers beginning from pre-K, but I have no memories (outside of flashbacks) of either parent until I was 11.
I did not need self-hypnosis or meditation to access my memories. I simply “invited them out.” I told myself that I wanted to remember. I would “invite the memories” when I laid down in bed at night, and they would come.
Re: therapist — Maybe you can start out without sharing the suicidal urges yet. I need to write another blog entry on suicidal urges, and I wish therapists would read it. It is NORMAL for someone in pain to seek a way out. Suicidal urges are a cry for help saying that I am willing to do ANYTHING, even die, to make the pain stop.
I suggest that you read the book, “The Myth of Sanity” by Martha Stout:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000558?ie=UTF8&tag=bloolotu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142000558
This was the first book that I read about dissociation. The author has a different take on suicidal urges. She believes that patients need to choose to live and should not be pressured into staying alive by their therapists. I think reading her book will be helpful for you. If memory serves, she practices in New England. Maybe you can contact her for a referral in your area??
– Faith
Hi I hope it’s okay to talk here…
For polyfragmented DID…does it only come in cases of ritual abuse/mind control?
Hi, Sarah.
It is always okay to talk here. :0)
Polyfragmented DID is more likely to result when the child has suffered from ongoing and severe trauma from a young age (typically beginning before age 6). A child does not have to suffer from ritual abuse or mind control for this to happen. However, many people with polyfragmented DID did suffer from those forms of abuse because they are so traumatizing.
– Faith
Thank you for responding so quickly 🙂
And thank you for the response. I know I was abused before age 6, and I have over 100 alters, but I’m not sure if we were ever involved in ritual abuse…
Sorry to bother you, but I have a question, if I may.
Does having fragments (as you described them in this post) automatically make you polyfragmented? Is that where this term came from?
Thank you.
Anita
Hi, Anita.
According to http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/spectrum.htm, this is the definition of polyfragmented DID:
“Poly-fragmented DID (involving over 100 personality states) may be the result of sadistic abuse by multiple perpetrators over an extended period of time.”
Here is another definition from http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/ritual_abuse/46865:
“What is polyfragmentation? The term comes from the root poly, meaning many, and fragments. In complex polyfragmenatation, the survivor will have not only alter systems, but hundreds or even thousands of fragments, isolated parts of their mind created to do a job, and do it well and unthinkingly.”
– Faith
Hi there,
I was wondering, could DID come about as a result of witnessing abuse or taking on a more adult role as a child? I don’t have any memories of being abused myself (not as a child, anyway), but my father was particularly mean to my mum (very controlling, angry, and he cheated often) when I was young. He also tended to ignore my baby brother when he was alone with us; I took on the role of caregiver (feeding, changing diapers) at the age of three while our father “watched” us during the hours our mum was at work.
I remember having very vivid dreams of other little girls beginning at around age 6 and hearing these girls speak to me even in waking hours on occasion. They’d tell me that things were alright, that they’d take care of me when I felt sad or angry. Of course, I thought of them more as imaginary friends than “alters” while I was young.
I had a lot of changes occur in my life between the ages of 6 and 11 — my parents got divorced, my mother remarried, my mother and stepfather had a daughter, and we moved — and I started to withdraw into myself and rely more on my “imaginary friends” as time went on (there were around 5 at this point). When I got to high school they were an even bigger part of my life because it was so easy to talk to them and to let them deal with the things I didn’t want to (including a fear of being “kidnapped” by my father and the fact that my stepfather was exceptionally mean and angry toward myself and my brother). I got into a very bad relationship at the age of 15 and these “friends” started to sort of…take over…for me for short periods of time (it was like taking a nap for me, I’d close my eyes and one of them would take the role of an active personality), sometimes I’d lose a few hours of memory, but I welcomed the break.
At nearly 17 I ended that relationship and a few months later I got into a worse one. This boy hit me more than the last and was more verbally abusive as well. He routinely forced me into doing things I really didn’t want to, called me every name imaginable, and at one point even threatened to kill me. The others started to come out more and, eventually, this boyfriend realized that I was “different” at times and put 2 and 2 together. He took advantage of some of the more trusting ones. I finally got away from him after about 15 months.
My question is, is this DID, or am I just crazy? Everything I’ve read seems to say DID is the product of more severe abuse in childhood…but I don’t remember anyone ever directly abusing me (my father did belittle me often, does that count?), I just know I had to grow up very quickly. I have been diagnosed with OCD, generalized anxiety, and bipolar disorder…does DID go hand in hand with any of that?
The only other person I’ve told about the others is my husband (who is absolutely wonderful). He was completely accepting of them and even speaks with one of them on a semi-regular basis. They don’t “come out” as often now that I’m in a stable relationship and there seem to only be 3 or 4 of them (when I was in my last bad relationship there were at least 9 I could identify). If there are more, I’m not aware of them.
Hi, Natalie.
From all that I have read, DID appears to occur only if a child experiences ongoing and severe trauma that begins at or before age six. So, you do not have to have experienced any particular form of abuse, such as ritual abuse, for DID to result.
In my opinion, emotional abuse is the most difficult form of abuse to work through, and I believe it is the emotional aspects of the other forms of abuse that caused the most damage in me. So, yes, I do believe that ongoing and severe emotional abuse could result in DID.
I strongly recommend that you read Martha Stout’s “The Myth of Sanity,” which I found in my local library:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142000558?ie=UTF8&tag=bloolotu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0142000558
Dr. Stout does a great job explaining the continuum of dissociation and how different levels of trauma can result in different levels of dissociation, from PTSD to dissociative disorders to DID.
– Faith
Hi, thanks for your article. I was diagnosed with DID but have a really hard time believing it and not thinking of myself as a huge liar and fake. I don’t ‘lose time’ like I hear that some people do. Also. I do have memories of bad things that happened when I was a kid, just not a lot, you know, only a few memories from when I was a kid. But it is not like it is all just a big nothing. I think I have fragments, but maybe not polyfragemnted cause I dont think there are that many of them. But then, who knows really. I haven’t had a therapsit in a while to treat me, since my last one fired me. 😦 I guess I was too much trouble, after he told us we could trust him, and we shared all kinds of things. Anyway. how much time do you have to lose, and/or how much memory do you have to lose to have DID? I am trying to get out of the Dx really, I don’t want to believe that it is true. And sometimes when I look at it and the DSM I think, well myabe I don’t have it. But then I think some of the stuff I remember now, is only after I remembered it after working with the therapist who fired me for a long time. But then that brings up another problem, and that is of false memories. Ugh. What if I am just making this stuff up? ugh. I hate being DID. I sometimes wonder about fragments though because I feel fragmented but don’t have ‘names’ for a lot of parts, and it seems like everyones got names for parts, but I guess they could just be fragments without names. I dunno. Anywya, sorry to ramble on.
Thanks!!
Pax
[…] my blog entry entitled What is Polyfragmented Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)?, a reader posted the following comment: I was diagnosed with DID but have a really hard time […]
“All or nothing” with the integration process… Actually, integration is not the only treatment available! I can’t integrate with my alters; my mind created them to cope with life for a reason.
Some people can share memories with their alters if they’re having trouble with memory loss, they can co-front with alters, the alters can seek therapy for themselves…
Integration isn’t the only option.
Amen, Justine. I personally believe that even so called “normal” people have parts. I think the unified personality is pure myth. I have no intention whatsoever of asking my parts to fuse together. I like my therapists take on it all…our parts need to be integrated in function, i.e. cooperating with each other to make our lives run smoothly. We use the family systems approach by Dr. Richard Schwartz. He writes for both DID and non-did folks, stressing integration of purpose. I have over fourteen hundred parts and not one of them has fused with another part in over five years of therapy. We simply have a really large internal world. Most of my parts are infants or young children, so they spend their days sleeping and playing. I have maybe twenty parts who take an active part in my life. Anyway, you are definitely on the right track!
Ann Marie
Hi everyone,
I am Robert and i was born in a generational High (32/33 degree) Free Masonic ‘Upperclass’ Family and i underwent since infancy SRA thru means of Mk-Ultra Monarch Programming, beside that i always new i also was abused within whats known as the Montauk Project. I just have come to terms wih my Mk-Ulktra Monarch past. I had always my memories of what happened, but never could place them, that is till know.
Bcose of my strong Occult and Psychic side of my mother side of the family, i was since 4 placed and trained in various Covens and had witnessed quite some aweful things such as sacrifices with infants As i said i just come ow recently to terms with my past. For the last 15years i have been trying to surpress my memoreis. I now live abroad, and moved since a year to the countryside, and i am now no longer able to hide away from my memories.
As a child i had two main programmers and handlers, Dr. Green and Dr. Barrington (he was a foreigner). I grew up in LA County, but thru my childhood i went to ivy boarding schools on the eaastern part of the country. My families on Both i sides have been High Free Masons. My stepfather’s familyas i also found out came in 1780 to the US, and where high Masons too. Soo i now got it from 3 different sides within my families. My biological parents families came to the US, from the UK in 1620, as near and on the level of 33th degree Free Masons.
I want to say to Faithhallen, thnx for giving us hope, my finance is still abroad, she is from the UK, thats why i came to the UK where i am living now. I am by profession an researcher-lecturer. In the past i have talked on matters that i survived and the peoples i have seen during Rituals. The things that Arizona Wilder has described i can corroborate unfortunately. As also what Svali said to an extend too. As a child my main programming till age of 6 was done at the China lake Weapons Facility among other places too.
Iff ppl like to talk to me or ask questions i am more than happy to answer them, i can be reached on aol and sky under indigolecturer27.
I know all of this scares the hell out of me, but especially when my finace is finally back home, and i have to talk with her face-to-face on this. And all the complications it will bring as i have quite some minor alters in age. recently a friend of mine Mark B, gave me a name of a web forum i have joined. Even something simple as BBQ can or will trigger me, as it brings up my memories of what i have witnessed since 4 like Satanic Rituals i had to witness many times over in my child. I can’t say how hard it can be as at times i feel like i am there and not, as if someone else took over the drivers seat of this body. But most of all, its the flashbacks thats hard to deal with as they now much more frequent and even now while in waking consciousness.
But for now till next time and maybe till soon,
Yours truly:
Rob