Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder

Hello! I’ve done this topic once before, but that was maybe two years back, so I thought I might be willing to chat again.

You can call me Dante, and I’m a System. My system is, as of writing this, compromised of about 4 or 5 other alters, the main three currently being Argo, Shun and Adam, who also happens to be the newest of the bunch. The other two are a little less likely to be spoken about. I was officially diagnosed back in early mid 2021, but I’ve been dealing with this for significantly longer.

I’m intensely private about this side of my life, namely because of the stigma around this area of mental health, but I’ve been working to break my own judgments about this, so I like to use this event as a tool to push myself outside of my comfort zone and embrace this aspect of myself (Helps cause less discomfort for me). Not only that, but while my system is not the only one or even type of system, I’m comfortable providing my experience for reference so that other creators/writers can have reliable resources if they’d ever attempt to write these kinds of characters, or others to feel a little less alone in their own experiences with DID.

With that, you’re welcome to ask what you’d like. I’ll do my best to provide thorough answers.

Hi, Dante!

First of all, I appreciate how hard it must be for you to be willing to share about your experience with DID. Thank you for letting us into that space with you. It's especially cool that you want to help writers more accurately depict DID persons!

Years ago, I had a character with DID and so I performed a lot of research about it (and eventually retired him because I realized how nuanced the condition can be.) I have 3 questions if that's all right. If any are triggering, please don't answer.

It was my understanding (years ago) that folks with DID don't usually know they have it besides spaces of "lost time" and not remembering how they arrived someplace, etc, and they're typically unaware of their alters. I see that you know the names of yours. Did they identify themselves to you / someone else by those names, or did you choose these names for your own use when you think about / refer to them?

What prompted you to seek help / a diagnosis?

Do you have any characters with DID, or favorite stories written by others that you thought were good representation? (:

Hi I hope I'm not Intruding, but I do actually have a character I want to make one day that has a form of DID may I ask, would it be offensive if this character (who has a type of mutation power) was able to make there separate personalities into physical beings like them, for a temporary time?

Almost like making clones but they are personalities. Is this something that is ok to do with a DID character?

It’s definitely unpleasant sometimes, after posting this I immediately felt nervous about the whole thing, but I’m doing my best to not be too stressed over it.

So, funny that you mention that, it was actually the first snag to my diagnosis, and I can answer your first two questions in one go. My very first time seeking help for my mental health was back in early 2019, after a year of a mental health collapse where I nearly made a very terrible decision, and it was also when the possibility of a DID diagnosis came up. However, they wouldn’t finalize anything due to the fact I don’t have amnesia 100% of the time during switches. After many, many more appointments, they nearly labeled it as UDD (Unspecified Dissociative Disorder), but due to the clear differences in alters, even with my co-presenting, my psychiatrist eventually settled on DID.

It’s different for every system, which is what makes this hard to diagnose, so this is only my personal experience. We tend to have an inner dialogue going during episodes of co-fronting, which is how Argo and I chose his name. He has a ‘birth’ name, but I never call him it and he prefers to be referred to as Argo. Shun told me his name, and even then it is also not his real name. He used to switch names frequently, but he’s stuck with Shun for almost three years now. Adam’s name had to come from others in the system, as he is one of the few that I do not have an easy time co-presenting with, and there is very limited internal dialogue with us.


As for characters or favorite content, I don’t think I do. It’s mostly because it’s disheartening to see a mental disorder I’m diagnosed with demonized the way mainstream media does with most mental illnesses, and it can cause me a lot of distress about a disorder I am already pretty distressed about at times these days.

Hi! So, I am only able to speak for myself, and I fully invite you to seek out other opinions- I’m sure tumblr has writing guides on what is and isn’t offensive when it comes to DID, probably compiled and worded better than I can do with actual reasoning.

As far as I see it, what’s okay to do goes as far as the bounds of your story.

Thank you I'll do more research.