Having a Partner
What is your experience with very close/intimate relationships (partners, spouses, etc.)? Is it possible to have an intimate relationship even if you’re DID?
For people with Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder (DID/MPD)
jigsaw analogy--ellis Said,
January 12, 2009 @ 8:00 am
how do you define “intimate”? seriously, though, i have several close relationships, with my partner and with my friends. i haven’t found that being multiple is a problem, but i’m definitely aware of the ways that having gone through abuse as a child caused problems.
there’s a lot of difficulty with things like trust, safety, and being able to let people get close to me, or being able to rely on them.
what’s interesting is that, since beginning to acknowledge that i am multiple, it’s been easier to be close with people. partly, this is because as each part is able to spend time in therapy, they’re able to work through some of the reasons they have trouble trusting people.
but a lot of it is that the people in my life are pretty good, and their response to me being multiple was that they made efforts to welcome all of my parts, even the ones that are really difficult to be with.
it’s not like our relationships focus on me being multiple, but it’s definitely a part of what’s going on, and it’s something i don’t need to hide. and knowing i’m multiple helps my friends–and definitely my partner–to understand me, and why i seem to change opinions or emotions so suddenly.
thinking about it, the problems i have with close relationships have very little to do with being multiple, and much more to do with all of the aftermath of abuse. and while, yeah, the abuse may have shaped the multiplicity, that’s not where i have problems. but the trust issues, the difficulty with having people be close, plus all of the other anxiety and depression and low-self-worth stuff? that’s the major roadblock to relationships, and i’d have that whether or not i was multiple.