You may be in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or older and suddenly realizing or suspecting that you have DID. And you may understandably be wondering how you could appear to be fine for so many years and then suddenly you have DID. It’s a good question!
DID Has Been There All Along
Although you have developed symptoms of DID that seem new to you, we know that you’ve had DID since childhood. It typically develops by the ages of 3 to 5 years old, and it typically isn’t noticeable to others. Alters are often explained away as imaginary playmates, for example. The DID symptoms may seem to go into remission as you become a teen if your life circumstances are not full of trauma or trauma triggers. Many years can go by like this, with seemingly dormant DID until suddenly you are an adult experiencing loss of time or alters and other confusing symptoms and wondering what is happening and why.
Stresses May Become Overwhelming
One possibility is that you had been able to cope with life’s events with what you thought was yourself but then life changed in some way. Likely it became stressful in some particular way. Or perhaps something happened that was a reminder of the past trauma and caused memories to overwhelm you. At a certain point, you were not able to handle it all, so alters who had been dormant or at least not noticeable started helping out with the overwhelm.
A New Trauma May Activate Your System
Another possibility is that you may have experienced what we call a single event trauma, such as a car accident or a rape. The trauma of the event may have acted as a trigger that jolted your alters into activity, much like the idea of life becoming stressful in some way that activated your alters.
Unexpected Reminders of Your Abuser
If you have not had contact with your abuser for years but find yourself in their presence or interacting with them or even just getting a voicemail or letter unexpectedly from them, or seeing their picture without warning, this too, can be a trigger that reactivates your system.
Your Kids Reach the Age of Your Abuse
Finally, another possibility is that your children may have reached an age that you recall being abused. This is a fairly common trigger for dissociative symptoms appearing seemingly out of the blue.
Does any of this explain your situation? Leave a comment for me and I’ll respond.