Have you ever been snorkeling? Whether or not you’ve ever been snorkeling, I bet you can tell me what the essential equipment is: a mask with snorkel and swimming fins. Out in the water, swimming around and looking at the scenery and the bright, colorful fish, swimming fins make sense. Can you imagine swimming without them? You could still move, but it would take a lot more effort and you wouldn’t go as far. Wearing fins in this situation is adaptive, that is, helpful. But what does this have to do with DID?
DID Was Adaptive in Childhood
It can be hard to believe, but DID was actually adaptive for you in your childhood. It helped keep you alive. DID helped you to function in very hard circumstances that were probably unpredictable. DID allowed you to respond to whatever situation you found yourself in a way that minimized the risk of harm to you. For example,
- Perhaps one caretaker couldn’t tolerate unhappiness and would get enraged at you if you weren’t happy. One or more parts would specialize in being the happy child that caretaker needed when you were around them.
- But maybe another caretaker punished you for being happy. One of more of your parts would specialize in behaving in ways that made it less likely you’d be hurt or punished, perhaps by being quiet or depressed.
Can you see how DID was adaptive in those circumstances and minimized the harm you experienced? To be clear, I’m not saying it kept you from being harmed; what it did was keep you from being harmed more than you were. In the circumstances of your childhood, it wasn’t a disorder at all.
DID in the Present
Fast forward to your present life. You are no longer a child living in those traumatic, difficult circumstances. You are an adult now and, hopefully, you are in an environment where you don’t have to adapt to threats from many directions. In safe circumstances, the DID is not adaptive. In fact, in your present life, it seems to fit that word “disorder” in the official name. DID now as an adult in a different, safer environment is like if you wore your swim fins everywhere you went after you finished snorkeling. Those fins were adaptive in the water, but you’d be clomping around awkwardly on land with them, wouldn’t you! Imagine walking through the grocery store in the fins or trying to go bowling with them. They would make just about any land-based activity harder and more awkward. The usefulness (adaptiveness) of the fins is relative to the circumstances, just like with your DID.
Depending on where you are in your DID recovery journey, DID may feel a great deal like a disorder and unhelpful. My hope is that you can appreciate how the DID helped you years ago even as you now work to heal it.