Living as multiple, an article about DID

Xéna & Kin System
Dec 8, 2025
8 min read

Initially published in the Polykum magazine in December of 2023, this article has been updated and refreshed by its authors in Xéna & Kin in December 2025. Written collaboratively with entries from Ferris, Goliath, Jack, Eric, Xénon and Anja. Updated by Goliath.

TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Suicide & self harm, childhood abuse & neglect, mental health stigma, medical malpractice

Introduction to DID

“The few things I remember are hearing the fifth-floor balcony door rip open and a big storm in the night. He walked back to the other end of the room to get a running start. I didn’t know he was suffering, I was terrified, I screamed and begged for him to stop before we would all go down with him.” - Ferris

Dissociative Identity Disorder is a rare mental health condition affecting about 1.5% of the world. (1) It’s slightly more common than schizophrenia yet isn’t discussed as much or as well known when not heavily stigmatised through harmful inaccurate depictions like in the movie Split. The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, characterises it by the following criteria under code 300.14, paraphrased for brevity:

A disruption in identity creating two or more personalities. It creates breaks in the sense of self and agency over your own actions. Related changes depending on the personality state also occur in behaviour, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, senses and motor functions.
Unusual frequent gaps in memory when trying to recall everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.
The symptoms cause clinically significant distress and socio-occupational impairment.
The symptoms are not a normal/accepted cultural/religious practice and not explained by childhood fantasy play.
The symptoms are not from substance use or other medical conditions.

Most know the outdated term “Multiple Personality Disorder” in the DSM-3. The change is from a shift in focus during the 90s towards memory disturbances and dissociation from reality instead of the personality fracturing part of the disorder. DID cannot be treated with medication and is associated with often prolonged childhood sexual, physical, verbal, psychological abuse, natural disasters, war, or unstable and toxic familial structures.

All personalities together form a system and each splits apart after surviving trauma, designed to overcome situations. Experiencing verbal abuse may develop an alternate personality with thicker skin, more self-assurance, or inherent capability to negate the impact of trauma, for example. Also called alters, they aren’t always adapted to live in daily settings and can be emotionally imbalanced, and self-harming. They have separate memories, which form amnesia barriers keeping the alters that live daily life from reliving traumatic events through flashbacks caused by comorbid PTSD. While soothing, this can also cause distress through memory loss or difficulty leaving abusers from forgetting what the abuse is in nature. The end goal is self-preservation, not hurting others for malicious purposes, which is an ableist and sensationalistic stereotype of DID propagated by popular media or criminals feigning illness for lesser sentences.

“There are 6 main people and 20 more, all with different gender identities, orientations, ages, and interests. We cope with dissociation by learning mindfulness, grounding techniques, and writing tracking notes to help with amnesia before we could access therapy with a professional who actually understood DID. The best times are when two of us are aware and can hear each other think. We have a decision-making system, strict rules and coexist by applying mutual empathy. We all have different struggles, triggers, needs and treat each other as valid equals working together to survive, a family full of love taking care of each other.” - Jack

“Two or more of us wake up together which improves memory. We tell each other about our differing dreams. I hate early mornings, so the most active of us got together just to make me wake up on time. We have a no-chatter rule during lectures so the person most in front can focus and socialise with other students. In breaks, we telepathically chat, gossip, joke with each other, and help with assignments. Everyone thinks differently with different gifts so we have specific people we ask questions to. We make different friends at our university, many know we’re plural. We each have our own clear tasks and chores at home based on rules too.” - Xenon

Doctors are not trained to handle DID, the lack of awareness can kill

Clinicians are often unprepared for DID and misdiagnose patients due to a lack of training, mental health awareness, systematically applicable diagnostic criteria, and heated debate within the community as to whether or not plural patients seeking their help should even be believed. When faced with having to convince and gain empathy from the professionals who should help and validate their condition, patient life becomes sadistic cosmic irony.

How was therapy? Well, I was first a bipolar tween, a manically depressed child, then a disturbed schizophrenic on the loose, but what really happened was my first therapist treated me like garbage. Instead of seeing me as a kid who had a dissociative disorder, he treated me like I was some strange creature that he had to study, gaslight, and ask disturbing intimate sexually charged questions to. After 24 sessions, he could only conclude to our parents that I “needed help” and was “deeply disturbed and strange.” Now I know he is worth as much as chewed gum and that it was the plural community who helped me accept myself as many and end the cycle of being misdiagnosed and mistreated by mental health "professionals".” - Xenon

“I was bullied a lot since elementary school. I was hit, spit on, and told graphic racist slurs by my classmates while being dismissed by my teachers and parents. I couldn’t stand eating with everyone in middle school, so I would sit under a tree that would speak, ask about my day, and give advice. Later on, I started dreaming a lot of a boy my age. He’d visit, chat, bring me on adventures inside an inner world, reminding me to pack my bag well and do homework before vanishing as I wake up.” - Anja

“Anja couldn’t hear me. Attaching my presence to objects made it easier so we’d play under trees, in fields or in the wine cellar. She learned to draw just so she could show what I looked like. I grew up with and protected her from others with a sharp tongue or pulling occasional punches. She got bullied again when she changed schools. I switched and took charge, flipped a table in class at those kids, ordered them to pick up everything from the floor and place them back just the way Anja liked it. While that landed us in mandatory garbage therapy, after talking it out with those guys they understood where Anja and I came from and we quickly became buddies. They knew we were plural, would ask Anja about how I was doing, and later respected me as her boyfriend when inviting her out to bars in high school.” - Xenon

“Entering university, the two fell into a deep depression and couldn’t take care of themselves. They barely went out, didn’t socialise, and would starve. One was socially anxious and terrified of others while the other was depressed and would self-harm. I knew Anja was suicidal and was stopped by Xenon, but when Xenon himself started expressing such thoughts, I knew we had to do something. He can easily overpower the rest of us as an older member of the system. Suicide is an impulse decision, a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” - Jack

“Jack informed me of the situation and together we spent every moment we had control of the body searching for a therapist. Everyone was booked and we knew finding one that didn’t believe in DID would set Xenon back and put our lives in danger. They joined this student mental health awareness organisation called MeWell and I had to go to a team day. I met a woman there. I wasn’t even thinking of the search, focused on masking and passing myself off as Anja. The woman shook my hand, introduced herself as a counsellor, and asked “Are you happy?”. There was something about the look in her eyes. I knew she’d save us, so I asked for her email. I get credited a lot for finally getting Xenon back into therapy and saving us, but really, it’s teamwork.” - Eric

"She didn't understand us, but at least she had empathy. We're now being treated by trauma informed people, but finding specialists is still neigh impossible." -Goliath

DID alters interact with each other internally

“I became our little one’s caretaker after I formed and learned about them. When not in front, we play together in an imagined house in the inner world where we each have our bedrooms. They love plushies and due to their young age, know the names of all of Anja’s childhood toys which we let them inherit after we moved. They're not a child per se but have a reduced sense of language, getting stumped by big words and frequently asking me questions. This means They can’t consent to things, leading us to censor their name with strangers. They're still a smart kid working with an adult brain so they can do calculus taught to us in university, just explained with teddy bears and apples instead. They're emotionally perceptive and intelligent. They know what we’re feeling and worry when they notice trouble. Once I was walking back from getting their favourite apple juice with them, an ambulance passed by us. They knew it meant bad things and started squeezing my hand and crying. To ease their worry, I offered for us to play doctor with Teddy afterward and comforted them with the notion that those in an ambulance have other supportive people around to help, just like me with them.” - Ferris

“Ferris is doing an incredible job that I don’t think he notices enough. Younger people in systems aren’t equivalent to kids or the inner child concept seen in trauma therapy, it’s more complex. Our little one holds all our childhood happiness and is key to growing up as an emotionally stable and trusting adult. What Ferris does when he teaches consent, clear boundaries, empathy, and personal space, and takes care of them is healing us from the inside out. We don’t know what hurt our little one back when we were their age, questioning a child is always uncomfortable, but Ferris tries everything he can to make them feel happy, safe and cared for. One day, they may finally tell us their secrets, but no matter what, we’re their family and we don’t care about how much they contribute or are capable of, we love this kid.” - Goliath