Written by an adult with professionally dx’d DID, who’s had over two decades of lived experience and five years of dedicated research.
• What are DID & OSDD-1?
Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID] and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder Type One [OSDD-1] are complex dissociative disorders classified under “Dissociative & Conversion Disorders” in the ICD-10, and “Dissociative Disorders” in the DSM-5.
DID as defined by the ICD-10:
“A disorder characterized by the presence of two or more identities with distinct patterns of perception and personality which recurrently take control of the person’s behavior. This is accompanied by a retrospective gap in memory of important personal information that far exceeds ordinary forgetfulness.”
In the ICD-10, OSDD-1 is classified as “Dissociative & Conversion Disorder, Unspecified.”
(Because of the difference between the ICD-10 and the DSM-5, and how common language surrounding the disorder is often based on the DSM, I will use the DSM-5 description to define OSDD-1.)
OSDD-1 as defined by the DSM-5:
“Identity disturbances associated with less-than-marked discontinuities in sense of self and agency [subtype 1a], or alterations of identity or episodes of possession in an individual who reports no dissociative amnesia [subtype 1b].”
Simply, DID is characterized by multiple identity & self states, each with their own separate narrative, somatic, and emotional experiences. These various identities can exert autonomous control when activated, and experience dissociative amnesia between each identity state.
OSDD-1 is very similar, but these identity states are less defined or distinct [subtype 1a], or the dissociative amnesia present between these identity states is most often limited to emotional experiences [subtype 1b].
(Note: These differences are subjective and can be fluid.)
• How do they develop?
OSDDID is developed through multiple factors, including: a genetic baseline for dissociation; unstable family dynamics; disorganized & fearful attachment to one’s caregivers; repeated, intense trauma; and unresolved, inescapable stress in early childhood.
• What is dissociation?
Dissociation is defined as a disconnection & lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions, and identity.
A natural response to trauma & inescapable situations, dissociation helps to disconnect one from their current experience. When a young child is in an inescapable situation, they will dissociate away from certain thoughts, feelings, actions, behaviors, and the experience itself.
This act helps the mind to compartmentalize these experiences, allowing the child to function in day-to-day life.
However, when these situations are repeated, overwhelming, and are unable to be processed in a safe environment (often because one doesn’t exist), their dissociation turns pathological, or disordered.
Their dissociation bleeds into everyday life, and causes issues in function.
• How does dissociation develop into OSDDID?
Dissociation is the very base of these disorders, causing not only amnesia, but functioning as the formula for how these identity states - often called parts or alters - develop and interact with each other and the world around them.
Our fiancé wrote a thread explaining how alters form in simple terms and an easy-to-follow example. You can find it here (thread no longer exists 😭).
To get a little more in-depth, the currently accepted theory regarding the development of OSDDID and the formation of alters is “[the theory of] Trauma-related Structural Dissociation of the Personality.” It states that when a child dissociates during inescapable situations, those experiences are compartmentalized into neurobiologically predetermined “action systems.”
Essentially - alters are, at a very base level, a manifestation of these action systems.
From the ToSD:
“These systems are conceptualized as evolutionary based action systems that serve major functions, predominantly survival of the individual in the face of major threat, survival of the species, and management of daily life.”
Alters are divided into two classifications according to the ToSD: ANPs and EPs.
I’ve written detailed, informative threads on these classifications. You can find them here.
Objectively, alters are the dissociated identity states that form along the predetermined action systems described in the previous section.
Simply, they are compartmentalized experiences that have developed their own sense of identity.
In a subjective sense, alters are individual identities within a single person, who have their own ways of perceiving and interacting with their experiences & the world around them.
Alter identities vary in personality, as well as gender, orientation, age, appearance, and more.
These variations in identity and personality are due to the inherent differences in life experience caused by mental “barriers” formed through dissociative amnesia.
Your identity is the sum of your entire life experience. When you can’t remember and/or feel connected to bits and pieces of your life, your identity will differ based on what experiences you DO remember and/or feel connected to.
For example, an alter who was only active during childhood is likely to identify as a child, since that’s the sum of their lived experience. This lived experience identity will also factor in subjective beliefs formed through socialization & cultural “rules.”
Example: a male child who’s told “boys don’t cry” may form an alter that identifies as a girl, whose function is to express emotions in a way a boy “can’t.”
It’s important to recognize that the identity of an alter is very real, and very important to that individual alter.
That said, these identities don’t exist in a vacuum, and may include harmful beliefs one learned in childhood, and in subsequent traumatic experiences.
Alter identities deserve acceptance, validation, and critical examination.
Their identity is as real as anyone else’s, but may need to be more deeply assessed by the person with OSDDID and their mental health team.
Summary: an EP is a part that encapsulates the complex mental systems involving traumatic experiences & memories, and is disconnected & disoriented from the life they live in the present.
EPs are the “threat response” & “autonoetic traumatic memory” activation systems of the mind. These systems include: fight, flight, freeze, fawn, pain-experiencing & pain-numbing, re-experiencing traumatic memories, being disoriented to the present, and “owning” memories....- In primary structural dissociation, one EP includes all of these systems & subsystems. In secondary & tertiary structural dissociation, these systems are divided between multiple EPs, and different EPs can exhibit the same threat responses in different situations. Additionally, threat response systems are frequently activated in succession (eg. freeze to fawn to flight), and will often result in multiple EPs being active at the same time, with one “experiencing” EP, and one or more “observing” EPs.
Example: “freeze” EP is experiencing & personifying a traumatic situation, while “flight” EP and “fawn” EP are observing it.
The latter two are not personifying the experience, because “freeze” EP is not behaving the way “flight” EP and “fawn” EP would or want to. In this situation, all three EPs are active, because all three responses may be needed for the traumatic situation. Each EP is, essentially, “waiting their turn” to be active so that they can protect themselves through their threat response activation system.
When these parts are more autonomous & elaborated, it can cause conflict if multiple EPs are active at one time. One EP may be critical of another, and might take drastic measures, such as self-harm, to activate a different threat response system, and thus, a different EP....- With regards to re-experiencing traumatic memories, EPs may remember only metaphorical representations of the trauma, a complete recall of the event, fragments of a single event, or similar aspects of multiple traumas recalled as only one memory or event.
Because the EP’s memories are subjective reproductions of an event, and not an exact replica, different EPs may have vastly different perceptions & responses to the same traumatic situation. Two EPs may even have completely separate memories regarding a single event. Furthermore, the activation of traumatic memories will often obstruct access to other memories available to the ANP, resulting in the EP being unable to recall episodic, semantic, or even procedural memories. This restriction can cause EPs to become stuck in a loop of re-experiencing a traumatic event, with no way to orient themselves to the present.
If the EP can be re-oriented enough to gain access to non-traumatic memories, they can grow beyond their activation systems. The more an EP is activated by trauma-related stimuli, the more benign life experience they gain. After a while, they may begin to develop a set of personal memories unrelated to their trauma. This can cause an elaborated sense of self, resulting in an “Emancipated EP.” In this case, the EP is able to expand their episodic, semantic, and procedural memories past what their activation systems demand of them, allowing the EP to have their own set of wants, needs, interests, and desires.
The Emancipated EP will continue to be activated by trauma-related stimuli, however, they may be able to re-orient themselves to the present on their own, and will begin to become activated through positive stimuli that is unique to their episodic memories. Emancipation may cause conflict with other EPs, as well as phobic ANPs. The more an EP is activated in daily life by benign stimuli, the more an ANP may feel out of control, or even threatened by the presence of the Emancipated EP, who still holds traumatic memories. However, an Emancipated EP is still not fully integrated with their present reality. While they have synthesized their traumatic memories & activation systems with their benign memories and personality, they are still activated & disoriented by trauma-related stimuli.
It’s important to remember that EPs are representatives of threat response activation systems & autonoetic traumatic memories. EPs are never trying to make things difficult on purpose. Rather, they are responding to innate biological systems they have no control over. EPs are also greatly affected by something called “conditional triggers,” specifically with regards to their activation, but that requires an entire thread on its own. I will reply to this tweet with that thread once I have it written.
A final note: please remember that DID is complex, and alters are not only their labels. It can be hard to define whether a part is an ANP or not, and you should never force labels onto your parts against their will.
Take what feels right to you, and leave the rest.
Common EP Roles/Experiences:
- apprehension/fear part
- pain-numbing part
- pain-experiencing part
- 4Fs of survival part(s)
- attachment-seeking part
- care-seeking part
- recuperation from injury part
- “sick” or “ill” part
- “negative” sexual part
- aggressive part
Common EP Feelings:
- extreme emotions
- psychosomatic pain
- intense sensory experiences
- feeling overwhelmed
- suicidal ideation or behaviors
- pervasive sadness
- grief, loss, & mourning
- hope & longing
- feeling as if “nothing good happens”
- desire for caregiving
All of this information was taken from the Theory of Structural Dissociation, as written in the original paper from 2004.
|| The “Apparently Normal” Part of the Personality ||
Summary: an ANP is a part that encapsulates survival & daily functioning, and has failed to integrate and personify traumatic memories & the activation systems related to those memories.
ANPs are the “survival” and “daily functioning” activation systems of the mind. These systems include: play, exploration of the environment, managing energy levels through rest, sleep, eating, & drinking, interpersonal cooperation, and reproduction & caretaking.
In tertiary structural dissociation, these activation systems are divided between multiple ANPs, resulting in a collection of parts - who are often disconnected from each other - that attempt to manage daily life by remaining dissociated from traumatic memories & EPs.
Some ANPs may be professionals with a strong, long-standing career. Others may be loving (yet often inattentive due to dissociation) parents. Many more may experience overwhelming dissociation & disowned feelings, making them feel like they are barely treading water.
ANPs are NOT defined by being emotionless (or only experiencing “good” emotions), “strong enough to handle it,” able to excel in daily life with no problems, perfectly rational paragons, or any of the other baseless stereotypes & assumptions people make. Many ANPs may very well have those traits, but that isn’t, inherently, what makes them an ANP. In many cases, ANPs may NOT be well-equipped to handle daily life, and struggle greatly with even the concept of surviving.
They are still ANPs.
When it comes to dissociation, ANPs often experience “negative” symptoms of dissociation, such as memory loss, DP/DR, feeling apathetic, and “zoning out.”
ANPs often lack memories related to trauma, and are unable to feel or identify certain sensory & somatic experiences. Quite a few ANPs do have access to some traumatic memories - despite the stereotype, ANPs often don’t experience full amnesia. Rather, the memories lack personification. It feels as if it happened to someone else, or they have no emotional connection to those memories.
ANPs are the people who tell a “totally funny” story about something that happened to them as a child, and are confused and upset when people tell them “… that’s kinda fucked up.” They know of the trauma, but they have no ability to feel NOW what they felt THEN.
For “positive” symptoms, ANPs will experience an intrusion of traumatic memories, either full or in part, and they can be emotional, somatic, or both. These symptoms can be triggered by both internal and external factors, and often, the ANP is unaware of the trigger. This will result in the ANP feeling inexplicably upset or sick/in pain, disconnecting from the experience, and, finally, being deactivated completely & replaced by the appropriate EP.
This often causes either full or partial amnesia while the EP is active.
Other than traumatic memory intrusions that result in deactivation, an ANP may experience various positive dissociative symptoms, such as:
- hearing the EP’s voice internally
- an EP controlling physical movements
- feeling pain or other sensory experiences.
Due to these intrustions, ANPs often - if not always, in the case of pre-cooperation stages - are phobic of not only the traumatic memories, but of the attached EPs, as well. An ANP may try to interact with an EP, but since the EP is liable to activate traumatic responses at any moment without the ANP’s awareness, the ANP cannot predict nor control these intrusions of positive symptoms.
Fearing what they can’t control, the ANP fears the EP.
If there are multiple ANPs, they may become avoidant of each other, based on conflicting trauma-related issues. This can go either one or both ways, depending on the ANPs and their reasons for avoidance. Most often, conflicting ANPs will be hyper-critical of each other.
Finally, when it comes to the formation of ANPs, they often split or elaborate when an existing ANP has become too affected by recurring dissociative symptoms to function without activation of an EP. They may also form in conjunction with an EP during or after a traumatic event.
The EP holds the activation responses needed to survive the threat, and the ANP holds the responses needed to function in a life outside of the trauma the EP holds.
A final note: please remember that DID is complex, and alters are not only their labels. It can be hard to define whether a part is an ANP or not, and you should never force labels onto your parts against their will.
Take what feels right to you, and leave the rest.
[Bonus] Common ANP Roles/Experiences:
- working professional part
- parent or caregiver part
- apathetic & detached part
- connection avoidant part
- denial/self-avoidant part
- “positive” sexual part
- friends & connection part
- exploration & play part
[Bonus] Common ANP Feelings:
- emotional numbing
- feeling disconnected from life
- apathy
- inability to feel certain sensory experiences
- feeling “out of control”
- avoidant/fearful of intimacy
- desiring freedom
- feelings of denial / “nothing bad happened”
All of this information was taken from the Theory of Structural Dissociation, as written in the original paper from 2004.
If Taylor Swift used her power for good she would be such a great stochastic terrorist. She would post on Instagram “Hey guys, Tay here. Just wanted to say that whoever delivers me the head of Ron DeSantis on a platter will get free Eras Tour tickets. #ShadeNeverMadeAnybodyLessGay.” It would be at her doorstep in two hours.
Something something the way that Crowley introduced himself to Aziraphale the first time they met in the garden and reacted as if they had never met before. Something about him later behaving as if he did actually have those memories of their time in Heaven together and trying to pass it off as being someone different now. Something about Heaven’s way of punishing angels that go against the plan by erasing their memories. Something about Crowley seeing Gabriel without his memory and saying “ask him properly.” Something about “remember it now” “it hurts, to remember. my head isn’t built for that” “I know. Do it anyway”
Something about “I know. Looking at where the furniture isn’t”
