Dissociative Identity Disorder develops as a way for a child to survive overwhelming trauma by dividing it up into smaller, less overwhelming pieces. Different parts of the self hold different experiences, emotions, memories, roles, or survival strategies. Some parts may hold fear, pain, shame, grief, anger, or traumatic memories so that other parts like you can keep functioning.
DID can help a child stay attached to caregivers by keeping painful truths, anger, or fear separated from awareness. Maintaining this relationship with caregivers is vitally important early in a child’s life.
DID helped you survive by allowing you to keep going in circumstances that may otherwise have been impossible to endure.
This page is part of the Survival Strategies: How Trauma Responses Made Sense at the Time section of the CommuniDID site, which explains how behaviors like hypervigilance, people-pleasing, shutdown, or perfectionism originally helped someone stay safe during overwhelming circumstances.
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