5 March 2026
To acknowledge Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Awareness Day, we sat down with BEING member Ezra who lives with the disorder, to get past media portrayals and hearsay to find out what it’s really like to live with DID.
“Today is Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) awareness day. Ironically, I didn’t even know that until earlier this week!
My name is Ezra, though those closest to me know me by other names as well. I was diagnosed with DID almost 10 years ago, and I’m currently 30 years old.
The number one question I am asked when people enquire about my DID is “What is it like having alters?”. It’s a fair question, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like a lot of focus is put on the alters and what they are like as individuals, rather than the history their attitudes hold due to trauma.
I have alters that seem whimsical, hopeful, child-like. I have others that are rather curt, antisocial. Some “parts”, as I prefer to refer to all of me/us by – have stark differences because when they formed it was what was needed to keep our body and mind safe. I took on the role of being quiet when it was not safe for me to speak. I took on the role of emotionally caring for myself at ages where it was a caregiver’s responsibility. I took on the role of hating myself for the colour of my skin when those who were supposed to care for me made it clear I didn’t belong. I took on all of these roles, plus others no child should have to do, because I had to in order to survive.”
“DID is a disorder formed in childhood, typically between the ages of 5 to 9 due to chronic trauma and an insecure attachment with the primary caregiver/s. Although it forms in childhood, it typically isn’t diagnosed until adulthood due to it being covert in appearance (in approximately 90% of cases from what I have read).
It’s dissociative in nature, and boy do I dissociate. I’m thankful to not have full blackouts of time in my adult life but I do have grey-outs. My memory from interactions and conversations is often fuzzy and out of reach. Kind of like listening and watching two people have a conversation while you are on the other side of a frosted window in another room; Except one of the two people is ‘you’, but at the same time not you.
My therapist and support worker often notice before I do when I am drifting away, stopping mid-sentence. My mind just kind of drifts into a dense fog. Sometimes the fog doesn’t feel like anything. Other times it’s like part of me has been quickly vacuumed back into the past and I’m hovering in limbo as another part steps in to people please by carrying on conversation. Life doesn’t feel real sometimes. Sometimes it is dream-like; everything seems oversaturated and my limbs feel ‘off’. Other times it’s almost like a nightmare; things feel darker and my vision seems almost blurry.
I don’t often tell strangers about my DID just because I don’t want to have to play a game of mythbusters. Unfortunately, the amount of media about the disorder is very black and white. The primary focus is always about alters, by which they are either demonised or romanticised. There is no in-between. There is no depiction of the alter that is having a psychosomatic flashback, the alter that reinforces the belief of a childhood abuser, the alter that has a maternal role in comforting the two; Never a depiction of the internal team working together to regain a sense of calm, safety and reinforcement that they are in the present. I wish people could understand the reality and complexity of the disorder, how it manifests, and how important it is for healing for those of us with DID to be able to access help.
I am so privileged and thankful to have access to a great therapist and NDIS funding in order to work with each part so that we can have more cohesion and fluidity of self, but there are days where it is still rough. There are days when introjected beliefs from childhood are loud and the parts that mirror emotional abuse take the reins. Sometimes it feels like they cannot be reasoned with.
Even though I am quite open about my experiences online, I have yet to fully ‘accept’ my disorder. Some of our parts are comfortable making themselves known, having friends refer to them by name. But in reality I can say “I have DID” all day till the cows come home, but to fully accept it means that I need to accept the reality that I was a victim of CSA.
Childhood trauma- Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (C-PTSD) is the cause and comorbid diagnosis for DID. Yes, there are alters, yes there is dissociation, but the core of it is trauma. It’s a child whose world wasn’t safe, whose attachment wasn’t secure, whose nervous system did what it had to do to survive over and over again.
If you genuinely want to understand dissociation beyond headlines and horror films, I recommend checking out Dissociation Made Simple by Jamie Marich (a trauma therapist and someone living with DID). It explains dissociation in a way that is accessible, compassionate, and grounded in both clinical knowledge and lived experience.”
We want to express our heartfelt thanks to Ezra for their courage and generosity in sharing their experience with us so that we can all understand better, and judge less.
If you are living with mental health challenges that you think are misunderstood and would like to share your experience, we’d love to share it with the rest of the BEING community and beyond. Just email communications@being.org.au and we’d be happy to discuss it with you more.