Turns Out I'm a Multiple!
My name is Ian, and it turns out I have dissociative identity disorder. That’s right: I have multiple identities. Seems I’ve had this condition most of my life, possibly as early as 4 years old. Believe it or not, I didn’t know any of this until July 2025 when, at the age of 50, life came crashing down in a manner that left me no choice but to start confronting my mental health.
You might be wondering how I can have multiple identities and not know it. Turns out it’s actually pretty easy as well as fairly common. This condition affects about two percent of the population and most of them are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. (And yes this means you've almost certainly met people with multiple personalities.)
Prior to my diagnosis, I was just an especially forgetful person with no consistent life narrative and no understanding of what it means to have a sense of self. I had rather eclectic attitudes, behaviors, tastes, and styles. I frequently had gaps in my memory and at times felt like my body was being controlled by a puppet master. Depression, anxiety, memory loss, and addiction were constant struggles. I could tell I wasn’t like other people and marveled at folks who seemed to know what their life was about and had some sense of who they are. But I did not understand what made me fundamentally different and, honestly, it was all I knew. After all, we all live in our own bubble of "normal" because we only know our own subjective experience. So for me this was all normal.
After my diagnosis, I embarked on the most terrifying and challenging journey of my life, yet also the most beautiful and rewarding. I’m diving into my newly discovered condition with enthusiasm and I’m growing and learning in ways I did not imagine possible. I’m finding gratitude for all the experiences that molded me into who I am because this experience is full of beauty and wonder and, if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t change places with anybody. Admittedly I’m undergoing intensive mental health care, and I’m hopeful that, with time and hard work, I will learn to thrive with my condition.
This blog will document my journey.
Three quick notes before I continue:
First, the clinical term for my condition is dissociative identity disorder (DID) and the clinical term for the other identities inside me is “alters” or “identity states.” However, I prefer the term “multiple” for my condition and the term “family members” for the various identities who exist inside me. This is a personal preference which reflects how we see one another inside, as well as how we choose to treat and explore this condition together. Other multiples use other terms and that's okay. And we also use terms like "DID" and "alter" regularly. So there are no right or wrong ways to refer to us and we are understanding when people use terminology we don't prefer.
Second, if you ask several clinicians who treat DID about treatment goals and modalities, you will get several different answers. Some clinicians prefer to seek a total integration or “fusion” of the identities into a single ego. That is not my preference. To many of those inside me, fusion into a single ego sounds a lot like dying. Instead, my treatment involves a parts-work modality called “internal family systems” and a DID-specific modality called “the collective heart” plus lots of training in distress tolerance, along with holistic modalities like meditation, yoga, somatic movement, and energetic healing. This treatment combination allow us to maintain our individual identities and work toward being a functional, loving, and harmonious family unit rather than asking some of us to, essentially, give up our lives.
Third, being a multiple involves a spectrum of subjective experiences and outward expressions that are different for everyone. I can’t speak to what it’s like for other multiples, whether they are diagnosed or not. So I’ll only speak to what it’s like for me.
In my next post, we’ll discuss what it’s not like to be a multiple and start correcting some misconceptions I encounter.
