ikesgirl80 & HayHayGirl, I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. I am the male host of a dissociative identity/multiple personality (DID/MPD) System in a 53-year-old male assigned at birth body and have been married for 20+ years. A series of trauma triggered decomposition of my System when I was 48 (2009,) and my 13 year old female alter who fronted for the System during junior high became self aware. The resulting battle for control of the body was misdiagnosed as gender dysphoria. Three years of therapy after having been diagnosed as MTF transsexual and the time/memory loss, flashbacks and nightmares started. I was re-diagnosed with DID/MPD and began trauma recovery therapy from childhood abuse.
As I am sure you are both aware, is extremely common for people with MPD/DID to have opposite gender personalities. Male alters give female trauma victims the strength they do not believe themselves to possess as women. Female alters give men a way to justify in their minds the horror of having been molested and a way to resolve the resulting sexual confusion. I was no exception. My male and female alters have nothing to do with gender. They are what the Self needed to protect itself to survive trauma. That they are male and female is the result of me not being given a "consistent gender message" in early childhood because of:
-The extreme delineation of emotions/behavior as strictly male or female in my family's late 1800's Eastern European mores
-Identity confusion during critical stages of development around age 3 in having been given my female cousin's clothes to wear by my parents
-My only playmates though age 8 being girls
I was never given the chance to develop a "solitary gender identity." An innate ability to dissociate passed on to me by my Mother, my solution was to express myself as both a male and a female as I developed alters to cope with childhood trauma.
My System is typical of others with MPD/DID who used dissociation as a coping mechanism to survive their childhood trauma. An Inner Self Helper (ISH) and two fragment personalities (Protector who contains rage and a 7 year old, the result of the trauma leading to the first personality split who contains fear) are genderless and have little narcissistic investment. The ISH comes to conscious as needed in its supervisory capacity in the system. The frags operate quietly in the background unless triggered. My female and me share the responsibilities of fronting for the System.
Satisfying my female alters needs by transition would have been a HUGE mistake for my System. As is often the case, we are both extremely stereotypical to function in our required rolls in the System. It took HRT and a lot of give and take to settle on body grooming that did not cause dysphoria for one or the other of us. We have grown progressively more coconscious with therapy and pass well for each other when needed, but neither of us identifies as transgender.
I front for the System 5 days a week, my female alter Tuesdays and Fridays; triggered shifts between alters are still beyond the System's control. We live completely separate lives. A handful of people in both of our worlds know we are DID, but they understand the personality they know to be the System host. It has been the most difficult thing my wife and I have faced in our married life but we have managed to incorporate my female alter into our lives for over 5 years now.
DID is a horrible horrible condition; my female becoming self aware was only the first step to healing the pain of childhood trauma. Between couples therapy, twice a week trauma recovery therapy and two days for my female, my life revolves around my DID. I'm not sure how I would survive if I weren't retired. But In God's infinite wisdom, the Self found a way to survive the horrible things I suffered as a child with the gift of dissociation. The psychological pain of trauma therapy has been excruciating but the consolation of truth is peace.
I posted some things that you may find helpful in the thread at:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=160791.msg1377184#msg1377184
