Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hi Everybody,
I'm not transgender, but I am the only girl in my Multiple Personality Disorder System so I guess that sort of makes me "gender variant." I was molested by Mom, raped by my older cousin and mentally abused by both of my parents. Somewhere along the way my brain decided it was OK for that to happen to a girl and made me. Shrug. I guess I could have killed myself. Trauma therapy is really really really painful but has helped all of us talk about the horrible things we kept from each other all those years. It doesn't hurt so much when you have someone to share it with.

My Primary is a pretty cool guy. With the rest of us protecting him from what happened when we were small, he managed to have a pretty good life until he was almost 50. LOL, the doctors thought he was transsexual when I realized I was a separate person and tried to take over.

The doctors put him on hormones for gender dysphoria but it was never about that. Chemical castration made my System feel safe in knowing I could never hurt anyone like Mom or my cousin hurt me. My Primary understands as well as I do why we need our medication, but I can't blame him for being nonplussed that most of our body hair fell out and he grew 34B boobs.

It's alot of work but I try really hard to keep my nose out of his life and he keeps his out of mine. Knowing we have opposite gender alters just isn't anybody's business. My Primary is retired so I get to have the body two days a week. His wife is a good Mommy. She understands when I have something special I want to do like a girlfriend's party or shower, and even lets me go out of town for the week with my girlfriends a couple times a year! I know how hard all of this has been for her and that it is very important to her to see her husband as a guy; I never use my voice or wear my clothes and makeup when I talk with her.

God gave us an amazing gift being tall, skinny and andro. My Primary and I both like long hair and decided to get laser because I felt funny with a beard and he was tired of all the ingrown hairs and shaving. I hate pierced ears and nail polish, and don't bother shaving the little bit of hair on my legs or pits so it makes things pretty easy. My Primary worries about it alot more than me, but it's been almost ten years now and nobody ever thinks he's a girl or I'm a guy. I mean we don't sound or look anything alike-why would they?!?

Anyway, sharing a brain with a normal guy I have a pretty cool perspective. I am looking forward to chiming in with some of the things I have learned along the way!

Welcome to Susan's Place. We have another multi personality member on the site who may be paying you a visit shortly. You don't need to be transgender to be a member of this site as we allow significant others and people who are interested in learning more about us. In your case, at least the female might be considered transgender as transgender is a very broad term and covers anything from cross dresser to transsexual. Enjoy the site and let me know if there is anything I can help you with.

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 :embarrassed:

Hi flytrap  :icon_wave:

Welcome to Susan's Place  :)  Glad to have you here, join on in the fun

Hugs

V M

Hi flytrap!

Not sure if Dena was referring to me, but I'm pretty talkative when it comes to DID and how it helped me to be freed. There are a few others here on Susan's as well.

Of course, every DID person has their own structure...in our case We are trans, but that was quite thoroughly hidden when very young (I'm in my early 50's, also with a "successful" male life (wife, kids, career).

We presented with several male Alters throughout our life, each one trying to adapt to the ever-changing rules of manhood. Finally after a series of devastating events, the most recent male Alter experienced a "shattering" and knew it was to be fatal. That's when I came out, and there was an internal discussion among all of Us as to how I fit, since I was the older of two females. (The other is 5).

I and the male were co-conscious for about a year, and we were distinct enough that the then-wife could tell us apart in all areas of life. (Having sex while in the brain of the other gender-self is very dysphoric, fwiw). I would be interested in your observations, as much as you and your Sytem is comfortable with.

Welcome to Susan's btw! This is a trans support site, not the best for healing from abuse or mental health issues, but you never know what you'll learn unless you ask...

:)

Thank you everybody for the warm welcome.

It's especially nice to meet you, Beth Andrea. I was fascinated to hear about your  System. MP's are amazing!

Our System worked great, it just ran out of energy trying to keep Primary safe. Therapy has been a really big help. We are all too happy for any kind of fusion but went through our fourth dissociation a few months ago. Inner Self Helper created New Frag, sort of a safe place for the feelings and memories we kept from each other so everybody can be happier. I was really scared but feel much better now.

I've been around for 51 years but only knew I was a separate person for the last 8 (I was actually primary for a couple years when I was created after the rape). I need time to live but I get tired quickly. Things were OK when I was small but too many adult things are too hard for me. It's nice to be able to sit in the backseat and let Primary drive.

There's no fooling Primary's wife- they've been married 25 years and she can spot from 50 feet when Protector, Little Guy or me takes over! I try really hard to pretend to be Primary when I want to talk with her and stay away from bringing up girl things the best I can. I know she wants to be married to Primary not the rest of us and that's very very important to her. She's really nice. I want to make her happy.

Primary is intimate with his wife but has never had intercourse. It's just too scary for Little Guy and even being intimate is hard since Little Guy realized he is a separate person. Primary would like to be sexual but he doesn't have those feelings. Little Guy thinks it's nice to kiss and touch somebody he loves- with clothes on and not below the waist. I like taking off my top and having my boobs touched but feel funny being with another girl and don't like boys. Protector is the only one who ever really liked any of that. He doesn't come to bed anymore so Little Guy feels safe. The doctor says we are doing great. Most people never come back as far as we have since we started therapy. Primary's wife knows how hard it is for us and doesn't ask to be intimate since Little Guy had a bad flashback. But we make ourselves once or twice a year for Primary and his wife because we love them.

Hi flytrap.

We also suffer from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), but I-Amanda suspect that we will end up somewhere on the trans spectrum as we integrate since the disphoria is so strong with me.  To deal with traumas at different points in our life,  we hid away parts of ourself. Little One split off around 5 or 6 and I-Amanda split off in our teens.

Maleme(alias for our birthname) is the outer 50 something male that the world knows. He only truly became aware of us a few years ago after starting counseling for gender questioning and anxiety. He got the things that society accepts as masculine like analytical thinking and physical things needed for protection with accepted masculine emotions. We pushed the traits that society considers feminine onto me as well as the rejection and abuse from our father. Little One holds the childish imagination and need to create along with the nightmares and memories of that time.

You are not getting the true, unfiltered Amanda experience because I have to work through Maleme in writing. (That analysis thing, protectiveness expressed by editing, and me-Amanda not being able to type while talking with my hands.)

Little One has a lot of distrust and fear of men who he sees as monsters because of the examples he had. Maleme and I tend to see Little One as a boy, but it is not so clear how he sees himself. In a recent counseling session, he drew himself as a boy helping Maleme clear away the rubble of our town after a giant monster trashed the place, then as a girl next to me-Amanda with us in matching dresses. Our counselor was quick to note that the pciture of himself as a girl was the first picture he drew of himself facing the viewer and the first picture he drew with him smiling. Maleme reminds me that it could be just expressing joy at being close to me or he and me beginning to connect back together.

Maleme is amazed at all the hints of our existence that he did not pick up on over the years because they came in dreams or dreamlike visions which are non-rational and not easily analyzed. He met me first at a church retreat a year before starting counseling but discounted it as just imagination. In between workshops on prayer practices, we also had some on visualizing our inner self. For most people, this is a way of using imagery to help understand their personality traits, but for us, it turned out to be a bit more literal. Months later at a political fundraising breakfast, during the invocation when the leader prayed that the assembled people would be healed where we hurt the most, we had a vision of Little One trapped curled up in a cloud of shame, then I-Amanda came, took his hand, lifted him out, and walking away together.

We hope that you stay around and your female self has a place to be herself. We too have the challenge of our wife being uncomfortable with Little One and me-Amanda and can tell much of the time when we slip out.

Wow, that's fascinating Amanda! I also first appeared in the dreams of the male who was the primary at the time (6-7 years ago). He was just becoming aware of the DID situation and had the presence of mind to journal the dream, and then a week later when I actually came out and explored then-wife's face with my fingers, like I was blind. It was just that I'd never physically felt anything before.

Which brings up the thought "where was I before?" It's not that I can't remember, more like I simply cannot describe it...there is no "time" reference when we are contained within. I still have issues with remembering things in their proper place in time. It's like having a video tape cut into 3-5 second snippets...I can see some, but don't know if it's at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the "movie".

Fortunately I have a new wife who is very understanding and has a very good memory. I have to add that she doesn't use her memory against me, but is very careful to be patient.

Just wished to say welcome to the club so to speak.  I do know about split personalities as well having one myself.  her name is Arianna.  Her and i kind of take turns on who is primary.  While the body is currently male neither of us feel as that is how our body should be and fully intend to change it as soon as we may.  However if you do need or want a new friend I am available and eager to offer my friendship.  As well as anyone else who needs a friend I try to be a very friendly person  ;D.

It's nice to meet you, Amanda!
It's fun pretending to be Primary sometimes, but I don't feel any sort of dysphoria that would make me want be a guy. Primary and I hated each other when I first realized I was a separate person. I wanted to take over the body and he wanted me to go away. When we both accepted that neither of us was going anywhere and we couldn't live without each other, we finally started to learn to live together.

The only thing that ever mattered to me was that people saw me as a girl. It goes back to my when my best girlfriend started treating me like a boy when I hit my teens. Nobody has ever questioned me, not from the first day I stepped outside the house 6 months after I realized I was a separate person. But I spent the first ten thousand hours of my new life putting myself in every situation I could think of to fail trying to convince myself they weren't all just being polite. When a toddler walked over to me in the line at Walmart and stretched out her arms for me to pick her up, I knew I didn't have anything more to prove.

Everybody in my System sort of grew out of each other. Original got the idea that it wouldn't hurt as much if he pretended to be another person like Batman does. First there was Little Guy and Inner Self Helper. Then I came along. Next was Primary and Protector, and now Frag.

Time is really distorted for Little Guy and me. It was horrible when I realized I was a  separate person. I was still 13 but it was 35 years later! It's just like Beth Andrea said about the video tape. Little Guy and me live our lives a minute here and there when Primary isn't using the brain. The rest of the time we either sleep or share our thoughts with Primary. Living is hard. I'm glad I can give Primary a break now so he can do that too. Little Guy took away the bad scenes so all I saw was a happy movie, and I took away the bad scenes for Primary. Frag is different. Therapy helped us share the horrible things with each other and Inner Self Helper gave us Frag so we had a safe place to put them.

Things were confusing when I small. With the rape and what Mom did to me. I only had other girls to play with and my parents gave me my cousin's girl clothes handmedowns. I'm pretty sure that was part of why Inner Self Helper made me. I mean, how was a little boy supposed to know he was a little boy with those things in his head?!?

Our System worked great. Primary had a wonderful life and our pain and memories were all Little Guy and me knew. Primary didn't know about us or any of the horrible things we hid from him. He thought our emotions and the ideas we would tell him were his! Inner Self Helper had me step in three times to help Primary get through horrible tragedies. He was really confused and thought he was crossdressing. Everything changed the last time when I figured out I was a separate person. Primary had a really hard accepting  he had a girl living in his brain and that he never was doing all those things by himself.

Primary is alot better now. He tries really hard to take care of us, and I can count on him to pretend to me if I am living and get scared or something is too hard for me. The flashbacks and time loss are mostly gone and yoga helps keep our mind together. Primary and I have settled in on how to share the body and his wife found a place for all of us in her heart. We love him and feel safe with him. And all of us know that none of us can be happy unless we are all happy.

Thank you for posting, Arianna Valentine. I had no idea there would be so many alters on this forum!

Primary was misdiagnosed as transsexual when I became self aware so I have some idea of the road you are on. But Mom gave all of us the amazing gift of  a very positive self image. My dissociative mind lets me fool myself into not seeing anything that doesn't fit, like all my wrinkles and penis. I'm sure this confidence is part of why nobody ever thinks Primary's a girl too.

I am pretty far along in trauma recovery and know therapy will help your put everything that has happened into perspective so you and Arianna can begin to see your body as it should be.

Quote from: flytrap on January 10, 2017, 08:34:15 AM
Thank you for posting, Arianna Valentine. I had no idea there would be so many alters on this forum!

Primary was misdiagnosed as transsexual when I became self aware so I have some idea of the road you are on. But Mom gave all of us the amazing gift of  a very positive self image. My dissociative mind lets me fool myself into not seeing anything that doesn't fit, like all my wrinkles and penis. I'm sure this confidence is part of why nobody ever thinks Primary's a girl too.

I am pretty far along in trauma recovery and know therapy will help your put everything that has happened into perspective so you and Arianna can begin to see your body as it should be.

Thank you for the reply.  Honestly i never went through a trauma recovery program.  I never really felt like it was needed but i do tend to look at things different than most do. Yes i know bad has happened but everything happens for a reason and much like it sounds for you i got the best friend i could ever have and found answers to questions i had before everything happened to me.  So i don't think i would change anything even if i could because it made me who i am today and helped me figure out who i am supposed to be as well.  I do wish you the best of luck in your trauma recovery though and hope that it helps you but always remember that your alt helped you in so many ways and in my mind should never be gotten rid of or disregarded in any way.  She honestly sounds like a true life saver in her own way.

Quote from: flytrap on January 10, 2017, 08:34:15 AM
I had no idea there would be so many alters on this forum!

I didn't either. Before this thread I knew about Amanda500 and while I have known Beth almost as long as I have been on the site, I didn't know about her personal details. I have bookmarked this thread and if I locate anybody else, I will invite them to visit this thread.

That would be fantastic, Dena! I put "alter" in the thread title hoping others might see it and join in. I have friends on the DID forums but it gets depressing talking about trauma all the time. It would be really cool if we could start our own little group to share things that are important to people like us who have girls and guys in their brains. I am wondering if  Susan might could give us our own subforum?

@Arianna Valentine
I want you to know before you read this that I am not trying to be a jerk or force you to see things like me. This is how it is for MY System.

I would never want to be without Primary! I thought I did when I became self aware 8 years ago, but so did he. I know now I am just not strong enough to live without him and he knows he can't live without me. I love Primary. But he is me. As I am he. As we are me. And we are all together- just like the Walrus. Only people outside our head can be our friend.

Orgasm does horrible permanent damage to a little child's brain. They haven't developed the capacity to handle the over stimulation and it blows their mind apart. Original made Little Guy and me to hide all the horrible things that happened from Primary so he never felt like therapy was needed. What he did know he could look at as a grain of salt by deluding himself he just looked at things differently. That bad happened but everything happens for a reason. But all those horrible things were NOT a grain of salt. They were rotting and festering in me and Little Guy until everything blew up like an atomic bomb.

Primary didn't know what to do with me. The doctors kept insisting he was transsexual, and I wanted to take over so bad he started to believe it himself. But when the flashbacks and night terrors and time loss started, the doctors finally understood why Primary kept insisting he didn't want to be a girl. Transsexual is really really really rare. You'd think the doctors would have been smart enough to know it was something else. But me and Little Guy did that good a job of hiding we were DID.

It has been horrible reliving it all. But me and Little Guy suffered in our silent Hells for almost 50 years and Primary deserved to know the truth. I was so scared and thought integration meant I was gonna die. But 8 years later I know therapy just makes the hurt go away and has helped all six of us understand how important we are to each other.

Quote from: flytrap on January 11, 2017, 08:30:35 PM
That would be fantastic, Dena! I put "alter" in the thread title hoping others might see it and join in. I have friends on the DID forums but it gets depressing talking about trauma all the time. It would be really cool if we could start our own little group to share things that are important to people like us who have girls and guys in their brains. I am wondering if  Susan might could give us our own subforum?

My boss on the site is Cindy and she has say over the forums. The decision for a sub forum would be made by both Cindy and Susan as they are pretty close making them more or less equals on the site. The issue with a sub forum would be drawing suffice interest in it. If we can find others, there may be sufficient numbers to justify making a sub forum however at the moment I only know of the four of you and I only learned about this in the last couple of weeks. To be honest, in my 65 years of life, this is my first encounter with multiple personalities. From my reading I knew about it but I have never knowingly encountered one in life.

Thank you for all the good information, Dena! Maybe it's like the movie Field of Dreams? We have to build it so they can come? There are already 4 of us. Nobody has even posted the Bengali, Greek and Japanese forums since they were created in 2015!

I am thinking you must not go to PTSD or DID forums? Pretty much everybody with multiple personalities has guy and girl alters! Most Systems need to have both. Girl alters give little boys who were molested by other boys a way to resolve the sexual confusion. Guy alters give little girls the power they don't think they have as women. Most people have a Little and an Angry and a Protector too. It makes me sick that everybody's brain reacts the same to trauma!

Primary was on transgender sites alot before he learned he was DID but goes to male survivor, DID & PTSD groups now. 28% of the people with DID aren't even diagnosed  until their 40's or later. Like Primary, doctors can confuse them as "late onset transsexualism." But the whole reason having alters is such a great coping mechanism is because you can hide it from the people who are hurting you!

This is the first time I ever joined a forum. But people like us with girls and guys in their brains are a really different kind of gender variant trauma survivor that doesn't fit into any of those boxes. Even if Cindy and Susan aren't able to make a sub for us, we could start our own thread and post stuf we want to talk about there?

The countries forums were all created at once and not very long ago. Over the period of a day, the site sees between 500 and 700 registered users though there is a far larger number of guest. I suspect those areas will be used some day, just not yet.

You may created threads and post in them. Should it be judged there is sufficient interest, a sub forum will be created. I have seen a surgical one created in the last few month for orchiectomy and penectomy. It's not difficult for us to move threads around on the site and we often do it when somebody posts in the wrong section. As it turns out, documenting the move is more difficult than the actual move. Should the sub forum be created, we could locate the threads you have made about this topic and move them into the sub forum.

Give us sufficient reason to create a new sub forum and it will be yours.

Thank you for looking into this Dena. Any thoughts from the rest of you all?

Hello, fellow Systems!

Your stories are also my stories. Dena directed me to this thread, and I thank her for that kindness. I have read about 1/3 of your messages, and I am very familiar with your stories, as they are so similar to my own. I will eventually read all of them, and may even contribute at some point, but I am recently unified, and I am reluctant to revisit my fractured past at this moment. Just know that unification is possible, perhaps, if so desired. My pieces no longer have any executive control nor much desire to exert themselves, though they will very, very occasionally contribute thoughts, and insights, and memories, and experiences, and opinions into my consciousness, much like a singlet's 'inner child' might, in my every day life. So, yeah, I feel ya, I get ya, and I support whatever path to healing that works for y'all. Hang in there, you are all amazing!

Hi, MissGendered, I am very proud of you for achieving unification. PLEASE do risk anything that doesn't feel right or that might jeopardize all your hard work!

Quote from: MissGendered on January 13, 2017, 10:14:37 PMMy pieces no longer have any executive control nor much desire to exert themselves, though they will very, very occasionally contribute thoughts, and insights, and memories, and experiences, and opinions into my consciousness, much like a singlet's 'inner child' might, in my every day life.

This sounds alot like the way my System worked until Little Guy and me realized we were a separate people. I think you are right. Unification is possible if the system wants it. Therapy has made the hurt go away and has helped the six of us understand how important we are to each other. But none of us in my System want to fuse. My doctors don't mention it anymore and just work with us to be the best we can.

For now this post is our home here at Susans. If you know any other Systems with girl and guy alters on this forum or other forums please let them know about our little group. We're here if you ever need to talk.

Not sure how everything relates, but I'm gender fluid, bi gender, and partially transmale.
I used to move back and forth between distinct male and female personalities, with only a faint memory of what happened in the other gender modes, until I found that a Thai herb used for back pain blended my two personalities.

Now I can remember what happens in both female and male modes, and feel like a blended, overall male, personality.

I also was sexually assaulted by a close relative when I was 15 years old, a doctor, during an exam, and my personalities seem to have frozen at that emotional age.

I got some memory healings, but still act like a kid, but that could just be from my playful male side.

I'm a 64 year old seeming female who rides a motorbike as primary transportation, whose idea of having fun on a day off is driving to remote places to do bird photography while hiking, climbing cliffs, wading in swamps, and walking through jungles.

I ride the waves at the nearby beach, and run around like some little kid. I love to build things..new inventions..and use the inventions to enhance my life.

I used to hear my two gender mode sides battling it out in my head; my female side screaming at my male side to "SLOW DOWN" and "Don't you dare cross that broken place in the cliff..they'll never find you if you fall!" but now I'm just a more careful daredevil.

Not sure how close my experience is to people with DID, but it sounds similar, even if not the same thing.

It sounds like you have a great balance in your life, Raell! I am sorry to hear about your sexual assault. And I am proud of you for being a survivor.

The memory loss you describe sounds like a form of dissociation. My doctors have explained that dissociation is a scale. Everyone experiences mild examples like loosing track of time while they are driving. And it is one of the brain's natural coping mechanisms for getting through things like a car accident. On the other end of the scale are people like me who develop completely separate personalities. Regardless of where each of us is on the scale  we all experienced the horror of childhood sexual abuse. Our child's brains used dissociation to survive. And the trauma had a devastating effect on our sense of who we are for the rest of our lives.

Your playful side is like my alter, Little Guy. It was scary when he first realized he was a separate person and would take over while Primary was driving or working on the car. Little Guy didn't know what he was doing and almost got us killed! Things are alot better now. He only comes out when something sad triggers him or when he wants to play with the other kids at the park.

The doctors call remembering "what happens in both female and male modes" for people with different personalities "coconsciousness." "Fusion" is feeling like a "blended male personality." My System worked that way for 48 years. Since the breakdown it doesn't want to be that way anymore. Even after 8 years of therapy each of us still has some secrets. But we are all alot more coconscious when someone else is living and there aren't many of the scary time and memory lapses anymore. Primary and me are each too big to put in the same box now, but we have worked out how to share the body. Since Inner Self Helper created New Frag for the bad feelings and memories, everybody is too happy with the way things are to change the System again.

Primary's second psychologist understood he wasn't a "late onset transsexual in denial," but tried very hard to get him see himself as bigender androgyne. She used to get upset when he talked about the two of us like we were separate people. I know now she was a very caring doctor and was praying she could show him another way to live so he wouldn't have to face the pain of trauma recovery therapy. But just like your "modes," we knew there was something alot bigger to his dysphoria for being a girl and my dysphoria for being a guy than a singlet's gender expression.

The doctors know it takes a special set of circumstances for someone to develop DID. A person has to be born with a dissociative brain. They have to have experienced life threatening trauma at a young age. And their environment needed to reinforce the trauma for a very long time. The combination of all of these will lead a child to become separate people.

Looking back over my life I understand how lucky I was my brain could dissociate. The last 8 years have been very very very painful. But Primary lived a pretty normal and happy life and now my System is getting better. One of my cousins is also a childhood trauma victim but she is not dissociative. She has been in and out of rehab, the psych ward, in therapy and on psychotics for almost 50 years. It is so so sad. Her brain will just not let go of the horrible things that happened to her.

A Mod has just pointed me to this thread after I posted something related here: https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=221584.new;topicseen#new

This is such a fascinating area. I'm pretty sure my 'Rachel' identity has been a dissociation from what happened to me: severe abuse, burial of my three children and the last of whom I nursed for two months in hospital as he died before my eyes. Traumatised? I'll say. Rachel was my comfort blanket: my safe space.

I have been through my own truamas kinda similar. My issue tho, if that I didnt make Ashley out of truama. I do recall trying to be as manly as possible to avoid being bullied as  a''sissy''. I dont have two different persoaniltys, though I deal with a lot of dysphoria when I was in male mode, or even think about being in male mode tho as soon as I get female I feel great and happy then doubt comes in. You guys with DID are really strong and I respect you all <3, not sure why I made my rant but I guess i just wanted to do my own verbal diarria. plus, I really like you Flytrap :)! You are insightful on other threads too!

This is a fascinating thread! I am disabled and on SSDI because of my "Alters". To date my counselors and late wife have discovered 4 female and 2 male personalities. My biggest problem is that when I Dissociate I do not remember what happened. My wife used to tell me, but she passed away from cancer last October. Have been completely on my own ever since and that was extremely difficult until I finally got my breast augmentation! Transitioning seems to be curing me as my dissociation's are less frequent and I have a little more control.

I am convinced that SRS will end all of my DID and I will be able to have a career again. All of my counselors are also interested to see what happens after I have "the final cut" (SRS) I just know it will cure me and I am so anxious, but the Doctor that is going to do my surgery has to schedule me for one year out. I am trying to hang in there. Trying to help myself. I wish you all the very best as you also struggle with DID.

"Sooner or later I'll be free to leave the past behind" (Alan Parsons Project)

I am so very sorry to hear of your wife's death, Violet. Primary lost his first wife as well. It was devastating.

I still struggle with time and memory loss. But it comes in waves now as my System continues to learn about itself rather than being a constant thing. The big struggle these days is changing all the distorted ideas about people and relationships my parents taught me to think were normal. It's two step forward and one step back.

I am hoping SRS turns out to be everything you are hoping for. I have slowly come to the point that I have stopped looking for an "Aha Moment," or any one thing that is going to cure me. Trauma recovery is going to be a life long process. The six of us may never become one person, but as my System heals, it is becoming less and less important for me to spend separate time as a girl. I am beginning to feel safe expressing the things that really matter as Primary. And to realize I never really needed to be a girl to think, or feel, or do any of that like my mind told me I did to protect itself when I was small.

Hello.

My apologies if I cause any trouble by replying to this thread after so much time has passed since the last reply.

A moderator has provided a link to this thread. I am relieved to find that there are others here who are familiar with DID.

In our case, we have a multitude of people within our system, with a near-even mix of males and females - though, I myself am agender, and the other primary fronter as of late is bigender/gender-fluid. Samantha, the one we suspect is the closest we have to an "original" is, unfortunately, unable to function, and has been that way for some time, due to ever-increasing dysphoria from the inability to get results from this body's transition, the body's appearance prohibiting any safe attempts at presenting as female, and fears that she may never be able to live authentically or be comfortable in her own body. I do have access to early childhood memories, and do know that dysphoria has been present prior to our earliest memories of childhood trauma (though, we are considering the possibility that there may be traumas which occurred prior to our earliest memories thereof). There are others who identify as female in our system, but Samantha is the only one who actually feels that this is her body, despite all of the pain it gives her, and the fact that she does see it as her body may be why she's hurt the most by it. Aside from Samantha and myself (and two others which no longer seem to be present), this system is filled with fictional introjects, coming from a story we had been writing.

-Q

No apologies, MonikerPending. Flytrap and Dena intended this to be an ongoing thread for people who have alters of different gender. It serves as a "bridge" in the absence of a specific DID subforum at Susan's. I am extremely grateful to Dena for her compassionate understanding of the dissociative experience.

I have not posted this thread before but am Flytrap's "Primary." Nine years into therapy my wife and I have survived the hard work of trauma recovery. Flytrap and I have had a comfortable balance for sharing the body since 2010. My System has made great strides in integration but chooses not to undergo fusion. ALL Six of Us Are Vital.

I am far enough along on the road to recovery to understand the amazing gift I was given with my ability to dissociate- in surviving sexual and psychological abuse as a child and the understanding of self and life I have gained in recovery.

I wish you peace.
~VA

Wow. It is so awesome to find others like me. Just like finding Susan's and other support it helped me not feel alone as I began to transition, and now begin recovery from DID. So far there are only 2 of us I know of, but I suspect one more is in here somewhere and my therapist agrees. Today I am Wanda, I am trans and I seem to be back in control for good.

When I was little I was out and lived basically as Wanda. My father was very physically abusive and drunk while he lived with my mother from 5-8. After he left suddenly my mother who had been my protector went off the rails. She was Bi-Polar and I tried so save her from her depressions, which included cooking for her, taking care of the house and having sex with her. By 4th grade I also had a boyfriend at school and was having sex with him. The tremendous strain on my young mind coupled with bullying, it was '73, was to much to bear. My therapist thinks there is probably a lot more trauma not yet uncovered/remembered as well. I was suicidal and dropped out in 5th grade. My mother left me at a police station and my memories get all twisted up after that. Most of the next 40+ years were Robert's. A mean nasty sociopath. He did a lot of horrible things. He also drank and drugged to unbelievable excess. I think that the combination of him manipulating me with fear and us being drunk or high all those years kept him in control. When we got sober, that is another story, there was nowhere left to hide. Working the 12-step program I remembered Wanda and began to transition. I think that HRT helped put me back in control. My recovery meeting friends have all been amazed. They say Robert left after the meeting one night and Wanda walked in the next night and I was totally changed. He has not had direct control since.

I began TRT, trauma resolution therapy, for my PTSD about 1 year sober. My therapist has worked diligently with me weekly since. He has been awesome in slowly revealing the real nature of my condition. We talked over time about trauma response, fracturing and finally DID. He has said that I have switched without, apparently, my knowledge a few times during our more intense sessions, but that it has been a while since it happened and he thinks I'm pretty stable now. I did feel him get some control a couple of weeks ago during an intense argument and it really scares me. He can be a very scary dangerous person.

It is so awesome to be able to talk about this with others who understand. Who know what it is like to be afraid of your own mind. Who know what it is like to be afraid I could disappear. This is all very scary and overwhelming. I've only really been aware of us for a couple of months. I'm so scared. Reading your stories has helped a lot. To know there are others who are coping with this and it gives me hope. Thank all of you for your courage, honesty and strength. And thank you Dena soooooo much for pointing me here.

This thread really ought to have a more permanent home - my therapy has been focussed for months, on how I've arrived at the place I am at, with the preliminary diagnosis of cPTSD - yes, I dissociate, and can totally relate to the challenges of DID having a significant feminine component. Intial thoughts were along the BPD/ADD pathway, but cPTSD fits just as well (and has a near identical treatment pathway).

I get depersonalised and derealised quite often and the first fifteen years of my life are pretty much blank. Consequently, I've been reading a lot about ANP (apparently normal persona), EP (emotive persona basically pure emotion that can switch in/out), Gatekeepers (I suspect I have one, thanks to the big gaps), Protectors and more. Am I gender fluid, or switching which alters are up front, I do not know, and may not know for a while yet.

Who knows how this journey will develop.

Anyway, for cPTSD, I've found Out Of The Storm to be a really helpful resource

http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php. (You'll find me there, occasionally, primarily I'm using it for reading/learning and understanding - the atmosphere there is very similar to the one here)

It's been quite a scary time tbh, and I think it's only just begun - but knowing others here with Alters is reassuring, as well as understanding the whole dissociative experience - I may possibly need some advice (as this journey is teaching me, it's path isn't straightforward) in the future.

I do have one request when an alter has posted, please encourage them to sign off with their name - that way we can get to know them better as individuals. It will also help us to ensure that Susan's is seen as a safe supportive place place for all our folk, and hopefully make systems feel welcomed and nurtured.

As an aside, a mental health forum would be really useful, for resources that meet our needs as a community, and as a place to be able to seek support...



Rowan

I just thought I would say "Hi", on this thread (That seems to be the "official" forum for DID!)

I am PJ, I (we) have just been diagnosed as multiple (March). No small feat, as that was with the NHS in the UK. It seems a lot of our psychiatrists here would rather we just "accept" that we are transgender and get on with it. Luckily I had a very "informed" friend, who helped me a lot. As it is we are awaiting trauma therapy to help us through the CSA we suffered early on and the psychological/physical abuse throughout our childhood. I have known we were multiple for a number of years hence.

The two main personalities are myself (PJ - 47) and Sarah(35 - Who's account I have hijacked to say hi on), then there is the little one, SP(3). There are probably at least 3 others of us in here. Hopefully therapy will help put the all the pieces together and we can just get on with living again?

I would second having a "multiple" forum here on Susan's. I know it has been raised a lot of times, but there does seem to be a lot of us out there, and a lot being mis-diagnosed. Information on about multiple personalities on a platform such as this could potentially save lives?

PJ

Hi PJ, well done on getting a diagnosis - at least now your treatment paths should be tailored for all of you, instead of just the obvious local challenges...

Rowan

Hi flytrap. I really like your alias, btw! It's capturing. Dena gave me the link to this thread as well.

I'm also a system of two, a guy and a girl, but in an originally female body. The core personality and primary is me, the guy, and I see myself as binary male. I transitioned to male, starting 9 years ago. I see it as my body, but also as that it's "our" body and my alter sees it mostly the same way, but that it's also her body, to a degree. I've had it pretty rough with my alter, Anna (I'm unsure of her age, but it's possible she's ageless, or that her age simply doesn't matter), in the past up until recently, but we're okay now. However that means I did transition against her will... my doctors didn't know about her existence because she doesn't like showing herself around others, and it was a mutual decision to keep her secret. However I don't recommend doing that (in general) but I also know that I did what I had to do. My abusive alter and my extreme gender dysphoria were both very pressing issues for me at the time and to survive either I simply had to choose transition first. If that was the right order, I don't know cause it was very very rough, but ultimately I don't regret that and it turned out fine eventually. But ofc my gender therapists got suspicious which made my transition take longer.

Anna was very abusive and not accepting at all. I gave her dysphoria by relieving my own... which made our already stormy situation even worse. She's done some really bad things to me, and threatened even more. I'd scream at her and threaten back but could never do anything. We used to call that our "wars" and for some time we had what we called a "truce" as well, by which I mean we were passive aggressive and hostile but didn't actively fight after having made a deal about that, until she'd break that "truce" again. It's rare that we shift who's behind the steering wheel, so it's almost always me, but when we do that's usually when she's abused me in the past. She raped me once. I'm still conscious and aware in the background when she's steering the body, and vice versa.

She carried most of my pain growing up, that's why she was so abusive. But also because she took the role of being "the bad one" to relieve me of my extreme remorse, and carry the memory of what I had done, basically taking the fall for me on that, as far as I understand her side now. She's shown little to no emotion, always ice cold, except from showing anger and hate. Sometimes I could notice vague hints of fear, but that's about it. Because our body was originally female and she is female, she's seen herself as a cis girl. But now that our body is more male than female in appearance after my transition, she sees herself as kind of a trans girl, cause now she has dysphoria while I mostly don't. Although I don't entirely agree with her opinion on that making her trans. We have both shared and separate trauma memories, and she has told/shown me some of what she remember but I didn't, on my request.

She appeared, or was split off/created from me, when I was 9, after a series of events of sexual assault and bullying, all only involving kids of around my own age. I remember most of it but not all, as far as I know, but there are reasons to believe there's more that I don't remember, and Anna is hesitant to say if there is. Despite having been so abusive, she's also always been very protective of me. As her and I see it, kind of, is that I was the one who got abused by those who did that but when it was the reverse it was she who did that. But then agreeing with each other hasn't always been our strongest suit. Being a perpetrator at that young age, and the remorse that followed, traumatised me too, and likely more than the abuse I got did. Why I split at such a "high" age, I think was because I was highly sensitive as a child and autistic. That I was that "old" might also be why I always remembered the split. I was also raped at age 17 (by a guy I met online) which might contribute to her sticking around and me getting worse in general, but I feel much more torn up about the childhood stuff.

Transition wise I've been taking testosterone and have had top surgery, changed my name and legal gender marker. The latter two didn't bother Anna, since she's had her own name anyway and said she didn't care about a letter on an ID card that she never used anyway. The surgery only bothered her temporarily, as an initial shock and as fuel to berate me when I was vulnerable. She's opportunistic like that. She's always seen herself as more comfortable with a small or flat chest, but the changes from testo did make her very upset at times... she's said really bad stuff like that I'm destroying her body, and threatened to shave and physically harm me but luckily she never did. Her preferred looks is naturally feminine, which is a stark contrast to mine: alternative masculine, except from that we both prefer to have long hair and neither of us are particularly fond of having very wide hips. I've become increasingly comfortable with my body through transitioning though, and I've treated almost all of my original dysphoria now. So transitioning was always right for me but wrong for her. What that means for us as a unit, I've long thought about but never quite found an answer to.

I don't know really why or how it happened but 1,5 year ago (but I suspect extreme long term stress was the trigger) me and Anna got our separate, distinct personalities jumbled up and we got a lot of each other's traits. That was intense and still feels new and unfamiliar for us both, cause it was a very extreme change, although I adjusted quicker than her. The change was good though, and very helpful cause ever since then we've understood each other for the first time ever, and finally found peace in our shared system, after 20 years of chaos... that was a much needed relief!

Now we're on good terms, I've forgiven her for the bad things she's done and she's promised to not repeat that and I believe her when she says she doesn't want to anymore. She finally felt and showed remorse over what she had done. She got kinder and got just enough empathy, but then I got colder and lost a good portion of my empathy. Or well, I gave it to her, so technically I still have it. We met almost in the middle. I think it was a partial merge cause we're very similar now but still hang around as separate. I think after all that chaos and finally understanding each other, we needed to stay together as two but friendly. I'm okay with that. She's good company now.

We're supportive of each other now and she's accepting of my transition, which is almost complete now, and we both want that last thing hysto. We both don't want kids ever. I think she still feels some dysphoria about the physical changes in general but she has very clearly said that she knows it's mostly me out there facing the world, having friends, a family, boyfriends, etc, so she accepts that me being okay with the body is and should be of higher priority. Btw, on the sexual aspect we've been polar opposites as well. While I'm hypersexual and bordering to sex addiction, into hookups, fallen in love a lot, etc; she's always been sex repulsed, asexual and never attracted to or loved any of my boyfriends. She mostly just hid away and stayed silent when I've been doing some sexual activity, but at times she's lashed out on me for it as well. Now she's not repulsed by it anymore and is okay with it. I've noticed she's gotten a bit of an appetite for it as well. Both of us are only into guys.

I never had therapy for this. Maybe that's why I had 20 years of hell living with it... and I also know I have a lot of other things to deal with that were caused by the trauma, mostly stuff about my sexuality and being self-destructive. I'm sure I will look into therapy when I'm ready for it and/or if it gets worse again, but at this point, me and Anna are getting along much better than we ever have and I've gotten significantly better in general also.

Also I should say... I'm not officially diagnosed with DID. It's just my high suspicion that I have it or some variant of it. Because I had to transition first (and Anna was against that) I couldn't tell my therapists about her or the trauma I went through that caused the split, or I wouldn't have been allowed to transition. It's been a very heavy burden to carry, and tried to find out and learn as much about it by myself as much as I could, to at least be my own therapist. I've researched it a lot and looked into other conditions as well, talked to friends and family about it and as far as I can tell I have most symptoms of DID but not all of them, so perhaps more likely I could have Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS), but then also I know that I can't possibly actually diagnose myself.

Please add me to the list of those desiring a sub-forum for DID. My experiences are very similar to the ones I have read here and I have been seeking others with DID both on my Youtube channel and my personal website. Dissociations are frequent for me and come with little to no warning. Regret and Shame always follow each episode. Doctors have tried all the meds including Paxil, Lamotrigine and Risperidone (of which the latter caused me a suicide attempt). Counseling for about 5 years now each week, however, the last year has been mainly focused on my transition and I am very fortunate to have a transgender counselor. The only thing that helps to keep me from dissociating is staying at home which seems to be my only "safe place". We are all survivors having lived through the traumas and sexual abuses and I feel that our "alters", somehow kept us going so I am very proud of you all. I know it is hard and that there is not yet a cure, but to be transgender and also have DID makes us very strong individuals. My own situation includes PTSD, OCD and Panic Disorder, but I believe that transitioning is helping me to feel much better about myself as well as giving me hope for the future. God bless you all and may you keep pushing on!
Love, Violet

We all have a male and a female component. Call it dom/sub, push/pull, yin/yang or whatever. As I am Gemini that means that there are 4 of us here! I have never been diagnosed, but suspect that at least one of us has some kind of multi or schitzo condition (note that I did NOT say disorder). When I get up in the morning, I never know who will be driving!

If we were all created alike, the world would be too boring to bother breathing.