1) I wanted to mention something important in this chapter. I thought only people with D.I.D / O.S.D.D have "parts". This is FALSE. Everyone has parts. Everyone has different parts to them. The innerchild, the innerteen, etc. This is normal and I assure you you're not alone with this one.
A great way to learn more on this is the Internal Family system (IFS):
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Even if you don't have dissociate symptoms, PTSD, anxiety or any form of trauma, I personally think its great for everyone to work on themselves. You can talk it with your therapist or by yourself.
2) Everyone can have an "innerworld". It's a world created inside your mind, the state of your mind or some call it an imaginary world. Anyone may or may not have one but may create one if professionals have recommended for you to create a safe mind for your trauma or mental recovery. An innerworld can be a castle with gardens. It can be a house with your inner child playing with fav toys or it may be nothing but darkness. Some may not even know what an innerworld is and don't want one. That's also FINE. If you're good with your current self and only want to focus on your goals that's fine too.
However, D.I.D and O.S.D.D are similar but also not the same. It's the severe case of dissociation and these parts or "alters" are separated from each other by dissociative and amnesia symptoms. The person living with these "alters" aren't hallucinations and won't disappear if you or family members ignore them. It'll only make your symptoms worse.
Parts or alters in D.I.D are the alternative personality or dissociative states from the distribution of repeated childhood trauma that didn't integrate to one single person or personality. A person WITHOUT D.I.D has one integrated single identity with own internal parts that's NOT separated.
The parts or alters in D.I.D may be distinct or similar. They may have different names, ages, religion, sexuality etc or they may have none of them. What's important is that ALL alters have roles. I'll talk about the roles in the future chapters.
Every alter has been created for a reason. A person may have one or over 50+ alters. It all depends on what the child needs to survive. It's a survival coping mechanism and not something to joke about.
Back to the innerworld topic. The "innerworld" in D.I.D or O.S.D.D may be REAL to the PERSON living with it.
The innerworld for D.I.D and O.S.D.D can be huge or small or might not even have one.
Yes it's an imaginary World but the person will 100% believe it's real to them and please don't tell them "it's all in your head" that only makes it difficult for them to recover. Let people take their time and not force it. Only the ones that has accepted their alters and the disorder and in greater stage of recovery will start to realise/accept that their "innerworld" isn't real and only an imaginary world.
The "innerworld" or some may call it the "headspace" is a significant tool used in therapy settings. The goal in therapy for D.I.D or O.S.D.D for their innerworld is it create a safe mind for them. It's for the therapist and for the patient to build communication with the alters, to get to know each alter, to gain trust with the alters and therapist and to improve and reduce the symptoms. This journey can take days, months or years to reach other alters inside the innerworld and shouldn't be rushed. The point is to make everyone feel SAFE before discussing any traumatic events.
I wanted to add an innerworld may be heavily be related to Maladaptive Daydreaming. It can be distressing if it impacts your daily life. Best to research both disorders and discus with someone.
If you have D.I.D and your therapist or any professionals is rushing or ignoring you, please search for a different person. Search for trauma informed or "dissociative disorders" specialist because only these professionals are TRAINED for it. Not every professional may understand your disorders or even believe it.
I'll discuss Covert VS Overt D.I.D in the next chapter. If you have any questions feel free to ask! Also sorry if anything seems rushed or confusing here, we want to share everything we know vs the misinformation online. I'll try to add references too ✨
