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When DID Becomes Your Identity

You are not your diagnosis

4 min readApr 13, 2025

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Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Most of those, like me, who have dissociative identity disorder, have a different reality running our lives than singletons. We have the alters and the chaos they cause to deal with as well as the stress of trying our best to heal.

It is easy to see how we get lost sometimes and pay so much attention to our diagnosis that it becomes all we are and what we feel is plain for all to see.

In this article we will discuss our self-narrative and how DID can cloak who we really are.

All of Us Have a Story to Tell

Everyone has a life story; the narrative we cling to as our identity. You grew up on a farm, you might think of yourself as down to earth. In an abusive home, alone and without guidance, our personal story is full of negative connotations of ourselves.

Unfortunately, our brains, just like anyone else’s, cling to the negative parts of our reality and bypass the need to daydream and work on becoming who we could be.

When there are overlaps between identity and the diagnosis of DID, the person strongly identifies with their diagnosis and it shapes who they are and who they become.

Diagnostic Labeling

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Shirley J. Davis
Shirley J. Davis

Written by Shirley J. Davis

I am an author/speaker/grant writer in the U.S. My passion is authoring information about mental health disorders, especially dissociative identity disorder..

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