As a mental disorder, DID is especially insidious because it pulls at us from every direction. At first, we think we’re imagining things. Once we accept something is wrong, we’re terrified to let anyone know because of how they might react. When we do tell someone, they tend to look at us funny all the time. If we’re lucky enough to find a therapist who believes in the disorder and has...

November and December have always been trigger months for me as they are for millions of people in this country. The concept of "family" is such a central theme for Thanksgiving and Christmas. When you don’t have a loving and affectionate family, the holidays fall flat. There’s a reason suicides spike during this time of the year. It took me decades to toss my emotional baggage out the window so...

It’s taken me decades to get the courage to share my mental illness with the public. I’ve had multiple personalities since I was a teenager. Back then, they called it multiple personality disorder (MPD). In the 1990s, they changed it to dissociative identity disorder (DID). Regardless of what they call it, the disorder can be debilitating and—for me—dangerous. DID is born out of trauma. You’ll...