When I began therapy for DID in January 2022, I had no idea how much my life had already spiraled out of control. Over the course of several years, I had gone from being a high-achieving student at the top of my class to being effectively unable to work because I was so triggered by the world around me. However, because of my severe internal compartmentalization, I was unaware of my dysfunction—I had no idea anything abnormal was happening, and, for the most part, thought I was still the successful student I previously was. I went from being an over-achiever to effectively dysfunctional. This is because work went from a source of fun and inspiration to a source of stress, so work became triggering to me. There are a variety of factors that affect why work became so triggering, but the end result is the same—just as in the past I learned to avoid traumatic or stressful things by dissociating away from them, I continued the pattern and subconsciously learned to dissociate away from work.
Within my system structure, I have separate compartments for work, which are differentiated enough from my other compartments such that when the work parts aren’t out, I’m practically unaware of my work life. However, because my work parts are so compartmentalized, when my work parts are out, I’m able to hyperfocus on work, undistracted by the happenings of the world around me. This is something I developed as a child—I learned to separate my work and home lives because they were so different. When my system is running smoothly, the right parts come out on queue, working together harmoniously. My internal compartmenalization of different facets of my life has always been severe, and since it had had worked well in the past, I had never questioned it before.
During graduate school, over the span of several years, as work gradually became more and more triggering for me, my work parts slowly started coming out less and less organically. I began a cycle of behavior: when work was not stressful, I’d work as normal. Then, when something stressful would come up, it’d become much more difficult to work. For a period of time spanning days to weeks, I’d be effectively unable to work, but I’d be unaware that I wasn’t working as normal. Then, I’d inevitably become aware that I was “slacking” at work, and force myself to start work again, which was always incredibly difficult as I was working through being triggered. Once the stressor was alleviated or sufficiently forgotten about, I’d be back to working as normal again. And then when the next stressor came up, the cycle would repeat.
This cycle has repeated at least a dozen times during my PhD thus far, and each time it has repeated, new parts would be created to “take control of my life again” once I realized I was not working productively. Because of this, my awareness of my work life has become increasingly fragmented. For me, my handwriting is a great indicator to differentiate between parts. For most of my undergraduate years, I had two main handwritings, indicating the two main work parts who were consistent through the entirety of undergrad. But in graduate school, my handwriting has become much more inconsistent. Because of the way I’ve split work parts, I can see in my academic journal that, over the span of several months, I’m writing the same concepts down over and over again, all in different handwritings. I have difficulty picking up where the previous part left off, so I practically have to start my work all over again once a new part is created. It’s clear that I’m trying really hard to advance in work, but because I’m creating new compartments to work as opposed to utilizing the old ones, my awareness of my work life has become extremely fractured and inconsistent.
Why am I creating new parts instead of using already created work parts? I’m not entirely sure, but I can speculate. I believe it’s because I am polyfragmented, so I create parts really easily. And because the previous parts I subconsciously create to take control of my life eventually become too stressed to come out, I create new parts who are unaware of the stress in order to advance.
It’s taken me an incredibly long time to gain the insight that I have now, and even now that I’ve gained this insight, it’s hard for me to break the cycle. Right now, I’m at the stage that I’m aware that this is how I operate, but I’m not yet at the place where I’m able to change it—I’m stuck observing my cyclical parts. I seem to have very little control over what goes on in my life, but it’s starting to get better. I am learning to become aware of what stage of the cycle I’m in at any given time, which has allowed me to stay in the stage where work parts are out longer and the stage where I’m dysfunctional shorter. I’m making progress, but it’s slow and incredibly difficult.
I truly hate that this is the way I operate. I do not enjoy being so stressed by my work that my dissociative defenses are constantly activated. There are large spans of time where I’m totally unaware of work because I’m so stressed by it, followed by times where I’m hyperaware of how much I’ve been “slacking” on work and have to pick up the pieces, over and over again. To be clear, I do not believe I’m “slacking” when I’m in a stage of the cycle where I’m unable to work. Rather, I consider myself to be in a triggered state that I have little to no control over. But from the outside looking in, if one is unaware that I have DID, it really looks like I do not care about my PhD and am intentionally slacking on my responsibilities. This has been incredibly frustrating to come to terms with, as my behavior is still mostly out of my control as I am constantly responding to triggers in my environment, yet I have the strong desire to break the cycle.
What is the path forward? Ideally, I’d like to stop this cyclical behavior so I can work as normal again. I want to stop creating new parts when I get too stressed. I want to have one or two dedicated work parts out like I did in my undergraduate years so my awareness of my work life isn’t so fragmented. I want to stop being so triggered by work that my dissociate defenses are constantly activated. I truly just want to become productive at work again, and while I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I have a long way to go before I get there. For now, I’ll take it one day at a time, as I slowly take back control of my life.