The parts I don’t know about still have control

Imagine if, without your awareness, your deepest, most repressed thoughts and feelings were displayed for the world to see. With how my DID presents, this is something that occurs quite frequently for me. Because much of my most difficult emotions are separated from the core me, I am usually unaware of them until they surface and they’re in the forefront of my awareness. Then, after they are over, I may forget that these dissociative episodes ever happened. This has led to me into many scary and sometimes dangerous situations, which typically leave me puzzled by what is happening in the world around me.

As an example, I like to go on evening walks for exercise. I typically walk one of a few routes in the densely populated city I live in. One day this past summer, I walked by a person who had some of the same characteristics as someone who caused me harm in the past. I walked by this individual without awareness that I was at all triggered. Then, in a split second, they started yelling at me.

“You’re scared of me, huh? What do you have to be scared about?”

What? It was so out of context for me; I had no idea why they were yelling at me. I wasn’t scared of them—up until they started yelling at me, I hadn’t even noticed them. I ignored them and calmly kept walking in the direction I was going. Then, they started moving towards me¹, continually yelling at me.

“Why are you scared of me? You think I’m threatening? There’s nothing to be scared about!”

I sped up walking and continued ignoring them. I felt very calm while this was happening, although I was confused by what going on. I eventually made it to the next block over and lost sight of them. I calmly walked home, and went out of my way to reassure myself that I had done nothing wrong, and that the person was at fault, not me. But why did this person think I was scared of them? Was I scared of them?

As it turns out, a part of me was scared of them. When I saw that person, that part became so scared, that they momentarily took control of our face and made a scared microexpression, directed at that person. However, I had no awareness that I was scared of them or that I had made any facial expression. This is because the parts of me who were on my evening walk were not connected with the part of me that was scared of the person, so from the perspective of the part of me that was going on a walk, I had no idea that anything abnormal was happening, while the scared part was simultaneously terrified.

Over the next few days, I intentionally went on my evening walk, purposefully walking past the location of the event to ensure I didn’t associate anything negative with it. The parts of me walking felt perfectly fine, and I didn’t realize anything was off. Then, within a week, without realizing it, I stopped going on my evening walks. A month went by, and I still avoided walking, but it didn’t even occur to me that I stopped. I went from walking every day for months to only leaving my apartment when absolutely necessary. I didn’t feel any fear associated with walking or leaving my apartment, but it was clearly there, dictating my behavior. It took over a month for me to realize anything was wrong, and once I pondered why I was no longer walking the reason became obvious—a part of me was still clearly scared of what had happened on that walk. In order to get back to my walking routine, I gradually had to show that part that we were safe, and that that wasn’t going to happen again, and even if it did, there were other parts who could take care of the situation like we had done last time. With this awareness in mind, over time, I managed to get back to going on my evening walks.

This is one example of how having DID affects my life and functioning. Before I became aware that I have DID, I was unaware of how much influence my parts had over my life. My behaviors are influenced by fear I cannot even grasp onto or feel. Other people may be more aware of my own internal state than even I am, since my body language may be contradictory to how I feel on the inside. Getting to know my parts is helping me to become more aware of my internal state, and, in turn, will allow me to live a more complete life.