The Damage Done by Online DID Spaces
Disclaimer: I am not diagnosed with DID but am in treatment for trauma and dissociation, with a strong presentation of DID. I think my personal experience is valuable to discuss regardless.
My system was coincidentally discovered just before the "big boom" in DID content online during 2020-2022 or so. Unfortunately, this combined with me only being 13-14, lead to some serious damage.
I adopted a lot of unhealthy ideas about my system as a result of content online. I treated my difficult/"persecutor" parts very poorly. Our alters became very distant, not acknowledging one another as being part of the same person and not taking accountability. The "older" alters took their internal ages literally- ending up with us in some situations we shouldn't have been in at that age. Our dissociation and self-understanding were both worsened as a result of everything.
I posted information about our system online, dangerously exposing personal information to the internet and drawing us into harmful communities.
It's taken me years to undo the damage and unlearn everything from that time. I've come a long way since then, and am now very focused on maintaining a science/fact-based view of dissociation after dealing with the all of the harm caused by misinformation. I am grateful for where I am now, but I wish I never had to fix the mess caused by being an immature teenager in damaging online spaces.
Not all online DID spaces are like this, but unfortunately many are. I am posting this to draw attention to my experience as someone who was one of those "DID kids" for a time who is now actually in treatment for trauma and dissociation. The damage and shame I carry from this period of my life has been seriously detrimental to me and my whole system. I ended up with even more trauma on top of what had already happened to me at a young age because of it.
It saddens me that I am sure that I'm not the only person with this experience. I hope that everyone discovering their DID at this point doesn't get swept into any of that.
Here are some reliable sources that I greatly appreciate that may be of help to anyone else:
-The CTAD Clinic on YouTube
-The ISSTD treatment guidelines
-Introjection, Internalization, Identification, Oh My! (https://therapistdevelopmentcenter.com/blog/introjection-internalization-identification-oh-my)
Please take care, folks!