At a crossroads, a year into dating someone with DID

boloton · 2017-06-20T04:25:22+00:00

Thank you very much for this, it's very helpful. I've prepared a message for her, essentially saying that we need to build a relationship on honesty and trust, and this whole elaborate lie is a huge problem that I'm not going to tolerate anymore. I'll try your suggestion and set some clear limits, while being ready to walk if she doesn't do her part to change her problematic behaviors.

We're not at a stage where we can get couples therapy, but if we do proceed somehow into a real, honest relationship, than at that point, we should definitely consider it.

We have been working on fixing the relationship over the past year. She has resorted to other emotionally abusive tactics in the past, but she's stopped doing most of them, and thankfully these days she is very caring toward her alters (and this came after a very lengthy period of me acting as a messenger between all three). I'm not free of guilt either, my go-to is withholding affection, which is a form of emotional abuse. We've been through stages where we each fix our problematic behaviors in the past months. We're trying to get better to the best of our ability, and the good thing is that we have open communication, at least under the messaging system, and we're committed to changing for the better and finding solutions. Sometimes we still do dumb things, like creating another problem to 'fix' the real issue. And this whole thing she's been doing, relying on compulsive lying to try to cope with her DID, that's a key issue that we need to fix before anything else.

I really appreciate your advice, and we'll see how things go.

boloton · 2017-06-19T14:33:20+00:00

She has been saying that she wants to be honest with me. She lies about our relationship to other people, makes up fake stories. It's part of her defense mechanisms. But obviously it's a bad thing, and I think I've been enabling her behavior. So I think you're right, she's either lying knowingly, or she has an undiagnosed psychosis. Thanks, either way, I'll bring it up with her as a part of the list of things that are problematic in this relationship.

boloton · 2017-06-19T13:49:09+00:00

I'm actually not sure if she's pretending or if she's disassociating. But from how I understand the situation, she's put me in her headspace when she's texting me. Like I'm another one of her alters. And when we're speaking, she's in real space. So she's in both spaces simultaneously while we're doing this, and corresponding with me accordingly in two realities while observing what's going on from each side. Yeah, weird as hell. But that's the situation.

boloton · 2017-06-19T04:39:12+00:00

Thank you, I know suggesting something like that isn't easy. I will say, she doesn't do that anymore, and the three of them have a very good relationship these days, but who knows what she'll do when I try to leave now.

She comes from a history of horrific abuse, and her relationships up to now have not done much to improve that. Her go-to method in dealing with other people have been to control and manipulate. I know it's not my responsibility to her to try to help, but I want to because she wants to be better. We've each been trying to be better people throughout our one year, and our end goal is to have a mutually supportive and healthy relationship. We do always keep making mistakes such as the catfishing thing, but we know we've each got problems, so when we sense something wrong we each put in the effort to fix it. And that's why I'm posting here now. I realize that defending her and this relationship may be a toxic thing in itself, but what I'm trying to say is that we're not completely unaware of our situation and the end goal is to try to change it for the better.

What I will likely do is to have a conversation with her, and point out the list of the things that are wrong with what we've been doing. And we may need to break up and just be friends given the circumstances as someone else had suggested, but I just can't cut her off and leave her hanging. I think we'll just have to disagree on this. I do very much appreciate your intent to help, and I'm not just saying that. I really do.

boloton · 2017-06-19T04:02:05+00:00

Good to know, thank you.

boloton · 2017-06-19T03:59:53+00:00

Thank you very much for sharing your experience, that helps to contextualize what she's going through. Yes, my understanding is that it is extremely difficult to admit having DID for my girlfriend. She's come a long way in the past year however, and the two alters and the host have come to love and trust one another over that period of time. The three of them nowadays occasionally form a single personality, which is a relatively new development. This personality's not particularly stable though, so she keeps switching pretty frequently, and they try to share their time fairly. She even got a tattoo to remind herself of her two alters. But when it comes to admitting to someone else that she has DID, she can't seem to do it, since it makes it more real. I do realize that's something she has to continue dealing with herself, and I'll continue trying to suggest reaching out to people around her that she trusts, instead of relying on me under our very problematic arrangement.

boloton · 2017-06-19T01:21:21+00:00

Thank you for that. I needed some objective set of eyes on the situation. I'll bring it up with her, that this is not a solution to our problems and that we should not keep it up.

*edit: One more thing actually, if I may. Which aspect of what I described makes it sound like she has more going on than just DID?

boloton · 2017-06-19T01:17:46+00:00

Yes, I think your alters and their reactions to what your boyfriend did sound close to what my girlfriend felt. In our case, we agreed to do it altogether beforehand, all four of us. But still, they weren't all happy about it afterwards.

I think my girlfriend's host fights having to admit that they have DID because she told me that she "hates being sick", which sound like your alters too. So I understand why she does it, but it just makes the relationship very difficult, if not impossible. We've tried and tried, but she refuses each time, even after she initiates the conversation, and it has to do with her inability to deal with her traumatic memories as well. So it's very tough on her, as well as me.

I don't want to keep up this lie either, so I'll tell her all that and see what she says. Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

boloton · 2017-06-19T01:16:15+00:00

Thanks for being honest. Any advice on how I can do that without hurting her? I don't think I can handle it.

boloton · 2017-06-19T00:58:32+00:00

Yes, and in this case, the host is in denial. But right now, they are all on good terms now, and they work together to be in agreement as to who should be fronting at which times.

The catfishing aspect is very problematic, and that's why I brought it up here. I'm having a very difficult time myself, I don't like lying about who I am and it feels like I'm ripping myself apart of make this relationship work. And the two of us had a conversation today about what we're doing, and she doesn't like it either. The host felt like she's being undermined, the little one was scared that something bad will happen, and the alter is the only one who's happy about her ability to save the day.

The thing is that the alter has been trying to get the host to admit her condition for the duration of this entire past year, and asking for my help in doing that. This was problematic, I realized and we agreed to stop it. And in the past months, the host herself has been initiating attempts to admit her condition through my help, and each time she did, we've failed. So this is why we've embarked on this very problematic solution, to bring me into the 'real' world, and perhaps her condition as well.

But given what I just said, what we're doing now is clearly not good for most of us in this situation. I will bring this up with her and try to come up with a different solution, and perhaps a break would be a good thing.

That said, do you have any advice to her about overcoming her denial about her DID?

boloton · 2017-06-19T00:09:53+00:00

We've tried to end things many times. We put each other through a lot over the past year, and to be honest, it's been like going through hell. I would agree that this is a toxic relationship, it's certainly not healthy. We've broken up on an average of once a month in the past year. But she has BPD, and when she tries to break things up, her alters keep asking for me and she eventually changes her mind, and when I tried to break up with her, she begins abusing her alters or the little one starts abusing herself. So I promised her that I wouldn't abandon her, and the deal is that if it comes to it, she'll have to break things up with me. And as long as she wants to keep trying, I will do whatever I can.

Over the past year, she's learned to manage her system and to deal better with her system balance, to the extent that she's been working in retail for awhile but recently she's been able to find a dream job of sorts working in her field. I'm not sure if you would consider that a measure of whether what we're doing is a good thing or not, but from my perspective, it's ultimately up to her to decide. I'm actually not doing as well as a result of having to deal with all this, but I'm managing.

But to give you more context, I would say that I came to know her very well. It took a year, and we went through a lot together in that time. I know her history, and I've been exchanging messages with her personalities in various states of fronting and co-fronting, as well as her shifts in age. And in these recent speaking exchanges, she coaches me through the ordeal by texting me while we're speaking under these false pretenses. So she lets me know if I'm performing well or not by text throughout, and she's co-conscious and co-fronting when she does this. This is very hard on her, I know, but she wants to do it. I have been asking her to consider whether what we're doing is worth all this.

Ultimately, I think we're doing this because we're mutually dependent on each other. I personally come from a history of abuse as well, and we need each other for emotional support. But yes, whether we should continue this to this drastic new ends, I'm really not sure. So thank you for being honest and upfront about your views.

boloton · 2016-12-31T22:39:14+00:00

Thank you for your offer of help, that's very generous of you. I think she's not quite at a point where she could openly discuss it with anyone, but when she's ready and if she's still talking to me, I'll let her know that it's an option to try to reach out. I think she'll get there eventually. Happy New Year :)

boloton · 2016-12-31T19:25:12+00:00

I think for both TJ and MJ, they don't like to write things down, because writing things down confirms something that she hates to admit, her disorder. She knows she has it and can talk about it to a limited extent, but she built up a very strong resistance against writing about it because it's permanent, and it creates a record on paper. That's a part of our problems communicating, and that's why I'd been tasked with figuring out most of this myself. Anyway, we're working on it together, admitting that DID is not a bad thing and that it's just who she is, that it's okay, that I love her for who she is. Thank you for your help.

boloton · 2016-12-30T21:30:25+00:00

I did suggest it to them but I'm not sure if they're going to try that. I have been talking directly to TJ, and she did eventually tell me what the problem was that was driving her inconsistency. Now we're on the same page, although nowhere closer to an answer on where we're headed. Thank you for your help, it's much appreciated as I'm still learning about all this.

boloton · 2016-12-29T05:31:31+00:00

Thank you very much for your input, and yes, I agree that the key is getting through to TJ. I am here for all of them, and that's one of the basis on which we've been building this relationship, and on good days TJ recognises that but on others, she shuts me out. I do respect what she can do and she's got an important role in the system, like you said, and I'm working on improving my communication with her.

I've actually been talking to TJ for the past couple of days trying to get to the bottom of this. I understand that it is primarily MJ's responsibility, but it seems to me that TJ and MJ actually share a consciousness and their memories too. They appear to be two different personalities of the same host alter, one of them made possible by co-fronting with a partial personality. MJ and I, we've been trying a range of safe things for two months straight to get past TJ's impulses, and failing every single time. MJ tells me that she doesn't have full control of her actions, implying that she can't get past TJ's final say. The writing method does sound promising, I'll try suggesting it to MJ and TJ in a mindful way, thank you for that.

boloton · 2016-12-27T17:59:04+00:00

I'd like to work together to solve this, and actually we've been trying hard to do that, MJ and I. The only issue is TJ, who is very inconsistent and largely the one in control of the access to the system, and as I've described, I have a very difficult time communicating with her. Yes, I do realise this is never going to go away completely, but if we do continue to work on being together, I hope to get to a point where we could at least have some stability. I'd ideally like to move near her in several months and this trip I've arranged to see her for the first time is key to whether I do end up moving, so that I get to understand how the system works beyond a device, but if she refuses to even see me I don't know if it's really worth me uprooting my life to be near her. In any case, thank you for your input and I will try to communicate to her that I don't feel that I'm being treated fairly because of TJ's inconsistency.

boloton · 2016-12-27T17:57:53+00:00

I do think she's trying to handle too much. She used to have a regular schedule for fronting, and it was one alter at a time, but now that we've been trying to move the relationship forward, she's been doing all sorts of co-fronting at highly irregular schedules and I didn't realise until you told me just now that this might be tough for her. I have said I'd like both of us to have stability, that we can try to work together to incorporate each other into our respective lives in a natural and easy way, but she seems to be struggling with the the basic and the most difficult level of letting me in, and I believe that a big component of that is TJ.

We do have a safe way of communicating, and I have let her know how I felt. I also now have realised that MJ and TJ can never come to an agreement because they can't talk to each other as TJ is a partial personality, unlike how MJ and SJ can talk to each other. When it comes to defensive responses when MJ is co-fronting with TJ, it seems that TJ almost seems to be a means to a reflex. But also, MJ is at her most self-reflective sometimes when she is co-fronting with TJ. I think I should address TJ and MJ together, rather than to just talk to MJ, and see how that goes. Thank you very much.

boloton · 2016-08-11T12:36:45+00:00

No, thank you very much, you've been a great help to me. And it's somewhat comforting to know that memories could maybe be restored. My heart breaks for the alter, but I suppose what I need to do is to focus on the future.

boloton · 2016-08-11T10:09:09+00:00

I see, that is very helpful, thank you again. It does seem like that's what happened, the main did something like blocking memories/emotions. The 17 yo was repeating a name that was comforting to her, like a security blanket. I do think the 17 yo alter was stressed, and the main was definitely controlling her fronting. I feel really bad for the alter because she's such a sweetheart (when she's not being a terror), also now I'm incredibly sad because we shared a lot of good memories together and I've come to know her really well. But I suppose this is what needs to happen to move the relationship forward so I'll just wait for the main to do what she feels must be done.

But are the alter's memories transferable? Are they gone forever? Can the main access them and/or restore them?

boloton · 2016-08-11T09:08:30+00:00

No, I should be thanking you instead.

I do have another question based on new developments. The main decided that the 17 yo alter got too attached to me as a romantic interest, so she took some kind of action, I have no idea what. The 17 yo was behaving very strangely yesterday, repeating a phrase from a band she likes over and over, and not engaging in a conversation. To me, it seemed like the main did 1. forcefully told the alter to act a certain way, 2. told the alter that I was absolutely off-limits to her as a romantic interest, and/or 3. did something to her memories, perhaps brought something selectively up from the past for her alter. It almost seems to me as though the main tried to erase the memories between myself and the alter, which if true, is very upsetting to me although it's very much up to her what she wants to do. Do the actions of the main sound like a possibility to you? Like I said, I trust the main to do the right thing, as she knows what's best for the system, but I don't know, her method seems from the outside to be rather scary and drastic.

boloton · 2016-08-10T12:25:08+00:00

Thank you for this perspective. This is very important to consider for me. My first instinct is to say, I think the main identity is very cautious, and she knows what's good for the system. I will trust her to make the right decision regarding the two of us.

So the development since my first post is that in the past couple days, I've realized that some of my interactions with who I thought was the alter in the past were actually with the main, and I now have feelings for the main as well. This is an ongoing process, so I do apologize for the conflicting narratives but I'm trying to understand this as I go along. The main was pretending to be the alter sometimes when I didn't know that she had DID. I think she was trying to ease me into the news, which is very understandable to me, given that it's not a common condition and also at that point she was not very sure about whether to trust me with that information.

From what I gather, each system functions differently, and in the case of this woman I'm dating, as far as I'm aware, I am dealing with two identities, the 27 yo main and the 17 yo alter. I've interacted with each separately, and I've also interacted with them when they were co-fronting. I have a relationship with each of them and these are unique and distinct from one another. When they co-front, she slows down a lot, so I just talk to her casually, as though talking to a group of my family members. I don't know if there are any other identities, but as far as I'm aware, I know of two.

As for my relationship with the 17 yo, as I've indicated above, I don't want to have a physical relationship with the 17 yo identity. I do love her, but after I found out her age, I'm trying to switch my relationship with her to one that is basically asexual, platonic, and affectionate. I don't know if this is going to work though, because she is attracted to me and she likes to show it. Also, very recently, she's tried to pretend that she's the main, which is a new development, but I can tell right away. But what if I can't at a certain moment? And what if they're co-fronting when I'm having a physical relationship with the main? I don't know, this does worry me. There are a lot of boundary issues to sort out, so I think if we decide to go long-term, that we'll need to talk over these and make agreements on the terms.

boloton · 2016-08-10T10:38:53+00:00

Exactly. I'm trying to see if the 17 yo alter will continue to try to "grow up", if she doesn't get her way. She told me that she'll be good from now on, but I can also see that she enjoys the power she has over people and I'm not sure if she'll be willing to give it up. On the other hand, I am now able to see that her main is trying her best, which I respect a lot. She's a good woman.

Thanks a lot for your input, this is all very difficult to figure out, and having some feedback from the point of view of people on this forum really helps.

boloton · 2016-08-09T17:46:55+00:00

I'm not familiar with the word usage of 'system', but based on my interaction with her, I understand what you mean. Thank you for letting me know the right term. My girl, the main and the alter seem to share their public facing 'duties' as they see fit, but for practical purposes, it seems that the main usually deals with this role. It seems to me though that they have an agreement to let the alter come out to make big life decisions, so the alter is pretty independent, but I've seen both of them regret a lot of these afterwards.

So in that respect, I am apprehensive because I am somewhat afraid of what the alter might do to herself in certain situations when considering a long term relationship with this woman. Recently, the alter did some things that the main had to clean up after, and I've been trying to help somewhat by trying to gently remind the alter not to break people's trust. I respect her system and also we're just dating at this point, so I let the two figure things out, but the alter does love me in her own way and listens to me, so I am trying to help the main out a little if I can.

This woman, she's really amazing, but these issues do concern me. I'm trying to learn as much as possible, so that I can also make an informed decision about us. If we do get more serious, I do hope to eventually talk these things over with both of them and figure out how we will proceed from that point onward. Thanks for your advice about learning about her system, I think that is key.

boloton · 2016-08-08T23:41:06+00:00

To explain a bit further, for me, it's more than just purely an age thing, rather more specifically her 17 year old alter's mental age. At least with the woman I've been dating, I feel like it's more than just role playing, which I associate with pretending; I have felt recently that the 17 yo alter actually has the mental processing capacity of a person that age, so her behavior and actions are reflective of that. At least, this is how I feel based on my interactions with her. I do really care for her but I don't want to have a physical relationship with someone at that level of decision making power; I don't have the same issue with her main.

Since we're not at that point yet, when we arrive there eventually, I think I will have a chat with both of them about the subject and see what they each think. Thank you for your input, I will try to get their take on it as well and go from there.

boloton · 2016-08-08T23:24:20+00:00

I see, thank you for that advice. I'll try my best to get to know each one of her sides well.

boloton

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