When will it end? Living with DID and hoplessness





Whether you are in the thick of the daily ups and downs of a life with a DID or you feel things are going well, there is an underlying question that seems to haunt with a subtle undertone.

When does it end?

You’re tired, you’re frustrated, you’re hurt, you are probably even confused and second-guessing your own internal compass. Living with someone with DID can be quite challenging.

As your loved one bounces from part to part, you feel like you are being jerked around with no true sense of gravity. This may cause your frustration levels to rise.

Even after your loved one has integrated there are still days where it’s hard to tell what side is up and which is down.  

It’s a reality we live with. This is why self-care is so very important. You need to find a way to get away, to find balance, to tend to your own mental health. You need to find a way to restore your own soul.

Additionally, it helps to understand your loved one’s situation. As difficult as it is for you, the cry for relief is probably even greater for her (him).

Your loved one is stuck in the middle of it all. When she (he) is moving in and out of personalities and sometimes present and sometimes gone, we need to understand how much they are suffering. They may not be aware of how much they are hurting the people around them, but they certainly know things are not running smoothly. They might never speak to it, or admit to it, but they know and feel the pain they are causing.

My bride continues to struggle with deep depression. She battles terrible lies in her head, from deeply rooted programming. Her triggers are still there and she often feels like she is losing her mind.

She has sat and pondered the possibility of just letting go of the cohesiveness of her mind and just checking into a mental institution so she doesn’t have to battle every day. Her therapist says that she is highly functional for the kind of trauma she experienced. But she feels like the is never a moment of rest.

As you consider your own frustration and wonder “When does it finally end?”, remember that she (he) is in a far more difficult place. Your loved one is wondering if their mind will ever feel like it’s theirs. They wonder if it will ever feel right.

At a very basic level one might say, there really will never be a “normal”, and that might be true. On the other hand, we all, at some point in our lives need to concede that there is no ‘true normal’. Normal becomes what we accept without giving up hope.

Will it ever end? It depends on 
what you are striving for. Today life is what it is, we’ll see what tomorrow looks like.

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