Guest post by Doreen Ashlee

I am 58, female and I am DID. Self knowledge and self help is all I have ever had.

When a person is financially on disability, there is no means to afford a doctor who could shed some light on this life that has been mine.

Tried a few therapists, that said they specialized in DID, but they were crazier then me. I came from a dysfunctional family. Raised by my grandparents, because my birth mother was not mentally well. “Did I want to be like her?” This was the grandparents mantra. My birth father was not allowed to see me once my grandparents adopted me. My birth mother’s 2nd husband came into my life almost after I was born. The well respected school teacher with the wandering hands. The man who took my life and left me split.

The real world and the fantasy world were the 2 places in which I lived. Just barely touching reality. A child alone, knowing at age four that I was in hell and God must hate me. I feel I have had many lives in this one life time.

Psychic abilities that started at age six and out of body experiences. Shared consciousness with everything from other worldly beings (bald head and large eyes) to Peter, the one I had a romantic relationship with for nine years. Was he an angel or an alter? Still have not figured that out. But he helped me remember the goods things about my childhood otherwise forgotten.

I lived in my fantasy world till my grandmother died in 1971. The year of the earthquake here in CA. And the year I lost both mother(suicide) and grandmother (cancer). The next year the loss of my birth father, another suicide.

Grandfather drank himself to death, but spent many years doing that. (blackouts and anger). My aunt and uncle were another added to the list of suicides in the family, along with their grandson. I am older in age, then many of my relatives ever lived.

In 2004 I went on a search to find out what was wrong with me. I met another DID person and realized we had so much in common. I kept my secret of what happened to me for so many years. I was molested from birth till I was 10 years old. That was a dark secret and one that made me hate myself for so many years. When my grandmother died, my ‘held in my mind’ fantasy world broke loose and the alters emerged. I tried to tell my psych. doctor in 04 but he does not believe in DID.

I have had to learn to stabilize myself. Peter was the best therapist I’ve ever had, but he was not physically real. That entity left in 2000.

Well this is a part of my story.
And I would like to be part of this.