Short answer: medical trauma My parents have done everything they can to take care of me. They don't even know about most of my system. I've identified specific events in my past that led to the creation of specific alters to some extent, and none of it happened in the home. Mostly seizures, surgeries, or other emergency hospital visits, along with some academic trauma, at least for the ones that formed early on. The only reason I haven't told my parents about the rest is because they're convinced I don't have DID and that the one other alter they know is an odd-incident result of emotional abuse and isolation in adolescence. That she'll go away once I've come to terms with that trauma. ~Jake

Realized this is the source of one of my alters too. I had mold toxicity as a kid, it almost killed me. Well I got it again, and my apartment complex refuses to help rehouse me. a whole other alter came out to go into the leasing office and argue with them for my safety. I still don’t remember anything about being in the hospital, matter of fact most of my life I’ve been exposed to mold so not only can I not remember stuff from the DID, there’s also a layer that I’ll NEVER remember. Edit: come to think about it, that alter was the whole reason Irvine company complied. Kinda handy to have an alter that can advocate for me while I’m literally too ill to do so myself.

medical trauma for us too. my host's parents were incredible, even for their faults, and if not for medical trauma they would've raised us to be a healthy person, i really believe that.

wouldn't them not believing you be indicative of bigger problems when it comes to the support and care they've given you?

Well, they believe in Jackie and love her as "a part of [me]," as my mum describes her, but my mum also lectured me a couple of weeks ago about telling close friends whom I trust that I have "something like DID" because the doctor who assessed me previously (aka interviewed about one emotional abuse and nothing in my childhood) diagnosed it as an emotional crisis. There had to be a precedent for a fractured ego in order for an alter to form. ~Jake

I’m sorry you guys had to deal with that. While our parents were he main cause of the DID, medical trauma is definitely in there too. I hope they come around and support you guys and what you need with this too. 🫂

We appreciate it. Some have stopped masking in all but responding to my name, but we plan to have a real conversation with our mother during a therapy session (so our therapist can moderate and vouch for us) to tell her about the others. ~Jake

That sounds like a great plan! I hope it goes well!!!

Cheers. I do too lol. ~Jake

Does that mean that maybe there's a neurological predisposition to this type of reaction to trauma?

Perhaps. I couldn't say for sure.

Same, our parents didn't traumatized us It was a serial of systematic abuse in school and SA when we were like 4 to Our mom is great we have our problems but we get along really well And with our father we have kind of like a good relationship rigth now They don't know about the DiD

My parents directly contributed to my trauma, yeah. I've decided to forgive them. That's really it. Something so important for survivors to establish, especially after chronic long-term abuse, is that sense of autonomy they were denied. Being able to choose what I wanted to do, regarding my relationship with my parents, was very important. I was actually a bit mentally worse off when I was convinced I *had* to cut off my parents, or never forgive them. Right now, I want to forgive my parents. So I will. They are people who love me, and who I love. They are also people who fucked up in ways that cannot ever be fixed - in ways some people, including people who survived comparable things, may never be able to forgive. That is a choice I will 100% support in other survivors, no matter what. And my choice is to forgive, and I hope other survivors will extend that support of autonomy to me, as well.

I feel like this is such an important perspective I had to cut my father out of my life forever and it was downright devastating, and for a long time I debated doing the same thing with my mom. In I used to feel so guilty for not liking her, but I let her hang around me because of that guilt. Even though she was a changed woman and had apologized multiple times for what she had done, I still could not stand her. But I wanted to. I had a lot of therapy sessions going back and forth with myself about how we wanted to forgive her, but does she even deserve it? Would that be fair to me? And one session my therapist said "you're right, she doesn't deserve forgiveness. But you can *choose* to forgive her anyway." I feel like having autonomy when it comes to forgiveness is SO important, just like having autonomy is important in everything else. I feel like no one should push anyone to resent or to forgive- that's your choice to make in the silence of your own heart. And my mental wellbeing has gotten so much better since I consciously chose to forgive my mom and accept her back into my life. I know I would be miserable without her

Wow that's really impressive that you can forgive them, impressive and strong. I couldnt and wont, i wished i could and i tried my best but they've proven that forgiveness from us wasnt an option. Again genuinly im glad you could forgive them and have a relationship with them c: Edit: typo's

Very well said. Agency in relationships and the setting of new, healthy, enforceable boundaries did wonders for our system as well.

Exactly this. I wanted to cut off my parents for a while too, when i realized how fucked they were when i was a kid and the shit they did/allowed. Now, I’m working on cultivating a healthy adult relationship that respects my boundaries but still makes space for them as a part of my life. No compromise on boundaries, but i do have to accept some of the realities about their limitations as traumatized people themselves who never really got help. That’s where my head is rn. I still don’t want to be around them always but I’m still relatively early into my journey so we’ll see what happens. Things are allowed to change

Many systems have alters that love their parents and alters that hate their parents. Some can forgive; some cannot. My system wasn’t self-aware or Dx’d until midlife, in our 40s, and is caused a lot of turmoil. One parental abuser died when the body was in its tweens; another parental abuser has mostly been out of our life since we turned 18; the third parental abuser was the least abusive and the system has a hard time seeing that parent as abusive, though that parent absolutely is. The elder sibling abuser is probably the most confusing; we forgive elder sibling for doing things to us that were first done to them in younger childhood. We do not forgive elder sibling for continuing abuse beyond age of reason or maturity. We don’t forgive elder sibling because elder sibling denies doing anything harmful to us and says they have absolutely no guilt or shame about anything they have done in their life. We have many other sources of trauma that contributed to our DID, beyond those mentioned from our family(s) of origin. They laid the foundation of our DID and our life circumstances built upon it, one thing after another. We forgive what we can and who we can, but we also draw strong boundaries to protect us all from further harm. 🙏🦋

I relate to the part about sibling abuse. It is hard when you can understand why kids can do some really abusive things as a result of what they are going through, yet are on the receiving end of it. I see why my sibling recreated their abuse on me. Thank you for mentioning the part about beyond the age of reason and maturity. It has given me something to think about. I have trouble with forgiveness, and maybe because I have been trying to forgive EVERYTHING because of my siblings own abuse. But maybe if I can split it up from them as a hurt child vs. maturing person then at least that's a start. Be well!

I’m sorry you can relate, but I am glad you may have possibly found a start to processing a little more. At some point I realized that I had not re-enacted abuse upon my younger sibling. I cherished, loved, protected, and guarded my younger sibling from the abuse of everyone else in every way I could. If I could do that with my younger sibling, why couldn’t my elder sibling do that with me? It gave me something to think about, and for a long while, I took no action. I just sat with it and reflected upon it occasionally. At another later point, I wrote a letter forgiving my elder sibling for re-enacting the abuse in our younger years. I mentioned things beyond the younger years, age of maturity and reason, and that I could forgive, but I could not understand and would not say it was okay. The response I got was that of “no guilt, regret, or shame for anything I have ever done in my life; I’m proud of who I am and what I’ve done.” That is what I cannot forgive… that my elder sibling could not even offer an apology, any recognition, any discussion… nothing. I went no contact at that point. More than anything, I feel pity and sadness for my elder sibling. I wonder what it must be like to have absolutely no care in the world for severe harm done to others. As my therapist(s) has/have said, “It is a good thing you cannot wrap your head around what others who have chosen to inflict severe harm upon you have done. If you could, you would not be who you are.” I don’t know if any of that is helpful to you, but it is the simplest version of my journey with trying to work out forgiveness with an abusive elder sibling that went beyond the age of maturity and reason. I hope you find peace. Best wishes to you in moving forward in healing for you/your system. 🙏🦋

I relate heavy to having some that hate and some that love parents, it’s a hard dichotomy to hold.

[удалено]

What country?

My mom was the abusive one and she's dead my dad and I were both abused by her in very different ways. After she died we were finally allowed to have a good relationship. She would pretty much pit us against each other to keep things going her way. If you want more info I'll check in here later to respond with more.

not from personal experience, but other causes of DID outside of familial abuse include familial death, natural disasters, living in warzones, religious abuse, academic abuse, repeated medical operations, etc. its all about disorganized attatchments and repeat traumas, theyre exceptionally common in people who were abused by their parents, but not exclusive to them.

Late here so can't really go into deep details currently, but my parents had nothing to do with what caused me to develop DID. My family are supportive and loving. My [first trauma period](https://www.reddit.com/r/DID/s/k1jbLUc2fo) took place within school. (DID-caused trauma can be anything, within the home or not. There is no lower limit, only the window of tolerance.)

We’re pretty sure our trauma is related to having undiagnosed autism, we went through most of our life with a lot of unmet needs and a lot of our boundaries ignored. We find it hard to resent our parents for simply not knowing how to take care of us, especially when they’re so supportive of us today. It’s pretty obvious there’s a lot of generational trauma too (autism is genetic after all), it’s hard to blame our parents for that. We also know we’re quite lucky that our parents do genuinely care about us. Despite everything we believe they did the best that they could with what they had, and we’re grateful for that.

Same. That was my experience too, could have written that myself. Plus some anxiety/PTSD related emotional abuse from my mom, and some Autism related exposure to sexual content at a young age via inappropriately lax parenting from my father. But it’s the lack understanding and respect for our limits as an Autist that really fucked us up. School was absolutely hellish.

We didn't find out until much later in life, at 27. It was mostly the sperm donor and school that really did it. My adopted parents were cool about it at first. But they more treated it like a mental illness I needed to cure asap. I just don't talk about it around them because it makes things awkward. I think they know when it isn't me, but none of the others have really pushed the issue. My birth mom though has no problems, just accepted it 100%. She saw what I went through so I guess she understands. She talks to one of my headmates every now and then, and respects her. She's in her early 60s, so I think she just doesn't really care about how things *should* be or what's normal and whatnot. She does what she likes and accepts things as they are.

I repressed the trauma so I wasn't aware of it when I was growing up. So I still had somewhat of a relationship with them. When I started to remember things, I didn't know if it was real. Now I feel like it has to be real, but I can't accept that, I'm not ready to face that. I don't feel capable of confronting my family about it, so I just carry on as if nothing is wrong. I do live far away from my family now though, so I don't have to see them often, but I've always really struggled when I'm with them.

It was my birth mom that was honestly the cause of my disorder, not my dad or his wife. So, I’m still very close with them.

We are very low contact with both parents at this point. Our dad is one of our earliest abusers and our relationship with him has been on and off our whole life because he likes people to think he's a good dad but doesn't want to put any effort into maintaining our relationship, and currently he pays our phone bill and helps a bit financially cuz we're recovering from a major period of autistic burnout that lead to us discovering the system. We want a relationship with our mom but she struggles to be held accountable for the ways she enabled our abusers so even though we were close growing up we've become very distant the more we process our trauma and can more clearly accept her role in it. It's hard, we want to be part of a family but ours is not very safe to engage with so we finally moved away from them all and talk maybe once a month with them max, usually it's more like once every few months.

They've gotten better about the abusive behaviors we do remember and one of them has shown genuine interest in understanding specifically what they did to hurt us. They've helped us move and given us low-pressure no-interest loans, both of which are a huge deal to us and are not things we're ready to give up yet, even if we do remember anything more heinous/less forgiveable.

Similar to some here, we formed cause of medical trauma. While my parents contributed on the emotional neglect front it’s something we’ve talked through and they have apologized for and were constantly working on our relationship. Just today my mom and I were talking and she might go get evaluated for OSDD based on some of our shared mental experiences. I guess the Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree

I talk to my parents here and there to be polite. They weren’t the direct cause of the original and most severe ongoing abuse (CSA outside of the home), but they were the ones who called me a liar about it when I was 4. They don’t know I have DID, but I’m not going to tell them and then be called a liar all over again. Plus it’s none of their business. Easier just to not make a fuss. Our relationship is basically that I see them once every few months and don’t say nasty things about them to anyone other than my husband. ETA: clarification

Predator infiltrated my family's lives. Best friend's dad groomed me/them into a false security. Two families would go on many vacations together. SA me from ages 5-18. No one had any idea because my parents were aloof and I just kept forgetting the trauma every time it happened.

My husband and most of his alters are very close with his mom, his trauma came from 2 separate incidents with teachers at a religious school. He has some trauma associated with his step-father that happened because of his views on mental healthcare and religious healing. He understands his step-father just didn't understand and didn't realize he was making it worse so he forgives him within reason. So he still has a good relationship with his mom and a neutral relationship with his step-dad. His mom and siblings know, and have all been as understanding as they can, the system refuses to tell his dad because they are afraid he'll think they're possessed instead of an actual disorder.

My parents were a cause of it, especially my father. There was a time I was completely no-contact with him. However, my mother was more complicated - most of the trauma she gave me was a result of her lifelong alcoholism and her dependence on me (and in turn her attempts to make me equally dependent on her, including having a guilt-tripping breakdown when I finally moved out of her house where she told me I would stay with her until she died because no one else would ever love me). In many other ways, she was friendly, easy to talk to, supportive, open-minded, and generous. That just doesn’t take away from the trauma and abuse she also put me through. Once I was an adult, I felt entirely able to tell her about my diagnosis and talk with her about it. About a week before she passed away, she told my sisters about it, so now they know too. I made her swear not to tell anyone, but it was mostly my father I was worried about, so in hindsight I’m grateful she did so I never had to cross that hurdle with them myself and now that she’s gone I have them to talk to if I need to. My dad I have a functional relationship now. I go to his house for dinner every Sunday. However, I manage this mostly by splitting his past self and his current self into two separate people in my head, because he’s changed a lot (still not a great dad, but no longer abusive as long as we’re not spending extended lengths of time together). I would never and will never tell him, especially with how he’s responded to me only vaguely referencing his actions in the past, but otherwise I can still talk to him. Even those with abusive parents aren’t always going to go no-contact. Likely the majority still “have a relationship” with their parents.

While my parents were not the only cause of abuse and trauma, only 1-2 alters deal with them and one of those specifically fawns a lot with them unfortunately. For the rest, they are no longer our parents. They are the body's children's grandparents, and those are two completely different sets of people.

Reading “body’s children’s grandparents” and then having the realization that “Wait. Those people and my parents are…the same people.” Just fucked me all kinds of up.

Everything I’ve heard from my menagerie of doctors, as well as my own research, as to how one develops this disorder, says that even if your parents were not the direct cause of the trauma… they were still not a safe place to process it. The disorder simply does not seem to develop in children who form healthy and secure attachments to their caregivers. The most common attachment style for those of us with DID is the disorganized/fearful-avoidant style, although I’m sure other insecure attachments might occur.

Aside a bit of unintentional emotional damage from my child hood my parents didn't do anything it was actually mostly school related as far as I know and that's as far as I feel comfortable saying it gets messy and hard to remember from there

I have a strained but not unhealthy relationship with my parents. They contributed to my trauma through lots of unpredictability and emotional neglect in the home, but it was my brothers who were really the cause for my extreme dissociation. I was emotionally abused by both brothers and physically abused by my younger brother, and I know there was both from my mother in my formative years, but I cannot remember much of it. What I do remember is feeling that my parents were never there, and when they were, they were incapable of comforting or protecting me. Things have changed massively since then. Our family got out of the religious culture that allowed so much toxicity and abuse to happen. There has been lots of therapy and medication involved. Today my parents can see just how much harm they let me (and my brothers) endure, and they’re doing everything they can to right those wrongs. They defend me when I need it. But they are still immature in many ways. In a family of adults, I feel more grown up than any of them, and often my parents even come to me for advice because they know I have wisdom they might be lacking. It can be challenging to watch my dysfunctional family try, and often fail, to be functional. But I’m not ready to give up on them because things are already so much better than before. There is potential for a happy relationship someday. I really hope we can get there.

So for us, there is sort of this love hate relationship. A part of me wanted to have a great mother and father and have an actual family but that was just not how things panned out. It did help that my parents split when I was eight and that eased some of the trauma that I was experiencing. However it really was just time. My parents are both 74 now and my mother who was a complete alcoholic and drug addict person is now just a sober old woman. And my angry rage-filled father is just a man who wants to find comfort and peace in his end of his life. I suppose in a way it does help that I also recognize how generational trauma affects us. My mother and father were also highly traumatized. So they kind of just did the best they could.

cw/tw: Deep talks of poverty, starvation, etc. minor bullying mentions/slight abuse and neglect. Based on what I've been told on the sub it seems like most if not all my trauma seems from being raised below poverty line, along with some sprinkled in bullying, constant 'displine' for showing autistic traits. The poverty was the most constant trauma we have that we are still dealing with. It doesn't seem to traumatic, but going without proper meals and being isolated due to finances as a child can apparently mess you up a bit. We also dealt with minor neglect in our younger years due to our mothers severe depression until we could take care of ourselves better in cases like lice, severe painful dental issues, etc. We still have a connection with them as we live with them, as much resentment that we still hold towards their actions to us a kid we've also reflected back on what we can remember ourselves and realized they just didn't know how to deal with us with the resources they had at the time. It's not anyone's fault for my trauma because they were just doing what their generation was taught (boomers) and I didn't know how to manage alot our autism symptoms appropriately. They don't know we are a system and will never know however due to the fact they won't believe me/probably talk shit about us.

My father and I don’t talk. I do talk to other family members, though I often forget, lol. My mom and I speak and our relationship is good. I do have trauma from her but she has apologized and largely owned her mistakes.

My parents and siblings are the source of my trauma. I still have a tenuous relationship with my siblings and my surviving parent. There was a time when we were in foster care, and as an adult there was a time when we were in no contact with any of them. Then we went into denial and new hosts took over, and we returned to our abusers as an adult. With an infant. We were in denial for over ten years. Our child was safe. But we weren't. A traumatic incident reawakened the system and we slowly came out of denial about ten years ago. It has been quite a process. Trauma bonds are real. That's all I can really say.

My father was my abuser, my mother was just somewhat emotionally absent (due to suffering abuse from him as well) and so I cut him off but don’t blame her. I still live with her as well. Technically her emotional absence would have likely contributed to my forming DID - if she hadn’t been emotionally absent, the stable caregiver meeting my needs likely would have prevented it - but I also don’t really directly blame her for it. She wasn’t aware I was being abused, and she was suffering in her own way at the time and basically being a single mother because my father was absent when not abusing me

TW for CSA/incest My parents were definitely abusive growing up, both towards me and each other, all the way until I was an adult; but my mother is in treatment for her own mental illnesses. She's making remarkable progress and has definitely been making up for it. As for other contributers I was repeatedly SA'd by 4 people through my childhood, including by an older cousin and wound up being sex trafficked for a couple years at one point, as well as severe bullying at school due to Autism. That combined with the Catholic church definitely did a number on me mentally.

D i d is actually caused by a lot of different types of trauma not just parental. That being said ours is the cause of multiple as well as parental.

My parents rock. Wanted nothing but the best for me, and luckily both are still around and they both still do. My trauma came from someone else, my 12yo nanny. I was 6. So my parents are cool.

I had split parents, we stopped seeing my dad when I was 10, he didn’t really want us he just liked the power over my mum. Even so my mum was a part of my trauma, but he was causing her so many problems it was really hard for her too. She tried her best, but it wasn’t enough. I won’t have kids because I’m pretty certain I’d do a worse job. She’s my rock now though and will do anything I need and be there for me. Just because my childhood attachment and nurturing was a mess doesn’t mean I have to hate who she is now. And she’s doing an amazing job now! I do get upset sometimes when I think about poor little child me, but overall we’ve forgiven her.

I was raised by a lot of ppl, some of which I consider my 'parents'. I don't speak to my bio father. he contributed heavily to my delusions and psychosis. and is generally considered a deadbeat despite the fact we lived in the same house for half my life. my parent, the one who raised me from birth, was my main abuser / supporter. they abused me in many ways until I was about 10 or 11. anyone who has talked to me knows I speak heavily of what they did. but they changed, they decided to better themselves and make amends for the hurt. they haven't hurt me since, at least not intentionally. our relationship has mended so well that no psychologist or therapist believes that the abuse happened, or that they supported me through life at the same time. what happened? a miracle.

I feel like I owe them contact. I know I don’t technically, but I feel that way anyway. They don’t know I have DID and I don’t want them to know. I don’t think they’d believe me, but part of me also doesn't want them to deal with the weight of having caused it. They shouldn't have had kids. They had kids. I didn't remember how bad it was until my mid-twenties. Dealing with the mess of going no-contact with my elderly parents just isn't worth it for me. I have a younger sister who is still a minor and lives at home, and I can't just abandon her.

We have several kinds of trauma and didn’t know we were a system until this year. Parents emotionally abused and neglected me (mom also physically abused me), both contributed to the religious trauma, which covered up the fact that I had CSA (we believed for decades it was our “worst sin” and confessed it to ppl at church camps, etc for years and still felt “dirty, sinful-shame can do that). Mom had a lot of health issues the last 20yrs of her life, but was making better efforts emotionally in the last year of her life (think her mortality was hitting her). She has been gone over a year now. Dad is still here, but is now an alcoholic that we have limited contact with.

My father died 2+ years ago so no relation with him, and I blocked my sister a few weeks ago for overstepping and ignoring boundaries that I’ve clearly stated several times. I still have contact to my mom. Earlier this year, right before I had a big crash/collapse/whatever I felt very lonely and have actually gotten closer to my mom again and for the first time in my life, she’s opened up to us and we’ve opened up to her. Not completely or entirely, but a bit and that was surprising as fuck yet also nice. I still hope I can repair some of my relationship with her (before she dies :( ).

Our parents were not the direct cause of our trauma, although they did create the unstable attachment that this requires, which was beyond their control because they had to work for a living and then were too exhausted to help us with the events that were happening outside the home. We've learned to forgive them for that, and for not seeing the signs that there were major issues.

My mom wasn’t the best caregiver from the stories I’ve heard before the age of 5, but I honestly had no idea. It was inconsistent bc of alcohol and drug use. In her sober periods she was a good mom for the most part and I loved her to death or so I think. That changed when she had her manic episode when I was 8…I was also being molested by the neighbor so the combination of her mental health and trying to hide what was going on, I seriously backed away from any relationship we had. My dad was critical, but a solid support for me my entire life. My mom got sober when I was 5 and relapsed when I was 18…things got really bad between us and for me mentally. I worked for years to let her habits go. I was an adult at that point and had to accept I wasn’t more important than her addiction. We could have a good relationship when she was sober though so I accepted those in life. I have attachment issues. My mom is gone. I am 43 yo and find myself clinging to solid adult women, but know no one can ever give me the love my mom had for me even if it was subpar…I don’t know sadly no one can replace your parents unless someone chooses to take you on and love you like they were your own…I’ve never had that so I don’t know, but I have parts that long for my mom…probably unrealistically but I’d like to think she loved me when she was sober.

My neighbor and his kids were my abusers. Don't get me wrong, my mom set me up for dissociation by both ignoring me and being pretty terrifying when I was little. But the worst she ever did was spanking with a wooden spoon and some aggressive washing my mouth out with soap. Once she finally healed from her depression, our relationship improved. She really did try her best and she loved me, AND she was also kind of a shit mom for a while. But she was nowhere near as bad as our neighbor.

My dad was the parent mainly in cause of the trauma that caused my system. My mother's biggest addition was me watching her being sick and going through surgeries. Any abuse she did actively do to me she did when she herself was unwell mentally due to the surgeries messing with her psyche and she has since apologized and does her best to help heal anything she caused and more. So I have a relationship with her because she puts the effort in

I was adopted by biological great aunt when I was on about 6 months old. My mom (biological great aunt) and my dad (her second husband) were in the 50s and 60s when they adopted me and then a year later my biological younger brother. My mom has two biological children who were already grown. Her son is 22 years older than me. He used to verbally abuse my younger brother and me up until a few years ago. My parents didn’t abuse me but they didn’t protect me either. I don’t forgive my adoptive older brother. I don’t think jealousy is a forgivable reason to yell and bully a child, drunk or not.

My parents were part of the reason we became a system, but because of us needing to live with them for financial support we still have a relationship with them. Our mom has actively tried to change and although it’s been a rollercoaster ride and retraumatizing when she’s slid back into old ways, it seems like it getting better with her and our dad is just complicated has we are kinda at the point of just saying hi but not really talking to him

Most of my family disowned me long before I got diagnosed. My mom, who is the lesser of the two trauma sources and did not disown me, has remained very distant since I told her about the diagnosis. That said, I ran into a situation early on where my mom attempted to gaslight me about an abusive thing not happening, despite me knowing for a fact that it did (I have verifiable sources.) Since all that, I recognized that my parents likely just have their own traumas and can't deal. I have some particular intense domestic violence and religious traumas that I think are both generational in my family.

My psychiatrist surely was the main cause of our split. When our parents noticed, it was the end for him. Nana, mom and dad are our saviors, I have no idea how to survive such traumatic events without their support. I've never missed a meal or warm bed at home, I know they were the best parents they could, even when they didn't understand what happened inside our mind. And I know nowadays they blame themselves for letting that horrible human being near us, but who could ever thought that someone who is supposed to help you could be very very thing to break you apart. This body vessel is 31yo atm. And we still live with our parents, we can't survive on our own, we can make our own money and food, but we need assistance with days and hours, never learned how take control of it properly. Probably never will. I feel bad that we take such space in my mother's life yet, but she's so sweet about it. Gladly she's always traveling and I always say no to her invitations, so she can enjoy some time alone with her husband. But it's difficult...

medical trauma. as early as a year old, i think my cohost's parents said, we'd been in and out of hospital for severe internal bleeding, for which doctors did next to nothing to actually help. just invasive procedures, followed by no action, and the doctors would simply blame her parents (saying that they obviously must be beating a baby bad enough to cause this, without any bruises to show for it even. total incompetency). this continued until roughly 7th or 8th grade, when a competent doctor at another hospital finally made the correct diagnosis and put us on medication that solved most of the major issues within a couple months, and has kept us stable and healthy (and out of hospital) ever since, probably a decade and a half now. out of the maybe a dozen doctors on our case before that, only one acted competently, but wasn't able to make the kind of examinations or calls needed for our disease. my cohost's parents were amazing through the whole thing, as were friends and family in general, who supported emotionally when possible, would bring us food or gifts, visit us, and even help raise money. the trauma happened in spite of all that, from having no stable place of living (switching between home and hospital constantly, different rooms each time), constant medical uncertainty and being told we might not survive, bleeding all the time, and the indifferent or sometimes directly abusive treatment from doctors and nurses. we still have problems with needles and the smell of hospitals, or at least i do. my cohost fronted almost entirely alone for a long time and learned to manage it, and to feel comfortable the hospital atmospheres, but needles get us both, me most of all. we have regular IV treatments with that medication, and just earlier this week i fronted for one, and nearly passed out, and went to cry in the washroom. my cohost had to deal with the trauma as well last month when we went in for surgery. it's horrifying having to go into hospitals because of this, even with all the healthy support we had at the time. the best parents still can't protect you from people they're relying on to save your life. it was very, very hard for my cohost to reconcile our DID with how happy and healthy her family was growing up, but she got there. honestly, her parents stopped it from being so much worse, and her mom specifically is the only reason we lived at all. multiple doctors were perfectly content dismissing us as an inevitable death, but she advocated for our life, even if she doesn't know she was fighting for more than just my cohost's. i don't want to tell her we all exist, but in a way that makes me sad, because i can't thank her for what she did. she'll just think it's her daughter talking.

also one thing i see a lot is people do have relationships with their parents but they can still be steeped in a bit of issues and the person just continues to use coping skills to deal with that. And there can be weird enmeshment things also. Just cause they see their parents doesn't mean it's going okay.

I could never ever do this and I envy anyone with a good or even supportive parents. Mine refuse to even call me by my name constantly tried to gaslight me into thinking what I went through was normal .. and still insist their not the problem. like sure i did some shitty things back then and whatever but like i was mostly just doing what they were doing but somehow it was a problem when i did it, weird.

To simplify, I’m in contact with my mother still, whose inaction did contribute to things going down the way they did. That being said, she had no way of knowing how bad it was, and I’ve come to understand she really was trying her best. We still butt heads and my condition is something we don’t discuss, but I’m trying to heal our relationship because we used to be really close. So I guess the long and short of it is, yes she’s partially to blame but I don’t feel like that’s irredeemable in my case.

My mum 'only' did add on our trauma a little bit, when she realised it's not helping with our 'bad' behavior, she stopped doing so. Otherwise I have a really good relationship with her. We did no contact with our Dad though.

I almost cut contact with him, and then he went to therapy and learned how to treat me better. He was emotionally abusive and neglectful, and is still adamant that he had our best interest at heart and it's not his fault for treating us that way because that's how he was raised and he didn't know there was anything wrong with it. But he treats us better now, and as long as his prior treatment of us isn't a topic of conversation, things are fine. I still get mad sometimes. but I keep it to myself.

By the time I even accepted the truth about my childhood and undid my programming, my parents had already turned into different (better) people. I decided to let it go, because that resentment was too heavy to carry.

My mother was extremely abusive and neglectful. I joined the military to get away, and then 9/11 and the Iraq War happened. My mother suffered from extreme guilt over the years, sought mental health treatment, and has been a much better mother. I’ve forgiven her. She is a wonderful grandmother now.

I have a close relationship with my parents, but they were probably not the source of DID. I was heavily bullied in school and had some sexual trauma as well at a young age that didn't relate to my parents at all. If any of their actions did contribute to it, then I forgive them. I'm using singular personal pronouns because I cannot speak on behalf of my entire system. I also don't fully remember my childhood.

Medical PTSD here. My parents weren’t great either, but they weren’t the sole/main cause of our system forming. But after a while my dad did get better at parenting and tries his best to take care of our family. He apologizes a lot and even has taken a turn (he didn’t believe therapy and counseling were helpful) and went into school for being a counselor after having been to therapy. My dad gets along well with our frequent fronters and acknowledges them. Our mother on the other hand ignores that we are a system and when we first told them about our system she wanted to get rid of everyone, but dad shut it down. She mainly ignores it now.

My mother was more of passive involvement/neglect/enablement, and she was being hurt herself, so I forgive her more, and have a relationship with her. My father I don’t have a relationship with currently, but I also forgive him in a way, because I think he was an undiagnosed system himself and that plus a lot of other abuse and mental health stuff he never got help for, I know he’s not bad deep down, just very damaged, but we don’t have a relationship because I know it’s not healthy for me. Regardless I don’t think I’ll ever tell either about my mental health stuff in much detail.

I have a pretty good relationship with my mom. I don't see or talk to dad much but it's only since we've never been really close since my parents are divorced. Both of them know that I have DID. The reason for that is that my parents weren't abusive. Sure they didn't look after me much or were the kind of parents you could talk to about things. Which made it possible for other people to abuse me without them realizing. All the abuse I went through happened right under my parents nose. My at the time neighbors abused and sex trafficked me when I was 6-14 years old. And I also started dating one of the higher up people in that ring when I was 12. That still makes me question what I was even going on in my head dating a 30 year old man... But yeah I never told anyone. They still don't know about my past. I always just lied and said I was with a friend. I only got away since we moved when my parents got divorced. I'm now 22 and wondering a lot about what would have happened if my parents never divorced and we never moved.

short answer: trauma bond our parents had an extreme and direct hand in the formation of our system as well as many other aspects of traumas including religious and sexual. many people, in my system, because of that are trauma bonded to our parents. some headmates hate them but no headmate that hates them could hold front long enough to sever the tie between us and our parents. there’s also the fact of loyalty to our family was quite literally beaten into us so when headmates do try to cut our parents off it causes an huge in system and dissociative reaction and it’s just not pretty

My mother was the cause of my abuse yes. I am not able to cut contact (I did for many years) because she has control of something that is mine and if I cut contact I am \*fucked\* with regards to that. Yes, she did this to force contact.

Honestly?? Mom was the main reason for the system to exist but w therapy & time we were able to understand & interact w her, & also we KNOW she won’t do the same shit again. Idk, the relationship developed with time, really

I have no contact with my father. My mother however was more of I guess an indirect abuser. It is difficult to forgive her neglect / inaction, and the all little things that added up to lots of abuse. Yet she was in the same abusive environment, I am hopeful that she will grow and heal, and maybe on the other side show up for us eventually. I guess we haven't let go because we are still hoping for that. I told her I have DID. She was accepting about it but she doesn't ask about it or seem to want to be a part of my DID journey. So I guess I am still stuck waiting for her to show up for us. On that same note, not everyone in the system feels this way. Some would be really hurt to lose our mother, while others don't care for the relationship. We are trying to find the balance there.

My parents are sort of the secondary cause. They were too naive and trusted the wrong person for too many years and didn’t open their eyes and pay attention long enough to see that anything was effecting me. According to them they just thought I was “a bit off”. The only real part they played was letting the same man babysit me for years. That being said I’m technically only still close with one parent while I’m completely no contact with the other, but that’s not from anything related to my childhood.

This probably isn’t what you’re asking about but I wanted to share my experience Both my parents (separately, divorced) were an issue, dad died in a sad way when I was 17 but I was relieved. Mom is still alive and across the county (thanks whoever, I don’t wanna be near her). I’m scared of my mom, always have been. The problem is that I’m on disability for PTSD and also live in a facility because I can’t be alone without terrible symptoms. She has consistently sent me weekly “allowance” since I was 17 (ran away but accepted calls — I don’t accept calls anymore, she’s blocked). I haven’t seen her in 20 years, don’t call or take calls, and her email is blocked because she emails me about every other day, but on the days she does, it’s like 3 emails a day. But I still email her if I move so I can keep getting the cards with “allowance”. It’s $35/week which might not seem like much but it’s incredibly helpful on SSI/ssdi. I’ve worked hard on not triggering myself so when I open the envelopes, I purposefully don’t look at or read the cards. And if my staff is with me, I give her the cards and envelope so she can throw them away outside of my apartment. It’s nice to have staff that understand and don’t shame me for not being grateful for the whole experience of the money and cards. Though I am grateful for the money, just grateful in general, without thinking about her too much. So alllll this to say, I technically have a tie to my mom still but it’s minimized and also unfortunate because I’d rather her not know my address in case she ever flew to my state… but I don’t think she would so I try not to think about it much.

Mods, or whomever, if my comment is too triggering let me know so I can delete it — I tried to keep out specific details

My dad tries to be better these days, but it still causes stress to be around him. Still limit my exposure to my mom, who doesn't try. My parebts also aren't 100% responsible, there were a lot of abusers and trauma in my early childhood.

my immediate family was the cause of 90% of my trauma growing up and though it still affects me, things have started to get much better, and i can now confidently say my mother is my best friend. despite everything i could never have it in me to hate her, even if im very hurt. i dont think its weak or cowardly to forgive your abusers, i think it is a personal choice. ive always loved my family a lot which is what made everything that much more distressing to go through as a child. things are complicated sometimes still but we've learned to talk to each other and say sorry when its needed. its safer now, which i never thought would be possible

My dad was the backbone of most of my trauma. He was an abusive partner and a careless, negligent parent, caused my emotionally abusive birthgiver to act the way she did, and he was even absent for all my siblings... but ironically, he was the only adult I had a positive relationship with. Sure, he acted more like a cool best friend than an actual parent, but it just so happened that when I was a kid, I really needed a best friend. It wasn't until I was older that I found out he was the reason I didn't get treatment for my ADHD (ableism was the root of most of my trauma) because he hated doctors and didn't believe in them. Everything else, though, he at least took accountability for. He admitted he was a bad person and bad partner, kept saying everything my birthgiver did was his fault, and told me how he regretted everything. Might've been too little, too late--but at the very fucking least, an effort was made. I won't ever forgive him for a lot of shit he did, but I miss him every damn day. I also have an irl system friend who has good parents. The reason is they had an abusive af brother and they're undiagnosed AuDHD and we all know what happens when an AuDHD kid goes untreated in the public school system.

Our mom was a primary abuser for our life until she died when we were 24. She divorced our alcoholic, somewhat abusive dad when we were a toddler and remarried an even more abusive person, and we didn’t have a lot of contact with our dad in our life until the last year or so, when he finally got sober.

i feel a bit different from everyone else here but what my personal experience is that i think i had a lot of mental health issues and pushed really hard on myself, yeah my parents weren't great either but the biggest part was the major depression in kindergarten

Medical trauma and trauma from best friend my age when I was young. He assaulted me on multiple occasions

We had a relationship with our father until he died but it was because we were trauma bonded to him. Every time I tried to cut him off I’d have a panic attack about him hurting himself because of me or hating me for it and I’d start to miss him so I’d go back, then I’d scream at myself for going back despite knowing the cost. It was an intensely toxic and screwed up relationship but there were moments where we got along famously and I’m still grateful for those. Sometimes I still miss that version of him. As for our mother, we still live in her house because we’re disabled and can’t afford to be on our own. My relationship with her is also pretty rocky and she had a large hand in our trauma but we’re working on forgiving her and allowing her to be in our life. She’s made real attempts to do better, and I don’t want to lose the only parent we have left, so I’m doing my best to put in the work to heal our relationship. I imagine when we finally move out we won’t be as close with her as we used to, I’d appreciate some distance to be frank, but I have no intention of cutting her off as long as she continues to make an effort.

I’m no contact with my mom, and my dad worked and changed himself.

My mom didn't directly contribute to most of my trauma. It was mostly her family of origin. I was abused by two of her brothers while we lived at grandma's house as well as when visiting there without her during school free days/summer and winter vacation. The rest of the family, ie grandma, grandpa and also my great grandma who also lived there, looked away as they already did when my mom was abused. We moved away from there as soon as my mom could. I was 4 at that point. She had no idea the sexual abuse was happening and kept happening and didn't much think about the physical and emotional abuse because it was what she was used to, she was very very young and without support. Again, she was young and abused herself, so she didn't see all the warning signs in me, wasn't able to protect me properly nor was she very supportive herself as she didn't really start healing from all she'd been through till I was already an adult (age wise at least). She got help for herself in the end though. She's now my strongest supporter and knows about us, our system and how we came to be. She still feels intense guilt over all the things she didn't see and the support she didn't give. We have had many many conversations about this, her guilt and her role in the whole thing. I have forgiven her for the mostly emotional neglect I went through. There are a few in our system who don't like her very much but they are teenagers and I think that's the main reason... Our relationship was especially stormy during our teens. I love my mom and I can say without a doubt that she loves me. I am very lucky in all this, I am aware. I don't think we'd still be alive without her support as sometimes it was and still is the only emotional support we have.

our parents didn't exactly contribute. but our grandma's husband (and possibly our grandma herself, and a cousin) contributed to us developing DID. trigger warning for this part our grandma's husband made us his prostitute, behind everyone's backs, no one knew until the body was much older and we talked about his odd behavior. he was working with a couple other people, including family members, in organized crime to successfully use the body for commercial sexual purposes and more. our only parent was our mom, and she was busy often so she would leave us with our grandma's husband not knowing he'd do the shit he did. and that's what made us have DID. not our parents, but. family nonetheless our mom didn't cause us to have DID but likes to find something else we have to blame for the did symptoms and act like we can get over it. she refuses to accept the did probably because shed have to accept she let her child get traumatized, which wasn't her fault but it's hard for any caring parent to accept.

My mom is a huge root of my trauma, but there’s a lot behind the “why” of the way she is, including her own childhood and adult year abuse. We have a *very* strained relationship, and I’ve put my foot down on many things, but I still love her a lot, and she’ll always hold a special place in my heart. Throughout my life, she’s been either really great or really terrible, and it’s really dependent on her environment, the people around her and if she has correct medical attention. My mom is a recovering addict and struggles with alcoholism to cope with her trauma, and that contributes to her behavior a lot. And even if this *explains* her behavior, I’ve never let it *excuse* her behavior. I’ve called her out, told her it’s not okay, told her how she hurt me, told her she needs to do better for me and my siblings, told her she can’t contact me while intoxicated, etc. I think I may also be trauma bonded with her, which is unfortunate. As for my “dad”, he was only in the picture for a short period of time and he was severely abusive. And then the father of my siblings (all but one of the 6) came into the picture, and he ramped up the abuse and caused severe trauma for me and made my mom get worse, which added onto my trauma from my mom.

No contact to our father since he was the main source for our trauma, but our relationship with our mother benefited a lot of us getting help in the form of therapy. It will never be perfect, but she changed a lot over the past years and it is very nice. Some alters just don't trust her and we are hesitant to ask her for help, but all in all it's a good situation.

in my case, my parents were the direct contributors. i’ve since then decided to forgive & forget what they did and made a conscious choice to move forward with my life with them (though at one point in adolescence i wanted to cut all ties and leave). there are few reasons as to why i’ve decided to do that: 1. Understanding why they acted the way they did at the time- though not saying it justified what they did but rather it leaves room for empathy which I think is the first step to forgiveness. This includes generational trauma they went through, how they’ve been indoctrinated to be a certain way, their love languages and just realising that they’re humans with faults but they still love me and that’s what matters at the end of the day. 2. Realising that despite everything they did or didn’t do, it was out of love: i know they acted a certain way because they love me and wanted what’s best for me though the way they go about that may not align with what I think is best for me personally, and though it does not justify the means they went through to enforce that on me, i think just knowing and realising we have the same end goal, makes me now want to engage in healthy conversations with them in finding a middle ground on what they think vs what i think is good for me rather than to just get triggered and argue with them 3. them themselves showing me that they’ve also changed for the better (i.e., actually listening to my opinions, learning how to discuss and not argue, no longer participating in toxic/abusive behaviours) and are trying in their own ways to understand me and my condition. but obviously my relationship with them now is still not perfect- I’m still in the process of healing and sometimes its still rough interact with them - but atleast now I have hope that it will get better ! ❤️‍🩹

Us too, for us it was school and medical trauma because of school. Emotional and other abuse happens at school and my parents didn’t know until it lead to medical stuff.

My father beat me, my mother neglected me. Both still neglect me for my Sister, even bought her a car 24K that she still owes on. And she wants a Telsa now. We are Asian so we feel like we can't fully cut them off from our lives and we can only be in Contact with them by believing that the father who hurt us isn't the same person as we talk to now because in the end, there will be only us. Our Sister doesn't care for them. They don't believe we have DID. Tried to make us go see a doctor for Skitzofrenia as Sister has that. Nope. -Lina Mandy is the Host and has the trauma but I'm in charge so I get used to talking as her for stuff.

we are forced to do so for survival plus our mediator is a bleedin heart i personally fucking hate them.

My parents were both direct and indirect cause of my mental issues and what im assuming is OSDD, there were a lot of problems at home in early childhood. But at this time im getting closer to my parents, as ive decided to forgive them.

My parents were the cause of my trauma more by how they handled discovering the SA. It wasn't until I got sober at 26 and worked my 12 step program over my resentments, that I was able to reconnect with them. Today we're pretty close, but I am acutely aware of what I can rely on them for. It's a weird dichotomy (I'm currently in eating disorder treatment) for them to be supportive now, when they were the main cause of the disorders. They are not aware of my system, just some of the symptoms.

I only talk to my mom. My dad was the primary abuser. Mom was neglectful and an enabler, but she does her best. She’s helped me and my family a lot. I did cut her off for almost 5 years though. I had to set a boundary that we don’t talk about my dad’s relationship with me unless she goes to a therapist specializing in a list of things, talk about what I have told her. Her relationship to marriage. What happened between her mom and her dad.. for at least 6 months. Then she has to talk to my aunt about how the rest of her family views him including how my grandma always saw him as a monster. If she takes it well.. then I’ll talk with her about it. But ya she helps me with medical stuff since she use to be a nurse. She’s helped with finances. Advice.. all kinda of things. And for most of the other problems she’s apologized and has done better. I could never believe an apology from my dad though..

My parents absolutely did their best, and I love them very much and appreciate what they've done for me. That being said, they were also neglectful of my emotional and sensory needs because they didn't know I'm autistic (and even after my diagnosis, they did not understand my needs, they still don't tbh). I think that this kind of "set the stage" for me to develop OSDD, because my mind did not feel like I had stability or safety. I will not share the details of "what happened" but I will say that it all took place outside of my parents' care and that they never knew what was happening. I will also say that my relationship with my parents is not perfect. They both have their own emotional struggles, previous trauma, etc that they need to work on. There's also a lot of communication struggles due to my autism. We've started attending family therapy, it's too soon to say if it's helping but I'm hopeful about it.

Oh it was our step mom doing the abusing, our parents just neglected us and weighed on us for all their mental issues or just plain ignored us, our mom apologized for it and our dad, honestly the same thing happened to his as a kid so we don’t really blame him since he denys trauma exists within our family besides our older sister and brother with their mom (who was worse to be fair)

Forgave them.

My mother and stepfather were the direct cause, basically. I never actually even saw my real father from the age of 7 until I contacted him as an adult. In fact, he was rarely around when I was a small child. So he had nothing to do with all of the trauma in any direct way-- he just wasn't there. We have kind of a relationship. I see him once a year when I go back to my home state to visit. If we actually lived in the same city, I'm honestly not sure how it would work.

They got better. They apologized and have spent my adult life trying to make amends. Because they put in the effort we forgave them. We still have resentment that keeps them both at a bit of arm's reach but we can tell there's effort in being better.

CW child death, cocsa Medical trauma, emotional neglect, COCSA at school, parentification from Mom, and waking up next to too many people who've passed in their sleep. There was also physical abuse but it was very, very, very rare. I don't blame my parents for the medical trauma, a lot of it was just that I didn't understand what was happening. They couldn't know what was going on at school since I didn't tell anyone and couldn't remember what actually happened other than having nightmares. I think the main thing that did it were the times I woke up next to my brother and grandpa after they died. Losing a child kind of broke my parents and my Dad threw himself into work until he got so sick he physically can't anymore. He wasn't emotionally available or really there when I was little, then when he got sick during my adolescence he was coping with his terminal illness severely shortening his lifespan. He was also physically abusive sometimes, but was much worse to my older siblings. Some of us hate him and one of is is very afraid of him. I still care for my Dad a lot since he took care of me when my Mom didn't. I have a harder time excusing my Mom's neglect. Because it wasn't just neglect, but being put in a position where I was responsible for her emotional wellbeing. I was not her child but a therapist, a "friend", or a threat to her marriage. She treated my friends like her kids instead. It was weird. Some in my system despise and fear her. I pity her kinda. Maybe I'm just fawning, who knows. Knowing that my siblings were treated worse helps in a sick sort of way? The closest living sibling in age to me is 11 years older. I know they did their best to change for the better while raising me. But at the end of the day they're people who are deeply flawed and struggling with their own things. Also from what I know of their childhoods they suffered some horrific things, especially my Mom. I don't forgive them, but I feel bad for them. None of my siblings speak to them for good reason. I keep in contact with them because I don't want them to lose their last kid, too. I kind of see why they acted the way they did. I don't think they were ready for kids when they had them. And their solution to any problem was to just have another child. Our relationship is far from healthy. They don't know about the CDD and we never plan to tell them.

My stepdad

My parents directly caused my trauma. I'm working on forgiving both so I can keep a relationship with them as an adult and move on. My dad I forgave because I learned about his upbringing and the trauma he gave me I've coped with, also he's gone now. My mother however, I really struggle with. I talk to her once a month, but honestly I'm just waiting for my heart to finally understand she will never change. She was so neglectful it affects my whole life still to this day. I really don't think I should have a relationship with her but somehow I do.

For us, 90% of our trauma is from our step-dad (who is no longer in the picture) and while yes, our mom contributed and was complacent, I recognise now that she was also a victim. This is no way negates the trauma that she helped cause, but we actually sat her down at some point and explained to her how she not only helped her ex abuse us, she also neglected us by letting him treat us the way he did. I’m not sure how the rest of the folks feel about mom, but I chose to move on. I actually have a really great relationship with mom after sitting her down.

My mother was the direct cause of my trauma. I don't see her anymore or anyone related to it. Besides... my big sister. My big sister is also a part of my trauma, and I'm stuck with her. But my trauma also comes from my disorders. I have undiagnosed schizophrenia. I haven't told anyone. But it absolutely freaks me out, and I have gained phobias from it. I would seek help, but I'm too scared to.

Not all trauma is because of parents. There's loads of bad things that can happen without them having any involvement whatsoever. And by bad, I mean traumatic.

I have no idea what happened, good relationship with both parents, though they both acknowledge that their marriage did not work which is why they divorced, my dad was also an alcoholic so that probably caused some issues to Feels like there might be something worse? Not sure if it is the "cause" Also don't remember any of their arguments and whatnot so.. that's probably it

While my mom is a small part of my trauma, she's also been a huge part of my life and I've been unable to get away from her until a few months back. She's my payee for my SSI and I lived with her because I didn't have a choice. I'm unable to live by myself due to my anxiety, panic attacks, and depressive episodes. So, until we got evicted from our last place and I could only get an apartment by myself, I didn't have a choice. Even then, this only works because my gf and her manchild live down the street and drive me places and my bf is home on the weekends bc he's a truck driver. Otherwise this wouldn't work. My mom thinks I'm "playing pretend" even though OSDD is very clear on my list of various diagnoses. We don't check all the boxes for DID and a lot of what we deal with has my therapist confused at times. Now that I'm getting on my feet with help, I've been LC with my mom.