Content warning for mentions of ableism and sexual violence (no details).

There are three things you need to know about me:
I am 29 years old.
I identify as a cis queer woman.
And I have Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a psychiatric disorder characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more distinct identity states (dissociative identities [personalities]) associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency. Each personality state includes its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment. At least two distinct personality states recurrently take executive control of the individual’s consciousness and functioning in interacting with others or with the environment, such as in the performance of specific aspects of daily life such as parenting, or work, or in response to specific situations (e.g., those that are perceived as threatening). Changes in personality state are accompanied by related alterations in sensation, perception, affect, cognition, memory, motor control, and behaviour. There are typically episodes of amnesia, which may be severe. The symptoms are not better explained by another mental, behavioural or neurodevelopmental disorder and are not due to the direct effects of a substance or medication on the central nervous system, including withdrawal effects, and are not due to a disease of the nervous system or a sleep-wake disorder. The symptoms result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other critical areas of functioning.

I struggled with DID my entire life, but wasn’t diagnosed until my mid-20s and soon I will celebrate my 6^th year of diagnosis. I had gone through essentially the first quarter of my life completely oblivious that the life I thought and believed was mine was shared with, at the time, 3 alternative identities (alters). My life is still a struggle, but the diagnosis is earth-shattering. Finally, I had a label that helped me get access to specific treatment paths that had previously been denied to me. But it also labelled me as “insane,” “crazy,” and incapable.

My continued struggle further cemented these adverse labels to medical personnel who categorically ignored the continuing trauma and violence I experienced as a mentally ill queer woman who after diagnosis experience heinous sexual violence. Instead, I became “uncooperative,” and “untreatable” a label used with great prejudice after I fought for my social work education and eventual licensure.

Because of these stigmas and reoccurring ableism, I was forced to take the treatment of my DID into my own hands. Many DID systems face two separate possibilities of cohesion: integrate or co-consciousness. Integration is the process of the all or some alters to become one unique identity either with the host or core (the original personality) or another alter. Co-conscious is a process where both the alters and the host work together, and there are more flexibility and choice. To put it simply; the analogy of driving a car can be used to describe co-consciousness. Right now as I write this, I am in charge, driving the car, and the goal is in the passenger seat with a full view of what is happening. Or be in the back seat, not a full view but still have an idea of what is happening. As it is right now when one of my alters starts ‘driving’; I’m in the trunk. No memory, no idea what has transpired. Zero context available to me.

My goal is co-conscious. I want to be in the passenger seat or the back seat. The trunk is dark and somewhat traumatising. To achieve this has required countless hours in therapy, passive-aggressive comments that treatment is not ‘working’ by ‘well-meaning’ family members who have no clue. For co-conscious to be possible means that everyone has to want it.

Not everyone in my system wants it. Yes, it is extraordinarily irritating.

This past year, I stopped trying to force my alters to bend to my will (HA! Foolish, arrogant human!) out of sheer desperation to make my life easier. Instead, I started to listen. While I always state that my alters are my family, I did not resonate that through my actions before. And trust me, my lovely alters let me know that I mainly needed to shut the fuck up, sit down and listen.

So I did.

Slowly, my alters started working together, although still isolated from me, they began to at least begun to treat each other a little more kindly. Then during the York University 2018 labour strike, I gained a new alter, Roux. It is unknown that Roux is brand new to everyone, or if he has been lurking in the abyss of neural pathways of my brain. Now that was a shock to everyone, and an adjustment had to be made. A change that I was quicker to accept and process than my alters; my reward was the ability to be co-conscious with Roux. But I knew I needed to make the adjustment of my other three alters to Roux easier. So I came up with a radical idea: a family photo.

In August I contacted a photographer I had worked with before with my radical idea. After fletching it out, so everyone was on the same page, I waited for October 12^th with great excitement and trepidation.

Outfits were carefully considered, makeup inspiration was obsessively searched for on Pinterest, and the childlike decision was made between Piper the Pig or Cash the Bunny. Many, many times the thought of cancelling the photoshoot was considered, but in the last-ditch attempt of forcing myself out of my comfort zone, I paid the remainder of the fee of the shoot in full a week before the date. Soon the day was upon us, I carefully planned my day; collected everyone’s chosen outfit and packed into a suitcase. I wore comfy clothing, I gave myself ample time to navigate the end of day traffic in Toronto, and I ate. (Pro tip: never starve yourself for a shoot. Food, specifically carbs, help with anxiety)

I had grossly underestimated the amount of vulnerability I felt. I had no idea what it meant to be a man or how to be a “male” subject in photography. Letting the small child like curiosity be seen while clutching a rabbit stuffy. Having conversations what DID was to my makeup artist and photographer, two people I have worked with before but didn’t know I had DID. This was a new level of vulnerability that was so new to me it was absolutely terrifying. To explore the nuances of my alters, or as my therapist calls “parts”, and let though nuances be seen and photographed.

I have been vulnerable before as a sex worker, in social work school, the psychiatric ward, therapy, as a partner and just being on the internet with a highly stigmatised mental illness. But this? Nah, this was terrifying and worthy of several continuous anxiety-panic attacks (after a while they tend to blend together) in the change room as I changed from one identity to another. The only things that were grounding me were Jennifer from ModernMakeup and Trevor of Provocateur Images talking to me and laughing at me as I struggled to get eyeshadow out of my eye without rubbing my eye. It was pretty funny, admittedly. But allowing two people whom I’ve worked with before, without them knowing about my alters or my DID before, to see the fear, the vulnerability and to talk rather candidly about the struggles I experience in my life. To speak openly about the discrimination I face, the unintentional ableist questions I get asked once people find out about my DID, and the overall constant, ever-present dehumanising feeling from friends, family and society.

To lay me so bare and then to find the strength of unity that keeps us together through the worst of it and to show that. To show Heinrich’s protective nature for Shoshanna; to let Zache’s massive personality to shine through; Roux’s quiet and inquisitive nature to be illustrated without being making him look like an outsider. Shoshanna’s innocence to be elevated and me, well me in the middle taking a laizze faire attitude towards all the chaos.

When the final result arrived in my inbox, I was so elated! And confused. It was so exciting to see all of us in a single photograph, but it was weird to not see my alters how they see themselves. Each of my alters has a reference photo to illustrate to me and others on how they see themselves. But instead, it was them, who they are at their core in my body; like, it was as if my body was their flesh prison. But once I got over that moment, I WAS SO EXCITED!

So excited I started to cry and proceeded to ugly cry for the remainder of the day. In the days that followed a bizarre phenomenon began to happen; everyone was kind to each other! The ongoing and persistent arguing became a more forced, but more compassionate dialogue between everyone.

I was very suspicious and became very hypervigilant that something was going to happen. But it didn’t and hasn’t. I’m still wary, but cautiously optimistic as I began to think that this photograph may have been the key I had been looking for.  It’s still too early to know for sure, but I love the result so far!

Bethany is a sex therapist in Ontario. If you are wondering what she and her alters are all about, just think of it as Queer Eye, but 5 people in 1 body taking you on a guided tour in all things related to sex, sexuality and gender in the name of enlightened self-interest. You can find her on her site and Twitter.