I recently received a question from a DID reader of my books and blog. The questions raised, which prompted me to write about this topic, are important.
The first question is critical to consider: “What are the chances of one individual with DID or DDNOS finding out that his/her SO (significant other) also has DID or DDNOS?” I have been unable to locate any studies that have collected such statistics. But, I suspect that this is not all that rare.
Given that I never dealt with this issue in my practice before retirement, please consider my thoughts as just that- my thoughts. They are based on my experience with my patients, not on clinical studies or any direct experience I have had with patients and their partners.
In DDNOS, the dissociated parts do not emerge as quite so solidly self-identified as with DID parts that exhibit executive functioning capability. Whether it be DID or DDNOS, an individual may have parts created through some traumatic past experience that crystallizes into a dissociated part which might be particularly cruel, angry, defensive, sensitive, or recklessly playful.
Given that, why would there be a tendency to bond with someone else who also has had severe early trauma with some resulting dissociative parts within their personality structure, whether DID or DDNOS? First, I think the protectors inside anyone with DID/DDNOS can likely spot another DID/DDNOS individual fairly quickly. Second, it would not surprise me to learn that the protectors within each individual made their own judgments as to just how safe the other individual with DID/DDNOS is likely to be for them.
I don’t think the process is all that different than when a protector assesses a potential therapist. There, the system decides whether or not the therapist might be safe enough to consider exposing one’s inner parts when exploring a possible therapeutic alliance. In circumstances involving potential partners, it would be an assessment about whether or not exposing one’s inner parts would be safe when starting to explore establishing a romantic relationship with the other individual.
Generally speaking, people are attracted to each other by what they find in common. In recognizing a shared common background, we get a surface and sometimes false sense of familiarity or security. For example, if you are travelling in a remote foreign country and happen to bump into a stranger who shares the same background, speaks the same dialect, or, for that matter, grew up in the same district in your city, there will be a tentative sense of security.
You assume a lot about this stranger because of that common experience. Your assumptions may be true. It also may be that this stranger preys on people by using that apparent familiarity and surface sense of security to bypass your normal protective instincts. Hence, my caution to those with DID about the importance of maintaining vigilance, as one dials down hyper-vigilance, and paying attention to warnings from protectors.
A common background of DID persons is their traumatic early childhood experience that led to their dissociative tendencies. They may also share sensitivity and empathy toward children facing adverse conditions. Following the logic of that internal experience of surface security and familiarity, we may be attracted to our SO because our common ground creates the sense that we are close to one another, that we understand one another in an otherwise unfriendly world. If you think about how important empathy is in healing, then it makes quite a bit of sense that you might gravitate towards another DID individual.
On the other hand, a DID can also meet and bond with the wrong partner, an abuser, for parallel reasons. This can happen when an alter inside fits their experience as a victim to match someone who fits their experience as an abuser. If both sides of a couple have a traumatic background, one victim part may meet up with the other’s abuser part to form a pathological bond. This is why an individual with DID is so at risk of being lured back to his/her abuser – whether it be the actual abuser or a new abuser with similar patterns of abusive behaviour.
Ruth, discussed in Chapter 5 of Volume 1 of Engaging Multiple Personalities, experienced that while she was in therapy. She packed up her children and drove about 100 miles to go back to “the lover” who was actually her abuser. She was rescued by a protector alter that took control at that point in the drive. The protector made sure she turned the car around and went home to safety.
