What Happens When an Alternate Identity Takes Over? | Honesty Box

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Have your other identities ever tried to hurt you? Uh, yes. When I was a teenager a lot, she would try and jump off a bridge and like climb over the banister and try and jump into traffic essentially. She's very uncomfortable in the fact that she shares a body with me.

[00:00:14]Um, so she doesn't like me.

[00:00:20]Hi, my name is B and I suffer with dissociative identity disorder and today I'm going to be answering questions from the honesty box.

[00:00:31]Okay.

[00:00:34]Is dissociative identity disorder the same as multiple personality disorder?

[00:00:38]Yes, it's the same thing. Uh it was renamed in the uh8s I believe. I don't know the exact date. Um because it is not a personality disorder but yes it it is the same thing essentially.

[00:00:53]>> And for anyone who doesn't know what are the symptoms of your disorder? Um so lots of memory loss, lots of um issues with time and losing time and forgetting things. There is also other personalities, other parts that can come forward, but for me in day-to-day life, that's not the biggest thing that I suffer with. Um it's a trauma disorder, so it also comes with a lot of PTSD and flashbacks and things as well.

[00:01:27]How many identities do you have? Who are they? Um, so for me, I have around 25 to 30ish. We're not 100% sure. It's a sort of thing that needs to be figured out fully in therapy. They um range in ages, in sexualities, in genders. Some examples, we have Leila, who is six, and she is always six. She has a birthday, but she will always be six. uh she loves Easter and everything innocent and is just the kind of embodiment of childhood. Whereas we also have a 19-year-old called Tracy who is the embodiment of confidence and she is more to have a good time and to more to let loose and have fun and to socialize cuz I'm quite shy so I won't often socialize. So a lot of them have very specific roles and jobs that they fulfill. Is 25 to 30 a lot of personalities?

[00:02:27]>> Um, >> within a disorder, >> it can range like it's classified as being two or more. You can literally have two or you could have three, you know, um, which is quite common to have less than 10. But it's also possible to have up to a thousand or even more than a,000 parts. Um, which is called poly fragmented.

[00:02:48]Why do people have DID? Um so most uh well yeah all people with DID uh it comes from trauma. It can come from many different forms of trauma but it comes from repeated and severe trauma in early childhood. It can come from multiple different sources. It can come from things like a war going on in your hometown or home country or something that is constantly traumatizing you that can also cause extreme dissociation and cause you to then fragment these memories and these parts.

[00:03:27]Are they real people trapped in you or manifestations of your trauma?

[00:03:32]I love this idea. um like are they ghosts or are they like separate people or either way they are parts of me. The best way to explain it to people who don't really understand is uh you have a work you you have a home you you have a family you where you're around your mom and you don't swear and you got to be on your best behavior. You know, like there are all these different versions of you and you remember being all of them because you don't have any trauma.

[00:04:06]Whereas I have the trauma which then puts up all these memory walls. So work me I don't remember being or family me I don't remember being you know um and they just get on with their own things.

[00:04:22]It's separate parts of my one whole personality. They are not real people.

[00:04:28]They are not ghosts. I am not possessed.

[00:04:31]Um, they're not demons either. No amount of praying to Jesus is going to get rid of this. They are real, but not real people.

[00:04:41]What happens to you when one of your identities takes over? Um, so for me it is kind of like falling asleep, like loss of consciousness, you know, like if you fainted as well. It's kind of like that. But instead of me face planting a table, I get up and walk away and do something else instead. It's always really confusing. It's always really jarring to come back, you know. Um especially if they have like done anything like gotten dressed um or done any makeup or anything like that, you know, it's jarring to come back and suddenly you're wearing something else.

[00:05:16]It's something you kind of slowly get used to. You start to slowly recognize the signs of it. What's been the biggest gap in your memory?

[00:05:24]>> Um, for me thankfully it's only like there are big chunks but I have never gone like too too long you know it will be like only a few days. Some people they can come back and they've lost months or even years you know um which I'm quite grateful that I don't have that you know I have a lot of spotty memories but memories throughout my whole life you know uh do your altars have different skills accents handwriting or talents? Um yes Trace is Australian. Um, Texas and Darcy are American, different types of American as well. Texas used to have a Welsh accent and it just changed at some point. I don't know why or how, but it did. And then we have Toast has got a bit more of a like Londoner uh handwriting. Like they slightly have different handwriting, but the main thing that spins to my brain is that Ila is ambidextrous and I'm not. There's lots of footage of Ila coloring with both hands at the same time as well.

[00:06:33]She'll she'll have a coloring pen in this one and then and she'll just be doing it at the same time. And I'm just like I could never I could never do that. So I don't know where that came from.

[00:06:45]How and when were you diagnosed? So I was 19. So that was like 2017. I was experiencing a lot of symptoms. I um was doing a lot of research as people often do when they're experienced something crazy. I went to my mom about it and then she took me to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist is kind of just like, "Yeah, cool." And then just put it on my papers and I was like, "Oh, okay, cool."

[00:07:12]I received my medical records and it just straight up says dissociative identity disorder now.

[00:07:16]>> How did it feel to be diagnosed with this?

[00:07:19]>> Scary.

[00:07:20]It was like relieving but also terrifying. Do you know what I mean? I think the scariest part about it was then admitting that you'd been through something bad enough to have something like that. You know, it's not like, oh, your brain is wired differently. It's a direct comment on your environment or your upbringing or your family or whatever, you know. So, that was I think the scariest part was having having it written on paper was more of a confirmation of all of that than anything else cuz then my family knew and they had to then come to terms with it.

[00:07:54]Are you sure you're the main personality and B hasn't just taken over?

[00:08:00]No.

[00:08:01]No, we're not. There's actually kind of a theory with us that that is exactly what happened. Um, most of the time the host, the main personality is the person who was like born. You know, you remember being like very small. You know, you remember before the trauma happened or anything like that, whereas I don't really. I only remember from the trauma, which is kind of an indication that maybe that's when my memories start and that that's when I was formed. Um, and that we have a part that is named after my legal name and isn't called B and is locked away somewhere. I've never identified with my legal name, my birth name. I have all these memories. I remember talking to a therapist about it where there was two of us. Like I used to think I was a twin because there was two of us. But I'm not. I'm an only child. Clearly I must have thought that one of my altars or like my imaginary friends back then was close enough to me that I thought they were my twin. So, it is a bit of a theory with us that potentially my um legal name that they are a separate part and that I took over and just kind of kept going and I'm now the host and the main part.

[00:09:21]Do your altars know you exist when they first appear or do they think they're alone?

[00:09:27]I guess it can vary from from part to part. Some of them come when they're first formed and they know their name, they know their age, they know everything about themselves and they know everything about you because they've got a job to do and they're getting on with it. Whereas some parts they come forward and they're like, "What's happening?" They don't know anything. They don't know where they are, who's around them. They don't know they're part of a system. They don't know how they got here or anything, you know? So then that's kind of like a bit of discovery in a sense. It can be very confusing for the like newly formed parts.

[00:10:05]>> You said they've got a job to do. What do you mean by that?

[00:10:08]>> Um so when um usually when somebody splits off a new part in did um it is for a reason. A random example say somebody gets waterboarded. So they're now terrified of water but they need to wash. they need to drink water. So this new part comes along that doesn't have any trauma around water, doesn't remember anything. They're fine. They want to go swimming, you know. So they do the showering, they drink the water, they deal with everything, you know, and it it really just depends on what is needed, you know. Have your other identities ever tried to hurt you? Uh yes, they tried to hurt me a lot, especially only one mainly who would try to hurt me. they she's known as a persecutor alter. So that's a lot of what she does, but she does it out of fear and out of like internal pain or trauma. When I was a teenager a lot, she would try and jump off a bridge um a public foot bridge that would go over a um a dual carriageway in my town. It was my most common like memories of like losing time was I had no memories walking across this bridge. But my friends would always grab me and say that she would try and desperately claw herself off of the bridge. Um and like climb over the banister and try and jump into traffic essentially. She's very uncomfortable in the fact that she shares a body with me. Um so she doesn't like me and when we were a dramatic teenager she took that out on me.

[00:11:41]Whereas now that we're older, she has a lot more chill and she can actually step back and not do that.

[00:11:49]>> What's the nicest thing alter has done to you?

[00:11:53]>> H probably like take care of me, wash, do all that sort of stuff, tidy up cuz I have a physical disability as well. I'd struggle with that sort of thing. So they might then run a hoover around and when I come back rather than it being estate, it's a lot tidier, you know, which is nice. Yeah. I wish they'd buy me flowers or something. Like, it's my money they're spending. Like, give it to me.

[00:12:16]>> Have they bought things? What have they bought?

[00:12:17]>> Oh, yeah. Definitely. The kids will buy toys. Tracy has bought a lot of alcohol.

[00:12:22]Tracy would go out on a night out. Well, I would go out on a night out. I will spend hours getting ready, choosing what I'm wearing, doing my hair and makeup and all that sort of stuff. I'd get into the nightclub, have one sip of alcohol, and I'm gone. She would just leave the club we're in and go and find a different one and buy drinks there and be dancing with strangers there and it's just like, "Oh no, I don't even get to experience this fun. I just see my money disappear."

[00:12:47]>> Do you find it funny at times?

[00:12:49]>> Yeah, it can be. Yeah, I think it especially can be funny when like you're seeing it from the outside. It's obviously scary in the moments, but like Yeah. I'll just come too and I'm like got a full face of drag makeup on or something. you then kind of just go what the hell like this is stupid.

[00:13:09]How do you define yourself and the other personalities? Yeah. So we are all parts or altars in a system. Some people will use parts, some people use altars, some people use personalities, but we try to stay away from that. We all make up the system. We use system because it replicates things like the respiratory system or like a machinery system. all cogs of the machine are needed to make the system work. Me personally, I like I am a system. I'm also a person who has did. I try not to make it my whole personality. Um, pun intended, I guess.

[00:13:46]I think I often lean with I'm a person with DID because like I'm not fully defined by my disorder.

[00:13:55]How many times a day do you change identity? So for me uh it can vary uh depends on the situation, depends on where I am, depends on what's been going on, if I have anything bad or good happening in my life. On a very bad day, it can happen like up to 10 times a day.

[00:14:16]Um whereas it can also go months without happening. You know, it really just depends on the triggers and reasons why you're switching. There used to be a lot more like definitive triggers. I used to be very very triggered by the conversation, the topic of America, the country. I traveled there when I was 19.

[00:14:38]Um, and had a very traumatic experience while I was there. I was there for a whole month. Um, and the whole month was very traumatic. It used to be a lot more direct triggers. Like I remember I have one very specific memory where I held like a mini meet up with some of my followers. A group of lads they walked past with this like boom box and they were playing music really loud and they were all shirtless and yelling and being all ladish with each other and that was it. We were gone both of us. We switched instantly because the music, the vibes, the like ladish, they were all just being so loud and that was enough of a trigger to bring these like male parts out of both of us. And all of a sudden, me and my friend, we went from being like, "Oh, it's really nice to see you."

[00:15:21]to being like, "Yo, yo, yo, yo," with each other, like, "Yeah." So, it can be really direct like that or it can be just anything.

[00:15:32]What are misconceptions about did that frustrate you the most? Um, the biggest one I think is that we're killers, that we're going to hurt you, you know, that we're axe wielding murderers. But then lately, my biggest biggest pet peeve is that we're all copying Tik Tok. That we are all 14 and just doing it for attention. You know, like I was diagnosed before Tik Tok existed. Like no, I'm not doing this for Tik Tok. Like I see it in every space. I see it with disabilities. I see it with neurological conditions like Tourette's or neurode divergences like OCD and autism and things. It's like people aren't faking them. They're trying to find answers.

[00:16:18]Um, if one of your altars is a different gender to you, what do they see in the mirror?

[00:16:26]So, um, I only know from what they've expressed in videos, but uh, I know that one of our male parts, he has said a lot in past, I look like B. Like looking in the mirror, I I don't like it. I look like B. I know that Ila, who is six, she struggles with seeing that I'm an adult.

[00:16:46]She looks in the mirror, she sees that we have we have a chest and we have curves and, you know, we're taller and all this sort of stuff and she still thinks she's a six-year-old child and gets freaked out at that, you know. So, she has to have like giant clothing that makes her feel small. One of our parts, she she hates uh women in tattoos. She hates dyed hair. She hates piercings.

[00:17:12]She hates all these things and you know and I've got a full tattoo sleeve. She gets quite annoyed that she's sharing a body because this isn't how she would want to present.

[00:17:22]Seen your YouTube. How did you get the other personalities to film themselves?

[00:17:27]I just asked really. Um I started the channel myself. If you're not willing to put yourself out there, then they're not going to. So, I said to them in this video, "Hi, I'm B. I'm your host. This is a video diary channel. You do not have to edit. You do not have to make it feel fancy or professional. There is no intro. There is no outro. Say what you want and press upload." And that was it.

[00:17:57]If they need to get their thoughts out, they'll get them out, you know. Um, and then there is somebody on the other end who knows who they are. and will give them an honest opinion or at least answer their questions or answer their concerns um recognizing them for them.

[00:18:14]Sometimes it's a lot easier to turn to somebody online because it is just a screen, you know, and so I imagine that it is probably a lot easier for them to just rant to a camera, press upload and not think about it and then have some replies. But I'm very lucky, very very lucky that they have. Um, not many people get that.

[00:18:37]How do your identities deal with your partners? Can you hold a relationship?

[00:18:42]Uh, so yes, I just got out of a long-term relationship, but um it was very mutual, very peaceful, like was very nice. We were together for seven years, so um they knew all of the different parts.

[00:18:59]They were very supportive, very um helpful with them if they ever came out.

[00:19:04]Do you know what I mean? A lot of the parts had uh different relationships with them or um different friendships with them. they just had more friends to hang out with, you know? Like obviously I can't imagine it's nice for them to see their partner like have a flashback or be in like distress or anything, but yeah, it never really got too too much in the way.

[00:19:31]Do you wish you didn't have did?

[00:19:35]Yes, I guess. Yes and no. Like I wish I didn't have PTSD.

[00:19:41]I wish I didn't have trauma and memories like that, you know? I wish I didn't have such adverse reactions to certain things. Like I wish I wish I never went through any of it. That's the like the best answer. But yeah, the parts and the altars and stuff like I've grown to know them. So it would be weird >> weird without them.

[00:20:04]>> Yeah, it would be. And like it'd be weird for like the people around me I think as well cuz they know them too.

[00:20:10]Um, do your altars talk to each other or you in your head?

[00:20:16]>> So, um, I feel like they probably talk to each other a lot more than they do to me. I am one of those stereotypical hosts that has like no contact or access to what's going on in my head. Whereas, if you were to ask one of them, they would probably be like, "Yeah, I spoke to so and so last week and they're fine." Or whatever, you know? Whereas I I very rarely get anything. Some people who are a lot more further in their communication or in their therapy can have full-blown conversations with their parts and know like what they want or whatever, but I'm not there yet.

[00:20:53]Can you stop yourself from switching identities? Uh yes and no. Um, I can try my hardest to and again like when you're falling asleep, you can try your best to not nod off. I am quite afraid of it.

[00:21:08]I'm quite afraid of letting go and letting it happen. But the more I do that, the more dissociated I'm going to get, the more spaced out, the more confused I'm going to get, the more likely I am to have like a physical meltdown um or have a panic attack or things like that. You know, it's not good. you're like suppressing it in a way.

[00:21:30]Uh, what TV show or film gets did right.

[00:21:34]Um, my biggest recommendation, it always will be, um, is Doom Patrol, which is a superhero TV show. In there, there is a character called Jane who has DID and she has it from severe trauma. All of her parts link to the traumas and the different traumas she's experienced.

[00:21:53]They all have different explanations for why they are the way they are. As much as yeah, it's a superhero show and it is like got all of this superhero stuff around it which I personally love. It is one of the best representations I've ever seen. And then there's also a show called United States of Tara which has mixed reception. She was a real person with real altars and real things like that, you know. But it also has some problematic story lines where it does also kind of portray this the parts are going to hurt you mentality. One of her parts punches a child in the face. You know, we don't want to be putting across that the parts are going to be violating people or hurting people. Still, you're not a murderer, yes, but we don't want to do that either. But it was one of the first ever representations of it where it was accurate to me at least, you know, >> and showed it realistically.

[00:22:46]>> Is it curable? Uh, yes. With a lot of therapy and a lot of support, uh, you can achieve either functional multiplicity, which just means that you and your parts no longer have amnesia.

[00:23:00]You no longer have such severe reactions to things. Um, and you all work together as a big team or you can fuse all of your parts together into one big whole personality and then you're you again, you know, but yeah, it takes a lot of work, takes a lot of time, lots of therapy, but it's fully fully curable.

[00:23:21]>> Are you on that journey yourself?

[00:23:23]>> Um, I'm like half on that journey. No amount of like basic counseling is going to get to like the root of this sort of thing. You need to go to somebody who understands deep intense trauma and can actually process it with you. So yeah, we find the specialists and then we can get better.

[00:23:44]>> If you only had one of your ticks, which would it be?

[00:23:49]>> Maybe that one. I don't know.