My Dissociative Identity Disorder Diagnosis

Encina Severa, has spoken to MedCircle host, Kyle Kittleson, before about living with Dissociative Identity Disorder aka DID. In this video, she goes further into her lived experience and addresses the trauma she faced in childhood and what it was like growing up with undiagnosed DID (formerly known as multiple personality disorder aka MPD.) She even explains the first time she realized she had multiple personalities AKA alters.

Cooccurring disorders are very common when it comes to mental illness. Encina describes how she also faced depression, anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex PTSD (cPTSD), a panic attack, and more.

00:00 Intro
00:49 Working with dissociative identity disorder
03:03 What undiagnosed DID symptoms feel like
04:57 How Encina's DID was diagnosed
06:45 How Encina communicates with alters
11:07 Encina's co-occurring mental health disorders
12:54 The early childhood trauma that caused DID
13:41 Medicine & therapy that did & didn't work
17:14 The healing process today
21:00 Coping with panic attacks & anxiety
22:56 ADHD, OCD, and PMDD
25:29 DID vs borderline personality disorder

#DID #MentalHealth #MedCircle #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthmatters #livedexperience #multiplepersonalitydisorder #dissociativeidentitydisorder #dissociativedisorder

[MedCircle]

DID is a unique experience, but Encina's mental health journey is very relatable. Which part resonated most with you?

[gsg]

As a psychologist, I respect the fact that we're trying to psycho educate people. And it would be amazing to train the interviewers and let them work from a place of empathy, rather than giving them a bunch of confrontational and close ended questions.

[ouranos]

You don't just ask someone "what is your trauma?" wtf. I salute you Encina for handling it with grace and strength

[lindadetloff]

I don’t have DID but I’ve had trauma all my life and been through therapy a zillion hopeless times. When Encina said “I want to want to live.” I heard myself. I’m over 60 yrs young and I finally got there. Meditation and learning to love myself. Forgiveness and accepting my part in things has brought me a long way. Don’t give up honey! God loves you and so do we!! ❤️🙏🏼😘

[svetlanathomas]

1. The questions are quite invasive and she handles them beautifully
2. Never seen anyone who could pull off purple brows, but she does it so well!

[kylenmaple]

“I want to want to live”
Man this really struck home, I cried

[penelopes.]

She had her childhood stolen from her but still believes in magic ❤
Such a sweet articulate lady. I hope she finds her happily ever after 💞

[plasticreplica]

i really hope you asked Encina before the interview if it was ok to ask her what her trauma was because i felt really inconfortable with how forward this was....and i hope that she got checked on after the interview.

[calzonexiv]

"I want to WANT to live"

Girl I feel that 100%. You are not alone, we gotta just walk this path one day at a time and do the best we can. We'll get there in the end, you have a lot of support so don't forget that! ♥

[alatea]

It is usually not ok to ask someone what is their trauma, and my heart stopped when that question came in. But then you were able to say it, Encina, and I am glad that you were. It is not our shame, the shame belongs with perpetrators. If we could survive it, other people can hear about it, and acknowledge that terrible things do happen even to little kids. You are a wonderful person and an inspiration. I wish you so much happiness.💖

[painalpeggy]

The chronic suicidality is extremely hard to live with when you just dont even really want to anymore

[meganwoehl]

When she described how she talked herself through her anxiety attacks....and it finally clicked that I do that all day every day. Just an hour ago I was walking down the hallway at work going "its okay, it's just work. No one's going to fire you. You're going to get everything done. Just get to your desk and everything will be fine. You don't even have to talk to anyone, just get to your desk and sit down and everything will be okay".

[delaney]

"Do you believe you'll heal?"
"I'm not so sure anymore."
I felt that. I'm eighteen and have been fighting for years to survive this horde of mental illnesses and it has absolutely whipped me. I wonder all the time about my chances of getting to a sustainably healthy and safe place. A place I can't remember having ever experienced, that I don't even know for sure exists.
So many days for years I've thought "please I just want some relief" and I wonder how on earth I've made it to this point, but the world keeps moving and I'm still here in it, exhausted from the fight to live another miserable day and the looming despair that comes with being in a state like that.

It's moving to see Encina still going and fighting and having the same doubts and hopes and wishes at thirty. But she's still alive and going, and I guess that gives me a little more hope.

[andreinalopez]

I had such a hard time healing my CPTSD (molested in my childhood) but after talking about it countless times with countless therapists, and crying out the shame; I started to break down what exactly happened to me step by step, and separating the sexual trauma from the life threading trauma that were mixed together. Then I processed my fear of being killed from my abuser, and then the sexual abuse and my relationship with my body. After that, I went into revisiting that trauma like if I was there, 6 year old me in that room, and even imagine the thoughts that I had as a child and how I was processing all of it. It’s so heart breaking but what helps me push through it is constantly telling myself “I’m so sorry, this is trauma being passed down from trauma, I will protect you now, you are safe with me, I love you, you are so strong, I can take this pain from you, etc.” It’s a slow process, it’s been 6 years of me putting in hard work. I too had wishful suicidal thoughts since a kid and now, I finally don’t feel that anymore and I am SOOOO GRATEFUL that I didn’t give on me. That I didn’t give up in that small voice in my head always said “just wait, you have no idea how good life can really be!” ✨🤍✨

[cassiejohnson]

I have DID and was actually diagnosed really young(before i was 10). I had extreme abuse that also left me with brain damage giving me aphasia and deafness due to nerve damage. I went through over a decade of psychotherapy to "merge" them yet I cant remember one session from any of it. I'm so happy to see others speak out about it. As always, love Encina's hair.

[karebear]

When she said she was desperate to heal, I felt that through my entire soul.

[deren]

I had a friend who could be a cheerful childish person one day, and become a sarcastic dark and reserved person the next. Her walk, voice and style of dressing would even change. But it only got me thinking of DID when on several occasions she did not seem to remember, or go in total denial of some story she told me before. It was so confusing for me as an outsider, I can't even imagine how she most have felt. I don't know if she was ever diagnosed with DID, I'm just speculating of course

[tvdv]

I have a friend who would go to sleep; when he woke up he would find all these notes all over his house. Some of them would be weird reminders to do mundane tasks, like shopping lists. Others would be rage filled rants that didn't seem to be directed at anyone at all. Different hand writing, different vernaculars, some looked like maybe they were written by a left handed person. This went on for months. It got to the point where he didn't want to go home, because he thought someone was stalking him. He would stay for a few days at my house or another friend, and miraculously when he would return, everything was as he left it.
It turned out it was him. He had a serious carbon monoxide leak in his house, and incredibly, that is a fairly typical response.
I recognize that these are different but I can't help but wonder if there is something that can be learned about personality fragmentation that could be useful in treating DID.

[rockulikeahurricane]

When she said, “i want to want to live” absolutely broke my heart ❤️ Watching and listening to her, it seems like she a a person who has it all together but inside she is in turmoil and that just shows that nobody knows what anyone is really going through or dealing with in life under an exterior smile. I pray for this person and want her to start feeling healed. I would love to follow her journey

[duskbear]

Encina is such a fantastic person. It breaks my heart that she has so much to deal with. I learned a lot about DID by listening to her, and she did remove a lot of the stigma about someone who has DID. God bless her!!!