Tea at Four - I Have 30 Alternate Identities - Living With Dissociative Identity Disorder

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Bo has lived with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) for years, but before her diagnosis she thought she had narcolepsy because she would regularly "black out" with no memory of what had happened. In this episode of Tea At Four, hosts Lauren and Billy sit down with Bo to unpack the reality of living with DID, from the trauma that caused different parts of her identity to form, to the misconceptions she faces every day online. She explains how many alters she lives with, and how some of her alters have their own names, memories, ages, accents and even beliefs. Bo opens up about how her alters helped protect her from traumatic memories, what dating is like when different alters have different relationships, and why the internet needs to stop "fake claiming" people living with the disorder.This is one of the most honest and eye-opening conversations we've had about Dissociative Identity Disorder, trauma, memory and what it's really like to share your mind with different parts of yourself.

I have a dissociative identity disorder. It only really happens when something traumatic happens to me. Are you scared? Yeah. Hey guys, welcome back to T at 4. I'm Billy. And I'm Lauren. And this is a podcast where we talk all things that usually stay in the group chat.

Today, we are joined by the wonderful Bo. Thank you so much for coming on, Bo. That's all right. Yes, we're so excited to talk to you. Now, for our audience who are listening who might not know, you live with dissociative identity disorder. could you just explain to them a little bit about what that is? So it is a trauma-based disorder, mental health condition. It's triggered by intense trauma as a child,

and it causes extreme memory gaps between different parts of myself, meaning that I don't remember when I am work me or when I am child me or family me. There are memory gaps between them. It often is associated with multiple personality disorder, but a bit inaccurate. Okay, yeah, so the term has changed over time. Yeah.

Why did they do that? Because personalities kind of indicates a whole person. You know, you are a whole person, you have a personality that's you. You know, I have a personality as me, Bo, but it's kind of broken up. It's less like you have multiple paintings in your room that have different paintings of different people, different vibes, different styles, different art. You have one mirror that has been seen. smashed on the floor and different shards are different sizes. Some are very tiny, some are very

big. But you're all one of the same mirror, you know. You're not separate entities. And so they've moved it away from multiple personalities because it gave off the wrong impression that there are multiple people inside me when there isn't. You know, it's just me that is a little bit broken, you know. So it's been renamed dissociative identity disorder because I, I have one identity that is dissociative. Got you. Yeah. Do you think that pop culture has kind of made a big part in that

and the way that people view this disorder? Definitely, you know, it can be very dramatized in media and on like TV and things, you know, and it is quite fascinating, you know, when you see something like that happen, you know, I can't deny that. But it is less like a group of people living in your head and it is you just having slight,

barriers between you, you do know what I mean? Could you talk a little bit about maybe when you realized you're experiencing this? And how soon was that before you actually got diagnosed? The first things that I noticed was in school. And I originally thought I had an archaeopsy because from my perspective, it seemed like I was passing out. It seemed like I was fainting or I was falling asleep. You know, it's the same sort of blurriness in your eyes, that same sort of like your head

disappearing, you know, when your head kind of disappears when you're falling asleep. And from my perspective, I do just blackout, but from other people's perspective, I get up and walk around, you know, and I go and do something, you know, and I noticed that I was having these blackouts, but didn't pay too much attention to it, you know, and then it wasn't until people started to tell me, yeah, you called me a b*** the other day. And I'm like, no, I didn't. I passed out. And they're like, no, you didn't. You got up. You pulled my hair and called me a b***. You know, and I'm like, oh, okay, so this is not narcolepsy. This is not something like that. I'm not having seizures. I'm not having like a neurological thing like that. You're like I'm losing time. I'm losing

memories. How old are you when this was happening? Like 15, 16. And hearing, like it's amnesia, right? Yeah. That's quite a scary thing to process. Yeah. How did you deal with that at school? I don't think I did in school. Yeah. People would tell me these things and I'd kind of go into very high denial. Like I'd never call you that. I'd never do that to you. Like you're making it up. You're trying to fall out with me for no reason. And then I think it was quite a few years into that, then people would be like, no, this is, this is serious, you know. Yeah. And it wasn't actually until I was like 19 that I kind of went, oh, maybe this is actually something. Yeah. It took years. Like I had people saying like you weren't here last night. We were sleeping at a sleepover and I was talking to a child

all night. They gave me a nickname. They gave, we were talking about cupcakes and all of this. Do you remember this? And I was like, no, I was asleep. And they were like, no, you weren't. We were up all night. It was that in college, that then I was like, right, I should look into this. And I started doing research. I mean, it's often misdiagnosed, isn't it, as schizophrenia? What is, like, the process of finding out the correct diagnosis? What was that like for you? I didn't actually have a schizophrenia, like, test, which I don't know if that's correct. I don't know if they should have done one on me, but I went to see a psychiatrist. She asked a lot of questions about, like, my memories. She originally diagnosed me with, like, severe dissociative disorder with alternate states due to trauma, was my official diagnosis. Jesus.

Yeah, she diagnosed that I had severe dose association, which caused these alternate states, which then presented when I was blacked out. And then about four years ago, I saw my record and it just says dissociative identity disorder. So someone clearly saw that and went, what's this nonsense and just wrote the right thing. Yeah. So, yeah, it was pretty cut and dry, you know, I think because I wasn't coming in and talking about, I hear these voices. I am seeing people, you know, because that's not what my main issue is. My main issue is I'm blacking out. I'm losing time.

I don't know what's happening. PTSD symptoms, you know. So that was mainly the diagnostic process for me, at least. Did you find that life got easier or maybe more challenging after you got that? But both? Yeah. Yeah. Like in terms of myself, it was a lot easier, you know, because it was like, oh, God,

I'm not crazy. I'm not possessed. That was one of my biggest fears as well on that. A lot of people tell me is I'm possessed, you know, that it's demons. Who's saying that to you? Everybody would say that to me. You'll get it in these videos, don't worry. You'll get it in these comments.

That's great. I'm not possessed. Everyone thinks it's demons. Everyone thinks I'm possessed. And everyone would tell me that when I was younger, you know, like these people would come out and they'd hurt them. And then my friends would say it was a demon. Having a doctor come along and say, yeah, it's not demons. You're not possessed.

You're not crazy. You're not making it up, you know. Then having this answer, this title, you know, I was able to do research. I was able to find people that were like me seeing it in other people and seeing what, like, happens during the blackouts, made like a lot more sense. You know, it was a lot less confusing for me, you know, figuring out filming myself. as well. Yeah. Like that helped to make it a lot less confusing, but then on the other end, my family now know, my, everyone, my friends know, you know, I've been on TV, I've done things, you know, so people know that about me. My family are not very happy with it because it kind of,

it's one of those things, very rarely does a mental health condition slap you in the face and say your family's abusive. Right. You've got OCD, your brain is just a little bit rewired wrong. You've got autism. Your brain is rewired wrong. You know, you've got D.D. Your family were abusive. That's it. You know, either they were the abusers or they neglected you. Right. Because it cannot happen without that. So it's the traumatic event. That's always the common denominator. And is that what they're upset about you talking about? I don't know if they're upset about me talking about it. But they're, I think they don't want to acknowledge it. They know it happened. They know what happened. Even when I got diagnosed, my mom turned around and said, is this because of? of X, Y, Z. And I said, yes, it is, you know. But then that's the admitting it to yourself. I did this or I let this happen, you know, and that can be quite hard, I think.

That's a very common scenario, isn't it? Yeah. At lacking, taking responsibility. Yeah. In situations like that, does that stop you from treating DID? Do you, is there a treatment? Is it therapy? Yeah.

Is, can you live without it? Eventually, you can. Yeah, if you go through deep, trauma processing, you know, each part is there to protect you from a deep trauma. Do you know what I mean? And any new trauma that happens, a new part will appear to help you with that. And whether they either take the memories or they do the job, you need to work through those trauma memories to be able to then get rid of that part, you know. Like I can give you an example, like I went through an abusive relationship. A lot of my memories through my abusive relationship went into a part called

ghost because she felt invisible by this partner and was treated invisible. She could not speak. She used sign language because she was so invisible. And I, over the last 10 years since that relationship, I processed what happened and come to terms with what happened. And I now remember what happened in that relationship. I remember him treating me like that. So ghost doesn't exist anymore. She doesn't need to exist anymore. What's her job? She doesn't have one. She doesn't have any memories to hold. she doesn't have any trauma to take away from me. So she melted into me, essentially. And what tiny parts that were distinct in her are now a part of me.

You know, she was a very big metal head. She was very into emo music and she loved her black and white clothing, you know. And before I would have worn a lot of green, lots of browns, and then she joins and I'm wearing more black. So these altars, they have their own likes, their own hobbies, their own music tastes. Yeah, it can be like a mirror image of you. It can be exactly the same, same political beliefs, same religious beliefs, same everything.

But they can be completely different, you know, they can be exactly opposite. You might be a gay, trans liberal, and you have a part inside of you that is literally a Nazi. You know, like... That's... Oh, my God. I have a full tattoo sleeve. I am covered in tattoos, as you can see. And one of my parts is she believes.

believes with strong high delusions that she's from the 1920s. She's a very traditional woman. She believes that piercings on women are aggressive. She thinks that tattoos on women are disgusting. She thinks that they're aggressive. She thinks that men, sailors are the only people that should have tattoos, you know? Sailors. Or like naval men, you know, going to the naval docks and getting their naval tattoos.

And that's what she believes tattoos are for. So she sees my tattoos and gets disgusted by them. Whereas I'm such a tattered person. know, like I want to be covered one day. When you make decisions like getting tattoos, like your core self, do you, is there that part in you that's almost like, the word's not parenting, but it's almost like, do you feel like you have to consult with the altars before you get stuff like that? Sometimes. Probably a bit of a selfish host when it comes to things like that. Some systems you see online, they will have a bit of a meeting when it comes to like major changes when it comes to the body.

How would they do? How would you do that? Some people, they do have good communication. They can essentially just talk to their parts in their head. You know, they hear a voice in their head and they can communicate with them. Or it might be physically, so writing a note. And then that part will reply to it later at another time. You know, like saying, I want to get a tattoo.

What do you guys think? And two days later, you've got a whole bunch of different replies, you know. I'm one of those people that I'm like, I'm the host. I'm going to do it. Which is probably not very good. Yeah, I write that as well. How many altars do you have? I have about 10 main fronters and about 30 individual parts.

Some of those literally have popped out for a second or to have never popped out. They're just inside my brain, you know. So they probably have very, very small memories or very, very small jobs to do. Do you know what I mean? But there are about 10 to 12-ish that are like the main larger parts. And they have like different, like you say jobs, different ages. When did the first altar come about and when did the most recent altar present itself? The woman from the 1920s, she's my first altar.

She presented when I was probably about four. I've got all of these memories from when I was really small of a voice singing to me. Tall woman with red hair. I remember seeing like imaginary friends, you know. I could see her because she was right in front of me. I used to walk around with my hand up like this. Like I was holding somebody's hand and there was nobody there.

I used to sit and braid fake hair that was nobody there, you know, and looking back on it, these are all like early signs that I'm seeing these alternate parts that I'm creating in my brain to be safe, you know, and she was a parental figure in a way when I was younger, you know, if I cried, she would come and comfort me. But then, yeah, as I became a teenager and started to rebel, she then didn't like that and got tattoos and she didn't like that. Wow. Yeah.

What's that name? Texas. Texas? Yeah. That's a very modern name. for a 1920s. Yes. Do you name them?

No, they name themselves. The names just appear. Wow. Wow. I went through a very traumatic thing a few years back, which is not been able to talk about, but I went to America for a month and midway through that something major happened and I laid down to go sleep and three people just appeared in my brain in front of me. I could see them as clear as day as I could see you right now.

One was a teenage boy, curly blonde hair. blonde hair, you know, hoodie. He was telling me to F off, you know, swearing at me, you know. The other one was, looked quite similar to you actually, quite tall. Do you know what I mean? Blonde. He had an Irish accent and he was talking to me trying to calm me down. And then the third was just a floating head.

Wow. And I was like, what's happening right now? And one of them said, we are the trio. We are here to help you. I'm like, what the hell? Trio of what? Trio, what do you mean? And why are you floating?

Why are you just a head? Yeah. One was called Kyle. One was called Toast. One, and the third, the floating head is called C Browning. Sea Browning. Sea dot browning. See, that is ominous.

Right? Yes. Are you scared? Yeah. Yeah, of course. Because it's like, what do you mean? You know, like, it's like having a vision or something. You know, when people see things, you know, like Raven.

And it's just like, oh my God, what am I seeing right now? and these parts then come forward and they're talking, you know, like Toast makes lots of content on my channel, do you know what I mean? He's quite boisterous, you know, he's very laddish, he's sweet, bless him. You think I'm going insane, but then they present as actual parts or something, do you know what I mean? Like, see Browning, we've kind of figured out is a non-human altar, because that can happen as well, that they can present in any form. Texas believes she's a vampire.

Hence why she's here. She thinks that that's how she lived this long. Right, right. She's a vampire. She's immortal. She's like, I've got my own family. I don't need your family. Do you know what I mean?

It was a way to kind of push my family away from us without giving an exact reason. Do you know what I mean? Like when I'm four, she can't exactly go, your family's abusing you or whatever. You need to run away. She instead goes, I don't like them. They're not my family.

And I then don't care as much. That's what it does. It just convines. convinces you of all these delusions to help protect you from those moments. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. That's the thing as well is that, um, especially with me, it might not be with other systems, is that I don't often switch that, you know, I'm not switching every day.

I'm not switching like 50 times a day. Some people do. You know, some systems they are, they're very fluid and they move and they are coming in and out, but I don't tend to. It only really happens when something traumatic happens to me and my brain just goes, I can't handle this, goodbye, I'm gone. You know, like a situation like this, I'm very rarely likely to switch because we're chill, we're having fun, you know?

It's not like scary. It's like, if a sudden a car crashed through the wall, then I would switch because my brain's like, oh my God, I can't handle this. I need somebody who can handle this and be strong to handle this, you know? When was the last time you switched? That's the thing as well is that I might have switched yesterday, but I might not have known. Do you know what I mean? Unless they do something that's quite obvious.

my life's quite mundane. I don't go to work. I don't, you know, I don't go for a run or anything. Like, I'm in my house most of the time. I wouldn't notice if two hours have gone, you know, because I'm still in the same spot. I'm still wearing the same clothes. You know, nobody's here to let me know that I've changed. Yeah. So half the time, my mind I even notice. It's not until I then, like, check my Instagram and I've got replies to something, or I check my YouTube and I've got replies to something that I'm like, oh, okay, I did switch then. Wow. You talked about one of your altars using your social media. Yeah. Do any of them have their own?

Yeah, one of them did make her own Facebook. Really? Yeah. It was really weird. I had all my family coming and being like, who's this? And I'm like, I didn't actually know she'd done that. So I have an article who is 19. She's a party girl. She loves to drink. She loves the dance floor. So she wanted her own Facebook clearly to add all these people that she meets when she's out drunk.

And I'm just like, because I had loads of people popping up on my Facebook. Like I met you on Saturday. It was really nice to meet you. Why is your name different on Facebook? Do you explain it to them? Or is it just, if it's a stranger, there's no. No, yeah. It's not half the time, no.

I'm just like, oh, that's my sister. That's my, it's my twin sister. Yeah. Have you learned to approach it with a bit of humor? Was there ever a point in, like, your journey with this, where it was a scary thing and you almost wanted to ignore it was even happening? Yeah, like I said, when I was a teenager, like I hated it. Everything was so scary, you know, like, especially people telling me that,

I was doing all these horrible things. You know, I would hate to know that I'd hurt somebody. Do you know what I mean? So people saying, you've hurt me. And I'm like, no, I haven't. Please. It took a lot of years. Like, I was very scared of it at the start, you know.

There was a phase when I was a teenager that Texas used to hurt me a lot. But she's grown out of that now, you know? Like, I think it was teenage angst mixed with the situation and being undiagnosed and everything. She was the main aggressor towards my friends. She didn't like them. Right. Yeah. Again, I think because she thought she was from the 20s,

she thought, like, why have you got this phone? Why are you talking like that? And why you're acting like that? And why you dressed like that? You know, cover yourself up. You know, she was very, like, militant in a way towards them. And they probably didn't like that, you know. It wasn't until being on YouTube, I think.

You know, it was scary at start putting yourself out there. For sure. But there was a big group of us, like four, five, six different systems that we were all friends. and we'd all chat on tiny chat years back. And one of them, you might know her or have heard of her, Jess from multiplicity in me. She's blonde, she does a lot of the interviews,

which she did a lot of the interviews. She's healed now from DID, which is incredible. Yeah, she's fused all of her parts together, and she's now Jess, which is just an inspirational story. Yeah. You know, that you can get better. Seeing one of the main figureheads of the disorder be get better, You know, she kind of begged all of us.

She was like, please, I can't do this. Everyone's looking at me. Everyone's reaching out to me. Everyone's reaching out to me. Everyone's reaching out to me. I can't do this anymore. Somebody else take the torch for a minute. And so like five of us made a channel all at once just to kind of help her and get the brunt off of her.

And then like eight years later, here I am now doing all the interviews. That's amazing. Like I've taken it from her, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, well, well done to you. And also, thank you for coming on to. to be on here. I feel like maybe that's something

I obviously did my research before this, but I didn't know you could fully heal yourself. So I think even just I was chatting about that now, anyone that's listening to these stories, I think that's such an important narrative to carry. So thank you. Yes, thank you. There are two main ways of healing as well.

Like you can have functional multiplicity, which we do see where each part can hear each other, can talk to each other and communicate fine. And they all just work as a big team to work as a human, you know, and that works best for that person. And then some people, they fuse all the parts into what would have been new in the original when you were born, I guess. And then that's healing, you know.

Like, it's thankfully one of those conditions where you can get better from it. How did you find your real-life friends reacted to your diagnosis and just basically experiencing all of these parts of your personality? So, mixed reactions. Okay. Yeah, very mixed reactions. Yeah, one person I said, I think I've got dissociative identity disorder and they were like, I know. I was like, do you mean you know? And they were like, I've spoken to your parts. And I was just like, I've just figured this out. I figured this out like two days ago. Like what, what do you mean you know? And they were

like, oh yeah, I thought we all know. That must have made you feel a little bit at ease that someone understood it. Yeah, like you think that they're going to be like, oh my God, you've got to kill me, you know but they're just like yeah no i've spoken to them they're chill you know and i was just like how did you know before me like you could have let me know yeah like but then i had some people i remember one friend i told them and i said like i've got multiple parts you know i they might come out you might meet them um they're not a threat to you and she was just like what what do they want i'm like what you mean what do they want like that's like oh yeah there's people in my house what do they want you know like that they want a they want a bit they want a bit of

They want to live. They want to exist. I don't know. They want chocolate. They want a beer. I don't know. What do you want? What do you want? The fear as well, you know, you get that. You get some people that are just like, oh, okay. You know. Some people I've had a lot lately. They'll be like, oh, like from TikTok. Or like, yeah, you're one of those from TikTok. And I'm just like, how does that feel? I just, it. I was diagnosed before TikTok existed. Do you know what I mean? Like we were all making videos long before TikTok was a thing, you know? Do you know what I mean? It's almost like a two, like a double-ended stored, isn't it?

Because on the one side, there's people that are probably getting a lot of more information than they would have done before TikTok, but now everyone has an opinion on it. Yeah. What is the opinion generally for you like online? A lot of people don't think it's real. And I get that, you know, it's quite fantastical.

It's quite like, it's easy. say, oh, I switched to a mermaid or, you know, I've got a vampire living in my head. People are often like, all right, crazy or whatever, or they're just like, sure you do. Especially when it comes to like characters, because you can have a character as an altar, you know, which is called a fictive.

You can also have a factive, which is of a real person. So like, you could have Donald Trump as an altar. Do you know what I mean? And if you say to somebody, oh yeah, I've got Donald Trump altar, they're gonna go, no, you don't. Why do you think you're Donald Trump? Like I've heard of a system,

that's got a Jesus altar, clearly due to extreme religious trauma. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But their part believes they're Jesus. Yeah. You know, and it's like these, you say to somebody, oh yeah, like I had a part that identified as Harley Quinn due to a trauma that, like a severe trauma that happened. And the person who was doing the trauma said to me, look at you, you're now Harley Quinn. Right.

Of course my brain's going to go, oh, I'm Harley Quinn now. Yeah. So I thought my name was Harley. I thought I lived in Gotham. I had these strong delusions, do you know what I mean? Because during the trauma, my brain just snapped, you know? So I believed I was a character. And you can have memories from like TV shows, you know, like,

you're like, I remember that happening. And it's like, no, your body just watched it on TV. A lot of younger systems that were getting confused, maybe been a bit misdiagnosed or self-diagnosed incorrectly. You know, young teenagers in 2020, they'd say, I watched Hasbin Hotel and I love the main character so now I have a part of that.

I love Batman and now I love Batman's now I have a Batman altar. Oh, I've been watching Amazing Digital Circus and I've got the whole cast in my head and it's like that's just like kidding. You're kidding the character. You love the character, you want to be them. You have no control.

Emphasising on it. Systems, they go for a trauma and it's like somebody could be being sexually assaulted they turn around, they look at the TV to try and to escape. On the TV is Superman. Superman, would never be sexually assaulted.

Superman is made of rocks. He's so tough. If you hit him, you wouldn't feel it. I'm Superman now. And that's how fictives can happen. People who have a lot of fictives are often then called fake because it's like,

well, what do you mean you think you're Superman? It's like, well, if I explain it to you and actually say why I think I'm Superman, then you get it. But I shouldn't have to spell out my trauma. No, that's the thing. To make it make sense. It must be so long.

Like, obviously you're educating us here today, But to rehash that every time is a lot. It's no one's business as well. No, yeah. I think a lot of people with varying disorders, I think as soon as you tell someone you have this disorder, everyone expects full transparency from you. Yes.

Which is not fair. Like, that's the thing that you often see online is people being asked for their diagnostic criteria, being asked to show their diagnosis, being asked to show their medical records, which is private. you are not legally allowed to just share your medical records like that, you know. You get people asking direct details about the trauma.

What caused this? Why do you have this? What cause that? You know? And it's like, you don't need to know. Yeah. If I'm telling you this and I have been officially diagnosed by a doctor and you can see that, then believe what I'm telling you, you know, that I have this character because it came out of trauma.

I guess you can go down with that as well, a path of like, damned if you do, damned if you don't. because I've seen a couple videos of people like videoing themselves dissociating and going into that. And you've even got people on that go, that's not real. Yeah. It's like even if you showed your full parts, like I still don't think the internet would be suss about anything. So it must be hard to know where to draw the line with that kind of thing. I'm grateful though at least that YouTube seems a lot better.

Yes. Like my YouTube audience, they're very good. I very rarely get like hate comments on my YouTube. Do you know? I think it's because of my style. I don't do like eye catching attention grabbing kind of like, yeah, meet my altars or watch me switch 20 times in this video, you know, I think that's like freak show performance. Watch me do the funny thing, you know, whereas like I just show it how it is. If I switch in a video, I switch in a video. If it's a different part, it's a different part. If I don't switch for four months, my audience know that and they're willing to listen to me because it's not about my altars, not about my parts. It's about. about me and my journey, you know, like I talk about where I live, I talk about my housing situation, my money situation, my disability. I talk about everything on there, you know,

not just my altars and my parts. So I'm glad that my YouTube audience are kind of down for the ride. Do you know what I mean? They're very down for the ride and they don't ever judge me. Is there like a most common question you get asked when you do pop something like this online? Usually it's like, oh my God, are they going to hurt you? Do they hurt you? Are you scared of them? You know, and it's like, we want to move away from that idea, you know, like, That thing with like split Jekyll and Hyde is a main example for me. You know, like I watched Jekyll and Hyde growing up. And so when I started to show these signs of, oh,

someone so-and-so called you a bitch, so-and-so started to hurt you, I'm like, oh God, I have an evil side. That's what I thought for years. I thought I've got an evil side and I'm the good side because I would never want to hurt somebody. I'd never want to hurt my friends. And this evil side could come out and kill them is what I believed, because that's what Jekyll and Hyde does.

And same with Split. You know, you see there's the innocent sides to the character, but then there's the one that wants to kill. There's the one that wants to touch you up. There's the one that's trying to manipulate you. The whole story is villainising, and it makes it seem like that we are going to hurt you, whereas it's like, I'm much more likely to harm myself.

I'm much more likely to go into a flashback, think somebody's hurting me and hit myself to make it stop, or to run away and hide, or, you know, like, I'm not a threat to other people just because I have these other parts and I don't remember what they do. They're, like, if I'm not likely to kill you, they aren't likely to kill you. Do you know what I mean? They all represent me just different facets, you know.

Are you medicated for DID and, like, can you drink? Like, how, like, your social life, things like that. How does it get impacted? Not medicated. You can be medicated, but you won't be medicated for DID. Maybe you might take an antipsychotic or you might take an antidepressant. But there isn't any medication for DID specifically. And in terms of like intoxication, it usually makes it worse.

Most things usually make it worse. A lot of people say that smoking weed tends to stop it. It kind of blocks you from being able to switch, which I don't know if that's worse or better for you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, either way, you're not really addressing. Not really great.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, substances tend to have some form of, issue with it because yeah it's all about like your awareness and like level of dissociation and then if you get really drunk you're more likely to associate you know and when you are disassociating is there ever a moment where you can do anything to like ground yourself back to but sometimes like I often dissociate when I'm eating I don't know why but like I'll just be staring into space like my body I'm out of my body my body's just on autopilot just kind of eating like that and I'll be in my head

kind of aware that I'm dissociating and you have to kind of be like right wake up come on snap back to it do I mean yeah my most common way is a cold drink I quite often like cans of cold drink and if I'm sat there like I'll just cold drink to the face you know and it's that cold then shocks your nerves it's nervous system and you're just like oh my god I'm awake I'm here I'm alive hello what what are you saying you know like or yeah so like like oh I'll just put my hand on something cold do I mean like that kind of is the way to shock your nervous system are like ice cubes. Yeah.

Straight ice cube down the back. Oh my God, I'm awake. Hello. You know, you can't dissociate when your nerves are so like in shock like that. Yeah. And also like in your home environment, is there anything? Because obviously this is quite built on triggers. Is there anything that you find really comforts you and prevents you from disassociating?

My main thing is YouTube. I literally quite often watch YouTube. You know, if I am spacing out having lots of flashbacks, the quick quickest way is to distract. getting on a comfort YouTuber having the familiar voices talking in the background you know like having a voice that I recognize and I know who that is

that's so and so from my favourite channel and that kind of brings you back down to earth and distracts you from whatever your brain is trying to throw at you I love YouTube as well more than normal TV yeah that is TV for me now my boyfriend comes in the room

and it's like what are you listening to and it's just like someone sat in like 40 minutes just talking to the camera that's all I need And we lived together for two years and every time we'd get ready, the TV would be on, but it would be Zabella. Yeah. Oh my God, I love Zoea. Just love it, comfort.

You know? I've never been a girly girl, but Zohela has always been my comfort YouTuber. I get it. I'm missing her. I love it. Something I read online was that actually some altars can have different medical. Yeah. There was a case where someone's altar needed insulin for diabetes, but then they didn't.

Yeah. How does that work? I'm not obviously of the scientist, but it's fascinating. I've seen cases of a blind woman and one of her parts could see. She was fully blind legally and only one of her parts could see. How does that work? Do you know what I mean? Like the brain clearly can do a lot.

It can be very powerful. Like one of my parts is ambidextrous and I'm not. I cannot write on my left hand. I'm very clumsy when it comes to my hands, don't you know? Whereas I've got video clips of her colouring with both hands. Wow. Jess, one of her parts, needed glasses. You know, like he actually, if you took him to the optician, his prescription was different from when Jess went to the optician. Wow. Like actually in the eye test and he wore prescription glasses. And when he came out, he couldn't see and he'd have to put his glasses on.

It's really fascinating. Yeah. In terms of as well, like your brain obviously holds so much, having those skills that you haven't maybe unlocked yet in your core self. I don't, I find that quite amazing. Yeah, like some people, literally like some altars can drive and others can't, you know, like some altars, they might be really good skilled at art and the host isn't. I have a degenerative disability. So as I've gotten older, my disability has gotten worse. One of my youngest parts, who is six, has no signs. She has no symptoms. She can run around. She can do flip. She can do cartwheels. Because at six, I had no symptoms. So my brain took that and has locked it away somehow. And when she presents, my pain goes away. My spasticity goes away. The ability to run comes back.

The ability to play and move comes back. But then when I come back, the pain comes back. And I'm stiff again and I can't move. And it's like I've run a marathon. But she was fine. It's the way the brain can section off different physical abilities is insane. So the ages can be different. Yeah.

It's not down to when the trauma was or anything like that. It can be. It can be. It can be. Yeah, it can be. Like some altars you see in systems are literally a frozen snapshot in time of when the trauma happened. They literally are that person from six years old or whatever, you know, whereas you can have altars that are thousands of years old. You can have an altar that is one, you know, and you're an adult.

You can have anything really like Texas believes she's a vampire. So she's 120 something, you know. She was born in 1905. So, yeah, she's like 121. When the altars come through, like visually, what do you see? Does the world look different? Does like, what is kind of the narrative or thing? What's going on in your head? So yeah, like for me, it is like falling asleep. Like literally, I very rarely get to see what's happening. I've only ever had a few times when I know my body is up and moving and I'm aware of it.

Like, I have this one memory of being in town. meeting my friend and I was waiting at the bus stop for her and then all of a sudden I don't remember anything else but I have these flashes of something I remember her face at the bus stop looking at me very upset then I remember a woman in like a HMV I remember the like behind the counter I remember her ginger hair I remember handing over something to pay for it and then that's it you know it's these kind of flashes yeah I've clearly been out I'm clearly out and about walking about I saw that I was in HMV I saw that I was with my friend. Do I remember the conversations where we went, what way we walked, what other

shops we went into, how much I spent? No, none of it, you know. And when your, like, your friend is with you, do you ask, like, how do they converse with the altar? Do they talk to them as if it's you, it's you, your core you? I think it depends on the part. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if it's a child and it's very obviously a child, then I think most people's demeanour would change. Do you know what I mean? If I suddenly went from talking to you like this and I'm just suddenly like, where am I? I don't like it. You're going to be like, it's okay, sweetheart, it's all right, you know. But usually I don't think they notice. Like I've spoken to my best friend. She's, I've lived with her for like six years. We've been best friends with nearly 10. Do you know what I mean? And she even says,

like, I don't really know when you switch. Like, I know you have this. I know your parts, but they just kind of carry on and just kind of they might, you might act a little bit different or you might put some new clothes on because your clothes are clearly uncomfortable. You might say like, oh, no, I don't remember that. And that's the only hint that she gets. Right. You know, like she told me an example recently

where there was like an old timely bus outside of our house and she took a photo of it and she showed it to me and I was like, oh my God, I love it, it's so sick. And then I then went to the shop and came back and I went, look at this bus I just saw. And she went, yeah, I showed it to you. And no, no, you didn't.

Wow. And I'd taken photos of it. And then like a couple of days later, I was looking at my phone. I was like, what's this bus? I don't remember this. I don't remember taking these photos. Yeah. And it was clearly I'd switched in that time but hadn't noticed.

And she barely noticed. The only hint she got was that I didn't remember that I'd already shown me. You know? So, yeah, I think a lot of the times it's like people don't notice, you know? Even my best friend of 10 years doesn't notice. You've said about, shared a bit about navigating friendships. Would you be happy to talk about, like, relationships? Have you been able to date with having DIT?

Yeah, so I have got out of a long-time relationship recently. So I was with my partner for like seven years. And they didn't have a problem with any of them. You know, like they had very different relationships with each of the different parts, kind of parental towards the children, more sibling towards the teens, you know, like toast is obviously masculine.

And so would be a bit more like, yo, bro, let's have a party, yo, what are you doing? And they'd play Minecraft. or guitar hero together, do you know what I mean? Like, and then there was a couple, like Tracy had a bit of a flirty relationship with my partner. And then another part, Chloe, he was a hopeless romantic. She was very like, oh, so dreamy, can we go on a date?

Do you know what I mean? So it's like that's as much as their relationship was. It was just flirting and dating. But then, yeah, it's like different levels of different relationships, you know? How soon into dating did you say you had the ID? They actually already knew. They already knew.

They were part of my friend group in college. So they fully knew before we ever started, like, even seeing each other, you know. So they kind of knew what they were getting into well before that, you know. I mean, that's really lovely. And just so would you say you've had quite a positive experience with the right person understanding all the different parts of you? Yeah, and I see that a lot as well is that, you know, people often get partners that don't care and they don't see it as a problem

and they don't see it as anything massive. do you know what I mean? Like there's a video example of Jess switching on her channel. I keep talking about Jess, but it's because I love her. And she's dissociating. She's like, give me a minute, honey. And then two seconds later she's like, you're putting the kettle on. And he goes, yeah, all right, Jamie.

And that's it. And I love that kind of just blatant acceptance, you know? Like, it's less like, oh, who's this? Who are you right now? Can you tell me how you're feeling? Like, what's up? Like, who is this? What do you want?

It's just like, oh yeah, if I notice it's someone else, then I notice it's someone else, you know. Like, we've all hung out, all of us, the group of friends that will have DID, and that's always insane. Having five, six different people all switching at different times and triggering each other with switches. You're chatting to one person, one minute. They go to the toilet and then somebody else comes back and you're just like, okay, goodbye, Jess, and hello, Jamie.

Yes, I'm like, okay, now we're on board. Like, yeah. I remember when I first ever met them, I was like pulling up to their front door and I'm like, who am I going to meet? Who am I going to meet first? Who's going to open the door? You know? Yeah. And yeah, it's fun though.

You have lots more friends. And with that community that you've built, I'm just thinking for if anyone's watching this and is starting to realize that they kind of see themselves and like may think that they need to find a community like that. How did you find yours? I think I was very lucky. I was one of those people. I think when people talk about like, oh, you should have got into early YouTube, you know, I think I was lucky in that sense that we all found each other quite early. YouTube is always my better go-to.

A lot of people go on TikTok, a lot of people go on Discord for community. I would stay away. That's my main advice to stay away from Discord, D-I-D communities, because I only ever hear toxicity from them. I only ever hear people pushing diagnosis on people that might only show small symptoms, people trying to draw out parts in other people, people trying to be like, oh, you were slightly different the other day,

is this a different part, you feel different, do you have a new name, do you have this? And that's just encouraging the disorder, making it worse. You need to have people who are actually just going to be like, take you as you are and not try to glamourise it or make it worse. I guess we spoke a bit about films and stuff, but in terms of glamourising the disorder, I think the bottom line with what you've explained today

is that these parts of you are, protect you yeah but like the people that argue the glamorizing thing what what do they think it is what do they think your role in sharing your story i think they think it's a scapegoat a lot of people think i use it as a scapegoat you know like that i'm gonna go rob a bank and then be like oh my other part did it wasn't me or like cheat on somebody or yeah or even just use it as an excuse for my bad behavior you know whereas that's like we always preach system responsibility if your part has gone and slap somebody, then you slap that person and you must apologize.

So like we as a community go, no, there's no possibility for that, but people view it as like, you just wanna pretend so you can get out of stuff. You wanna pretend so that you don't have to pay rent or you don't have to go to a job or it's like, why would I choose this? Why would I want this?

You know, like I'd love to go and work every day on something fun and remember every minute of it. I want to remember every minute of my child's life when I have a baby. I don't want to forget things. I don't want to forget my wedding. I don't want to forget these big moments in my life that I easily could because I have an amnesia disorder.

I think, yeah, people see it and they see the parts and they go, wow, that's interesting, well, that's fun without realizing that it is just an amnesia disorder. It's just, it's not multiple parts. It's not multiple personalities and multiple people having fun and switching every 10 seconds and making a show of it. You know, it's traumatized people. that have these protective measures that just sometimes looks a little bit crazy, you know?

I think you explain that beautifully. Beautifully, yeah. Really, sorry, I sound like that they're really amazing. I didn't mean to say it like that, but I think you are an incredible person, and I definitely feel more educated on the idea. So, like, is an analogy the right way, or like the metaphor of the broken glass that you mentioned really at the beginning, but it all adds to the same person. And as you explained also, like, all these different personalities or they're actually all you.

Yeah. But they're all, you've explained yourself like and made me feel so much more educated. Yeah. Like, yeah, people often see it and they see it for what it looks like at face value and not understand what it actually is. And I do get it. It is crazy to watch sometimes. You know, I can't deny that. But, yeah, it is about just learning that we're all just people.

We're all just traumatized, a little bit sad and broken. But yeah, like, yeah, the mirror thing, it's just looking at different versions of yourself, you know. I think my final message is always to not fake claim people. Never fake claim anybody you see online, even if they are 12. And their plane has been characters or Minecraft characters or whatever they're doing, you know. They clearly do just need help figuring out what's wrong with them and calling them fake and you're making out for attention.

is only going to make things worse. So like we need to move away from fake disorder cringe, from fake claiming as an entirety. So yeah, if you see people with the disorder looks like me, don't fake claim them, please. Case any of our viewers or listeners want to find you on social media, where can they find you? I'm Bobo and Coe on everything, basically,

on TikTok, on Instagram and on YouTube. Just type in Bobo and Co. And you should find me. Brilliant. Gorgeous. Thank you so much, Berg. Well, thank you for joining us here at 2.4. If you enjoyed this content, then be sure to subscribe if you're watching on YouTube or follow us on Spotify.

We'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.