The formation of the MPD mind is always the result of psychic injury. The quantity and relative strength of the resultant Alters may be related to the type and intensity of abuse that caused the personality fragmentation.
When the abuse stimuli are removed, however, the MPD mind remains fragmented. With the help of a skilled counsellor, the patient can start bringing the pieces back together. The recovery process involves passing through three stages: fragmentation, co-consciousness, and integration.
In fragmentation, there is very little communication between the Alters and the Primary personality. The core self may experience blackouts and instances of “losing time”. I started therapy in 1995. At the time, I had the main personality (Indigo), four Alters, and two fragments. I started becoming seriously aware that I might be a Multiple when I was in college in the late 80's.
At the co-consciousness stage, the Primary personality is fully aware of the existence of the various Alters and fragments. It is possible for the Primary personality to converse internally with the Alters. At this stage of recovery, the Primary personality rarely loses time but instead may still experience interlude in which an Alter is in control of the host body. For me, I called the experience being in the “background” while an Alter was occupying the “foreground”. I reached co-consciousness sometime around 1999. Like many psychological processes, there isn't an exact "date" involved.
At the Integration stage, the Primary personality ceases to yield control of the host body to the Alters. The psychic energy that empowers the Alters aligns with the Primary personality. It is important to understand that the Alters do not vanish. The Primary personality and the Alters together create a sort of “super-personality” in which there exists a whole entity that contains the separate essences of the Primary and Alters. It is sort of like taking a pile of bricks and building a wall out of them. The wall exists as its own discrete entity, but, upon closer examination, one can still see the separate and intact bricks that form the wall. This is the stage that I am in now. I achieved integration sometime in 2001.
Indigo's Words: So... How did I know I had MPD? It wasn't just one thing. I did know that there was certainly something wrong with me. At the time, I just didn't know what it was called.
For most of my life, I've had recurring nightmares of severe intensity. But often in my dreams, my dream-avatar consisted of more than one person. There was always a "we" involved in my dreams. My nightmares almost always featured torture, hate, and humiliation as themes. Played a key role in these dreams, as a frequent tormentor.
In my waking state, I would sometimes "lose time". This would happen frequently while driving. I would start a journey in one place (say, coming home from work) and end up somewhere unintended (such as a town 90 miles away). I would sort of "wake up" to find that an hour or more had passed and I would have no idea where I was or how I got there. Oddly enough, I never had car accidents during these periods of lost time. Later, I would come to realise that most of my driving capability comes from Ashen (a Protector). Sometimes time would pass at an incorrect rate. For example, a large amount of time would pass but it would seem like only minutes had passed. The reverse could also happen. (This happens to regular people too, but in my case, time seemed truly distorted, not the usually "time flies when you're having fun" phenomenon.)
I also frequently experienced a sensation that I term "size distortion". When this phenomenon occurred, I would feel like my body was too big. As Indigo, I am shorter than the physical body. There were quite a few times that I could feel the difference in size between my psyche and the host body. This would make me dizzy and clumsy. I also had a great difficulty differentiating left from right.
I was also constantly aware of a feeling of incompleteness. I always felt that I was less than a full person. I frequently felt that I was, in fact, artificial. Sometimes I felt that I was a ghost that haunted a physical body instead of haunting a house.
Sometimes it would feel like I was an observer in my own body. Everything would sort of seem "disconnected", and it would feel like I was controlling my body via remote control. Sometimes I would lose sensation in my extremities.
I would frequently experience photophobia prior to a dissociative incident. By photophobia, I don't mean that I was afraid of bright light, but rather everything I would see would seem extraordinarily bright. Even normal indoor lighting would be painful to behold at times.
Finally, I had several sets of distinct handwriting. The other handwriting would manifest during times when I would also feel "disconnected".