For Allies

The following are resources, support groups, and websites for partners, family members, friends, and allies.

Worksheets

• Your Feelings About Your Loved One’s DID
• Talking about DID
• Creating Safety
• Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook
  Chapter 10:  Survival Tips for Significant Others which discusses the following:
  • Basic Communication to help decide how to deal with your loved one’s dissociative symptoms.
  • Boundary Issues
  • Developing a Self-Care Plan
  • Ways of Meeting Interdependency Needs

• My Wife and the Guys (pg 8-9) – An excerpt from the Many Voices Newsletter on one husband’s account of living with his wife and her male alters.  Richard also included the “ground rules” he identified when a spouse has alters of another gender.
• Surviving Her Hospitalization (pg 12-13) – An excerpt from the Many Voices Newsletter.
• Partners of Dissociative Disorder Clients (pg 7) – An excerpt from the Many Voices Newsletter.

Support Groups

Most DID Partner/Ally support groups are conducted in-person.  Check with your therapist, or call an ISSTD therapist near you to see if they are aware of any groups in your area.  Some people also have found success with NAMI Family Support Groups.

Websites

• Did You Know?: 8 Things We All Should Know about CPTSD and DID
• Many Voices – This was a newsletter once run by people with DID and their friends/families.  It is no longer in publication, but you can still read all the back issues online.  Each issue has a “Partner’s Page” with family’s accounts of living with someone who has DID.
• My Mom is Different – Children’s book.  FREE download.
• The Significant Other’s Guide to Dissociative Identity Disorder
• TraumaDissociation.com’s Books for Partners Page