A lot of my internal DID experiences, especially as different alters, were expressed online. I've been wanting to make a list of weird ways my alters expressed themselves and weird ways my DID symptoms were displayed, because a lot of my experiences growing up with DID were displayed in a lot of weird ways, especially online was the biggest way that I was able to express myself - ourselves.
"Going by different names" is a common DID symptom that I see talked about online, and I did have some experiences where I did explicitly tell different people to use different names for me, most of the time, it was instead expressed through other ways. I thought that I simply liked making a lot of "fake names" to go by online; my excuse was that I wanted to be more "private online" so "I use a pseudonym!" This was often how the internal experience of "wanting to use a different name for myself" presented itself for me personally. I also would spell my name in different ways (example: Abbey instead of Abby, or Raye instead of Ray). I also would have the urge to create a new social media account with a completely different "vibe" and name. Looking back, this was definitely just different alters wanting different names and wanting to express their own personality and such. I still experience this; when I have an urge to "make up a fake name" and make a new social media account tied to that name and any vibes/aesthetics/likes/etc. tied to that name, I now know that it's an alter.
Describing myself as being in certain "mood states/brain states/vibes" and describing things like "when I'm in that mood state/brain state/brain vibe/etc..." So, as some examples, I'd say things like "I'm in a brain state where I'm fixated on (thing) right now", "I'm in a mood where I want to do (things)", "I'm not in the right brain state to be interested in that right now", and so on. This is actually exactly how my DID is experienced, but now I can recognize that they are alters.
I also had the experience of creating "characters" which were actually alters. It was like "I have this identity and I'm going to create a character based off of this identity I feel." This kind of way of alters expressing themselves through writing stories and creating themself as if they were a character was a big thing I experienced. I don't really anymore, but as a kid, it was the primary way that my alters were experienced and expressed. There's also a lot of other things that further indicate that those experiences of "making up a character and writing stories" were alters.
I apparently "roleplayed" as a child as "old" (old as in the latest I roleplayed) as 10-years-old, and I have no memory for any of these "roleplays." I have online evidence of some roleplaying I did with a friend, but I have always believed that I never roleplayed growing up and I in fact have an explicit memory at around age 12/13 where I told a friend that I never liked roleplaying... As in, I told that friend that I never roleplayed because every time I tried to, I hated it, despite the fact that just a year or two prior, I apparently roleplayed OFTEN with a close friend at the time. I had no memory of those roleplays at the time and I still do not have memory of ever roleplaying, I only know these things because of the evidence. This kind of amnesia in and of itself was a huge way my amnesia presented itself and even after learning about DID, I had no idea that it was amnesia. I didn't think it "counted" and I thought that DID amnesia only "counted" if you still had no memory for it even after trying to jog your memory *and* if it was recent. This is just not the case. Amnesia is tricky. Some therapy sessions ago, I was told that I told my therapist about how my dad would say I was just trying to seek attention growing up. I had no memory of telling her this and I had no memory of my dad saying such things. Two of my close friends confirmed that I have, in fact, talked about my dad saying such things often growing up. I tried to find online messages of me saying that my dad would say such things in order to attempt to find further "prove" it (I was very panicked and in denial, as one is). And upon finding that evidence, I found at least one message of a specific incident. When I read about it, I did, in fact, vaguely remember that incident. This does not mean that what I experienced was not amnesia. I thought it did. I used to think that "well, because I can just remember anything if my memory is jogged, it means it's not amnesia!" The fact that I had no idea my dad said such things was amnesia; the fact I had no idea I told my therapist things was amnesia; and the fact that I needed to confirm it from two other people and to confirm it by finding "evidence" of it - all of those things are amnesia. Even if I found that evidence of such a thing happening, and was able to THEN remember it, the fact that I had no idea it happened and completely denied it and fully accepted what I thought was a fact as fact, is amnesia. Think about it this way: if an alter is fronting who has no memory of, say, going to another state as a child, they are going to report that they have never been to another state. But if that same alter finds evidence that they have, in fact, been to another state, and upon finding that evidence, they can remember "oh, right, I HAVE been to that state, I vaguely remember now!" the fact they reported the exact opposite and needed to get EVIDENCE of it happening does not mean they did not experience amnesia.
Being an indecisive person, but not in the normal way you think. I'd settle on something and then change it, or just be unable to settle on one thing. I remember when Sprite (particular alter in our system) split, I would switch between the name Ethan and Sprite, and change my pronoun preference along with it. I couldn't decide on which name I preferred, and which pronouns I preferred. I thought this was just indecisiveness, but it was just two different alters. So when Sprite would front, I would say I preferred he/him pronouns and I wanted to use the name Sprite alongside the name Ethan; but as Ethan, I preferred he/they pronouns and didn't want to use the name Sprite. This was during the earlier times of my questioning DID and I did not think that these were alters, mostly because of my poor understanding of what alters are. But yeah I was just generally indecisive beyond the normal inability to choose between different things, it was more like choosing something and being certain on it, and then choosing something else. Stuff like that. It was far more than just "I don't know if I want chocolate ice cream or vanilla."
There's so many other examples of the weirder ways my DID presented itself, but I can't remember them at the moment lmao. Feel free to add onto this post with your own experiences, I'd love to hear about the other "weirder" ways people's DID experiences were presented!
