Information about forums related to mental disorders

There are various online support groups for Dissociative Identity Disorder, in various degrees of anonymity and openness. Facebook groups are generally closed while internet forums are often open for anyone to read.

Please note, however, that the group members are (generally) not therapists themselves, and it is never possible to diagnose someone over the internet. The help they give can be invaluable, but remember that you should talk to a therapist when in doubt. Many outdated views on dissociative identity disorder are passed around in those groups, so be sure to not rely on them for advice. There has been a lot development lately in the field of trauma & dissociation and this often hasn't been picked up by most forum members.

Anonymity

Most internet forums at least allow pseudonymity or require it. Some may allow anonymity. The big exception is (see below).

There are a few reasons to remain unidentifiable if you have dissociative identity disorder. For example:

• You may not want your friends/family/coworkers/boss to know you have dissociative identity disorder.
• This also applies to your future boss/friends/family etc.
• Some people still have their abusers look for them.
• There are skeptics that attack the things they do not understand, and dissociative identity disorder is no exception.
• There is often more-or-less a societal stigma on mental health. You may not want to be public about your dissociative identity disorder for this reason.
• Even if you are public about your dissociative identity disorder, do you really want to disclose all personal details of it? The trauma that caused the dissociative identity disorder? All struggles you go through now? All your fears you might have?

A few things to be aware of when you want to remain unidentifiable:

• Do not use a username you use somewhere else. These accounts will be easily linked.
• Do not publish photos or videos of yourself online (except possibly in closed groups).
• You may not want to publish where you live or what language you speak (other than English) but this does not help much in identifying you.
• When you are in an open group:
  • Anything you post there may be public for a long time, even if it's removed there. This is because webpages get cached by (for example) the Google cache. Some forums don't allow to edit posts unless it is clear it is a privacy and/or safety issue.
  • It is easy to look up exact phrases. So, if you copy something you wrote on the forum and hand it to someone you know, that person (or anyone with the paper) can easily look you up. This works remarkably well.
  • When you have dissociative identity disorder and people know the name of alters, it is quite easy to find you when you enter the same names in a search engine.

Facebook and anonymity

Facebook does not allow total anonymity, however, it is possible to create a separate account with a fictive name. It is a violation of the Facebook terms of service to provide wrong information (including providing a pseudonym), so do this at your own risk. Your account may get blocked. We cannot guarantee anything here.