DID without abuse history?

Q: Is it possible to have DID if I haven't been abused? - Anon

A: Yes, for two reasons. First of all, since a critical part of Dissociative Identity Disorder is amnesia, it is possible that not all alters know about the abuse. Secondly, a lot of things can be traumatic enough to cause DID without necessarily being something you would call abuse, if you're only using that term to mean physical or sexual abuse. Severe and recurrent trauma can be caused by abuse (physical, sexual, verbal/emotional), extreme neglect (isolation, imprisonment, withholding or inaccessible food/water, etc.), or significant acts of violence that carry a significant risk to health or life (natural disasters, wars, refugee camps, etc.). But while research shows a very strong link, with the expectation of a causual relationship, between early childhood abuse or trauma and DID, the clinical diagnostic criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder does not require a trauma history.

A few people with Dissociative Identity Disorder do claim that they have no memories of abuse, and feel that they have adequate knowledge of their internal system for them to be able to rule out that the abuse memories are simply blocked by amnesia. Some believe that they simply created their system because they were very bright, creative, or imaginative enough to create the DID.

Clinically this is unexpected. I would encourage someone who has symptoms of severe dissociation, with no reasonable memories of trauma to explain their symptoms, and who has thoroughly explored this issue in counseling, to seek a full evaluation to also rule out medical or neurobiological conditions that may be underlying their condition (ie, tumors, seizures, brain injury, etc). I would also want to rule out other mental illnesses that can have dissociation symptoms such as Bipolar, Borderline, Schizophrenia, and Schizoaffective disorders.