Not a day goes by when I don’t feel like I’m not faking my dissociative identity disorder (DID) diagnosis. There is an entire collection of people on the internet — in Reddit subs, Facebook groups, and so on — who will go on a witch hunt to “fakeclaim” DID systems, which doesn’t help matters.

I feel like I’m faking my DID diagnosis for a few specific reasons. Here are two.

My family doesn’t understand/accept my DID — not fully.

Some family members accept DID to an extent — so long as it’s “acceptable”, i.e. covert and not overt. It needs not show, and I need to ascribe to one name only. Every single action taken under that one name is obviously just me, even if it’s actually another alter.

Living like this is really exhausting, but having multiple social media accounts is too much of a hassle to be a viable solution.

Because I can somewhat to do this using a shell alter, I get the feeling I’m faking DID. Because under the shell alter/filter, I’m clearly a singlet — not a multiple or even acting as one. The shell acts like a singlet, also known as a non-system. It’s the entire alter role. Under the shell, I have the appearance of not being a system.

The logic is that, since I can fake being a non-system so well, am I really a system? Even though it’s just the shell, an automated version of me performing all the necessary tasks to survive on this planet at the expense of the body’s overall well-being?

I know that if I wasn’t really a DID system, my family would actually love me because I would be “whole” in their eyes.

DID systems aren’t broken, but this is the logic of many singlets.

What if I’m subconsciously lying?

I’m well aware that I overanalyze everything. But hear me out:

What if I am subconsciously lying about being a system and don’t know that I’m not actually a system?

What looks like a duck and sounds like a duck is supposedly a duck — but what if it’s actually a penguin in a duck costume and doesn’t know it’s not a duck??

I often wonder whether it’s possible to be living a lie without knowing about it at all. Of course, this would mean my blackouts, personal detachments, and out-of-body experiences would also have somehow been faked…but??

And there is an alternate version of me who used the DID diagnosis like it’s a freaking party trick (mostly dormant for that very reason).

But what if I’m actually a singlet, regardless of everything, and just don’t know about it? Like, what if my alters are just my imagination?

But then…are the forgotten purchases my imagination, too? And people calling me by different names?

I don’t always know who I am.

I don’t always know my name.

But today, I know I am Jane.

And I know well enough about my DID diagnosis to know that this is part of it. Because the brain seeks to keep dissociation a secret. Because trauma.