Eating (Trigger warning mentions of eating disorders and s*xual abuse)

Eating can be a very complex endeavor when one has DID. From different taste preferences and different appetites to different reactions to food, what and how we eat depends on who is out. This is further complicated by the fact that more than one of us suffers from an eating disorder and one of the others cannot perceive pain or bodily signals. For me (Kit) eating is a constant struggle and a constant exercise in mindfulness. I've struggled with multiple eating disorders in my life. The first was binge eating, which began as a way to ensure I got something to eat as our father would often refuse us food for long periods when our mother wasn't home (she worked 12 hour shifts and suffers from a chronic illness that put her in the hospital often). I would hide food (usually candy) in various nooks and crannies in our room (usually stuff that we got with our mother because our father kept careful count of the food in the house) and then when alone in our room, which was often as our father liked me to be out of sight as much as possible during the day, I would eat as much as I could at once and then hide the evidence carefully. When I hit puberty, our mother divorced our father due to fact that he had sexually abused both myself and a friend of mine. This was not the first time that he had sexually abused us(as in myself and the others inside), though at the time I had only scattered pieces of memory regarding this and no memories of the actual trauma just scattered flashes of fear and broken images I could never quite see. After moving out of my fathers' house, my mother moved us in with my grandparents, and my grandmother who had always made sure to feed us, kept me eating regularly, which helped for a while. Then when we were in middle school, my mother took up with a man who had the same first and middle name as our father (and while not sexually or physically abusive, was a drug addict and often verbally abusive). That's when I began bingeing again (on candy), but this time as I was allowed consistent access to food I began to worry I'd become overweight. This lead me to start obsessing about my weight and thus I began exercising until I collapsed from exhaustion after each binge. Then, after some bad trips to the dentist, I decided I should give up on the candy and because our mother was starting to notice the bingeing I wanted to find a better way to manage things and wanted to become healthier. This lead me to cut out sugar for the most part and start focusing on eating less (even though I had never been over weight I worried about going back to the bingeing). Over time, this became eating only one serving of anything at any given time. Then I began restricting more and more until I was only eating the bare minimum to stay functional. Since I am hypoglycemic this meant eating very small amounts very frequently, but never more than 1300 calories, which was not much considering I was exercising 4 or more hours per day. The restricting, for me, lasted until I became pregnant with my son at the age of 21. Before, I was pregnant I had never allowed myself to go above 100 lbs, but because I had gone through a miscarriage a year before (the doctor said it was a chromosomal issue), I wanted to be sure my baby was born healthy so I knew I needed to eat healthily. I was still in denial about what I was doing, but I decided to see a dietitian and with the same obsessiveness I had applied to restricting and exercising, I followed the eating plan. I had a rough pregnancy as it was high risk, but my son was born healthy. After he was born the old obsessiveness came back and I began restricting again (though in truth this was partly due to being a new mother and very sleep deprived and not having the energy to eat). When my son was about a year old, I finally began to realize that I had a problem as I was restricting more and more and my body had begun to go into serious starvation mode. Then for the first time in my life I began seeking real help for my "eating issues". I started talking with my therapist about what was going on and once it had been given a name, I started reading every book on recovery from an eating disorder that I could get my hands on. You see I have aspergers, which means that besides social issues and an intense difficulty handling emotions (mine and others), I am very prone to obsession. This is serious enough that I have actually been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. However, in the case of recovery, my obsessiveness has been in my favor because it means that I am constantly vigilant for signs of relapse, which as with any recovery I have had to deal with. Thankfully, I have managed to keep any relapses short lived, but it has been and still is very difficult to quiet the "evil little voice" as I call it that constantly bombards me with negative commentary about my weight and my eating. I hope that as time goes on things will become easier for me. Unfortunately for some of the others it is not so easy, but I will let them tell their own stories regarding eating in the next post.
-Kit

Lost time

One of the most difficult issues to deal with for the majority of us inside is lost time. When you suddenly come to and have no idea what is going on, where you are, what "you" were just saying, etc. it is terrifying. However, what is even worse is when you have "amnesia of your amnesia." You don't know that you've missed anything until someone else brings something to your attention that you realize you have no recollection of doing, saying, ect. For instance, I (Kit) have more than once been told I watched a movie or show and upon watching it "again", found that I had no recollection of any detail of it, even when "I" supposedly watched it the other day. I've also realized that I had no recollection of places that "I" had supposedly been as short a time as five minutes before, but I had no inkling that I had missed anything. As the host, I seem to have the most troubles with lost time, but the others in the front have complained before of gaps in time and memory as well. This issues seems to be exacerbated by the sheer number of us inside (we are many) and the fact that those of us not in the front are often either afraid to be known or have less than honorable intentions(though are not a danger to anyone but us). Overall, lost time is one of those things that can be not only hard to deal with but hard to recognize when it's happened, which makes co-consciousness (simultaneous awareness between insiders) a very important thing for us.
-Kit