For me, DID began almost as far back as I can remember. I once had an imaginary place that I called the Hallway where all of my friends lived. They would come out and play with me and go to their homes at the end of the day. I would talk to them while they were with me and they would talk back. This was because I was being seriously abused and my mother would not let me have any friends. So, even though I didn't know it at the time, I was dissociated.
I kept talking to myself off and on until I reached puberty, then I stopped and started reading books.
Then, when I read the Harry Potter books, I started talking to myself again to make stories for Harry. And something frightening happened. Harry started talking back. I thought I was nuts and schizophrenic. Harry (and that's his name)laughed at me. I continued my story with this new voice in my head chuckling at me. I made up items he could use to talk to me (even though he could already talk to me). Harry, my alter, says that he heard me talking and thought I must have been talking to him and so he spoke back. He says he didn't know who he was until I called him Harry Potter and then he knew who he was. Later when I read the Harry Potter books again, he knew his identity and his past. Harry was the first alter who spoke to me.
Other alters joined. Some fictional, others based on people in real life and most with their own names and history. One doctor diagnosed me as having Schizoaffective Disorder, and put me on 10 medications (see list at bottom)even though I hadn't had any symptoms before making up stories in my head and taking medications I didn't need. She called me dissociative but when I asked her if I was DID, she said she didn't think so and didn't really believe in DID. I will go on to say her name and hope I don't get into trouble, Dr. Erin Kurtay, and say she ruined 5 years of my life by overmedicating me.
Another person who didn't help matters, was my therapist at the time. I had been seeing her for an anxiety disorder and PTSD, and we were doing pretty well. Once my alters showed up, though, she also said she didn't believe I had DID but did say I was dissociated. She was trying to get me functional and get me to get out of "fantasy land" as she called it. Her name is Susan Anderson.
We moved to our new house and all hell broke loose. My "fictonal alters" or characters as I called them at the time went into the background and other people came up, with ordinary names and histories.
It was chaotic in my head. Suddenly I had scores of people in my head, all of them with problems and all of them telling me how to run my life. It had been that way before, before I took the meds. I had had scores of people doing the same thing and the medication took effect. But I never really lost the people in my head once I had started the meds. I had one alter, who I never really named and who acted like Harry Potter, who came out after the move and told me his name was Angelo. And he's been that ever since.
I looked up DID because that's what it seemed like to me and found books describing it, and it sounded like me. So, I did what the books said and built a dome for them and made rules and it seemed to work. Then littles popped up. Little Jesus, Kelly Lynn, teenagers named Eva and Phoenix, though she changed her name to Water Lily, and many more. Most of them went and hid in the dome and only came out when I called or thought of them. For awhile I was able to concentrate of other things and get some semblance of order back into my life, though I couldn't hold down a job. I was content, if not happy.
I will say this, before the move when I was on all the meds, I was suicidal ALOT of the time. I went to the hospital twice and couldn't seem to come out of it. I blame Dr. Kurtay.
It almost got that bad again. Approximately 3 weeks ago, my alters were in an uproar and I was getting depressed and suicidal again and didn't like it. I didn't know what to do. I talked to my therapist, my new psychiatrist, my husband and journaled. I even talked to people online, but no one could help me. So, on a day when I was feeling okay and didn't want to hurt myself, I went to the ER and went through an eval and was told to try Partial Hospitalization. It's working. I've only gone two days, but I've already met one therapist who has treated DID. Only one problem remained, my alters didn't like the dome. So I talked to people at a DID message board and tried something else that seems to work better. The Glass Wall and the Hallway. The Glass Wall is a mirror, that the alters can go through. There's a Hallway there with silver doors on each side and a brilliant, pearly light that lights up the floor and the spaces in between. Behind each door is that alters living space. It can be anything and has everything, and even everybody that they need. When they want to talk to me, they have to come to the mirror, and push on it, to get my attention. I call their name or say "Come in," or something to that effect and they can talk to me. Outside the hallway is my Dream House. It's built just for me. There are common spaces for me to talk with my alters and special spaces for me to be alone in. It's working so far and my alters love it. And it goes back to when I was 5. So, I'm being true to myself and to them.

Here's the list of medications, Dr. Kurtay has put me on.
Risperdal- antipsychotic, right now 2 mg, in the past it's been as high as 7.
Abilify - antipsychotic, 40 mg
Lithium - mood stablizer
Celexa - antidepressant
Buspar - unknown, prescribed to raise libido
Effexor - (prescribed by my current doc, I'm doing good on it so far) antidepressant
Lamictal - another mood stabilizer
Lorazepam - panic attacks and sleep
Trazodone - antipsychotc and sleep
Lovastatin - (prescribed by my former Primary Care Physician)cholesterol
And that's all. I'm surprised I'm not a zombie.

For more information about me, read my Personal Journal

For more information about DID, goto my page, DID or Multiple Personality Disorder