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"Our body is 27 years old. Our ages range from six to 30 years old."

Meet The Winter System, where nine alters live in one body.

Brut filmmaker Dallin Mello met with them to learn about their experiences navigating Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder.
Transcript
00:00Looking in the mirror and seeing the body, we don't see ourselves at all.
00:06But then looking in the mirror and having blue eyes, me, Mason, I'm like, oh, I see
00:09myself a little bit.
00:10And then Cole with the hair is like, oh, I kind of see myself too.
00:13And it's like a little bit better than seeing the body.
00:16We just have a lot of distress, I guess, about what we look like.
00:19Why do we subject ourselves to this?
00:22Our body is 27 years old.
00:24Our ages range from 6 to 30 years old.
00:28We go over multiple ages, multiple genders.
00:30In our heads, we look a completely different way.
00:33And then we look like this.
00:41In the United States, there are an estimated 4 million people diagnosed with dissociative
00:45identity disorder, known as DID.
00:48For Brew, I met with the Winter System in Utah.
00:51They were diagnosed with DID two months ago, and they're currently living with nine people
00:55known as alters in one body.
00:59This is Damon's wig.
01:00We cut it ourselves.
01:02Who cut it?
01:03I cut it.
01:04No.
01:05Someone in the system cut it.
01:07I'm just going to be showing you some of these really cool sims that Mason made earlier.
01:12My favorite is obviously mine.
01:14Then there's Cole.
01:16This is Jet.
01:17He's such a cutie.
01:19I was super happy when I saw that Mason made Jeremiah like this.
01:22Then there's Liam.
01:23I love how Damon decided to dress himself.
01:26That's so cute.
01:28Bethany looks like a queen, honestly.
01:30She looks so good.
01:31Are you kidding?
01:32And then finally, Mason.
01:34Jesus Christ, Mason.
01:35OK, whatever.
01:37It's formerly known as multiple personality disorder, but that diagnosis is no longer
01:41given out.
01:42How's it going?
01:44How are you guys?
01:45Thanks for liking the live, y'all.
01:47It's a disorder that is formed during childhood as a coping mechanism to deal with
01:52intense childhood trauma.
01:54It essentially makes it so that the brain splits into several different identity states.
02:00Yay, it's working, you guys.
02:03OK, if we just keep having faith.
02:05Most people just have one identity, and they're like, oh yeah, I'm a man, and I'm this
02:09many years old.
02:10Versus with people who have DID because of their childhood trauma, we feel like we're
02:14multiple ages, multiple genders, things like that.
02:18I was abused when I was six.
02:21There was something that happened with a family member that happened one time, and
02:24there was also something that happened with a group of teenagers that happened multiple
02:28times.
02:29After that, we were very hypersexual.
02:31And then we're like, oh, I guess that's a sin.
02:34But we've been doing that for so long, so I guess we're horrible.
02:37And I needed to get therapy for that.
02:39I needed to be seen by a legitimate therapist, not a conversion therapist.
02:44And all of that happened within Mormonism.
02:48You don't want to look like how you look because maybe you were abused because of how you look.
02:55When people think, oh, DID is incredibly rare, what they're saying is, you can't have this
03:00disorder.
03:01You must be faking.
03:03So one of my recent videos got me on the side of TikTok, where people think that everyone
03:07and their dog is faking their disorders, when actually people just have disorders.
03:12I had to quit my job because my boss fake claimed me.
03:14They think that I would make up my trauma.
03:17They think that I would fake my disorder for attention.
03:20I feel defeated a little bit.
03:24I feel really sad because I was really close with them.
03:30DID is such an interesting diagnosis, and some people live with it unawares.
03:37It's really neat to wake up to your experience or your system, you know.
03:41It's not only a separate state of emotions and thoughts and beliefs and values, but even
03:48the physiology changes.
03:50Like one alter will be experiencing anxiety and then someone switches in and there's no
03:55anxiety.
03:56It's like gone.
03:58But I've had clients who, in their work and healing, they've developed just a cooperative
04:03relationship with the alters within themselves.
04:06Some people have these refined skills and ability for certain tasks or certain environments
04:12to interface with the world in different ways, right?
04:16Especially when you don't have a lot of the disordered symptoms anymore.
04:20I can see how, yeah, it could definitely be like a gift.
04:23Not like a gift, but you know what I mean.
04:25An asset, right?
04:26An asset, yeah.
04:27But it can be so frustrating too, and so much difficulty getting to that point.
04:33You know, I've worked with systems where one wants to date, the other doesn't.
04:38You know, one part of the system likes a certain person, the other part doesn't.
04:42So there can be a lot of conflict, a lot of turmoil.
04:47We have two boyfriends, or the body has two boyfriends.
04:50We're going to be making candles.
04:52This is so sweet.
04:55Love you, baby.
04:56We are just at the canyon, and we're doing a little vlog of our time here and how pretty
05:01it is.
05:03I literally would go to the car wash like three times a day.
05:06At least.
05:07At least, because I would go like three times in one time.
05:10Yeah.
05:11It's like a weird coping mechanism of mine.
05:15What song should I listen to?
05:34What is this?
05:35Is this a dinosaur?
05:36I think it is a dinosaur.
05:37We're so excited.
05:38We're going to be doing mochi pimple popping, you guys.
05:41Are you excited, Casey?
05:43I'm very excited.
05:45These are so cute also.
05:46We have this lotion that we're going to be putting into the mochi.
05:53But right now, we're just slowly getting the lotion in.
05:56Yes, we are giving them their tea shots.
05:59That's so funny.
06:01I have a dissociative identity disorder, and we kind of wanted to talk about that while
06:05we did the mochi today.
06:07So do you guys have any questions?
06:09Yes, Alex.
06:10This is my boyfriend.
06:12Sorry.
06:13I got some makeup on you.
06:14Thanks for getting makeup on me.
06:17You have such supportive partners, but what's the hardest part of dating people with DID?
06:21Well, it's like in a relationship, you're trying to figure out your boundaries or how
06:27to mesh into each other's, to be in each other's lives.
06:33And then when it's like, oh, we're actually people, you need to make sure that...
06:39Everyone's boundaries are met.
06:41...you're clear about that.
06:42There are a lot of people in our system.
06:44We have different ages and we have different genders.
06:46And it's like, not all of us want, you know, not all of us want to be touched in the same
06:52way.
06:53Not all of us should be touched in the same way.
06:56Someone said a mean comment.
06:57Will someone mute them?
07:01Have we ever got fake claimed?
07:02Oh, we've been fake claimed so many times.
07:04And they're like, you are fake because you don't talk differently.
07:08You're fake because you talk differently.
07:12How did you learn to accept yourself?
07:14I feel like that's a good one.
07:17When we realized that we were different people, it was like, we can either like pretend that
07:23this isn't true, or we can like, try and move forward with it and like get to know
07:29ourselves.
07:30And then we were like, that's really the only thing we can do is try and move forward.
07:37That was, oh, it got on the phone.
07:40I need to get that off.
07:46Today, I'm just going to be trying to get Damon to front because he hasn't fronted in
07:50a really long time.
07:52When I say front, I mean, like, I want him to come and be in control of the body.
07:56And I want him to see this little space that Mason made for him in the closet.
08:02When I say that Damon wants to look like himself, you know, I don't actually look like Damon
08:07right now, because Damon is a six year old boy.
08:11We just try to look the most like ourselves we can in the inner world, if that makes sense.
08:16Listen, it's, it's still Sage.
08:19But Damon is here too.
08:23And he's not fronting, but he's like very present.
08:27And he said that this space is really cool and he loves it.
08:30So yeah, he's not gonna front though, I don't think.
08:33I don't know why he doesn't want to, but maybe he's nervous.
08:37But yeah.
08:39Thanks for watching.
08:40Damon loves swinging.
08:42And so even if he's not fronting, he gets joy out of us swinging.
08:47And he swings all the time in the inner world.
08:50I wish that the whole world would know that I, I'm just another person.
08:57You know, like we are multiple people, but we are just another person.
09:01You know, we're just out here living our lives.
09:05Not trying to harm anyone.
09:07Trying our best.
09:10That was so fun.
09:12I'm really proud of who we are.
09:14We've come so far and we've realized so much about ourselves.