The following resources are but a few of a multitude of websites that offer information and support focused on trauma-based conditions such as the dissociative disorders.
Professional Organizations:
The Sidran Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of international scope that helps people understand, recover from, and treat traumatic stress (including PTSD), dissociative disorders, and co-occurring issues, such as addictions, self-injury, and suicidality. They provide educational programming, resources for treatment, support, and self-help and publications about trauma and recovery.
The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is an “international, non-profit, professional association organized to develop and promote comprehensive, clinically effective and empirically based resources and responses to trauma and dissociation.”
Online Information, Support and Forums:
An Infinite Mind is a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to educating the public and professional community about trauma-based dissociation with a primary focus on Dissociative Identity Disorder in an effort to dispel the myths and stigmas attached to it.
Fort Refuge: Abuse Survivors’ Community offers support in the form of resources and members-only forums to people over the age of 16 who have experienced child abuse, rape, domestic violence or religious abuse.
Malesurvivor describes itself as “a leader in the fight to improve the resources and support available to male survivors of all forms of sexual abuse in the US and around the globe” and “a community built upon a unique foundation of respect and mutual partnership between survivors themselves and the professionals who work with them."
Pandora’s Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support, and resources to survivors of rape and sexual abuse and their friends and family. They offer an online support group, message board and chat room as well as hotline and informational resources.
Mosaic Minds, Inc. is a primarily internet-based organization founded in 1999 by a group of dissociative survivors of childhood trauma and their loved ones. Mosaic Minds, Inc. seeks to provide an online clearinghouse of information for those whose lives are impacted by the more extreme form of dissociation called “Dissociative Identity Disorder” (DID), formerly called “Multiple Personality Disorder” (MPD).
UK Based:
First Person Plural (FPP) specializes in working for and on behalf of all those affected by Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and similar complex trauma-related dissociative identity conditions.
PODS - Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors offers information and support (Helpline, Find-a-Therapist) for those with dissociative disorders as well as professional training programs for therapists treating these conditions.
Hotline:
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) in partnership with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers across the country.
Other:
Child abuse or neglect (Adverse Child Experiences or ACEs) in any form has significant and lasting consequences on the health and well-being of the child. The Center for Disease Control partnered with Kaiser Permanente to do a long-term study of over 17,000 people to determine the prevalence and impact of Adverse Child Experiences. Read about it here:
Books:
Meet Davy, a 4-year-old with harrowing memories of abuse. Switch, a self-harming
10-year-old. And Dusty, a shy pre-teen girl. Unique individuals with one thing in
common: They live, along with 21 others, in the body of Cameron West.
In this intimate memoir of life with Dissociative Identity Disorder, West struggles to
understand the workings of his fragmented mind and heal his damaged spirit — all while
desperately hanging on to the slender thread that connects him to his wife, son and some
semblance of normal life.
A bestseller, the book was published in 22 countries. Disney Studios purchased the movie
rights and developed a script, though the movie has yet to be produced.