I have Dissociative Identity Disorder
In 2013 I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (which was called multiple personality disorder until 1994). Many people live and function within my body.
I don't get out much but I've made a couple online friends I email with pretty frequently, and everyone definitely makes friends outside. When we tell someone we've got DID they usually end up hanging out with a couple people more than others, like Emily was best friends with a girl who knew us, but that girl was friends with others too.
I don't remember our first switch so I can't answer that too well. I remember the first time I switched in I was confused and pretty scared, because I have "memories" from stuff that happened previous to my coming to the system (a psychhological phenomena that's pretty normal in DID systems) and it was jarringly different. Plus weird body proportions and all that. I'll ask around and see if anyone has more info on the first switch we ever had though.
We lived a kind of "double life". School was better than home. It was hell, but it was better than home. I remember feeling small, very afraid of losing things. We were terrified a lot but there were stretches of denial, of not knowing that we were terrified. There was a lot of snow, we were raised in the Colorado foothills, so the winters were long and white and that's one of our most vivid memories from childhood. I don't remember any of the abuse. I know it was probably largely sexual in nature from talking to other alters, but I don't know the full extent of it or who it involved beyond the main perpetrator, a longtime boyfriend of the body's mother. We were gifted in school until around puberty, but struggled socially. I don't think we had any friends until around fifth grade. We were introverted and read a lot, I think.