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DID Can did be provoked by suggestion?

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First, no implication at all that DID isn't real. It definitley is and that isn't my question here.

My therapist is having me try to "get to know my parts." Terrifying. The trip inside is giving me visions of little versions of myself huddled in corners and crying. Conversations that pop into my head. Voices that float up and declare that my body doesn't belong to them. conversations that happen inside and moments where I feel so little and alone and my body continues to operate in whatever setting it is in, independent of my desire to influence or control my actions.

I've been doing a lot of reading on dissociation and structural dissocoation. But. I'm terrified that this education (because sometimes it just fits my experience so well) is actually just suggestive to me. What if I'm overreacting? What if the reading is actually just prompting me to see something that isn't really there?

Can I accidentally trick myself into believing in parts and divisions of my self that don't actually exist? And how do I know the difference?
 
I do not think that true DID can be provoked by suggestions by a therapist or by reading informational books or biographical accounts. One of the things that I have learned about DID (because I have desperately wanted to believe that it wasn't what I have, but now I accept that it is) is that if you have DID, the experience you have with DID is consistent. I am trying really hard to find words to explain my experience and what I mean here, but it's hard. Your internal experience with alters can change over time and with therapy. However, there is a consistency with the presentation of parts. If a male part has a deep voice or a younger part has a hoarse voice, they will always present that way unless something in their experience changes them through the work you do in therapy.

This doesn't seem to be coming out in a helpful way, sorry. I don't think you can trick yourself into believing parts exist that don't. Here's a possible starting point though, has your therapist diagnosed you with DID and do you know what her evidence is for that diagnosis? That might help you be more sure of why she wants you to "get to know your parts". I will say that getting to know my parts has been quite a journey and still is and it's especially confusing at first.
 
No diagnosis. In fact, no diagnosis at all from my new therapist. I also haven't asked. I also haven't been seeing her very long, and she's moving out of state at the end of the summer, so I won't see here very long at all.

Sometimes, I think that I am just making it all up. But I don't know if this is just anxiety, or maybe amnesia, the way that I can only remember my childhood in certain states.

Sometimes I'm so F&^@ functional. Sometimes I'm so broken. But when I'm functional, I can't stop thinking I'm making it all up. But then I become sad and little and think that it fits so well.

That division, too, is part of why I get so frightened.

Sorry for all the recent, panicked posts. I'm trying to stop overreacting.
 
But when I'm functional, I can't stop thinking I'm making it all up.
This is very much like it is with me. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not faking. JEK's post is a good one. It is about the consistency. There are times that I turn in my right foot. I know that is a part. There are times that I run. I know that is a part. Each part has their own 'thing' that they do.

I suggest keep watching for body signals and try to figure out what the commonality is when they occur. Ask people you know to watch you as well. They don't need to know why.

Nobody wants this stuff to be true. That probably is just another part trying to hide this stuff and keep the system 'status quo'. Just my 2 cents.
 
You are definitely not overreacting. It's a pretty scary situation- voices appearing in your head, being introduced to the concept that you have different parts of yourself that you haven't been aware of and have been "taking control" without your knowledge. It's scary. It's a lot to take in.

With the suggestion concern - let's say your T has suggested that you've got parts and that suggestion took on a life of it's own and so your brain created alters...Does that sound like what's going on? Honestly?

Your T wouldn't have suggested what the different parts were like, but you feel like you already kinda know them, yeah? It didn't require any imagination, they just started making themselves known, and they maybe seem a little familiar even though you've never met them before? You know where they fit in somehow. You know a lot about their personality even though you've only just met them..?

Your T didn't tell you what your parts would be like. And even though you don't want to have any parts, you want this all to be complete BS, there they are, existing in your mind despite yourself...

I still wonder sometimes if I'm making it up. But even if you put aside "why would I?" (given how dysfunctional it is)...I ask myself "how could I?" It's not like I can "pretend" things like amnesia. And if I was that great of an actress, why don't I have control over when I pretend? Or what I pretend? And would I really feel the overwhelming emotions that go with the parts if I was just pretending? If I was pretending, there would be no reason to feel afraid, or angry, or hypo...

Questions that remind me...I don't like it, it's scary, but I have DID.
 
Plus there's that reeeally annoying one: if you're pretending, do it now. If it's pretend, then you should have no problem just turning on "the 4 year old" or "the aggresive teen-goth" etc right now, with no trigger or emotional cue...

But we can't. We can't just switch it on and off. You could if it was pretend...but you can't.
 
Your T didn't tell you what your parts would be like. And even though you don't want to have any parts, you want this all to be complete BS, there they are, existing in your mind despite yourself...

I forgot until last night that the whole reason I WENT to therapy in the first place last year was because I felt like I had different ways of being in different situations (versions, I called them). I got derailed by two different therapists who had two different agendas and subsequently dropped me when I couldn't perform their agendas (first one wanted to do CPT/exposure therapy and I fell apart completely; the second had an agenda about making me stop dissociating and teaching me DBT skills and the harder she pushed me the more threatened my brain felt and the more impossible it all became). Now, the third therapist is actually listening. This is a good, but scary, thing. I WAS THE ONE WHO TOLD HER I HAD PARTS. I can't believe I forgot this.

So, atleast I feel better that my therapist didn't make this up - she was just following my lead.

BUT, did I make it up? My imagination has always been pretty wild. And maybe I'm overreacting. Mostly, I think I'm overreacting, but then the voices pop up ....
 
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Mostly, I think I'm overreacting, but then the voices pop up ....
For me this is because my parts are so compartmentalized. When I go back into and then out of part I realize 'Oh, right! This is how it gets!'

I have worked very hard at this consistent belief. But for me, it is a waste of energy to keep rehashing and rehashing. Whether I like it or not, I have different parts - and some of them are really dangerous to me. Denial is not going to help me as I struggle to heal.
 
Research doesn't seem to indicate the whole condition would be possible to induce by suggestion.

D.I.D. doesn't account just for 'parts', multiple understandings of self.
There's a whole lot of factors going into manifestation of that condition that goes far beyond 'parts' stuff, or the things therapists mean when they phrase a person of different ages, or incongruent views with one another, as 'parts', by default.

That's... not really what D.I.D. is. Something else on the dissociative spectrum, yes, but not D.I.D.
 
@Cashew I hope I didn't offend you here. (I might be overreacting and worried about this when there isn't anything to worry about). I know that DID is different than the concept of parts employed in therapies like IFS - I've done a surprising amount of research.

What I'm worried about personally here is less that sort of parts and something much deeper and more intense that I simultaneously want to name and disown. There have been a lot of really scary moments for me lately (that I'm not writing here on a public forum because they're too revealing and specific) and I'm really, truly, worried .... but also desperately trying to talk myself out of overreacting.

In no way did I mean for this post (or any of my posts) to discount DID or make it seem like anyone could have it by merely feeling the idea of parts. Really, truly.

I hope you aren't upset.
 
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