Any Ddnos Or Did Patients Who Have Completed Therapy Successfully?

[Powder]

I really feel that I had two choices trapped in constant danger and suffering as I was: escape through suicide or escape through dissociation.

I also thought being killed was a matter of time because I'd eventually succumb, so I didn't need to really choose anyway. Dissociation became a way to get through a time period with minimal abuse, but I always thought that it would be only a matter of time before one of them killed me and/or a sib when I wouldn't be able to intervene or it wouldn't be successful.

I toyed with suicide as a child, regularly. So did my little sister. We both had no choice about the dissociation.

She has regularly still attempted suicide, poor thing. I am terrified one day she will succeed.

I think that a certain amount of denial is necessary, but the truth is that if one has the trauma to have DID or DDNOS, then one is likely to have sough escape via death or wishing one were dead for most of one's life. (Being totally blunt here; not trying to sugarcoat right now.)

I've had some hot spot flashbacks that are so bad that the depression of the fragment still experiencing life this way is just really dark.

I spent much time praying God would just take me home. I have people I love and live for now. But I am still always vaguely aware that this feeling will likely be the backdrop of my entire life along with fear. This is just the foundation of how I have experienced life, and despite safety now, this feeling is just always there, along with pain. I have alters that just feel things that I cannot access to process or breakthrough.

The creative may be a form of release @BloomInWinter ? I am inspired by that revelation. I hope that is true for me. :) Thank you for sharing this.

 

[Girlgirlgirl]

yeah, I don't know. I just feel so hopeless. today I realized I might have DID, not just DDNOS; I wrote down the types of personalities I may have. it's hard to live with - & what makes it harder is that I revictimized myself as a result of the original traumas & then I get blamed for it. it is so hard to keep going. why do I have to be blamed for being revictimized when I wouldn't be revictimized if it weren't for the original traumas? the world is so cruel & my ex-therapist committed ethical violations left and right. I have lost hope to some extent, but I checked myself into an outpatient program to do some DBT for a while. it seems like there is no way out, but my new therapist seems ethical and follows research for complex trauma, which I am grateful for, given my last therapist...

 

[Sandstone]

the truth is that if one has the trauma to have DID or DDNOS, then one is likely to have sough escape via death or wishing one were dead for most of one's life

So you'd agree that for DID or DDNOS trauma has to be at the extreme end of the spectrum?

 

[Powder]

I didn't say that. I said that one would have had to have had a long duration of time at the end of one's rope to the extent that coping skills for that age were maxed way out to the point of needing to dissociate to survive.

I don't have any idea what your personal definition of "Extreme" end of the spectrum is, because I don't know your spectrum with nothing written about it. Can't speak to that.

For a child to have the experiences that I did, on my definitions of what is traumatic to a child, YES. I think that some of the traumas were very extreme compared to even WWII children documented experiences, and they were premeditated.

In other words, I think that DID is not caused by someone just being "sensitive" and "emotional." I think they have to be experiencing some things that would cause most people to be severely distressed and trapped in that distress over time with suicidal thoughts and dissociation as the primary means of escape. That also is, I think, a crude summary of the literature on DID and DDNOS and childhood dissociation.

Not the whole story, because I don't have the vocabulary to tell it, but that's what I can say right now.

 

[Sandstone]

My understanding of the theories of dissociation tallies with yours. That is what leaves me mystified. It seems more and more likely that I fit into DDNOS, and one tactless worker has mentioned DID, but it doesn't make sense. I know the abuse wasn't severe. I'm certain I'm not forgetting anything, because I have talked about it with my abuser and I know him well enough to know he wasn't playing games. And yet it seems to be there, with no possible mechanism to have created it.

I'm 100% certain that up to age of 12 there was only one abuser. After that things got more complicated, but that is too late to start any sort of splitting. As well as the usual fear and disbelief and dividedness that keeps me in a constant state of switching between "It can't be true, it is true" I keep grappling with honest bewilderment that there is no way DDNOS can have been created. It's like telling me a tiger laid a peacock egg.

 

[Powder]

@Sandstone

I am sorry. That does sound alarming. I wish I could be more help, and I'm here for you if you have more questions.

It could be that you simply have a more dissociative PTSD type and no further trauma/perpetrators. And I sincerely hope this is so for your sake.

Either way, the good news is that the DSM is supposed to be revised to help people in exactly your situation. There is no talk of the trauma being different, only the body's reaction. That said, this means that you don't need to go looking for abuse that you don't recall as a justification for the dissociation you have been unduring.

AKa, you are correct. If a T is pushing you to remember worse abuse to justify the dissociation, this may not be scientifically up-to-date. It may be outdated. (I don't have the research article to hand to share; sorry. You can look up the DSM changes or ask someone on here who is more expert on its vicissitudes.)

Though in my case, the massive dissociation issues IS because I had further/more extreme traumas that I was not broken through to yet. It took 3.5 years of processing my incest trauma to break through to the "outside the home" abuse that was very extreme. However, I was always AWARE that I was tortured. I just had no memory of it that I could bring to bear on that knowledge. Therefore, I would tell my T. "I believe I was tortured but I cannot remember." She would nod and say, "If you believe it over time, then it is probably so." She didn't push me to try to remember, which is good. It took five more years. She said to be patient.

After processing the hotspot flashback with the main long-term perp, I then began another journey into a separate, short term set of shorter-term but more severe traumas with completely different perps.

This was confusing because I thought the incest was the ONLY cause of my PTSD and all I had to bear. It is always shocking. Like "Wow, I can't believe this actually happened to me. I'm not living on the streets or shooting heroine. I'm just an emotional mess."

My Belief based on anecdotal evidence: Most people with DID have different alters that were abused by Different Perpetrators. This is admittedly, old-fashioned and reductive. But so far, it has been the case. I'm sure there are exceptions.

In my case, I was getting 'better' with my flashbacks of CSA from my parent.

But Then, the recurring dream of being naked surrounded by three unknown men started. In some of them, one of the men's faces morphed into my fathers. Then, it went back to the strangers.

Since then, I have read one other DID sufferer having a repeated, confusing dream, with faces changing like this.

I believe this is the child alters visual way of telling the adult mind that they were being abused similarly in two different contexts. You can see why this would be extremely traumatic. The child thought that all it had to do was split off memories from one parent. Now, it is a total stranger(s) causing trauma that has to be split off.

My husband and I have said that Multiple Abusers = Multiples. The child cannot recycle the same split for other situations and perpetrators. This is because splitting is not intentional, like a tool in a toolbox that can be taken out and repurposed. It is done via trauma, automatically.

I recall having different trauma responses to: 1. My dad, 2. My dad when his MO changed 3. My mom, when she tried to kill my sister and I for being abused 4. My three/male torturers/rapists.

However, I do not recall splitting into "Alters"at the time of abuse. I do recall the first "split" being a neglected baby and feeling unloved/lonely. I didn't assign different identities to these ego states. Nothing colorful or imaginative like that. Yet, it still affects me with switching and co-conscious states, someone taking control, and I have to watch, and so on. They are not so different that strangers could notice. Only those who know me can see the changes.

My sister. Same, yet more dramatic. Her face actually appears different. Her eye color changes (hazel: several different shades for different alters?). Her voice changes. Some of her alters are violent. She had an exorcism done on herself because she interpreted her DID that way. Most of the time, she dissociates it all and she is in deep denial that it could be DID.

Sorry so long and personal. Just how I share this today. Hope it's helpful to say, it could be that you are dissociating your switching a lot, or you have a more dissocitive type of PTSD. Nobody but you can say there's "More" trauma in you or that you experienced an extreme.

In my opinion, even when you dissociate "extreme" truama, part of you is "aware" that it's in there, somewhere, at least at fleeting moments. I did deny it, in other states, but in some states, I was just aware of it being a feeling that it happened in some way I could not remember.

 

[Sandstone]

Thank you for your courage in describing all of that to help me.

I don't have any pressure from a T to recall other traumas, but I have had three T's who I believe to be competent professionals each sure there was a significant level of dissociation, and the two who were psychologists both wanted me to start to identify what I call aspects. I have a written Psychology report that includes a description of me attending a session as a very different persona. My husband said that the first year of our marriage was hard, because he "never knew who was coming home to".

I do have dreams of being trapped in caves, running and lots of blood, but I am sure they are metaphors, not memories. I know there can't have been any abuse from outside the family, because I was never allowed outside the family. From birth to 8 or 9, I did not go to any homes other than my own and twice a year my grandparents, always with the whole family. From 8-12, I went to one other home, a school friend who was female and had only a sister and a mother.

There really is no way I can see that anything enough to cause a Dissociative condition happened. I'm mystified.

 

[Powder]

Have you read _Life After Life?_

While I am a proponent that most dissociation must be looked at as a present life concern, and more often than not, issues arise from within one lifetime only, there are documented cases of "past life" trauma causing current life dissociation.

What you are dreaming could be past life trauma of human sacrifice, which did occur in caves. Being trapped would have meant that you were identified as a sacrificial victim. They were usually children or adolescents.

This was done in many cultures, but none more than in the Yucatan Penninsula (current day Mexico and Guatamala) in Mayan Cenotes (limestone water drip "caves" that open to the sky, on astrologically significant dates. Many children of various ages would have been kidnapped that day, held in the cave, drugged perhaps, and then killed in rapid succession. The blood letting was the main thing in Mayan spirituality.

I have met several people online, very intelligent and "normal" in all respects, who have major trauma issues from their Mayan past lives that they can't come to terms with until their 30's or later and which cause quasi PTSD symptoms, destroying their ability to feel trust and have normal relationships. This means that what the Mayans did was extremely traumatic and lasted across lifetimes, which it was intended to do for some reason.

In "Life After Life" a book by a Dr. who has I think lost favor as a Dr. due to his claim that using hypnosis to cure patients with extreme phobias with no current life basis, has spoken to this phenomenon, but not with the Mayan rituals. That I have discovered on my own 'by accident' online. Long stories. Many great civilizations do harm to many people. Look at the Nazi's. That trauma is ongoing generationally, but it will also crop up when the survivors reincarnate. Hitler was very into the occult. He wanted to leave his mark on the planet.

My own small toddler was having night terrors that were very upsetting for her. She couldn't talk about them without getting upset. I couldn't comfort her. They were getting really bad. She was killed in two past lives as a Jew and also as an Early Christian both were executions. These are really bad for people across lives, as society endorses the murder. One was a natural accident, falling a cliff in snow, hunting accident. She worked on these.

I turned to Elissa Bentson of FL, USA. She is a therapist turned past life healer. Her email: [email protected]

I don't work with her or endorse her in any way. I also do not suggest her based on lots of experience with this kind of thing. She's the only professional I have worked with who offers past life trauma therapy or healing of any kind, so take it with a grain of salt.

I was able to find her based on a referral. I was able to email her for a couple of weeks and get to know her first. I do not think she is fake.

She did one phone session that was $250 for my child and I. She was professional. She went overtime and didn't charge for that. And her healing work cured my daughter of her phobia. She has had one dream since of the same content, but it was minor and normally processed. If it returned, I would take her to Elissa Bentson personally (drive there).

I am a skeptic of this kind of thing, but I have no other explanation to offer so I do whatever works, you know?

I have past life memories. I just have to accept them because I see no other alternative at this time. My sister has even dreamed one of them and told me details she could not have known.

Strange, strange thing is life. A beautiful, terrible mystery. Acceptance of it works better than fighting it.

Sounds like past life to me. Many people now are able to suddenly have flashbacks to things that were kept hidden from them due to shifts in the Mayan Calendar. Dec. 21, 2012 was the "end of a Katun" on the Mayan Time System, and the end of their calendar. I believe that you experienced the cave and got away. You have survival guilt and PTSD type feelings from not being able to save others and from your own culture's leaders doing this to children. In my non-professional opinion.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that at some point in this life, you were abducted for the same purpose and that you don't remember the circumstances surrounding it; and you got away, which would make sense, too, especially if you were drugged when abducted.

I suggest you do hypnotic regression and try to look at your arms and hands to see your skin color. If you skin color and body don't match your current body, you have your answer.

Sorry if this seems out there. :)

 

[Sideways]

Trying to follow this - it's hard. On the one hand it's always confronting when people say they don't want to have DID, because I've got it, and I hate it, but for some people that's reality, even if we don't like it, and that has to be okay.

But just wanted to say something about the hypnosis suggestion. Hypnosis is considered generally to he a bad idea for this sort of work because you're too vulnerable to suggestion (that's, in essence, the purpose of hypnosis).

They reckon that people with dissociative disorders are even more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion than your average Joe.

Sorry to interrupt. Back to watching nervously from the sidelines...

 

[Sandstone]

but for some people that's reality, even if we don't like it, and that has to be okay.

The whole problem is that I don't know if it is reality. I'd like a concrete answer, but to ge the test is £600+ or a long wait while the NHS crawls through its administrative processes. So I'm juggling any number of possibilities, and believing any number of them at any given time. I just don't know what my reality is.

I do agree that the hypnosis suggestion is unwise for me, and I know how compliant I can be to the suggestions of authoritative figures. That is why I worry I may be going along with my T and not thinking for myself, and why I'm reading and trying to understand it all better. Hence my concern that everybody seems to agree that something extreme has to have happened to create DID or DDNOS. I don't have anything extreme, so I'm confused.

 

[Sideways]

@Sandstone - maybe there is no concrete answer...

With DID, the diagnosis is based on parts that haven't integrated at all. Maybe you have parts that have integrated some?

DID is one of those things that if you ask someone if you've got it, and you don't like their answer, just ask someone else, because you can get a different answer every time.

The big ticket thing is trying to figure out what's going on for you, putting all the textbooks and diagnostic criteria aside for a moment, and then deciding how you're going to manage what's going on with you personally.

If it's DID, that's ok. If it's DDNOS, that's okay. If it's something in between, that's okay. Maybe there is no label that fits perfectly (makes sense since they're describing conditions that no one actually understands). The way forward is maybe just understanding yourself as best you can, and responding to your unique version...

 

[Sandstone]

if you ask someone if you've got it, and you don't like their answer, just ask someone else, because you can get a different answer every time.

And it depends on the bias of the people you ask. I don't know if those three Ts hear, childhood abuse, grooming, rape - and assume they must be looking at DDNOS. I don't know if the signs I see are real or imaginary, because I no longer trust anything I think. I've got one group of people saying Yes, Yes and another who think I 'm not particularly ill and might not need any treatment. Even I pay to get the SCID-D done, it would be done by someone who strongly believes in Dissociative conditions.

I just want accuracy, because running after a condition I haven't got would be destructive, and waste time I could spend on healing from trauma. Yet, not acknowledging a condition I do have could slow down my ability to heal, and it would explain some of the problems to date. I know myself and my level of suggestibility, and I don't trust my ability to decide either way.