DID What's so bad about did??

[EveHarrington]

This doesn't surprise me, but it is not talking about severe dissociative disorders. The rise in menta...

Haven’t read past this post.

IMHO twelve month figures are skewing the data given that many cases of PTSD are shorter lived and resolve without intervention but DID lasts much longer, and is a lifelong disorder in many cases.

If you take lifetime figures? You’ll undoubtedly see that many more people experience PTSD but the rate of DID probably doesn’t get much higher than the 12 month figure.

It helps to analyze the data. You can manipulate results greatly just by altering the sample.

 

[EveHarrington]

To answer your original question, what’s so bad about DID, the answer is the same as what’s wrong with any type of dissociation. When dissociated we are not fully grounded in the present moment, and when we aren’t grounded in the present moment, our level of safety suffers.

I don’t have dissociation beyond that which comes with PTSD, and right now I’m in a dissociative episode that is a pure bitch! I know I can’t keep myself as safe as I need to be. My senses are all blunted and my sense of reality is off. I’m living in a fog where my thoughts are swimming in a thick sludge and I’m second guessing everything. I cannot even be honest with my therapist because as soon as you admit to not being safe, they can force hospitalization on you. How would that help me? Being locked up and drugged until this episode lifts? So for now I just try to ground myself and keep myself as safe as I possibly can, even if my brain doesn’t want to cooperate.

 

[anthony]

How do you fake PTSD and why would anybody do that?

Some want to be part of something because they feel it makes their suffering more valuable. Media certainly doesn't help the facts of PTSD. They hype it as though any trauma is PTSD. People say they have been diagnosed, yet haven't. Or a counsellor, doctor or such, who is not qualified to diagnose mental health, state they may have PTSD. The person often misses the "may" or such words in sentences too.

It can be done if you find the right therapist who won't look past the bullshit you learnt, and instead believes everything you say vs what assessment and intuition returns. Maybe their intuition is broken too. Plenty of broken therapists who will agree with anything a client says in order to have a client ($$$).

 

[Muttly]

Or it makes their suffering more understandable. I mean, it's hard to accept you feel bad because you feel bad. Or that you can feel so horrible, over something and that's a normal part of human experience. Just like people who go to the doctor and think they have something like strep throat and are told they have a virus. I feel this bad from a virus? I can't get medicine and be fixed? And yeah, we all know PTSD isn't that easy to be fixed, but if it's just a term that you only have a vague understanding you can think that there's going to be some magic treatment out there that will take your pain away.

 

[talon]

I supported a lady with DID who was promiscuous she having a sex alter. Client had 20 and i was big brother to family. I called them family so they knew they were loved supported and were not lost . Whatever pain they had was no more. I communicated as a real person speaking to another real person . whatever issues or misunderstandings there were i was there to be an advocate and friend. I discovered their musical tastes their likes and dislikes and issues with host . Someone who understands DID would know if someone was faking because allegations of rape or assault or abuse would be revealed as true or false by alters . As my client stated you understand my illness there are no secrets. This worked in hosts favour or reveled her lies faking with me was not an option as alters / family always told me the truth

 

[anthony]

Someone who understands DID would know if someone was faking because allegations of rape or assault or abuse would be revealed as true or false by alters

That is an oxymoron. If someone faked the allegation because they are faking alters, within an alter, back to square one. Very skewed logic which I would not expect from a therapist of any calibre.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

Maybe its people like us who are the norm and society has it all wrong? The

Look for the book:
Internal Family Systems Therapy
by Richard C. Schwartz.

The usual places have it online. :)

 

[Muttly]

Since this thread has long transitioned from the orginal post, I feel ok going on a bit of a ramble.

While at first, I wasn't agreeing with @anthony I think I'm beginning to understand what he is getting at. I will admit the talk of Internal Family Systems has always slightly made me feel uncomfortable. And I don't completely know why.

But the comment of @UnKnown-Self, sort of strikes a nerve. Saying read Internal Family Systems Therapy, in response to the OP's question about DID, makes it sound like the two are the same thing. From what I know, that wasn't the author's claim or intent.

And maybe some of the unease is almost jealousy? or feeling diminished? or something by hearing people who are doing IFS talk with such ease about having parts. And please understand, I'm not saying that anyone who is doing this, is doing anything wrong. It's just that as much as there seems to be a great deal of similarity there's also this jarring difference. I don't fit the model that IFS is based off of. There's no core. There's no calmly trying to get to know parts that fit into neat little categories.

And If some therapist came along seeking out our parts and trying to identify the core (ugh)... well, I would have run for one thing. For another, it would have created a lot of chaos. We don't need to fracture and dissociate more, we need less of that.

And maybe I'm being hypocritical. I say I have DID although a good chunk of the time I disbelieve it. My therapist firmly believes it but maybe I just created parts to... I dunno. She has never asked for parts but maybe some part of me was trying to be trendy. And maybe this whole thing is a pointless ramble.

But since I've gone this far, one of us, who is a child, talked to our T today. And I have no clue what she said and I am getting fed up with not knowing things. I'm tired of the holes in my life. At the same time, I am too scared or cowardly to really want to know. And that makes the whole idea of parts seem really sucky right now.

 

[anthony]

sorry changed my mind

Your post was actually an incredible read. I can put it back if you change, change, your mind.

 

[Muttly]

@anthony If you think it could help others, go ahead and put it back. I was just feeling raw, and... <insert other feelings here>

 

[UnKnown-Self]

As my client stated you understand my illness there are no secrets

I certainly hope anyone I was a client of would not be discussing me on a forum. Seems a bit unethical but that's me...

Childhood trauma, is a big enchilada of secrets and often the the self-response is denial.
That’s the crux. Enough said to RT...


I learned to cope by dissociating at a very early age.
I do not have DID.
I considered the possibility.
I've consider many things. That doesn’t make them factual. I’ve read many books. It doesn’t make them factual either. I’m learning about myself, trying to take what works for me in the moment and leave the rest.

I have wished to the point of a begging prayer if there was anyone “in there” to relieve of my pain, please PLEASE just take over.
Here I am. No matter how far down the rabbit-hole I go, how comforting the heavy foggy cloud can be, how frustrating memory loss, here I am.
For that I’m grateful no matter how many times I’ve prayed otherwise.

 

[Justmehere]

My primary doctor and I just had a conversation this week about how tired I was of everything about me being looked at with a PTSD lense. Sometimes for trauma professionals, when all they have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. She got it and replied, “sometimes feeing sad is called being human. Not clinical depression.”

But we live in a world right now where everything has to have a label and a group —- and especially in the US, a magic pill to sell to cure it. Discomfort is handled as if it always must always be solved, not experienced.