Other Ddnos folks - do you feel misunderstood?

[BuckarooBanzai]

A lot of forgotten trauma has come out and is throwing me for a loop. .... I too wonder how this can be really since it's coming out so late in life.

Multiplicity and the memories tend to come out later in life, when we feel safe to deal with it all. So, no, it's really not surprising at all that you're finding out so late in life.

The fact that I am functional has always been a difficulty in getting help. I think that if I couldn't work or function, that therapists would be more likely to label me - but I hold down a really high-powered job and keep up friendships, a household, etc. I'm always just too high functioning.

This is, unfortunately, often true. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and in psych that means the least functional get the strongest benefits. But, truly, wouldn't you rather be high functioning than low functioning?

As high functioning as you are, you might very well be one of those multiples who will never be diagnosed. Reason being, it takes a certain level of dysfunction to be diagnosed as a multiple, even if you have the primary signs and symptoms.

True story: A highly-functional gay man, a physician and hospital department chief at that, set up a handful of appointments with a therapist. Reason: His long-term lover had proposed to him, and he wanted a neutral party to discuss all of this with. This man had no psych history, and was not in emotional pain. During the course of these few sessions - which went very well - it became obvious that the man was a multiple. Because of this, more sessions were scheduled. Eventually, the therapist decided that this man was so psychologically healthy that it didn't make sense to delve into the multiplicity because the DID therapy itself would have, at least temporarily, upset the man's emotional apple cart. Why mess with it all, given his emotional health? So, it was decided that he would not seek treatment for DID unless, at some point in the future, the DID became disruptive and led to pain.

Point being: There are a lot of high-functioning, undetected, undiagnosed multiples out there.

Why now? Why not a year or five or ten ago?

Again: The signs and symptoms of multiplicity almost always become overt (and the memories come forth) when the multiple feels safe enough to deal with it all. For a female multiple, 'safe' generally means being married or in another form of healthy long-term relationship, having a long-term home, and a certain amount of physical and emotional distance from her childhood abusers.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

This is, unfortunately, often true. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and in psych that means the least functional get the strongest benefits. But, truly, wouldn't you rather be high functioning than low functioning?

Yes, of course. But not always. Sometimes I really wish I could just fall apart, because all this functioning is so incredibly exhausting. I'm tired of how much energy it takes to be "normal." And I'm only really managing the surface appearance of functionality. I show up to my obligations and act like a "normal" person, but then at home I fall apart and find myself having to do really weird things to manage to keep the pieces together. I'm pretty sure that this ins't what most highly functioning people would actually call functional. But, from the outside, it looks like it.

Again: The signs and symptoms of multiplicity almost always become overt (and the memories come forth) when the multiple feels safe enough to deal with it all. For a female multiple, 'safe' generally means being married or in another form of healthy long-term relationship, having a long-term home, and a certain amount of physical and emotional distance from her childhood abusers.

No marriage, not relationship. No real longterm home, just finally an apartment as opposed to homelessness. I just feel like a mess and like I can't deal with any of this right now, my life isn't stable enough to deal with the idea that I can't just snap a finger and be "over" it.

My exhaustion just runs too deep to deal with this.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

@theshadowoftheliving

Yes, you are clearly in that middle-ground, and I relate. This happened to me for years. I barely hung on. People thought me SO strong and responsible, while I was secretly exhausted and constantly feeling like I was going to fall apart.

Regarding your living situation, perhaps, for you, this is a safe place. Safe enough to do your work. My words above were about the most classic case. Of course, every situation is different.

 

[Mona]

A good friend of mine has vented his frustration over many of the things that have been mentioned...

The comment that the work is the same regardless of the degree of dissociation or the label is so true. I hated being labeled even though I was having disociative experiences, so letting go of that was useful to me. The point is to do the therapy/trauma work and let the "experts" debate the distinctions.