DID Is d.i.d. all in my head? (pun intended)

[Keen]

Does anyone else with DID struggle with accepting the diagnosis and go back and forth between accepting it and disbelieving it? I guess I already know the answer to this, of course people do with any diagnosis.
I wish I could just feel 'sure' one way or the other. I know when I accept it and work on treatment as if it is true, things go better. But then I start thinking "There's no way this is real. Its too bizarre for there to really be alters/parts in me. This is all my imagination and my highly suggestibleness." or I start to worry that I must be making it all up and pretending/acting for some unconscious motive I haven't figured out yet. I wish I could just have some peace about this.
I just needed to put this out there to people who understand, I guess. Sometimes that helps calm things down.

 

[Muttly]

Yes, yes and oh very much yes. I mean, the weird thing is I can also hold both belief simultaneously. Or maybe, since we are talking about DID that's not weird.Or I can be at therapy and my parts are doing what they do and there's no doubt about the DID. Then later the same day I can be out doing something functional and be around people and it seems absolutely impossible to believe DID is real.

So, I guess there's two pieces. There's the "this can't be true" because it doesn't match my functional experience and I can't make sense of it and then there's the denial process when I don't want it to be true because I don't want to deal with the others or their memories/thoughts. I used to swing into real hardcore denial at times. I don't do that as much. I don't like it. I want to deny it but I know that doesn't really work. However if I've been functional (can't think of a better term) and other parts have been quiet, it can seem very unreal.

 

[Keen]

I can be at therapy and my parts are doing what they do and there's no doubt about the DID. Then later the same day I can be out doing something functional and be around people and it seems absolutely impossible to believe DID is real.

This totally happens to me, too! It feels good to read someone else having the same experience and to know someone understands!

I don't want it to be true because I don't want to deal with the others

Yes, this is totally part of my experience too. Things would be so much easier if it weren't true and there weren't parts.

Really, I could have quoted you whole post and just said "Thank you so much! Your post just really validated my experience and helped me feel a lot better!"
Thank you!

 

[shimmerz]

Or I can be at therapy and my parts are doing what they do and there's no doubt about the DID. Then later the same day I can be out doing something functional and be around people and it seems absolutely impossible to believe DID is real.

I think I have come to realize that this actually a part of the pathology. When a feeling or belief absolutely can't be accessed from one time to another, I consider this, for myself, proof of the compartmentalization in my head.

 

[Keen]

this actually a part of the pathology

Interesting, I never thought of it that way, but that makes sense.

 

[whiteraven]

Constantly. Always. I was diagnosed in 1998 and I still think sometimes it's all my imagination.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

I'm having this struggle right now. This moment, and this year. Every week and every day since I received my diagnosis a little over a year ago.

I am just like @Muttly. Functional one moment and then disbelieving and then the next moment the evidence of all of us is just too much to deny.

 

[Muttly]

@shimmerz My T has pretty much said the same thing, that it's part of the pathology

 

[shimmerz]

My T has pretty much said the same thing,

Thanks for that @Muttly. I am going through a situation right now where the ability to compartmentalize is coming in handy. I think it is only handy though, when I am doing it mindfully. I recognize that drama stuff is happening around me and that I am compartmentalizing because I am attempting to control my anger about the situation. I am noticing, now that I am mindful of my actions, that when a particular emotion is involved that I have baggage about, compartmentalization is a strategy I use(d) in order to continue to function in a situation that I probably shouldn't be. I should be walking away or expressing that anger in a more productive way.

Perhaps once I learn what a 'more productive way' actually looks like, I will be able to function without having to shelve the emotion.

 

[Keen]

Intersting, @shimmerz , I've never mindfully compartmentalized (at least, as far as I recognize), but I have read that people can use dissociative in non-pathological ways, like when a therapist is having a hard time in her real life but has to shelf that in order to be there for her clients for example.

 

[shimmerz]

when a therapist is having a hard time in her real life but has to shelf that in order to be there for her clients

Yes. Exactly. I think back to when I was functioning well and recognized that I used my gift of dissociation, which I didn't even know I had, to manage my mother state, my work state, my play state etc, in a very high functioning way.

It was when I was thrown into an activated state of PTSD again at 45, that I recognized this was not real functional when freaked out trauma wise. I have, through the past 10 years, learned to mindfully state that something is overwhelming and have taught myself how to dissociate from that experience until I can chunk it down again.

 

[Trigger]

Does anyone else with DID struggle with accepting the diagnosis and go back and forth between accepting it...

Omg 100% me. But then maybe we're right not to accept it... I mean maybe it's not true but a construct of the psychology profession. I believe my therapist believes I have DID but that in itself doesn't mean such a thing exists and the consequence for me going along with it is feeling overwhelmed. Sometimes I believe it sometimes I don't. Believing means therapeutically investing in integrating parts ,assessing their purpose and addressing their needs. That's a lot of work when you just aren't convinced there's validity in the diagnosis. I just don't know.