DID my therapist thinks i have DID/OSDD and i don’t know where to go from here

[brokenpony]

My opinion, treat the symptoms that are happening. If your dissociation is this disruptive, then going back to your core identity and attachment is not a bad idea.


You said that your therapist said you've been "switching in sessions" - to me this is a red flag, especially if she hasn't actually assessed you for DID (since she would not know if you were switching or not). Her saying "this is my experience of working with you, and your demeanor has changed throughout sessions" would be different than her saying "yeah so you're definitely switching all the time" which is why I brought it up.

If it was more like the former, then that is not as big of an issue. The reason I mention it is because this is a pretty controversial diagnosis, and if your therapist is not a specialist in DID it is easier for her to overstep. I would do some research into iatrogenic illnesses - that is, when patients are prescribed their disorders by therapists instead of assessed based on presentation, and wind up adopting symptoms that they ordinarily wouldn't have.

That way you'll have a better understanding of whether your therapist is behaving normally. You could also share this concern with your therapist and gauge her response. A healthy therapist would help you work through that.

yeah okay i understand. so it is definitely based on presentation over time and not definite diagnosis yet (but i think “DD unspecified” or whatever is now on my chart). like after 2ish years of working she started discussing disssociative disorders more generally with me and her description of her experience was like that, that she experiences me in this way and has not understood why, and that was why she was considering the diagnosis. she has had DID clients but they were more overt in it and she is not an expert and is consulting with a specialist and seeking out more training currently.

Sorry, not the intention. Was really just reflecting off the way you’d initially described it, but your latest post sounds very different.

In terms of how to get started with internal communication, that’s going to depend in part on the degree of awareness that your parts have of each other. But however you approach it? Go really slow.

If you do have alters, and they have been coexisting without awareness of each other, that degree of compartmentalising has been serving a protective purpose. Typically, the early stages of communication with alters is incredibly destabilising, because you’re removing the protective factor of keeping parts that operate in isolation together, often in circumstances where they are structured in direct conflict with each other.

Short version? Initial communication is very often destabilising. It will take time for your different parts to feel safe with each other. It may be helpful to create a safe internal space, with clear boundaries about acceptable interaction, before allowing parts to start communicating with each other.

thanks, i’m sorry, i am just constantly ruminating on her and whether i can trust her because of what happened to me so you just hit a trigger point. i never feel like she is abusing me like he did, but i do at times worry she will harm me with good intentions, like how do i know she knows what she’s doing and isn’t messing me up worse. i feel like after what happened i can’t trust myself at all to do the right thing for myself so therapy is complicated.

i think i will just try to talk to her more about worrying about iatrogenic effects. part of my apprehension about really engaging with the “others” is that i am worried about what you guys are saying, that i can’t trust myself to know if what i am experiencing is real or not or misperception and that any evidence is imagined and false and me overreacting to what for everyone else human is normal.

 

[Sideways]

I relate a lot to the difficulty with trust. Trusting therapists. Trusting myself. It’s not an easy thing. It takes a long time, I think, even without a fractured, dissociated personality.

It’s okay to not be sure, and want to know more. It’s okay if it takes time. There’s no rush to have a definitive answer. The process of figuring it out is recovery.

 

[TruthSeeker]

my therapist who specializes in cptsd thinks i have OSDD or DID instead of cptsd w/ dissociation. over 5 years with 2 therapists my dx has gone from ptsd to cptsd to DD, it has been 2.5 years with her. she said she has seen switching and that my level of dissociation and DPDR is beyond cptsd.

the thing is my childhood was “only” emotionally neglectful to my memory, up until about early teenage years when i remember my first sexual violations as isolated incidents, but i never defined them as abuse/assault until recently because they seemed no big deal.

i can’t remember most of childhood in a very fundamental way, especially 3rd through 7th grade, it’s pretty much incomprehensible, and feel like the fragmented memories i can find aren’t mine, third person, lacking all senses and emotion.

looking through photos yields little info or memory jogging and i look so sad and detached in most of them. my parents just say i was quiet and independent and never acted out? i was fine? i never caused them trouble, played by myself, and didnt even need to be told to do my homework (therapist said this is a sign i learned to hide/control myself and emotions young).

i don’t know what could have happened to me to cause this level of identity fracturing aside from maybe the combo of being extraordinarily sensitive as a kid with inattentive parents.

i have a long history of psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse starting in my teens, and my freeze>collapse response is extreme, in the presence of abusive men i just immediately fawn/“serve” and always have, i have a lot of sexual somatoform symptoms now, and recently i have incestuous fantasies i cannot stop “performing” compulsively despite my best efforts to stop, and just it’s a really hard confusing time.

i feel extremely lost and online spaces for DID are overwhelming, full of terms i don’t understand and skew so young, i am 40 trying to understand how this could have happened to me and also coming to terms with the fact that it makes sense in many ways with my high dissociative symptoms and “OOC” behaviors.

i am just wondering who else went from late diagnoses of ptsd/cptsd to dissociative disorder and if you have any advice for how to even start healing and communicating. sometimes i feel like it is true and other times i just shut it down as total nonsense and think about terminating my therapist.

even if i accept it, i feel too old and exhausted and just wonder if me and the others are better off not knowing each other.

So, I was diagnosed twice in my 60's. Have had both a 1) OSDD/DID diagnosis and 2) CPTSD w Dissociative Features from 2 different therapists in that order. I understand that it is unusual to get a DID diagnosis off the bat, as the system has learned to hide DID from outsiders and trust must be created for alters to appear in session-not always, but as a general rule. My first therapist was hot on the DID diagnosis, and did her best to split me up (this is not sound counseling and she was not a well woman herself, after I learned more about DID and dissociative disorder and saw those traits in her) and in the end after a year and a half of leading me to believe I had parts: I believe she had DID and enjoyed the company of others like her. She really had boundary issues with one passing out spell, and calling me at home for advice on helping another client, or telling me when she was upset about another client with a memory issue due ET. She'd dress differently from time to time, it was an unsettling experience, and she bought me a baby stuffed horse to keep in session. When I gave it back to her, she cried. I ended up with more PTSD issues than I went in with, but with that spawned a "new me", gonna find another really super qualified therapist in DID/PTSD....and got lucky.

My second therapist is much more productive in session, keeps good boundaries, and doesn't expect presents or give presents to clients, either. So, the first one told me to "Ask inside" to communicate with your insiders......was what I learned. W dissociation, I'd forget stuff-but that was due to dissociation.....so I started asking inside like she said. Sometimes I'd get an answer and more quickly find the keys or my purse I was struggling to find, sometimes not. I later came to understand that from T #2 asking inside didn't always mean I was talking to an inner part or an alter, ......Asking inside can be a quiet moment of reflection where something you've forgotten is remembered or an answer just comes to you. Lots of people talk to themselves...it's normal. Regardless, I found talking to "me" helpful in many ways, and it did help me communicate with myself in a more productive way and I did resolve some inner conflict with this method. I also used other meditative methods. Good luck with this.

 

[binchilling]

Asking inside can be a quiet moment of reflection where something you've forgotten is remembered or an answer just comes to you.

What is the difference between thinking and this? So how do you distinguish?