DID What's so bad about did??

[talon]

Because having my friends(parts) was no big deal until- the formal dx. And the only one who knows is m...

DID is different for many depending on level of trauma, emotions and feelings that vary . I supported a lady with DID who had 20 alters was really hard work and after awhile dangerous for me due to threats carried out by client. Alters used to warn me what was to happen next and it always happened as they predicted.

 

[Fadeaway]

There is a therapist on you tube I follow. I really like the majority of her videos on trauma and other mental health issues, until she gets on the topic of dissociative disorders. In her videos she lists a certain set of criteria and you you meet that criteria you have DID. I meet the criteria, and no I do not have DID to the best of my knowledge despite my abusers claims. LOL.

I have done the inner child thing, I acknowledge my "child part." That child part doesn't go around acting on my behalf. It's just that part inside of me that didn't get what I needed as a child to form healthy attachments and or identity. Yes, I day dream, or at least used too, to the point I can get lost in it for hours an totally be unaware of what is going on around me. That does not mean another personality has come out to play. Escapism and avoidance also doesn't mean I have DID. I suspect it just means I have undiagnosed avoidant personality disorder which I plan to be evaluated for by a psychologist, if I can ever remember to make the call during business hours. :angelic:

How many other people though are basing whether or not they have DID by this popular youtube therapist? T least a few. I really need to write to her about it. because it has been bothering me for a long time.

 

[anthony]

Why does this get you upset?

It doesn't -- DID is simply controversial. I'm far from upset over this discussion. I know my shit with this topic... its easy for me.

 

[anthony]

I have done the inner child thing, I acknowledge my "child part." That child part doesn't go around acting on my behalf. It's just that part inside of me that didn't get what I needed as a child to form healthy attachments and or identity.

Exactly. Like, like, like.

Referencing your inner child, which we all have, that want, need even at times, to be carefree, innocent, fun, and just not give a shit like adulthood brings, to be free like a child, DOES NOT mean and SHOULD NOT be used against a person with trauma, slapping them with DID.

Refer back to posted experiments once a person labels themselves as insane, and how professionals automatically jump on the bandwagon, forgetting all and any normal human behaviour, desires or needs.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

There is clearly a lot of debate and a lot of polarization happening in this conversation. I'm not going to join back in, except for this one thought that I think it is important for us all to keep in mind:

DID is real. Whether or not others believe in it or not, it is real and recognized. It is also recognized that up to 70% of outpatient DID patients have attempted suicide: 7 out of 10. Almost all.

(I'm not making this up: pulling from here: What Are Dissociative Disorders? and here:Suicide and parasuicide in multiple personality disorder. - PubMed - NCBI and here:http://www.empty-memories.nl/dis_9596/Kluft_suicides.pdf ) (I also realize that part of this debate is on the institutions that govern diagnosis, but the information I'm referencing is just that of suicide risk).

I think we all need to be cognizant of how we speak of this because, for those of us with DID, this conversation, and the linguistic approaches employed within it, is just reinforcing the feelings that we don't exist/shouldn't exist/need to disappear/need to stop talking about what is happening with us. I want to just acknowledge that this diagnosis (regardless of what other people think about it) is HARD and harder than the PTSD label to have. The people who fight this battle are strong and brave and that strength and bravery shouldn't get lost in the mired muck of on-liners claiming this or that.

I hope that the OP is okay. I hope that the OP had been able to weed through the mire here and not get dragged down.

Now, I'm out. No more responding to this thread.

 

[anthony]

DID is real.

Who said it wasn't? Out of curiosity. I said its controversial and over-diagnosed / mis-diagnosed, just like PTSD. Did I miss someone saying it wasn't a real diagnosis?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I remember Dr Phil saying he has never seen a real case of DID. I thought he was an ass (and he likely is) because I have seen DID on here. I worried about it due to a similar like splitting in my head of 4 seperate...things, and even wrote about it, but I do not fit the DSM diagnosic criteria. None take over. And I also made a thread about it to discuss and learned that there is a normal part of the human brain and human thinking where we can feel a split like that.

My point is that I agree DID is rare but also, if one is going to go around saying they have DID, they need to make sure they fit the diagnosic criteria in the DSM/ICD. If a therapist diagnosed without it, they need their licence revoked in my opinion. I also make sure that my therapist goes over the DSM with me and that we agree on the symptoms before I agree and before I advise. Many misdiagnosis out there and many more simple diagnosis and explainations other then DID. Occam's Razer.

We did that with BPD, PTSD, GAD, DID and schizophrenia, in order. We also went over studies, MANY studies of Stolkholm Syndrome at the time. I meet all but DID and schizophrenia. So when I speak of these "alter like things" (for lack of a better term) I state that I do not have DID. Even with much urging on the site. I simply do not meet the diagnosic criteria. Though it may sound like DID, it isn't. I would urge anyone to go through the DSM/ICD with your diagnosising physcian and make sure that you do indeed meet the criteria and not bending the criteria to meet you. There is a difference. I know it feels good to have a name for your symptoms but the criteria is there for a reason. I would also encourage anyone to research your diagnosed disorders. There is a lot of info to gain about everything.

As to why is it bad. I don't think it is. I think Society fears what they don't understand. But it is also rare and widly misdiagnosed and that plays a huge role into it as well.

I think mental illness, though we have come a long way to come "out of the shadows", is still very taboo and stigmatized. You can ask the same question about PTSD or really any mental illness.

 

[Friday]

DID is real. Whether or not others believe in it or not, it is real and recognized. It is also recognized that up to 70% of outpatient DID patients have attempted suicide: 7 out of 10. Almost all

ADHD is real. It's also fairly rare, at 4%-6% of the population. It was also massively over diagnosed & misdiagnosed in the 80s & 90s. (And the Bipolar Disorder took it's place as the pop-disorder of choice. PTSD has been the new media darling). For awhile roughly 50% of kids were being "diagnosed" with ADHD :banghead: Um. No. That's more than 10 times the real and accurate numbers!

Speaking as someone who has ADHD the endemic & chronic over & misdiagnosis of ADHD sooooooo did not help! On about a zillion fronts. From people deciding it was pure bullshit (it isn't), to people being "cured" (it's incurable) by 100 things that have nothing to do with ADHD (nutrition, sleep dep, parenting, etc. Along with snake oil and god alone knows what else, it's not a short list), to "majority rules" (meaning the kids who actually had ADHD were being shoved off -by the public- as not really having ADHD since 90% of the kids with "ADHD" were completely different than they were). It made it extremely difficult to be; taken seriously, find actual real information & assistance, get a diagnosis, get treatment, etc. "Everyone has ADHD! It's super common!" Isn't helpful. It's the opposite of helpful. In every conceivable way. A very SMALL percentage of the population has ADHD, and what works for ADHD is not what works for the general population. And vice versa. (Says the chick who just drank 12 shots of espresso because I need to go to bed, and am considering another 6 shots, for a little bit of extra soothing.)

A disorder being rare, very rare, or extremely rare doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It just means it's not common.

DID doesn't have to be common to be real.

 

[BlueOrange]

Who said it wasn't? Out of curiosity. I said its controversial and over-diagnosed / mis-diagnosed, just lik...

As someone who has misunderstood you in the past, I came very close to misunderstanding you again in this thread. I don't think that I misunderstood you this time around. Most intelligent people who understand what they are talking about who discuss something controversial tend to do so with a very gentle tone in order to appear balanced. You're an intelligent person who understands what he's talking about, but you don't present both sides of the argument, you present your side of the argument. Nor is your tone particularly gentle.

You've made a number of generalizations in this thread, and you've noted that there are, of course, occasions when those generalizations don't apply. One thing that I've found when talking to DID sufferers and other mental patients, is that this differentiation between 'a class of people who are bad' and 'this specific person who isn't bad' is easily lost. My parents (and many other unskilled parents) would often make intensely personal and hurtful criticisms that were phrased as 'general statements about a class of people'.

This is why I have mistaken you for an abusive parent in the past. My suspicion regarding what @theshadowoftheliving was saying is that they had a suspicion that people might misinterpret you in a way consistent with the way I've misinterpreted you in the past. I certainly had concerns about how you might be interpreted when I read this thread. (And when you said 'psychologists are fixing the problem and psychiatrists are making it worse'; I'll note that the only effective treatment I've ever had was from a psychiatrist - he was also the only one who didn't think I should be medicated. I don't think that you believe that the blanket statement is the truth, but I do feel a need to have that piece of data available to others who might read this thread.)

I'd love it if everybody expressed themselves in ways that helped me feel comfortable, but these days I recognize that one of the main benefits of this site is exposure therapy. (The fact that you pointed it out really helped me to recognize it.) The reality is that if you tiptoed around, constantly worried about how you were being interpreted, this site wouldn't exist, and the world is a much better place for having this site.

Let me try to mimic 'candour culture' for a moment, and see how that goes:

Nobody's accusing you of anything. But some of us care about how you misinterpreted by someone who is confused and hurting, because we came here to try to help people who are confused and hurting.

 

[BlueOrange]

Because having my friends(parts) was no big deal until- the formal dx. And the only one who knows is my T and we're still struggling with that. Maybe its people like us who are the norm and society has it all wrong? The world is messed up

I think it's a lot like being left-handed. If you're left-handed and you live in a right-handed world, then a lot of things aren't going to work for you, even though they're perfectly easy for everybody else. And you're going to confuse people who expect you to do things with your right hand.

It's really useful to know that you're left-handed. And if you've been smashing yourself in the head with doors or cutting yourself because you can't control the kitchen knife properly, then a right-handed doctor might well diagnose you with 'left handed disorder'. It's taken me quite a while to work out that although 'left handed disorder' is an accurate descriptor of why I've been getting hurt in a right-handed world, the solution to my problems is not to blame my left-handedness. The solution is to learn how to be left-handed in a right-handed world.

Nobody actually really cares if you hold a pen in your left hand, but it's impossible to shake hands with someone if they reach out with their right, and you reach out with your left. That's where I'm at right now - trying to work out which things are actually a problem, and which things are a non-issue. I feel like I'm closer to it than I used to be. But it's frustrating as all hell.

 

[anon1324569784568]

I displayed dissociative symptoms after a very public and media documented trauma. I attended a "public therapy session" afterwards where I admitted to having dissociative symptoms.

Thanks to amateur pop psychology, I've been written off by all my friends and family as a complete nutcase even though I haven't so much as raised my voice or missed a day of work in the months since.

The entire concept of "trauma informed care" has destroyed my reputation and family. I don't have to do anything wrong; "everyone knows" people who have experienced the trauma I am on public record of having been through end up drug addicted criminals with multiple personalities.

I realize paranoia is a common effect of what I've been through, but when I try to educate myself to dispel that paranoia, I do in fact find greedy sharks smelling my blood in the water. The perpetrator of my trauma was heavily treated for mental illness before his death. His actions were the RESULT of trauma informed care, and now the same process that created him is being focused on his victims.

I have a very rational fear of ending up like the perpetrator. As a medical biller, I see mental illness diagnoses mainly used as a coercive tool to control the behavior of problem patients. Many patients with serious legitimate medical concerns such as hypertension are written off as "altered mental status" and their real diagnoses that are causing them to be disorientated in the first place summarily ignored.

I am not "non-compliant" or "in denial" when I actively avoid diagnoses and treatments which are scientifically proven to be ineffective, and that I anecdotally have seen create a monster in my own life. Having already been diagnosed in the clinic of public opinion and seen the negative effects first hand, I have a vested interest in not confirming those rumors with a clinical diagnosis that will and can do nothing to improve my situation.

The best thing we can do for the non-criminal mentally ill is leave them alone and stop trying to hunt them down and label them like some sort of 1930's German Census. I know very well what happens to those in the hospital system who end up on the mental health side; they disappear, their records redacted, and under HIPAA, not even the patient themselves can have those secret records released.

No trustworthy actor demands such high levels of secrecy.

I only wish people had the same legal presumption of innocence they have in criminal proceedings as a legal presumption of sanity in medical proceedings, since the outcome of both processes can end up in involuntary confinement and indefinite supervision.

And to those who interpret this post as a cry for help, let me assure you it is the complete opposite.

<moderator edit to remove personal information>

 

[TruthSeeker]

Your interpretation of what I said, is inaccurate. I did not blanket, I stated nothing more than what you c...

How do you fake PTSD and why would anybody do that? If someone is faking PTSD, they are very, very sick.