Welcome, LouR. I hope you will find a good support here.

It sounds like you have a knowledgeable T and that is good. I really understand the fear. I went into a major denial stage when I was diagnosed. I made up all sorts of reasons why I didn't have it, even while knowing that it made so much of my life make sense. It just scared me too much.

In the beginning, I decided not to read anything out there about it because I was so afraid I would become or do the things I read and I was afraid I would find myself in things I read. But then later I used to come on here and ask a billion (it seemed so anyway) questions about DID and get more scared.

I had to finally just decide to only listen to what my T said and just deal with what I was experiencing. When I would talk about things that were going on for me, I didn't have a name for it (or at least a proper name. I just made up names for things I dealt with). Having a T who was/is experienced in DID helped so much because she knew what was going on for me, even when I didn't have proper terminology to tell her. And she knew more about me than I did because I didn't, and still don't a lot, have co consciousness.

We still do not know exactly how many parts are here, but T has a good rough idea. She did say that there could be more hidden though so maybe it's impossible to know for sure. Over time spent with T, she started recognizing different parts and between that and other clues, we were able to come up with a list. I think some members here have had parts reveal themselves to them. Each person is very different so it's hard to know a set way how things come about, I think.

Just remember that you are the same person and the same stuff was going on before the diagnosis. You just have a name for it now. It doesn't change what's been going on.

Hang in there. There is some good support to be had here. I'm glad you have a T to help you through this journey. It's a hard journey for sure, but life can get better.