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Originally Posted by LouR
Wow. Thank you so much for responding to me. The last 2 days I have been desperately trying to think how many are there...Is it possible for some of them to have a mental illness of their own too?
I tried to fix myself while my T was trying to teach me the 4 states of conciousness and I thought could I be borderline or bipolar? But T wouldn't answer those questions he was very evasive up until 2 days ago...
What made T tell me was when I finally admitted that I am anxious and have had nausea for a week... he then discussed with me that he was going to take me through a visualisation to ease the nausea
He asked me to pick myself when I was younger and give her a hug. I found little coconut she's 5, her and her friends were playing hairdressers when her friend cut her pigtail off, that didn't phase her, in fact I think she said it was ok for her friend to do it and was quite happy with the result however when mummy came to pick her up she raged at her for doing it and scared her so much. Mummy was going to get her hair shaved off when she went to the hairdressers. However luckily the hairdresser was a kind man and he gave me a coconut hair cut which is finely layered top with wisps at the back so I still looked like a little girl. Mummy still was n't pleased and I still hear that story everyday for the last 26 years of my life.
I held onto Coconut and told her it was okay to explore, your suppose to do that and she said okay mummy. I cried so hard then and I still cry about it. But before I got to coconut there was 16 year old me waiting her turn but she allowed me to go to Coconut I think because Coconut is the same age as my eldest child and I've been having the same issues with her hair. ...
It was after that and the range of emotion on my face and the quickness with which I composed myself that he decided to tell me what my diagnosis is. My husband was there too. He said he nearly cried a few times and he believes it too.
Anyway I'm sorry if I've triggered anyone or overshared I thought I would share this cos it means alot to me to know that there are others out there like me. I've been strong for so long sallying forth and not looking back and now I know why. I just don't want to feel those feelings again they humiliated me and made me feel guilty and dirty.What good will it do to remember this stuff?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LouR
Yesterday I found out from my therapist that I have D.I.D and I am scared.... Maybe its the fact that I've watched to many movies and I'm frightened that the horrible me will win or whatever....BUT I can see it and I can't it's just not that obvious like it is in the movies. I have recognised that I do go through phases and I am depressed some of the time at the worst (I'm not stigmatising) I thought I could be borderline like my mum or bipolar however this just threw me for a loop.
The worst thing is that there is not alot of info out there...
I have recognised that the core me is compassionate and is highly emotionally sensitive of others but when I look at myself I don't feel it. If anything I'm majorly depressed and exhausted all the time. I think its from fighting my other emotional personalities constantly checking and balancing myself all the time.
It's a relief in some ways but in other ways I feel burdened.
I do realise that I have controlled myself alot in the past, especially with my past its not nice, and I keep soldiering on...
Has anyone else been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder? And how have you managed to bring your EP's to co exist? And how do you know how many you have?
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is it possible for alternate personalities to have their own mental illness? yes it is possible and most do. with DID alters..well they are a special kind of alters that take control and live their own lives,
they can appear to be very similar to the host/core
(here where I live and work NY,USA the terms host and core designate the person with the mental disorder DID, the person that the alters live with in, the person that dissociated due to trauma from which the alters were created from and for)
but with DID type alters there are clear (other locations may use the terms well defined, exact, distinct) differences. some of those differences are things like clothing, mannerisms, emotions, mental problems, daily life problems, functioning problems, preferences, jobs, reasons for being, how they do things....
the visualization... no you didnt trigger me. and I would not be surprised to find that this coconut may not be the kind of alter your treatment provider was talking about when they told you, you have DID... you see even normal non DID people can do the visualization your treatment provider lead you through and have normal parts like this coconut part you have..
around here where I live and work this visualization your treatment provider did with you is called trauma therapy with the child with in therapy approach..
the child within therapy approach basics is that every body mental disordered and not have parts of their self, times when they feel and react like a child. for some it may be like getting angry while driving a car and want to / or do throw a temper tantrum because some one cut them off, for others its feeling like they are that child complete with a name.
the mental health community where I live use a therapy technique called "getting in touch with the child with in" its exactly what your therapist had you do... visualize yourself as a child and self nurture your self...pick your self up, hold your self, tell your self you are safe now, and its ok to remember... what ever you have to do to allow yourself to feel calm and able to remember the trauma that caused you to feel like a child now that you are an adult.
Some locations call this visualizing "rescuing the child with in" "trauma therapy" "imagry" some forms of Yoga also teach normal people about the child with in that every body normal and mental disordered alike have.
the fact that you were able to access this traumatic memory, / part of your self so easily also tells me this part of you ****may*** at some point in the future turn out to be not the kind of alter your therapist means when they are talking about DID is because... well dont get me wrong when I say this ok...
here where I live and work (NY, USA) the type of alters that come up during visualizations like this are not admissible in court as being a representative of the person having DID, because the therapist lead the person through the visualization.. here that kind of thing (discovering alters through a therapy visualization) can be chalked up to therapist induced mental disorder, a false alter created to please the therapist, not a viable alter that came up on its own.
this is why here where I live and work treatment providers don't rely on therapy visualizations as a diagnostic tool. we rely on diagnostic tests for DID like having the client go through medical tests, and a special type of psychiatric testing that includes many things and none of them are things like having the client go through a visualization or hypnosis or other non reliable type therapies where its possible that the client and therapist can or have the possibility of controlling things. here where I live and work it is believed alters with DID take control many times during normal living, not just for a visualization or hypnotic therapy session.
so here where I live and work the visualization that your therapist and you did would not be used as a definitive answer to whether a person has DID.
Im not saying you dont have parts of your self and you dont have DID, Im just saying here where I live and work treatment providers dont diagnose DID by doing a visualization and then tell the client they have it based on that,
my suggestion breath, relax and just take things one step at a time.
Your inability to find a lot of information on DID comes from the fact that the mental health world is learning more and more about mental disorders every day, by the the time information is uploaded on the internet its usually already quite outdated in some small or big way, you find something you think fits and then your therapist says nope that doesnt fit you, that was what was once believed about DID, but isnt how things are with this disorder today and other such things...
my suggestion ask your treatment providers for information on DID. treatment providers here in the USA have to go through review/updating seminars and workshops and other updating their credentials classes so they are the ones to go to first about what ever mental disorders they are diagnosing you with. they can tell what what about Dissociative disorders fit you and what doesnt and how to best process whats going on with you.
Has anyone been diagnosed with DID?
yes I have, I went through yrs of therapy starting when I was a child for depression, as a young adult I was diagnosed with DID and after many yrs or treatment my alters all merged with in to become one with me. we are now one whole person again.
how did I manage emotional alters?
I didnt. My alters took control and I had no control over what they thought, how they dealt with things and how they did things including the emotional ones. All I could do was continue to use the grounding and other tools my treatment provider taught me and work my way through my trauma memories as they came up, as I healed the alters became one with me.
how do you know how many alters you have?
I still dont know how many alters I had. because I did not have a heck of a lot of co consciousness there was no way for me to know that kind of thing. My treatment providers and I just took it one step at a time and one problem at a time and did not worry about things like who was who and how many there were, when it was important for me to know about the alters they told my treatment provider their self by taking control, when ever where ever, just like they normally did through out other times in my life outside the therapy sessions.