I'm not aiming to say anything I 'shouldn't' say with this post, so apologies in advance if I inadvertently do so.

At the age of twenty-five I spent a year as an outpatient in a psychiatric hospital, after being diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Dissociative Disorder. At the time the DD diagnosis was just that; nothing specific about it was ever mentioned to me. I saw a psychotherapist every week for about 12-15 months, did the therapy thing and then went back to a 'normal' life. I've had a couple of minor 'relapses' since then, but nothing serious enough to put me back in therapy or psychiatric care, and I've now just hit my forties. However...

Ever since the birth of my son seven years ago I've felt myself going 'down' again. Out of curiosity I did some research on Dissociative Disorder, and while I found correlations for the symptoms I experienced within more than one of the different types of Dissociative Disorders, I was a bit thrown to find some of them fitted for Dissociative IDENTITY Disorder. It explained things that had puzzled me for years - things about me and my life that didn't quite make sense and still don't... unless I also had (still have?) DID. for example:

1 - When I was growing up in Devon, I often had people coming up to me - complete strangers as far as I was concerned - who would chat to me as if they knew me very well. They would talk about places they'd seen me that I had no recollection of, and quite a few of them called me 'Sarah' (not my name.) For a long time I put it down to them just mistaking me for some other girl who looked extremely like me - until I moved to Kent, some 300 miles away, and it started happening there too.

2 - People have told me of things I've done that I not only have no recollection of doing, but would NEVER DO IN A MILLION YEARS (dancing on a table in a pub? NO WAY!) I'd dismiss them as lying to me just to wind me up - except that one or two of these incidents (the dancing on the table one included) was verified by my own husband. He is not the kind of man to do wind-ups like that - it's just not in his character, so the only conclusion is that he's telling the truth.

3 - I have SO many items of clothing in my wardrobe that I either - 1) don't remember buying, 2) have a vague memory of buying but are in a colour and style that I hate SO much I would NEVER wear them (usually either bold, garish prints suited for a much older woman, or something day-glo and quite obviously more suited to a very body-confident teenager!) or 3) have a vague memory of buying, but they're in a size that's either MASSIVELY too big or OBVIOUSLY too small for me.

4 - I remember on a few occasions during therapy sessions back when I was twenty-five, my therapist would suddenly say to me "Who's talking now?" I never quite knew what she meant by that, didn't think to ever ask her and she never elaborated on it herself. And to be honest, I can't even remember what I said in reply.

I don't remember anyone at any point specifically saying 'Dissociative IDENTITY Disorder' to me - or even telling me much about the things they HAD diagnosed me with... but my whole life is like Swiss cheese as far as how much of it I actually remember anyway, so who knows? Admittedly I didn't tell my therapist/hospital care workers any of the above things when I was twenty-five - mainly because they didn't ask - but if I really did (and do) fit the DID category they surely would have noticed without that information... wouldn't they?

Anyway, my main questions (yaay, knew I'd get there in the end!) are: if I wanted to clarify this for myself, how do I go about it? Should I even be wasting professional people's time with this; after all, I was supposed to have been 'cured' back when I was twenty-five. All I know is, since my son was born Something's Not Right with me again... and I can't afford to crash and burn again because I have him to consider now.

Any advice greatly appreciated.