justagirl

I know this thread is a few months old but thought I would add my point of view. when ever I had new memories and didnt know whether they were real or not my treatment provider told me to trust my gut, you see with dissociative disorders reality remains intact. , meaning the person having dissociative problems .....knows whats real and what isnt, knows whats imaginary and what isnt. its not like for example schizophrenia, bipolar and other mental disorders where a person may lose touch with reality sometimes. with dissociative problems sometimes things\I ......feels.....unreal (depersonalization/derealization symptoms) but a person with dissociative problems ....knows....whats real and what isnt. if after being reminded of that diagnostic criteria I still cant tell the difference between reality and imaginary, reality vs unreal my treatment provider calls the symptom a psychotic one associated with my depression\bipolar disorders.

directly related to new memories suddenly coming on my treatment providers called this having flashbacks, recovering repressed memories (which is different than having an alter share that memory, alters only share memories when a person with DID is healed enough to handle having that memory back, part of this happening is called integration where I live, its not usually a traumatic thing here when someone regains a memory that their alters have previously held back because when it happens its just like remembering any other memory a person already has with in their own memory. for me it was like ....oh wow I remember now, so thats what happened, (no sense of unreality) just a bit of ok now that I can remember that crap what do I do now? then for a bit just like any other memory it is on the surface of my thoughts for a while, sometimes I had some nightmares and flashbacks associated with what happened, but eventually just like any other memory based nightmares, flashbacks and intrusive thoughts (which are PTSD symptoms) things got better.

I see by your post you said your treatment provider has not diagnosed you with DID and wont. if you were here in my location that usually means you dont fit the new diagnostic criteria (you can read those in my link at the bottom of my post), my suggestion is go according to what ever your treatment providers have diagnosed you with.

heres a tip that may help you sort out things. DID is a mental disorder where you dont just think about something and it happens. it takes many years of therapy to sort out whether a person has alters, what kind of alters they are (there are many different kinds with many different mental and physical health problems) ....its not as simple as one day thinking Ill try and assign gender and names to feelings and it happens. here in my location we have a psychaitric name for when this happens...creating false memories, creating false mental disorders, creating false alters. (not that thats what you are doing, just stating thats what, you tried would be called here in my location)

my suggestion is dont try to name and genderize your feelings, even if these are alters with DID most times DID alters already have their own genders and names from the moment they were created to handle the extreme trauma's that caused the person to become DID to begin with. if they have names and genders through therapy and your healing process that will become clear. it may take time (sometimes as much as 10-20 years of therapy) before that happens but it will happen if these feelings are DID type alters.

just take it one step at a time and follow your treatment providers, and if you still feel you have a dissociative disorder you can ask your treatment provider for actual diagnostic evaluations for mental disorders.its a long process to get diagnosed with DID that involves mental and physical health testing along with meetings with a psychiatrist.