Quote:
Originally Posted by umbley
This is my first time posting here, though I’ve visited many times to read through the various threads.
I’ve been seeing a therapist for the past three years, twice a week. I started seeing him after I quit my job and could not manage to find meaning in anything. I lost my insurance recently when my husband was laid off, though, and we’ve reduced to once a week, pro bono, for which I’m grateful. I like my therapist and feel comfortable telling him most things (except for what I’m about to tell you).
My therapist doesn’t believe in giving out diagnoses, but he is fairly convinced that terrible things happened to me in my childhood and the way he talks to me leads me to believe that I might be considered to have DID (he talks about parts, about compartmentalization, separation of emotional and non-emotional being, and so forth). Sometimes it seems like he has some wild theories about what might have happened to me. I don’t know what I have said or done to suggest to him there might be any truth to these, and am alternately intrigued and alarmed by them.
I currently have a job with a lot of responsibility and manage it fine. I also have nightmares fairly consistently, have had some periods of confusion, depression/suicidality, extreme busy-ness, extra-marital promiscuity and high risk behavior, childishness, secretiveness, feelings of being unreal, and so forth.
Sometimes I am convinced that there are distinct parts to me. Sometimes the whole idea sounds preposterous. Sometimes I truly believe that bad things happened and know there is a darkness inside of me. Sometimes I just can’t fathom that idea at all. I’m not sure if I’m losing time.
I feel like I have been drifting for years. I try to push forward on my professional life and the next thing I know, I’ve changed direction. I take on part-time jobs that strike me as amusing and suck me in, only to recall a few months later that I had actually planned to buckle down and get serious about another interest of mine. I set goals for myself that seem to dissolve the moment I touch them. It drives me crazy, because I know I’m capable of more and not living up to my potential. I’m all over the place and no place at all.
Anyways, I feel like I’m stuck because I can’t remember any trauma. I’m trying. I’m open to the idea. I just don’t remember anything of that nature. Except sometimes, there are maybe glimmers. I’m worried that I’m wasting my therapist’s time – especially now that I’m not paying for my sessions. He says I just have to be patient and let it come, but that’s the problem: it hasn’t come to me. I don’t know how to find those memories. And I do know that something is wrong; happy well-adjusted people don’t act like this. My siblings aren’t happy well-adjusted people either.
Is there something I can do on my own to dig any potential memories out? My siblings can’t help; I’ve tried that route. Can I self-hypnotize? Can I trigger myself somehow? Is there a book or approach that might be useful? I can’t expect my therapist to provide free services forever, so I’m just trying to help the process along and trying to learn what I can about it on my own time. Thanks, in advance, for your suggestions.
|
first my suggestion is take a deep breath.
second understand that just because a treatment provider uses wording like parts, compartmentalizing, separation of emotional and non emotional and so on does ..........not.......... necessarily mean you have DID.
something you may not be aware of.... in may 2013 america (USA) changed over to a whole new system of mental health care including definitions, diagnosis's, diagnostic criterias right on down to how to talk about and use various therapy approaches.
my point its normal now to talk with people about how they have their own coping ways and that some of those ways regardless of mental disorder is a person naturally and normally able to separate their emotions from their physical reactions and feelings. using the normal coping skill of organizing their thoughts and behaviors and emotions (other wise called compartmentalizing their thoughts, feelings, memories, emotions...events in their lives)....
my suggestion is actually ask your treatment providers what they mean when they use wording and phrasing that you may not understand.
you stated your therapist seems to have wild theories about what happened to you... if you mean he is telling you that things have happened to you that did not, thats called therapist causing someone to have false problems and false memories, its actually a disorder where a therapist can get arrested and prosecuted for.
my point is if this was me and a treatment provider was making wild theories where I did not disclose anything about to, I would be walking out the door and then reporting them to my states mental health board that over sees and investigates this kind of thing. Here in the USA we have very strict rules on what treatment providers can and cant do during therapy.
on the other end of this if you did disclose what ever the treatment provider is trying to talk about its ok to tell them you are not ready to discuss that yet and you would like to go slower.
your confusion on whether you have distinct parts related to dissociative disorders .... well theres an easy way to solve this one.. you can help you get set up with psychiatrists and medical doctors and so on to do all the different tests.