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.