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Originally Posted by Amyjay
Hi. I have DID, a high IQ, amnesia for lots of things but some isolated memories from a young age too.
Ultimately though a diagnosis is just words. What matters is your experience and your treatment, not the meaning that another person assigns to them. It doesn't matter if you "have" DID or DID-NOS type 1 or type 2 or whatever. If you have experienced trauma and that trauma impacts upon your life (as it is sure to do) what matters is having a therapist who is appropriately trained in treating trauma and its effects on the body and mind.
What I mean is... it might be more helpful and grounding to focus on your dissociative experiences... feeling them, being aware of them, etc and then working with and through those them with your therapist. Rather than feeling and being aware of your dissociative experiences and trying to match them up with an "appropriate" external category or label.
I get the need to do it, I really do. For me its about validation... like I have "permission" to be this way if someone else deems that I "have" this disorder. it might not be that for you of course, but that's how I felt about it.
What I am learning I think is that trauma is trauma and its affects are real, no matter what label is or isn't assigned to it. The trauma was real and the affect it real. Labels and diagnostic criteria are intellectual external systems applied to someone's personal pain.
I guess I just want to say... be wary of giving some patriarchal system the power to define or validate your reality. What you experience is real and powerful and valid and needs no permisson from anyone.
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Thanks for saying this. I have a tendency to obsess over knowing what is going on with me, especially when I have no memory of it, but others do. My therapist tells me to relax and watch World of Dance or something, but I find myself searching and searching for others who've had similar experiences. It's driving me crazy. I think maybe I need to be looking for DBT skills to cope with obsessive thoughts.