Hi, zoiecat.

Consciously, I went to therapy in order to get “better” – to find the roots of whatever was causing me to be – depressed, internally conflicted, not the person I would like to be, etc.

I was eventually, about 12 years ago, diagnosed with DDNOS, now probably OSDD. I did not lose time – but I did have some very distinct and separate “states”. I could become irately angry, for instance. Usually I could control the outbursts, and I knew it was “wrong” – I didn’t justify it. And it would confuse me some. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t explain it that way to therapists. I suppose I would come across as exceedingly distressed and guilty about that, and that’s what therapists would try to deal with – that I wasn’t a horrible terrible person because of that. But I “knew”/felt there was something wrong inside.

I have now recovered enough emotional trauma memories that I believe the DDNOS diagnosis was accurate. Recovering the horrible feelings, that probably resulted in dissociation, has eventually led to me to be less distressed about them. And I can see the “states” as me better and not separate parts per se. But I was in and out of therapy for years, as I said, without touching some of those things.

The last therapist also diagnosed me with PDNOS, which I also think was accurate. And that’s the part that was connected with the addiction, I believe. Again, I did NOT have a recognizable addiction per se. But I did tend to be obsessive and perfectionistic, and I believe it’s likely that I would have been diagnosed with OCPD before I fell apart after my late husband died. Then, some of those other states or parts started acting up sometimes – expressing myself, and hence progress, I thought at the time.

The last therapist also described my situation, when I asked for more information, as “narcissistically wounded and fragmented”. So, I think it was the wounded narcissism that led to the addiction-like obsessions and perfectionism sometimes. And I now feel like I was obsessed with the therapy idea, as the way that I could get myself “fixed”. (Because, I was right – being fragmented internally is definitely something “wrong”, in the functional sense.) What else could/should I do? I have certainly looked into the spiritual traditions, too.

In one of Heinz Kohut’s books, The Restoration of the Self, I think, he distinguishes between narcissistic behavior disorders, like addictions, and narcissistic personality disorders. I was never diagnosed with NPD, but a “part” of me, which caused me a lot of internal distress, seemed to have it. So even though I didn’t have NPD, I think I did have a personality disorder that was based in part on the wounding of what has been called primary narcissism, and is something out of which a mature ego and sense of self and other can grow, in the right circumstances. How to generate those circumstances in therapy or some other kind of therapeutic social environment in adulthood is another question, though.

Hope this answer wasn’t too long-winded.