@stahrgeyzer - I'm so sorry you struggle with misdiagnoses, too. Dissociative disorders are the most challenging for psychologists and psychiatrists to diagnose. More often than not, DID is often misdiagnosed as BPD, bipolar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective, a factitious disorder, somatoform disorder, CPTSD with dissociative features, and PTSD. Although it is possible to have comorbidity with any other disorder, DID is distinct. It's hard for those with DID to accept their diagnosis, and we tend to go through periods of doubt, especially as we learn to manage our dissociation through coconsciousness by using IFS coping. Some people may be misdiagnosed because of treatment effects for dissociative disorders that help to lessen blackouts. More often than not, DID is comorbid with CPTSD. CPTSD has also been misdiagnosed as a personality disorder or more. Although there are considerable overlaps, the defining features of a singular personality disorder are inconsistent, and those with DID have difficulty with treatments for mainstream CPTSD and PTSD; more often than not, the treatments for PTSD or CPTSD are too triggering, which causes more dissociation. We truly need therapy for DID, which helps with the PTSD in a very slow way that caters to the needs of our DID.

Even if there are variations to DID, the treatments are the same. Perhaps they see the treatments based on severity, but the same could be said for those with PTSD that have specifiers, since CPTSD isn't a real diagnosis in the DSM 5 either, though there have been distinctions, which include one-time traumas versus multiple traumas, childhood traumas versus adult-only trauma(s), trauma types (mild to severe), dissociation as a specifier (but not enough to meet the diagnosis of a dissociative disorder), etc. They don't differentiate PTSD yet, unless that plans to change. They still treat PTSD and CPTSD the same, for the most part. The therapists add on whatever specifiers so that they can get paid by insurance companies. These labels are inherently coded for the purposes of therapists' pay and not to the benefit of the clients per se. The therapists still differ on their treatment methods, even though they get paid the same for the same diagnostic coding. But one therapist may decide to add more diagnoses to get more money for their multiple treatments or something, if that's the way the insurance payouts work. I don't know, but I've seen the differences when my T's assistant made a mistake, and my T told me that she accidentally billed Medicare for in-person sessions (which pays more) than online/video sessions (which pays less). So, coding matters in terms of the therapists getting paid.

Unfortunately, it creates this stigma among those with mental disorders. I've seen it and heard it, and then it doesn't do any justice for those like you who have all these symptoms that need treatment. With the wrong diagnosis, it can be detrimental to your health. Many of us had been misdiagnosed before we got the proper DID diagnosis, but that doesn't always equate to adequate treatment until you find a T that believes in your diagnosis and has experience in treating it. So there's that challenge on top of our natural questioning of the DID diagnosis in the first place, since we struggle with being misdiagnosed and therefore distrusting our diagnoses from those experiences alone (forms of iatrogenic effects) coupled with our childhood traumas that also play into our distrusting of our diagnoses as well (such as "Do I deserve this diagnosis?" "Does this diagnosis mean my parts will finally be heard, or are we still unworthy of being heard and seen?"). These are things that I experienced with voices at first, but they were my alters in reality. My alters even felt jealous of other alters at times when we were in therapy together and one alter seemed to think others were more liked by our T than her. The T helped her see that the T is there for all of us, but it still seemed strange to hear that. Anyways, it's hard when you're just starting out, and when you have all those different opinions.

I hope you can stick with the T who diagnosed you with DID and then try to get the proper treatments from that. If the DID treatments work, that's great. If they don't, say so to your T and see what adjustments can be made. They can always periodically reevaluate you for a different diagnosis down the line, but you will need to be honest about your symptoms and what you need help with. That's the tough part is disclosing all of our symptoms to our T.

Hang in there.