[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

So my fiance knows my diagnosis, this thread is a spinoff from another thread in the abuse forum but i was hoping to get advice from those with DID on here... so my fiance knows about my DID but i think im explaining it wrong or something. He doesnt understand it. His experience with memtal illness is his ADHD and his grandpas mania, thats it. And the only abuse he's encountered is on tv or the news. So i try to explain DID and why i was given the diagnosis but i must be doing it wrong. He says i just think too much, that its normal not to remember everything. I try to explain its not remembering thats the problem its blacking out, but he doesnt get it. He just doesnt understand the diagnosis and basically believes its what they say it is in the movies.
any advice on how to help him understand this? Anyone have any success on explaining it to someone else and they didnt think you were crazy?

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by PurpleFlyingMonkeys

So my fiance knows my diagnosis, this thread is a spinoff from another thread in the abuse forum but i was hoping to get advice from those with DID on here... so my fiance knows about my DID but i think im explaining it wrong or something. He doesnt understand it. His experience with memtal illness is his ADHD and his grandpas mania, thats it. And the only abuse he's encountered is on tv or the news. So i try to explain DID and why i was given the diagnosis but i must be doing it wrong. He says i just think too much, that its normal not to remember everything. I try to explain its not remembering thats the problem its blacking out, but he doesnt get it. He just doesnt understand the diagnosis and basically believes its what they say it is in the movies.
any advice on how to help him understand this? Anyone have any success on explaining it to someone else and they didnt think you were crazy?

PurpleFlyingMonkeys...one thing you need to understand... you cant get anyone to understand...bottom line all you can control is what you believe, what you think and what you do.. everyone else including your fiance are going to thing, believe and do what ever they want to, need to will do..

that said

My wife learned about my having DID through my treatment providers and I together... I invited her to attend a team meeting with my therapist, psychiatrist and I. At the meeting we discussed my problems and treatment options and any problems. We have these team meetings so that all my treatment providers are all on the same page with me. DID is confusing enough without each treatment provider doing things a different way, I learned years ago for me it was best to have everyone on the same page so that I could progress not stay stuck or regress in my healing.

She was amazing. she sat there and listened to everything my treatment providers and I said, then towards the end of the meeting she turned to me and said "now I got it, now I understand, So how can I help?"

before this meeting she was floundering, frustrated, annoyed, .....DID is I think even more confusing, frustrating for those that love us, we (people with DID) have been this way all their lives, this is their normal, but those who love us have a different normal so when thrown into the bullpen of abnormal...

not only did she come out of that meeting understanding DID, understanding me and my internal system she also came out of it with wanting to learn more on her own.. which of course led to her becoming a mental health treatment provider herself.

my suggestion invite your fiance to your appointments with your treatment providers. treatment providers deal with this kind of thing...explaining diseases, disorders to those who love the ones with the mental and physical health problems.

[UnhingedHick]

Originally Posted by PurpleFlyingMonkeys

So my fiance knows my diagnosis, this thread is a spinoff from another thread in the abuse forum but i was hoping to get advice from those with DID on here... so my fiance knows about my DID but i think im explaining it wrong or something. He doesnt understand it. His experience with memtal illness is his ADHD and his grandpas mania, thats it. And the only abuse he's encountered is on tv or the news. So i try to explain DID and why i was given the diagnosis but i must be doing it wrong. He says i just think too much, that its normal not to remember everything. I try to explain its not remembering thats the problem its blacking out, but he doesnt get it. He just doesnt understand the diagnosis and basically believes its what they say it is in the movies.
any advice on how to help him understand this? Anyone have any success on explaining it to someone else and they didnt think you were crazy?

Could you ask you docotr or some one liek that, if you have one. To help explain it to him?

[IowaFarmGal]

Does it seem to be a non issue to him? Does anything you do connected with DID bother him? If he is accepting of you as a person is it important that he understands the reasons why you do what you do? Could the ADHD be keeping him from following what you are trying to explain? I know sometimes when people would try to explain stuff to me I would just get flooded with their words and then my memory would wipe and they might as well have not said anything. Not sure what attention deficit is like but wondering if it might be something like that?

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I have an aplointment with t tomorrow, im going to bring it up with him and see if we can come up with a game plan. I tried a little to explain it to my fiance and slowly hes starting to understand. Back from august to november i kept getting the back burner feeling, all the time, many times every day. Where i felt like things were further away, i heard myself talking and saw myself moving but wasnt controlling it at all. I also had a few blackouts. My t says its co concious and of course not the black outs. But during that time i wasnt seeing a t. I thought they were something in my brain since i had that one seizure. I had brain tests saw a neuro, my brain was fine. Well i still get the back burner feeling, and told t, thats when he explained co consciousness. Thinks im co con with some parts but not all. Back when i didnt know i was telling my fiance after doing some grounding and snapping back, i would go lay down. So i was explaining to him that t believes its dissociation and he started to understand that because he saw it happen a lot. Same thing with the blackouts ive been having, i explained its another dissociation thing and he started to get it. Only thing left to explain is parts, still the hardest for me to understand, but perhaps t can help with this.
His add does get in the way sometimes of him listening. So i keep my explinations short and we laugh about it. When i notice hes drifting from the conversation i laugh and say "hey, add!" And he laughs and comes back into the conversation but im the same in a different aspect. I have tunnel thinking. When i think or watch something, thats all i see, nothing else exists around me and he asks me questions sitting right next to me and i have no clue what hes said or that hes said anything at all. He laughs. We are an odd couple. Often he will ask me something but im in my own world and have no clue what he said but can tell hes waiting for an answer so i guess and he just looks at me funny, i answer wrong and he has to repeat his question. We laugh at each other, im a "space cadet" and hes add, its funny. Hopefully t doesnt have a problem explaining it to two people with concentration troubles

[UnhingedHick]

I dont know if this will work but i found this awesome site that has and expling perspective with it... http://www.psychforums.com/dissociat...opic54544.html