[everybodyishere]

I would like to know if a person is diagnosed with DID, does that automactically mean that that person has supressed memories that he/she can't remember?

[Rhapsody]

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everybodyishere said:
I would like to know if a person is diagnosed with DID, does that automactically mean that that person has supressed memories that he/she can't remember?

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YES........... either they cannot remember or they cannot attach any feelings to the ones they know of.


LoVe,
Rhapsody -

[LILITH]

yes...... deep deep memories.......

Hi again. my previous post has been removed because even with the warnings in the post and the trigger icon it was too graphic still for the message boards so Lets see if I can condense that leaving out all the graphics -

when a child is being abused and they have no way to physically run away from their abuser. so they start daydreaming that the abuse is happening to someone else. Someone that they have contact with in thier life at that time. after they imagine the abuse is happening to someone else they continue daydreaming until they have daydreamed things for each of their five senses and emotions so that they are no longer mentally aware of what is physically happening. What the child is aware of is what they are daydreaming. in this case it was a daydream of listening to musical clouds on a warm sunny day with a breeze and eating an ice cream cone.

The daydreaming is called being dissociated. every human being has the ability to do this.

while the child is dissociated and not aware of the abuse that is happening The brain continues keeping the child physically going. its still recoding all the physical stuff going on - the abuse, heart rate, breathing rate, physical reaction. These physical and emotional memories are stored in the unconscious level of thinking so that the child is not aware of what is happening.

after the abuse is over the child and abuser go on with their day. But the next time the child is unconsciously reminded of what happened the child reacts with discomfort and upset so the child thinks about their daydream instead of what is happening to make them uncomfortable and upset.

While the child is daydreaming the boy matches what is upsetting the child to the memories that are stored at the unconscious level of thinking and automatically acts out those matching memories.

This happens every time the child gets upset about anything from the moment that the abuse situation has been stored in pieces according to the five senses and emotions in the unconscious level of thinking.

The child is now considered as having Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The unconsciously stored memories that are being acted out are called by many different names. A persons personality is what and how they percieve things from their five senses and emotions so one of the names used to describe the memories is Alternate Personalities (alters for short), the word fragments is also used as a way to describe how much memory of the situation is stored in that piece of memory. In recent years the terms "parts" and "memory pieces" have been in use so that DID'ers understand that they are not being possessed by spirits and flesh and blood people. That the alters are parts of then - memories of themselves at various ages and the abuse situations that they went though stored in pieces according to the five senses (sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch,) and emotions.

"While the child is daydreaming the boy matches what is upsetting the child to the memories that are stored at the unconscious level of thinking and automatically acts out those matching memories. "

That is supposed to be body matches not boy matches sorry about the spelling error.

Also because of this thread I got a few great email questions to my katherinemanne address so I thought I would add it here -

if the memory pieces are abuse memories then how can some alters be fun and play with legos and blocks?

Can a person with DID just begin to have symptoms - voices, acting out, losing time, playing like a child... as an adult?

The answer is becaause of what the child was doing right before being abused. for example if the child is playing on a swing when their abuser comes up to them and starts abusing them their being on the swing at the time of being abused is part of their memory of the abuse situation. Just like a person can remember talking on the phone when they look out the window and experience a traumatic event like seeing a car accident. looking out the window and talking on the phone are not abuse situation but is what the person was doing when they experienced that trauma of seeing a car accident.

Every part of the situation - what the person was seeing, hearing, tasting, felt through touch, how they were being touched and their emotions during the situation - gets separated because that is how memories in general are stored in the brain. but unlike normal memories these pieces of traumatic events including what the person was doing saying and so on when the abuse happened get stored in the unconscious level of thinking. and unlike normal memories the person has no conscious awareness that the situation happened so they cant just like a normal memory think "when this happened I..." because it is a traumatic even and is stored in the unconscious level of thinking it takes something outside their bodies to remind them unconsciously of those memories that are in the unconscious level. That thing is called a trigger - something that is making the person uncomfortable or upset in some way.

Then the person acts out that memory.

As for the symptoms just suddenly showing up as an adult - no. The person is DID from the first time an abuse memory is stored in the unconscious level of thinking. Which means the first time that they are abused and dissociates (daydreams theirself out of the situation) and that memory gets stored in the unconscious level of thinking. Since a person with DID dissociates to that extent as a child the symptoms - hearing voices, acting out, losing time, playing like a child and so on happens right from the beginning. The person who is diagnosed as being DID just does not notice this is happening because all they believe is that they are safe and sound in their daydream safe place and have no awareness that time went on and that during that time they had been abused or uncomfortable or upset. They believe that they are just fine and normal and everyone is like them. It isn't until the person is an adult and they are in therapy for depression, sleep problems and so on that they find out that what is wrong with them is not normal because their therapist told them. That doesn't mean the sympton just suddenly began. it just means the symptoms have always been there and someone trained to recognize the symptoms as DID puts the clues of what is already happening together to suggest going through testing proceedures. If it wasn't already happening the therapist would not see those symptoms so would not suggest the testing proceedures.

Kind of like if a person hasn't already drawn a picture and or isn't already drawing a picture another person cant say "thats a nice picture".

cause and effect the situation has to be happening already in order for the result of that situation to happen.

you cant have a broken foot without first injuring that foot.

you cant have DID first without having the abuse situation and symptoms - dissociation, time loss, acting out and so on happening first.

the symptoms that are already happening can become more noticable as an adult because adults don't usually sit on the floor for hours stacking blocks, normal adults dont sit in a chair in a public place sucking their thumb, or other behaviors that are stored in the abuse memories of them selves as a child.

that doesn't mean the symptoms haven't been happening all along. it just means the person is now old enough that those behaviors are not passed off as normal child play and behaviors because the person is biologically an adult not a child..

the repressed memories are already there being acted out while the person is unaware from the moment they have been repressed (stored in the unconscious level)

[everybodyishere]

Sooooooooo...............then.... My therapist is delibratly trying to trigger me into remebering right? He's tells me of the problem thrap[sts have in this stage of treatment - people .geting worsr brfore thry get better,

[wanttoheal]

Hi everybodyishere. I hope you find the answers you are looking for. I can only say my T would never deliberately try to trigger me, although I have been triggered a lot unintentionally. I wish you the best of luck as you heal.

[everybodyishere]

So what is he trying to do ? They are trying to get you to rember the siupressed memories right? That must automatically entail a trigger I would think.

[Rhapsody]

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everybodyishere said:
So what is he trying to do ? They are trying to get you to rember the siupressed memories right? That must automatically entail a trigger I would think.

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Hmm -

Well, not necessarily trying to induce a trigger, but the T is trying to help you remember so that you can handle the memories, hence not need that particular alter that holds the event.... therefore integration may start.

LoVe,
Rhapsody - ((( hugs )))

[wanttoheal]

Not sure Everybody. Every T is different in how they handle things. My T and I are not looking for suppressed memories. We are learning skills so I can live my life daily. If memories come up, we deal with them, but we are not out looking for them. We have enough "stuff" in our daily life that causes enough problems. I wish you the very best in your healing.

[everybodyishere]

My T has offered me the same way - but I told him that I wanted to remeber so he said ok. I guess it is healing to remember to feel what I blocked out. And let the rage go. It just hasn't happened yet and I want it to.

[wanttoheal]

That just sounds scary to me but I wish you well.

the cut and dry answer is yea thats what a therapist does but its not as cut and dry as just forcing a trigger on you. its not like that.

A therapist job (no matter what the issue is) is to get you to look at your problems from all angles and then solve your problems using the new coping skills that they are teaching you - breathing exercises, grounding techniques, relaxation techniques, journalling, and challenging yoursaelf to look at the problem from all angles.

When a client avoids an issue they know right there that is a triggering topic or problem, but their job is to not let you avoid that topic or problem so they are going to keep bringing that topic up until you are no longer avoiding that problem or issue. Therapists aren't supposed to be friends that just talk to you about what you want them to talk about and only say what you want them to say. A person can get that for free by calling or going and visiting a friend that always agrees with them. A therapist is trained to see what issues the clients are avoiding and find out why they are avoiding that issue and help the client come up with ways to address that problem in whatever ways the client can.

For some just sitting in a room and talking will "accidentally purposely" trigger the client into remembering something they have forgotten. meaning trhe therapist knows that topic is a hot one so they purposely stear the conversation around to that issue and in some cases the client does not realize they are on to that topic until they have been "accidentally" triggered.

For other people they need the direct approach of the therapist flat out saying you keep avoiding this issue why? or as my therapist LL sometimes does says - now you know that I am blunt right so I am going to say this right out and goes for it of opening the topic.

Other people need a less direct and more constructive hands on way other then talking because just talking will trigger the person so bad that they like in my case go floating off to la la land. And thats where distracting activities like taking a walk, doing art work, journaling and relaxation visualization and so on helps the client feel more comfortable so that their mental guards so to speak are not throwing walls up before anything can even begin.

The end result is that the client will at some point experience or come face to face with their problems instead of avoiding them and stuffing them and will be able to see the problems and solutions so that they will have a better life.

I chose to take a bit of all these therapeutic approaches and developed my own therapy progran that would work for me. When I was putting my therapy program together I was under strick mums the word by a lawyer about my having DID but yet at the same time the lawyer told my therapist at that time SKR and I to take care of it and get it done as fast as possible so I didn't have much time to relax and get used to how most therapy process is work on grounding and relaxation then locate the trigger and do something about the trigger by way of the grounding techniques and so on. from day one we had to find out what was making me suicidal, what was making me depressed what was the flashbacks that I was having and what was making them happen. and we had only one year to take care of things to DHS standards or lose my son to adoption and so on.

So we hit the books and professionals and did what they told us to do - use grounding techniques, when ever I get triggered write it down so that we knew what had triggered me and put as many coping tools around that trigger so I no longer get triggered by that.

LL and I are carrying on with what SKR and I was doing. before she started pushing me a little bit on my nightmare she made sure that going for remembering those repressed memories was my route of choice. I think her wording was something like - "you are strong, couragious and have tenasity and you want to remember ... LOL I told her yup sure do Im not always strong and couragious but definately am stuborn to the point where I will remember one way or another.

this is no different then a therapist working on day to day problems and having the person use grounding techniques, relaxation and so on to keep themselves from panicing and so on in their day to day life and then months to years later moving on to taking care of the past issues now that the persons daily life is on track and they have had all that time using their new coping tools taught to them that past months and years.

The only difference in what I do is that I had no choice if I wanted to keep my parental right I had to not only work on my day to day life but at the same time I had to take care of the problems associated with the past. and part of that was locating what was upsetting me to the point where I was dissociating. and when you have a conversation and are talking about for example going to the mall and eating in the food court and shopping in all the different stores the trigger can be any of a million different things and the way to narrow it down is to talk about the food court ok she didn't get triggered there now the book store, nope no trigger in that, the bus ride oops here come the panic attack so the trigger is something that happened on that bus when traveling throught the huge major city. now to expose and stear the conversation to anything that has to do with riding a bus - how else but to get into a car and ride around and hit on key areas of the route traveled to see if anything happens.

Granted the way SKR and I did things to locate the triggers when I got triggered was not the right thing for every person with DID but the end result was the same accomplished in years less time - locate the trigger and put in place grounding techniques and anything else we could think of to make it so that I am not with the DHS caseworker riding to my sons therapeutic school and have a panic attack along the way.

Some therapists take the direct approach that takes less time to locate the triggers and others take the subtle route that can take years.

I come up against people on line who put down the fact that my therapist and I used the quickest possible route to locating my triggers and putting in place my new coping tools so that I no longer get triggered.

whether or not a person takes a year or 20 years to locate their triggers and learn coping tools doesn't make how they are doing things wrong. All it makes it is that it is right for that person. and thats what therapy is - a therapist tayloring a clients therapy program based on what THAT one client needs. Its not my place to put down and tear apart someone elses therapy program just like its not other persons place to tear apart the type of therapy program that my therapist and I chose to do. So which ever way you decide to go after your repressed memories I know that you are doing what is right for YOU.

the direct route that you have chosen is hard but if you keep your sense of humor and take breaks here and there you will be fine and possibly years ahead of other DIDers on your therapist caseload like I am.

Hang in there.

[(JD)]

Everybodyishere, I can't find all the background information on yourself that you refer to, as to what the T is trying and all...

When you are dissociative, with DID, then you have partitioned parts of your life into smaller more acceptable (able to deal with?) parts. Sometimes, to access a memory that is in one of those other areas, the T needs to find who is keeping that memory for "you." Discussing various topics or events might do that.

I don't know how long you have been in therapy, and whether your T is pushing or not, but remember YOU are in control and need to share all this with your T. You need to ask your T these questions too What I know with DID patients, often slower is faster. (When you or the T pushes too fast, it bogs the whole process down as alters rebel or become frightened and withdraw farther away, and it takes more time to get back to where you were.)

Don't be afraid of what you know. You have coped well, and when you are ready, you will be able to know.

> I would like to know if a person is diagnosed with DID, does that automactically mean that that person has supressed memories that he/she can't remember?

well... that depends really.

1) every person in the world has experiences that they don't remember.
2) 'supression' or 'repression' is a technical term that has hefty theoretical committments... it is unclear whether there is such a mechanism...
3) the 'post traumatic model' of DID states that DID is a trauma disorder *by definition*. there are other theories of DID, however...

another point...

sometimes people think of memory as being like having a tablet in your head and your experiences make inscriptions on the tablet... and sometimes people can't access the tablet and sometimes they can and therapy (and 'recovering memories') is about finding the tablet.

but memory doesn't work that way...

ever recall is a new encoding...

i don't think it is helpful to think of DID as a trauma disorder *by definition*

[everybodyishere]

Cool. Thanks. Your expierence was very encouraging to me. I was just trying to figure out how this is all working - if it is - I have not remebered anything spectacular and wonder if I ever will - just kind of confused - think about stopping treatment sometimes - that it's all nonsense. etc.
I would think I would have remebered somethiong by now if there was something there. Maybey not. Thanks though for your insights. - BoB

[everybodyishere]

Awesome comment. Thankyou. Just take it easy I guess. Relax and enjoy the ride. (lol)

[everybodyishere]

I don't go by the books either, but it seems that the reality is that people with DID do have supressed memories because people have remebered them while in treatment. I am having a difficult time remembering is all - but I have only started serious thrapy for a few months ,so it may just be early yet .
I know the human brain is awesome and extremely complicated and even the best professionals don't know even a fraction of what the brain is all about - just trying to see what we do know now at the present and where I fit in. - Thanks.

You're welcome. And please don't get discouraged before I knew I was DID I was working with a therapist and it took two years with her and then a year with another therapist after she left the agency to recover one memory t hat I was having a nightmare and flashbacks about. DID isn't like normal memory recall where you go to a birthday party and suddenly remember a birthday party that you forgot. It takes alot of digging through little snips and pieces of nightmares and flashbacks that seem to not be connected. Looking at each detail of that snip to see what smells, tastes, sounds, sights (objects, people and so on ) and textures - touches and emotions. once one snip is figured out you go to the next seemingly unrelated snp and sometimes you find they are related sometimes you find they arent and sometimes working your way through each snip more snips work their way into your conscious level by way of nightmares and flashback that are even more graphic and so on and may or may not be connected. It acually takes years to go through therapy for DID. A typical client in DID therapy is usually in therapy for DID at a minimum of 10 years. SKR and I started our work on my DID back in 2001. We managed to cut through alot of time using the techniques and so on that you will find in my blog and here on the message boards. But even barrelling our way through 10 years worth of therapy in a 3 year time frame I am still in therapy and have gone through 2 and a half more years of therapy. there is still time loss happening, drawings, flashbacks, nightmares, and so on happening so I know that there is still lots more work to be done. In fact I went to my therapy session with LL this past wensday and she asked how the work was coming on my house project. I let her know that I took a break from looking at it but have used my relaxation visualization and have learned a couple new things about that nightmare.

for those who don't know my relaxation visualization that I am using is my entering my tunnel and floating walking past my la la land and entering a door where once inside I would be in that nightmare I would see one new thing that is contained in that nightmare.

Anyway while I was telling her what I remembered the static in my head got real loud and I felt floaty and far away. I slipped into la laland and the next thing I know I was home taking groceries out of my backpack and found my appointment card for my next appointment. Which was set up while I was unaware and the appointment is going to be a light and easy one of LL and I going to a local community center for recreational time of playing the piano. Which is going to be so funny because I am totally out of practice because I have not played a piano since the 1990's when I was pregnant with my son. LOL So this week I am trying to locate some free sheetmusic websites and visiting the local library trying to locate the sheet music to a couple songs that keeps replaying in my head If, The Entertainer, and You Light Up My Life. So I knoww that there is still one or three more memory pieces that I have no idea what those memories are about.

It takes a long time to recover repressed memories and sometimes there are months to years before a new one is remembered.

Hang in there.

> it seems that the reality is that people with DID do have supressed memories because people have remebered them while in treatment.

so you are talking about repressed memories.
some people have claimed to remember certain things and there has been external corroboration of what they claimed to remember.
some people have claimed to remember certain things and there has been no external corroboration of what they claimed to remember.
some people have claimed to remember certain things and there has been external corroboration that what they claimed to remember never happened.
some therapists have been sued for inducing false 'memories' in patients.

the notion of recovered memories is VERY controversial.

I think that the danger is when therapists and clients come to believe that there must be trauma of an 'objective sickening severity' in order to JUSTIFY present distress / disorder. if therapists and clients believe this then clients will come to 'remember'.

some people have DID without having had trauma of an 'objective sickening severity' in their history.

i was reading about this case in Germany the other day and the trigger for her developing alters seemed to be spending several years on the internet playing role playing games for 12 hours per day. clearly things weren't okay in her life for her to get that involved in the role playing games... but looks like (and client reported that) playing the role playing games was the major trigger for the development of alters.

most disorders have multiple pathways to them / multiple aetiologies. combination of genetic / innate predisposition and environmental features. things don't have to be of 'objective sickening severity' in order for a person to feel traumatised (especially given genetic / innate predisposition).

i'm not at all convinced that 100% of cases of DID are caused by trauma of objectively sickening severity...

[everybodyishere]

It seems so far out you know - like some kind of science fiction Dr. Who movie or something - but I always liked mysteries and figuring things out, so I find it kind of fascinating in a way. Too bad it is such a harmful thing and so expensive and long term to solve.
Anyway - sounds like you have a cool therapist - that will go to play music with you and such - that's cool. Music is excellent for the mind - especially when you yourself play it I think.
I also wanted to tell you that I like your statement that ', "They don't call us survivors for nothing" - I can tell you have worked hard and faced a lot of your pain straight on - and as you described - in a fast crash course of therapy. Good for you. And thanks again for the encuragement. -everybody

[everybodyishere]

According to what I read - a person must have some sort of predisposition in his/her brain that causes them to dissciociate- otherwise they will have some other mental illness instead. But I guess the common factor is that DID is not a good thing and that it is caused by something that is unhealthy .However severe it is for that individual I guess varies - but something happened to them to cause it.
In my particular case I was sexually mo****** .This I know and have regular memories of before I ever entered the mental heath arena . Now I'm probing deeper to see if there was anything else - or if it was all the ab*** that I remember that did it. I know for a fact that I was not born this way - something tramatic happened to me to make me tjis way ,and I rember some of it - and maybet as " MYSELFSAIDI just need to attach emotion to it all because they are just memories to me - I feel nothing when I think of it, . And to me- what I remember was of sickening severity enough for any little boy to expierence I would think to cause DID.

Thanks. that phrase is from snail mail / email penpal friend of mine who is also a survivor who has just been amazing in being there for me and helping me through things when I was in major crisis and a shoulder for when I need to just vent and babble sometimes in the middle of the night. Now 14 years of watching and helping me go from victim to survivor and continueing to grow and so on she likes to sit on the side lines watching me push on forwards through things and sometimes sends me an email of her reactions of what I am writing to her about.

one night I wrote to her filling her in on things with me and my child including the frustrations, problems and my solutions. and she wrote a two sentence reply back to me even though she was on location of working at her real world workshop she was at saying -

You are just going to keep finding hope in hell aren't you. They don't call us survivors for nothing. I have been working on and off on a drawing to go with this banner that you see here in my signature but its not done yet who knows maybe someday the drawing will be attached to it too. That afirmation she sent me still gets me through alot of situations.

Glad you like it.

[everybodyishere]

The way it moves slowly across the screen in all capital letters really graps you - it's "in your face" in a good way . -everybody

off topic for a moment - LOL I made it on a glitter type website where you type in a sentence and click the color and style and it makes it for you then you copy the code for it.