therapy goals for those with DID

Hello.

Here are my asnwers to your questions.

*I honestly want to know about this aspect of therapy re. goals for those who have DID. I have gone through this myself and really do wonder if other peoples therapy is structured with goals or objectives. Also, I dont think everyone necessarily has the same goals and I wondered, so I asked.

* I ask whatever I ask out of my own natural curiosity and desire to learn. There is little that I dont want to learn more about. BUT ESPECIALLY since I lived most of life with DID I want to try and connect with others who have or are expereincing DID or dissociation. When I was actively dissociated and in therapy, it was impossible to establish any true long lasting connections to others, so I missed on on that part of life.

Actually, if you stop and think about this, as someone now recovered from DID my curiosity seems quite natural, dont you think? Understanding is a good thing. connecting and reaching out to others is a good thing, dont you think.

3. You dont have to answer or post anything in answer to my posts or threads. Mine are posts among many. I cant read everything here and I would guess neither can you so if you find my questions or psots or threads of no interest , just give them a pass

*If you check, you will find that many people who post here start with or include a question in their posts/threads.

4. I am on this forum as a fellow person interested and dealing with issues related to emotional health and well being. I am not 'going to do anything with this information!!!! ???? I only want to meet and connect with others who have lived similar lives because of trauma and dissociation and DID.

When I joined this forum I did so to reach out and try and connect with people who have expereinced what I have expereinced. IT helps to share and it helps to feel that you are not alone.

Like I said before, its good to gain a better understanding of almost everything, anf natrually, most of us are more interested in things close to our own experiences . If I had had cancer I would probably be on that site. If I had spiritual issues I would probably be looking for a site where people talk about faith and spirituality.

Lastly , I dont know what I will ask in the future. I read a lot of posts and forums and sometime what I read hits me hard and I cant help but post my own viewpoints or opinions--or another questions comes to mind and that requires a new thread.

That's it.

Take care and thanks for your questions.

Thank you for sharing. I am very happy for you that you are living a satisfying happy life.

That actually is why I asked and was wondering about. That is a worthy goal for anyone, diagnosis or not. I guess that is part of what I am trying to do --to get a better udnerstanding of- how we all cope and how what I expereinced personally might fit in some way.
This is soemthing I can only talk about and ask about with others who have expreinced dissociation. I truly appreciate you responding. Thank you. Hopefully they more we all share and honestely talk the greater our understanding becomes.

Hello again Amanda. thank you for your answer. Just like you, I am thinking most people going into therapy are there to work out their problems and whether depression or dissociaction of anything else comes up that will be incorporated into the therapy. I was referred to a therapist via a neurologist who I was referred to because of disabling headaches and memory loss. I had no idea I was dissociative or had DID and I eventually went into therapy because so much that I was experiencing made no sense to me.

I dont and wont watch any tv shows or anything else that is about DID so I dont know how it is portrayed or shown. I have no idea how integration is brought up or handled on these shows or anywhere else in the media.
The integration question I asked is because when I was finally aware or and had a name what was going on with me --and this was years after I had first met my psychotherapist-- I wanted to get it fixed. I wanted to do whatever I could to live as one whole self aware self identifying person. That was my goal, but as I say , this was after years of being in therapy without ever being told or knowing I had DID.

There were times however that I didnt know if I could go through with it . It wasnt that easy to give up those alters/functions. I had lived like that for so long I didnt know what a normal life would be like even as I longed for it. There was ambivilance. That was another reason I ahve asked about this.

That is why I am asking all the questions I always ask. I am trying to understand what things are common and what the variations are. I really want to understand how others have lived with, coped, and experienced this.
I guess because I did not ahve the usual personal history/life my being able to more fully understand DID fills in for what I lost all those years.

Thank you again, Amanda. Take care.

I think I understand. It helps me for others to tell me what they ahve expereinced or felt like. Thank you so much.

with me, until I actually knew I was in parts I was unable to adress the practical problems this caused me. It must ahve taken me quite awhile in therapy to get strong enough to get to that point, but then after that point when I was aware of how many different 'eyes ' I was looking through, my therapy became more centered on getting myself to a place where I could ahve the best life possible, considering where I was coming from.

I have now been integrated for a few years. It just happened over time step by step and piece by piece.

Thank you for helping me understand where I fit in to this. As I have mentioned in other posts I lost many many years to DID and now I am finally here looking through one set of eyes, able to reach out and connect with others. Each of you here who take the time to share with me are a true blessing.

what is good for you-- yes yes yes

thank you

Amanda, You are a real asset to the forum. thank you for being here. I joined this website for the same reasons you did. After getting to the point where I was actively dealing in therapy with my DID I wanted to be able to talk to and connect with others about it. There was nothing available at that time. Now that I am out of therapy ( in these last few years ) I was able to find this site for my own self help because it really helps to share and get to better understand ourselves and others and have others to talk to who know what its like.
Take care,Amanda
Take care.

Sherri: It's about the same here....to be able to express ourselves, granted the younger ones also found it a way to vent....but we/they had to.

We are evolving....learning how we really are, what our job is, how we tick hoping to incorparate all that into a bigger picture.

We have avoided looking in since the beginning....and it's time if not 40 years too late. So by us individualizing even more....we are learning who we are which I feel is a good thing, instead of staying in the dark.

Thank you Sherri, for sharing this. It is so good to hear from you.

******

Hello to all. I think maybe all my questions I have are making some of you uncomfortable and that is not at all what I want.

I want to make amends for causing anyone here any sort of distress. I also want to thank you all for sharing and posting on this website and forum. I have found an incredible sense of grace in everyone who posts and shares here. That is a true gift, and that is a gift that I need as much as anyone.

Dissociation and DID is an expereince that incoporates every aspect of a person's being and as a consequence it so hard to connect to others outside of this and talk about it.

When I found this site I was still working on stabilizing myself as one whole self aware self identifying person. I came here with needs just like anyone else. While the way I express myself may be a little more formal than most, I am soon to be a seventy year old woman and that is the way I have always written in the center of who I am before I became integrated and again now that I am here finally able and clearly seeing and perceiving life through one set of eyes.

I dont know if I have shared this before but iI do believe it is relevant to my asking so many questions: My therapist actually retired before all this was done and a lot of this I had to do myself. I had known this therapist for the course of forty years and then when he retired it was up to me to finish the work.

By then I knew I wanted to function as one whole self aware self identifying woman and after my doc retired that is what I worked so hard on, trying to figure out and understand how things worked with me and figure out ways to make this self therapy work for me. .

I am going to tell you something I have never told anyone. Looking back now. I now see that my own therapist had no idea how to work with me and my DID. We were all flying by the seat of our pants. and while that ended up being okay becaues over the course of so many years (I was in therapy actively It was I think 1976 when I first met this doc. A connection must have been made and that was my saving grace. Even though a couple years later he moved away and then after that I moved away and was gone for over twenty years I think it was, once in a while one part of me or another would contact him so somehow I knew he was still there. After so many years I returned to the palce I had lived before and ended up back in therapy with this psychiatrist. I believe it was the fact that this doc didnt put me on drugs and didnt think I was psychotic or anything like that that kept me able to trust he was trying to help me.

At this point int my life now that I am here I can plainly see that there is a better way to treat and work with patients with DID than that which I expereinced.

My need to understand was so great that in autobirogrpahical writing I doing I also wrote about what I believed I had needed in order to recover successfully. I wrote my own vocabulary because even that is up for grabs when it comes to DID. What is eprsonality? What is the difference between the self and identity?

I had to have some basis for understanding to build on. My autobiographical writing was a window into what I needed to work with and do. That was part of my therapy and I think because I found myself writing to be able ro read and clarify my own expereinces and make sense of how they were incorporated into everything I was and had expereinced I began to see the connections to where I was in a present moment.

The conenctions bectween mind and body and emotions and trauma became clear and then one day I read a quote by a peurop[sychiatrist I think he was antonio de silve in which he talks about our memories makng us who we ae. It was clear to me when I read that that of course if I was missing a lot of time and memories in my conscious awarness of course I could not be functioning as one self aware self identifying person!

I cant remember if this was ebfore or after the de slilva revelation but I also heard about someone writing abook about neuroplasiticity –and I knew that this was a means of faiciltiating recovery because old habits and old ways can be changed into new habits and new ways.

It wasnt until recently that I realized this was one heck of a way to carry out the final part of my therapy, ie by myself and on my own. In large part it was this revelation that set me looking for a place like this website and forum.

After all I have come through I beleive it is so important to have a therapist who knows about and understands DID .
Sometimes that isnt possible.

Lookning back I can tell you something Ive never realized until write recently. I had to basically 'write' my own therapy plan directing it on what I needed. My doc was a good man but he didnt have a clue as to what was going on with me. I know that now.
Becasue of my past history of misgdiagnosis and what was was done to me as direct result of that misdiagnosis and because somehoe we ahd managed to conenct in a very essential unconscious way during the first couple of years I was in therapy with him this on again off again then on myown to finish this work actually ended up being successful

Conncting with others on the website and this forum in particular has been a gift to me. I hope this helps anyone concerned about my motives or all my questions understand I am erhe because I needed the gift you give.

I need to stop writing now and go fishing. I need a break!

In my mind... I hope it is beautiful there and you were relaxed and enjoyed the place you were in. If you were fishing, there were trees, sunshine and the smell of being outside. I pray that it blessed you!!!!

Thank you for your questions and your concerns. They have helped me to sort out my questions and concerns that have come to me. You have been a gift to me. Your comments have opened my mind to look at what I'm sorting out to be ok. In context.

Wanted to add this. It is my heart.



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i wanted to update my answer in case i didn't say it..but the current goal i am going to try is working on communication with the others so it can help me and help them with healing. then whatever happens then happens, and i will see where it goes.

Thank you Trailrunner. you are a friend.