[Michael W. Harris]

I will try not to be too obnoxious but having DID or any other dissociative diagnosis is not cute! Having child personalities is not cute! Not being in total control of your own mind is not cute! (I am a hypocrite for that last one since I have been "partying", aka abusing alcohol, my whole life.)

Having to chase down competent therapists/mental health professionals is not cute! It is a statement on the sophistication of the mental health college professors! If you go to an incompetent family medical doctor, you get to sue him! This bull of having Freudian psycho-therapists drag mental health treatment out for years with no results is not going to continue. ()

When I first started seeking treatment (I refuse to call it therapy anymore. It is treatment. The same treatment that you would expect from a medical doctor.) I was paying the PHD mental health professionals $100.00/hour when I as a Bachelor degreed Civil Engineer was only making $15.00/hour. I was paying out of pocket because I did not want anyone to know I was having mental health problems. ()

I do not know if the mental health professionals in the UK are as incompetent as the ones in the US, but here we have a serious problem. As long as patients are not allowed to sue mental health professionals for malpractice, the psychiatrists and psychologists will always be incompetent.

A Bachelor degree in nursing should be a requirement to go to graduate school to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist! Then the science of treating mental illness will start advancing leaps and bounds compared to the last 100 years. I truly believe that most of the mental health professionals in the US have a political science or business undergraduate degree. That is why they are incompetent.

[Lost_in_the_woods]

I don't know if you're angry at a friend, loved one, or patient with a DD, or a mental health professional or dissociative disorders in general??

I'm sorry for whatever is making you so mad.
You're right about the fact that there is nothing "cute" about suffering from Trauma and Dissociative Disorders. Or is it "cute" trying to muddle thru the extensive painstakingly treatments hoping for some kind of solution. None of it is "cute" it all sux.
Now, I'm uncertain if I am ranting w/ you or if I'm just reacting defensively to your rant??... maybe both (LoL)
Either way I ment no offense toward whatever you are struggling with M.W.H
If you want to chat ever, just PM me. I'm usually around Be Well my friend! and Keep Writing!

(((((((((hugs)))))

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Michael W. Harris

I will try not to be too obnoxious but having DID or any other dissociative diagnosis is not cute! Having child personalities is not cute! Not being in total control of your own mind is not cute! (I am a hypocrite for that last one since I have been "partying", aka abusing alcohol, my whole life.)

Having to chase down competent therapists/mental health professionals is not cute! It is a statement on the sophistication of the mental health college professors! If you go to an incompetent family medical doctor, you get to sue him! This bull of having Freudian psycho-therapists drag mental health treatment out for years with no results is not going to continue. ()

When I first started seeking treatment (I refuse to call it therapy anymore. It is treatment. The same treatment that you would expect from a medical doctor.) I was paying the PHD mental health professionals $100.00/hour when I as a Bachelor degreed Civil Engineer was only making $15.00/hour. I was paying out of pocket because I did not want anyone to know I was having mental health problems. ()

I do not know if the mental health professionals in the UK are as incompetent as the ones in the US, but here we have a serious problem. As long as patients are not allowed to sue mental health professionals for malpractice, the psychiatrists and psychologists will always be incompetent.

A Bachelor degree in nursing should be a requirement to go to graduate school to be a psychiatrist or a psychologist! Then the science of treating mental illness will start advancing leaps and bounds compared to the last 100 years. I truly believe that most of the mental health professionals in the US have a political science or business undergraduate degree. That is why they are incompetent.

I am sorry that you have not been able to find good mental health care.... you stated....

As long as patients are not allowed to sue mental health professionals for malpractice, the psychiatrists and psychologists will always be incompetent.

here in america anyone can sue anyone. even mentally ill can sue mental health professionals. theres a process that happens...

if at any point a mentally ill person feels their mental health treatment provider is doing something wrong/ unethical or against the law or otherwise harming them you can contact your states mental health ethics board. they will schedule a court hearing. at this court hearing the treatment provider and the person making the complaint gets to tell their side of the story. then the ethics board decides based on the evidence whether the treatment provider broke the law, was unelthical or did wrong. if the evidence says the treatment provider was wrong and did harm then they get fined and possible loss of their license so they cant be a mental health professional any more.

your location says you are in Georgia. if you do a google search called state board of clinical social workers in Georgia you will find many links for how to report a therapist, psychiatrist or psychologist in your state that has harmed you in any way.

yes I agree being mentally ill is not fun.

[ruh roh]

I don't know, either, who you are angry about that thinks d id is cute, but I agree that there's nothing cute about it or cute about having younger ones. Especially considering the trauma origin. I'm grateful that my therapist treats all insiders with dignity and respect.

did someone say it was cute??

[Luce]

Yep, DID is not 'cute'. It is painful, isolating and humiliating in so very many different ways.
However, not all of it needs to be that way. One can use it to grow and develop a strong sense of self love and self acceptance. It can aid the development of empathy, and the ability to view multiple perspectives.
And those 'cute' child alters? They play a very important role in seeking and maintaining attachment. For many systems they are needed.
But no - they are definitely not all that there is.

I can get your rant.

We are no where near cute here...total ugly, suicidal, s.h., weird, odd, depressed, anxious, crying, rejected, laffed at, made fun of, jeered at, punked, teased, skewered, disbelieved...

Not feeling cute here. The only way I can get proper treatment at the moment is to move onto the street corner...which is getting more attractive.

[Luce]

AC I sometimes wish we could hang out with you for a little while just to be with you in your youness and accept every single one of you!!!

[Michael W. Harris]

I have been trying to get help for my dissociative disorder since a divorce in 1991. I have not even found a mental health professional who will talk about it much less know how to treat it. I went to the VA Clinic in Lake City, Florida for ten years. I told the mental health professionals for ten years that I had a dissociative disorder. They would not talk to me about it much less plan a treatment regiment. They would not refer me to any one either.

I am getting the same treatment at this VA Clinic in Georgia. I know many of you have been given DID diagnoses. Why can't I find a mental health professional who will talk about this mental illness? I repetitively told the staff in Lake City that the mental illness is in their own Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel on Mental Illness! They still would not talk to me about it???

I guess that they thought that treatment was just waiting to see me switch personalities. Any idiot can do that. What a competent mental health professional would have done was to start discussing the abuses that I went though as a toddler. None of them have done that. Then a competent professional would have helped me determine all the triggers. Then helping me make my loved ones understand the mental illness so that when my alters come out they can recognize or begin to recognize the differences.

My normal personality does not play any head games. I believe I have alters that do. It makes my life miserable. I am 61 now with absolutely no intimate family or friends.

I wrote a short bio on my childhood so that the therapists in Lake City would know how badly I was traumatized during my toddler years. I mistakenly thought they would get me some help after reading it. I recently sent the bio to the Sidran Institute and to The Dr. Colin Ross Institute. I was hoping that one of these Institutes would give me a dissociative diagnosis. I have not heard anything.

This is where my anger originates.

[Luce]

Unfortunately many clinicians still view this disorder as controversial, and will not touch it with a ten foot pole. Some won't because they don't believe in it, others won't because they haven't had training in it and feel like it's 'over their head'.
I live in a small city (70,000) and have only just now found a psychologist who can work with me and my DID after well over a decade of searching. I need to see a psychiatrist to get the diagnosis reconfirmed, and my T told me yesterday they will fly in a psych from another city to do the assessment as there is not one in my city who has enough experience with DID to do it. That's crazy, right. With an incidence of around 1% of the population it is appalling that the psychs don't have their **** together about this disorder yet.
My T has only minimal experience with DID, but she has had training around structural dissociation as she has recently trained in EMdR therapy, and here training in dissociation is a requirement of becoming an EMDR therapist. I have read that is starting to be a requirement in the US as well. So maybe that is an approach you can try... seek out an EMDR therapist and ask them if they have knowledge abut structural dissociation. My T isn't all that experienced with DID but she is very good, and she is picking things up quickly.

[amandalouise]

sidran and Dr ross will not be able to give you a DID diagnosis by mail or email. you have to actually enter their inpatient or day treatment programs in texas or california. for that to happen you contact them and ask them if they have any openings in their program. they will let you know if they are taking on new patients right now or when. then when they have the space available you enter the program. out patient require you to have someplace to stay while attending their program for example you wont be able to travel back and forth from Texas to Georgia every day to go to treatment and go home again. diagnosis and treatment is a long term thing not something that is one hour long and then done with it.if you go to the colin ross institue website and click on treatment you will find the information you need to be able to attend the treatment program by Dr Ross.

Originally Posted by Luce

AC I sometimes wish we could hang out with you for a little while just to be with you in your youness and accept every single one of you!!!

Thanks Luce...just saw that. Why does the word saw look weird? A saw cuts. Is it the same? Hoogle later.

[Luce]

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

Thanks Luce...just saw that. Why does the word saw look weird? A saw cuts. Is it the same? Hoogle later.

I bet its because some inner one in you thought about associating with another human being and thought Oh hell no! and then automatically associated sawing any potential human relationship in half!