How do you talk about DID with your T?

We have all (finally) agreed that restarting therapy is going to be a good thing for us, but we're to scared to phone the place. I don't want to go there and sit there in 'silence' (aka, everyone inside arguing and giving me a massive headache about what we should/shouldn't say) again, or worse, lie to cover up details of what's really wrong again.

I don't know how to even bring it up in therapy. Can anyone share their experiences with this? We really need some help/advice or even an idea on how to go about this.

We've been considering telling our T as well, but its still a bit of a debate at the moment as most of us vote 'no' but the ones who vote 'yes' believe it would really benefit us and are also the ones who do the talking and the homework. The main hesitance we have, is that our T will decide that we're too much too handle, or out of her range of expertise, and she'll move us onto someone else aka. ditch us. Her website states she works with dissociative disorders but who knows. It's a huge deal because we can't exactly take it back, if we tell her and she says she can't treat us. And we're worried too, that she'll try to move us towards integration which we absolutely do not want.

If we do tell her, we're going to write it in a letter (already written) and hand it to her at the beginning of our session and have her read it. We considered emailing it to her, but it'd be good to see her on-the-spot reaction.

I am at a loss. We (namely Amy) phoned the office and left a message. She nearly said the wrong name in the message, plus continued to say we the entire time. Something tells me she's already going to know what is going on a little bit. I wish to phone back and correct this, but then they will really notice something is wrong due to our voice sounding different on the machine. The call went something like this:

"Hello? Um... our name is -blank- and we'd like to see if we can restart therapy here... I dont really know how this message thing works but yah, our therapist is -blank- so call us back."

Then she hung up without giving our phone number. So now when we go (if we go and the message isn't deleted as a prank call) we will have quite a bit of explaining to do I'm sure.

I am still at a loss on how to even start this line of conversation.


"Hey T, so yah, there's these people in my head...."

I hope you guys don't mind me saying this, but as a personal friend, I couldn't help but laugh. That's Amy, for sure.

It seems, too, that this little situation gives you guys a way to start a discussion about DID. I'm not so sure if Amy should do the talking, though.

-Jeff

Making the second call to get this all started monday. wish us luck

Good luck! If your therapist doesn't respond well, I know that would be very hard and hurtful, but there are therapists out there who can and want to help you, and you deserve to be seeing one of them. I find therapy can be very beneficial with the right therapist, and I feel it's worth the struggle to find one. Anyway, I hope it goes well!

Thank you for the luck and wishes. i phoned in and my stomach has been full of butterflies since (she hasn't phoned back yet. pppppppaaaaaannnnnnniiiiiiicccccc )

Just an idea - have you any reports you can send ahead? Diagnosis report if you have one, for example?

-B

we don't. this T worked with the Other (our last host). most of the fear is the whole new for us experience (we hid during therapy and some lies were told to cover up our existence ) and we're scared we won't be well received (even though i keep getting told it is an irrational fear). We are hoping to possibly receive an official diagnosis. I was told that this T was the one who suggested she may have DID, but it's going to be the first time we've told someone about us with the power to possibly hospitalize us. im so nervous.


The more we talk about why Alex is so afraid, the more it is looking to be boiling down to denial issues. I keep telling her to calm down and it will either be fine or we'll find someone who can understand but who listens to me? No one.

It is a daunting time opening up to someone new about the DID when you are struggling with denial yourself. You probably have a good point there. If you were (all) very sure of yourselves and comfortable in your diagnosis it wouldn't really matter if this therapist believed or not. If s/he didn't you'd all just walk away and find a new one. But disbelief is a big knock when it is already kicking around your brain. It is a big leap of faith. But it sounds like you are all looking out for Alex and will be there whatever happens. Fingers crossed anyway.

-B