DIDs/DDNOSs befriending DIDs/DDNOSs

This question is specific to DIDs & DDNOSs, but any/all comments will be greatly appreciated

Has anyone ever asked their T, or has anyone ever experienced on their own, inter-acting with another DID/DIDNOS on a face to face friendship basis? Did you find it productive or counter-productive to your therapy and why?

Would you like the opportunity to attend a T monitored Dissociative Disorders Support group if there was one in your area?

Thanks loads for your time in responding.

Our best friend is DID, as well as we are. It is amazing to have someone to meet that none of you are worried about switching and we all understand each other. We understand each other's experiences and between us we have a running joke that we don't need anyone else because we're a whole group just between us. Little and one of her youngest are best friends and they like to come out together and play and wear tiaras and draw. They even call each other to say goodnight sometimes! It's adorable and they feel like someone else understands the whole young child in an adult body. I think it's very productive in that we feel less alone and honestly, we love them all and any relationship where you (healthily) love and feel loved is going to be productive and conductive to a good life, I think.

- Nin

Most of our friends online are multiple, in some way, shape or form. It's a wonderful thing! I wish we could meet more of them face to face. One of our very first friends "in real life" has a small system, as does our SO, but neither identify as having DID. Still, they're multiple, and it's a blast.

I think it can be good or bad. One friend of mine that I no longer speak to was multiple as well, and that was good for a while, but it eventually stopped working out. It didn't help that she assumed that any experience not like hers was not valid, but of /course/ that isn't going to be most people's view.

On the other side of the spectrum, one of my closest friends is multiple, and it is wonderful. : ) I feel like they wont judge my experience and they can understand what I'm going through better than almost anyone else.

So it can be good or bad. I think just like any relationship. ^^

My girlfriend actually had DID. It was nice to finally have someone who understood us. Unfortunately, there was a lot of drama, sometimes, and there was the always the risk of triggering the other person by accident. I have another friend with DID, as well, and he's said that we've helped him to integrate his system (as that's his final goal). Again, it's just nice to know someone who understands all of this. Even if they can't relate to individual experiences or alters, it's hard for people without DID/DDNOS to even begin to grasp what it's like.
~Rage

I personally haven't had the chance to build a relationship with anyone who has DID, at least that I am aware of.
I don't know if it would be a bad or good thing to have a type of group therapy or not. I do know that coming here and talking with others that can understand our struggles is extremely beneficial, so I would tend to think group therapy would be as well.
What an interesting idea, wonder if those types of groups exist?

Offline no... that would just be a pipedream in the UK. There is a support group up north of the country whereas I'm south so... a little too far to travel perhaps I wish there was one around here, I'd at least give it a go!

B

There original post asked two very different questions. One was about relationships with other multiples. The other was about face-to-face support groups.

Re relationships: my experience has been mixed. On the one hand, we get each other in ways that few other people can achieve. On the other hand, we can trigger each other. Our interactions tend to be very intense, very activating.

Re support groups: it depends greatly on the make up of the group and the interpersonal skills of the person (therapist?) who leads it. Some support groups can promote staying "stuck" in hopelessness, dysfunction, victim mode or can be highly prescriptive, dictatorial, even retraumatizing. This is a potential problem also of online groups, especially those conducted in the relative secrecy behind access control walls. Few support groups, online or off, can hope to match the therapeutic value of what we have developed here on this DID forum.

Both my boyfriend and a friend of ours have DID. It makes for some interesting conversations when they're together. For example, when Kiddo says something perverted and Eddie (our friend's female alter) responded all grossed out (usually in unison with me, haha). Neither seems able to trigger the other, either, which is good.

And I have alter-egos, I don't have DDNOS, but both of them seem able to relate well to me as well when I 'switch'.

As for a support group, I don't know about that. I don't think Johann would appreciate that sort of thing. The three of us spending time together as a group and helping each other is considered our support group. c:

Many thanks to everyone who has responded to this post. It was important for me to get some feedback bc 20 years ago I had the great pleasure of befriending another client of my then T who encouraged the relationship between Val & me. Val as a school teacher who also had DID and we would visit for several hours every week when I would make the 3 hour trip to therapy. Many times I would stay over night in a hotel in that city so we could go out to eat & talk for hours. In between sessions there were countless phone calls. Of, course we didn't have the internet back then that would have afforded us forums like this one - & I LUV this forum & I'm grateful that I found it - but to me, nothing can match the deepest level of understanding that you can give & get then when you look into the eyes of somewhere who shares your DX.

I have brought this up to my T many times & it gets me nowhere. It's been a year or more now & all that I have received are empty promises that he is puting together a DID support group & when he gets 5 people who are willing to participate, we will move forward with it.

I know that the possibility of triggering or being triggered would be present, but that's probably less likely to happen (at least it was in regard to my relationship with Val) than being triggered by singletons or even by the television for that matter. My opinion is that two dissociatives would be less likely to trigger each other bc they are more likely to be more careful than just anybody.

I'm really not all that happy with my T's decision & I cannot seem to let this go. Any advice on how to make him see just how important this is to me? Just bc Ts are Ts, it doesn't mean they are correct in every situation...does it?