First Time Talking About This With A Professional

We have for a long time suspected that my fiance may currently (or at least at one time) had DID. This week is our first appointment with a professional, and we really don't know what to expect. How will they know if that's what he has? How do professionals address this question?

If any of you would share what your experiences have been with your first time talking to someone, we would appreciate it. He is SO nervous!

Hi erinkateri! Welcome back to the DID Forum. As you may already know there are many threads here about getting a diagnosis and finding a suitable therapist and starting work. Please look around. Try the search box just above the list of threads, or use your favorite external search engine and include the search term "site:www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/"

For diagnosis of the dissociative disorders there is a large selection of high quality assessment tools. Some are self-report "tests" that the client does. Others are structured interviews that a trained professional administers, then produces a written report, sometimes with data graphs. Start with the Dissociative Experiences Scale (see link below).

erinkateri wrote:If any of you would share what your experiences have been with your first time talking to someone, we would appreciate it. He is SO nervous!

It is totally normal to be extremely nervous. When it was my first time I had no idea that what I was experiencing was DID. I was terrified that I was going crazy and I was struggling with toxic shame around so much of the stuff I had to relate: flashbacks, hearing intrusive voices, seeing intrusive visual images in my mind, hallucinations (other people would change right before my eyes!), extremely disturbing body memories, possession experiences, the works. Now all this is familiar to me and I know I am not alone.

For me the first session with a therapist was the hardest thing I ever did in my entire life. After that, it gets easier and then pleasurable. Now I look forward to sessions with my therapist.

To lower the anxiety do plenty of self-care things to relax. Eat wholesome food, drink enough water, exercise, get enough sleep, and do something enjoyable.

I read your previous thread from 3 months ago, Do Alters Just "Go Away"??, and I just want to add that from what you described there your fiance's alters could have gone dormant (asleep, dead) inside, or they could have undergone a spontaneous fusion. Although the subjective experience is similar, these are very different events. A therapist who has experience working with DID will be able to help your fiance discover which event has occurred. One rubric the therapist may use is this:

Una wrote:Back in 1984 Richard Kluft published a 6-point metric for identifying a successful final fusion, as follows. Three stable months of:

1. Continuity of contemporary memory
2. Absence of overt behavioral signs of multiplicity
3. Subjective sense of unity
4. Absence of alter personalities on hypnotic re-exploration [hypnosis now largely abandoned]
5. Modification of transference phenomena consistent with the bringing together of personalities
6. Clinical evidence that the unified patient’s self-representation includes acknowledgment of attitudes and awareness which were previously segregated in separate personalities

DID Forum: Dissociative Experiences Scale

Thanks so much! Glad to know it gets easier after the first time. He'll be so relieved to hear that!