new therapist at last

Hi all,

Well I've finally got to the top of the waiting list and have therapy starting this week

I read a post on here that said it's not very good if the therapist just wants to talk to the host all the time (is that the physical person who the therapist assumes is sitting in the chair?), and that the alters/people have to be included. I don't know yet if the therapist has any experience of DD so somehow I'll have to ask that.

As far as I've worked out from previous therapy and a lot of thinking, underneath all my alter people is something very small and scared that almost never sees the light of day and yet affects everything. I'm not sure if that would be an alter I never looked at, or it's actually me and all these other people have rallied round to protect it/cover it up. So in my previous therapy that little bit is enormously difficult to get at, if not impossible, and the therapist unknowingly ends up talking to a combination of whichever alter person is around at the time and someone who presents as me. Then afterwards, whichever was the alter person who went discusses the session with one of the other alter people.

So I'm not sure how to get the best out of it when I'm in this permanent state of experiencing everything one-removed, and only remembering it through one of the other alter people and that's if they remember it. But then if I look at it that the therapist could be treating one of them who has problems, their past is different to mine so they'd need to be treated individually. Not sure how that would work.

And there's only two who really agree to therapy, and that's because it's 'F' alter person's therapy and not mine. Or is he going because underneath he knows I need therapy? He doesn't act on my behalf and acts on his own, so I'm not sure the relationship between me and him. To him, he thinks we both go to therapy but at different places because we're different people, so he'll say to one of the others 'how's collonges?' and the other one will say something like 'alright, counselling is going ok I think' so then there ends up with two different therapies going on, and yet when I'm in the session F or a couple of others are there as well at points. Does this make any sense at all? It's kind of including whoever I am somehow but only through one of the alter people, backwards. So it's like a big circle going round.

There was a thread about what do you want from therapy, and I suppose for me it would be to get rid of the fear of everything that makes my life dysfunctional. Well it just about functions, but only with some kind of communal input and even then it's scary.

I'm looking forward to it anyway, because otherwise I have no help at all and I'm struggling. I suppose I'l just see what her approach is and hope she has at least some understanding, rather than the previous person who really didn't want to take any of my people into account and that made a mess So we shall see

It's my understanding that the T should not be calling out your alters. If they show up on their own, that's a little different.

For the first appointment, maybe the first few appointments, have a meeting with your alters and set some ground rules. If it were me, i'd ask them not to come out during therapy just yet because you want to get a feel for how this T works. You also need to build a strong, trusting, theraputic relationship and that's hard to do if your alters are fronting. Tell them in the meantime to watch through your eyes so they wont be left out and they can see what's going on. But you are the one that needs to be up front and in control. Make that one of your rules and let them know they'll have their chance, you promise, but they need to be patient.

Hopefully the T will have experience dealing with DID and can guide you on your journey to healing by working with all of you. I think when the T works with the host first it helps others to get ready.

I was really angry about a memory, I mean super angry. I couldn't handle so Josh, my anger alter handled the whole session and I was gone. The following session, she remarked on how angry I was. I explained that it wasn't me it was my angry alter. She said that with him fronting and you not being present or at least co-conscious, no work got done. She was a little miffed at me because it was a wasted session. I don't remember any of it. So it was a waste. The only way Josh can heal is if I heal along with him and learn to work with him.

Hope this helps. Hope your T is good and works really well with DID.

I agree calling out alter in therapy isn't a good idea. A good therapist will take a mental note of what's going on. If the person wants to get and understanding of their diagnosis once they notice their alter then the therapist should be there to answer questions, if not do your own research.

Hi there

I get the that the therapist has to be dealing with all of us. I probably didn't explain properly, I've never had a therapist call out an alter. I have had one therapist ask to see one of them, but he was enormously resistant and spoke directly to me to say so. That's the only time he ever has, although we do sort of 'know' eachother. So there's almost no chance they'll take over, but they'll probably be there.

I can't hold a meeting with them all because apart from that one occasion above I don't speak to them, and half of them are in a different 'town', and the other half would feel called away from their own life, for what reason? (they'd think) They just get on with doing whatever they do. There must be some kind of communication between 'me' and them I suppose, but I don't know exactly how that works underneath. Generally I'm so far in the background that when I'm required to be present, like in a therapy session, I'm a bit lost.

To go off onto a mad metaphor, in the uk everyone knows what the national trust is. It looks after old buildings and parks and forests and things, but it's made up of a huge number of people who work there. You can't make a phone call and say 'I want to speak to the national trust' and you get a person on the other end who's called 'Fred', and you say 'no, I want to speak to the *actual* national trust'. You can't, because it isn't a person with a voice, it only exists in name and you can only speak to a representative of it, who themselves never speak to 'the actual national trust'. The 'actual national trust' is just an empty room without the people in and to keep asking to speak to it won't get anyone very far. I think that's closest to how I see my system working, and if a therapist tries to speak solely to who they think 'I' am then the therapy gets stuck until the others are included and then everyone's happy

They don't jump in and start talking themselves, the reason I say it's F's therapy is because he'll be the one to digest it all afterwards in his own way. I assume anyway, judging from the past, unless that changes and it's one of the others that deal with their own particular issue. It might be I'm so stuck behind some of them I've lost my own identity

That's just what happens with me anyway

Did you have your first session? How did it work out?

Hey there Nondescript, thanks for asking

The date moved so I got in a tizwaz about the delay, but I've now started therapy and I think she's pretty good. She didn't say how much DD experience she has, but she seemed to understand what I meant so I didn't need to explain having lots of people around. It looked like it was familiar to her and she accepted it, and why they're there, and also understood that it made life complicated and a big effort at times. I didn't dare ask what she thinks it is. I never do in case they say 'oh it's just you disappearing into your own little world'

It looks like I can deal half with my upbringing and my stuff, and half with the alters. So I'm really chuffed they can be included

It was F who dealt with it afterwards and a weird thing happened, he couldn't wait to be out and say 'she's great!'. It was (for the first time for me) a bit of a fight between me trying to digest the session and him trying to take over. I was trying to push it back, it's been such a long time since I was consciously thinking as me about something, but it just delayed his appearance and I could feel him in the background, or sortof a little bit ahead in time. I managed to get a bit written in a notebook about how the session went but it was like both of us were there swapping all the time and distracting me from writing. He ended up writing the last bit and all was back to normalish.

It usually takes most of the week to remember bits and pieces and plan for the next time, so it's like disturbed dust for a bit. I definitely think it's the right thing though. Very pleased to have got a weekly session

That sounds really promising, especially that you can deal with more than one 'set' of issues, and that you and F shared. I'm happy for you.