Do people really ever "completely" believe they have DID?

Hi everyone.

I was diagnosed with having DID, PTSD and MDD about three year ago. I have seen two outpatient psychologists, one psychiatrist, and quite a few inpatient psychologists and psychiatrists since then. There's never been much of a question, the only thing is a couple inpatient psychiatrists said the MDD had psychotic features.

Nevertheless, I still don't completely believe I have DID. I mean, I know there's really no other explanations for a ton of things... I think as it's become a little easier to control I don't have as many overt signs and so I take that to mean... well maybe I never really did completely fit the DID diagnosis. Despite that I still lose time and other obvious things that I won't deny. Also I have severe derealization 24/7, though it gets better and worse over certain periods it is always at least moderate-severe. I experience a lot of blending also.

I guess denial is part of the process, I'm almost in a mode of not denying it or accepting it either way. Surely others have experienced this.

Thank you.

I experience a lot of what you describe and also doubt myself on a daily basis. The blending, the derealization, the confusing thoughts, it's a lot to handle . But, at the same time, I think we might be trying to deny the disorder because that would make things easier. Life would be so much easier if we didn't have to live day-to-day in the turmoil. So maybe it's not that the diagnosis doesn't fit and you're questioning that, maybe you would just rather it not be happening to you all together. Isn't that how DID works? Taking the chaos and putting it somewhere else so that "you" don't have to deal with it anymore? I would think that it's extremely common for that to happen to people with DID rather than Borderline or Bipolar people not believing their diagnosis, since DID works more as a separation from the self and the situations that cause stress. The diagnosis could cause stress and anxiety ("What if I'm really faking it?") and if it does, I could understand why we would be quick to second guess ourselves.

That all came out kind of confusing, but I hope that I got my point across and could be of some help hehe .

That makes a lot of sense, thanks.

I think this is coming from something that happened. I have self harmed some in the past, and even though I don't remember most of it, there was obviously tons of turmoil going on. Recently I found a burn on myself which would have been hard to accidentally get, because of where it is and what it looks like. I thought things were going much better in general, and I still think they are - so it came kind of "out of nowhere", although I just started seeing a new therapist for the first time in a few months and it probably has something to do with that. But I don't feel a lot of conscious turmoil right now.

I've been living in a kind of grudgingly accepting state for several years and this kind of made me do a double take. It's happened before but the impact lessens over time I guess until something else happens to throw it in my face. Even though, realistically, it happens all the time but not with harmful behavior like this.

Also this started a cascade at looking at the past few years... and remembering for example my psychiatrist having to give me directions repeatedly to his office for months... not recognizing the office at all but remembering him. I mean, I was all sorts of out of it. It's great to not be anymore for a majority of the time - at least not to that level. I guess I do accept it on a lot of levels just not completely. You're right, I'm very good at denial

Last thing, I think my MDD symptoms have gotten somewhat better and so since I'm not preoccupied with suicide anymore (like I was for 2+ years), I'm noticing the dissociation more since I'm actually starting to care about participating in the world outside my head. My psychiatrist and psychologist both think that my derealization is much worse because I am switching a lot less and it's "growing pains". I do hope they are right, but it's almost harder for me to live with the severe derealization than the time loss.

Now that I've gotten sufficiently off topic, thanks again.

Yeah I get like that too not about DID, more about Bipolar since I can go a long time between manic and depressive episodes. Can't really deny DID since I can remember it, but something a month or longer ago is easier to deny.

Freud

Everyone I've known who has DID has at the very least gone through a long time where denial would creep in regularly.

I think part of the problem is that there are heaps of people who don't believe DID exists - I'm sure that there would be at least one person that each of us knows who deny DID exists. So how are we meant to always believe that we have it, when there is always someone telling us it's not real?

since DID works more as a separation from the self and the situations that cause stress. The diagnosis could cause stress and anxiety ("What if I'm really faking it?") and if it does, I could understand why we would be quick to second guess ourselves.

I think this sums up what I feel about it entirely. In fact, as I have been going from the extreme of being convinced of these parts inside me to being in complete denial about the, my husband said, "Well, isn't that to be expected, due to the nature of what you've told me DID is like?" I was like, "Well, yeah, it seems common...but it doesn't mean I'm not some how faking it or deluding myself."

Even though my phone session this morning was full of minor blankouts, loud voices, near takeovers with urges to lash out, inner restrictions that meant I could not share with the therapist what was being said and felt inside (or had to negotiate in order to be "allowed"), headaches, fuzzy/retreating/pushed back sensations...I still cannot fully believe it in this present moment. It still feels perfectly possible that I have created it somehow. I guess the answer is, technically, I did create this (unconsciously) and so it makes sense for me to feel it is "made up." But, as I told a friend on another forum, if you accidentally hurt yourself and severed a finger, you wouldn't say you "made" a finger. You would just say you got injured. So, I'm trying really hard to not worry about exactly what and how it is true and just remind myself that I got injured. Maybe I was injury-prone (predisposed to dissociative stumbling, so-to-speak), but somewhere, I got injured, something got cut off. No one would go to an amputee and accuse them of faking it...it's only because these injuries can be so invisible to the outside world that it gets very confusing. Plus, if any of you are like me, there is a long history of invalidation that goes with abuse and neglect (being told you are reacting too much, your needs or feelings are unreasonable, your perception of yourself or the abuser is not true). I'd be surprised if anyone in those sort of circumstances did have unwavering belief in themselves...

I learned about my DID two years ago and I still wake up and forget that I have it, sometimes
I'll go a day (if everyone is quietly tiptoeing inside) going lalala hey wait why do I have to go to therapy?
Then I get a loud HEY! and I have to remember I have DID again.

I went through a lot of denial at first and I still have denial sometimes.
All I need is a quick HELLO! from my alters to remind me. It was harder to snap me out of it at first,
I'd be looking at pages of stuff I didn't remember writing, movies from my alters, and talking to people
who mentioned things I didn't remember doing, and I'd STILL be denying it in face of all the evidence!

However every time I see or hear of someone who doubts it, I doubt it too.
Which is quite silly sometimes. I don't know if my alters doubt it or not

I still have moments when I think it is all in my imagination. That usually happens when I am having an "all quiet" day and all insiders are hiding, until I remember what frightful experience or shocking new information caused the all quiet. I had one of those experiences this week, in fact.

i seem to end up with a lot of "blending" so there is less external "evidence", but not none. i feel like not having what i'd call full DID with separate distinct external people with their own lives has made my dissociation harder to process in some ways, but from what other people here have said denial seems to happen even when its clearly obvious in all sorts of ways.

i find myself thinking "if i made this up why can't i just snap out of it?" "i don't lack control over my actions at times, i'm just acting like this and making exuses for myself" "i'm making it up/self-deluding" "its all me, i just keep changing" i think the last one might argue against itself somehow, (requires some degree of fragmentation.)

for some reason i feel bad about saying i think i have some sort of dissociative problem (like guilty about it, as if i was lying or attention seeking) but when i have explained things honestly, even just describing in terms of feelings, the word "dissociation" has been thrown back at me so many times.

then i worry that doing stuff like posting here is just feeding into my self-deluding behaviour. lol. (so how do i explain how the changes and different "versions" of me aren't something new, and don't stop happening when i stop being "deluded"?! )

yakusoku wrote:I guess the answer is, technically, I did create this (unconsciously) and so it makes sense for me to feel it is "made up." But, as I told a friend on another forum, if you accidentally hurt yourself and severed a finger, you wouldn't say you "made" a finger.

ive been feeling a bit bleugghh today, and this made me laugh, so thanks

Una+ wrote:I still have moments when I think it is all in my imagination. That usually happens when I am having an "all quiet" day and all insiders are hiding, until I remember what frightful experience or shocking new information caused the all quiet. I had one of those experiences this week, in fact.

i feel like im having one of those days - and yes there has been stuff through the week that's been really upsetting for some, and a few nights ago something weird happened, but separate post i think, probably tomorrow.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I'm having problems being present and thinking clearly right now so I may add more later.

P