Why is diagnosing/treatment so scary?

We are discussing telling our psych team about the DID. I have been looking online about the criteria for diagnosis, treatment, etc. The consensus seems that MH professionals want this to go away. They talk like it's a curse to have to bare. I don't feel this way. I don't want to silence them. They have been silences too long.

What are some of your stories about this? The tests they dork figure it out sound scary as he'll. One site said they intentionally put you in a situation that is traumatic enough to hypothetically switch to a different alter. Most of us are sick of being scared. Why would we intentionally put ourselves in that state when we work so hard to stay out of it.

I dunno. We are pretty torn on how to proceed with this. Any suggestions would be helpful. I think we need to discuss this with people who have experienced diagnosing and therapy. Thanks in advance.

Could you just say "I think I have DID" and see how they respond? Their responses will tell you very quickly if you need to replace them.

I told my first (and former) therapist I had absolutely no doubt I have DID, and his response was confusing, to say the least. I am so, so glad to be working with my current therapist.

I agree with Una+, you should first see how they react to you suggesting that you might have DID. That will help you judge whether or not you should pursue therapy for DID with them, or a different therapist. I know one of my former therapists was very driven for integration, but I refused. I've had my alters for so long, one of them has been around over half of my life. It's hard and scary for me to imagine a world without them, without their voices and differences and support. Granted, there are good reasons for integration, such as if a person loses time and their alter continuously tries to commit suicide or harm themselves, but if you have a system and you're aware of the control you have, I see no reason for you to need to integrate. I know my triggers, I know my control limits, I know my alters, and I have a system that works. I like who I am and how I am, it makes me unique. If there's ever a problem with my alters staying separate to where integration would truly be best and benefit me, then I'll seek that therapy. But until then, as long as I know my limits and am not a harm to myself or others, (or at least know how to make myself harmless) then I'll stay the way I am. If you prefer to have alters, then I say keep them. Therapy can help troubled alters (one of mine is suicidal), but the therapist has to be willing to treat you how you want, and not aim for integration. I hope your's reacts well to anything you decide to say, and that his/her mind is open to not integrate the alters.
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Sandra, host, 20
Kat, 23
Rain, 22
L.C., 16
Cassie, 8
Ray, 10
"Hannibal", ?

I guwas what I don't understand how some people think that triggering a traumatic experience is a good idea. They are here for a reason as an outcome of something traumatic. Mine are edgy anyway. I feel their emotions and I think it would feel horrible to feel so many broken hearts.

I think I am going to have to think about this as well as the others. It seems that I have a big red caution sign in my head. I suppose having DID, it's really the first time that indont need the validation. I'm thinking that unless something goes terribly wrong, we can all get treated for our other issues.

We just are not in consensus about this. I was hoping to tell my team soon, but injust can't with the overwhelming anxiety from us all.

I'm not sure if anyone has read my blog, but I am a temporary host if you will. Our original (or latest... To be determined) had to step away for awhile to get healthy. I haven't had to deal with this feeling for a long time. S was completely unaware up until lately that we even existed and now that she finally has her answer, she needed a break.

I just don't see how our brain function can be allthat bad. We truly do care about eachother. We are trying to leave S out of this.

Thank you for all your help. We don't know where we would be without all of you.

My diagnosis was done by my T that I had already been seeing for an unrelated recent traumatic experience (actually, I was working my way through that thing pretty well on my own with the help of my nifty dissociation tools and it was my H and his T, now mine, who insisted I needed help). He has never once tried to purposefully trigger me. He suspected DID early on, but I said no to time loss, so he put it away until my dissociative symptoms were obvious to me, then observed a bit and brought it back up to me in May, when we decided to use that as the diagnosis. He doesn't, in general, like labels, but it was important to me to be able to have information, to have something to call it, to kind of "see the path ahead," so-to-speak. What I've read about the screening tests is not that they are purposefully triggering, but there is potential to get triggered. I mean, if you have a certain sort of abuse in your past and you always avoid talking and/or thinking about it (or don't even know about it yourself, because your parts hold the knowledge or feelings about it), and then someone asks you, "Have you ever been abused," and asks you probing questions about it...that could be really triggering. I don't think the goal is necessarily to CAUSE you to switch in front of them, but to see if you have the sort of background that is usually associated with DID.

In my case, the only screening tests I have done have been my own research by myself in the safety of my own home. I've had a lot of intrusions, and some therapy time loss, but not a lot of obvious full-switches where T knew someone else was running the show and I was completely absent. He could use hypnosis or purposefully try to trigger me to switch, but he wouldn't do anything that pushy. Maybe the first thing to do, before going in for diagnosis, is talk about your concerns about the process. There have been times I wondered if my T was triggering something on purpose (i.e. certain transference reactions we both knew I was having) and he emphatically said he was not. Maybe the thing to do is find someone to do your diagnosis who doesn't believe in that sort of a pushy approach. There are Ts and Ps out there who will be gentle with you and I'm sure most will respect your needing to know the process ahead of time.

Thank you so much for the reply. It put our mind at ease a bit. The factual information that is available is really scary. I could tell that most of it was written by someone who has DID. All the information talked like it was a dibilitating disease and that it has to be stopped. That was enough to make us want to hide. It seems that we have been put through enough involuntarily, we wouldn't voluntarily sign up for more.

Thank you so much for shining a not-so-negative take on it.

smflottemesch wrote:I guwas what I don't understand how some people think that triggering a traumatic experience is a good idea. They are here for a reason as an outcome of something traumatic. Mine are edgy anyway. I feel their emotions and I think it would feel horrible to feel so many broken hearts.

Even when you don't feel them, their hearts are broken and they are suffering. But the good news is that now you are aware of their suffering, their broken hearts can be healed.

Most authorities on healing trauma agree that healing requires trauma to be processed so that the traumatized parts of you stop reliving the trauma and instead experience it as a remembered story, without all the somatic and emotional power of the original. Effective processing does require triggering, but it should be done in a planned and controlled way at at time when you are able to cope with it. Provoking a surprise flashback is not therapeutic.

smflottemesch wrote:I'm thinking that unless something goes terribly wrong, we can all get treated for our other issues.

Yes, that approach is the core of all good therapies for DID. It just helps for the therapist to know that these other issues are occurring in the context of DID.

Provoking flashback might not be therapeutic but it does confirm the presence of alters if we switch because of that. Some therapist require to see the patient switching to believe a self-diagnosis of DID. I once had a therapist (my first trauma-therapist) that I disliked very much because she tried to pull the same joke on me. Nothing happened (nothing she noticed anyway) in 8 months time. I just had an alter presenting who looked like she could take the triggers and the non-safeness, made her think nothing's wrong and I'm lying, made me very sad and troubled and the rest very divided, up to hating her. It's not the right approach. For me, it was enough to see that she doesn't believe me, wanting to test my statements.
They should first make you feel safe and believed and then establish a trusting relationship from there, and then they might trigger alters or traumas although I think that it would be best to just work with the part that's presenting. Parts will often present their self eventually, or speak for someone else, if they know the therapist can be trusted and helpful.
And no, it's definitely not always good to randomly shout, "I think I have DID"! You dont wanna tell that to someone who cant handle that information in a safe and trusting way. I learned this the hard way and it didn't spare time at all. The right thing to do would be to talk about symptoms, slowly, when you feel like you can trust that specific therapist with that specific information. It doesn't have to be a specialized therapist to believe you and help you on your way. I hope you'll figure out how you're gonna handle it and I hope you're safe.

TheCollective wrote:The right thing to do would be to talk about symptoms, slowly, when you feel like you can trust that specific therapist with that specific information.

Trust is important but sometimes not enough. I would rather know sooner than later that a service provider is out of their depth. An otherwise qualified therapist who is unwilling to make a diagnosis may in fact be unable to make a diagnosis. All too often when we just talk about symptoms, avoiding questions of diagnosis, we get misdiagnosed with some other condition that shares some symptoms with DID. This may be worse than no treatment at all.

Even if you say "I think I have DID", they still have to confirm it, either by seeing you switch or by recognizing the depth with which you describe your symptoms over time. So in my opinion it is a painfully disclosing, unnecessary and possibly dangerous detour to yell it out.
By describing symptoms accurately, you are not only helping the therapist see it, but also gaining more insight into your own symptoms.
I do agree it can be very bad to be misdiagnosed, especially if the host has no clue about the others. But I got misdiagnosed, because of the shouting it out and then not being able to explain my complex symptoms in there due to dissociative states I would get in because of so much stress from needing a diagnose among other things. Things like authoritative figures(therapists), alts who dont believe all this, or dont want me to tell, etc..
I dont even have an official diagnosis (yet?) and we talk about my alts, depression etc and dissociation-symptoms all the time. I dont feel invalidated anymore. It's not the diagnosis that made me feel safer, but validation, patience, empathy and true understanding for me. Those things may be found within a diagnose, but dont necessarily have to. But they can also come with the right sincere communication with your therapist.
Long story short, I guess imo it all depends on how you talk about which symptoms then.
Peace.