First therapy session

I get free counseling sessions at school so I decided to sign up for one. Now i'm really nervous about it and don't know if should bring up DID or not. I've never been to any kind of counseling in my life and am considering just canceling it! Any advice is welcome. If i bring up DID can they like institutionalize me or something?

Nobleman wrote:I get free counseling sessions at school so I decided to sign up for one. Now i'm really nervous about it and don't know if should bring up DID or not. I've never been to any kind of counseling in my life and am considering just canceling it! Any advice is welcome. If i bring up DID can they like institutionalize me or something?

No you can't be institutionalized!!! Maybe wait and see how things go and then gradually bring up the DID? Have you ever been actually diagnosed with it? From my experience therapists tend to go ape $#%^ whenever a client wants to figure out what's wrong with them, i.e., diagnose themselves. So I tend to bring up my concerns very lightly now, in a round about way. But it's up to you. Take things one step at a time

I think it depends on the location of the counseling. No, they would not institutionalize you unless perhaps you present as completely incoherent and a danger to yourself or others! If they thought you were in immediate danger of a suicide attempt, they could put you in a psych ward for a few days. The following is my suggestion but only you yourself can assess whether it fits for you or not. Divided and others will have a slightly different take.

I'm assuming you're in college? Whether you are or not, if you're sure you have DID, and I think your signature indicates you know you are sure, I think it would be safe to divulge "I believe I have dissociative identity disorder" even at the first session. I would bring the following evidence: (1) your response to the DES and the printout of your score [http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic65082.html] and [2] your own awareness of your parts and a descriptive printout of these. If you know some awareness of any trauma that contributed to the DID, you should list that as well. It would be a stretch for most clinicians to believe that your evidence is somehow bogus.

That being said, some therapists will have had little exposure to dissociative disorders and may not know what to do. That should be okay as long as they don't have some entrenched belief that it doesn't exist or something! If so, insist on speaking to another therapist. They might need to consult with the most senior member of the clinical staff or an outside source. If it's a larger college, they will surely have dealt with a student with DID before.

A lot would depend on the personal traits of the first therapist you meet, but I believe far more would rest on how you present yourself. If you are able to center yourself and walk into any therapist's office calmly, confident that you know at least that you have DID, aware that it's not a tough biologically based mental illness but a coping mechanism used in early childhood to deal with severe abuse or neglect, it would be difficult not to accept you as you present. They would still want to assess you. I would reinforce internally your own awareness that the DID is not your fault. Excessive nerves, an inability to look a therapist in the eye, this type of thing will cause a therapist to doubt and thus delay work. If you are expecting to be nervous or would be overwhelmed, I might start with general concerns. However, the crux of your difficulties are likely the DID and you should keep that in mind.

Do you have any more specifics about the unit you're going to?

Can you choose your therapist, or are there only a few? Sometimes I e-mailed a few therapists and picked the one who seemed the most "comfortable" with the situation. Sometimes, it's not important how knowledgeable the therapist is, but how they handle their lack of knowledge (i.e. being a know-it-all or being sympathetic).

Hey, thanks for all your responses.

dividedtruth89 wrote:

Nobleman wrote:I get free counseling sessions at school so I decided to sign up for one. Now i'm really nervous about it and don't know if should bring up DID or not. I've never been to any kind of counseling in my life and am considering just canceling it! Any advice is welcome. If i bring up DID can they like institutionalize me or something?

No you can't be institutionalized!!! Maybe wait and see how things go and then gradually bring up the DID? Have you ever been actually diagnosed with it? From my experience therapists tend to go ape $#%^ whenever a client wants to figure out what's wrong with them, i.e., diagnose themselves. So I tend to bring up my concerns very lightly now, in a round about way. But it's up to you. Take things one step at a time

That's good to know! I'll probably just talk about general stuff until I get a better feel for this T.

Johnny-Jack wrote:I'm assuming you're in college? Whether you are or not, if you're sure you have DID, and I think your signature indicates you know you are sure, I think it would be safe to divulge "I believe I have dissociative identity disorder" even at the first session. I would bring the following evidence: (1) your response to the DES and the printout of your score [http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic65082.html] and [2] your own awareness of your parts and a descriptive printout of these. If you know some awareness of any trauma that contributed to the DID, you should list that as well. It would be a stretch for most clinicians to believe that your evidence is somehow bogus.

I am in college and I am pretty sure about DID (besides occasional doubts about it all being made up). I really appreciate the advice. I think i'll wait until the next session though before I get too deep into everything. I need to make sure I can trust her first.

Grey Kameleon wrote:Can you choose your therapist, or are there only a few? Sometimes I e-mailed a few therapists and picked the one who seemed the most "comfortable" with the situation. Sometimes, it's not important how knowledgeable the therapist is, but how they handle their lack of knowledge (i.e. being a know-it-all or being sympathetic).

I don't think I can pick. I was randomly assigned one and it is free for the first bunch of sessions so i'm not really in a position to be picky.

Hey,

I think everyone else has assured you well about you not being institutionalised for DID and whether to disclose DID or not in the first session. I personally would because you want to gauge their response right from go, but its personal to everyone.

Just wanna say good luck though and I really hope you do go through with it and let us know how it went!!

Bourbon

Thanks I really appreciate it. I'll definitely let you all know what happens!

Nobleman wrote:I don't think I can pick. I was randomly assigned one and it is free for the first bunch of sessions so i'm not really in a position to be picky.

Hopefully your first session goes well and you snag a winner of a therapist. If not, you might have recourse to get assigned another one by going higher. You're not just chatting about not getting along well with your roommate, you have a challenging condition. Just a thought in case your therapist comes out with something really scary like "let's do a past-life regression, that's who these people are!"

As others have stated u have to b a danger to yourself or others to b put on a hold in the hospital. I would not talk about DID the first visit if it was me. I would see how u like the person, click with them, etc. I would think about somthing that u do feel is an important issue u need to deal with them though. Be real, and go after something u need help with. Let them get to know u as well.
U might check and c if there are any emergency psych lines n ur area, and u could call and see if u could talk to them about any DID issues in the mean time.
Of course u do what u have the most peace about. I know i have had to deal with some rejection with the whole sitch of being DID. Alot of people just flat out dont understand. I know alot of times i have put myself out their to b rejected, and was. Now my advice is to make sure the person is even qualified to cope with such info. What kind of clients have they worked with before? What is their background etc... Of course u dont want to use much of ur time up on this, i understand that. I would look at it from the stand point of, does this person even qualify to know the most precious thing about me?
Good luck to u. And like already requested, please let us know how it goes. Peace