Trigger: Categories - Ego States or Alters

I think many also like to talk about categories and differences in DID or DDNOS-1 or even C-PTSD or threads like this would not go on for so long and get so many replies.

The thing I like about this group is that we have been able to talk about such things in one thread and about comforting or whatever is others. Why does it have to be all or nothing like in so many other DID groups? Why can't people just read the threads the want and ignore the others. I do.

I'm not really trying to be confrontational here.

I think people can absolutely avoid these discussions if they want to, IF they are well-labeled and do not intrude upon other threads.

Please look, for example, at the replies in JJ's thread entitled "How does your system commnicate?"

http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic86244.html

Your first reply answered the question. Your second, only the seventh comment in the thread, started going into diagnosis, DID vs. DDNOS and the difference between them and the ease of treating either. This comment was not in reply to someone saying, "I communicate this way, does that mean I am not DID?" but just in general to their talking about how they experience themselves and wishing for more control over communication. If you had been replying to my own comment in this case, I would have found that reply invalidating. The person in question most likely did not. The thread then veered back to the topic at hand, people sharing their experience. You did seem to realize later, after posting a couple more things about DDNOS vs. DID that you had meant to be in another thread, so obviously you are aware, being conscious of not derailing other threads, which is great! All I'm trying to say is that I can't come here and trust that if I am in an invalidation crisis, I can look at threads and know they won't contain all of this diagnosis stuff, because it leaks into lots of different topics. I am not given the luxury of just avoiding discussions on categories when I need to (which is not all the time), because it pops up (or at least used to when I was here regularly) in a lot of threads that have nothing to do with those topics. I don't think anyone has denied it being interesting or even good to discuss. Just, for my system, it can feel like we are expected to conform to it at times. I see that you've tried really hard to honor your own experience of these things helping to make meaning and sense of what is going on inside while respecting others' inability to do so. It's not that I don't recognize it. It's just that the excitement about it tends to extend it into conversations where it could be experienced as if one is being labeled, sorted, defined...when in those contexts, the indvidual or individuals in question are just looking to be heard. I also wonder whether such categorizations might make some of the more injured parts inside feel unheard, ignored or depersonalized. I know when either I or T veer to far into discussing them in such a way (well, except for my executive committee, who don't really care), it can cause them pain. I have overheard them telling T or been told by him later how painful they find my invalidation. Just something to consider and I do hope that no one feels like I am trying to be bossy. I just wonder whether or not it was noticed when these things happened, because I do believe that no one here would want to be intentionally causing pain to another. It may be that with as few threads as I have been reading (I go by titles, trying not to get myself triggered as we are fragile lately), I just happened to come across the single one that was like this. It didn't sit well with me for the last week and I thought about commenting, but worried any sense of conflict might be triggering for Poet, as she is sensitive to it for past reasons and holidays are another huge trigger for her. If it is an isolated incident that I am wrongly seeing as a pattern, then I apologize for any hurt feelings.

However, that aside, I don't think people just reading in the threads that they want and not in the others invalidates my other points about the dangers of trying to rigidly objectify and codify a subjective experience of identity. From an intellectual standpoint, I still feel it is unrealistic to take these things as facts, even as I find them interesting to discuss as one of many lenses through which we can view the process of dissociation.

I will not reply to anyone unless its my own thread... again .. to make you happy since I have to follow your strict rules and guidelines and I can't live like that - within your rules. I am so tired of this same complaint. There are already boards for DID like this. The beauty of this board was that is was not so dang strictly regulated! I don't know how anyone with DID can live with such a narrow set of rules.

I like to discuss things with the bright people here, but a couple of people keep attacking me for it and I am so tired of it!

Ignore button -----> please use to ignore any of my posts. It's a great little option here.

For months I have ignored this thread, not peeking even once. Wow, for me to do that is just huge. I'm popping in now only to make a comment about Paul Dell's argument that the diagnosis of DID (and DDNOS type 1) be done subjectively. This is how most other mental health conditions are diagnosed. Eg, to diagnose severe depression it is not necessary for the therapist to observe the patient attempt suicide! Why should the therapist require a DID patient to switch with amnesia? It is enough that the patient endorses qualia typical of severe depression and, for a really good differential diagnosis, does not endorse certain qualia typical of other look-alike conditions. I also like how Paul Dell combines DID and DDNOS type 1 into a single condition, which he refers to as major dissociative disorder. To many clients the subjective experiences of DID and DDNOS type 1 are not significantly different because the subjective experience of identity alteration with amnesia occurs on a continuum of frequency, severity, and awareness between clients and within the individual client over time.

I have heard such good things about Dell (from my LC), but have not yet read any of his work. I do have it on my list to read as soon as I finish reading all the other things I have bought.