Therapy for the the comorbid diagnoses?

We just got back from our T and while the appointment went very badly, we got great news from her too! She brought it up herself that our anorexia, which has been active since age 5 years old, diagnosis isn't very prevalent now and that we do seem healthy and happy and functioning and have for quite some time now and so decided to re-write our diagnosis as

Anorexia: in remision

That's great!! - except for the part about your session not going well

Thank you we're very happy and proud after all the work we've done on this over the years

Well done I'm really happy to hear that.

ow hun what great news is that! Yay! Throwin confetti all around

I read your question about EMDR.

It s supposed to be REALLY good for SINGLE trauma,not chronic or multiple trauma.

I ve had chronic trauma tho and DID find it had an effect- but the therapist was inappropriate. She said I was depressed cause I dressed in black (mere coincidence really) continued that my underwear was black too (pardon me, or we now talkin underwear in a session, what is this sloggy commercial?)
anyways never went backnor found a new one near

shame really

the few T s that wanted to help me through trauma OR were mental OR fell sick OR I had to move away

so .... VERY PROUD of all the achievements you made! You ve done major work here and I admire you for it.

Love

Nina11

Thank you Owleyes

Thank you Nina11 both for the confetti and compliments and the answer It's been such a long road, but we're so happy to have come to greener pastures We have a bone density scan in a couple of month's time (yay health care lines ) to see what some of the after effects may be but we are strong enough to deal with it I'm happy we are where we are. Thanks again

I was pondering the topic of comorbid diagnoses today and came to think about my integration and the topic of anorexia. this comment bares a trigger warning for both of those topics.

The brain uses carbohydrates to create new neural pathways and needs fat to function. When severely anorexic the brain is, of course, deprived of these nutrients. No wonder then that communication and other healing things in the system were much more difficult while we were severe anorexic. One thing is the general "making effect" many comorbid diagnoses can give, but another is the fact that the brain wouldn't be getting what it needed to help heal itself.

Interesting things to ponder

I have been thinking about the topic of therapy for comorbid diagnoses lately. I've been working a lot on my OCD and because of this had to handle quite a few trauma memories that relate to some of my compulsions.

People have written about how "treating the DID makes the other diagnoses go away" and I just wanted to propose a though: "treating the DID" usually means trauma therapy (amongst other things such as learning self-assertion, self-case and so forth). Treating the underlying trauma would help diminish many diagnoses, DID or not. The handling of trauma memories - specific to DID or not - helps my OCD, my PTSD issues, my anorexia, my phobias, my depression: most of these I no longer even suffer from. Is it then more accurate to say that processing trauma memories is the main point?

Just thinking about therapy and the road ahead, really.

lifelongthing wrote:Is it then more accurate to say that processing trauma memories is the main point?

Yes and no. DID is a special case in that, if the DID is not diagnosed, then any attempt at treatment is likely to fail to access the specific dissociated part that is actually holding the trauma. This in turn is likely to result in a general failure of treatment; the patient appears to be highly motivated to get better yet makes little or no progress.

That is why the ISSTD treatment guidelines recommend that all patients with dissociative signs or symptoms be evaluated for a dissociative disorder, preferably at the beginning of treatment. And that is why many expert psychotherapists regard DID as a superordinate diagnosis, with any other co-present mental health diagnoses as secondary.

That's good to know. One of the main reasons I've always been wary of therapy is that my treatment for anorexia actually made the anorexia much worse. I recovered on my own a couple of months after stopping treatment. I tried seeing a counsellor for PTSD last year in preparation for trauma therapy and I just felt blocked after a few sessions so I didn't get any therapy. I worked through the trauma myself using my AA twelve step programme, but eventually hit a dead end there as well.
I think it makes sense to just focus on finding treatment for dissociative disorders. I don't see how we can properly heal from all the other stuff when there are different alters hiding and hiding their memories and disorders from me. I'm glad to read this is the expert opinion too.