Not sure if I belong here

Hm. Here is your therapist's reply to your e-mail:

Therapist wrote:Got the email. It is brave of you to tell me. I'm not in a rush to action of any sort. I think we can come to understand what you are experiencing, let's not judge any of this too quickly. I'm happy to continue to talk about this.

He is not saying this information is new to him. He is being a little cagey in not disclosing to you that other parts of you have already told him the same thing. On the other hand, it is an e-mail and he does not know where you might be when you read it or how upset you might be. I think his intent in this reply is to be supportive and soothing and not open any cans of worms outside of a therapy session.

I think if I were in your shoes I would talk with this therapist about maintaining confidentiality vs keeping secrets vs withholding information. The balance among these behaviors is something that marriage and family therapists deal with a lot, because they work with multiple parties all the time, but psychiatrists don't have nearly as much experience or training in this area. Also, a DID client is a complex: some parts crave information while others may be phobic and don't want to know.

Assuming for sake of discussion that you have DID, would you be his first client known to have DID?

I don't know.

I understand that response is very cagey, however I am 100% sure that he pretended as if the losing time bit was news. IDK my making assumptions is bound to serve little good other then tick me off. I got the very strong feeling that he wasn't being entirely honest with me when I flat out asked him if he already knew that I lost time before I told him here recently, and he told me that while he was not surprised he doesn't know that he knew. I'm all over the place and having a hard time forming coherent thought right now. I have a test to go take and I have no clue what my Professor in my last class lectured on. Sorry.

I would like to apologize for my weirdness earlier today. I've been fairly stable in public anyway for a while. I think this whole thing with coming clean with Doc is sending me in a tail spin.

I didn't notice any particular weirdness...?

Regarding your therapist and whether he is lying to you, it is possible that you did tell him before that you lose time and he does not remember. He may not be able to remember.

This sounds unlikely, doesn't it? But it happens. A selective inability to read or hear some particular information is a symptom of a conversion disorder, and many experts think that conversion and dissociation are related phenomena.

I experience a kind of conversion symptom myself, called psychogenic blindness: I sometimes cannot see a person in a photo even when I know the person is there. I also worked briefly with a therapist who seemed not to remember certain important matters from session to session. Working with this therapist was like the movie 50 First Dates. At first I was so confused! "What is going on here?! Am I going crazy? Is this therapist gaslighting me?" And then I read about dissociative amnesia.

Thanks, maybe it is just me who noticed. I was feeling very scattered and maybe I came across differently then I felt. I don't know if he really remembers or not. I guess that I will just have to wait and talk to him. If I have (and my husband said I did) then it would have been years since it was so. It seems odd that it wouldn't be in his notes that he surely checked before agreeing to see me again after being away for a couple of years at a time he wasn't accepting new clients, but who knows.

Hi there,

I just caught sight of your post and wanted to add a reply. I wanted to add a second voice of confidence to what Una is telling and reasure that what you are experiencing with time loss and amnesia is a classic of DID but this dose not make it any less as scary or disorentating.

May i suggest that this is the time to take the term partnership between you and your husband very litually and trust him to be your right hand man. You are going to need him to be a very good secutary of sorts for you over the coming months. I say this because from what i gather from your post your husband came into the T session with you. You need to ask you husband a set of clear questions and rely on him to tell you the truth.

When i was reading part of the thread about you not trusting your T and reminded so much of what it used to feel like for myself and what it feels like now when i have been in social situations. People will tell me ''you did that, you said this'' and i have no idea if i did or did not, i can not trust myself to be sure if i did or did not. That is why TRUSTING your partner, your HUBBY. IS so important. He is going to be so important. Take care of each other. Lots of TLC for each other!!!



What Una wrote about DID and selective hearing-

Regarding your therapist and whether he is lying to you, it is possible that you did tell him before that you lose time and he does not remember. He may not be able to remember.

This sounds unlikely, doesn't it? But it happens. A selective inability to read or hear some particular information is a symptom of a conversion disorder, and many experts think that conversion and dissociation are related phenomena.

If after you talk to your T and dissociation is an area of interest. Cut iout and stick ithe above quote in a diary or a journal, some where that you look every day. So that you remind your self to think twice. I say this because i have over the past months become aware of so much information visual, auditory and otherwise that i 'miss' and being aware of this symptom helps me communicate, bring down the dissociative barriers and take that step closer to healing. If this sounds scary. Just put it in the back of a book for later but keep it to hand



As for right now, take a deep breath and as much a scary notion it is to 'trust' your T. Try to and continue the amazing job you have done. Writing the email and communicating in such a clear way that you was amazing. You should be proud of yourself. Keep doing it, keep opening up and telling the truth and dont listen to that voice of doubth that tells you not to. Do listen to Una, she's a cleve bunny .

Take care, you are not alone DID or not.

River and Sam

Thank you River. My husband came into my first two sessions with me five years ago, and hasn't been allowed back since. I am a 28 year old collage student, mother, wife of an oil field man. My husband is gone for weeks at a time and I have my course work and child to look after. I also have my volunteer work and job. I am totally freaked the ###$ out because I told. These past couple of weeks I have been losing most of the time I am away from my daughter. I for instance on Thursday had an exam that I had a very hard time staying present for, and then apparently went to an appointment I had set up with a proffesser that I have zero recollection of ever walking into her office or how I ended up at home. Gaaahhhh. Crazy long rant

Went back and saw doc again today. He does believe me, and tried to ease some of my fears. Although when I asked him if he believed me to be psychotic I got an answer of how he believes everyone to have psychotic parts. So a complete non answer. I did have to speak up fairly quickly and tell him that his open ended questions where not working for me, and he quickly adjusted. At the send of the session he said that asking pointed questions goes against his training so I may have to remind him in the future, and tell him if he isn't asking the right questions. He understands that sometimes open ended questions can sound like he is asking what the encypidia says and to answer is near impossible. He does believe that my time loss and the voices are related. He asked if the voices had ever spoken to him and all I could say is I think so. He asked if I could tell him in the future if they do, I told him that I could try, but I don't know if I can. We talked some about two of the voices and it was terrifying for me to do so. I felt like climbing up the wall. The voices didn't like me talking about them either. :/ Doc said something about how he believes they are a part of me and they are echoing something back to me now from the past and we may need to hear what they have to say. I am kind of afraid of what they have to say, and am not eager to find out. I know that I need help and have for a long time, and I truly believe that doc wants to help me. He has said it many times and ways for a long time, and it has just been within the past month that I have believed it enough to take a leap of faith and throw much of anything out for him to work with. Well, long and ramblly again, just feeling exhausted now.

thatgurl wrote:I am totally freaked the ###$ out because I told.

Totally normal.

thatgurl wrote:These past couple of weeks I have been losing most of the time I am away from my daughter. I for instance on Thursday had an exam that I had a very hard time staying present for, and then apparently went to an appointment I had set up with a proffesser that I have zero recollection of ever walking into her office or how I ended up at home. Gaaahhhh. Crazy long rant

Also totally normal.

Many, many readers here know this kind of experience well because it happens to us too. And it is so incredibly scary! But if you step outside your current situation for a moment, and look at it from the point of view of another person, you may see what they see: a young woman who despite not remembering keeping an appointment in fact did keep the appointment and got home safely afterward. So this tells us that if you have DID one or more other parts of you are aware enough to know your schedule and cooperative and mature enough to cover for you when for some reason you are not available. Okay? You seem to be in good hands.

Just so you know, I kind of envy you. Some of my lost time has involved "coming to" in situations that were absolutely not okay with me.