Introduction ***Trigger Warning--Religious, Fear***

Welcome to the forum.

Don't stress about what you should tell about yourself, it is all up to you. You can tell about your past or diagnosis or introduce your system or tell your current situation, but on the other hand you don't need to, if you wanna stay as anonymous as possible. There's nothing you need to share, except the reason for why you came here, but it clearly is because of getting peer support. The reason is important, because it is a different thing if you come here to make study of us, or out of curiosity, or because of having someone close to you with DID or if you have it yourself.

I wanted to say, based on what you told, that in our opinion, touching your body without every part being OK with it first, is not a right thing to do. Everyone who is able to understand the question needs to be involved with the decision making that it is OK with all of you, or it is not OK. I don't know if you had talked about physical boundaries and agreed hugging is OK with you all, but if you weren't, it should have been talked about BEFORE touching anyway, that this kind of decision is there for you to make. Even if the one in the body would feel happy and accepted when hugged at the moment, there can be other parts involved with the situation who feel more violated.

I agree with other's comments about secrecy. There is messages about Ts keeping secrets in other threads too at the moment, if you are interested in opinions on that subject.

Bring it up with your T. You're allowed to know why the secrecy is there, and it is important T knows you have trust issues. I think it is more than normal reaction after how T has behaved. Ts job is to make you closer each other and create co-operation, not do secret stuff with littles behind other system member's back. How is that gonna help you to become more functional as whole? T has to have answers to basic questions like that.

everyone23 wrote:I don't think my therapist or psychiatrist knew about treating DID because most everything they did was a terrible trauma. If they had understood, they would not have done what they did and don't get me wrong, they are wonderful.

They traumatized you terribly and you still consider them wonderful?? Or did two different parts write those two sentences? In my opinion, based on what how you describe that they have treated you, they are NOT wonderful.

everyone23 wrote:After my evaluation, he said I didn't have DID, but it was clear from his expression and voice that he was lying. Since I knew I had alters I thought maybe he said that due to his idea about alters hiding if you are looking for them, but I thought a psychiatrist wouldn't lie, so he must think I was lying. And the psychiatrist got mad at me when I went into an extreme emotional state. I figure psychiatrists must see emotional states at least some times, so why would he be angry unless he thinks I'm a liar. He seemed afraid of me and then he left abruptly. I can't tell you how messed up everyone inside was after that experience. If someone knew about DID, they would never do that to them.

What the actual f*ck??? This was a real psychiatrist behaving like that??? Lying, seeming afraid of you, leaving abruptly (were you threatening him?). That's SO unprofessional I can't even. (As the millennials say)

everyone23 wrote:I woke up at the end of the session once, early on, and felt her hugging the little who was present, which she had never done with me. Sometimes I would wake up and it would be the end of the session. When I have pressed her on wanting to know what they talked about because I was worried about it being really weird, she said it's not weird at all, but still didn't tell me what they talked about and one time she said she couldn't really tell the difference...

...I experienced for the first time recently, her doing therapy with a younger part. She clearly knew it was a younger part and did things to help her feel more comfortable that she has never done with me, and she hugged her at the end and said she was special, and she would never do that with me. I wish there was a better way to do treatment, but she is the professional. So, she has been treating my alters but not talking about it, which i see is in line with their treatment model.

Whose treatment model? This is not appropriate treatment for DID. You are all one system, one community, and everything a therapist does with you needs to be done with that in mind. There absolutely IS a better way to do treatment. There are guidelines for it. Hugging the body and pretending that it's only the little she is hugging?? And calling another part "special"?

In your first post, you mentioned that the trust issues with your therapist are more easily resolved now--how does that happen? How can she have let you go on for a year not having contact with parts when you had more contact before?

I'm sorry if I'm being overly outraged on your behalf. But I definitely agree with what Floralie and MakersDozn said about the T's behavior.

I know how hard it is to deal with too-attached and dependent littles. You need to talk with them and explain why this T might not be the best one for all of you, and probably look into finding a skilled DID therapist before you terminate with this one.

Our littles would, and did at one point, allow the rest of our life to fall apart rather than leave a really bad and damaging T. Sticking with that bad T was one of the worst things we ever did, and it was because he stirred up and promoted dependency, and didn't support our OWN coping skills and self-regulation. I didn't know about parts at that point, but even if I had, it would have been difficult to leave him. We get waves of that feeling now, and even with our excellent and very skilled T, it's very scary to experience that powerful longing.

Yes I guess it is wrong of her to assume we all would want to be touched and I hadn't thought about the wrongness of acting like one part was all there is instead of thinking about the whole system. Of course that's right. I don't know anything about this and hoped that she knew.

I think they are wonderful because they treated me better than anyone else until everything blew up and they changed. I know my T is trying to be helpful. And is always kind. I don't think she knows how her treatment has affected me since I have been unable to talk to her about it. By saying I get over the trust issues faster now, I DO get over the fear that she is lying to me and going to leave me much faster than I did before. I have much less emotional disturbance when it does come up. But I guess that isn't such a good thing because I already ignore it when people are treating me badly. She never left yet so I guess regardless of the other trust issues, I have grown in trust in spite of everything. I usually am afraid she will get mad, or decide I am too scary or too much trouble and I will be abandoned, and the risk of her leaving seems too great. Who else is going to not be scared or bothered by me? When we were freaking out, we were so much trouble. It feels like I would not be able to go to someone else and start all over.

I understand about the dependency being a big problem. I keep trying to back off some but haven't been all the successful.

everyone23 wrote:I don't think she knows how her treatment has affected me since I have been unable to talk to her about it. By saying I get over the trust issues faster now, I DO get over the fear that she is lying to me and going to leave me much faster than I did before. I have much less emotional disturbance when it does come up. But I guess that isn't such a good thing because I already ignore it when people are treating me badly. She never left yet so I guess regardless of the other trust issues, I have grown in trust in spite of everything. I usually am afraid she will get mad, or decide I am too scary or too much trouble and I will be abandoned, and the risk of her leaving seems too great.

So all the things that follow that bolded statement are things that have just happened internally for you but that you haven't talked with her about? Do you talk with her about feeling like she is lying and going to leave you? Do you tell her that you're afraid she will get mad or decide that you're "too scary," etc? Because working that out with a T is the essence of therapy.

It's a very low standard to keep a T just because she hasn't left yet, especially if you still usually are afraid that she will. There ARE skilled Ts around, even if there aren't very many of them. You can google "expert in dissociative disorders" and your city or region and see what you come up with. The ISSTD website has a Find a Therapist search--those are therapists who are at least members of the ISSTD.

When littles become dependent, they can start to feel like they will literally die if they lose that person. Maybe you can show them all the things that you have in your life, in the present, and all the things you can do for yourself, now that you're a grownup. Perhaps your spouse can help with that also.

If you can spend some time reading old posts on this forum, especially relating to therapy and attachment (there's a search bar at the top), you will learn a lot about both good and bad therapy for DID. There is unfortunately much more of the latter.

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Thank you TheGangsAllHere. I have googled dissociative disorders and my town and I go to the ISSTD site every so often to check if there is anyone near me but no luck so far.


I will look up therapy and attachment. Thank you.