Did your first therapist believe you?

I’ve been having symptoms of severe dissociation and split parts of myself for years...in 2015, I decided to tell a Dr for the first time that I have trouble remembering things and after abusing him (it really was my angry side not me, I never felt in control of what she was doing), I repeatedly told him it’s not me and he used to jokingly and angrily ask who is it then...so after getting a restraining order against me, he wrote a letter saying he thinks my accounts of memory loss is fictitious...since then I’ve been hiding it all until a psychiatrist a couple of yrs ago acknowledged my dissociation...I’ve been fine for a couple of years but recently, the psychotic side of me has started to come out and start to ruin my life again. I can’t cope with it. My initial problem was losing time & doing things and not remembering them until I was told or saw something on my phone, it was ok for a while until I got stressed again now. The difference this time is I know more and can relate to DID. I just want to ask if anyone was given that skeptical blow when they first reported their symptoms and how do you get courage to speak again to a different professional, does his letter have any bearing on me? I’m really suffering, I can’t deal with not being believed. I hate this angry person in me that comes out and starts to go on destructive paths I really can’t deal with it anymore. Has anyone been accused of making this up by a therapist? Please tell me how you worked up the courage to speak/trust again, I really need to get the help I need. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, BPD though my psychiatrist thought it was complex PTSD but I never told her about my split parts because she doesn’t do long consultations. I need a safe space to stop from hiding and put an end to it, I’m done with this angry part of me dragging me down and ruining me. I’m really done with it.

We have had Ts who laughed at us for "smaller" things than DID (i.e. some trauma things we talked about, Zami being otherkin...). We now have a T who listens without judgement.

There are Ts who will listen. They are difficult to find. And it is sometimes difficult to talk openly to the Ts. But, they exist, if you dare to talk to them.

Lots of support and xoxo

♥Lust♥

There are therapists who specialize in DID/OSDD, and you can interview different therapists until you find one you feel comfortable and validated with. Develop a list of questions you can ask when you call or email a therapist to make contact, and see how their answers make you feel.

It will take longer for you to develop trust even in a very good therapist because of your experiences, and the right therapist will understand that and be very patient.

This is good place to start looking:
https://isstd.connectedcommunity.org/ne ... ofessional

Also, you can use this forum for support and as a sounding board as you go about this process. Worried that something a therapist says/does is a red flag? You can get different people's opinions about it on here. Not that you should rely solely on advice from the internet, but I've gotten very wise and helpful support on here about interactions with my therapist and it has really helped.

I had a very bad experience with a therapist many years ago--not about not being believed, since neither of us knew about my parts, but being used emotionally in ways that retraumatized me. It has taken a long time to develop trust in my current therapist. I've been seeing him for three years, and the relationship has only just become more solidly trusting very recently.

While under the long-term care of my last therapist, I realized I had at least one "other" that I'd had all along. We didn't deal with it much other than my "lightbulb moment" (and talking through my first real and traumatic complete dissociation), as I knew she was retiring soon. She told me to look for a new therapist who specialized in "trauma". I'd never searched for specific terms before so that was interesting to think about. Fwiw, PsychologyToday's search mechanism lists all of their specialties and therapy approaches. I learned a lot about the different types of therapy, which makes sense, and was better able to interview new therapists. DID is a category of conditions they might specialize in so you can look for that, too. The first therapist I found specialized in DID but was more about the "let's deal with today" type, which isn't what I want at this point in my life. I am ready for a deep-dive into the past BUT having said that, she was the first one to explain the concept of how the traumatized part of the personality splits further when exposed to more trauma (images from Janina Fisher PhD, 2008; based on Van der Hart, Nijenhuis and Steele, 2006) with fight, flight, freeze, submit and attach self. While this was not specifically about my "other", it did help me understand the "fight" side of me that comes out of fricken nowhere when I get frustrated or angry. Maybe like you, I encounter a problem and then I'm just out-of-control furious. It's a problem, for sure, and I'd never figured out a way to deal with it. She said to talk to it, even if it doesn't feel like an alter, and ask what's going on. WOW, was that powerful! This had been happening to me at work, where someone kept messing up and I would always get FURIOUS. I realized I was reverting to a young, traumatic mindset where I was afraid of getting blamed. It's not something I am aware of (since I don't have access to those memories) so it really is an other's anger, even if that other doesn't have a distinct personality to me. Anyway, I hope you have luck finding a therapist. I think my great longterm therapist didn't not believe me but I also don't think she knew how to help me which is why she'd guided me on how to find one who would.

I believe you. And I am glad you and that first therapist have nothing more to do with each other. He sounds incompetent. Do you see how, to get the restraining order against you, he had to rationalize away your problems and his poor treatment of you? You may fear his letter makes you look bad, but in my experience such a letter would make your therapist look bad and engender sympathy for you.

We believe you too, Aveline2020.

We've had a crap-ton of therapists on and off since the body was about 12. Some were okay, many were well-meaning but unhelpful, and a couple were flat-out awful. We didn't figure out we were multiple until the body was 34 (1996), and we hand no way of describing our reality effectively before that.

We've been in therapy for DID continuously since November 1998--with the first therapist for five and a half years, and our current therapist since June 2004. Both therapists have been exactly what we've needed, and the experience has helped us more than we can describe.

As other folks have said, it's often hard to find a good therapist, especially for DID, but we hope you keep looking. It's well worth it.

MDs

Hi,

Our very first therapist was this lady at college. Host went to talk to her about some voices stuff that was freaking him out. She figured out we were multiple - but she was just an intern and her supervisor told her she was wrong - so she had to tell us we weren't multiple after all. So Host went through a ton of clueless T's before we had one who figured it out again. Turned out the first one was right all along. I kind of think maybe the 1st T was multiple too so she kind of saw us you know?

Iain

We got kinda lucky with that, cuz we went to him cuz we were panicked over ppl accusing us of being all ONE person, all being Zor and being called monsters and fakes.

So when we went to them, and we could tell them how he had no memory of us and what we were doing and saying, and ppl had outside proof it COULDN'T be other ppl... it was so obvious that they totally saw it right away... that we'd been consistently having dissociative stuff for a long time and cuz the overlap of us and Zor was kinda minimal until the last year or two- like mutual friends being all online or far away... until then...

SO yeah, our first T (our current one still) did... we lucked out.

Most people with DID usually suffer with other mental health issues, for me this includes among others, depression. When I mentioned being other people, losing memory and self harming I was diagnosed with many different diagnoses. I wasn’t too hung up on what they were diagnosing me with, rather than getting help for the symptoms I was suffering. I had a few therapist until I was diagnosed with DID and now see a specialist in that field.
I know it’s a relief to finally have a diagnosis but in all honesty my medication and therapy is still the same. She does have therapy sessions with all of us individually, but you can request that the alters needing therapy receive an equal time to talk. Even if you haven’t been diagnosed.
What helped us start healing and get a diagnosis was keeping a journal, letting us all write in there, some may chose to keep their own. This also can be a big help to the therapist if they are happy to show them.

Laceyrose wrote:Most people with DID usually suffer with other mental health issues, for me this includes among others, depression. When I mentioned being other people, losing memory and self harming I was diagnosed with many different diagnoses. I wasn’t too hung up on what they were diagnosing me with, rather than getting help for the symptoms I was suffering. I had a few therapist until I was diagnosed with DID and now see a specialist in that field.
I know it’s a relief to finally have a diagnosis but in all honesty my medication and therapy is still the same. She does have therapy sessions with all of us individually, but you can request that the alters needing therapy receive an equal time to talk. Even if you haven’t been diagnosed.
What helped us start healing and get a diagnosis was keeping a journal, letting us all write in there, some may chose to keep their own. This also can be a big help to the therapist if they are happy to show them.

Now a lot of that HAD existed like forever. We didn't know what it was,... time "lost" and finding things (especially girl's clothing) we couldn't explain, and periods of extreme moodiness- we began writing poetry in HS to let it out, if that says something about our like emotionalness. Is that a word? Screw it, it is now.

We started to do a journal when WE became aware of things being drastically amiss- that like ppl were to "us" and figured out we were all one- we had no idea before then. The journal HAS HELPED A TON! We always recommend it, too.

-Angel