New therapist advice

Hello everyone.

My name is Asha. I’m going to be starting therapy for the first time. I’ve attempted to go to therapy in the past and for various reasons it was not a good experience. I have come to believe I may have some form of dissociative disorder and that the imaginary friends or characters in my head that have helped me my entire life are most likely alters. I’ve been extremely reluctant to self diagnose as I have often felt extremely disconnected from my emotions and don’t always see myself clearly (according to family).

My question is should I mention to my new therapist my concerns or what should I do? It seems so terrifying to tell a stranger my concerns but I have been misdiagnosed in the past because I’m bad at expressing what I’m feeling or experiencing. I’m incredibly nervous. Any advice would be helpful. Thank you in advance.

It took a while for us to tell our T about it. It took a lot of trust for us to do so as well. The reason being that we have read too many bad stories about what some of us go through. Maybe bring it up over time. Learning the language involved helped. We were also afraid of schizophrenia, which does run in our family.

My best advice is to take it slowly. There's no need to hurdle into this. Build trust. This is a new person and you need to know if you trust them before going that far.

I do hope that helped.
Welcome to the forums.
Take care,
Vi

If your T has an email address, it might be interesting to send them an email explaining your difficulties, what you expect from therapy, and asking them if they think they can help you - if yes, then with what kind of tools and technics?

If your T doesn't have an email address, and if you feel like it, you can do the same at the first appointment. You don't have to say you think you have a dissociative disorder or go into details you're uncomfortable with, but you can still give information about what your struggles are and what are your goals, and see if the T is the right one for that.

But, for context, I was used to going slowly, and I grew tired of wasting my time with T that weren't properly trained for what my issues were. Now, I usually just give them the information needed, and see if they are okay to work with me or not. If not, then I'll search for someone else. So, it works for me, but it might not be the right way to do handle things for you.

I hope everything will be alright!

Tysm! It makes me so nervous. I think taking it slow is probably for the best. I only have one shot at this as my area only has one free or low cost option. It’s so much pressure. Thank you all for your advice.

You are most welcome! And you can stop by and talk about things before you tell your T as it helps. We found talking here a lot of help. Sometimes talking to other systems is the best way to understand before telling any T.

Pippa