Dissociative Experiences Scale

Lol Iain that's brilliant!

I know when we did this the first time back in around December, we got in the 70's. Lately it's down in the 60's so I guess that's progress.

V2

I can never complete this thing.
I get stuck overthinking every question.
What does “Always” and “never” mean anyway?
For example: “Some people find that sometimes they are listening to someone talk and they suddenly realize that they do not hear part or all of what was said”
“Always” would mean I never hear anything anyone said ever. “Never” would mean I have never vagued out in any way at all… yet surely everyone does from time to time…
And the question over finding stuff I don’t remember buying… Never? Well I don’t have a photographic memory for everything in the house, Always? – well then I wouldn’t recognise anything in the house at all….

I know I’m being ridiculous and too literal, but I just get bogged down like this in every question and cant seem to find a way to place myself on the scale… So I’ve never managed a score at all really.

Oh don't feel bad BJs. I have showed this test to several people just out of curiosity and your reaction is quite "Normal".

BJs wrote:I can never complete this thing.
I get stuck overthinking every question.
What does “Always” and “never” mean anyway?
For example: “Some people find that sometimes they are listening to someone talk and they suddenly realize that they do not hear part or all of what was said”
“Always” would mean I never hear anything anyone said ever. “Never” would mean I have never vagued out in any way at all… yet surely everyone does from time to time…
And the question over finding stuff I don’t remember buying… Never? Well I don’t have a photographic memory for everything in the house, Always? – well then I wouldn’t recognise anything in the house at all….

I know I’m being ridiculous and too literal, but I just get bogged down like this in every question and cant seem to find a way to place myself on the scale… So I’ve never managed a score at all really.

Trust me last year when I went to Boston because one of the Authors of it Dr Frank Putman was a key speaker I was going to ask him personally "Why on Earth did you guys phrase all those questions so vaguely as to them just becoming confusing?" Sadly he had to cancel at the last minute due to his health since he was dying of Cancer and he may have passed since.

But I did get an interview with Bessel Van der Kolk who interviewed him a month earlier and he did discuss how and why they came up with that wording at first. If I recall, at the time there was no screening tools for Dissociation and he was working a lot with DID patients at the time and they needed a way to test for it as those who came in were usually very high trauma survivors.

If I recall correctly the very vague wording was on purpose because as you can understand having a total stranger pry into your trauma history can be very scary or just get an alt who will deny it etc, and so they found that being so indirect was the best way to approach traumatized people who are very gun shy. Also keep in mind that there was no other tools for these symptoms out at that time and they had to work very hard to just find a way screen for the spectrum of Dissociation using symptomology that they saw regulatory but really wasn't listed anywhere else. They are serious researchers and so do things in the very highest of standards. To be honest I am a bit shocked it hasn't been rephrased better since. I don't see how being so vague could net accurate scoring results for research if you ask me?

But yes I find it so baffling at times I would get frustrated with it too. My T's would be just as baffled by it as well.

Warmly
Lumps

BJs wrote:I can never complete this thing.
I get stuck overthinking every question.
What does “Always” and “never” mean anyway?
For example: “Some people find that sometimes they are listening to someone talk and they suddenly realize that they do not hear part or all of what was said”
“Always” would mean I never hear anything anyone said ever. “Never” would mean I have never vagued out in any way at all… yet surely everyone does from time to time…
And the question over finding stuff I don’t remember buying… Never? Well I don’t have a photographic memory for everything in the house, Always? – well then I wouldn’t recognise anything in the house at all….

I know I’m being ridiculous and too literal, but I just get bogged down like this in every question and cant seem to find a way to place myself on the scale… So I’ve never managed a score at all really.

I did it, actually twice, but felt more like guessing right answers. (That is why I made it again, to answer differently with the questions you can understand many ways.) I would want yes or no questions, with these never-always answers I really don't understand where I should score myself, so I'm just guessing what could be most accurate answer than actually understanding what do they mean with something. If I am ALWAYS finding stuff that isn't mine, does that mean I really do not do anything else but am amazed with the stuff I seem to own? That is not even realistic for anyone to ever happen. So are some of the question the kind where answering "always" shouldn't even be an option, and if so, why is there an option to do so, or does it mean something else, like "all the time" with not that literature manner. So I find that DID test being hard to understand. And does it really mean me, like ME as an alter, or us, as a whole system? Those questions are made for someone who is not knowing about their alters yet. And the test is also assuming you would be aware of others by "becoming them" and not by sensing them as separate people.

I have had same kind of difficulties with many mental health test. According to personality disorder test we have all the other personality disorders except narcissistic, antisocial and schizotypal. So according that test we DO have 7 different PDs, including both avoidant and dependent which should not be even possible... Borderline personality was put on our papers, cause that was what they were looking for and I scored it very clearly. But I think that test was the point when they realized there was something else going on with me, and those PD test results are showing false results because of that.

Oh, almost forgot to tell the results. I scored 62 points the first time and next time 60 points. So not much difference, even when I thought I was giving completely different answers.. I'm confused now.

VioletFlux wrote:Lol Iain that's brilliant!

I know when we did this the first time back in around December, we got in the 70's. Lately it's down in the 60's so I guess that's progress.

V2

That's reassuring, thank you for sharing. I got 69 and was afraid that was crazy high. I'm definitely fluctuates though, so when life is on an upswing or I'm doing a lot of work in therapy/self care, it'd answer these differently and probably get a lot lower.

RedHound wrote:

VioletFlux wrote:Lol Iain that's brilliant!

I know when we did this the first time back in around December, we got in the 70's. Lately it's down in the 60's so I guess that's progress.

V2

That's reassuring, thank you for sharing. I got 69 and was afraid that was crazy high. I'm definitely fluctuates though, so when life is on an upswing or I'm doing a lot of work in therapy/self care, it'd answer these differently and probably get a lot lower.

We've found it also can make a big difference who's answering them. V2 and myself have some very different opinions on how we're doing collectively. Individually she's doing a lot better than I am. So maybe for her we'd get a lower score and for me it'd still be higher. And that doesn't take into account any of the others in our system who haven't even taken the test.

Generally I think that's why these are screening tools rather than diagnostic tools - they give you a sort of general idea of things but are kind of fluid and variable.

Violet 1

I actually get low scores on this . Today I did it and got a 23 . Is there any info on what people with OSDD tend to get? I don’t lose time but I also have a bad memory in general . Or maybe I really am just imagining being multiple

when I looked at it awhile ago it said that people without DID can score high and people with can score low sometimes. So I assume OSDD is the same. Your score doesn't always give an accurate indication of your diagnosis.

I scored 68, which isn't a surprise. I find some of the questions difficult to answer, I'm a very literal person so if something is worded vaguely even slightly I find it very hard to understand what it's really asking. I'd say the score feels accurate though.

I scored 37 today, basically slightly higher score than a month or so ago. The first time my T made me do the test she didn't tell me the results, but I suspect it was somewhat the same.
I always encounter difficulties too with some questions because I often don't remember what I don't remember, and it makes me think I don't have much of a symptom when in reality it's more common than I remember. It's actually frustrating.
The other thing that bugs me is that the test seems to ask about these experiences in your lifetime, and unfortunately I have a very fogged memory of the majority of my life. So I never know what to say when I'm asked something like this. I'd say I go by gut and the few memories I still have from many years ago

Still, I'm not diagnosed, and my score seems pretty common even in non-DID/OSDD1 people. So, back at the self-doubt, lol.