my therapist says I'm DID - how do you know for sure?

Question

Those who have been diagnosed with DID, can you help me with some examples of how you first found out, what you went through - because I'm new at all this and my t diagnosed me with DID. Please help.

Answer 1

Here's some info regarding DID:
DID (MPD)

DID is the existence of two or more separate personalities or personality states within one person, with each alter having distinctly different ways of thinking, feeling, behaving and relating to the world and distinctly different memories, each part having amnesia for the other parts' memories. It is born from repeated and severe abuse and involves the defense mechanism of dissociation and generally develops before the age of 10 as children are far more likely to dissociate.
DID is often misdiagnosed and it is very common for a person to have had multiple different psychiatric diagnoses before it is definitively identified as DID. The symptoms frequently overlap with symptoms of schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Anxiety Disorders (all), PTSD, other Dissociative Disorders and Somatoform Disorders as well as Borderline Personality. It requires extremely careful assessment and a high level of trust by the patient before alters reveal themselves. The diagnosis cannot be finalized before a therapist has actually made contact with another alter and observed the switch between alters.
The hallmark symptom is amnesia, which can be partial or complete depending on the level co-consciousness that exists between alters. Folks with the disorder describe the amnesia as "missing time" or blank periods, often daily or weekly, where they cannot account for their whereabouts or behavior. It is this amnesic barrier between parts that often leads to the most bizarre and distinctive signs and symptoms: not recognizing familiar people; not remembering highly significant events in their lives (like the birth of their first child, for example); finding purchases or articles of clothing/possessions, writings or drawings that they have no recollection of having bought or created. They are frequently accused of lying because they disawow their own behavior which is remembered by one part, while the amnestic part is completely unaware of it. Other unusual symptoms include: an exceptionally high tolerance for physical pain (they split off physical sensation which becomes encapsulated in one or several alters without others feeling it); not recognizing themselves in a mirror; using different names; having dramatically different skills and abilities that seem to be alternately present and then vanish (one alter may be able to drive a car while the sudden emergence of a child alter results in complete loss of this ability until the adult alter re-emerges); completely different opinions and behaviors (leading to the mislabelling of Bipolar or Borderline Personality.
Often communication across between separate alters takes place in the form of hearing voices, hence these folks frequently get misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. The key distinction here is whether the voices are experienced as coming from inside the person's head (DID) or outside one's head (Schizophrenia/Bipolar Disorder).
The separate identities develop in response to traumatic experiences which the child is unable to integrate and so they become "split off" from awareness and begin to take on a life of their own.
Folks with DID often self-injure, frequently a result of internal battles between persecutor alters and weaker alters and there are continual battles for control of the body and "time out" in the body between competing alters.
Symptoms of depression and anxiety are frequent and common and the picture is further complicated by the fact that one alter can meet all clinical criteria for Depression, while another part experiences no symptoms whatsoever. One part can be psychotic and experience no side effects from meds while another non-psychotic part has all the side effects and will stop taking meds.You can imagine that attempting to medicate such a disorder becomes an absolute nightmare.
Other symptoms include flashbacks and nightmares, hence the confusion with PTSD. Sometimes there are fugue states and clients will switch and "come to" in the body and have no idea how they arrived in the situation they are in, not know the people they are with and be completely disoriented. I had one client call me from another state after being away for a few days and having no idea how she got there or how to get home. Depersonalization and trance states are common and hence the overlap with other Dissociative disorders.
Folks with DID frequently experience multiple somatic symptoms for which there is no organic basis. They experience partial body memories of abuse without the actual memory of the event and thus exhibit strange physiological symptoms and are often labelled as Somatoform disorders or hypochondriacs.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that virtually any symptom of any disorder can be found at some point in a person with DID. Treatment is almost exclusively through psychotherapy as medication is merely palliative and an adjunct during periods of acute anxiety or depression. Treatment aims at initially contracting against suicidal and self-destructive behavior and attempts to establish safety first. Many DID folks enter treatment in horrendous circumstances where they are frequently in highly abusive relationships or are themselves abusive. Given the multiple alters, they may be both victim and perpetrator both within themselves alone and in the context of their relationships. The second primary goal is establishing communication and negotiation among alters to decrease amnesia and contradictory, self-defeating behavior. Ultimately the goal becomes integration of alters into one cohesive whole which involves sharing of memories and feelings across alters and a merging, where all parts continue to be present, but constant.

Talk with your therapist about Colin Ross' Trauma Model-he is the leading expert in the field in the world and runs 3 psychiatric hospitals in the US: Michigan, Texas and California. The book The Trauma Model by Ross is a fabulous resource as is the work of Frank Putnam.

My first client with DID had been in the mental health system for over 8 years with dx of Schizophrenia, Borderline Personality, Bipolar Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, Major Depression, etc. all at various points, when I got her. I was led astray by these dx and unfamiliar with the disorder myself for some time until we kept trying higher and higher doses of antipsychotics to control the voices and they would work temporarily, but the voices always returned. In truth, I had until them assumed that hearing voices was alwauys a psychotic symptom (as I had been taught) and did not know enough to distinguish whether the voices came from outside (psychotic) or inside (dissociative) the head. I was fortunate to have been reading a book called Broken Child ( can't recall the author) when it suddenly hit me what was happening as I recognized the similarity between what the voices were like for my client and what the author described. I then began to ask the right questions and learned that my client had been experiencing missing time all her life which she had never reported. As I began to ask the right questions, my client looked at me like I was psychic and suddenly it all began to make sense. She was my first client with it and she taught much and I believe we learned and grew together in our understanding of the disorder. Since then, it has been my particular area of interest and I have developed some expertise in treating it, tho I would in no way consider myself and expert.

What I can tell you is that it took us 6 years post diagnosis to achieve complete integration, but it is possible and she proved the psychiatrists wrong (who completely disagreed and were unreceptive to the diagnosis and the treatment) when she stopped all meds as a result of treatment and it actually served to change the view of one psychiatrist who now refers to me in particular when he suspects there may be a dissociative disorder. I credit that client for teaching me what I needed to learn and for the major achievement of actually educating one psychiatrist in the dynamics of the disorder. If your therapist is familiar with DID enough to spot it, even if she doesn't have experience treating it, she will be the best person to treat you as long as she is open to learning with you. If you have a good relationship with her, stick with it, as the trust and therapeutic alliance is the single most important ingredient you'll need to get through it.

Check out Colin Ross' website for the best information available.

Answer 2

It's actually Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity.

During the period of time when a person is dissociating, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be. For example, during a traumatic experience, a person may dissociate the memory of the place and circumstances of the trauma from his ongoing memory, resulting in a temporary mental escape from the fear and pain of the trauma and, in some cases, a memory gap surrounding the experience.

Because this process can produce changes in memory, people who frequently dissociate often find their senses of personal history and identity are affected

Answer 3

Some people actually don't know for years. For me I never really noticed anything , everyone else around me noticed first.

I am one person one minute and the next something might happen that will completely change me. Explaining it all would take all day , but I have looked up a few web pages for you to read over to try and understand it better:

http://www.mental-health-matters.com/disorders/dis_details.php?disID=39

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/118/112901

http://www.mentalhealth.com/

http://www.nmha.org/

Answer 4

Try this site. Education is one of the most important parts of controlling mental health issues.

http://emotional.health.ivillage.com/personalitydisorders/dissociativeidentitydisorder.cfm

Answer 5

what is did