Hey y’all. I have a big update, so mods my question will be at the bottom.
I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and he has been talking with my therapist and other members of my treatment team and they have come to the conclusion that I have a dissociative disorder, most likely DID. Not schizoaffective disorder or psychosis. There is no one equipped to treat dissociative disorders at the clinic I go to so they are looking for someone new to refer me to at a different agency.
@Ninjastar@anon9798425 My question is I’m assuming since they have come to the conclusion this is not psychosis, I am assuming I really don’t have a reason to hang around the forum. Im not sure if my account needs to be deleted or not. I don’t want to intrude, but part of me wants to know if it’d be okay if I popped in every once in a while to see how everyone is. If that is not okay then the deletion of my account can move forward.
I want to give a big thank you to all of you for showing me friendship and support through some really hard times. I wish all of you the best.
Thank you. I just wasn’t sure and wanted to ask the mods since this is a forum for people with psychosis. Trust me, I don’t want to leave. But if it is in the best interest of the forum I will oblige.
Hey, man. We have several members with DID on here. We only ask that if you have different alters using the site under different names, you let us know to the best of your ability, because when we see multiple accounts under the same IP we tend to permaban one of them and suspend the other. Multiple accounts for the same person are not allowed, generally speaking.
I know you must be going through a confusing time with this diagnosis change, and you’re welcome to all the support you need here. There is a lot of overlap with DID and psychosis, such as hearing voices, and they are the two most heavily stigmatized mental disorders out there, so I think you’ll still fit in here just fine.
Thanks for the reply. No new accounts will be created. I will probably be the only one posting, but will try to figure out some way to distinguish if it is not me. Our communication is not too great, so hopefully I can figure out something.
I am pretty confused. I was told for nine years that I had psychosis, so this is a pretty big pill to swallow for me. I feel like I wasted nine years of treatment because it was strictly related to psychosis, so I’m feeling pretty discouraged now. Plus I have to now find a professional to see that specializes in dissociative disorders, one that I feel comfortable with, and one that accepts my insurance, which seems almost impossible judging on the research I’ve done so far.
Idk, just want to get to a good place and right now that seems so far away.
If it makes you feel better, I will share my biggest secret with you…I have DID AND sza depressive type. I’ve never shared that here before. I integrated once but partially split again after Shmookitty passed away in Dec 2006. It wasn’t until I was 43 that I got diagnosed sza, before that I was only treated for DID and incorrectly labeled major depression with psychotic features.
I say you’re definitely welcome here, I’d definitely miss you if you left. ((HUGS))
Oh yeah, that prolly WAS confusing. My screen name is my cat’s name who I had and adored between 1989 and 2006. Her name was Miss Mickey the Shmoo, or Shmookitty. She was my daughter to me and her passing has been a major trauma from which I haven’t recovered.
Also worth mentioning is that when you have one account like mine where the IP address is all over the place, it’s good to let the mods know you’re using a VPN to avoid geoblocking so you can watch Netflix in U.S., Sweden, etc.
Thank you for sharing that with me/the forum. I’m really worried about what treatment for DID is going to entail. If you ever feel up to it/get a chance would you mind letting me know a little summary of the therapy process? It can either be here or in a PM, whichever you prefer.
I’m also sorry to hear about your cat. That’s really hard. I had to have my first dog put to sleep back in January. It was really rough.
I can only give you my experience, I’m sure different therapists have different ways of working.
I started out with a LCSW (licensed clinical social worker) who diagnosed me and referred me to a pdoc. The pdoc put me on an antidepressant, antipsychotic, and benzo, and he also hospitalized me for my first time in a private hospital.
We had all kinds of therapies in the hospital - group, occupational and art therapies, psychodrama, etc. Turned out they also had an outpatient group for DID, so I was referred to that and kept going after discharge. That was run by a very talented social worker and entailed group talk therapy.
What helped me integrate my alters was EMDR. I forget what that stands for but you can google it. You take a scene from your life that is upsetting to you, outline it with the therapist, and then you talk about it in segments interspersed with rapid eye movements. Some therapists use a pendulum, mine used a bar of green lights. The idea is that you dissociate from your traumas and never work through them - but the rapid eye movements keep your brain focused so you finally work all the way through the experience. In my case, this meant that alters who held specific memories were no longer needed to be separate, so they integrated.
I spent two years and a great deal of money doing EMDR with my pdoc. At the end of it, I was fully integrated. Just to repeat a very important point - I was taking Zyprexa, Prozac, and Klonopin during the treatment, I was very med compliant, which helped. EMDR is not an easy process, but it’s worth it.
I replied here in case anyone else needed the information and didn’t want to speak up… You’re welcome to PM me if you need to though.
I should add, I haven’t been in therapy since 1997 except for five months with a fairly incompetent guy back in 2015. I don’t switch that much anymore, and I’m co-conscious with all my alters, so I don’t lose time like I used to for chunks of days. My system works pretty well for me and I don’t want to go through the big expense again so I just go through life with seven alters and me.
through previous therapy, we figured out how to work together and it stuck.
Thanks very much for sharing. I have been told about EMDR, but no one in the agency I go to has training in it. Still looking to find a therapist who deals in dissociation/trauma but my searches are coming up short because a lot of them don’t accept my insurance. Found one possibility that I’m going to call today most likely and my current therapist is searching as well. I got some booklets about dissociative disorders today and next week me and a lady I work with are going to do some psycho education on dissociative disorders.
All in all I feel drained and confused. I could write a book on the symptoms of schizophrenia. Now I’m having to learn a whole new diagnosis along with new coping skills. Feeling very discouraged right about now.
