Hi, I have been dealing with dissociation for a long, long time and I suspect i have some type of dissociative disorder. Whatever it is, it's not DID, my experiences are way too subtle and not like what I've read about or heard from speaking with people who have it (not the tiktok stuff). However, they've been persistent and pretty detrimental for years; I spent a while trying to talk to my old psychologist about it but eventually stopped out of shame because I felt like I was trying to malinger DID and that i'd poisoned the well so to speak by reading about it online, despite ultimately trying to communicate something genuine. I pretty much gave up on therapy because I had no idea what was wrong with me and felt totally stuck and ashamed.

Recently I was given a pdf of "Rebuilding Shattered Lives" which is aimed at clinicians treating dissociative and trauma disorders. I found it interesting to read as I'm a nerdy psychology student, but more importantly there were a handful of case studies of people with dissociative issues that felt far more relatable to my own experiences! If anyone has more information on 'abnormal' presentations of DDs or clinical dissociation in general that doesn't look like the classic distinct alters and amnesia of DID i'd be very interested. I'm sorry for asking a question that's not specifically about DID, i just imagined people here might be a bit more knowledgable than on the cptsd sub for example.

Thanks!

i hate how everything treatment is focused on trauma (i dont have any trauma) and finding out why i act so different in different situations and have amnesia i dont have other people in my head i refuse to say i have alters i dont like this how do i get rid of did is it possible to get rid of it and remember things i do and only do normal things for me please help

So. Fair warning this will probably not flow well, for I suffer from, gosh, WAY too many mental disorders. So bear with me here as I attempt to get my point across. I am trying to just, learn how to be me and to be okay with all aspects of myself and this experience. I am not sure when I was diagnosed with dissociative disorder, for it is one of the myriad of disorders I suffer from and endure every day. I've not had an easy life, I was born to two people who quite frankly should probably not have decided to reproduce at all, let alone together to create this beautiful disaster. I was neglected for the first very crucial months of my life. The greatest, most amazing, and kind gift I have ever and may ever receive in this life was this: Adoption at six months old. Mom said I smiled the entire three hours back to, home! Neglect is a form of abuse so this should stand...I am still realizing and dealing with the after effects of that abuse and will do so, for the rest of my life. Just, trying to keep things somewhat short, and I'm not sure if this will ever be read or anything. One lesson I've learned from dying and being resuscitated at age 14, and the suicide attempts before and after, they all taught me, I am meant to get my story out there. It will help someone, at least one person if I'm lucky. The loss of the boy i first dated when I was 14(two year relationship) The sexual assault, the kidnapping, the sex trafficking, a second boyfriend I dated for a year, dying of an overdose. This one though, I still love him. I still will never forgive him for trying to kill me twice, drugging me and selling me, getting me pregnant to experience the most painful miscarriage, and most physically painful experience i ever suffered. I was spared the truams of waking up/didn't find his body. I did not need to, I dated him for the last year, I saw it all. So I have PTSD, maybe CPTSD. I am hyper aware and I feel like I am Drifting through this existence with one eye open. I know how to ground myself, I am just so numb or thinking to fast. Or robotic and distant I could go on and on.....just it's a lot and I'm tired with a headache. How...too much? How does one human soul endure so much? I know, there is worse. Not comparable though. I know how to cope, whether it be healthy or not. It works and doesn't never enough. I'm soul tired I'm ready to move on and let go, give up. Alas, I cannot So I beseech any of you, How?

I’ve just seen a lot of people here have DID and was wondering which one it was

Hi sorry i need to rant and have noone to talk to about this. So i had? DID. Everyone else is now gone and i dont really know why. One of our alters S, went to the back of our mind where we cant reach eachother (either the person goes through bad thoughts or has no consciousness, either way not great.) So we were all worried about about her. Next thing that happened is my mother took me to get shots (i have an insane fear of needles so that didnt go well...) when i got back after fighting off our protector (C) the whole time (since she felt my panic), i let her take over suffice it to say she was not happy. She was furious with our mother for making me go through that and no matter what i said, it was necessary, she did it for our health, blah blah blah, she was still absolutely infuriated. We went downstair to get a snack and drink because she insisted on me eating and drinking before she left, and she refused to speak or look our mom. She left after making me promise to eat and drink. I didnt hear from her again. L was taking a break from fronting which was very unlike him but i understood. After a few weeks of me being alone he came forward and said he talked to C saying she wasnt mad at me but was mad at mom. That didnt make me feel much better because id already been overthinking for weeks, plus being mad at our mom who did nothing wrong made me upset, blaming myself for the whole ordeal because of the stupid phobia. He left again and after awhile their presences started going away. I dont feel them anymore and have tried to reach out but im pretty sure they are gona and have been for a long time. I feel horrible about how it all ended and it just hurts. We always said wed be together forever and now they are gone and it was in such a bad way. Is this my fault? Can i get them back? How do i go forward when i can still remember them from time to time and feel so horrible. Sorry for the rant, im gonna go cry now.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for support so I can better support my daughter. Let's call her Lynn. She's just turned 15.

She got her first phone during lockdowns and has been incredibly online ever since. From Tiktok,she learned about DID. (She literally came out of her room after seeing one video, talking to us about it in detail.)

She has, since learning about DID, says she thinks she has DID, and mentioned many systems, regularly changing (switching?) sometimes within the same hour.

We've been taking her to see a counselor, but she openly tells us that she can't talk to that counselor about anything, because she's still getting used to even have a counselor. To be completely clear, she has not been diagnosed with DID.

I don't know what to do and we're at our wits end. She has introduced three new systems just this week. We're incredibly overwhelmed.

I don't even know what else to say. Any advice would be helpful. I don't want to be that jerk that says she doesn't have DID, but I would feel a lot more comfortable if we had a diagnosis and support, which are nearly impossible to get where we live, especially with her age.

Another note, her older sibling went through a similar trajectory but hasn't mentioned any systems since, nor have we seen a difference in personality or behaviors which would indicate switches. We reacted in a similar supportive and calm manner, accepting the news, confirming names and pronouns, and clarifying boundaries.

Apologies if this is a lot, I just want to give any pertinent information.

How did that affect your relationship with your system?

Today I had a moment. I was on an online AA meeting and about to share and I think I full-on switched. It was very disorienting and panicked, then I found myself unable to speak properly I had to just say sorry I'd try again later. I felt a bit freaked out and embarrassed. I doubt the people in the group knew what was going on but it was weird and left me feeling anxious. I felt like my "crazy" was suddenly, momentarily on camera in a room full of people. I guess I'm not as stable as I thought I was. Or else a part felt safe there and decided they wanted to speak themselves . Or felt unsafe and thought we shouldn't speak at all.

I've been afraid that this would eventually happen. I'm not sure how I'm going to navigate meetings going forwards if spontaneous switching is a possibility. I'm just trying to ground now and reassure parts that they are accepted and loved.

I was diagnosed with schizophrenia but I think I have dissociative amnesia.

I have had flashbacks of traumatic memories several times in my life. I remember the events for a few days but then I forget about them. The last time I started having flashbacks was in May 2022. After that I sought medical treatment and never forgot the traumatic memories. The doctor said that I have schizophrenia and that all the memories that I recollect are false but I don't think so as the recollections are so vivid and detailed. Can the doctor be wrong or is he hiding my diagnosis from me since the memories are too traumatic? Sometimes my father asks me to leave the room and talks to the Doctor alone.

Currently I am on Blonanserin, Fluvoxamine Maleate, and Risperidone Trihexyphenidyl Hydrochloride.

Hi, anyone who’s reading this,

I’m pretty new to the whole therapy and psych stuff. I’ve been diagnosed with an unclear personality disorder or something like that, but recently I’ve been thinking a lot and have talked with my therapist and in my therapy group about feeling like I’m different people.

I’ve never really taken time to reflect fully on the whole of it all before now. I tend to shift into different mindsets or personalities—not really well-defined like in “most” DID cases. I just kind of have three main ones, where one of them (the one I’m in right now and the one I usually let take control in therapy or when talking about my mess of a mind) is like just this objective person, a bit god-like, just trying to keep track of everything and trying to understand our mind.

This version of me, us, or whatever is mostly present when I’m alone for a long time or, again, in therapy and whatnot. But I’m only aware of this version when I’m Usika, who is the one in control of emotions typically during mid-October to April or about that time. She’s a lot more self-destructive. She can’t sleep, she doesn’t like how we look a lot of the time, she sees a lot of deformities—for example, looking at the ground for too long makes it spiral almost. She hates eating too.

Then in the summer, I’m Cecilie (my “real” name). She’s “happy” or slightly sardonic or at least close to what most people call happy, yk. She’s mostly just bored and feels like she can do anything. She’s not aware of the others at all, almost, and if she thinks about the memories (the ones she can remember, even if it’s foggy), it doesn’t feel real, like it’s all just a made-up lie and there was nothing wrong in the first place.

People don’t tend to notice a huge change—maybe they notice I seem more down or have less energy, but I mask a lot. I just tune out when I’m in school or being social for long amounts of time. The mask is a whole other personality, but it’s not a person. It’s just something I put on automatically—done so since I was little. I do it to fit in, I think, even if Usika doesn’t care what they think of her personality. We still can’t turn it off. I’m so used to living on lies I barely know what’s real or fake about us.

Right now, I’m trying so hard to explain it to myself, but I feel like there’s just this huge cloud, and I’m only allowed small bites of information. And I know there’s more versions in there, ’cause every now and again they chip in to give a little comment—sometimes positive, other times negative, both in anxiety ways or harming others ways. Or like stealing a train. I literally had one comment about the fact that we could possibly steal a train (there was an open door to the conductor seat and both the conductors were chatting on the platform).

I feel like it’s all just so clouded, and I can’t fully tap into everything, even though I just want to understand myself and my mind.

I mostly came here to find answers maybe, or someone who had input or advice on what might be going on, and if it’s even DID. ‘Cause it might just be some other sh!t. I’ve been diagnosed with “problems with strong personality traits,” which I think is only a Danish diagnosis, but it basically just means there’s probably a personality disorder; it’s just not the basic 5.

I have a theory that I mostly got this because I was so torn between answers. I got tested in spring, so I was in and out of Usika nothingness and Cecilie, so I had a hard time ’cause sometimes I could relate, but I would feel differently when I tapped into another personality, which just made it all that much more complicated.

But yeah, I think that’s pretty much all we wanted to say. If you, reading this, have any kind of input or something to say, please do :) (Well, minus Cecilie—she’s not really a part of the us we are right now, which is even weirder. Ahhhh, I just wanna organize everything. Also, I hope I didn’t break any rules—I just want to try to understand myself and see if someone can relate or anything really.)

I’m at work and if i think about it i wanna cry

My current therapist is telling me that as I feel safer they'll go away but from what I can tell that's not true? They actually get worse.... louder.... about what they want instead of me trying to survive now I need to worry Dave Zack and sometimes angel want me to look masculine lele and seena want to play with toys l wants to make things I'm overwhelmed as hell!! I feel like I'm drowning at this point idek who I myself am what I can do anything at all I feel fake ALL the time now because shouldn't they be only protecting me? If that's the case WHY ARE THEY SO ACTIVE NOW I need help is my therapist wrong in that they will go away when I'm safe? Cause I feel pretty ok but they're so loud..... please I need answers

Ive seen it mentioned before but sho else has experienced this? My coworker has me absolutely magnetized. It almost feels like perfection or something deeply true. Probably the familiarity that we don’t experience among the general population, but still. It could be the genuine attraction I experience with them; the personal similarities, raw intelligence, empathy, complexity, etc. but it’s like I’m being drawn in. It’s definitely reciprocal, but I’m amazed by the inner conflict over it. I also feel like I’m learning about myself just by being around them, like I’m healing. I know it’s not true but I’m just in shock never having experienced anything like this

It's been years since I last fronted and had gone dormant.

Being back feels unreal.

Before I disappeared for years I remember I broke up with my boyfriend in system and now that I'm back, he has a new partner here.

It feels unreal.

Our body got top surgery and is now on gender affirming care. The host seems happier. One of the subsystems fully integrated.

It feels unreal.

I missed so much. I was gone for so long and I feel like I'm not needed like I used to be. I used to protect us at school. I used to help with homework assignements. We graduated.

How do I cope with being back here but not really having a purpose? Others thought I was gone forever. Everyone moved on from me.

Hello guys im wondering if there has been any medication that helped you guys with this diagnose, Ive been on Abilify, Quetiapine, Flouxetine and Sertraline. For some reason Sertraline was the one that helped from what I remember, or it was just that it helped my other diagnoses like OCD and Social Anxiety that helped it kind of mask it, I dont know, either way im starting on sertraline again but taking it very slow becuase of mania I got from taking too much.

Has any medication helped anyone more with DID?

Today our therapist kinda gave us an ultimatum. She is leaving the current practice and opening her own. We told her that we wanted to follow her. She said she had given it some thought and would allow that but with one condition...we start seeing a different therapist for EMDR therapy along with seeing her for talk therapy. We have been very conflicted since she mentioned this condition/ ultimatum. We feel safe enough with her, but we don't feel ready to try EMDR again. She stated she knows it can take some time to find an EMDR therapist who is experienced with DID and that she would look as well. It doesn't help that she is leaving her current practice in like 2 weeks, so there is not enough time to even try and find a different therapist that is willing to take us and for us to establish some trust in a new therapist. We want to stay with her but don't like that she basically gave the ultimatum to get EMDR therapy.

Hi i jus wanna say im not only using this sub to inquire about DID and learn more about my case but this post is also me just trying to wrap my head around and collect all my shit

So it all started a year ago when i was obsessed(and i mean *obsessed* ) with a girl who rejected me and thought i was a weirdo, after that i didnt feel complete nor did i feel accomplished and i wasnt able to simply move on so i became more obsessed with her and i started smoking and harming myself and other stuff i wont mention and i also started drinking and at one point i even did drugs, i wont mention what exactly but i overdosed that night and nothings ever been the same since that.. after that experience i continued drinking and then suddenly i felt an extreme surge of dissociation wash over me, it was derealization. it wasnt my first time having it, ive had it once when i was 9 and i sort of just grew out of it and it hasnt happened to me for literally years until now. i have to say the two weeks i had DPDR for were the worst weeks of my life and even though i didnt have anxiety from it(which thank god cuz if i did it wouldve been much worse) after these two weeks my personality greatly changed, i became less caring about religious beliefs and changed the things i believed in and how i believed in them i stopped drinking for a bit(though i did return to it) i did have alot of work to keep myself busy which combined with all these things helped me stop my dissociation for a bit. but then all i could remember is that i suddenly all i could remember is that i could hear different parts that make me up talking to me, with seperate lines of thought in my head literally conversating together. now i've had voices in my head before and they were normally self-destructive telling me to harm myself but ive never actually had voices that could very well communicate and could respond to eachother like regular humans like this.. and my shifting in personality started when i began feeling self-conscious about some things about myself and one part of me just hated it and felt repulsed. to further elaborate these two identities:
one of them is called Jonah the other one ill call Marw. Jonah is an intelligent apathetic overconfident and pretty careless guy overall while Marw is a nice guy who goes out of his way to do things for others, he isnt as intelligent as jonah and hes more emotional and submissive and caring than him and im either one of these two guys. Literally today in my head theyve had an argument over who would take over my body and i switched from Marw to Jonah and Jonah being the overconfident person he was saw himself buried in the bed with an oversized hoodie for comfort and literally felt so disgusted first thing i did was went over to the barber and shaved my hair bald(lol) and now im just sitting here(im feeling way more neutral now that im trying to relax but holy shit saying this stuff makes me feel like im going insane). its probably worth mentioning that the leading up to the identity switch was me with my current self being marw sitting in bed depressed and starting to feel like no one is gonna love me and im never gonna get a spouse or partner and after that i buried myself deep in my pillow while sobbing and after that i literally felt my hand moving on its own and slapping myself right across the face, even though i was trying to resist it i had a deep strong urge to do it like a part of me reallyyyy wanted to do it. and after that slap the switch happened and i went to the barber to get bald(lol 2x)

I am 34 and have struggled with mental illness for as long as I can remember. My past is troubled, I then topped it off with marrying a narcissist. Now, 2 years into a finally healthy relationship My person has taught me how to feel again. Emotions are HARD and I became an expert on surpressing every single one of them. I went on autopilot for years and ignored myself. I literally made myself watch certain things until they didn't bother me. I have been in therapy for almost 6 months and my therapist is wacky awesome. Whilst working on myself, my emotions aren't so suppressed and things have been happening. We've explored schizophrenia, bpd, PTSD, bipolar, and while I have multiple diagnosis... DID has come up. I need help. To my knowledge I have not been "possessed" by an alter. But I fight it. I've recently tried communicating with whomever is there and I get whispers. My stubborn self is worried I am fabricating answers. My zoning out and dissociation has worsened and sometimes I stop myself from "going somewhere." I feel like I'm at the top of a roller-coaster about to plummet. I feel it throughout my entire body. The rush, the jolt. I surpress it. I don't want to surpress it anymore. My husband is so supportive and I feel safe.

Does anyone have any advice?? Has anyone been diagnosed later in life? Has anyone not had contact with their alters until adulthood?

Hello, excuse me for disturbing you but I was wondering if the character Fubuki Shirou/Shawn Frost in the anime Inazuma Eleven could suffer from dissociative identity disorder? He seems to have many symptoms related to this disorder such as the presence of an alter, the integration of his personalities, he has a feeling of confusion about his identity…, if some people know this anime I would be delighted to receive your answer (I am interested in the portrait that the media can establish of different mental illnesses). If I said something offensive I apologize.

In an odd place…

Is it normal for alters to go silent after a raging cacophony?

Can the host be more aware of alters than they are of each other and themselves?

Can the host be partially amnesiac and recall events as a place but no details of experience?

Is motion sickness and vertigo common in co-consciousness?

Help.

So I had one really really bad DDD (depersonalization-derealization disorder) episode at school a few weeks ago—this was the worst episode I have ever had in my entire life, normally they only last a few minutes, this one lasted 2 days, and after that I’ve started to question reality. Ever since I had that big episode I’ve started having feelings and experiences I would’ve never had before the episode. I’m not like a completely different person, I’m still me—I still have a lot of the same interests or whatever, but now it’s like there’s someone else sharing their feelings with me, like we are 1 entity, but it’s like I merged with another person.

Content note for mention of suicide.

I have been having a really rough time and I am struggling to accept the fact that DID might help explain some of the reasons why stuff is so challenging sometimes.

Beginning of October I ended up suicidal and quitting my job. I was 5150ed. I don't remember quitting. I do remember taking the pills, but it was definitely someone else in control because I felt like I was in a trance. My job had become an environment where I was, I guess, switching between alters ... I would panic and cry at my desk all day long and couldn't get anything done. I kept trying to tell my manager I was in a serious mental health crisis but was told to just take a few days off. In those days off, I tried to kill myself.

I have been trying to recover. But it feels like they are hell bent on not letting me experience anything good. Whenever I start to feel good, I feel pain in my chest, like someone is pushing me back really hard, and the good feelings actually physically hurt and I feel like I can hear them say, "No" or, "We won't let you" or, "You're not allowed to."

I haven't been formally diagnosed, but my therapist suspects DID. I thought it was normal to constantly experience like, such severe internal turmoil that is actually hurts, like several different voices fighting with each other or like constantly shifting between states that seem so radically different from each other. I thought this was normal and that everyone else was just better at handling it than I am. But I'm beginning to realize that this may not be true.

I am completely miserable and they won't let me feel any other way. I am trying to interview for a new job but I'm scared I won't actually be able to handle it. These feel like more than just normal emotional ups and downs ... It feels like an out of control roller coaster and I am just trying to hang on for dear life.

How do I deal with them? How have any of you learned to deal with parts or alters that are downright mean or scary or so hopeless they want to die? I know they are trying to protect me, but it's no longer helpful and there is one of them that keeps saying, "We are not going to make it out alive."

Finally met with a therapist yesterday who specializes in DID and I finally feel like I understand my brain a bit better. Diagnosed three years ago and chose to not believe the provider and ignored it and the was rediagnosed recently by another provider who didn’t know I had already been diagnosed before.

Anyway this therapist explained it like an office building. There’s cubical after cubical and walls inbetween each one to separate each person/alter. For some folks with DID the walls go up the the ceiling while other folks walls are lower and the people in each cubical can peek over to chat or can fully feel one other. Explaining the communication or lack thereof between alters.

Thought I’d share how eye opening this was for me to understand why sometimes I felt like I could pull parts of memories during time where I “don’t feel real” while other parts are complete memory loss.

Curious to hear how other folks with DID capture their alters thoughts and personalities (journaling/drawing/etc.) As well as what helps with communication & naming them.

I think there’s only 3-4 of us in the system actively but still grasping an understanding of how my brain works now that I have tools!

Warning this is long I dunno what exactly is wrong with me I KNOW I have DID I'm diagnosed I know my alters but it FEELS like I am just a fake I SAY I'm Dave talk weird the works but I'll REMEMBER but when I'm "me" the memory fades SO fast..... my memories IN GENERAL fade if I'm Dave or Zack or WHOEVER they have feelings and memories and EMOTIONS I dont.... I have trouble feeling ANYTHING if they aren't at least "around" I just... I need to know if this is NORMAL WHATS GOING ON? I hate it I hate not feeling anything other than INTENSE emotions for example I was watching a show I haven't watched in MONTHS I forgot nearly everything about it but tonight I got high which IS a regular occurrence I only do it at night after work and I've been "dave" or zack" or any of the others before without drugs but when I'm on them it helps I feel more like myself back before I knew back when everything felt "normal" back when I thought I WAS normal I stemed I chirped I did things I haven't really done for a while watching this show I'd thought I'd have to restart... I didn't have to tho I remembered it.... all of it I don't I don't understand I don't know if the DID diagnosis is correct because like I have "blackouts" I typically don't remember A LOT of my day unless I try hard enough I don't remember my childhood unless I go looking I don't even remember my graduation I feel compelled to scream "Train" everything I see a train and often times these days do... in a four year olds voice I want it to STOP.... I know I do these things so why can't I stop...

CSEM tw, kind of a ramble

I/we (27, polyfrag) finally started college after dropping out of high school and struggling with disabling mental + physical health issues for the last decade. I've known about my system, on and off, for the majority of that, but the trauma only started coming back in early 2020 when I moved out of my parents' house. It's been an uphill battle to function in any capacity as a person since then, and it nearly killed me many times over.

One of last puzzle pieces to surface (before being very quickly flung into the void, it took a year to come out of denial for this) is that our father and uncle filmed the CSA. Being photographed or recorded has always been very uncomfortable and made me feel gross in a way I could never articulate, but since remembering, it's become extremely triggering. I can barely take selfies. Camera flashes, irl and in movies, and small, blinking red lights trigger me and cause switches. I can't even look at pictures of digital cameras. Every time I've been photographed by someone else since beginning to remember has fucked me up for days. Hell, if you look at my most recent photo ID, it's very clear that I am triggered.

I haven't been filmed since. Hadn't, more accurately. I've avoided it like the plague. Until yesterday morning, when one of my instructors dropped the bomb that she would be recording our presentations. I was already fragile. This time of year is brutal, it's traumaversary after traumaversary until spring. School has been insanely stressful, and the presentation we were giving yesterday was one we felt very ill prepared for because amnesia has been a big struggle, and the part that worked on it is only willing to front on campus under specific circumstances. This means that the primary school part who was meant to present was unfamiliar with the presentation itself, and we'd had no time to actually prepare. We'd been crying on and off all morning already, so when the instructor told us minutes beforehand that she would be filming, it set off a massive panic attack that lead to a hard switch + cut off from our emotions, so much so that our friends commented on it afterwards. They know I have PTSD, but not DID. The part that made the presentation was pulled forward somehow got through it like nothing was wrong (lucky fucker is very disconnected from most trauma stuff) but we've been a bit of a wreck since.

I think we're going to have to email the instructor to ask if it's possible to not be filmed again, since this is apparently something she does a lot during this module, which lasts the rest of the semester. I already had an appointment later in the day with my student success advisor to touch base/follow up about my accommodations, and asked him if that could be put in as a formal accommodation. He'll see what he can do, but I'm realizing that I'll be filmed again at some point in my academic, professional, or personal life, and I can't feasibly avoid it forever.

I need to learn to deal with this, but I'm lost on where to even begin. I don't have a therapist, I can't afford one, and this is way above the paygrade of any MH professional I can access through the college. All of this trauma recovery and processing has been done on my own. My system doesn't cooperate or like each other beyond a handful of the hosts, and our barriers are still thick. Trauma denial is a constant struggle. There are heavily antagonistic parts who insist on keeping us unhealed and will do whatever they can to trigger parts holding memories of the CSA/CSEM/maybe-kind-of organized abuse. I don't feel safe in my own system at this time of year, and I'm just so tired and heavy. What can I do here?

TDLR; my system recovered memories involving CSEM production a year back and have refused to be recorded in any way since. A college course made that unavoidable yesterday and it was extremely triggering. I can't avoid cameras or being filmed for the rest of my life, but I don't have a therapist and can't afford one. What the hell can I do to make this less triggering?

I don't really know what to do. I'm sort of in a double bind where I can't seem to help myself, and it seems like there isn't really anyone else who can help me either. I hate myself for being like this, and for being so sickeningly incompetent and needy.

I had a therapist who I quit seeing. I can't well speak on the nature or extent of what I'm experiencing internally for multiple reasons. I don't know. She had a very cautious approach, and I think because I struggle to talk during appointments and don't know what to bring up, she spent a lot of time sort of... shooting the breeze, from my perspective. Like long-winded explanations about how she doesn't pressure people and respects their boundaries, etc, with various included anecdotes of people she has successfully therapized, which I think I was supposed to find reassuring.

And usually this would end with her saying she appreciates me, so I'd say 'thanks.' I think it made her feel good to explain the ways in which she's a good person, and that's legitimate and fine. But personally I found it frustrating, because it feels like it's for her benefit.

We decided to do IFS together but it was also frustrating because we never got anywhere with it. She backed off really fast if we hit any block, but basically everything is blocked. Then she'd go back to explaining how she doesn't push people, and the rest of the appointment would be frivolous. It's like she's afraid of me experiencing emotions. My emotional connections are blocked in specific ways and I honestly think she doesn't want me to access them unless they're just immediately available, and they're not.

I feel like I don't like the way the IFS theory defines self, but I think she struggled to comprehend why. And I just... don't know. When we were doing the IFS (or rather, trying to), I sort of realized maybe something isn't quite right. Or it's less right than I thought it was. There's too much there, and it's too inaccessible at the same time. Doesn't really make sense, but its hard to describe. I can't access it on demand, and I think all she knows how to do is ask it to come out and then back off when it won't. But that's never going to make anything happen. It just feels bad.

I also talked to her about some stuff directly, past stuff I mean. More directly than I probably should have. It was my fault. I thought she could help me process it with IFS, but I quickly learned that she can't. The attempts were almost laughable. She's a very nice lady though, don't get me wrong, which in itself is a novelty for a therapist. I just think I messed myself up opening up some stuff I shouldn't have, and that plus maybe the attempted IFS feels like it had a destabilizing effect.

So I stopped seeing her and interviewed some other therapists, found one who seemed most promising, and had an appointment. Unfortunately, their first appointment was just intake and I was supposed to fill out a bunch of diagnostic questionnaires beforehand, which I didn't for multiple reasons. During the appointment, the therapist wanted to ask me the survey questions I didn't do. I told her I can't just answer that stuff, and there are multiple reasons that I can't. I'd need someone to just get to know me over time and help me figure out what's going on, and not pressure me to have direct answers to questions I don't know the answers to, or which could have multiple answers, interpretations, or reasonings.

Basically, she ended up telling me I'd be better off with a different therapist. That's fine, I can respect that, and I agree. But it still is a bit demoralizing, because this lady specializes in trauma and dissociative disorders.

I brought up the fact that I feel fragmented to the therapist I was seeing before, the IFS one. She responded by saying I don't seem like I have DID but she can do the survey thing if I want her to. I don't want her to. I never claimed to have DID but she immediately leapt to that, which makes me think she might have a semi-black and white view of this stuff. Like all in or all out.

I used to think everyone experienced something similar internally to what I do but recent discussion with my significant other has made me realize that may not be the case. I feel like I don't really know what's normal anymore. I don't even know why it matters. Maybe it doesn't. Or it wouldn't, but I feel like I'm falling apart and I can't fix it. When I try to talk about trauma or past stuff with my partner, or even when something is triggering, it seems I get too messed up or intense in my response and it becomes impossible for him to navigate. It's also impossible for me to navigate.

It was difficult, because the IFS therapist I was seeing would ask me to connect to a past me, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't feel it. And if she asked me a question, like about feelings or whatever, I don't know what the answer is, because it's like there are different answers located in different wounds. (We called parts wounds because I don't feel comfortable viewing myself as parts.) And I don't know which is true and they all contradict, and I don't even know how to get to some of them, and if I can, I can't verbalize it anyway.

Maybe she understood that, I don't know, but she couldn't help me with it.

I don't really know what to do. Should I go back to my old therapist and try to clarify stuff I don't have the clarity myself to describe? Would there even be a point? Should I keep randomly searching even though I've exhausted all the most promising candidates? I wish I could do self-work but there are multiple barriers to that right now. I could just shut everything down and hope this doesn't all come back worse to bite me in the butt years down the line, but I'm struggling now to shut down, unfortunately. I know I could do it if I really manhandled my psyche, but I'm afraid to. Because I think maybe I've done that in the past and it created greater repercussions than were ideal.

How does anyone manage this?

So we have a little in the system who is 8 years old, and has been pretty much since she formed. She's essentially a personification of the childhood we could have had, so we've admittedly probably tried to protect her too much and unconsciously kept her at that age.

We're trying to reach final fusion, but we're worried about her and what will happen to her, and that cane up in our last therapy session. The conclusion we've came to, and our therapist agrees, is that we need to kinda help her grow up first. We've been trying to think of ways to do that for ages, and never found anything that worked much. And then our therapist pointed out that we could throw her a birthday party, since birthdays are a major milestone that helps you grow up.

Trouble is, and what we figured out very quickly after he brought that up, is that we've only really had 3 birthday parties in our life, and 2 of those were mostly for the sake of other people. We really have no clue how birthday parties work, how to plan them, nothing.

So here we are, on reddit, asking strangers for help planning a birthday party for a little girl to help her grow up.

Tl;dr we want to try and have a birthday party for our little but don't know how. Help 😅

Hi everyone! My partner has been diagnosed for a few years now, and I’d love to know from others who have DID how I can best support and care for them. I really appreciate any thoughts and advice!