Question:
Hi everyone! This is my first intentional post to this BB, After 23 years of mis-diagnoses and me giving up on therapy, I was finally given the label of DID about 3 weeks ago. And funny thing is I feel so-o-o relieved after wondoring all these years what was wrong. My therapist discharged me right away and told me to find new coping strategies like drinking soda, breathing, etc . I thought I’d post this because I found a couple things that seem to really help me get in touch and begin to establish integration and I thought I’d share them and find out if anyone has any other Tricks to integration/recovery. Let me preface by saying that I’ve discovertd that the critical voice seems to be the cause of a whole lot ff my fragmentation. So I decided to give it my utmost attention one day while I was alone and lying quietly on my bed. Let me put a spoiler in here… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -
So the critical voice started in on minor annoying things like I shouldn’t be lying down during the day and I had left the window open and anyone could break in and I shouldn’t be wearing my shoes, etc etc. The general theme was to place me in a no-win situation. I noticed that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable as the criticism continued until quite a lot of anxiety was welling up. I became so fearful that I wanted to "bolt" SO – I just held myself (you know like hug myself) to try to establish a feeling of safety. As I did that a small never-before-heard-voice spoke up and said that if she/I was a "bad girl that people would make us to things that we didn’t like to do". With this contact the anxiety became full blown terror and I had to begin an affirmation about how I am a "good girl" and NO-ONE can ever make me do things that I don’t want to do. It took a couple of days of "panic attack" but eventually my hugging-and-affirming approach worked and I believed myself. Now I had 1 coping strategy. Of course I still have amnesia regarding a few real traumatic events in my life, but I feel like I’m on the right track by integrating the stronger fragments and hopefully integrating the more trouble-some personalities after I am stronger. I feel so much more empowered now that I understand the disorder. For example, I just moved into a new/used home and have been building up a lot of stress because of little fix-it things that need to be done and I need to find a "handy-man" and all the anxiety that comes up with that. Then lo-and-behold, I woke up last Sunday morning and a forgotten fix-it personality took over and by Sunday evening all the minor repair jobs were done and my muscles ached a lot. But the point is that I stayed around during the Miss Fixit phase and decided to try to integrate with this personality. Apparently the "I can’t do things like that" personality was only serving some societal pressure that endorses women’s dependence on men. So-o-o Adios Ms. I- cant-do-it and integration with "little Miss Fixit". What I’m trying to say is that it seems so much easier to be conscious (aware) of these changes and not "go away" like I used to. I hope I’m able to keep it all up. Anyways these were some things that I’ve been using and I wondor if anyone else has found approaches that work towards consciousness and integration.
Response:
Hi everyone! This is my first intentional post to this BB, After 23 years of
hi :) welcome aboard mis-diagnoses and me giving up on therapy, I was finally given the label of DID about 3 weeks ago. And funny thing is I feel so-o-o relieved after wondoring all these years what was wrong. My therapist discharged me right away and told me to find new coping strategies like drinking soda, breathing, etc .
this is really confusing us. we read this to say that as soon as your therapist realized you were DID you were discharged from therapy and told to find coping tricks? why were you in therapy in the first place? was it to find a diagnosis, or because things in your life were out of control? we can’t see how simply finding the diagnosis can be enough to make that much of a difference in everyday coping and feelings and stuff. sure, we can see that it would be a relief to finally know what is going on. we were kind of relieved, too, but we also had a lot of resistance to the idea that we were mp, and spent the next year or so basically trying to come to terms with that so we could start to heal. why did your therapist discharge you? because your insurance doesn’t cover long term treatment which is what DID usually needs? because your therapist doesn’t know how to treat DID? because you said you didn’t want to get into the issues involved, and were just grateful for the diagnosis? because the therapist said DID doesn’t need treatment? we have never heard of drinking soda as a treatment method for DID. we are really confused about what happened with your therapist. we are not saying that you did anything wrong, or anything bad about you. all you could do is accept what the therapist told you, if you didn’t have any other information. after all, the therapist is supposed to be the expert. we are just confused about what the therapist did. it doesn’t make any sense to us. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I thought I’d post this because I found a couple things that seem to really help me get in touch and begin to establish integration and I thought I’d share them and find out if anyone has any other Tricks to integration/recovery. Let me preface by saying that I’ve discovertd that the critical voice seems to be the cause of a whole lot ff my fragmentation. So I decided to give it my utmost attention one day while I was alone and lying quietly on my bed. Let me put a spoiler in here… So the critical voice started in on minor annoying things like I shouldn’t be lying down during the day and I had left the window open and anyone could break in and I shouldn’t be wearing my shoes, etc etc. The general theme was to place me in a no-win situation. I noticed that I was beginning to feel uncomfortable as the criticism continued until quite a lot of anxiety was welling up. I became so fearful that I wanted to "bolt" SO – I just held myself (you know like hug myself) to try to establish a feeling of safety. As I did that a small never-before-heard-voice spoke up and said that if she/I was a "bad girl that people would make us to things that we didn’t like to do". With this contact the anxiety became full blown terror and I had to begin an affirmation about how I am a "good girl" and NO-ONE can ever make me do things that I don’t want to do. It took a couple of days of "panic attack" but eventually my hugging-and-affirming approach worked and I believed myself. Now I had 1 coping strategy. Of course I still have amnesia regarding a few real traumatic events in my life, but I feel like I’m on the right track by integrating the stronger fragments and hopefully integrating the more trouble-some personalities after I am stronger. I feel so much more empowered now that I understand the disorder. For example, I just moved into a new/used home and have been building up a lot of stress because of little fix-it things that need to be done and I need to find a "handy-man" and all the anxiety that comes up with that. Then lo-and-behold, I woke up last Sunday morning and a forgotten fix-it personality took over and by Sunday evening all the minor repair jobs were done and my muscles ached a lot. But the point is that I stayed around during the Miss Fixit phase and decided to try to integrate with this personality. Apparently the "I can’t do things like that" personality was only serving some societal pressure that endorses women’s dependence on men. So-o-o Adios Ms. I- cant-do-it and integration with "little Miss Fixit". What I’m trying to say is that it seems so much easier to be conscious (aware) of these changes and not "go away" like I used to. I hope I’m able to keep it all up. Anyways these were some things that I’ve been using and I wondor if anyone else has found approaches that work towards consciousness and integration.
it sounds like you’ve done some really hard, really good work with yourself. we admire what you did. 
that takes a lot of courage and strength. it sounds like you are doing fine right now without a therapist. we weren’t trying to insist that you *need* a therapist with our earlier comments. our comments up there were not about you, they were about your therapist, and the fact that what sie did didn’t make sense to us based on what we know about what happens with most people. of course, you are you, you are not "most people." :) anyway, welcome to asd pink bunnies / ~ ) All conditions are temporary //| ( `o’_* — For more information about this service, send e-mail to:
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