Question:
Di – YES this makes perfect sense to us. Our old therepist and doctor were leary of diagnosing us MPD too – but as with you all the signs were there. Maybe it is time to get a second opinion? I think I need some support other than my therapists who is avoiding making a certain diagnosis. If anyone can help shed some light on what is going on, I would appreciate some help. Thanks Di
Di – Yes you probably do need additional support and you came to the right place! This group is made up of very loving, caring and supportive people – we learn from and help each other. Hope you find this helpful. Hope to see more posts from you soon. Take care. Love and hugs, Allie and the sunshine gang 
Response:
This may sound stupid but, how do you know if you suffer from this disorder? My therapist said I may have some MPD, dissociation, major depression among others. Now for the hard part for me: I hear voices, a little girl, 2 women and 1 male. Sometimes when I am sleeping the male voice yells at me to wake me up. I wake up and look around thinking that this is my husband calling me and he is sound asleep. I hear these voices in other situations. When I was working, I was not me, even my husband would tell me that I am a different person while I was working. My problem is that I do remember things, and some of these things, me-myself, would never do. But I did do. Does this make since to anyone? I think I need some support other than my therapists who is avoiding making a certain diagnosis. If anyone can help shed some light on what is going on, I would appreciate some help. Thanks Di
Response:
Hello Di. I’m deag, nice to meet you. There was a suggestion here by Allisandra to get a second opinion and I think that’s a great idea, unless you are not feeling safe about seeking another doc/therp. That would be your call. Thought I might share some of my thoughts with you. While I have never been officially diagnosed with any disorders other than a major depressive one along with acute PTSD, there are some things that I do know about myself only because I’ve lived long enough to figure out some things and also some things that I’ve been told about myself. One thing I’m fairly certain of is that I live in this body alone. Meaning, there is no ‘alter’ or other here with me. I say "fairly certain" only because I do have sometimes small and other times very large blocks of time that are just ‘gone’ in my life. I -personally- (for myself only) attribute that to dissociation in dealing with different times in my life. However, all the same, it’s extremely uncomfortable for me to have this ‘missing’ time or events. Leaving me with only the option of friends and/or family to fill me in on what transpired. I do not hear anyone talking to me ever, although somehow somewhere along the way, I managed to program (for lack of a better word) myself to say self-hating things ‘to’ myself at the weirdest times, and while at the time it’s happening I’m at a loss as to where it came from, I am certain it is *me* doing the talking there. I know this because I can clearly hear that it’s my voice, even though I am shocked that it’s coming out of my mouth. I do share with you though the work situation. For me it was most obvious in college, though it did apply to the workplace as well. For example: In high school or any school before college I was at best an average student. And yet in college, I maintained a 4.0 average and was recruited into an Honors program that literally guaranteed my acceptance into some of the best Universities in the country with of course the exceptions of Yale and Harvard and such. My major was Biochemistry. Now, I know I did this work, as I have the transcipts to prove it as well as most of my test preparations and all my notes still, but the thing is, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you the first thing about doing even a linear equation today as I have no clue. And yet, I scored the highest of any of my professor’s students in math classes. And in the bio courses, I was in the top three, yet today I would have to think LONG and hard to remember even something like the stages of cell division which was fundamental to what my studies were at the time. Now, the thing is. I know I was there, as I remember being there. However, when I look back I have no choice but to say to myself that it wasn’t me, even though I know it was. And mind you, this was not even four years ago, all this with school. It’s very confusing and quite frightening at times. I can truly relate with you on many levels here. My personal belief (about myself) is that I was basically in a dissociative state at the time as it also happened to be, in my private life outside school, one of the most difficult times in my life. I simply can not find any other explanation for it all. I also believe that the dissociative tendency in my life started at an extremely early age since I’m unable to recall major as well as minor childhood events up to major and minor adult events without the help of friends and family. And I don’t mean they help me remember, I mean they have to convince me that something did occur that was said to have occurred. There’s a big difference. I take their word on most of it, since I have no recollection whatsoever myself. I’ve not had the benefit of a competent therapist whom I felt safe enough to explore all this with, but if I did have someone I trusted in that way, I’m sure I would discuss it as fully as I possibly could. Mainly because I’m damn curious how I managed it all for 32 years but also just as importantly, simply because I want to know -why- I managed in this fashion as opposed to, perhaps, going completely off the deep end. I guess at this point what I’m saying is, if you feel safe with the therp you are seeing, I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t get the answers to the questions you have by working toward them. If that’s what you want. And I also think, as I said above, that getting a second opinion is a good idea. I believe you could do that while still with this therp you have. Kinda like an outside evaluation or something of that sort. It’s worth asking about anyway, if you are curious. And you wouldn’t have do do anything until -you- were ready anyhow. It’s just nice to have options. Don’t know if you can take any of this with you, but I hope so. Thank you for your post as it gave me the opportunity to talk about something I’ve not been brave enough to talk about here before. Feels good. Thanks. deag – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – This may sound stupid but, how do you know if you suffer from this disorder? My therapist said I may have some MPD, dissociation, major depression among others. Now for the hard part for me: I hear voices, a little girl, 2 women and 1 male. Sometimes when I am sleeping the male voice yells at me to wake me up. I wake up and look around thinking that this is my husband calling me and he is sound asleep. I hear these voices in other situations. When I was working, I was not me, even my husband would tell me that I am a different person while I was working. My problem is that I do remember things, and some of these things, me-myself, would never do. But I did do. Does this make since to anyone? I think I need some support other than my therapists who is avoiding making a certain diagnosis. If anyone can help shed some light on what is going on, I would appreciate some help. Thanks Di
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Response:
I think I need some support other than my therapists who is avoiding making a certain diagnosis. If anyone can help shed some light on what is going on, I would appreciate some help.
I’ve spent months and months trying to figure out whether I’m a "real" multiple, or whether I’m just really putting one over on my poor shrink. All in all, I think that agonizing over the diagnosis is pretty much a waste of time. My tentative solution is to agree with my therp that *I* don’t believe I’m a multiple, even though he suspects otherwise. HOWEVER, I find it extremely useful to think "as if" I were a multiple, and to use multiplicity as a metaphor for what’s going on with me. This way, I can talk about "parts" without really having to *believe* in them. Hope this makes sense. sw ps–I’ve had a male voice yelling for me to wake up for at least 20 years, and it has never been the voice of the man with whom I happen to be sleeping at the time
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