Posted by DaisyM on April 10, 2004, at 15:58:11
In reply to Re: Multiple Personality: A shameful, nonexistent dx?, posted by Dinah on April 10, 2004, at 9:38:43
I want to jump in here, if I can.
I don't have DID but I since being in therapy I definately have a couple of voices going off. The biggest differentiation for me is my "adult" voice and my "child" voice. They are co-conscious but really hate what each other wants. I would liken this to Dinah's emotional/rational states.
The biggest difference for me is around the expression of need for nurturing. The child part has been unleashed by therapy and she *demands* a lot of my Therapist. She wants to be heard and has a lot of hard things to share. The adult wants to contain her, 1) because her stuff is too hard to hear 2) her stuff is so old, it isn't relevent to the adult's life anymore and 3)her emotions make it really hard for the adult to function so that nobody notices the suffering. Plus the child is frightened that sharing the old, bad stuff will overwhelm my therapist, resulting in abandonment, so she wants a lot of contact. The adult deals with the abandonment fears by keeping an emotional distance and talking about practical problems that need solving.
So, not two diffent personalities, but two different states and ages. I find it all very disconcerting, especially talking about myself in parts. I try not to do that too much but it is impossible to describe the circular arguments that go on in my head without talking about the two voices. I definately don't talk about different voices outside of therapy...or here.
My Therapist has asked directly to talk to the child part. Before that, I talked about "her" or what she wanted but the adult always edited out most of the needy stuff. The first time he asked, it was really awful for me. "She" spilled out all this stuff and "I" couldn't get her to shut up. At the next session I asked him "why did he do that?!" He told me she was "right there." He could feel her in the room with us and thought it was important to let her talk. It took me weeks to forgive him. But I did not feel disrespected at all. And I doubt I would have let her out if he hadn't asked and then worked hard afterward to let the adult part know that what the child said was OK.
I guess everyone's experience is really different and maybe therapy naturally has us examining ourselves in parts and stages. I'm sure having "true" DID is much harder than what I've experienced. I appreciate this thread and I've learned a lot.
poster:DaisyM
thread:334109
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040409/msgs/334965.html