Is there anyone else out there with Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder)?

I'm feel very alone and very confused. Besides being multiple, I have bi-polar disorder with mixed states and rapid cycling. I've been trying to figure myself out ever since I was able to think about it. At thirteen, it became an obsession that has never left me. I can't sort out what anything means, it's all too complicated. My psychologist of ten years is frustrated with me right now, seeing that since I've been diagnosed as being in a Major Depression, it seems like I've gone backwards. I have. That's what I do, go round and round in circles, or a spiral. I get older, no wiser. And worse than that, I know it but I can't seem to make headway with changing my behaviour, no matter how hard or how long I try. I'm 52 now, shamed, disheartened and feel unseen. I have a strong bond with my psychologist, but I don't think she really understands depression. She doesn't seem to realize that when I move back and forth between feeling suicidal in the middle of the night and not so much the next day, that knowing I should be in the hospital, but not getting there because I have no one to take me and no money for a cab in the middle of the night, that really this is quite characteristic of depression and since I have atypical depression, even more true. She doesn't want to accept that I did go to emerg while she was on holidays and the night staff admitted me, then the day staff came on and sent me home, that I'm not anxious to try again. No beds. Everyone knows this. she had a client who made a suicide attempt and was still sent home after being patched up and still she feels frustrated that i cry out for help, but don't have the courage or feel the edge of the cliff when the daylight comes and i can keep busy again. I feel angry with her, but I need her. I feel ashamed for not being able to do what she needs me to do. I know that she is afraid for me and yet feels at the limit of the care she can give me, that she is human. I know, but she also knows I've needed something done with my meds for months now, but had to leave my pdoc almost 6 months ago because she would not talk to me about my meds and she was emotionally abusive. i couldn't take it any longer. She said to me that she had never had a client in therapy as long as me. She told me she might have to dismiss me as a patient but would not say why. I called the person who deals with complaints against docters and she virtually begged and tried to guilt me into making a formal complaint because i have letters going back 7 years that detail this doctor's erraticm behaviour. So now I am without a pdoc and finally have an assessment coming which will hopefully lead to getting one and after that I may indeed face hospitalization because the antidepressant I am on cause severe withdrawal symptoms, including the possibility of seizures. So I don't want to see my psychologist because she doesn't hear me when I try to explain all this. I don't know what she sees and hears from me, so maybe I'm just as stubborn and resistent as she implies, but I feel shamed, like a little child scolded by an angry parent. If I skip my next session, will I just prove her right? I can't get all this out of my head, so here it is, and so much more that I won't add. I do feel like I'm spinning. And I'm terrified of what is coming at me. As a person with multiple personalities, I don't even know who is creating a lot of this, especially the cries for help in the night.  My daughter asked me the other night why I always try to explain why I feel what I do. It's habit and it's the wish to just be seen in the whole context of my life. It drives people away. If I stay silent, I feel even more alone. I feel completely alone right now. It is very hard to even post this. I've become so self-protective. I'd like to erase it all. It doesn't feel like I should ask to be heard even here when no one is listening in my daily life. Well, not completely true - my family doc is awesome and trying so hard to find me psychiatric help, but he can't sit and hold my hand or give me the time to purge all my feelings. And even though he is so special, he still belongs to the "clan" of medical professionals; he will listen but try to "reframe" my thinking and ask me to try to understand where my psychologist is coming from. I do know that, too well. Ten years is long enough to know her very, very well and to know her weaknesses as well as her strengths. He means well and he's gentle. He and my psychologist are supposed to have a little chat about me. I'm not sure I want to know the result. I'll never know anything but what they choose to tell me, and it won't be, "I'm sorry for not seeing you, for not seeing all of you."

Blessing Waters

Serafina, I so appreciate your kindness. things are more complicated than what I said last night. when I was first sent to a psychiatrist and diagnosed with Major Depressive disorder, my psychologist was on vacation. When she came back, she suggested I go to the other pdoc i talked about, the one who was emotionally abusive, because she is an expert in DID. I took her advice and switched pdocs, not because there was something wrong with the 1st one, but because the other could provide with a specialist's care. When I left her, I ended up referred to a clinic where I was to see a therapist in concert with a psychiatrist. The weird thing was, the therapist wouldn't see me alone but attended my visi*** to the pdoc. I wasn't comfortable with having her sit staring at me while I was trying to connect with this new doctor and going through all that initial asssessment that is so tough. It came out that while I was told my care would be what I wanted it to be, it wasn't. They were committed to a cognitive model and I have a very different need because of my DID and amnesia. I asked why the therapist wouldn't do therapy with me but insisted on being present when I saw the pdoc. I was clear and calm but firm that this wasn't okay with me, but the pdoc finally said, "It looks like this might not be the best fit for you." I tried again to get answers to what was so confusing. I told them that a close friend of mine was also a patient with this pdoc, but did not have a therpist even assigned, much less attending office visits. Finally, I realized he was right, it wasn't going to be okay and I stood up, calmly, said, "well, I guess that's it and I'll be leaving now. I felt dumped and deceived. The pdoc had asked me a lot of questions about my reasons for leaving the initial pdoc. It struck me later that it was information he couldn't even have unless he had contact with my former pdoc. I found out from someone who spoke with this supposed "therapist" who told me, because she was angry with the situation, that the reason the therapist was sitting in on my visitis was because I had been labelled as "difficult" and possibly "dangerous" in some way because I had made a complaint against my pdoc of 7 years. My family doctor, in his referral, had worded this fact in such a way that it sounded like i had indeed madfe a complaint. I had not made a complaint, I had only made an enquiry about the process. So I have to be careful. We are very, very short of psychiatrists here and obviously info is passed even when it breaks confidentiality. My doctor who made the referral didn't even know there had been another pdoc in the picture. I only saw him about 4 times. So, if I leave my therapist now, it will be seen as a "trend" of running away and you and I both know that I'm very likely to be labelled as "borderline" which is a horrible way to refer to a person and has such an unjust stigma attached to it. I've already been diagnosed with borderline traits (I find most people have such traits, including those who diagnose them!) so I am at risk of becoming so stigmatized, and unfairly, that I don't feel safe doing anything but kow-towing if I want to get appropriate medical care. We work so hard to diminish stigma within society, but in my case, and I know this isn't rare, it's our caregivers who can stigmatize us to the greatest degree. My mom asked me one day why I want to surround myself with people who have a mental illness. I told us that we were more likely to be emotionally healthy because of our therapy than other people, certainly more accepting, empathetic and safe, more time than not. Sometime i may need to lodge that complaint against my pdoc of 7 years because I suspect she is protecting herself by sullying my reputation. I'm not completely innocent of being difficult when I've been in such pain and having a hard time getting her to listen, but I'm am dangerous to her if I do complain and she knows it. I have the intelligence and the evidence to make a good case against her and she's been called up before the College at least once while I was in her care. Maybe I shouldn't spew all this here, but I'm not concerned about anonymity. I won't say anymore, though, and I could. I have a very, very close family member under her care and they get along just fine, for now. I won't jeopardize that. So, Serafina, I think many of us have these kinds of complications in our lives that can have some serious consequences. I sound a little paranoid, but when I see these frightened doctors not acknowledging the length of most of my relationships, in and out of care, they would see that conflict is not the biggest part of the picture and if it exists, I'm not creating it all on my own. I find it "Orwellian" and disturbing. There's still a lot more I've not revealed. You are probably right about my psychologist, my best friend heartily agrees, but she's very protective of me. I feel that the two of us can learn a lot from each other still. She has given so much to me over the years, I love and respect her and want to kick her butt sometimes, just as she wants to kick mine. My DID is too complicated to start over with a new therapist. I've talked to my family doc about it and he agrees. I'd never be able to bring someone up to speed and all that history is so important. DID is both complicated and very individual. The amnesia complicates everything so much. It is not unusual to recall memories of the past and then re-dissociate them. I depend on my psychologist to remember those things for me until I can recall and keep them. I don't feel that moving on is an option. We either slaug? slog? (I don't know how to spell that word!) through this, or I quit therapy altogether and concede that I will never heal. Some of us don't. I know that I am closer to that end of the spectrum. My psychologist would never accept that and that is why she pushes me so hard, even when she really knows she should back off. She is human and she comes up against her shadow in treating me - a lot. I feel sorry for her, too.

I talk way too much, but it helps so much. There's one last thing I tell people who feel like my story is so overwhelming that they they feel it is worse than thier own. Please, please do not compare my pain to your own. Ever. Everyone experiences their lives the only way they can, through their own personality, strngths weaknesses, whatever. MY life is mine alone. To compare takes away your right to feel what you feel without interference. Your pain is just as valid as mine, you hurt and you deal with that hurt in the ways you are able. This is one of my favourite sayings: Don't let anyone else write on your blackboard. No matter what judgments are following me right now, I know my truth. I refuse to accept labels or be put in some kind of box. Be strong in what you hear inside yourself. Listen to others, but don't forget to listen to yourself. Do your best to be honest, and own your stuff. It might suck sometimes, but it also gives you tremendous dignity and self-pride. As humans, we dothe best we can with what we know today, when we know better, we do better. That's what Maya Angelou believes and it helps me accept people where they are and not where I want or need them to be. That's how I'll get through this mess.

Thanks and Blessings on your day,

Blessing Waters.