How Many Dx?

[nomads-quill.livejournal.com]

Ok, so I'm new here. Hello.

My T from ages ago was talking about some things she is doing with new therapists on rotation in her clinic. She is really trying to stress catching this Dx earlier than is standard. It got me to wondering...

D.I.D. was my 5th or 6th Dx. Historically, folks like us go through a lot of Dx before "they" get it right.

She even asked me to write something that she could use in her teaching to help illustrate for new Ts how important it is to see the signs. How my life could have been a bit better-slash-different had the many Ts before her noticed all the signals.

And I guess I am curious as to the responses you guys might give if asked such a question.

I apologize if this is chunky or not clear enough. My head is loose and it's hard to stay on topic just now.

Comments

[nomads-quill.livejournal.com]

You know, this is a really great point you make.

I guess the big thing is that I was moving molasses-slow through the system of the therapeutic process and I wasn't getting better. I was getting much worse. I was in the biggest crisis of my wee life when I happened to finally get a referral from my doc to try therapy onemoretime.

The speed at which it was noticed by the psych doc and the msw almost alarmed me. But the techniques used to treat me began to work.

And I guess that's my point. I was blatantly switching. And it was the therapeutic approach that my T used specific to DID that stopped the rapid decline and got us talking inside and cooperating.

I guess the bigger question for us all , maybe, is should there be some standardized treatment protocol for DID?

You guys are great, by the way. We've needed this outlet.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That's what the community's here for and why we feel it's so important to keep an open dialogue. Yay!

I'd like to know what therapeutic approach that was, and whether it could apply to people with MPD, and to non-MPD, non-DID multiples as well as to people with DID. What I'm thinking is, if you could describe it, people could try it at home without having to go to the shrink. We get people in here all the time who have frontrunners trying so hard to communicate with people they know are there but can't reach.

[nomads-quill.livejournal.com]

Well, again, her main goal was to help me with "today issues" and get my system stable. I was a switching mess.

So her focus wasn't at all on "calling them out", i.e. finding out who was who and how many we were. If I switched during a session, she spoke to whomever was out. She didn't worry about taking any sort of role call.

I, personally, think this was a perfect approach, at least for us. It took the focus away from the stigma of the diagnosis a bit and put it on living day to day and system cooperation.

The system cooperation (which was nill at the time) was encouraged by basic meditation. She called it "going inside". Took me forever to figure out what the hell was supposed to be happening, though. Simple, basic meditation and breathing techniques, coupled with my own internal announcement that we should all talk and communicate. I still don't know how or why it worked. And I'm still not "in the loop". But I did get better. Internal communication increased. The crisis settled.

I wish I could be more detailed beyond that, but the truth is that I rarely fronted in T. I am the vehicle, mostly, that gets us from point A to point B. I am more in the loop now than I used to be, but still not the main or privy to what they know. That's sometimes a hard pill to swallow, still.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Sounds like our Francie. Listen, can one of you guys write this up, breathing techniques and all, and make it available as an article on your website, or our website, or something?* There are so many people who come onto this community begging for help with this very issue, and this is whether they've been diagnosed or not. They don't need a diagnosis, they need to communicate.

We have never been able to meditate, but then we've never had much trouble communicating, either. Well, except for some of these damn obsolete transmitters on the Islands -- you want to talk about a mess *mutter mutter* Anyway! What really sounds good about your therapist is that she bypassed the "they're all you" crap, even though officially that's what DID is (as opposed to MPD or non-disordered multiple). It sounds like she just gave you that diagnosis so insurance would pay for your sessions, which is exactly what it's supposed to be for. Would she be interested in this material?:
http://www.karitas.net/blackbirds/layman/
http://www.dreamshore.net/amorpha/
http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/
http://www.kasiya.homestead.com/

==
*Off and on, we and sethrenn and others have thought about making a little website just to go along with this LJ community. It would have all the things new people are always coming in here asking about that have been discussed many times and it would link to those discussions. I know it is not immediately obvious how to get to the archives and LJ has not made the interface very self-explanatory.

[appadil.livejournal.com]

On the subject of your last point, LJ does give you an interface for that in the form of the Memories section, but I'm pretty sure that only the manager(s) can add memories to a community. I don't know how feasible that option is for here, so...

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We considered using that. It's a good idea, but I think it's still a little too cumbersome. There are specific LJ styles that allow links to be added at top or side (see the top margin of http://www.livejournal.com/users/ksol1460) but most community members read this thing on their friendslist. When new people come in asking certain questions we're able to point them to the list of websites we gave nomads_quill, and I want to be able to add a webpage to that which will be easy and self-explanatory for new users to navigate.

[appadil.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that does sound like it would work better...

[nomads-quill.livejournal.com]

Still new, here, so I am not sure where you'd like it. But (I still struggle with the editor and the "we" pronouns.) we would be happy to do it. Oy.

The simple version is this: My doc gave me a copy of The Relaxation Response. It is simple meditation geared towards people with heart disease. Get it, jump to the back where it teaches the technique in layman's terms, and apply. Easy, huh?

Not.

My system just would not shut up! You do the breathing and acknowledge the thoughts and feelings and voices that incariably come, and then push them gently to the side. Many times, you will just fall asleep. Not a problem here, for we rarely sleep well. But eventually, you will begin to be able to just listen. Maybe make suggestions about ways to communicate.

Again, I am not in the loop. So I still really don't know why or how it worked so well. Mainly I just found that we cooperated more in the real world. Play time was incorporated. Meals ok'd. That sort of thing.

I don't have a website, though, so just let me know what you'd like and where you'd like me to put it. Also, if others have tried this kind of technique, HELP!

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Several of us already knew how to meditate. Our biggest challenge was to stop trying to control one another.

If you want a proofreader, we're here.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"Our biggest challenge was to stop trying to control one another."

Ohhh yeah. Us too. It does get easier over time, though.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you found a gem of a T. :) Recognizing that operating system issues are important is something a lot of people miss. It is darn hard to work on other issues when the system's beserk.

It took a long time for a lot of us to learn to share some of the really tightly held stuff with one another. We still don't share everything. Think about it like an outside friend - you can know someone well for years and still learn surprising things about them. Intimacy takes time to grow.