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Confused May 09, 2016 at 10:20 PM
  #1
Curious: Have you found any medication that sugnificantly helps DID?

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Default May 09, 2016 at 11:15 PM
  #2
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Originally Posted by cheshiregrins View Post
Curious: Have you found any medication that sugnificantly helps DID?
here in the USA there is no medication for DID.

that said there is medication for things like anxiety, depression, psychosis,....and any other mental problems that .......trigger..... a person to feel numb, spaced out disconnected (in other words their dissociative symptoms)

i think of it like this... is there a medication for when I like a joke so I laugh?
is there a medication that will take away all my memories, emotions, in short everything that makes me who and what I am... of course not right

a persons personality is their memories, their emotions, their sense of self, sense of agency, a persons actions, behaviors, attitudes about their self and their world.

now for example what if we had a medication to take all that away...everything that makes up a persons personality... what do you have....someone in a vegetative state, someone who doesnt move, think, have thoughts, someone who has no sense of agency, no attitudes, no emotions, ...in short someone who is in a coma where their brain does not register any brain waves at all.

an exercise my therapist had me do one time when I told her I wished there was a medication for DID...

lay down in your bed, dont move, not even to itch that odd itch, dont think, dont talk dont even look at anything, just lay there doing nothing, thinking nothing, no actions, no attitudes, no behaviors, nothing just lay there, dont think about that spot on the ceiling, dont try to control your breathing, dont notice any sounds, nothing just be with out any of what makes you, you.

So I laid down in my room to just be with being who and what I was at that moment. ....wow does this ceiling need cleaning (whoops there I go being a homeowner who like a clean house) lots of traffic out today (whoops being observant is a personality trait supposed to be no attitudes, or other personality traits) did I get the kids their lunch stuff for tomorrow (whoops there I go being a mother thats part of my personality)...

see my point theres no medication to get rid of a persons personality no matter how many parts its been split into. nothnig dies and nothing goes away.

treatment for DID here in my location focuses on grounding and better coping tools so that when encountering a trigger a person doesnt have to numb out, space out, feel disconnected. then when the alters sense of agency (their jobs, purposes, reasons for being created) are no longer needed they merge back together to form one who person again.
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Default May 10, 2016 at 12:45 AM
  #3
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Curious: Have you found any medication that sugnificantly helps DID?
someone elsewhere mentioned naltrexone can help lessen the amount of switching that can happen. it's a med that is used to help manage drug and alcohol urges/withdrawal. but if you don't have an issue with switching a lot (as not everyone does), i don't know how it would be effective as that's the only thing i heard of that it helps with potentially. i was surprised to learn about that.
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Default May 10, 2016 at 08:48 AM
  #4
I am not aware of any medications that are specifically made for DID. The "parts" are us.

Having said that medications can made it harder for the my emotions to get anywhere near the surface so 'we' appear to be well. Speaking from my own experience high doses of Seroquel, klonopin and Lovan made 'the voices' go away. I hardly ever switched. I thought I was better but reversing the meds just saw the parts return. I was in a very secure emotional straight jacket but lose the meds and the voices came out to play again.

That's just my two cents worth and my own experience.
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Default May 10, 2016 at 09:44 AM
  #5
Panic disorder, anxiety, psychoses yes, DID no I agree with Amanda in the USA there is no medication for DID . I'm still going to say gesture posture do what is habitual especially if I"m still in the same environment I haven't had an life changing moments. If you the not SHY/ HOST like type, then your emotions might get all over the place from alters that speak in that way where it takes you an a emotionally roller coaster. Don't get caught up in people or T thinking you have be an emotion or show it, I had one bad T for this the rest haven't really told me anything about emotions.......We are use to hiding it until some T convinces you that part of it. I think even moreso for those of us who hear as T progresses, it is my understanding that some systems don't hear seemly that makes it worst. Until you get balance of that part of it you might need something for mood. I'm from the school of thoughts sometimes it is time to be angry, jealous, or disgusted! I think the key is the painstaking part is when you get accustom to emotions showing themselves it can be a roller coast ride for a minute...I think the key is the put a name with that emotion or whatever and speak about balance in the context of what your doing on a day to day, to even back out.
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Default May 10, 2016 at 12:13 PM
  #6
I prefer alcohol. It'll either numb ya or make you go crazy. At this point...does it matter?
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Default May 10, 2016 at 03:17 PM
  #7
To the best of my understanding, (as other have said) there's no medication for did. It's a trauma reaction. The best way to "heal" it is through dealing with the trauma/s that caused the severe dissociation. Meds can address mood and psychotic symptoms, but cannot alleviate the trauma reaction. It's the same with ptsd; there are meds for nightmares, depression, anxiety, and such, but there are no meds that cover it all in one package.
I'm not sure how the naltrexone might work to mediate switching. It works for additions by talking up the receptors the specific drugs would utilize to cause a high. I tried it for self harm at one point (it was really severe and they were grasping at straws). It was supposed to prevent the rush of endorphines from the sh, but it didn't actually help me, so I'm not sure.
Antipsychotics may work to dampen the experience of parts awareness but would do nothing to address the underlying issues. Heavy sedatives may also work similarly diminishing the awareness of parts, but then you'd simply be heavily sedated...
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Default May 10, 2016 at 05:35 PM
  #8
Thanks for the replies. I was curious how others used medication. My doc says the same- that there is no medication specifically for DID but that meds can help with specific states and during transitions.
I find that I can't function properly w/o antipsychotics, albeit a low dose. I tend to live as my child state more often w/o them and see the world that way, which doesn't work so well. On them, I can see that the child state isn't real anymore and I live as my adult self, well most of the time. :/ I guess APs do help with the trauma response- it's usually when I feel abandoned that I switch, so on meds I can see reality better, that I'm not really being abandoned. They don't sedate me at all; they actually make me more aware.

Klonopin and mood stabilizers also help to quiet the voices in my head.... But sometimes nothing helps at all.

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Default May 10, 2016 at 05:41 PM
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Originally Posted by possum220 View Post
Having said that medications can made it harder for the my emotions to get anywhere near the surface so 'we' appear to be well. Speaking from my own experience high doses of Seroquel, klonopin and Lovan made 'the voices' go away. I hardly ever switched. I thought I was better but reversing the meds just saw the parts return. I was in a very secure emotional straight jacket but lose the meds and the voices came out to play again.

That's just my two cents worth and my own experience.
Doesn't that mean your condition is being managed though? I guess I'm currently, somewhat chemically straight jacketed. Although I'm on low doses of meds, and being on meds actually makes me aware of the switches, whereas without meds I become oblivious to what's going on. If I wasn't on any meds, I'd still be living a life of chaos and ending up in the hospital etc. So a bit of a "straight jacket" helps in my case. :P

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Last edited by cheshiregrins; May 10, 2016 at 08:31 PM..
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Default May 11, 2016 at 03:19 AM
  #10
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Doesn't that mean your condition is being managed though? I guess I'm currently, somewhat chemically straight jacketed. Although I'm on low doses of meds, and being on meds actually makes me aware of the switches, whereas without meds I become oblivious to what's going on. If I wasn't on any meds, I'd still be living a life of chaos and ending up in the hospital etc. So a bit of a "straight jacket" helps in my case. :P
Managed? Controlled. I suppose you could say that. Healed/Fixed? No. I cant get better if I am not able to get some kind of feel for what is triggering me. I can't work on issues. I cant cry/express my emotions due to the medication. .

A chemical straight jacket is not a bad thing when we are not at the point where we can work on things. I have little skills in grounding myself because I have relied on the medication. Practical training in grounding skills isn't taught much in my neck of the world. Mindfulness has the opposite effect on me and leads to more body memories etc.

All up it's a bit of a catch 22. Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
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Default May 12, 2016 at 07:16 PM
  #11
My pdoc put me on various meds for various parts and what they were suffering. I am now slowly weaning off and have found that the meds that blunted the worst of my feelings also blunted the good feelings. But I was not going to survive the bad feelings, so I guess it was worth it.

I agree that there are no meds for DID.
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Default Aug 10, 2018 at 06:21 PM
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i had a complete system integration for 2 years when added bupropion and concerta to my cocktail of 400mg of quetiapine and lithium

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Default Aug 11, 2018 at 01:24 PM
  #13
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Curious: Have you found any medication that sugnificantly helps DID?



In Dr. Colin Ross's book on Multiple Personality Disorder, he states that psychotropic drugs will not cure MPD. He said tranquilizers work during the intense therapy where he is trying to get the patient to remember all the abuse/trauma that they experienced as a toddler. This is the stuff that was blanked out or denied by the patient's own mind. When the patient is forced to remember that trauma it also brings back all the emotional pain and fear associated with the trauma. Dr. Ross also suggests that the patient be hospitalized during this phase of treatment to prevent self abuse or suicide.
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Default Aug 19, 2018 at 11:21 AM
  #14
Growing up, we self-medicated on drugs and alcohol.

Now it’s just alcohol.
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