Who to tell?

I live in the United States and I want to start getting treatment for my dissociation problems. However, I don't know who to bring it up to. I have a psychiatrist, but I'm not sure if he is the right person to talk to about it, or even how to bring it up. I'm not sure if he believes in things like dissociative identity disorder (which I don't think I have but still. I don't want to be dismissed based on a misunderstanding).

There's also the fact that I'm constantly worried that I could be faking it, so I would just be wasting the doctor's time. I'm not sure if that feeling will ever go away.

EDIT: I should mention that I don't know if I have alters or if they are just fragments. Since I don't have amnesia then I shouldn't have DID, but I know that you can still have alters without DID. They aren't really me because each has their own name, age (some are older and some are younger), and they look different from me. How do I bring that up? They could just be imaginary friends that I just think take control of my body. This is all very confusing. I just keep wanting to deny them but I don't think that is helping me at all.

What are some tips to use when bringing this up? Should I print out things, write things down?

I would be journaling and recording stuff on paper to have a record to present because who can remember this stuff?

Finding a TRAUMA therapist is next needed, or all the ther T’s would just be like listeners drawing pictures I’d say....not sufficiently trained in the appropriate field required for our certain type of disorder whether it be ptsd, OSDD, did, or anything trauma related.

your psychiatrist is the one to tell. here in america the people you talk to about whether you have a mental disorder, which one and get treated for it are your psychiatrist, your therapist and your medical doctor. the Medical doctors job is to refer you out to a psychiatrist or therapist, a psychiatrists job is to talk with you, set you up for testing and diagnosing you and treating you, sometimes that treatment is medications depending upon what and why your alters/ fragments are there and a psychiatrist does the prescribing. a therapists job is to talk with you, and help you to learn how to take care of yourself and your problems. therapists cant do the work for you, they help you to do the work for yourself.

that said you stated you didnt know if your alters are alters or fragments, here in the USA the term fragments is rarely used in reference to alternate personalities. there are other definitions and such that is used depending upon whats now called other accompanying symptoms.

most times if a person is switching into reacting from what used to be called "fragment" its called reacting to a repressed memory or repressed emotion, having a flashback.

example one of what was called a fragment alter in me before the new change over in 2013 was Green (not actual alters name just picking one due to the profanity filter will edit out the actual name) this alter was not an alter that did many things, she was just a dissociated emotion and dissociated trauma event, thats all she held and what her sense of agency was. to react in fear because of this one traumatic event. nothing more nothing less. same thing every single time she was in control, I would be reacting in fear.

After 2013 when the american psychiatric association made changes to the american mental health system this fragment was no longer called a fragment, it was now called my having a flashback to a dissociated traumatic event and reacting with fear.

Treatment for this altered state of mind has also changed. instead of placing addressing this part of me last or in prioritized order, this altered state of mind was actually worked on rather quickly and successfully.

altered states of mind where a person has what used to be called fragments, well they are different than other alters with a whole bunch of problems. they hold just a snippet, or as some people call it one emotion or one dissociated event, unlike others who have many emotions, events and problems to deal with. think of it like cleaning your room, its easier to open your shirt drawer and fold those shirts, get the shirt drawer in order, then it is to open the closet full of boxes and bags and hangers and shelves full of a whole mixture of things.

helping me to deal with Green (one emotion and one trauma event ) was easier, and very successful where as helping me to deal with Thelma who had many trauma memories, many emotions and many things to do and deal with as she handled my intimacy issues.

why did they relabel this kind of alter and treatment system for this...... because the system of prioritizing alters has changed, now alters with DID are all on equal ground regardless of whether they do one job or many, whether they take control many times or once in a while, whether their creation was from the host dissociating or an alter dissociating, they are now all equally important, none are seen as just an unimportant fragment.

First expose the imaginary friend that probably has split so everyone doesn't believe the overt presentation because you might be going for spontaneous intregration here with everyone leaving a gaping hole just because someone said it ain't cute to treatment resistant. So what this means ask the doctor on anything else pre before this that can help you understand how to get them time out do what they enjoy it could run the gamit. Then someone with a saner head will get them in a presentation that will make it obvious so that diagnoses is used for you in your particular situation...

Thanks for the answers everybody.

I have a few more questions.

Would it be better for me to call my psychiatrist and ask if they do any evaluation for dissociative disorders or should I ask him during my next appointment? I only get to see him every three months.

How long does a full evaluation take, especially when it comes to seeing if something else is going on? I'm afraid of not getting enough hours at work, so I want to be prepared.

Also, just out of curiosity: Do psychiatrist normally diagnose dissociative disorders or do therapist diagnose them?

sorry only you know whether it will be better for you to call vs wait until your next appointment. its a personal choice and what ever the treatment provider accepts thing.

how long an evaluation is can take anywhere between months or years. there are many undetermined situations involved like how long it takes for you to do all parts of the tests, how long it takes to get scheduled to take each part of the tests. how long it takes for the treatment provider to review past records/ files, (example your psychiatrist will be looking back on your files with them to see if you have mentioned certain problems or symptoms in the past to fill out their part of the evaluation and know which extra tests to follow up with and match to your answers, check your files to see what oral evaluations they did on you with out you knowing about it.. all kinds of stuff can be found in records/ files ) then theres how long it takes your treatment provider to send out the tests that need to go to other agencies for scoring purposes, how long it takes for mental health testing agencies to score and return the results to your treatment provider, how long it takes you to do the physical tests that are required (example seizure disorders have to be ruled out, and other things too if you have other mental and physical health problems)

my point there is no exact time frame from starting the process to ending and getting the final results, at the least months and at the most could be years for some people.

forgot to answer your last question....its usually a psychiatrist. but its which ever mental health treatment provider that gone through their credentials to the point of having a MS degree, a PhD degree, have gone through so many years of supervision and have passed their state boards that allow them to administer meds and psych evaluations (here in NY thats Psychiatrists, Psychologists, Psychiatric LCSW's that also have their credentials for prescribing medications and administering psychiatric evaluations. )

I was diagnosed by a psychologist who asked me to do a whole bunch of tests, some were fill in the bubbles, some were finishing sentences, some were ranking on a scale, some were yes/no. Then I had a several hour long interview, then he wrote up a report. I would say that the whole thing took 6 hours or so.
I am in the US, but at least in this area, psychiatrists do not usually diagnose DID. I was sent for testing by 2 psychiatrists. They suspected, but didn't want to "saddle" me with that diagnosis. The psychologist that I saw specialized in testing/diagnosing people who had a history of trauma. He also diagnosed MDD (which was clear to everybody) and mixed personality disorder (which my Ts think is more due to the DID showing through).

I was diagnosed mostly by my psychologist over a period of a couple of months of formal and informal testing and then I had a 2 hour structured interview with a psychiatrist for confirmation. With my psychologist I did the DES (dissociative experiences scale), ACE score (adverse childhood experiences) and TSI (trauma symptom inventory) among others, I also had full IQ testing. Some of them were checklist type things and others she asked the questions as part of conversations. My psychologist was gathering this information over a period of a month or two.
Once she was fairly sure of her diagnosis she shared it with me. It took me a while to agree with it. Then my T asked if I would see a psychiatrist for more testing to conform the diagnosis.
Once I agreed to that my T gathered historical information from my medical records and previous encounters with mental health and social workers and put it together with her records and then sent it to the psychiatrist.
I had the structured interview with the psych, and the final report including the confirmation of my psychologists diagnosis came back a few weeks later.
It was a hard process for me but luckily it only has to be done once.

ETA: most of this happened in my normal therapy sessions. I needed two longer appointments - one for the IQ testing and one for the structured interview with the psychiatrist. So it wasn't much extra time away from work for me. I guess it depends on how flexible your T can be with session times.

I wish you good luck! I agree about telling the psychiatrist as soon as you can.

I don’t know, I asked my last pdoc if he even believed in DID and he laughed at me and said “You don’t have it”...this after talking to him after 10 minutes in first meeting him. Everyone’s hope dropped and the guys fired him thankfully.

It should be with someone you are most comfortable with...after all we are like exposing a raw nerve to someone. Men in general freaks me out and they just don’t get how I think....so for us it would have to be someone that’s female....if there was a machine that we can talk to.

I would prefer to talk to a therapist who would then evaluate with a referral to a treatment team.

I would say go with what you are most comfortable with, because every professional are humans, too.

UPDATE: Told the psych and I got told to see a therapist.

((((coldwut)))) Good on you for speaking up! Did he refer you to anyone in particular?

No. He just told me that counseling would be useful.