I'm so confused

I was officially diagnosed with BPD and major depressive disorder in 2005. It is now 2019, I just turned 48, and I have been diagnosed with ddnos. Specifically high marks in the following areas: Amnesia, Depersonalization, Identity confusion and Identity alteration (no derealization, no did).

I'm concerned that I don't really have ddnos. I'm concerned that I exaggerated things while taking the assessment. For example, I really can not recall a lot of my life. I only remember moments that I assume were significant but isn't that typical for the average person?

I don't know if I really dissociate. I wouldn't describe it the way I have read it described by others. It also varies sometimes. Usually I have a type of freeze response and my mind goes blank. Parts of me feels numb, like my cheeks. Sometimes I get what I would describe as tunnel vision. I feel like a deer in headlights.

My therapist, that I have been seeing for 2.5 years, seems to think that I have "parts" even though I have only said on occasion that "I feel like there's this 6 year old in me that wants someone to pay attention to me and hug me and then there's this teenager that is reckless and angry but also really just wants love." All I can think at this moment is, was that sentence a run-on?

Anyway, during my last session, my T began to talk to me in a way that seemed like she thinks that my
"parts" are more like alters. Maybe those words are used interchangeably here. I don't know. I also don't know if I am making any sense.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't feel like I fit anything other than possibly dissociation. I've never felt so confused about myself than I do now but I think it is because of the direction my therapy is heading. I don't want to be a phony. If I actually do have other issues like I was recently diagnosed with, that is ok, I just don't want to mislead anyone. I've also wondered if I am just in denial.

During my last session my T was saying things like "... There's this part of you, she feels afraid. Is that right?" "There's a part of you that is the protector. I'm wondering if she could come out and tell you what it is that she is protecting you from? What do you think she would say?" "Do you remember when she first started protecting you?" "At anytime if any of your parts want to say something to me, I hope they feel comfortable doing so."

That made me feel like she thinks that I have DID, yet she has said before that I don't. If any one knows what I am trying to express and has some thoughts, could you please share them?

first thing is take a deep breath and relax getting diagnosed something doesnt change anything other than puts a name on your group of problems. kind of like the name vegetables is the name of foods that have similar characteristics. your treatment provider has told you what the name of your group of problems are.

what your treatment provider is doing with you is a new assessment and therapy approach. but yet using a discontinued diagnostic label. so its no wonder you are confused.

first the diagnostic label they gave you, DDNOS. it used to stand for dissociative disorders not other wise specified. meaning you have shown her dissociation problems but she doesnt know what its called yet so you got dumped into the melting pot and later when she has more time to work with you this will be changed to an actual mental disorder called OSDD (Other Specified Dissociative Disorder)

when your therapist does the change over on your files it will have the wording OSDD dash and then another dissociative mental disorder that you can not find on the internet, in books or in movies until ........after..... you are diagnosed with it. this is to prevent exactly what you are worried about.. people exaggerating their problems and getting stuck in a melting pot disorder. as it stands right now she knows you have this category of problems just not which one of the 8-20 dissociative disorders listed in this disorder on the treatment providers only list.

now the test she did with you and the therapy she is doing with you... its part of something called IFS and the IFS scale. this is a relatively new therapy and approach for the USA. its done with many mental disorders and does not necessarily mean you have a severe dissociative disorder. quite the opposite. it means you have normal parts of yourself that are causing you problems.

a simple example is you know how when you have 2 choices... you see on a table an apple and a bag of candy. you think to your self I want the apple but I want the candy too. you are torn between which one to choose. instead of thinking it out you make the impulse decision to eat the candy even though you may have a problem with candy.

in IFS this is called having two parts. one part of you wanted the candy and another part of you wanted the apple.

now take it a step further.. how do you change this from a bad decision to a good decision. you ask yourself questions which leads you to the right decisions... you treat your feelings and what your needs and wants are "as if" they are people living inside you. like if you were standing with your best friend talking and your best friend told you they wanted an apple and a bag of candy and cant decide which they want. you help them decide. in this therapy the goal is to give a voice to your feelings, needs and wants, to listen to them and make the right decisions in your life, instead of staying stuck in problems all your life.

the best thing about this therapy is that exaggerating, imagining, is built right in. example instead of saying "Im angry right now". in IFS language you are imagining what that would look like as a person, (a part) and why that part is angry. in IFS this part is called a protector. therefore instead of saying I'm angry" you would say something like my protector part is so angry they could punch a wall right now.

I admit its a weird way of doing things and I dont use it in my own therapy process. I personally dont like this therapy approach because it makes people feel like they have multiple personalities (DID) when the therapy approach requires that it be used only in non pathological multiplicity systems. in other words not the kind of alternate personalities that dissociative disordered people have. theres a difference between these normal parts (called sub personalities) versus dissociative type alternate personalities. and its so easy to get the two confused. especially if trying to do the work when you also have dissociative type alters.

hopefully this has helped you to understand what therapy approach your therapist is trying to do and that no she most likely is not trying to make you believe you have DID. this is just a new way of working with people. giving a voice to their feelings and problems teaching them how to listen to their normal thoughts, behaviors, actions and learning to solve their problems.

Oh my gosh. I am crying due to relief. I have been so worried about this and you really have cleared things up for me. I plan on showing her my post and yours, if that is okay with you. Seriously, it's like you just took a blanket off my head and now I can see. Thank you for your time, knowledge, and empathy. -ata

I have a slightly different perspective to Amanda Louise and you can take from this what you will.
I have DID and my T and I use IFS as our main tool. It most definitely can be used in people with dissociative disorders as well as people without them. I think of it like a massive spectrum from normal and integrated parts of self that everyone has all the way up to fully dissociated parts of self that can be called dissociative alters. There's that massive continuum from completely normal to DID. OSDD type alters (DDNOS) fall on that spectrum too.
When a young child is traumatised the developmentally normal process of integrating the various parts of self into one sense of "I" can be disrupted, causing varying levels of dissociation between the normal parts of self. The greater the trauma the greater the disruption and the greater the disruption the greater the dissociation between the normal parts of self. When the disruption to normal integration processes is extreme it can result in fully dissociated and amnestic self states or alters, that is DID.

I say this to point out that you can not be a fraud in regards to this. The self states are normal. Every single person has self states (even though everyone has varying degrees of defenses or dissociation bertween them). The defenses and degree of dissociation between the self states are the parts to work with. It doesn't really matter if the self states are fully dissociated partially dissociated or whatever. Using IFS you can work with them just the same without needing to worry about labelling them.
In IFS clinicians amplify the separation between parts as part of the therapy. That is not going to cause greater dissociation or anything like that. It is in service of creating greater self-understanding, which leads to greater compassion, acceptance and integration of the self states.
Anyway, it doesn't matter where on the spectrum of dissociation your self states fall. Although I have the "label" of DID it doesn't matter much in IFS therapy. We have to adapt IFS techniques at times, but it all works out. The beauty of working with IFS is that you can forget about the diagnostic label and just work with whatever the parts of self need, without needed to label them as anything. You can just work with them as they are, and with whatever they need.

Wow, that's even more information. Thank you. When you said I felt even more relief and comfort. I would never want to pretend to be something that I wasn't even though I'm not exactly sure what I am. :-/

I would like to share with my T what you wrote if that is okay. I read the things that both of you wrote and it triggers a memory of my T telling me these same things but I guess I wasn't able to hear or understand her at the time. I know that I can ask for clarification but I am so used to being agreeable... Anyway, thank you for your time and help with this matter. I really appreciate it!

I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD but my symptoms are more aligned with DID and or all the sub categories that go with it. Since my T is not a psychiatrist he said he can not officially diagnosis with me so he is sticking with the C-PTSD I came in with from over the years. I have plenty of of dissociative features, missing time, can not remember half my life but he said that also happens with PTSD not just DID. The diagnosis does not matter as the treatment will be the same. Ego State Therapy (parts work) is what he uses for everything. We all have parts. child parts, teenage parts, parent parts and then the core or otherwise known as your best adult self. They come forward depending on what situation you are in. For those of trauma our parts are more defined.

The goal is to unburdened the extreme parts so you stay in your best adult self more often and have more control over all your parts.

Yes you may print off what I posted to you and show your treatment providers.

there is also some links online that you and your treatment provider can access together (they need treatment providers info and passwords and may cost a bit of money but like my own treatment provider and I and my job there are ways to deflect the cost if needed) I wont provide the links because well this site has a rule that says we are not supposed to be sending other members to other forums and such for the purpose of solicitation and stuff like that. but in order to do this kind of therapy work a treatment provider in the USA has to have gone through special training and special certifications. and as part of that they have access to professional stuff that they can share with their clients... like forums, websites,

yes amyjay and I do have differing views on many things partly because we are in different locations and different treatment providers with different views on things like this.

in my post I did not say it cant be done with dissociatives. my last paragraph says its hard to tell the two different types of personalities apart when trying to do IFS with dissociative disorders.

here is an example of what I meant using my DID and why this therapy approach would not work for me....

I was already separated from my alternate personalities. with DID a very young child uses dissociation during trauma to mentally separate their self from trauma and pain and situations that they can not handle, physically what happens when children do this is everything that they have dissociated gets stored in their unconsciousness.

IFS work requires a person to in IFS language "debond" "separate" "differentiate" what that is, is a therapist leads a person through separating emotionally from "a part" of them that is having a problem.

because I was already debonded, already separated, differenciated from my alters IFS would not have helped me.

my treatment plans due to the severity of my separation, debonding, differenciating from my alters was the opposite. it was grounding, and trying to integrate/ bring together me and my alters.

like I said in my post alters with DID are different than the "parts" that IFS is dealing with. if I had tried IFS on my DID parts it could have caused me and my DID more problems. I would not have integrated. I would have debonded even more.

my point is there was so much involved with why my treatment provider and I decided against IFS for me.

Im not saying IFS cant be worked on with dissociative problems. I was saying in my post its hard to work on the two kinds of systems at the same time.

the actual classes / trainings, workshops on this that professional go to be certified in this therapy approach teaches that this is to address non pathological multiple systems (in other words this is not a DID therapy)

whether treatment providers outside of their classes/ trainings / workshops decide to try it with non pathological multiple systems as well as DID systems ...well like DBT and other therapies what treatment providers do with their clients is up to them. what works for one may not work for another.

Again, I have a different opinion to AmandaLouise. In level 2 training for IFS an entire 3 day block is devoted to applying it in working with trauma survivors, including those on the dissociative disorder spectrum. It most definitely can be successfully used with people who have DID. As I said my therapist and I use IFS and it works very well with my dissociative alters. Just go with what works for you and your therapist.

T1 uses IFS and I have DID. I think it is useful for understanding the different parts. The ultimate goal of IFS is to have all parts work together, which is not all that different from the goal of integration. I have had some parts just start always thinking and acting together without me really trying to get that done. And I have had others just quiet down and trust that the others will take care of things. And I like that-not matter what you call it.

Im going to do the IFS process with what IFS calls a "part". in IFS "parts" are not alternate personalities. "in IFS "parts" are a persons own emotions, feelings, behaviors, thoughts. how they are on a normal every day basis. this normal how you are every day not dissociated you is divided up into groups.

there is no bad parts and no bad self even when bad things happen the part and self is never bad.

the self .... is times when you are feeling secure, happy, self assured, relaxed, not triggered, not dissociated, not having any negativity. you are able to listen and respond to feedback in a positive way.

subpersonalities are when you are feeling moody, angry, nervious all your negative emotions and negative behaviors. when you as a fully aware person wants to act out or do wrong.

exiles just IFS language for trauma, trauma feelings, when you are feeling hurt and pushing the trauma and feelings away from you, deflecting / ignorinig your trauma and resulting feelings/ emotions from going through trauma, again in IFS this is just how normal human beings react after going through trauma.

managers... in IFS language this is when you are getting busy taking care of things in your life, scheduling your appointments, cleaning house, doing your school work, doing all those things to manage your daily things..taking control of your life and things you do

firefighters... when in this mind set is when you are noticing problems and nipping the problem, solving problems, sometimes in not so good ways, some people to solve the problem when their trauma feelings come up self injure, or drink alcohol, (in IFS this is called putting out the exile fires) when in firefighter mode you are constantly fighting against letting the bad feelings/ trauma and so on come to the surface.

here is what it looks like in therapy......

Im feeling numb..

therapist.... lets find the part that is having a problem right now. Where in your body do you feel the part?

Amandalouise....... I dont feel a part in my body. when the alters are in control I am not aware. I am not co conscious with them. my body feels nothing but numb, my head feels kind of foggy and I feel like I am sinking.

Therapist can you tell me the name of the part that is making you feel this way?

amandalouise... no I am still here fully aware there is no feelings related to any of my alters.

therapist .... where in your body are you noticing these feelings of your parts?

Amandalouise.... I told you already I am not feeling any of my alters. I dont feel their emotions, I do not hear their thoughts, I do not know what they are doing when they are in control.

Therapist ok lets move on to the next step of IFS Turn your attention inside your body and try to separate yourself from the feelings that you do feel.

Amandalouise... separate from feeling numb, yea ok to do that I need to dissociate and I cant dissociate/ sink into this chair at will.

Therapist.... take a deep breath now look at the numbness as another person what do you think the numbness would look like?

Amandalouise... the numbness is not a person its a feeling. to imagine its a person thats a bit nuts but ok if this numbness was a person it would not be a person because its nothingness. I feel nothing thats what my numbness is not feeling a thing.

Therapist .... ok lets just continue with the IFS can you see the numbness.

Amanda louise.... no its nothing to see. there is nothing there is no feelings at all nothing connected to it.

Therapist ok lets move on to the next part. since you can not see the numbness how do you experience it...

anandalouise... theres nothing no feelings at all thats how I experience this feeling that IFS says is a part. nothing I feel no emotions I feel nothing physical just nothing.

therapist.... ok lets move on to the next step how close are you to this part.

Amandalouse.... how close am I to the numbness. its nothing thats all it is nothingness. considering this is my body looks like Im as close to it as I can get, Im wearing it (the body)

Therapist ..... how do you feel about this part

Amandalouise.. I dont feel anything for or against the numbness. Im not feeling any pain no emotions nothing just here.

Therapist are you curious or wanting a connection with it?

amandalouise... no you cant connect to thin air nothingness. theres no emotions or physical feelings attached to my feeling numb. Im just numb.

therapist... is this part influencing your thoughts and behaviors.

amandalouise .... no its numbness not a human being. its not something that can say hey amanda lets go rob a bank

therapist..... ok lets move on to the next step can you see yourself making friends with this part.

Amandalouise... oh yea right lets shake hands with nothing. come om already this is ridiculas pretending feelings are people. can you show me how to be friends with nothing. there is no one sitting over there, there is no one to shake hands with. Im just feeling numb, feelings are just feelings.

Therapist..... what does numbness want from you?

amanda nothing. I am just not feeling anything right now. Not feeling doesnt have a brain to say hey amanda I want you to what ever. its just how I an feeling right now.

Therapist... ok I get what your saying but bear with me for this last question.. If and I say If numbness was a person what would happen if it stopped doing its job.

amanda in other words and not IFS what would happen if instead of feeling numb I let myself feel ? why all the run around crap when you could have jsut asked me that to begin with. we just wasted 10 minutes of walking through these questions when I could have answered 10 minutes ago if I wasnt numb I would be feeling the trauma I went through,

and there you have it the whole IFS process using one of my common dissociation symptoms.

believe it or not there is a reason why in trainings they caution treatment providers about using this with DID people.

Again Im not saying its not done. Im saying it doesnt work for me. there are some that go beyond the training classes and use it with DID. but I am not one of them...

I had no co consciousness abilities to be able to answer any of the questions that are ask in this therapy process.

I am glad it works for some but for me and those that I know it does not.

Have you talked to her about this,whether she thinks it might be DID?That would probably be the best thing to do.

This thread has turned into a discussion/debate about IFS which probably has you even more confused.So talking to your therapist is the best route to take

no betty we are not in a debate. we are talking about this part of the op's post.....

"During my last session my T was saying things like "... There's this part of you, she feels afraid. Is that right?" "There's a part of you that is the protector. I'm wondering if she could come out and tell you what it is that she is protecting you from? What do you think she would say?" "Do you remember when she first started protecting you?" "At anytime if any of your parts want to say something to me, I hope they feel comfortable doing so."

That made me feel like she thinks that I have DID, yet she has said before that I don't. If any one knows what I am trying to express and has some thoughts, could you please share them?"

the therapy approach in this paragraph is called IFS therapy.

I am telling the op what IFS is and how its done and why it doesnt work for me and how my therapist and I tried it on one of my dissociation symptoms.

I used dissociation symptom because its the dissociative forum and a normal problem that in IFS language is called a part, just like if I was posting in the emotions forum about it being used with anger my example would have been anger because IFS calls the angry feeling a part. I did not use one of my alters to show the process because

1. the original poster has posted they are ....not.... DID

2 I know that another poster would probably want to show the process with an alter because sometimes it is used with DID.

this way the op gets to see how the two uses are different and wont feel so alone.

in other words we are on topic discussing the paragraph where the poster had concerns about the therapy that they are doing.

Thanks for this informative thread, thanks for posting

Oh,Ok,thanks for explaining.I guess I misunderstood.

In my discussion here I was merely correcting a misconception that IFS can't be used in therapy with people with DID, when indeed it can.

Mostly the OP's post was expressing concern that the parts language the therapist was using might mean the OP had DID. The language of the parts in IFS definitely does not mean the person has DID... but the therapy technique can be used both in people with DID and in people without DID.

OP, can you ask your T about the DID thing if it worries you?