My main goal for this website is to share information I have obtained throughout my therapy (both inpatient and outpatient). DID treatment is still not easily accessible, especially for those who live in rural areas or have financial problems. DID inpatient treatment is almost impossible to find outside of the United States. I believe there should be a way for survivors to share therapeutic information and ideas on healing, especially for those high-risk groups who cannot access treatment. I also believe it is helpful for systems to obtain as many different perspectives as possible when making informed decisions about their healing.
For anyone new to my blog, here’s a bit about me:
Note: Depending on who is forward, we use “I” and “we” interchangeably.
We survived complex trauma for the first 12 years of life and intermittently for the next 19 years. What was done to us resulted in a very large system with subsystems.
As a child, we were being treated by an outpatient team. I was informed I was “mentally ill” and had “False Memory Syndrome” (which is not a real condition). The invalidation and desperation to be heard eventually wore me down to my first inpatient hospitalization. This is where I was first diagnosed with PTSD. Years later, I requested my medical records from the outpatient team. When the hospital system located my records, they were perplexed. The record itself was empty save for my demographics and insurance information. There was no diagnosis, no clinical notes, nothing.
Despite this, as an adult, we decided to attempt to trust a therapist again. We were fortunate to eventually find a remarkable doctor, skilled in treating trauma and dissociation. After a year of working with her, she confirmed the PTSD diagnosis and diagnosed us as DID. Around that same time, I had my first admission to a DID treatment hospital, Sheppard Pratt in Towson, Maryland. The team there confirmed the PTSD and DID diagnosis. Many years later, I returned for my 3rd overall admission, and they advised I actually met the criteria for Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD).
Treatment has encouraged us to accept our diagnoses and strengthen internal communication. Overall, our main fronting parts work together cooperatively (it wasn’t always this way). Although we still have disagreements, we work together to achieve our daily tasks and goals, so we can continue to function as a healthy adult.
As you can see, none of this came fast or easy. Obtaining the DID diagnosis took a year of outpatient therapy. Finally being diagnosed CPTSD took much longer. Having the information has been instrumental to our successes. We hope that sharing the information on our website can provide you some answers, and at the very least, let you know that we understand. This journey can be difficult and so energy-consuming, but we promise it is well worth it.
Discovering Serenity 