poisonivymysteries

[poisonivymysteries]

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Yes, but at least your fictives are awesome! -a DID therapist.

i have to live with this disorder for the rest of my life

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Finally, Bill Cipher has united the Mormon cult and the Scientology cult. Honestly, Bill will do LESS damage...

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Great advice from a therapist who specializes in DID!

do you have any advice for finding a competent therapist for DID? like questions to ask them, things to look for, things to avoid, etc. ?

generally, finding a therapist for DID is the same process as for any issue, except that they need to be knowledgeable - or willing to learn - about dissociation and complex trauma.

red flags for therapists specific to DID are things like not believing in it or believing its socio- / iatrogenic / therapist-induced, pushing abuse narratives onto you, pushing a specific healing goal onto you, only willing to talk to the host, pushing you to discuss details of trauma (especially if you're not ready or have only just met)...

here's some tips from this-is-not-dissociative, a PDF from Sidran Institute, a question sheet from a DID book, and some tips from @/switchcase (copy-pasting in case of mobile inaccessibility as it's a blog page, not a post):

if you’re worried you can’t afford a therapist:

ask potential therapist if they offer sliding scale and/or payment plans

check your community clinic and see if they have therapists there. community clinics are either free or low cost. many of them (not all) are trauma-informed or sometimes even knowledgeable about DID/OSDD because of the type of people commonly needing to use community clinics. my current therapist is an isstd member and has a waitlist for clients and volunteers at a clinic for the homeless/at risk for free

if you can’t find a dissociative specialist in your vicinity, search for trauma therapists. some will know about DID/OSDD or be willing to learn

if the lowest priced option is still too much for you, see if they’re willing to offer less sessions. once every 2-4 weeks is better than nothing

how to find a therapist: if you have insurance: go to your insurance website and log in. you can crosscheck names here to make sure that someone is covered by your insurance

http://isst-d.org has a directory for people that pay to be members (meaning they go to continuing education stuff or access resources ISSTD has). you can then narrow by zipcode and then crosscheck the names with your insurance page

you can also google “dissociative therapist [zipcode]”. a psychologytoday website will pop up, and basically it’s a yellowpages for therapists that claim to be dissociative specialists. keep in mind they get to put whatever they want on there, so be sure to check if they just claimed they specialize in everything and be sure to interview them

Things to Ask Your Potential Therapist:

do you offer a free initial consultation?

do you take [insert your insurance company] insurance?

do you have experience working with DID/OSDD?

how long have you been working with DID/OSDD?

what methods do you use in treatment?

how do you view clients with DID/OSDD? (this is open ended for a reason, some of their answers will set off red flags)

my goal for therapy is [goal], what would our first steps be?

i have [problem/symptom], is that something we can work on?

do you take continuing education credits, go to conferences, or research about dissociative disorders?

do you have experience with [insert specific trauma]? (OPTIONAL, useful if you have “heavy/unusual” traumas or a trauma that is very important to talk about)

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My DID clients make life rich!

I was talking to my therapist about a lot of Parts Things (tm) yesterday, and at one point I fell silent for a bit while trying to parse the amorphous chatter from my internal peanut gallery. When my therapist gently nudged me about my thoughts, I tried to explain the feeling as best I could, but felt like I wasn't articulating what was going on very well.

And she says, "Oh, so it's a bit like when you open up a bunch of new tabs online, and everything is struggling to load at once and you can't pick which tab to open first?"

I nearly burst into tears from surprise at being so thoroughly understood because YES, that was EXACTLY what was going on!!!

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Perfection!

I went to group therapy for grief over the death of a loved one, and the therapist had us making our very own Saw traps as a means of processing our emotions. Like art therapy, but evil.

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Guyes stop shipping Elsa and Anna pls. I have a sister and we also do stuff like that. Have you guys never had a good sibling relationship? If not that's sad. But still don't ship them.

[poisonivymysteries]

Yeah... so much yeah... we were raised by them... that's why we are sooo much well... ok then already...

GenX here, and I have some bad news for Millennials: we were as frustrated and exhausted by Boomers and Boomer ideology as you are, long before you were born. 

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“Scram Roomba, can’t you see we’re talking.”

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Three way jousting! Based on the classic arcade game Joust, we see the Player, Doodler, and guest star The Sister medievaling it up on flying birds.