Therapy is a bit of a hot button issue for some of us, for me (Kit) it has meant the difference between life and death in a very literal sense. I have struggled with depression, self harm, an eating disorder, OCD, complex PTSD, phobias, generalized anxiety, all of this on top of the symptoms of DID. That list is only for me, this doesn't take into account any of the others personal mental health struggles, I feel it is only right to allow them to disclose those things on their own and in their own way. Now, the list for me may seem unreasonably long, but of course, not all of this was apparent from the outset. We first went to therapy when we were 3, due to our mothers suspicions of sexual abuse (her suspicions were correct). The therapist could find nothing wrong at the time, this of course was because we were so young and because when they were interviewing someone, it was me and I had no memory of the sexual abuse, though I did have memories of other instances of non sexual abuse I didn't think of these things as abuse and they never asked. Now I do know, from medical records, that we did have physical signs of abuse including chronic yeast infections, scarring(though that wasn't discovered until we were old enough to see a gynecologist), and consistent complaints of genital pain. We also experienced nightmares, bed wetting, and acting out. This in and of itself should have been enough to raise some questions, but because we never said anything or did anything unusual in therapy(even though we went for months) they said nothing was wrong. We began therapy again after an incident of sexual abuse that I was present for as perpetrated by our father(though I only caught the tail end of things). This therapist made sure that our father had no more access to us. Then I went back a few years later to this same therapist for depression and suicidal ideation (and one attempt). Then I didn't see a therapist again until I was in college, this was for the self harm which I had started up again after 8 years due to stress. In all of this time, no one ever connected my symptoms to the DID. Of course, I had no knowledge of the others at this time and had never considered the strangeness of my life. I was in major denial. Then I joined an online support group when I was pregnant with my son and in talking with people in the group who had DID I started to notice similarities in my life experiences and the things they were describing. Then one day I actually heard one of the others speak to me and despite my initial terror and the thought that I must be going insane, I remembered what I heard from the others in the group and this lead me once again to therapy. This therapist spent some time with me and after thorough examination of my symptoms and actually talking with some of the others, though it took quite some time before they would talk with her, I received the diagnosis of DID. After a time, I switched to a new therapist who was a better fit stylistically with me and the others and have since seen a lot of progress. This progress is of course still ongoing and as it has been determined that due to the sheer number of others that share this body we are polyfragmented (meaning more than 100 of us and also a multilayered structure to our inner world) this will likely be a long journey. The exact number of us inside is estimated by our therapist to be in the thousands(this includes fragments as well as fully developed identities), I still cannot comprehend of this number and have a very difficult time even thinking about it, let alone writing it here, but I hope by doing so it will aid in our healing. It is late and I am feeling very dissociative at the moment so, until next time.
-Kit
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