Did Diagnosis - Tumblr Posts
Being kind to "TikTok DIDers" and disliking what TikTok fakers have done to real systems (especially around diagnosis*) are two things that should and can coexist.
*We (myself, Amber and our gatekeeper) spent several years attempting to gain support for the system to be told that we could not be a system as it was trending on TikTok, therefore we must be faking it for internet clout. We've never had TikTok. And shocker, once we got a psych who'd listen, low and behold ✨we have DID✨.
I know we're not the only ones with experiences like that.
Why do you say medically recognized system rather than diagnosed?
Good question; it boils down to how we access our therapy.
New Zealand has a recovery program covered by ACC (accident compensation corporation) for all New Zealanders that have experienced sexual assault within the country. To qualify, an individual must meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) related to the sexual assault event/s. If they reach the diagnostic criteria for PSTD, the assessor/s will submit a recommendation for long term support, which in our case was approved. From there, individuals find a support person, councillor/therapist/psychologist, or whatever works for them, and their support person will communicate with ACC regarding the person's recovery.
The accessors we had completely refused to screen for DID, despite the referral including a recommendation to screen for it, and us already being suspicious of our dissociative symptoms and experiences aligning with that of OSDD/DID. We received a formal diagnosis of PSTD with high level dissociation. From there, we found a psych who had experience with DID, PSTD, and sexual trauma.
Jay, our therapist supports us and recognises our system, dissociative experiences, and other DID symptoms. When he submitted our recovery report, stated that we had DID, and that they would aid in our trauma recovery; integration, functional multiplicity or whatever pathway we decided to take.
The recovery team declined it (and in doing so, any future support) on the basis that PSTD was the diagnosis and not DID, despite their team never attempting to screen DID - and our therapist stating that he had met various parts/alters, discussed various symptoms and had run us through parts of the diagnostic process. He returned the recovery report with DID edited to state PSTD, and no further questions were asked.
I know Amber/🔥 finds this hilariously depressing. As she puts it, "DID is basically PSTD+, I don't see their issue with the difference, what the f**k?! Both are recognised trauma disorders??!?! and ACC's own website states that DID is a trauma response and has similarity to PSTD" [quote taken from our chat after I told her that ACC declined DID, but accepted PSTD].
Jay dislikes formal diagnosis related to mental disorders as he has had first-hand experience with various psychotic and DID individuals being discriminated against in the medical field, and outside, especially when they have intersecting identities like we do. Quote "It's an ink-blot you can't remove, once it's there, it's there. We can't remove it." and reiterated that if medical professionals need to know why we're disassociated or have bad memory, that it's in relation to PSTD and ADHD.
We have DID recognised by medical professionals; our general practitioner, Jay/our psych and our gynaecologist all know and understand that we have DID and what that means for future, medications and mental health; however we do not have the piece of paper that categorically states that "this person has DID"
I hope this answers it well. You are most welcome to ask more questions if you have them.
-Kyle (💜)