Complex PTSD Comorbid with Dissociative Identity Disorder

I was wondering how does DID affect PTSD? Does it limit the ones memory of ptsd or does it cut out important details? Any reply would help

I have Cptsd and just been diagnosed with Dissociative issues from childhood traumas. Ive only recognized 6 alters..Im ok with them except for the one that holds the emotions...dont want anything to do with her...How do you work through that? I know I need to ....but everything in me doesnt want anything to do with the emotional parts.

I'm so happy I came across this blog, it has been very helpful to read. No one (therapists) could explain why I have DID because I didn't meet all the criteria to make it possible, like I was too old when the trauma happened to qualify for DID to be possible. But when my trauma therapist figured out that I am on the autism spectrum everything made much more sense to her. I have been traumatized since I was very young because of lack of connection (attachment issues) from the autism and sensory processing disorder which constantly tells me I'm not safe in the world and this of course was from an early age. Also interesting is that I was on a sensory processing support group page reading and noted how many of those people also have the diagnosis of DID. It made me wonder if there is a correlation between SPD and DID. Living with sensory issues makes a person feel as if they are never safe and is always an assault on the body in a very physical way. I really appreciate this post and everyone who shared. Thanks.

I am convinced PTSD is a Dissociative Disorder. Every time I have treated it as such over the last 22 years, the client has gotten better. This argument has been going on since 1889. The reason PTSD has had such poor treatment outcomes is due to therapists not recognizing and treating it as a Dissociative Disorder. Dissociative disorders are 100% curable. When treated as a Dissociative Disorder, PTSD can be cured.

Hi all, my therapist just gave me a diagnosis of PTSD and a dissociative disorder. She said my other therapist gave me a diagnosis of DID... she has not seen me switching yet. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Maybe a little angry, scared and I have no idea what else.

The only way I was finally able to understand what I was feeling was to be seen by a counselor that diagnosed me. It does sound like you dissociate since you feel younger at times. But, a therapist would be able to know for sure. There is help out there.....and a light at the end of the tunnel. Oh, you may want to read the last blog on here written by Crystal. I found it very helpful since I have symptoms unlike others I have read about.

I have searched all over the Internet and this blog is the closest I can find to an answer, but still no answers.
I have been diagnosed with ptsd, but do dissacociate and I am SOOOO uncertain regarding whether I have multiples or just 'regress' a lot. I can't find much about regression, but I spontaneously feel like a very young child (sometimes just during my extreme fear moments, sometimes when I have a slight hurt either physical or emotional, and sometimes for no reason I can find). When I say I feel young, sometimes it is so extreme I use pillows to feel like I am in a crib to feel better. I also notice what some mention about feeling this childlike 'thing' inside even when I don't actually have that young regressed feeling. I can't say I feel like I have multiple people inside me though. I do feel like I 'talk to myself' but who doesnt. I do yell at that whiney kid in there though and tell it to snap out of it. . I don't know what is normal for people, what might be regression moments, or how to tell if this is did (mpd) and I am just realizing it.
Any insight would be sooo helpful because it is so unclear to me right now.

I have having great success treating my PTSD by integrating the alters and healing each one of their traumas. Amazingly once their traumas are healed, that part of you starts to feel safe. Many of them have no idea that they are actually a grown adult who can defend themselves and make themselves safe. They think they are still children waiting in terror for the next round of abuse.

Hi Dana, I'm reading this. I don't know the specifics of your experiences or life circumstances, but I do know I've called the following hotline -- they will help you if you're emotionally distressed, regardless of whether or not you feel suicidal, and I had a good experience with them: 1-800-273-8255, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (I called them last week). Also I would recommend calling 2-1-1 for your area (if you're in the United States) and asking for resources, including shelter if you need it and low or no-cost trauma counselling resources...some cities that aren't even very big, like mine, have places like that. You could also call RAINN,if you haven't called them or don't have a 2-1-1 in your area. Their number is 1.800.656.4673 and they are staffed 24/7, as is the first number I gave you. I was badly sexually abused in my very early teens and didn't know how to get help. I finally started therapy in my late 20s. Don't wait so long to get help. PTSD symptoms are terrible, what happened to you is horrible and I don't pretend to have had an equivalent experience or a bunch of answers, but you deserve to live and get better. Everyone deserves to live and get better and receive care. There's a light in you that the past eight years haven't been able to put out. Hang in there and don't believe the report your emotions give you on the worst days. I care about people like you, and people like me. Please post back to us here and let people know how you're doing.

Hi,
Can anyone tell me more about this EYE TEST?
The link isn't working for me.
Thanks,
Zel.

So I am 19 years old. Since age 11 I have been sexually abused, raped multiple times, in child slavery for 4 years. I was shipped to florida in a trailer and shipped to germany in a cargo plane. I don’t know if anyone is reading this. If anyone gives a shit. I don’t know. I have just returned to the states in August and I thought I could just come back and get my life together. Turns out it doesn’t work like that. At first everything was going really good I was the happiest because I was finally free. But then eventually it HIT me. All at once. I can’t sleep without the lights on. I feel like someone is gonna get me. I am so tired every day. I can’t get anything done. I cannot hold a conversation, I can’t look anyone in the eyes. I don’t know why the fuck I am even writing this at the moment. I just hope somebody does. cause I need help. And I don’t know how much more I can last.

Thank you for putting into words a world I experience myself.

So I came across this blog looking for info, hope, help and connection.
I like the posts. Can anyone give me some tips about finding a psychologist. I had gone to oone for about 5 years and she's nice, intelligent and I would recomend her, but she doesn't have specific training in PTSD which I've delt with for 15 years. I look on line and nobody's little speal about themselves does not impress me with the idea that they are particularly skilled in the matter. Now after 15 years of self reflection of pre-during and post event and the on going struggles I suspect complex PTSD. Here's another question. I know that during the last event I was dissosociated for 3 months, I remember what that feels like and some of the times when I did it as a child. The episode flet different. Recently with little events occuring it makes me wonder if I'm either flirting with it or mildly involved. What's it feel like to different people? Any response would be greatly appreciated.

thank you for this concise description of the c PTSD "core belief" i really have difficulty trying to communicate who i am after surviving a childhood of helplessness after the death of parent.
i believe i needed help that i couldnt get. my memory is extremely spotty. i know i went through innumerable abuse and bullying, resulting in the need to make myself more like the step siblings in attempt to avoid further abuse but at the same time dealing immense harm to myself and my mind. i am certain that i was horribly close to death on one occasion in which i had participated in gasoline huffing with the oldest step sibling. recollection of darkness in the room and neon explosions in front of my eyes in that darkness. i am horrified nothing was done to intervene for my sake after he was caught that night getting high. this is the same night the sexual abuse occurred, although i'm uncertain of that it feels like one timeline.
it's not like i'm walking around in response to everything "doesn't matter... one of these days something will kill me, take away everything" but that's how i feel, become the slave to an impending death. i feel awakened from a nightmare that i just want to forget but instead if just inhabits me. like none of it is real as it is gone and over, but so great impact on me that i have no identity.
i don't know how to feel a different way than that. the way i do anything of value is to commit things down in places that will continue to exist even if temporarily once my body shuts down and my self dissolves.

I have SUFFERED with this all my life,Im 55 and cannot get help. So im just giving up,tonight im going to end all this pain and pointless agony.Goodbye.

Holly, This may be the wrong place for this but I found a site at PTSD Australia that has an eye test for PTSD. I have CPTSD which this shows I have but I found it very good. What do you think?
http://ptsd.net/ptsd/the-visual-state-marker-for-ptsd/

Rain you are right. I have had CPTSD for years it only gets worse. There is no safe place for me to start healing. Jumping off calls to me constantly too. I'm still here. I try to explaim why I act the way I do sometimes. No one understands. They just stay away from me. I don't trust them anyway. No one cares. But it's ok. I'm used to being an outsider. Good luck to you!

Severe cptsd is for life, never seek ways for improvement, waste of time that doesn't exist. It never gets better, it can become more symptomatic under stress. Never ever gets better severe cptsd. Don't let them lie to you with their fairy tales. Its a life sentence of a physical imprisonment, with a surreal out of body experience, numb, intimacy is damn near impossible, jumping off Golden Gate bridge calls to me constantly. The positive Polly's , therapists, lie about possible improvements with severe cptsd. There isn't a possibility. It's permanent.

I write this all the time that DID is sorta like PTSD on steroids.. that's just the part I'm conscious of. I feel this constantly and have also been diagnosed with anxiety/panic disorder and depression.
I've known about the DID for 12 yrs, but have had no help or treatment of it. I've found one Dr, retired, who was first in differentiating between the 2, DID and MPD, Ralph Allison, Psychiatrist whose information has given me a great deal of understanding even more. http://www.dissociation.com/
He has been retired for some time, but I'm also reading one of his books, 'Minds in Many Pieces''.. I think he was a trail blazer for us..
I have been trying to find help, but I have not yet found anyone who really understands this. At times it feels like a volcano inside

I'm not trying to distract from the post, but calling PTSD 'temporary' if it's from one traumatic event is simply not true. There are plenty of people who 'only' get raped once and have PTSD for the rest of their lives. It just really bothered me that you described it that way, because for many people, PTSD is not temporary even if they don't have DID alongside it, and it seemed dismissive.

Thanks Holly for the post, and thank you everyone for your comments.
Shadow, this is me too: "From all I have read to start healing from CPTSD you have to be in a safe place. For me there is no safe place. There is no safe place".
If there is no safe place, how am I supposed to start healing? I don't trust anyone. I can't even really connect to anyone. I pretend that i do, so they don't feel bad, and I don't look like a total freak. I can be quite good at pretending.

My worst DID was when I was above myself looking down on my self talking to a person. As I watched my below self talk I remember my above self thinking "at least what I'm saying is making sense." Yes DID goes with CPTSD. From all I have read to start healing from CPTSD you have to be in a safe place. For me there is no safe place. There is no safe place.

I am reading this information, I would like to share, in conjunction with my first attempt to reach out for help for all of my illness, which has included Complex PTSD, I now see, and which currently includes dissociative stuff. I am really having a hard time right now, but reaching out is a good sign, I suppose. I would be happy to receive any support, etc. from anyone else who might understand what I am going through.

Hi Holly and all,
Today I stumbled on the site and I am happy to have found it. I was diagnosed with DID, severe depression, and some other stuff they won't let me rember. I had a major trama 5 years ago which brought all my stuff to the front. I had 10 alters inside. I was doing well for a year and then it started all over again. We self injure, although it is not as prevelent as it used to be. We used to tattoo the body and it is quite colorful. Some are better at it than others. The thing is it never goes away I guess like scars. I just got a new therapist who seems like he will ask the questions even if we don't want to hear them. I had a recent popping out of some of my old alters and that is ok. They know their jobs but there is one alter that I dread. He is like a pillar of flame all twisted up. I am afriad of him. I thought I knew and dealt with the bad stuff but apparently there is something more. Are these regressions normal. I stopped therapy for a year because my therapist wasn't getting at the poblems and the sessions ended up being a B.S. session. I apologize if I put this in the wrong place. If you want me to stay away I will.

Hello again Holly,
Do you think that being able to construct and tell one's trauma story is an essential part of recovery from PTSD and DDNOS? I noticed Deahn says, " I think the PTSD is in compartments like the abuse was in compartments only it does not heal with releasing it." I don't think simply telling my therapist my trauma story is the cure, but I also believe I will need to listen to the part of my system that keeps demanding my attention, trying to tell me about past abuse. It appears to be a "hidden" part that holds the abuse experiences but does not feel safe enough yet to reveal much. I can't do this type of trauma right now. I do, however, think I will need to know and accept what this part has to say.

Hi Holly. My previous therapists were reluctant to give me a diagnosis and kept insisting a diagnosis wasn't important because my treatment would be the same. This caused me a lot of distress for some reason, probably due to a part of my system who felt dismissed and another part who screams, "There's nothing wrong with you". Just before I left, the therapist diagnosed DID. My new therapist disagrees and says DDNOS is a better fit. Either way, for me at least, I seem to NEED the diagnosis. It validates my experiences and helps me on the path to awareness.

All these comments have been so helpful. I am experiencing a lot of triggers this month as related to the Christian holiday of Easter. I think I sometimes try to desensitize myself by getting overly involved in these Religious rituals that often send me running from church services. But my solution does not always work that well for me. The comments have explained so much why sometimes it works and other times not. Being dissociative does complicate the healing.Thanks, I will cut myself(ves) some slack. Cocoon

Hi Holly, my Aspergers specialist was trying to help me today with my issue of compulsively checking my car, sometimes up to 20 times whenever I park it. And I was explaining to him that I believe unless I check the car %100 properly the car will roll backwards and kill a child. And I know this stems from a deep routed belief that was born in my childhood, that if I'm not %100 vigilant bad things will happen. Compounded by a belief that I am totally untrustworthy because I have a memory like a sieve and have vagued out and switched during times when I was checking something important. He suggested I challenge this belief by asking a few questions, one of which was, what truly are the odds of this bad thing happening? What statistic of incidence makes this a more dangerous exercise in the potential harm of a child, than say actually driving a car every day. And my response was, that it didn't make a difference whether the odds were 1 in a million, knowing my luck I'm going to be that 1. He thought this was the OCD fear talking, and to some extent he's right, but I went home and had a long hard look at this today. And I realized I do believe horrible things happen everyday, and that in some way I'm destined to have horrible things happen because I'm a magnet for bad people and bad things. I know intellectually this is not true, but deep down I don't feel safe in the world. I don't trust people and I don't trust fate to be kind to me. It's as if I don't believe I'll get to the end of my life without more trauma, because that's what life is like. And peace, restfulness, and true safety are not in my destiny.
The result is that I am a hyper alert, hyper vigilant person, who's brain and nervous system functions as if I'm still in a war zone, ready for the next invasion of my person by another, ready for the next bad thing that is just around the corner. My whole psyche is arranged around the notion of PERMANENT SELF DEFENSE. There were quite a few times growing up I didn't know if I'd see the next day, and I do remind myself of an army veteran who has come home still seeing potential danger around every corner. Then you add to this, persistent and ongoing body memories, and I wonder if these things are more intractable than the DID itself. I have only recently, really come to accept that I have been experiencing post traumatic stress issues since my teens and this is an incredibly important issue I need to address in therapy. Thanks for the great post Holly, I think this is a very relevant and important issue to discuss.

I am a woman who spent 10 years in therapy for super MPD (that's what they called it then when you had hundreds) then I finished with 3 years in a rape group (very healing) and I was the only one with MPD in the group. I had major integration occur just naturally. Although I do not switch anymore and have to feel the feelings...I have a core child that is very much PTSD and cannot function normally. I think the PTSD is in compartments like the abuse was in compartments only it does not heal with releasing it. Also, I have always suspected something was there before the abuse...I thought this child had Autism in my search years ago but ruled it out because there were symptoms that did not fit...but lately I discovered Asperger's Syndrome symptoms (sensitive-sensory). This fits her like a glove in many areas. Took the test for it and it came back that its possible with the score. Its just an observation. Does a label help here? Yes, it would. It would explain many...why's. It would help me be more compassionate and my approach to healing may change. It would explain why this med works or that one doesn't. It explains loud noises, and the knowings, and the crowds, etc. and the algebra and the art. MPD did not explain it all. Neither does PTSD. Certainly not now. The integration has occurred years ago and I don't switch for defense now. The PTSD is still here and does not explain it all either so I casually look and listen and feel my way through. I enjoy everything you have all shared. Thanks!

I guess I misunderstood what you were saying then. Trauma that doesn't resolve and has multi-facets to it (like your non-resolving car crash example) has always had a label for decades called PTSD, chronic type. So, I guess I just don't understand what the big distinction is between what already exists and what Hermann proposed. I know it's now pretty accepted now and people use it (even if it's not in the DSM) and I should just get over it. But regardless of that I still don't see the need for it. I guess it's my bias against the overuse of the word complex. Using the word complex in reference to anything about human behavior is sort of redundant. So, I personally think it's sloppy language. Psychiatrists often use sloppy language.

I'm not trying to nitpick. But Complex PTSD is not long-term PTSD. Long term PTSD is just called chronic PTSD. Complex PTSD is a construct, proposed by Judith Hermann in a book, meant to encompass several commonly seen attributes in trauma responses and includes dissociation. Personally, I think it just makes things more complicated. Does it help to add more labels?

actually, the more dissociative disorders I come across, the less incidence of ptsd I find. if you look at the numbers, and the symptoms overlap, many many many people with DID do not have dx'able ptsd

This week in therapy my therapist asked if I felt safe in her office. I asked her what safe was.

Earlier today I was just reading some information on Complex PTSD, and I came here this evening and find that you have written about it. Pretty cool that I get to come here and read about the exact subject that was on my mind today!
My current therapist diagnosed me with PTSD almost nine years ago, (before my DID diagnosis). She has been treating me for it ever since. I hadn't accepted the suggestion of me having DID at the time, so PTSD was all she could really focus on until I began seeing and accepting the signs of DID for myself, and ultimately agreeing to pursue the DID diagnosis.
Now I am starting to wonder if PTSD is going to be a life-long condition. I say this because after nine years I've only slightly improved with my symptoms.
I was researching Complex PTSD because I identify with it, but I'm not sure if I can be officially diagnosed with it as it is not in the DSM yet. But that doesn't mean I can't be treated for it, right? I'm not sure if the treatment would be much different than the treatment for PTSD.
All I really know is that this is very difficult to live with.
"I don’t walk around consciously thinking those particular things. But those beliefs color my perceptions of the world, other people, myself, everything."
Yes. I totally relate to that.
What is fascinating me now is how you said that just as DID helped you cope in the past with your childhood stresses, DID is helping you cope as an adult with Complex PTSD. That makes so much sense. It really does!
Now if only I could get my therapist to understand how I experience my DID so that she can stop thinking that I'm still denying my diagnosis and purposely being difficult ....but that's a whole different subject. My last session was just so frustrating for me, and for her. I really wanted to quit therapy, but I'm going to force myself to stick with it for now. I obviously have so much more to learn and work on. I just want it to be easier!!

Thank you Holly for describing the relationship between Complex PTSD and DID. Early on in therapy I was told I had Complex PTSD, but what I didn't understand at the time, was why some days I would be severely triggered by a certain situation, and other days the same action by the same person would have no ill affect. In the months that followed, it became obvious that something else was going on and I came to realize (with the help of my therapist) that I had DID. Different aspects of Complex PTSD are held by different parts of my system. I have a part that wants to self harm; a part that is triggered by perceived abandonment; a part that is fearful to the point of paranoia; plus parts that are quite functional and logical and able to "get on with it". DID helps me cope with Complex PTSD by ensuring that I'm not constantly being triggered. On the other hand, I think it complicates the healing process.