Reddit reviews Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation: Skills Training for Patients and Therapists (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

Hi there! I was kinda where you are now, on the diagnosis part of the journey, last year. Thought it would be just PTSD. I remember being super freaked out by it, like, deeply unsettled, for quite a while. I couldn't stop thinking about the diagnosis (DID), what it meant about my past, and also my future, my relationships, my life. I'm sorry you're going through that now too. If it in any way helps, I'm okay. My marriage is good, career is great. My day to day amnesia is nowhere near as bad as it was in the past. My overall mental health continues to get better the longer I work on it. You are not incurable: the fact that you have a diagnosis is a HUGE first step towards recovery.

I won't lie to you and say it's easy. It's hard, especially at first. I recommend this book for noobs :) The "look inside" feature will give you access to the first 4 chapters, which includes understanding dissociation, the symptoms of each dissociative disorder, what dissociative parts really are (not the weird shit you see on youtube), and what having DID can do to complicate, mask and/or amplify PTSD symptoms.

Chapters include exercises like the one you already described doing with your therapist, as well as some homework exercises and thinks for you to think about. You don't have to rush into ANY of that. Maybe just check out the symptoms of the condition and think about how it maps to your own experiences.

Your therapist described the diagnostic bit pretty well: it's a scale, and the more severe your symptoms/the more criteria you meet, the further along it you go. If you have OSDD, it's assumed you may experience all of the symptoms of the others, so you only need the "last in line" diagnosis. (These are totes not the medical terms for this, sorry).

What are you most worried about? Is there anything I could share about my experience that might help?

Edit: and practice your safe place thing, it might not feel like much now, but it works if you stick with it

Hi there! Lemme just say I'm happy to hear you're in a good place and looking to continue healing and learning. Congrats for getting to this point, and I hope your journey goes well from here!

As far as book recommendations go, several people here are reading Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation and come together for a weekly book club thread (run by our very own u/puppydeathfarts .) If you're looking for a good book to dive into with people who can relate, I'd recommend joining!

This is the book used in a support group I'm part of, which is dual-diagnosis for trauma/substance.

Recovery from Trauma, Addiction or Both (if you want to help yourself, the frogcabaret part)

Seeking Safety (therapists book, if you want to learn to help all your parts by also coaching them through these tough topics)

Both cover dissociation in detail, but neither go into dissociative disorders. For that, this book is best in class (IMO):

Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation

Gl,

Dee

uh it's not a phenomenon.

it's the result of complex-PTSD.. which is severe childhood trauma.. where he believed he was going to die, on the reg.

Pasting a reply from another sub instead of linking it.. for reasons

"I tried to find the chart my therapist showed me but it's not online. So imagine a numberline, 0-100: That the spectrum of dissociation. At 10, you'll find routine dissociatation, like day dreaming or getting sucked into a book and forgetting to eat. 25 is where survival type dissociation starts, like being out of it after shock or having an anxiety attack before a big test. Still normal but it only comes up under stronger stress.

Trauma disorder start at 50 with standard single event PTSD. CPTSD is about 70, the dissociative disorders start about 80 and DID is at 100. None of those numbers are indicators of how hopeless it is or anything like that. They are simply the degree to which the dissociation is the prevalent issue

In PTSD and CPTSD, dissociation is about equal with the other trauma sypmtoms in what one is dealing with. In the Dissociative Disorders, the dissociation is more pronounced and with a stronger impact on the daily living. This also means when treating a person, the focus needs to more on the dissociation and different tools have to be used to get the best response."

30 minute phone calls every day are triggering his CPTSD and re-traumatizing him.

He's dissociating every fucking day? For how many years?? And every time you mention his mother? Christ on a cracker.

This isn't "oh how cute he's vaguing out he doesn't listen" this is 4 alarm fire, "This bitch is so abusive he's well on his way to having a multiple personality disorder"

When he comes down from it and promises to talk to her.. as soon as he tries he'll just dissociate again. He literally can't. He doesn't actually like her, he basically has Stockholm Syndrome. He's confusing "relief that she didn't let him die today" with "love".

Do you want to save his sanity? No contact with her, and an excellent therapist.

This podcast should get you started https://safespaceradio.com/trauma-dissociation/

and this book

During my SCID-D assessment, it was suggested to me that I have a 'reporter part' who has the job of watching things and keeping track of what is going on. I'm not that part, but I wanted to say that we love that part a lot and think they're really special and important. They feel unreal a lot but we wouldn't be here without them.

When I feel bad about dealing with it, I like to read some books on DID or lurk on this sub to remind myself I'm not alone. Child parts distract themselves with fantasy stories or young adult novels. Also, grounding techniques that use different senses can help too. Lately I've been getting a bar of chocolate and I'll do some colouring or listen to music. If that doesn't help, I'll play with the cat, call a friend or go to sleep. There's a book on coping with dissociation that has lots of things to try.

The part I mentioned doesn't find it easy to do any of these things because they don't really have any motivation or feel any enjoyment, but we have a rule that you just pick something and try it for ten minutes and if it doesn't work at least you tried. We're not actually very good at it, but that's the idea.

Sure! Right now I like these Yoga With Adriene videos: Gentle Yoga, and Yoga for Loneliness (I like that this one is low to the ground and pretty much all done on your back). I also like these Somatic Exercises for neck and shoulders.

The book I like best for explaining dissociation is Sensorimotor Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden/ Janina Fisher. The book is huge and a little pricey, but that's because the format is supposed to be like a workbook for client and therapist. You don't have to go through the exercises (I don't) but my therapist utilizes a lot of sensorimotor psychotherapy ideas and techniques in our work and I bought the book because there's just so much great information in there about dissociation and how trauma gets stored in the body. There's also a workbook that I recently bought that's pretty good so far: Coping With Trauma Related Dissociation.

Copung with the same issue. I' ve found the following book extremely helpful, with tons of practical tips and exercises:

http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Training-Therapists/dp/039370646X/

I bought it on Kindle, which is half the price.

http://www.amazon.com/Coping-Trauma-Related-Dissociation-Training-Therapists-ebook/dp/B00O4RPUPU/