I just wanted to say that I am in a relationship with someone who has DID and a lot of what you are saying is very familiar. Hugs to you all.
I also wanted to recommend this book - my SO and I have been reading this together and getting a lot out of it. It's written in part by someone with DID and the alters speak as well. It outlines things such as how to learn to live in your body and allow your alters to remember what the present year is, etc. It also points out the many positive aspects of DID such as having a great imagination and never getting bored. :)
I applaud your decision to work on co-awareness rather than integration. I am glad you have a therapist who is wise enough to see that this is a great option.
Thank you so much for this bountiful information! I just want to appreciate your taking the time to write this and inform me properly on cyclothymia (as I wasn't informed of this whole thing at all back then, even to this day, all I know are symptoms that I felt then and those that were written in the internet).
Despite all of possible counters to what I have explained, I am still confident to say I classified as cyclothymia during that time. It happened for 2 years and then dipped for a while until I got diagnosed with GAD. So in the gap of 3 years, idk what kind of mental illness I had then. In the gap of 3 years, I had a boyfriend and our relationship was so toxic, mainly due to me. Overall, already existing and rapidly developing mental illnesses settled into making me a hella toxic person. That was just bad.
>then you're probably cyclothymic.
I was just gonna comment on your previous paragraph about how my "depressive episodes" maxes out to 2-3 times a year, usually 1-2 months at a time, and the other times I'm just happy/normal. It came to a point where when I suddenly feel sad and it lives on for 2 weeks to 2 months, I'd think to myself, "oh, seems I'm having an episode again." --- And then I read the next paragraph, haha. Thus explains my previous paragraph where I mentioned that I am still confident to say that what I had then was cyclothymia.
>Just because you felt really different for a month or two doesn't indicate DID.
I am fully aware. I have had DID since I was 6. Back then I thought they were just sides of me. Only until recently was I informed/educated that this was actually DID. I am currently reading a book called "Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide to Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder" (here's the Amazon link) and in their chapters to identifying if you truly live with DID, I tick in all and can name numerous instances/examples in my life ranging from childhood to the past week.
>but I'd be more likely to question the DID diagnosis vs the cyclothymia IF you're still having frequent low grade depression episodes
That's the thing.. I don't 🤔. What I mainly feel right now is just a mixture of GAD and DID, but no mood swings at all, no ups and downs, no irritability, no short temperedness unlike before, which is why I raised the question of cyclothymia being either ruled out by now or a misdiagnosis. Cos, what if it was just GAD but not full blown yet? But, I have not heard of any instances where mood swings was a side effect/side symptom of having GAD 🤔
>DID is not for mood swings it's for when you have two distinct personalities.
I am fully aware. I hope you're not intending to discount my experiences 😅