CBT and DID...my experience

[Cammy]

Well, I did four weeks of CBT even though my T expressed her doubts, but I thought I'd try anyway, just to say I did it. What can I say? With so many of us inside of us, each with their own issues, there is so much that would need to be dealt with. No one little CBT course could possibly even hope to even start to work on all of it or with everyone of us.

I started the course from the perspective of my main me, the main host. I thought that benefit to the host would be useful; strengthening. Soon, it got so complicated and exasperating for me that I just started doing the course as my public persona - all the correct responses, working just to please the counsellor, politically correct, that sort of thing. So, I was faking being the perfect subject, star of the show, a total fake. I got tired of that pretty quick.

I also discovered mindful meditation in the middle of all of this. Finally, I found something that brought serenity and healing to my entire system. It was almost immediate and felt like the shackles of a lifetime were falling away. So, compared to this powerful experience, CBT seemed like ancient history - something for the psychological archives. Now I do mindful meditation every day and the benefits grow and grow for me. I feel like I've discovered a bona fide miracle.

I should have listened to my T. She said that CBT doesn't go far enough (for DID), and that it is not "experiential", in other words it isn't felt deeply at the gut level where it needs to be to make an impression on the whole system. So live and learn.

This was not intended to slam CBT as a therapy, it was only to express what my experience with it was. I believe that someone who is mono mind and has a single issue (like a phobia) it probably works just fine. But for this particular multi mind ... there's just too much stuff for one wee CBT course to try and sort out. I'll just stick to the beautiful sea of serenity I've discovered with mindfulness meditation and leave the whole CBT thing behind as a learning experience.

[Cammy]

I feel like very upset and a turd for quitting. They all are clamouring to know why. I explained why here in the previous post. If I told them what I've told you here, they'd never understand. I'm thankful there's a place where SOMEBODY understands here at MM. Out there....forget it.

[Cammy]

Hate how this has all made me feel even more alone,isolated, and 'different'. This day has been a well of tears and aloneness because of that stupid course. Course made us realize we will never be like other people...ever. I better go hug the dog. He's used to having my nose and tears make his head wet.

[nats]

(03-21-2013, 06:43 PM)Igraine Wrote: Hate how this has all made me feel even more alone,isolated, and 'different'. This day has been a well of tears and aloneness because of that stupid course. Course made us realize we will never be like other people...ever. I better go hug the dog. He's used to having my nose and tears make his head wet.

just b/c something doesn't work for you doesn't make you or your people the problem. impressed that you discovered mindfullness and have made it effective for you - Remember, CBT isn't deep enough for a lot of mono-minds too .

[Cammy]

Thanks nats, that gives me better perspective. Your comments are always appreciated.

[Cammy]

Since absolutely nothing makes sense anymore, I must be back in comfortable familiar territory. Like coming home.

[Cammy]

Just for some closure on this thread...I went back and got up to the seven week mark in the CBT course (out of 8 wk total). Things really deteriorated, not just for me internally, but in the way I ended up be treated by them. I'm not saying don't try it, because it may help someone else with their particular issues, but for me it was pretty disastrous. I started the course with moderate anxiety and depression indexes, and ended up with maximum depression and severe anxiety indexes. It's supposed to work the other way around. What did I find was the problem? Well..the course is probably okay for mild to moderate more superficial issues that can be altered by changing your thinking and behavior patterns. Deeper stuff does not only not get helped, but gets good and stirred up. Plus, things trigger the different parts of us so that we are responding to the course throughout from multiple rotating viewpoints. It wasn't designed for this. So, that's that. I had to leave at seven weeks because all available damage control crews are already engaged and busy doing mop up work. I had no more internal resources to devote to any more hurts and owies that kept being inflicted by people who don't seem overly sure of what they're doing at times. That's my final report on this. Over and out!

[Elizabethn]

CBT is designed to be brief...Well, not *always*, but the trend in psychology is toward finding ways to do time-limited interventions, partly because that's how insurance tends to pay for it. In my experience, that right there is enough to say that it's not great for folks like us, because so little of what we tend to need to do in therapy can be packaged that way.

I think CBT has its place, maybe even for dissociative folks, but not for actual DID treatment.

[Cammy]

No, you're right there. But I finished it so I could say to the powers that be that yes, I tried it, and I finished it, and yes it made some things worse. This way no one will ever suggest it to me again and I've got the TShirt to prove I did the thing. It's like one less thing I have to answer to and explain about. Next time some under-informed care taker suggests CBT, we can just scrub it right off the to-do list right off the bat. For that alone it was worth the 8 weeks of aggravation.

[nats]

(04-14-2013, 11:59 PM)Igraine Wrote: ..Next time some under-informed care taker suggests CBT, we can just scrub it right off the to-do list right off the bat. For that alone it was worth the 8 weeks of aggravation.

good way to look at it