I wasn't really sure what flair to use because I'm still not sure how *I'm* feeling?

I guess this is sort of an update to my last post. I followed the advice I got and wrote down as much as I could into a Google doc while they were feeling communicative. Then I kinda... tossed it at my therapist mid-session and we went through it together. I explained that some of them feel very "other" and some of them feel more like pieces of me. She called them alters for the first time and like... I froze? She must have noticed because she asked me to describe how I was feeling physically.

I've done the dissociation test with her before but I was so masked then that I genuinely didn't think I was dissociating as much as I really do, so we're going to do it again next session.

Anyway I'm just sitting with the word alters I guess. It's... validating but heavy? I had convinced myself over the last few months that them being quiet means I must have made it up and it was all fake and ... well, you know the cycle. Still right now I feel so silly about it, like I made a bigger deal than it really is, but in reality I know what I wrote barely scratches the surface.

Anyone out there relate? Commiseration, advice, your stories, "I feel you bro" sort of comments all welcome. I think I just need to feel not alone in this lol.

Does anyone else just feel disoriented most of the time. Like not just moments where you’re out of it or you lose time or memories but just kind of exist in a state where thoughts, feelings, and memories are pretty much constant floating in and out of existence and you can’t pin down a solid mental state? I don’t know if I’m describing it correctly but I just feel like that’s the state I live in and I’m wondering if it’s my osdd or if there’s something else wrong with me.

As the title says, I am just wondering if it is possible to have someone co-front (or just be more present) or switch in but still continue to feel like the same person?

I've been reflecting on what my therapist has said and how they think that when I gain random access to childhood memories that it's likely someone (or a part, as they call it) co-fronting with me, and when I lose access to that memory again that whoever isn't co-fronting anymore. However, looking back on those times, I don't believe I feel any different, I think I still very much feel like the same person. It's usually a reaction of "oh I suddenly have this random memory back, weird" and by the time its gone again, its usually a reaction of "oh the memory has disappeared again, okay".

My therapist also thinks that my parts front way more often than I realise, but I don't really know if the parts I talked about during that session feel all that..distinct from me, if alters at all? it's hard to explain

This is to say, this makes me think about OSDD-1(a), but I don't know if that explains the suspected fictive I have, either. I may make a seperate post about the fictive at a later date though.

My other question, I want to open up communication a little further with us, I am unable to physically visualise things, and can't particularly hear any of my others speak to me (very very rarely have I heard them), I am wondering what other alternative options there are for communicating?

Thank you!

Reflecting on my past, it’s clear why my relationships have been so unstable.

The dominant host alter enters a relationship, then a different alter feels drastically differently, leading to the cycle of ending and restarting the same relationship — often for years. This toxic pattern affects not just romantic bonds but close friendships too.

I, as host, have ended harmful friendships only for another alter to seek reconnection. I’ve entered what I believed were healthy relationships, only for another alter to desperately want them to end. This cycle harms me, the other alters, and from the outside, makes me seem utterly unstable. Despite my disorganised attachment style, I don't identify with that label; I believe I have a healthy, secure attachment. It’s this other part with an avoidant attachment that skews my overall stability.

I feel awful for those who try to get close, believing I am capable of a committed, healthy long-term relationship — because I genuinely want that. Usually, I am a balanced, happy person, and people find it easy to connect and form romantic bonds with me. But then triggers spark months of self-sabotage and detachment, leaving me numb and dissociated from life. These partners have seen me in love, heard my vows, and believed I could keep them, only for everything to blow up quickly due to an alter’s need to escape — driven by trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms, this part is incapable of healthy romance, and doesn't know how to feel or express love as well as it having a very unhealthy relationship to sex.

How can I maintain a stable, monogamous relationship when part of me is capable of sabotaging it as a trauma response?

If anyone relates and is struggling, please reach out. I need mutuals who understand what this is like.

Hello everyone. I was formally diagnosed with OSDD 9 years ago. Despite receiving the diagnosis, it was only mentioned in passing by a previous therapist. She simply described it to me as “you have distinct dissociation issues but it’s not fully DID”. I was young and didn’t look into it, and unfortunately trusted her in a blind way at the time.

It wasn’t until years later when I began to notice issues I took with her approach to therapy that I even searched what OSDD was. This was a very triggering experience for me as she did not disclose everything it entailed. I knew upon reading about it that it was a correct diagnosis, but I felt mentally unprepared to sit with the reality of it, so I kind of blocked it out until more years passed.

Skip to years later after finding a new therapist that I really trust who has helped me tremendously. We’ve done weekly therapy for over 4 years now and it wasn’t until about a year ago that I told her about my OSDD previous diagnosis. She had to do some reading on it as it’s definitely not her specialty, but we were able to talk about it slowly over time. I’ve found and realized the topic is immensely triggering for me. Not so much the lived experience of the disorder, but interestingly enough the clinical language and pathologizing aspect of said behavior.

I’m wondering if anyone else may feel that way? I personally theorize that it’s largely due to not agreeing with the western approach to, well, many things in life. I’ve studied psychology for over a decade now and I do believe it’s quite helpful, but I have a fundamental disagreement with the approach taken to pathologize all behavior that deviates from an archaic norm rooted in privilege, neurotypicality, and racism. It’s the roots and purely clinical language used in the west that is something I have found to be unhelpful, at least for my own personal experience of this. I fully support whatever approach or language works for everyone’s individual path.

I’ve personally never considered my experience of OSDD to include alters. I’ve never named the different parts of me that become more dominant. I also don’t consider myself a system or multiple. I recognize that there is a lack of developed center identity within me, I do experience what I call partial amnesia, as well as distinct different parts with differing traits that naturally arrive depending on the situation. I just don’t personally identify with the typical language used for these experiences. To be clear, I do meet the diagnostic criteria for OSDD, I know it’s what I have, I am just not very comfortable going into the details of how it’s played out for me on here.

I’m autistic so it’s entirely possible that the language and approach is something I cannot get behind because I do not agree with it universally.

I have reached a point in therapy where I have now spent years working on my trauma, but I am recognizing that there are certain obstacles I keep coming up against that seem to point to OSDD specific challenges involving not having an ability to trust myself, because my self is…complicated obviously lol. I think it may be time for me to find a specialist who can help me with this, but I am worried that their approach to any aspect of integration will trigger me to shut down in panic because of the language.

I’ll give an example. If I were to sit down with a specialist for this and they were to address different parts of me as distinct identities or alters, I know I will have a panic attack. Since I was very young I have had a big trigger around worrying that I am crazy (OCD theme), and that I cannot trust myself to know what is reality (chronic invalidation as an undiagnosed autistic child who didn’t understand what was happening). Logically I know that having OSDD or DID does not make someone ‘crazy’, but I have such a deep fear of someone getting into vulnerable, less protected parts of my mind and twisting things in a way that will cause me to essentially lose touch with reality. It’s a deep lack of trust of other people, and myself to be able to withstand psychological manipulation.

However, when I think about this being approached and handled in a less clinical way, I don’t feel that way at all. Reading about the spiritual process of soul retrieval, and even Carl Jung’s process of individuation, the persona, etc is not triggering for me. Even though I did not grow up religious, it seems that mystical or spiritual flavoring of approaches to human issues and complexities is where I feel safer. Such a shocking sentence to even write as someone who doesn’t support organized religion.

I guess what I am looking for is a theoretical way someone may be able to address the need for some internal cohesion but in a less sterile, clinical way? I don’t think I am able to be receptive without it, and I do want to address this.

It’s a server for plurality and all ages. It’s for alterhumanity, LGBTQ, and especially plurality. It’s run by me, a teenage pan genderfluid fictionkin plural person. There are channels for server suggestions, a minor chat and an adult chat for those uncomfortable talking to the other age group. There is another language chat designed for Japanese language and German language, and a chat for fluent/advanced/native speakers of a language and a chat for beginners who still need help or translation. It's called Jay's Plural Community.

It is also on the r/plural Discord Masterlist but the link, just in case, should be this (the link keeps expiring...)

Well, I have been wondering about the fact that I might have OSDD, but it is actually quite hard to figure it out by myself since my current therapist isn't trained for this kind of things (but besides that she is very good so I don't want to find another one).

Anyway, I have been experiencing something that really bothers me, and I wanted to know if this was some kind of common experience for people with dissociative disorders.

There are nights when I keep waking up, but not fully. Just like that kind of thing when you wake up lightly but are still sleepy and can come back to sleep easily. But when this happens... I wake up feeling very different, almost everytime. It is like I know who I am, but that person, that identity, has disappeared. I am here but not here. Instead, I feel something completely different. For example, tonight I felt like I was a child (and I don't know any child in my supposedly system). I started to panick because I couldn't feel myself, even though I could keep sleeping. Even my body felt like the one of a child.

Most other nights, I feel like I am L. When I wake up feeling like him, it is usualy less scary. It actually feels really comfortable because he just enjoys sleeping, hugging his doll and coming back to sleep, smiling. But he has really weird thoughts and that's the first hint that it isn't me because I would never think about this kind of things in this way... It is so weird to have disturbing thoughts that are clearly not yours, that should distress you but you are not distressed because this part isn't distress by this kind of things.

The common thing in these experiences is that who I am most of the time just seems to disappear to be replaced by someone else, and that is something that I don't fully experience when I am awake. In my day to day life, switches are way more subtle and less intense (if they actually are switches...). It is like that when I am asleep, I have full access to my parts, which isn't the case when I am awake. 

The thing is that I can't be sure this is a dissociative experience or I am just too passionate about my characters, because I am writing a visual novel and some of the characters in it are also some kind of imaginary friends that live life with me. They comment on what happens and what I do, they also give me advices and sometimes get angry at me. Sometimes they disappear for days, weeks, months, then they come back, I can't just summon them if I want to. And sometimes, I do feel like we switch because I will suddenly start to talk and behave like them even though I cringe when it happens, but somehow I can't control it.

Maybe I am just too imaginative, sometimes I wonder if I just have maladaptive daydreaming and it happens even when I am sleeping. Does anyone has similar experience with this kind of things ?

Thanks for reading, I don't know how to make things short, sorry !

so this could be completely wrong but from my understanding of how emdr works, this could absolutely work as a stand in inadvertently

So I have an oled ultra wide curved monitor. Like 36 inches. Saved for a while for it, love it. Use it for gaming, school, music production

I use fl studio and play guitar into it. On a normal screen, the grid pattern does weird stuff to your vision already. Curved makes it one of those “stare for 20 seconds to see what being on acid looks like”

just to jam, write music, make samples etc.
the issue is, I do it late into the night, staring at a grid and watching a line move across the screen, constantly darting my eyes back and forth, while my hands are constantly busy, body feeling vibrations, and the auditory stuff on top (high gain, lots of effects that hit you when you’re high which I usually am)
Playing stuff that’s all harmonic/natural minor and Phrygian, tons of negative or sad soundings stuff.
Relevant but i played guitar A LOT throughout the abuse and foster care and I play my feelings some times.

I’m not diagnosed yet but given my history and issues, and the back and fourth flip flopping I’ve had of diagnoses (mood disorder this, personality disorder that, psychotic disorder, only consistent is cptsd and autism/ocd).

I started having what i thought were auditory hallucinations that I attributed to being tired and having loud music playing really loudly but I never have that issue except for making music. Even when I’m doing all the same just minus me being the source of music (late night +weed + headphones loud),

This was a few months ago but I started struggling a lot and had tons of stuff happen that makes me and my partner think it’s gotta be osdd.
Like dumb joke we’d make about how im shockingly “well adjusted” despite literal torture and having a criminal minds villain upbringing lol like the joke being like they were trying to speed run giving me some sort of crazy issues later.

Before anybody asks or anything, yes i did ask permission from the mods. Idk if this is the right tag tho

Anyway, systems (who want to ofc), please fill out this survey/form. https://forms.gle/pYBNkukLqKaACGvD8

It's for some basic research on systems! All the questions either have a "prefer not to answer" option, are just a question that you can write in and therefore can just write "prefer not to answer", or the question straight up isn't labeled as required! And i don't think any questions are too invasive.

Once we've gathered what we think is enough data, we'll probably post at least some of the stats here as a resource. :)

Edit: according to a commenter, i forgot to add a few things to the post for safety and stuff, which I'm sorry about! So here it is below this (to the best of my ability)

We're just a fellow system who wants to learn more about other systems. You can find links to our socials in the survey.

Once we get the data, we'll be posting it to Reddit on a few subreddits (including this subreddit), but other than that i we really don't have any plans to post it anywhere else. We of course can't promise that it won't get spread anywhere else. But you will remain anonymous, obviously, and we won't actually be sharing your guys' system names when we post the data.

We want systems of all kinds to answer the questions, just so we have more info. When we post the data, we will have the general stats of the whole survey and also disordered stats.

The questions are mainly just about your system. Things like your system name (this helps us see if there's any repeats, in which case we'll use the most recent one), origins (traumagenic or endogenic type things), whether or not you'd (hypothetically) share your trauma with someone, whether or not you're professionally diagnosed, what age group you fall into, how many alters you have in your system, how much of your system are introjects, whether or not you participate in some specific subreddits, whether or not you're LGBTQ+, what is the role of the alter answering the survey, what sources your fictives are from if you have any, whether you have friends who are systems, whether your family/friends know you're a system, what your assigned sex at birth is, whether you use some media platforms to watch plural creators, and your stance on endogenic systems. All of these questions are completely optional, and you can answer "prefer not to say" to any.

I have large gaps in my childhood memory and only started remembering some of these events around a year ago.
A maid who took care of me for much of my childhood was one of the main adults in my life. I was very attached to her because I spent so much time with her, she taught me Arabic, and she felt like a friend or older sister. At the same time, she was also frightening and harmful.
She would hit me and threaten me so that I would not tell my parents about what was happening even tho I was shaking and crying. 
She would deliberately scare me. For example, when someone knocked on the door, she would tell me they had come to kill me and describe what would happen. I would cry and shake while she laughed.
She made comments about how much I ate and shamed me around food. I also remember being given expired food that made me throw up while I said that I couldn’t eat that and cried bcs of how disgusting that is. 
She involved me in situations with older men that made me uncomfortable. She would make me look "pretty" for them and made me call them. I still do not fully understand what was happening, but I remember feeling confused and unsafe.
Outside of that, I also experienced bullying and emotional instability growing up.
Looking back, I think these experiences affected how I relate to people. I sometimes feel comfort in relationships where someone is mean, rejecting, or emotionally unavailable. I often feel safer when I know someone does not like me than when someone is kind to me. I have also struggled with derealization, intense emotions, self-harm, and confusion about attachment.
Even now, part of me still minimizes what happened and wonders whether it was "really that bad," despite knowing these memories continue to affect me.
I was also sa d by cousins but it was light so doesn’t count tbh

Do you want to talk about neurodivergence, Maslows Hierarchy of needs, and reflecting what it was like for you at age 12? And did you hear voices as a child?
Does this interest you? DM me. I want to help people like us.

Thanks!

I’m drawing stuff about an unhealthy crush I have (which probably isn’t even a crush but I don’t know how to comprehend emotions properly) with a online figure who doesn’t even know I’m real and someone keeps playing “we are never getting back together” in my head whenever I draw. Does this mean anything.

Im not joking though this situation is a little funny tbh

• Idk Clyde or something

Okay, okay, I lowkey feel stupid or something IDK, But I think I just fucking realized I might have OSDD or something like it, I'm 20F and just it just kinda hit me like a bus, like it would explain so much! I also think I might be the primary alter(??) cause like there are others here I know that, also we don't know where the main host went?? She's just like gone! has been for years, just gone and fucked off! Lowkey kinda freaking out at this, but what if i'm faking or somthing?! I swear I'm not, But like we can't remember why we formed as for when are best time guess is around 7th grade maybe?? Like I haven't Identify with the name Of the old Host for years but it like all just hit me? I don't know maybe I've just lost it or something...This is just me rambling/trying to get this off my chest i guess, I guess i'm just wondering if anyone else went through this as well? (sorry if this isn't allowed!) Sorry this is just word vomit!

Does anyone else really struggle every time you have to pick a name for a character in a game?

This isn’t the biggest challenge DID presents, but I hate naming characters in games. Three or four alters always want their name on the character. It’s not hostile, it’s more like friends arguing about what their friend should name their baby. But it’s just more noise in my head and more steps to go through for every little basic thing in life.

But it is a reminder that I have no idea who I am and either I have no identity (or 10 identities). Something about naming and rolling a new character reminds me of my life and how it seems like each alter is a character rolled in this RPG that I call my life.

Anyways, does anyone else struggle when you have to name a character?

TL;DR: We feel like our parts are separate people and our therapist is trying to argue against us.

We're currently in the early stages of therapy, where it's all talk and no action. Our therapist wants us to "find other coping strategies" over being a system. Therapist said that we need to drop the main protector because he's apparently "too violent" (he sometimes gets us into slight legal trouble), then our therapist says something about us being "classed as one" (implying we're all the host with vague personality changes, said violent protector disagrees with this and clearly states he is a different person to the rest of us.)

Another note: We often have no amnesia unless something was really stressful. The alters mentioned [host and protector] are not new in our system.

Since that session, we have been in denial about the whole situation.

We are not seeking professional advice from Redditors. This was just a little rant. Apologies if this sounded nonsensical, most of us are very bad at putting things into words.

Edit: When we mentioned our therapist telling us to basically get over being a system, they meant we should completely stop. Thing is, we can't stop it; we can prevent the main protector from being violent most of the time, as his actions that are bordering on us getting arrested, that is excluding when he takes full control. We're trying to find other ways to cope alongside being a system.

So, during the loss of my parents, each time was. Complicated. I was almost 15 when I lost my dad, it was not sudden, it was prolonged and from alcoholism. I grieved, but I also had grown up In Hell so I didn't really have the toolset or security to grieve properly and handle the big feelings. Set them aside, dissociated them away, wash rinse repeat, not "my" problem anymore it's someone else's issue that I didnt have to focus on bc to me it was Gone.

Then I lost mom a few years later, after even more abuse and fucked up situations, and i'm even less stable. she was expected, but unexpected at the same time. our last time speaking, I believe, was her screaming at me for something that only made sense to her because her mind was impaired a lot by that point from her health. same situation. breakdown, dissociate, then yeet it at someone else in the dark bc i can't handle the big feelings. feel better. focus on other big problems happening and destroying my life.

fast forward through 10 miserable years of marriage, an international move and back, an explosive divorce, i am by this point solely living for my cat. Like. No joke, she is the only reason I'm alive right now. My entire life revolved around my emotional support cat. i start therapy, get properly medicated, start getting my life on track, make progress.

realize "....ah fuck i've got more than one of me in my head. SHIT. oh well, busy-"

then, later, get punched with the realization of ".....ah fuck i never... actually... really dealt with my complicated grief, did i," as i'm more and more aware of the others. brought it up to doc, he said he didn't feel i was stable enough to approach such a big/deep topic just yet and that we'd ease into it over time.

well now my beloved cat of over 15 years has passed on, my entire life is shuffling and in upheaval, but things are different because i've got a lot more stability than any other point in my life. so surprise i get to start processing grief that every single part can feel while keeping the 16 y/o from trying to do anything stupid to us while the grief from my parents and the life that could have been/the life that Was seeps up through the fucking concrete like crude oil.

i'm nervous, though. it. .... idk how to describe it. everyone feels the hurt for my cat, we all loved her dearly, but the 16 y/o was the one most reliant on her and most interacted with her. the only reason we're not dead is because, repeatedly, it was important to remember that we needed to take care of the cat. we had to be there for her. nobody else could take care of her as well as me, she was MINE, she was my baby, my soul, and the only reason i stubbornly resisted taking extreme irreversible actions was because i was scared she wouldn't be taken care of properly and that she'd be sad and miss me. i owe my life to this cat.

yet my parents is an entirely different kind of grief, and it's got all this associated baggage weighing it down in different ways, but its being lumped in to the grief feelings for my cat while i guiltily have to admit i'm more upset about her passing than anyone in my family. idk how to separate these thoughts out. idk if i'm even making sense... okay let me try to reframe the goal:

how do you work through grief that affected different parts differently? how do you balance those feelings enough to actually work through them effectively?? i know the cycle of grief but if everyones at different stages what the fuck do i do then??

I'm currently 21 for starters.

My dad got extremely mad at me for closing the door when I was around 14 I think? I vaguely remember him saying I shouldn't be doing that and that I should keep it open. I was upset at this because I felt uncomfortable, I didn't listen to him and I still have no idea what that was about to this day.

I'm pretty sure that he once said to me that fathers are daughters first love.

One time my dad and I were having a discussion about rape. I thought rapists were after pleasure (non-consensual to the other person ofc) and my dad claimed that I was completely wrong and that he knows more about rape than I do. He says it's about dominance and control.

I remember my mom showering with me when I was a kid. I also talked to my dad as a kid when I was naked in the bath, I was freaking out because I thought I had two vaginas. My family tends to leave the bathroom door open, when they are naked, peeing, pooping, etc. It's become an instinctual habit of mine to just change in the open because of this.

When they sometimes walk in when I'm bathing they claim it's "nothing they haven't seen before"

I was spanked when I was 5 for running across the road, I always thought this was justified because I did something I wasn't supposed to. I also was nonverbal as a kid and primarily only spoke in sign language. My dad still sometimes playfully kicks at my butt as a joke. My mum slapped my ass multiple times when I was growing up, and more recently too. I continously told her to quit doing this lately because it makes me severely uncomfy and she got upset saying "it's just a joke." She eventually stopped after I confronted her. Just yesterday she grabbed and tried to fondle my boobs because I was wearing a shirt with skeleton hands on them (I guess that's to be expected...) I swatted her away and told her don't touch me.

My dad would comment on my body saying that "I can see the fat girl inside you ready to pop right out" and got defensive when I said that I didn't like that. He said I was too sensitive. I've had an eating disorder before.

About a month ago he brushed his hand near my chest trying to close a zipper on my coat (why?) lmao. Then he apologized saying sorry that was weird. He also commented on a dress I wore saying I look sexy, I was a little caught off guard. Maybe he meant pretty? or something and just mistakenly used the wrong word? Idk but the comment made me a bit uneasy. I thought I was just overreacting.

When I was 9, my parents forced me to wear a dress when I didn't want to for my aunts wedding. I had sensory issues and hated wearing dresses without leggings. I looked miserable in the family photo.

Around the age of 9, I started having sexual intrusive thoughts about my family and I cried. My dad didn't understand it but tried to comfort me saying that everyone has intrusive thoughts. I was diagnosed with OCD (pure O) in 2024. The OCD was because I got verbally and emotionally abused by my dad constantly. I also got hit a lot growing up.

They always had issues with boundaries, but I'm unsure because some of this was just normal to me.

Hey! So, I’ve been noticing changes in my own behavior I’ve made while I think I was switching. I don’t know how to explain it but I’ll make the list anyway

• Writing changes (different prose, different voice, different word usage)

• Different reactions to things (sudden distain when normally we like, sudden comfort when normally it makes us uncomfortable)

• Emotional dissonance

• Confusion over tasks (think of it like you suddenly got a job halfway done plopped into your lap and told to finish it. You knew it was halfway done and vaguely how to do it but you’re still lost anyway)

I probably have more but my brain isn’t being nice to me rn. Anyone else notice this kinda stuff when they switch? Or anything else?

• ?

ive been thinking recently about getting diagnosed or assessed for DID or something similar because i feel as though there are two very distinct people in my head with their own ideals and personalities. but the thing is that i feel like i can’t say i have this disorder because i can’t recall anything traumatic that has happened to me. so im not all that sure that it’s actually DID. i also don’t know many systems that only have two people so i don’t even know if you can be considered one if you do. i’m very new to this whole thing and i don’t know much about mental health so if someone wanted to help me try to figure this out i’d really appreciate it

I'm 20 years old, and I'm a trans man in the process of medically transitioning. I have suspected I have a disorder like DID/OSDD/etc since I was about 16. I've been through a lot of childhood trauma and never had a stable sense of identity, the only thing that remains stable is my dysphoria and I'm happy to finally be treating it. But with testosterone there is a risk of it bringing out underlying mental illnesses, and I'm freaking out. I only started 1 week ago so I'm not sure what will happen. I really need help with my other alters, it's getting hard to manage our needs and get along with them. But I don't know if I should try to get professional help or not.

I tried to bring up the possibility of having alters to 2 therapists when I was 17. Both immediately dismissed me and one thought I was bipolar (turns out she said that to all her patients). I've had no one IRL to talk to about this because I'm scared of being shut down again. I don't want attention. I'm not making things up. I'm not genderfluid or roleplaying as different characters. I have a broken identity that is made up of parts of me that hold onto trauma, keep us safe, and block out bad memories. I've been able to get some communication between alters recently which has been healthy for us, but it's generally very distressing to live as multiple people with different needs who are all traumatized and need constant care and reassurance. Internet resources are not cutting it.

I want to get treatment for this disorder that I think I have, but I'm also scared to have it on my record. I already have autism, anxiety, and complex PTSD in my charts and having certain diagnoses can make it harder to get medical care, including the hormones and surgery I need to transition. I don't want to fall into the trap of being ignored and mistreated by doctors. I've already experienced medical abuse multiple times and I have a hard time trusting professionals, especially now that I'm openly transgender. But I desperately need the help. I can't take care of this many traumatized alters by myself, and they don't do a very good job of taking care of important responsibilities and staying safe without my help (I don't know my role but I'm the most responsible one.)

Should I try to get a diagnosis? Would a diagnosis make my life even harder? I'm starting with a new therapist soon who specializes in working with queer people, I'm hoping this means they are more open to listening instead of dismissing me but idk. I just can't tell if this would be a bad decision that could impact my transition and healthcare in general.

my long term therapist suspects I have osdd. while there are things I experienced that could be called trauma, definitely nothing severe or extensive enough to feel like it’d fit with OSDD, and even less under age 11. The main thing was undiagnosed autism before age 11 or 12 or so, some gender confusion/not fitting in, which while could be defined as traumatic, in my understanding the severity of trauma that would cause osdd is more extensive. And I feel quite confident that there is nothing blocked out from that time I have fairly positive feelings looking back, memory sucks due to adhd/autism but don’t feel there are gaps or any signs that something happened. I feel old and tired and I just want an accurate understanding I don’t even care as much about validation anymore. Just curious if others have navigated similar experiences and questions.

finally opened up to my therapist about a month ago about how much we wanted a diagnosis. said i don’t meet the criteria cause i have no amnesia or distress about said (apparently nonexistent) amnesia.

she apparently ‘believes’ me when i talk about other parts existing, but i don’t know how much i believe that considering she doesn’t think we have amnesia. our emotional amnesia causes us constant issues in our life. part-to-part amnesia makes our memories blurry at best. i’m done fighting for this but i can’t believe i have to settle with no diagnosis. i just wanted to be believed.

if i can get any kind words right now that would be great. it’s hard to get support on this outside of our communities.

not sure how much im able to share, but being a minor, this feels horrible. i want to talk to my therapist/psychiatrist about this but i have no idea how to bring it up, and im scared its gonna get dismissed as "normal teenage confusion" because i KNOW its more than that. its not just "oh idk what gender i am". there's people in my head that i know arent me. its just confusing.

any advice/input would be appreciated.