misdiagnosis

[mosaic]

we remember getting the diagnosis du jour in the 80's of borderline personality disorder. even when we figured out that we are a we, we ran into a doctor who maintained that not all borderlines were multiple, but all multiples were also borderline.

what has been your experience of being misdiagnosed? have you had to fight to be recognized as multiple?

[Tangled Web]

We have had many diagnosis since the 1980's. Borderline was our first dx, then they tried bi polar and treated us for depression along with anxiety disorder. The list can go on and on. PTSD made sense to us when we were first dx with that and then it turned into complex PTSD. It seems as the years went by they could come up with a new dx to label us with but DID was never one of those dx until a few years ago.
The problem with misdiagnosed is the endless list of medications they want you on to help treat the dx but if dx is wrong then whatever cocktail they are trying to get to work to "make you feel better" doesn't work either.
We gave up on the mental health profession for over 20 years for exactly this reason. Meds NEVER helped us so we don't take any. Doctors were ALWAYS trying to find that "magic pill" to make everything but NEVER sat down long enough to just try to listen to you.
Being DID was our biggest secret and didn't want to be recognized as being a multiple. We didn't know what it was back then or I should say we didn't know the label (dx) for what we were experiencing but we did know that we were done trying to get help or trying to explain to people who never seemed to understand anything back then.
We have numerous bad experiences with the mental health field for many, many years so now in the present DID is still something we don't fight for people to recognize-in fact no one knows anything about us except our T and the people here at MM and also one friend we currently have that we have known for years.
For us there has always been a lot of shame put on us for having "mental health problems" and that is something we have never been able to overcome......................that is why we don't fight to be recognized as anything.

Great topic mosaic.
TW

[The People]

We have walked out of offices never to return as recently as a few years ago. Psychiatrist asked "What was your opinion of your family before you started therapy." Well we knew they were nucking futs. But whoever fronted that meeting messed it up. Said we thought they were normal. Accused of having FMS and needed to leave office before Alexa kicked him.

This is not a prejudiced statement but we had an influx of Irish Pdocs where I lived for years. Over there they are still working on coming to terms with it. Perhaps not all of them but every one that I met up with. None of them saw anything but borderline. One called us a "phenomenon" when we were in the middle of firing him and asking if he even believed in the dx. Another scarred me for life by yelling "typical borderline behaviour" before asking why I did wat I did. I did it because nobody was listening.

[The People]

I just wanted to add that, while they didn't hit the bullseye with the anxiety dx it is part and parcel of the full dx for everyone I have spoken with on topic.

[MakersDozn]

We never got the BPD dx, thank goodness. It was upsetting enough to go through the first 33 years of our life without even getting the depression dx. Nobody believed in childhood depression in 1970.

The multiple thing we figured out by ourselves. We were on a forum for survivors of adult SA. We met our first (other) multiples there, and our own situation started to become clear.

MDs

[nats]

we're with TW in that we wanted to know for ourselves but were never willing to have an official label attached to us - too scary and permanent!