おかあさん

It encompasses a lot of my feelings and understandably, talks about the short comings of doctors and the shortcomings of the incredibly strict criteria of DID. And this person writing, does believe that yeah, it would probably make more sense if DID/OSDD-1 was treated as a spectrum, rather than people having to be shoved into the label of OSDD when they do not fit in DID exactly.

It's a well researched article and a great resource to read. And within it, the author says that if the diagnostic manual reflected real life experiences of people with DID, then more people would be able to fit into it.

And that apparently here's what dissociative amnesia actually means:

In order to receive a diagnosis for dissociative identity disorder, you must display ‘Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events that are inconsistent with ordinary forgetting.’

Afterwards the author says it's usually interpreted to mean amnesia between parts, and the thing is, I'm realizing I experience this definition of dissociative amnesia, but not significant memory loss between alters. Just when I recall things, it's difficult to remember and often remembered out of order to when it actually happened.

And this author talks about how people get misdiagnosed as OSDD because they do not "play the game" when with psychiatrists. (Not letting alters front, or not unmasking when alters front). Like being able to have a grip on who's fronting is nothing out of the ordinary, your gatekeeper may not let everyone front especially in a new and uncomfortable environment. And some alters may have a hard time unmasking, and may end up pretending to be host out of instinct. So it's not the best when some psychiatrists expect alters to front unprompted.

And the author also discusses how some people just don't have a clear label on their system, and I felt that so hard. Some people just identify as DID/OSDD and leave it at that. Some people don't even get diagnosed and that's common too, why seek a diagnosis when you can just seek therapy, there's no prerequisite for therapy. And while in other countries like the UK, people might want to seek a diagnosis, it's still incredibly hard over there.