Medication and D.I.D.

Medication can be both helpful and unhelpful when it comes to the treatment of D.I.D. There is no such thing as a magic cure and there currently is no form of psychiatric medication that stops switching completely. Medication is normally used in conjunction with therapy (whether that be EMDR, MBT, CBT, DBT, CAT etc). While medication cannot really help stop switching it can be used to treat co-occurring mental health problems that go alongside DID. It is rare for someone with DID to not have another disorder alongside it. Some disorders that can occur can include - but not limited to - borderline personality disorder, psychotic disorder, depression, bipolar, eating disorders and PTSD. 

I asked some people that have DID to tell me what medication they take and whether it helps. Many of them felt the medication helpful in treating symptoms that were caused by another disorder, such as depression or psychosis. However, a few people thought that medication could do more harm than good. It is hard for someone with DID to be put on medication when their switching has become out of control and frequent as many alters may have differing views on medication which could mean some alters stash medication, fail to take them completely or alter the dosage they are supposed to have.

Here is a very short list of the medication a dozen people I asked are on. These are just a few examples of the kind of medication someone with DID can take (and the reason why) if they have symptoms that are affecting their day to day life (not including the rapid switching of alters);

Psychosis - Amisulpride, Olanzapine, Quetiapine, Clopixol, Risperidone, Geodon

Depression - Mirtazapine, Sertraline, Venlafaxine, Florouxetine, Wellbutrin, Effexor

Mania - Lamictal

Anxiety - Diazepam, Lorazepam, Promethazine, Ativan, Visteril

Taking medication is assessed on an individual basis. What works for one person may not work for another and you may have to try many if you are thinking of going down that road. Some people are quite content about being on no medication and that opinion is also perfectly valid. I, personally, have gone through over a dozen different combinations of tablets before settling on the medication I am on now that seems to be working. I'm one person with DID that needs medication to function day to day.

Always consult a psychiatrist before taking any psychiatric medication, altering your dose, or weaning off any of your medication.

Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 28 days

Written by Fox.

Jesus. I think it's time for some kind of intervention or something here! Keri's gone completely looped this evening, or more rightly the last 4 hours considering it's nearly 4am.

I thought the day started quite well. Keri was given her Quetiapine and also some extra Lorazepam for her home visit just in case, the staff read her diary and also checked her bag; both before leaving and also on coming back as there was a very short period where Keri's foster mum was showing Keri's 'pet nurse', as she called her, around the garden. Keri didn't dissociate but because she could've dissociated and dashed in and out the kitchen they checked anyway. Her home visit went very well. Like I said in my last post, I knew she'd feel differently as soon as she stepped foot in that door. She described it as 'walking on the clouds of heaven'! She was happy to see her foster mum but was getting really confused over the fact she knew so much of what Keri was doing. Keri still thinks I'm taking a break from blog posts so doesn't know her foster mum sees them. She was only able to stay for just over an hour but an hour was all Keri needed. She was out of hospital, despite being escorted, and she felt like she was home again. I will admit that there were a lot of us that were reluctant to leave and come back to the hospital but did anyway without any hassle from Sally as me and David had that covered. If you're reading this, thank you for letting Keri visit! 

For a few hours Keri was actually feeling a bit better. For some reason from about 11.30pm she's just... I don't even know how to explain it. She's self-harmed several times again and now has dressings all the way up her left forearm, she's in and out of dissociative trances and isn't really able to listen to anyone and is getting preoccupied (which one of the nurses pointed out when he was sorting out Keri's arm, stating that she was a lot more distracted than usual). She's spent a lot of the last few hours rocking on her bed, shouting random things in rhymes and when she's outside smoking she's climbing on all the garden furniture and jumping from bench to bench! She's been dosed up to her eyeballs again but she's just completely manic, but very depressed. It's weirding me out! I don't like it! She's not even close to going to bed and keeps wandering round and round in figures of eight. I don't understand how she was okay one minute then suddenly switched to this! And I know it's not another personality as I deliberately checked to make sure. 

She saw the dietician who said she'd bought Keri a cereal bar to eat each day. She gave Keri one today which sat on her bedside table. Once it started getting dark she went out in the garden while no one was watching, took it out the wrapper, chucked it over the fence then went back to her room and strategically placed the empty wrapper very noticeably in her bin so she knew the staff would see it and write on her fluid/food intake chart that she's had a cereal bar when in reality she's eaten naff all.

I really hope her psychotherapist is able to do something if she's still like this tomorrow as I'm really at a loss. David has no idea what to do either and several personalities have decided to start arguing about cheese! What is this world coming to right now! Someone explain it to me because... I don't understand and normally I understand things ten times better than anyone else internally. But now I'm clueless. I'm never clueless. Does that mean there's something wrong with me too? If I spoke, I'd be shouting at a wall right now, and I'm pretty passive!