What kind of issues are you able to help with and what makes you qualified to offer that help?
I am just some person on the Internet with DID.
- Being the center of a huge system;
- Being the first alter in my system;
- My role in the system as center and gatekeeper allowing me to really dig deep into the mechanizations of a system;
- Years of research and continual updates of my knowledge;
- Being a part of the community and having talked to and befriended a TON of systems;
- Having helped countless systems successfully.
That being said - It's prudent to take EVERYTHING on the internet with a huge grain of salt and always follow up with a licensed professional, particularly if your problem is potentially life altering or if you are in crisis.
For the record, I refuse to answer questions about suicide and always direct those people to professionals in their local area if they send me a private ask. If they send me an anonymous ask, I do not answer those. Direct crises require specialists and nuanced information that I can't glean from a single ask.
And if my advice doesn't resonate with you? That wouldn't be the first time and won't be the last. It's impossible for me to know the nuances of every situation and every system. I can only provide advice based on what (usually little) information is provided to me and my own experience as outlined above.
Also, I'm just not always right. As much as I'd like to think otherwise (ahaha) I am not infallible.
That being said... I take issue with the subtle implication that someone who happens to be licensed is inherently "more qualified" to provide advice with something like DID.
I've had quite a few therapists throughout my life. You know, the ones with very expensive degrees from fancy institutions.
95% of them had absolutely no experience working with dissociative disorders at all.
Most of them admitted that DID was only mentioned in a footnote on a single page out of the thousands and thousands of pages they had to memorize to get their degrees.
They would take me on as a client under the assumption that their knowledge of dissociation in other contexts, along with their knowledge of PTSD and trauma would be enough. With mixed results in the end.
For those 95% of therapists who had no prior experience with dissociative disorders, I had to literally hold their hand and explain to them the most basic concepts: what a system even is, what an alter is and isn't, the current understanding of structural dissociation, how integration works, how trauma interrupts integration, etc.
15 years of my life was spent struggling with therapists who didn't understand, COULDN'T understand, and feeling more like I was being used as a "learning experience", free schooling, and a specimen for ignorant therapists to use to get experience with patients with DID.
Even the best therapists I've worked with only have a rudimentary understanding of dissociative disorders, and DID in particular. The best ones learn quickly, adapt, are respectful, ask lots of questions, and usually have experience with dissociation in some other context, IFS, or otherwise.
The worst ones tend to be older, stuck in their ways, skeptical that DID even exists, or apply otherwise useful therapeutic modalities inappropriately. Even well meaning therapists often spent therapy sessions using me to enhance their knowledge and learn more about DID rather than actually helping.
This is one of the few mental health disorders that half of doctors don't even believe exists, and the other half oftentimes think it's so rare that they'll never encounter anyone with it anyway, so why bother?
Very few therapists, no matter how much they might enjoy working with a client with DID, are going to spend the required amount of time pouring over books, documentation, the (small amount of) studies to acquire the mastery to fully "understand" DID unless they are specializing. From their point of view, that is a ton of work that they could be putting towards specializing in something that is more "helpful" to more people, like PTSD and trauma.
I am sure there are DID specialists who have done that kind of work and have worked with enough systems to genuinely need no hand holding whatsoever. I've never met one personally. I've looked. I am blessed to be covered by insurance and have access to many therapists, too.
The very few therapists I've researched who do specialize are very expensive, not covered by insurance, and so few in number that accessibility is a huge issue. Especially for people with DID, who in my experience tend to be more disenfranchised than singlets for reasons I don't care to go into right now.
In the end, especially with general questions, I believe that someone who has the disorder is going to be vastly more knowledgeable than someone who is expected to have a wide breadth of knowledge - especially with something like DID, because it's an experience that is so unique to systems. I've never met a singlet, therapist or otherwise, who is able to fully understand and comprehend what it is like to have a system. They can sympathize, but they can't empathize.
I feel very lucky to be blessed with a therapist who has a genuine interest in working with DID in specific and has actively sought out clients with DID. That being said, there were things that even she didn't know. Because as I said, she has no way of knowing - because she is a singlet. She doesn't know what it's like to be in an inner world for example, or to deal with the inner workings of a system.
This doesn't only apply to DID, by the way. It applies to every disorder, mental or physical, particularly the ones that are more rare. I could go into that further, but not now.
tl;dr - asking for "qualifications" with the implication that schooling can give total insight to what it's like to be multiple is, quite frankly, stupid. And the way you worded the question was loaded in a way that tells me you weren't asking in good faith but instead with ulterior motives. If you've disagreed with something I've said - reblog it. Make your voice known. Change my mind.
Definitely be critical of who you are taking advice from. I highly encourage that. But realize, as per usual, the ones who are directly affected by something - health issues, marginalization, etc - are typically going to be the ones who have the experience and insight necessary to speak to it.
In the end, for a lot of alters and systems, some help is better than none. Most of the asks I get are just alters who need a shoulder to cry on or validation that what they are going through is very real and very okay. One doesn't need a doctorates to do that. The other asks I get are typically about the actual functionality and mechanizations of a system, which a therapist can't speak to. They're a singlet.
If I can help even one system or alter who is struggling and unable to access help, then I will have provided a net positive to the community and the world.
The one DID "specialist" that my partner had consistently fell asleep in sessions with him. Neither here nor there, but a fun little footnote. :)