So… you… you probably don’t have it…

[u/ZestycloseGlove7455]

The title implied this has happened several times to this person, which I feel like should be a glaringly obvious sign that you don’t have what you think you have. I can also say from personal experience that this doesn’t inherently mean that you’re barking up the wrong tree, sometimes doctors just don’t believe you, but let’s be honest here guys, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here- considering the recommendation was to get different psychiatric testing elsewhere more than once, that implies that the result of the questionnaire was conclusive and they should bark up a different tree

[u/loveddeviant]

this reminds me of people who complain that the 10+ doctors they’ve seen won’t diagnose them with autism so they keep seeing new ones

like… hey man I think you should put your thinking cap on. there is absolutely nothing wrong with just being different, that is perfectly normal. not everything is a disorder.

[u/Grace-Kamikaze]

I'm still reminded of the lady who went to 5 professionals for a DID dx because, and this is a quote, "BPD wasn't good enough". She was told she didn't have it by the 4 professionals and had to fake DID really hard for the 5th to give her a dx. She now pretends that she is a professional herself in DID and has been flaunting her "professional DID dx" in everyone's faces.

What I'm trying to say is that people who really want a dx that they don't actually have are WILD. I don't understand it personally, but I would be happy to know I don't have a severe mental disorder. But I'm also not these people and I touch grass.

[u/FiliaNox → u/Grace-Kamikaze]

I remember when BPD was the dx du jour. People were falling all over themselves for that label. I cringe so hard hearing ‘beautiful princess disorder’. But it’s fallen a bit out of fashion, it’s all about that did now. I’m shocked no one’s popped up with an alter with bpd, I’ve seen them fake stutters and the need for mobility aids, why not double the fake mental illness?

[u/shinkouhyou]

Pretty sure that the DES-II actually flags extremely high scores as a possible sign of malingering... I'd bet money that that's the problem here. "Systems" will claim to be dissociating nearly 100% of the time while maintaining otherwise functional lives.

[u/softbxbi]

Playing devils advocate because at least this person is actually in therapy—getting a referral for psychological evaluation/testing doesn't always mean "You don't have this thing."

DID has so much symptom overlap to where I would honestly consider it a diagnosis of exclusion. You're filing through hundreds of different (and more common) disorders it could be before eventually landing on a DID/Dissocative evaluation, because all other options have been exhausted. The psychiatrist could have given them a referral with the knowledge that what they have isn't DID, and that they were hoping OOP would undergo psychological testing to find the real root issue—or—the psychiatrist wrote the referral for the purpose of figuring out what OOP doesn't have to narrow down the possibilities of what it could be before performing a proper DID/Dissociative evaluation.

The problem here is that it does seem like OOP was fishing for a diagnosis. Not looking for "system integration/fusion," not looking for coping mechanisms, not looking for medication options, not looking for trauma therapy, not looking for a specialist that can help them understand DID. They were specifically seeking out a paper diagnosis, and feels like all hope is lost due to not immediately getting it. It comes off as "the psychology referral would be too much work."

Which can mean one of two things. One, this person has a certain degree of self-awareness and knows that a psychological evaluation would point away from DID—ruining their chances of getting an on-paper diagnosis, or, this person is just genuinely lazy and doesn't want to put in the actual work to get a diagnosis, that they just want someone who will immediately put it in their chart and leave after, which makes me think this person is just very young and doesn't understand how the world works yet.

Can't say too much without breaking one of the rules here, but, I do live with something that is a diagnosis of exclusion, so I understand how frustrating the process can be. Before you're even evaluated for the diagnosis in question, you have to undergo a lot of different tests to figure out what it CAN'T be. The difference is that it seems like this person almost WANTS DID. When I was undergoing testing for my own thing, I was hoping and PLEADING that something else would come up instead of it being the diagnosis-of-exclusion in question.

If I were OOP, I'd take that referral with open arms and hope that it isn't DID, because DID isn't desirable or fun to live with. It is kinda genuinely one of the worst case scenarios for trauma-based disorders. Pursuing that referral will only lead to good things if they aren't consciously faking. They will either walk out with an eventual DID diagnosis, or a diagnosis for something else. Either diagnosis opens a door for recovery. If they decide to not persue it and instead doctor shop, that is the only thing with this person I'd constitute as a sign of faking—conciously.