“I Have DID and I Can’t Find a Therapist That Will Work With Me"

“I Have DID and I Can’t Find a Therapist That Will Work With Me.”

A Story of Becoming: Seeing Beyond Disorder to the Beauty of Adaptation

I received a phone call one afternoon four years ago, and those were the first words she shared with me. In treatment for years and formally diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) by Colin Ross, MD, the woman on the other end of the telephone line told me that nobody would help her. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my racing heart. I knew I didn’t have the expertise to support her — and yet I could hear the desperation in her voice.

“I have no experience working with DID, though I do have colleagues I can lean on. I’ll be learning from you as we walk together, and I promise you that I love learning. I’ll do what it takes to support you.”

They were big words from me. But as I spoke them, I felt something sacred stir within me — a knowing that this work, this relationship, this journey into the fragmented and beautiful places of the human soul, would shape the therapist I was becoming.

Learning from the Minds That Honor the Whole Self

Colin Ross. Robin Shapiro. Janina Fisher. Sandra Paulsen. Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, Kathy Steele. Ulrich Lanius. Pete Walker.

Their writings became my companions, their insights my guides. I poured over their texts late into the night, absorbing every nuance of what it means to witness, not fix — to accompany, not erase — a person living with dissociation.

Through their work, I came to understand that what we label as “disorder” is, more often, adaptation. A living system’s creative, protective response to what should never have been endured. The beauty. The cost. The courage. The possibility of healing.

Rethinking “Integration”

Historically, the “goal” of therapy for those living with what was once called multiple personalities was integration — the merging of all identities into one cohesive self.

But as I sat across from the precious soul who had allowed me to join her on her journey, I began to understand integration differently.

It was not the erasure or absorption of distinct identities. It was not a demand for sameness. Integration became, instead, an invitation — an invitation for the parts of self to weave back together, to collaborate, to trust one another again.

Where trauma had once fragmented the self for safety, therapy became a space to help those inner threads re-find connection — not through force, but through safety, compassion, and relationship.

Seeing Beyond “Disorder”

That single phone call changed the way I understand people. It changed how I see healing.

I no longer see “disorder” in a human being.
I see adaptation — intricate, intelligent, and born from the body’s will to survive.

This is the heart of our work at Kairos Counseling & Family Therapy: to honor the wisdom of the nervous system, the tenderness of the parts within, and the possibility that safety and connection can be learned again.

Healing doesn’t mean erasing what happened. It means allowing every part of you to finally rest — to be welcomed home.

An Invitation to Begin

If something in this story touched a part of you -- the ache of not being understood, the hope for safety, or the quiet longing to finally rest -- consider this your invitation. You don't have to carry it alone. At Kairos Counseling & Family Therapy, we offer a space to move at your body's pace, to honor the many parts of your story, and to rediscover connectionw where it was once lost. Healing begins with a single step -- sometimes as simple as reaching out.

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Contact Kairos Counseling & Family Therapy: 
Call: 214-253-9207 
Email: Neddy@KairosCFT.com