The low end on a spectrum of DID would represent the threshold for the diagnosis, the existence of two personality aspects, and perhaps created by a single traumatic event. Moving further into more complexity you might find a small, flamboyant alter system as exemplified by the case of Sybil, while towards the other end would be complex cases involving dozens of major personality aspects and hundreds of fragmental aspects.
Where can I read about low end of spectrum cases?
Does DID always present as tightly organised personality structures?
What if the subject is overwhelmed with destructive voices?
Is there an age limit for the trauma events and resulting personality fragmentation effect?
Does DID result only from the intentional creation of personality structures by the perpetrators, or also as an unintentional and more haphazard side effect of extreme abuse?
Where does the research positing a link between schizophrenia and abuse in childhood fall in relation to DID?
jingofever wrote:Have there been any studies on how multiple personalities work neurophysiologically?
There are many new studies of DID, especially recently with wider use of brain imaging technology. Of what I've seen so far they've focused on whether the condition exists versus controls. One study I came across shines light on dissociative amnesia which might be considered a component of DID. Its findings are here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19301997"Our findings provide direct evidence that memory repression in dissociative amnesia is associated with an altered pattern of neural activity, and they suggest the possibility that the pFC has an important role in inhibiting the activity of the hippocampus in memory repression."
Other earlier studies support that altered functioning of these same areas of the brain, the hippocampus and temporal regions, are involved in alter switching.
However, this entire area is my undone task, I desperately need to conduct a new survery of recent studies.
jingofever wrote:How does memory become segmented?
The best theory that I have read is that early trauma blocks a developmental process involving the integration of memory and identity. Given that child trauma is linked with lower Hippocampal and Amygdalar volume and other neurological deficits, a developmental interruption rather than a new special volitional ability added onto an otherwise healthy system seems more likely to be the underlying cause of persistent amnesia in DID.
jingofever wrote:Is it some extreme form of context dependent memory?
I think that in some cases a kind of volitional dissociation like this may account for some amnesia, after all, a traumatized person will use whatever tools he or she has and needs to cope, but I wouldn't describe the major process involved this way.
Thanks for asking questions! I think it's overdue that I state I am not an expert, I hold no advanced degree. I hope to be corrected if I've made errors here. I've just put myself in a position where I will be questioned on the topic and I want to make sure that I am as close to being prepared to answer as accurately and helpfully as is possible. Thank you all for your assistance!
Hi blanc! Why do I have a feeling you could answer these?
blanc wrote:Where can I read about low end of spectrum cases?
The early cases, documented in the 19th and early twentieth century.
blanc wrote:Does DID always present as tightly organised personality structures?
I am not certain what you mean exactly by "tightly organized". If you mean organized due to external influence, well that just leads to one of your next questions.
blanc wrote:What if the subject is overwhelmed with destructive voices?
I think Trish spoke to that issue quite well in her video, but perhaps not in the clip above. If the voices are those of alters then usually focusing on and healing them should provide relief over time. This becomes complicated if programming is overlaid, but the same general principle applies, only the method is adjusted.
blanc wrote:Is there an age limit for the trauma events and resulting personality fragmentation effect?
I do believe it would depend on the severity of the trauma and whether the fragmentation was intentionally induced. These are suppositions however, I haven't read that much about people who developed DID from incidents outside of early childhood.
blanc wrote:Does DID result only from the intentional creation of personality structures by the perpetrators, or also as an unintentional and more haphazard side effect of extreme abuse?
I believe it is the latter, but I know some clinicians who, after all their years of practice would claim the former, at least in the majority of cases since the mid 20th century.
blanc wrote:Where does the research positing a link between schizophrenia and abuse in childhood fall in relation to DID?
That there may be some overlapping features, it posits another sort of continuum between the two.
Might as well make this a catch-all of sorts for DID posts. I covered this on my blogs but not here. There is a new(ish) Canadian documentary out about DID. Below is a news article about it. Unfortunately, the woman who was profiled died in Mexico in a freak accident shortly after the premiere. The movie will air soon on Canadian TV.
Documentary follows struggle of Devon woman with multiple personalities Hilary Stanton died tragically after film’s premiere By Ben Gelinas, edmontonjournal.com January 25, 2011
EDMONTON — Hilary Stanton spent 12 years of therapy in front of a camera while a psychologist coaxed out multiple, often-hostile personalities like demons.
In the mind of the Devon woman lived a little girl, who begged the psychologist to kill her. There was a little boy too and even a stubborn teenager. Stanton had subconsciously created dozens of unique identities to forget horrible things that had happened to her as a child.
Stanton’s psychologist Cheryl Malmo of Edmonton counselled each of these “alters” as a whole person, a new client in the same woman. It took a lifetime to reconcile the pain and fear Stanton had suppressed with her multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder. But Stanton got better through therapy.
Her session tapes became the backbone of a new documentary called When the Devil Knocks, which had its première at the Vancouver International Film Festival last fall to a standing ovation. Six weeks later, Stanton was on vacation in Mexico with her wife Debbie when they struck a dead animal on the road. Debbie survived, but Stanton was killed in the crash.
I Share My Body With 20 Personalities Fourteen of whom are highly successful artists with distinct styles. It was -- difficult -- to accept.
Thursday, October 11, 2012 Kim Noble - Kim Noble is an artist based in Surrey, England. She is the author of All of Me: How I Learned to Live With the Many Personalities Sharing My Body.
After four months in Arbours, which felt to me like a fortnight at most, my money ran out. I'd hoped that by the time we reached that point my health care provider would have stepped in, but they had been utterly intransigent, which is a polite way of saying they were complete bastards about it. There was no way they would pay. After all the places they'd locked me up in against my will during my life, now here I was showing some interest, yet they wouldn't lift a finger.
At least my house was finally ready to move back into, after the insurance company had paid for some redecoration and repairs, and the fire brigade had given the all-clear. And finally I could get going with my weekly meetings with Valerie Sinason and monthly appointments with Dr. Hale at the Portman Clinic.
The meetings came and went very quickly, like so much of my life. I was sure Valerie said she worked in fifty-minute blocks, but I barely seemed to arrive before I was home again. The conversations while I was there seemed the weird end of bizarre, as well. I didn't really know what the therapists' agenda was, but I quickly got the feeling they were trying to nudge me down a particular path. I couldn't put my finger on it, so one day Valerie came out and said it.
According to her I shared my body with dozens of other people.
I waited for the punchline but it never came.
Even so, I think I still must have laughed in her face. Anyone would, if a so-called professional came out with nonsense like telling me there are other people who take control of my body sometimes.
If this is what your research is for, I'd pick another career!
Obviously I accused Valerie of being crazy, but I didn't exactly storm out of the room. People had always spun me the most fantastical lies. Every so often, like with the acid and the fire, the stories seemed to be based in truth. But this one was too ridiculous for words. Valerie was testing me somehow -- I just needed to work out how.
The next time I saw her she was pushing the same line about strangers sharing my body. I was disappointed when Dr. Hale started going down the crackpot road as well. According to him I had something called Dissociative Identity Disorder.
"I've been diagnosed with dissociation before," I said. "And that was wrong as well."
Dissociation is different from DID, he explained. Lots of people -- people you'd consider "normal" -- suffer from dissociation to varying degrees. People who block out pain or bad memories by forgetting or compartmentalising their problems are dissociative.
"What you have is far more extreme," he said. "Your dissociation is so great you actually have different personalities living inside one body. Your body." meritbadgeman.jpgKim Noble
It was too ridiculous for words. Yet I couldn't just walk away. I owed it to Dr. Hale to listen, even if I couldn't see the point.
"You're telling me there's someone watching me when I go to the bathroom?"
My old experiences of Warlingham left deep scars.
"It doesn't work like that."
"No, it's not like that," Dr Hale said. "You are not here all the time. Other people take control of your body. They have their own separate lives, just as you do."
Ridiculous as it all sounded, I couldn't help asking questions.
"So where do I go then?"
He shrugged. "It's as if you go to sleep."
"Why don't I fall over then?"
"Because someone else is awake and keeping the body going."
We went round in circles like that for ages every time I saw him. Sometimes I played the game. On other occasions I wished he'd call it a day.
Seriously, man, change the record!
I don't know what he expected me to say. "Oh yes, I get it, I'm just a figment of my body's imagination. I don't really exist!" But I didn't mind. I'd been accused of anorexia, bulimia, depression, attempted suicide, schizophrenia and so many other things I couldn't remember, and I'd managed to prove all those wrong. So what difference did it make if he accused me of having multiple personalities as well? It was just another name.
If they keep this up, I'm going to pull out of the sessions. Deal or no deal.
But I didn't. I don't know if I was intrigued or amused or too offended to quit, but something made me keep returning to the Portman.
Despite his wild claims, I got the impression that Dr. Hale was worried about me somehow. Perhaps that's why I kept going back.
It was no different with Valerie. It didn't matter how long passed between sessions -- and sometimes it did seem like ages between our meetings -- we would always come back to the same sorts of circular conversations:
"How did you get here?"
"Through the door. How did you get here?"
Whatever the provocation, Valerie never rose to the bait.
"Do you remember coming through the door?"
That's a good one.
"No I don't. But who remembers boring details like that?"
"Okay, can you tell me what you did last night?"
"It's a bit fuzzy."
Valerie gave that smile that told me absolutely nothing.
"It's because you weren't around last night, were you?" she suggested.
Not this again.
"No, I was probably too drunk. Do you remember everything when you've been drinking?"
"You blame drinking for everything."
"I drink a lot."
"Do you? Because I don't think you do."
That was interesting. I'd been thinking for ages that I didn't really drink as much as I thought. But how else, then, could I explain the gaps in my memory?
And as for her other theory ...
According to Valerie's diary I attended her weekly clinic for just shy of two years. According to my memory, though, it was more like twenty or so sessions. No more than that. Predictably, Dr. Hale tried to blame the discrepancy on my not being around all the time.
"Obviously I wasn't around or I'd have made the meeting," I said. He'd have to be quicker than that to get one by me.
Annoying as the pair of them were sometimes, the day came after two years when Valerie announced their research project was drawing to an end. In other words, funding for my sessions was about to be withdrawn. Both she and Dr. Hale agreed it was not right for me to have no ongoing treatment, so Dr. Hale and the Contracts Manager wrote to my local Primary Care Trust.
Would the authorities listen?
Absolutely not.
I couldn't escape the irony that after years of trying to escape from the system, here I was now desperate to get a finger-hold back into it. The difference was, I was driving this treatment. This time I had asked for help.
So why wouldn't they give it to me?
Arbours put me in touch with a lawyer who said he would take my case to the authorities and paint a picture of me as someone totally unfit to live unshackled, someone who would benefit from the help of a trauma therapist recommended by the Tavistock and Portman -- at the council's cost. This wasn't the worst lie that had ever been told about me and, I figured, as long as it got what I wanted, it was okay.
I thought we were making headway. I really did. Big organizations like councils are always thrown when you play them at their own game. By bringing in a lawyer I was forcing them to show their hand. They didn't like it.
After several months of negotiations we had almost solved it. Then my lawyer rang me one day to say he was resigning from the case.
I was distraught. "What on Earth for? We're so close! Is it the money? I can pay you more, I'll find it somehow."
There was a pause.
"It's nothing to do with money."
"Then what is it?"
What would make him abandon me so cruelly after such a long fight together?
"Kim, it's my professional opinion that if we continue to portray you as unstable then it will harm any hope you have of winning your other case."
Just found this thread--so glad you started it, PW, and so many good questions so far. I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts today, so I'll just address a couple of the points already brought up. And please excuse any defensiveness that crops up, because questions frequently have come hand-in-hand with skepticism or outright denial of the reality of DID or of my own DID. I know that's not operating here, but it's like a reflex reaction and is one I'm working on.
Like sw, my alters dream their own individual dreams and it's from the dreams that I've learned things about alters' lives. Those dreams "taste different" to me from my own dreams--they're not from my point-of-view and often involve memories and individuals unknown to me but very familiar to the alter. The ones originating with what I think of as "program-compliant" alters are often of screen memories. Though those have gradually stopped since I began working in 2004 on giving them new jobs within the system--responsibilities that don't endanger the rest of us.
I've also had what might be fugue states, where I suddenly lose all my personal information (name, address, family names) and am just a terrified fully amnesic *blank*. But I'm not sure these aren't abrupt surfacings of an alter. Does anyone here have a theory? Luckily they don't happen often and now that I know how to center and calm myselves I can avoid a complete meltdown into panic. When in them I can dimly recall all the other times and know that all of those episodes ended with my remembering who I was, which makes me think this is an alter. And I have another one (who almost never surfaces anymore, thank the ghods) who is almost blind, which I'm here to tell you is terrifying when I'm out alone.
Also--a very old friend of mine recently was diagnosed as having DID and we meet to talk about it every month or so. He has no memories that are suggestive of organized abuse, but he did have abusive parents. We've agreed to disagree that it's possible for a person to have fully-developed DID with separate personalities without early abuse. He knows someone who apparently fits that description, but to me it seems much more likely that his friend is just at an early stage of recall and hasn't yet reached any very young/deep alters who were subjected to trauma. Is that supported by the literature?
They aren't always exactly on message when it comes to ra/mc, but there is a contingent within the group that is. Finding qualified help isn't easy. If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact me via pm.
LilyPatToo wrote:Just found this thread--so glad you started it, PW, and so many good questions so far. I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts today, so I'll just address a couple of the points already brought up.
I made this thread in preparation for constructing the DIDiva website. It was a good exercise.
LilyPatToo wrote:Like sw, my alters dream their own individual dreams and it's from the dreams that I've learned things about alters' lives. Those dreams "taste different" to me from my own dreams--they're not from my point-of-view and often involve memories and individuals unknown to me but very familiar to the alter. The ones originating with what I think of as "program-compliant" alters are often of screen memories. Though those have gradually stopped since I began working in 2004 on giving them new jobs within the system--responsibilities that don't endanger the rest of us.
I've sometimes become semi-lucent while dreaming and watched, as if on multiple TV screens, the dreams of some of my alters.
LilyPatToo wrote:I've also had what might be fugue states, where I suddenly lose all my personal information (name, address, family names) and am just a terrified fully amnesic *blank*. But I'm not sure these aren't abrupt surfacings of an alter. Does anyone here have a theory? Luckily they don't happen often and now that I know how to center and calm myselves I can avoid a complete meltdown into panic. When in them I can dimly recall all the other times and know that all of those episodes ended with my remembering who I was, which makes me think this is an alter. And I have another one (who almost never surfaces anymore, thank the ghods) who is almost blind, which I'm here to tell you is terrifying when I'm out alone.
Sounds like an alter meant to be blank, for whatever reason. I also have alters with various sensory issues and the impairments are almost always related to the scenes the alters handled and often the impairments are intentional. If that vision impaired alter surfaces again, see if it has on a blindfold or goggles. Could be triggering... I was hung upside down and when those alters came out, it was really quite an amusement park ride. Actually asked my doc., "Why are you upside down?" He smiled, he'd seen that kind of programming before.
LilyPatToo wrote:Also--a very old friend of mine recently was diagnosed as having DID and we meet to talk about it every month or so. He has no memories that are suggestive of organized abuse, but he did have abusive parents. We've agreed to disagree that it's possible for a person to have fully-developed DID with separate personalities without early abuse. He knows someone who apparently fits that description, but to me it seems much more likely that his friend is just at an early stage of recall and hasn't yet reached any very young/deep alters who were subjected to trauma. Is that supported by the literature?
Most of the literature points to early and prolonged abuse. There are a few cases that don't appear to involve early abuse, but later, life-threatening trauma. I agree with you however, that it's more unlikely than the scenario you posit. It's common for even good trauma therapists to spend their time working solely with the "front" section of alters who handled more mundane abuse, and never break their way into the deeper layers of the system where memories of the more extreme forms of abuse are stored. My doc is rather certain now that the majority of DID cases today involve some form of intentional manipulation, and burying the worst of the trauma deep and using it for complex programming is a common pattern.
Porn Star Legend Hyapatia Lee Subject of New Documentary By Nelson Ayala, XBIZ.com Tue, Oct 23 2012 12:45pm PDT
LOS ANGELES — Screen Door Entertainment is set to produce "Healing Hyapatia," a new documentary detailing '80s porn icon Hyapatia Lee's ongoing battle with multiple personality disorder.
Lee — legal name is Victoria Lynch — was diagnosed at a young age with Dissociative Identity Disorder. According to Lee, Hyapatia is just one of seven unique personalities inhabiting her body and mind.
"Vicki doesn't know what Hyapatia does and Hyapatia has no idea what Vicki does," Lee said in a Screen Door Entertainment press release.
"One time I made an appearance as Hyapatia Lee and then blacked out. When I woke up as Vicki, I had no recollection of what I had done or what happened. It was horrifying."
"Healing Hyapatia" will follow Lee as she explores conventional, alternative and experimental therapies for her disorder. The film will also reconnect Lee with some of her old school porn peers.
"I've lost so many friends in this industry to suicide," Lee said. "I want to talk with those who survived to see what I can learn from them and find out how they were able to overcome their own obstacles."
"Healing Hyapatia" will be directed by Dave Garrison, who co-produces with Screen Door Entertainment CEO Joel Rizor. In an effort to retain creative control on the project, the duo announced plans to launch a Kickstarter.com fund to finance the bulk of the film.
Porn Star Legend Hyapatia Lee Subject of New Documentary By Nelson Ayala, XBIZ.com Tue, Oct 23 2012 12:45pm PDT
LOS ANGELES — Screen Door Entertainment is set to produce "Healing Hyapatia," a new documentary detailing '80s porn icon Hyapatia Lee's ongoing battle with multiple personality disorder.
Lee — legal name is Victoria Lynch — was diagnosed at a young age with Dissociative Identity Disorder. According to Lee, Hyapatia is just one of seven unique personalities inhabiting her body and mind.
"Vicki doesn't know what Hyapatia does and Hyapatia has no idea what Vicki does," Lee said in a Screen Door Entertainment press release.
"One time I made an appearance as Hyapatia Lee and then blacked out. When I woke up as Vicki, I had no recollection of what I had done or what happened. It was horrifying."
"Healing Hyapatia" will follow Lee as she explores conventional, alternative and experimental therapies for her disorder. The film will also reconnect Lee with some of her old school porn peers.
"I've lost so many friends in this industry to suicide," Lee said. "I want to talk with those who survived to see what I can learn from them and find out how they were able to overcome their own obstacles."
"Healing Hyapatia" will be directed by Dave Garrison, who co-produces with Screen Door Entertainment CEO Joel Rizor. In an effort to retain creative control on the project, the duo announced plans to launch a Kickstarter.com fund to finance the bulk of the film.
Fascinating. I'm pretty sure I accidentally saw one of her porn videos in the '80s. Curious, I Googled, and there's this:
Hyapatia Lee (Indianapolis, November 11, 1960) is the stage name of a multi-talented artist of Irish-Cherokee descent*. A former adult movie performer in the 1980s and early 1990s, she is a dancer, actress, choreographer, musician and singer.
In the 1980s she starred in the most expensive adult movie production ever (the movie "Ribald Tales of Canterbury", loosely based on Geoffrey Chaucer and scripted by Hyapatia herself, who wrote many of her own movies and even directed some). The movie had a $300,000 budget.
Musically, she has released a couple of 7" singles (one of them is the Meri Wilson cover "Telephone Man") on SRO Records, a cassette only album ("Two Sides of Hyapatia Lee") including country and comedy songs, and a cd album with rock band W4IK (in 1994) for which she wrote or co-wrote all songs and performed vocals.
Another rock band led by Hyapatia in the 1990s was named Vision Quest, but her music career dates back to at least 1983, when she performed the theme song for the movie "Body Girls".
Hyapatia is a truly multi-talented person: for example, she even wrote a short article for a forum called "Is the body obsolete?" for the Summer 1989 issue of Whole Earth Review. Other contributors to the forum included William Burroughs, Bruce Sterling, Nina Hartley, Karen Finley. The same issue also contained a William Gibson interview.
She has written and published her own autobiographical book in year 2000 ("The Secret Lives of Hyapatia Lee") and has appeared in the compilation CD/LP "Porn to Rock " (released on Callner Records and Normal Records), in which every track is performed or features people involved at some point with the adult movie industry.
Hyapatia's contribution to the compilation is the song "Strike Back", also from "Double Euphoric".
A television interview done in the 1990s - with some info on Hyapatia's personal life - can be viewed in YouTube:
Under her real name, Hyapatia currently performs in theaters, in (non-adult) musicals and shows. Autumn 2010 marks the rerelease of "Double Euphoric" cd also as mp3 files on all major digital outlets, in collaboration with Italian label Kutmusic.
In 2011 she has appeared in some new, non-nude photos on the July issue of Hustler magazine, and on tv in The Bill Cunningham Show.
In 2012, she will be in "Born Into Porn: A Documentary Film" by Miki Ann Mosman and Janet Gaynor, whose trailer has been released on YouTube.
* I've read and heard in a few places that Scottish/Irish+American Indian is a genetic mix that was/is sought out as subjects especially suited to MC and 'psychic super-soldier' applications.
THE PORN PRINCESS IN MOCCASINS HAD A NUMBER OF ISSUES TO DEAL WITH, NOT THE LEAST BEING HER MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER.
by Michael McClay
for HUSTLER Magazine – July 2011
What makes a gifted actress drop her desire to conquer Broadway and choose instead a career in adult entertainment? Ask the talented Victoria Lynch or the angry Veronica or the shy, tearful Stacy or the down-toearth tomboy Lisa Patrick. Or ask Hyapatia Lee herself . For the ten years Hyapatia ruled the world of XXX films, she was suppressing all those personalities.
Victoria “Vicki” Lynch, a/k/a Hyapatia Lee, is a classically trained stage actress of Cherokee ancestry who’s acknowledged by many peers, producers and critics as the most talented, professional performer to have ever worked in the adult industry. As such, the Indiana native enjoyed unparalleled creative freedom, standing out as one of the few XXX actresses who scripted most of her movies. This clout provided the $300,000 needed to produce one of the most expensive hard-core films ever released, The Ribald Tales of Canterbury, a mammoth costume epic retelling the Chaucer classic.
Hyapatia’s stardom straddled two eras, from the big screen to the home screen. Her credits include such all-time bestsellers as The Young Like It Hot, Let’s Get Physical, Saddletramp, One Wife to Give and The Masseuse, for which she won Best Actress at the annual Adult Video News expo in 1991.
Her star continued to shine even after leaving the biz in 1993. Besides landing kudos as the FOXE Awards’ Female Fan Favorite, she was inducted into the XRCO, AVN and Legends of Erotica halls of fame. Finally, in 1995, she received the industry’s highest honor, the Free Speech Coalition’s Lifetime Achievement Award. About a year after retirement she formed the rock band Hyapatia Lee & W4IK, released an album and toured, sharing the spotlight with Blackfoot’s Rickey Medlocke and Utopia’s Todd Rundgren. Hyapatia was also the opening act for rock singer/songwriter Paul Rodgers in Las Vegas. In 2000 she penned her autobiography, The Secret Lives of Hyapatia Lee, a revealing look at the demons that drove her into adult entertainment. Having started out as a stage actress, singer and dancer, she shocked peers in the Indianapolis theater community when she became an exotic dancer. Her combination of ballet and jazz training fused with striptease melted brass poles from Quebec to Nebraska. She eventually won back-to-back crowns in the Miss Nude Galaxy contest.
During her ten years in XXX, Hyapatia wasn’t content to just have sex in front of the camera. She also rubbed shoulders with Hollywood and rock star glitterati. Hyapatia partied with Slash and Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses, Eddie Van Halen and the Scorpions. She worked with Tim Allen in the 1988 hit film What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? Hyapatia and friend Porsche Lynn spent time backstage at The Tonight Show (with Jay Leno) comparing notes on the most notorious celebrities.
Hyapatia claims she never aimed for stardom. “I wanted to be an actress or singer or dancer,” she insists. “I liked to perform character roles and never really cared if Hyapatia the star was noticed. I had a lot of creative freedom but was trapped in the porn star role. “I don’t regret the career decision, but I wasn’t prepared for the ramifications: privacy loss, impact on my first marriage and my children, the drug scene and being labeled a dim-witted slut with no life or talent outside of fucking.”
Back in her 1980s heyday the drug of choice was cocaine. She and Bud Lee, her then-husband, used it to keep up with the breakneck pace on the road. But the suicide of XXX performer, friend and alleged cokehead Shauna Grant shocked Hyapatia into overcoming her addiction. Kicking drugs proved easier than the far more complex issues that long haunted Vicki Lynch.
Vicki was born out of wedlock to teenage parents. While her race-car groupie mom traveled around the country, the girl was raised by her full-blooded Cherokee grandmother until age nine. That’s when her mother married a prosperous architect.
Moving in with them was not a good thing; her iron-fisted stepfather allegedly beat her mother and sexually abused Vicki. Her belief system shattered, she learned to cope by using other personalities inherent to the abuse-denial cycle.
To escape, Vicki moved in with her biological father and his family. But the strict religious tone and the shame they laid on her after she revealed the abuse she claims to have experienced drove the troubled youngster deeper into her dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder). Desperate, she moved back in with her grandmother, staying with her until she got her own apartment at age 16.
A straight-A student, Vicki graduated high school in three years, then got special admission to Butler University’s prestigious dance and voice training program. Now on her own, she opened a small dance studio, choreographed community theater productions and even appeared in some of the shows, including The Fantasticks ; Damn Yankees ; Little Mary Sunshine ; Play It Again, Sam ; Kiss Me, Kate ; and Puccini’s La Bohème.
Her dance studio and the role-playing she enjoyed in theater helped keep Vicki focused. Things were looking up until an intruder broke into her apartment one night and raped the terrified girl at knifepoint. Stage roles helped Vicki cope with the shattering experience—but not enough. She saw a shrink, who advised her to keep a journal.
Through hypnosis she discovered Lisa, Stacy, Veronica and most notably Hyapatia— the fearless, sexually liberated persona who would ultimately take over her life, turning Vicki Lynch into an international sensation. “In the coming years my only tether to sanity was the journal,” Hyapatia recalls. “This was how I began to understand my problem. I would write only to find out seconds later I had written a dozen pages in another style and find myself in another room. It was terrifying, but the journal helped me find out what my other personalities were up to.”
Yet the memories of her abusive stepfather and the rape made it impossible for Vicki to regroup. Even losing herself in theater hit a wall after a trip to New York City, where she learned she’d have to sleep with producers before landing a role. “I felt I had nothing left,” Hyapatia sighs. “There were no reserves of energy or hope for the future. All my dreams had been shattered, my desire to live totally destroyed. I stopped seeing most of my friends. I slept, stared into space and tried to kill myself. That was all there was to my existence.” To distract herself, Vicki would visit a local men’s club with her girlfriends. One night, as she discovered later while reading her journal, her “Hyapatia personality” actually climbed onstage and danced.
In her autobiography, Hyapatia relates her state of mind at this important crossroad: “On the one hand I was terrified to go out in public, talk to strangers, look people in the eye, but as Hyapatia I felt in control, powerful. Onstage she was above them, on a pedestal. She created lust in men but could safely walk away. My confidence strengthened in my right not to be touched. This was something I had never known or believed existed before. The money [for stripping] was great, and I was comforted by friends backstage who understood.”
A major turning point was meeting future husband Bud Lee. For the first time, Vicki was enjoying sex. By the time she and Bud prepared for her first XXX role, Hyapatia had already become the dominant personality. Even so, her other personalities caused some problems.
While with Vivid she remembers when director Paul Thomas (PT) brought out the angry Veronica: “On that day I went back and forth from several personalities. I absolutely think that it may have played a major role in my breakup with Vivid.
“As Hyapatia, I discovered we shot the wrong script, and I had to do three extra scenes. First Vicki came out, and then Veronica exploded. Bud took me out for a ride and I/we calmed down…but when we came back, PT invaded my space, and I waved a nail file under his chin because I felt threatened.”
The veteran director is very matter-of-fact today: “We had some crazy times,” Thomas confides. “I remember she went somewhere in her head and spoke in her Indian tongue. No big deal. When you’re on a set long enough, shit happens.”
Thomas adds, “She was one of the most professional, talented, mature Vivid girls ever. She had a unique sexual maturity and a seriousness about her craft like no other. Those were some of the best times of my career, working with her.” Reflecting on those days, Hyapatia confesses: “Having sex with people that were w-o-o-o-nderful to have sex with was awesome! Good-looking guys and gals who know how to do it well. I was already wired as an exhibitionist and a stage person before porn, and doing ‘it’ in front of everybody— I mean that was great!”
When asked about her favorite costars, Hyapatia fondly remembers: “Randy Spears…Porsche Lynn…absolutely at the top. Loved to work with PT, and Randy West was delicious.”
The most important thing she learned while writing her book: “It doesn’t matter what others think. That’s a hard lesson to take to heart because it’s just basic human nature. We all want everyone to know that we’re trying to do the best we can.” Today Hyapatia Lee has found peace. After years of therapy and medication, her personality conflicts are under control. She’s doing local theater, is happily remarried with a nine-year-old son and living on the Indiana farm she’d bought as a porn superstar.
Hyapatia acknowledges Bud Lee’s importance at the beginning of her career: “I changed; he changed. I wanted to return to Indiana, live a quiet life and concentrate on the children. I would never do anything to change the fact of my two beautiful sons from that marriage. They’re each different— totally different. Today I’ve got a quantum physicist and a tattoo artist.” She’s also a grandmother. “Working in adult entertainment made me what I am today,” Hyapatia continues. “I am a fulfilled, happy, well-rounded person. I learned a lot of things that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise. In many, many ways it was a healing experience.”
Michael McClay is a 30-year veteran as an editor, publicist, journalist and creative consultant to numerous entertainment companies “from G-rated to adults-only.” He is currently writing “the complete picture history of X-rated entertainment.”
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
On the research front, slugging it out in the peer review press.
Reinders
Fact or factitious? A psychobiological study of authentic and simulated dissociative identity states. Reinders AA, Willemsen AT, Vos HP, den Boer JA, Nijenhuis ER. Source
King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, London, United Kingdom.
Abstract BACKGROUND:
Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a disputed psychiatric disorder. Research findings and clinical observations suggest that DID involves an authentic mental disorder related to factors such as traumatization and disrupted attachment. A competing view indicates that DID is due to fantasy proneness, suggestibility, suggestion, and role-playing. Here we examine whether dissociative identity state-dependent psychobiological features in DID can be induced in high or low fantasy prone individuals by instructed and motivated role-playing, and suggestion.
METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:
DID patients, high fantasy prone and low fantasy prone controls were studied in two different types of identity states (neutral and trauma-related) in an autobiographical memory script-driven (neutral or trauma-related) imagery paradigm. The controls were instructed to enact the two DID identity states. Twenty-nine subjects participated in the study: 11 patients with DID, 10 high fantasy prone DID simulating controls, and 8 low fantasy prone DID simulating controls. Autonomic and subjective reactions were obtained. Differences in psychophysiological and neural activation patterns were found between the DID patients and both high and low fantasy prone controls. That is, the identity states in DID were not convincingly enacted by DID simulating controls. Thus, important differences regarding regional cerebral bloodflow and psychophysiological responses for different types of identity states in patients with DID were upheld after controlling for DID simulation.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:
The findings are at odds with the idea that differences among different types of dissociative identity states in DID can be explained by high fantasy proneness, motivated role-enactment, and suggestion. They indicate that DID does not have a sociocultural (e.g., iatrogenic) origin.
Possession & DID... I want to read this! Are there any students here who have access via their library?
On the history of dissociative identity disorders in Germany: the doctor Justinus Kerner and the girl from Orlach, or possession as an "exchange of the self". Peter B. University of Munich, Germany. Burkhard-Peter@t-online.de Abstract
The history of hypnosis is closely linked to the theme of possession; one such link is that the forerunner of hypnosis, animal magnetism, replaced exorcism in 1775 when Franz Anton Mesmer testified against Father Johann Joseph Gassner's exorcism. Modern authors have noted remarkable similarities between states of possession and dissociation. The treatment of possession by animal magnetism and exorcism represents the special romantic-magnetic therapy of the German medical doctor Justinus Kerner in the early 19th century. This article describes the man, his methods, and his thinking and presents one of his most famous case studies, the girl from Orlach, which, by today's standards, was a true case of dissociative identity disorder (DID). This article describes how contemporary principles of treatment were used and controversial issues about the nature and causes of DID were discussed 175 years ago.
Are symptoms of spirit possessed patients covered by the DSM-IV or DSM-5 criteria for possession trance disorder? A mixed-method explorative study in Uganda. van Duijl M, Kleijn W, de Jong J. Source
Netherlands Institute for Forensic Psychiatry, The Hague, The Netherlands, marjolein.vanduijl@planet.nl. Abstract INTRODUCTION AND AIMS:
As in many cultures, spirit possession is a common idiom of distress in Uganda. The DSM-IV contains experimental research criteria for dissociative and possession trance disorder (DTD and PTD), which are under review for the DSM-5. In the current proposed categories of the DSM-5, PTD is subsumed under dissociative identity disorder (DID) and DTD under dissociative disorders not elsewhere classified. Evaluation of these criteria is currently urgently required. This study explores the match between local symptoms of spirit possession in Uganda and experimental research criteria for PTD in the DSM-IV and proposed criteria for DID in the DSM-5. METHODS:
A mixed-method approach was used combining qualitative and quantitative research methods. Local symptoms were explored of 119 spirit possessed patients, using illness narratives and a cultural dissociative symptoms' checklist. Possible meaningful clusters of symptoms were inventoried through multiple correspondence analysis. Finally, local symptoms were compared with experimental criteria for PTD in the DSM-IV and proposed criteria for DID in the DSM-5. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:
Illness narratives revealed different phases of spirit possession, with passive-influence experiences preceding the actual possession states. Multiple correspondence analysis of symptoms revealed two dimensions: 'passive' and 'active' symptoms. Local symptoms, such as changes in consciousness, shaking movements, and talking in a voice attributed to spirits, match with DSM-IV-PTD and DSM-5-DID criteria. Passive-influence experiences, such as feeling influenced or held by powers from outside, strange dreams, and hearing voices, deserve to be more explicitly described in the proposed criteria for DID in the DSM-5. The suggested incorporation of PTD in DID in the DSM-5 and the envisioned separation of DTD and PTD in two distinctive categories have disputable aspects.
And finally, are docs at McGill still on the CIA's payroll?
The rise and fall of dissociative identity disorder. Paris J. Department of Psychiatry, Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Abstract
ABSTRACT: Dissociative identity disorder (DID), once considered rare, was frequently diagnosed during the 1980s and 1990s, after which interest declined. This is the trajectory of a medical fad. DID was based on poorly conceived theories and used potentially damaging treatment methods. The problem continues, given that the DSM-5 includes DID and accords dissociative disorders a separate chapter in its manual.
One "dot" that i can connect/point to, is at least on full time Prof. admitted at Mcgill about 10 years ago, from Israel, who is definitely into MK type of activity (neuro-language stuff). I would also point to Calgary U for "stress related" psych MK type of stuff (connected with Israeli Techniyon and Md U).
But does that really matter anymore ? after the initial shock, it seems that MKultra is now well within mainstream and acceptable. This belongs in "the nazi won" thread, though.
I have read books about MPD/ DID from the perspective of mind and body but not one that explores the soul aspect. I can only guess at what takes place with the soul when a person has alters.
With me, I would guess my overall system had a spiritual depth to it because my host was spiritual.
Some people say being DID is like a person putting on coats. Another said being DID was like pretending to be something else. I can see a shimmer of truth to it but overall it does not feel right.
I've been thinking about my soul and what happened with the parts that integrated long ago. I don't have any answers but I do have a few thoughts.
The monks I like talk about God being like the Ocean and each human being like a wave on that ocean. The scene that captures it for me is thinking of my soul as a small amount of water. Then, I see my soul undergo a huge, violent storm. When the trauma impacts my soul, I see drops of the water split away from my wave and go upward forming drops in the air. Those drops are like my soul splitting into bits. They are me but broken away from me in the impact. Later, they reintegrated into me and I was one again.
The evil that created the alters was so dark. The good that was present when I integrated most of the dominant alters was so positive. It was a very spiritual experience. The parts merged into the light of my soul. I saw it all happening. It's hard to capture in words. Not all of the alters integrated in glory though. Many of the less dominant parts seemed to merge with me after they were done with little to no fanfare.
I don't have much time to post today but wanted to add that it does not seem odd to me that memory would be impacted with all of this trauma. People who believe in a series of lives acknowledge that most people do not remember previously lives. I was told by a monk that most people could not fully address their life if they remembered the past. This comment made me think of DID and how it is a survival tool to not remember.
