DID/RA/MC Post & Inquiry

[Project Willow]

From Kathy Broady, LCSW, I can attest to these all, except for the bit about sleep, I need my 7-8 hours or I'm a wreck.

http://EzineArticles.com/2033487

I see the following ten benefits in multiplicity:

Being able to do more than one thing at the same time. Talk about having the ability to multi-task! I've known situations were one personality can be talking comfortably on the phone while another personality is busy doing the day's work. How cool is that?!!!

Always having someone to talk to. When you are friends with each other on the inside, you don't ever have to be alone. Your best friends can be right there with you, any time of the day or night.

Being able to maintain the joy of a child's perspective. Children can be so innocently full of wonderment, and joy, and happiness. They know how to be carefree and happy and amazed at the simplest of life's pleasures. Child parts, once safe from trauma, can keep that sense of joy near to them their whole lives long.

Being able to take a break even when the outside body has to keep going. When you're split, you can tuck back inside, and rest, or sleep, or think, and let someone else be out front managing whatever is going on in life. Having that ability to pull away and separate from the outside life can come in handy sometimes!

Having the ability to remember so much more of life's experiences. In my opinion, once a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder finds safety, and learns to connect with all their internal people, and lowers their dissociative walls, it seems to me that people with DID actually remember more of their life than "regular" singletons do. This includes remembering more of the good times as well as the bad.

Having the ability to understand life and events from a variety of different perspectives. Those with DID don't have to imagine what it would be like from a different perspective - they often have someone inside that already genuinely sees things that way!

Blocking out pain. While blocking pain is not always a positive or helpful skill, there are times and places where having the ability to block out pain, both physically and mentally, can be a great benefit.

Quite possibly needing less sleep? I can't prove this, but it seems to me that a significant number of folks with DID can function quite effectively on less sleep than what the average singleton person needs. Maybe this is because the various parts can rest and sleep internally? By taking turns resting inside, does that make the overall physical need to sleep less? I have no real answers for this, but it's not uncommon for this to appear to be the case.

Looking younger. Again, I cannot prove this, but in my years of working with multiples, folks with DID look considerably younger even as they physically age. One would think that the years of trauma, abuse, and stress would have a negative effect on the physical appearance, and while there are obvious scars, there also seems to be a common ability to not age physically as quickly as singletons do. You all nearly always look younger than you actually are. How cool is that?!

The ability to fit in with a variety of different people. While some system splits were formed as trauma-based ways of matching with various groups of people (and some not so good as others), the positive flip-side of that ability is that people with multiple personalities can literally find themselves fitting in easily with a wide variety of people in a variety of ages.

[Sounder]

Thanks Project Willow, being a singleton, It never would occur to me to consider things like this.

Thanks for the assist.

One might wonder how this corresponds or connects to rumored generational abuse within a section of the elite class.

Do they recognize this as one way to sharpen perceptual processing skills?

Is this what so often imparts a deep look to an actors eyes?

[Project Willow]

One might wonder how this corresponds or connects to rumored generational abuse within a section of the elite class.

Do they recognize this as one way to sharpen perceptual processing skills?

Is this what so often imparts a deep look to an actors eyes?

Those are great questions, but I could not tell you. Extreme trauma affects each individual differently, heightened awareness is a common outcome, but it may manifest in debilitating ways. Children also have varying abilities to dissociate and I am unaware if this is at all predictable. I think it's likely that pain of any kind can impart a deep look to a person's eyes.

[Hammer of Los]

...

This is fascinating.

Thank you Willow.

...

[sw]

Many of these traits are accurate but it seems like this person is spinning the disorder like it is Cool.

I don't think it is cool. Yes, it saved my life. But, I would not say having it is "Cool!"

It is a miracle tool that gives a tortured child a chance to make it out of the torture to adulthood.

But, as an adult, that same tool of being DID begins to work against a person. Speaking only for myself, that tool began to implode my life and impact my life in negative ways.

DID is a gift. It is a miracle. But, remember it was created as a tool to help you escape hell.

[Project Willow]

You are right SW, and the author prefaces her list in the article with a very similar statement, I just clipped it out of the excerpt here.

[Project Willow]

I like this proposed model of DID. It's interesting that in my own descriptions of the condition I mention the mostly internal nature of the symptoms, but I never noticed how this wasn't reflected in much of the literature nor in the DSM definitions.

I've sometimes referred to what my therapist labels "blending", that is when an alter partially takes over and/or is co-conscious with whomever is out front or in control. In the new model described here, Dell labels these occurrences as "intrusions".

The DSM classifies the symptoms of blending or intrusions, such as hearing voices, as psychotic features of DID. Dell contends that they are not psychotic but dissociative in nature. I really appreciate that shift.

http://www.copingwithdissociation.com/Dell_2006_ANewModelofDID1.pdf

A New Model of Dissociative Identity Disorder
Paul F. Dell, PhD
2006

...

This article presents data from 220 persons who have DID and explores
how those data fit with three contrasting models of DID: (1) the DSM-IV’s
classic picture of DID (ie, multiple personalities þ switching þ amnesia),
(2) Dell’s subjective/phenomenological model of DID [4], and (3) the sociocognitive
model of DID. The DSM-IV narrowly portrays DID as an alter
disorder, whereas the subjective/phenomenological model portrays DID
as a far more complex dissociative disorder that is characterized by recurrent
dissociative intrusions into every aspect of executive functioning and
sense of self.1 The subjective/phenomenological model of DID subsumes
the DSM-IV model of DID, but not vice versa. The sociocognitive model
argues that DID is a socially-constructed, iatrogenic condition.

...

"Although not intended as such, the present findings refute the sociocognitive
model of DID because 15 of the 23 subjective dissociative symptoms
that were measured (the criterion A symptoms except for trance and the criterion
B symptoms except for self-alteration; see Box 1) are invisible (ie,
completely experiential), unknown to the media, unknown to the general
public, and largely unknown to the mental health field. Nevertheless, these
15 subjective dissociative symptoms occurred in 83% to 95% of persons
who had DID (Table 2). The pervasive presence of these symptoms cannot
be explained (away) by the sociocognitive model’s ‘‘usual suspects’’: therapist
cueing, media influences, and sociocultural expectations regarding the
clinical features of DID. There can be no therapist cueing, media influences,
or sociocultural expectations about dissociative symptoms that are invisible,
unknown to the media, unknown to the culture, and largely unknown to the
mental health field.

"The sociocognitive model explains and predicts the classic signs of DID,
but the sociocognitive model neither predicts nor can explain (1) most of
the empirical literature’s well-replicated dissociative symptoms of DID
(Table 1), (2) most of the subjective/phenomenological dissociative symptoms
of DID (Box 1), or (3) most of the findings of the present study. In
contrast, the subjective/phenomenological model of DID predicts and
explains all of the symptoms of classic DID, all 13 of the well-replicated
empirical findings about DID (Table 1), all 23 of the subjective/phenomenological
dissociative symptoms in Box 1, and all 23 of the dissociative
findings of the present study (Table 2).

IOW, go **** yourselves, DID denialists.

[LilyPatToo]

Oh, this was good to read! I've always found it interesting that mental health professionals who knew I was "highly dissociative" never simply asked me about all the internal stuff that I experience daily. Instead, there were assumptions made that I guess were based on the DSM. And, since I never felt fully understood or validated after a session, it made me pretty much give up on investing in therapy (Kaiser has minimal coverage for it and I've long since exhausted what was available, so next up I'd have to pay a lot of money to get more treatment).

"...a far more complex dissociative disorder that is characterized by recurrent
dissociative intrusions into every aspect of executive functioning and
sense of self."

That was amazing to read. I get "blending" all the time, but had no word for it. It wasn't until I read When Rabbit Howls that I found a description of what she called "a constellation" of alters running things--that's what I thought of as "me=the group." All I'd read about up until then was the classic single "front alter" which didn't accurately describe what I was used to being aware of. I "see" them as standing between the deeper alter configurations and the outside world, keeping our dissociation as secret as possible and coping with potentially hostile singletons. They seem to me to rotate and click into place as their particular skills are needed from moment to moment, blending in their voices (though I almost never hear actual voices--just distinctive thoughts) with the usual "front" voice/thought. I suppose "intrusions" is as good a term as any, since it happens as needed, pretty often in social situations.

I hope the DID denialists all see that article, because trying to navigate a mental health system full of them makes this disorder infinitely more difficult to bear.

And sw's comment about "coolness" above hit a nerve with me. I now have several (Real World) friends who've been diagnosed as DID and in the beginning they talked excitedly about their alters in a vaguely "twee" way that's like fingernails on a blackboard. To me, to do that is completely ignoring how those personalities formed and why--to survive terrible trauma. So, after gritting my teeth for a couple of months, I finally just came out and told them how it affected me when they got all cutesy about their inside people and, luckily, they stopped doing it. Both are long-term friendships, so I'm really glad they caught on to how creepy it was. I'm still wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that they both saw the same therapist...?

LilyPat

[aimless]

well, i keep forgetting my username and which email account it's associated with, but i reregistered just to contribute to this topic.* [figured it out after writing this post, but i'm not going to change anything about what i wrote because it's too complicated]

in this minor-type of forgetting, my faulty memory has nothing to do with dissociating away from the knowledge, although clearly if i'm dissociative/c-ptsd/"depressed"/bpd/schizoaffective/whatever, i have a seriously deficient hypothalamus/amygdala. my memory, which as a child seemed like a steel trap, is now essentially nonexistent. however, it has become problematic that i have multiple names and email addresses associated with each one - although now that i think about it it's pretty easy to guess which name would have a rig int account! [ed. - and i eventually did figure it out since registering proved to be a pain]
i was given two different names at birth and they have somehow metastisized into other variants. i didn't really think about that until the last year, that it's weird, that it's a different experience than having one unified singular name which is the vast majority of people aside from women who change their names upon marriage. i realized when i considered it that each name is "different" in stage/personality. name 1 is the legal variant that i was never called as a child, but which has followed me around like a shadow. it's more formal and official and it gets used in contexts where i am too disengaged to correct anybody. it is like the empty one. i never did well in in my giant faceless school when i was called by it without indicating my "preferred" name. it is the name i have to use for legal consistency with job applications and such and "i" think it is hard for me to present myself "honestly" or in an integrated fashion in that context as a result. i was called another, unrelated name my whole childhood. that one is "the golden child". then i changed the spelling later in life. that name is the rebel/scapegoat/teenage/fighter self in a lot of ways. i first called myself by this preferred variant as a teen and then just blanked it out until the last two years, which is odd, but makes sense given the magnitide of the break/trauma in those years and that i was only recently able to return there and think about those experiences and try to act as if that had actually happened rather than just forget it. i acquired a different "magical realist" last name later, and adding this to the new spelling of my name, that became the name where actions i can't square with my normal life happen. things like prostitution, but also things like making art. obviously, one uses a different name for important reasons in the first case, but it definitely became like a different ego if that makes sense. because i can basically blank out that stuff and exist as if it didn't happen when i'm not operating under it.

anyway, i'm getting stuck on this idea of names, which isn't the main point although it does seem related. basically, i am not a MC survivor, just very garden-variety parental abuse. my dissociation is way less severe than others', so perhaps i can speak to the experiences of that end of the spectrum.
the idea of alternate selves, for me, is just a conceptualization. i do not have many unrelated mini-homonculi sharing my body. i think that is where people reading about DID/MPD and sensationalized cases get tripped up, in the literalization of a very non-literal process. i don't even believe in the one-homonculus discourse, if that makes sense. like someone said about normals having different ways of dealing with situations that are just not identified as such, or just the idea of a self at all is somewhat weird to me.
i am sure that everyone's experiences are different, and that people who have severe MC type trauma may have a different experience of dissociation, so i don't mean to be dismissive with using the word homonculus.

i have existences where it's as if most of my life never happened. like i don't operate as "person who experienced x deep traumatic event", i just am too busy trying to fake it till i make it within that context? so it all disappears. it has to disappear. it disappears from the relationships in my life, which are very disconnected in time. other peoples' ideas of me are lacking the whole context, which makes it even more difficult because i can't see myself in the reflection anywhere. i don't have a continuous experience. i know only 2 people from my early life still and those are people i am able to be different with. they bring out something that is different and hidden. it is of great value to me and my journey. their recent intervention has been essential to understanding the stuff i'm writing now. without them that self would still be pretty hidden.
i also just have things or truths in my current life that i have to operate as if they don't exist, and that triggers severe dissociation. like, i was struggling with unemployment for a while, and was probably too sick to work, but couldn't tell the people around me that for [long story]. so i was existing for the nighttime half of my life as if i were still applying for work, attempting to mimic the functional self, and spending the days in the dissociative fog because that dissonance wasn't something i was able to deal with. when dishonesty is required to survive, it creates a split. abuse inherently means you can't be fully real with your captors. the discourses about the "false self" that occur within talk about personality spectrum disorders (e.g., laing, winnicott) have something to add conceptually to ideas about dissociative identity, although they are very different.
i lose whole days. right now it isn't happening, it isn't very bad right now. i've been doing a lot of integration work. but there were years i lost. i'm trying to be the person that lost those years, if that makes sense. i'm trying to incorporate an experience into my being that i'm embarrassed and ashamed about and people don't generally tell entertaining stories at parties about. being lost for how many years. etc. it's a struggle to fully be that person whose social identity is fundamentally not recognized and accepted.

colin ross of the child trauma institute has done research that posits a type of Sz that dissociation can be mistaken for. somebody mentioned Sz so i bring it up because that's where to go for info on where these diagnostic categories blur into a continuum. i had a period of very classically Sz spectrum symptoms which were very bound up with my dissociation - nonverbal catatonia [dissociation by another name, in my case] and a different kind of reality tunnel than most - not diagnosed at the time because i had been through serious mental health hospital and drug trauma as a teen and knew better than to expose myself to authorities. these days i totally believe in shaman discourses and stuff like that - i didn't know about that intellectually then, but recognized it in my being, and was both determined to work through it all and also EXTREMELY LUCKY. Sz is frequently a differential diagnosis of privilege. it is diagnosed more in the poor and those who are not understood on their own terms in this society; rich people get shunted into less stigmatizing categories. The economic privilege to stay out of the system protected me. the privilege of my education allowed me to eventually break through the nonverbal processing stage/"sickness" i was working through and translate these concepts into what i'd call recognized-person-speak - the type of logical thought that is accepted in society and keeps one out of the category of nonpersons/those who are not understood. i had not only privilege, but the gift, also, to be around many terminally ill and also severe mental health cases as a teen. i cannot overstate the importance of that experience to my eventual processing of my own experiences.

i apologize is this is not particularly consistent. still working on my mental conceptions of these things.

[ShinShinKid]

If they have not been brought up before, I say we seriously take a look at the ideas of both Thomas Metzinger (sic.), and Erving Goffman.

“The stigmatized individual is asked to act so as to imply neither that his burden is heavy nor that bearing it has made him different from us; at the same time he must keep himself at that remove from us which assures our painlessly being able to confirm this belief about him. Put differently, he is advised to reciprocate naturally with an acceptance of himself and us, an acceptance of him that we have not quite extended to him in the first place. A PHANTOM ACCEPTANCE is thus allowed to provide the base for a PHANTOM NORMALCY.”
― Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

[brainpanhandler]

PW,

1) Is there a permanent cure for DID?

2) If not, what is the best one can hope for?

3) What is the experience of reintegration/healing like?

4) You write, "The Diva believes that DID, at least during the latter half of the 20th century, has two main causes, one of which is far more prevalent than the other. The prevalent variety is enhanced by tax-funded behavioral experimentation." and " ...its prevalence has been estimated at between 1 and 3 percent of the general population".

Do you have a citation for the 1 to 3% quote?

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the "prevalent variety"?

If this next question is too personal (or dumb) then skip it,

5)

a)Are you fully reintegrated? (is that the right term?)

b) If not, do any of your alters ever post here? (pw's voice has always seemed consistent to me)

[Project Willow]

Aimless, thanks for sharing your experience. It often strikes me how little people talk about internal thought processes, the mechanics of thinking/conceiving of ourselves in particular.

If they have not been brought up before, I say we seriously take a look at the ideas of both Thomas Metzinger (sic.), and Erving Goffman.

“The stigmatized individual is asked to act so as to imply neither that his burden is heavy nor that bearing it has made him different from us; at the same time he must keep himself at that remove from us which assures our painlessly being able to confirm this belief about him. Put differently, he is advised to reciprocate naturally with an acceptance of himself and us, an acceptance of him that we have not quite extended to him in the first place. A PHANTOM ACCEPTANCE is thus allowed to provide the base for a PHANTOM NORMALCY.”
― Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity

Thanks. I read an overview of Goffman's work. I found much to identify with in his descriptions. Do you know his work well? Does he speak at any length to the basis for the need to find "discreditable attributes" in others?

There is a brief video here of Metzinger in this collection of lectures on consciousness: http://fora.tv/2012/03/24/Being_Human_Mental_Representations_Decision-Making

PW,

1) Is there a permanent cure for DID?
2) If not, what is the best one can hope for?

Hi BPH! Yes, it is possible to cure it, but this depends on diverse variables in any given case. Integration was once considered the cure, but clinicians have moved the goal post closer in. Today you'll find that achieving full executive control, wherein all alters cooperate together to form unified behavior patterns, as musicians in an orchestra, is also considered a cure. My doc reports that several MC survivors have attained this level of cure.

3) What is the experience of reintegration/healing like?

I can only speak for myself here of course. It is simultaneously agonizing and joyful. Even if one uses methods that help avoid abreaction (reliving the trauma), there is still grief in knowing at every point. There is a sense of loss when an alter integrates, but there is joy in feeling stronger, in having regular access to an alter's abilities, in knowing life will be more easily managed after each cycle of pain/joy.

4) You write, "The Diva believes that DID, at least during the latter half of the 20th century, has two main causes, one of which is far more prevalent than the other. The prevalent variety is enhanced by tax-funded behavioral experimentation." and " ...its prevalence has been estimated at between 1 and 3 percent of the general population".

Do you have a citation for the 1 to 3% quote?

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the "prevalent variety"?

The prevalence range is from the ISSTD, Treatment Guidelines, 2011.

In studies of the general population, a prevalence rate of DID of 1% to 3% of the population has
been described (Johnson, Cohen, Kasen, & Brook, 2006; Murphy, 1994; Ross,
1991; ¸Sar, Akyüz, & Do˘gan, 2007; Waller & Ross, 1997). Clinical studies in
North America, Europe, and Turkey have found that generally between 1%
to 5% of patients in general inpatient psychiatric units; in adolescent inpatient
units; and in programs that treat substance abuse, eating disorders, and
obsessive-compulsive disorder may meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev. [DSM–IV–TR]; American Psychiatric
Association, 2000a) diagnostic criteria for DID, particularly when evaluated
with structured diagnostic instruments (Bliss & Jeppsen, 1985; Foote, Smolin,
Kaplan, Legatt, & Lipschitz, 2006; Goff, Olin, Jenike, Baer, & Buttolph, 1992;
Johnson et al., 2006; Karadag et al., 2005; Latz, Kramer, & Highes, 1995;
McCallum, Lock, Kulla, Rorty, & Wetzel, 1992; Modestin, Ebner, Junghan,
& Erni, 1995; Ross, Anderson, Fleisher, & Norton, 1991; Ross et al., 1992;
¸Sar, Akyüz, et al., 2007; Saxe et al., 1993; Tutkun et al., 1998). Many of the
patients in these studies had not previously been clinically diagnosed with
a dissociative disorder.

More study is needed. Here's a critique of ISSTD's figure: http://www.pods-online.org.uk/problemofprevalence.html

As to the prevalent variety, I'll point you to the article by my doc, who recently made the claim that all DID is mind control. He has since clarified this statement, and from what I hear has gone on to pen a thirty some page article about it, which I will publish here when it's ready. Critics of DID are correct in at least one of their assertions, there is reason to believe it is more common today than it ever was, due to the formal study and proliferation of trauma-based mind control techniques. http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=491178#p491178

If this next question is too personal (or dumb) then skip it,

5)

a)Are you fully reintegrated? (is that the right term?)

b) If not, do any of your alters ever post here? (pw's voice has always seemed consistent to me)

I am not fully integrated, no. I think the best I can hope for is the lesser cure I described above. Unfortunately, I've experienced set-backs, even recently. I've still got lots of work to do. Yes, various of my parts have posted on RI, but DID is as I describe, and as Bell outlines so very well in the article I posted up thread, largely an internal experience. In my case, daily functioning is a team effort, with much cross communication, and only dominance of one part or another significantly affecting outward behavior. People who are intimate with me or specially trained, might detect switching. Most others, even good friends, experience me as one person who has moods or different modes of being in different groups, just like anyone else.

MC survivors are also trained to conceal switching, even to be unaware of it and its signs, such as lost time. Milestones in healing are regaining this specialized self awareness, (usually contained in alters and/or brain functioning that have been targeted by perps) and taking control over switching.

[ShinShinKid]

I am bit familiar with Goffman's work, the dramaturgical model being the key to his understanding of social interaction. Most basically, he took Shakepeare's "all the the world's a stage" quote and ran with it. We take cues from others as to how our performance is going; mostly it's about how we present many different "selfs" throughout our day, let alone our existence.

My feeling is Goffman would not say we don't inherently "need" to find fault in others...only that we will adjust our performances to the perceived "faults" we believe they are finding in us...does that make any sense?

Hope he helps, maybe also the work of George Herbert Mead...I think you can still find lectures somewhere...He goes into the whole I - Me process; his notion is all about "seeing the world through the eyes of the other". The other in this case being social interaction...

[aimless]

I read Stigma and Asylums. Still not The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, which seems relevent. I was not identified as having dissociation until later on in my contact with psychology and psychiatry - which is pretty intermittent, but i do seem to go for checkups every few years - and that leads me to believe it is often undetected. And partially for the reasons Goffman describes in Stigma - he talks about discredited and discreditable persons. Discredited persons are the disabled who can't hide it. Discreditable are people who can hide their stigma. If you are called "mentally ill" and identified as the exact location of the problem in your little world, you want to "pass" for healthy like your life depends on it, because it does. Being a part of society depends on passing. Access to resources depends on passing. Not being confined and drugged depends on some degree of passing. When you don't pass, which sometimes you just can't, you make yourself extremely vulnerable to horrible things. So that would be the a pretty "strong" but actually fake and dissociated kind of self that you're presenting just to survive the things normal people take for granted. No one can really be 100% like that. There is decompensation and that person can look very different from the front.

I never took the dissociative experiences scale on the inside and I was hospitalized for months. It is not looked for. Generally, unless someone is really blatant, you're just going to get a depression/bipolar/bpd/bucket diagnosis. Also, a lot of types of trauma are also underplayed inside (particularly parental trauma when the patients are minors - doctors don't want to face down the people paying the bills) DID is more uncommon, but dissociation is a process that happens with a lot of mental distress.

I also have that Metzinger book on my shelf, funny enough. Not opened it yet because it looks intimidating, but I couldn't resist the title.

[ShinShinKid]

That's pretty synchronous...maybe you should crack it open. I did read Presentation, it was lo many years, but the principals stuck with me.

I love sociology, and you seem to have a pretty good grasp on things; I've never been institutionalized, but I did manage to "drop out" for months at a time via alcohol. It just became a crazy cycle that didn't stop.
Stigma is one powerful social tool, but don't forget that you can forget any part of the social contract at any time for your biological survival!
Sometimes, biological survival isn't just an overt threat to hurt you, in can be couched in all sorts of abuse and social tools used to subjugate individuals. Sorry, I'm just babbling now.
Great thread, though, let's keep up this discussion