Dissociative Identity Disorder Phenomena: Two Current Perspectives
Source: Adrian Fletcher
Note
from MRB: Considering the predicaments of the two women who
are the subjects of these two recently published mainstream news
articles about comparatively rare life conditions for a human being involving phenomena related to what is today labeled 'dissociative identity disorder,' one immediate
observation is that each experiencer is sharing
information that enables readers to comprehend how both women must
unconditionally accept her mental state because there
simply is no other alternative.
Featured Perspective #1 from Psychology Today:
by Adrian A. Fletcher Psy.D., M.A. (December 20, 2022)
A Personal Perspective: A psychologist's lived experience of DID.
It’s been just over a year since I publicly came forward with my lived experience of dissociative identity disorder (DID), what used to be referred to as multiple personality disorder, which now (if we could only get the entire mental health profession on board with) would be more appropriately referred to as dissociative identities — leaving out the disorder. Few have come to appreciate the brilliance behind this remarkable coping strategy and yet instead remain fascinated with the “disorder.”
There is a lot of heartbreak in living and coming to terms with DID. I was reminded of that today when meeting with a friend who is also a colleague, after having a discussion of how hurt they felt by the abrupt disappearance of a PART and their friendship. While Dr. Fletcher has continued to coordinate care and our collegial relationship is solid, our personal relationship was ruptured when a protector PART distanced the other PARTS from contact with them after feeling the need to protect me and the other PARTS of my dissociative system from further hurt and disappointment due to the persons’ lack of understanding of DID.
People, including therapists treating DID, forget that while you think you are visually looking at, treating, interacting, and relating with as ONE person they are forgetting that people living with DID are more than one. They are PLURAL and I know this because I am plural — and I prefer the term MULTIPLE. I sometimes wish the condition was still referred to as multiple personalities for the mere fact (and only speaking for my system) that "personalities" is in fact what my experience of living with DID feels like. Singletons (people living without dissociative identities) often refer to different parts of themselves and that language is used all too often, as are therapeutic terms such as “parts work” which stems from an Internal Family Systems (IFS) model of therapy.
However, this leaves providers in the mental health field (and one could argue the general public too) confused as to what are PARTS exactly. As a result, people like myself are not being properly attuned to and providers are flat out missing the diagnosis. While I am not a fan of diagnostic labels, we do need providers to understand the criteria but we need to not arrive at this label with not just the diagnostic manual of mental disorders but by listening to others with lived experience. Dr. Jamie Marich’s new book publishing in January of 2023 entitled Dissociation Made Simple: A Stigma Free Guide to Embracing Your Dissociative Mind and Navigating Daily Life, captures the reality of others' experiences like what I am describing above. It’s both comforting and disturbing to know I am not alone — comforting to know there is community, disturbing that so many of us have been misunderstood for so long.
I get that it sounds unusual to refer to another human as multiple or plural, but I and others have suffered a great deal of consequences as a result of living with DID. I personally have experienced nightmares, panic attacks, finding myself places I have no memory getting to, finding clothes or items in my home I don’t remember buying, people recognizing me but me not recognizing them—I literally just had that experience at the nail salon last week—and the list goes on and on. I don’t mind switching. It is literally how I have managed my entire life. Each PART serves a purpose, each PART contributes to managing my life. It saved my life. It’s not scary anymore; I love my PARTS. For me, though, the most distressing, the most heartbreaking, and the most devastating component has been the struggle to remain in relation with people I/we love and having to take accountabilities for all PARTS of my DID system in hurting someone’s feelings while another PART of me wasn’t present for it.
While most of the world doesn’t understand, my husband does. He has talked to other PARTS of me, knows their names, ages, genders, characteristics, likes, dislikes, who is friends with who, which PARTs like which foods and physical activities. But the reality is the majority of my own friends do not, and I myself would have never come to know my own DID system as well as I have without my husband’s patience, love, understanding, and gathering of “data” on my alters/PARTS. So why is it that my friends don’t? Because the majority of people in my life know and love Dr. Fletcher, who they also refer to as Adrian, but what so few in my world truly get is that behind Adrian and behind Dr. Fletcher is an entire system of other PARTS that I have come to know and love. Some of them I am still getting to know.
I have come to respect switching into another PART as that is literally what needed to happen for me to survive being a victim of familial child sex trafficking by my own father. When he passed, I left a dozen red roses at his gravesite with a ribbon that said "I love you father." I did not know about my abuse at the time. Thank you dissociative amnesia and dissociated and fragmented PARTS for saving me from that reality. While every human has the capability to dissociate, those of us who live with dissociative identity disorder manage life by switching, which can heartbreaking, exhausting, and painful for us, and others. I have found that people are interested in the disorder versus what occurred in the first place, which for me was familial child sex trafficking. A hard reality for people to understand.
I have stepped forward to educate, to help others feel less alone, and to help therapists and treatment providers through consultation. While I have finally come to appreciate the beginning of walking in my true purpose, I know that I am not just here to serve the field of mental health.
Living life as a multiple/plural is challenging at times and being in relationships is complex. I am used to feeling misunderstood and it hurts even more so when you see someone you love so sad over something that is almost a regular occurrence for someone living with DID. I have both empathy for the person impacted and for the PARTS. For someone who spent years hiding, even from my own self, I had hoped that by coming forward, those closest to me would understand most of all. Then I remembered all the people I have started to get to know with DID who report similar experiences and I felt an overwhelming amount of gratitude for the community I am getting to know. I have chosen simply to just accept that I/we are different and that is what makes me me and me is we. What I/we say about how I/we feel on being multiple: confusing, empowering, lonely, and comforting.
If you have the honor to connect with another person living with dissociative identity disorder/dissociative identities, please just remember we are not one but many.
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Featured Perspective #2 from metro.co.uk
"Mum with dissociative identity disorder reveals what it’s like living with 20 personalities"
by Dayna McAlpine (January 4, 2023)
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A
woman who spent years terrified she was possessed by ghosts after
suffering from memory loss and finding messages around her home
discovered that they were her twenty other 'personalities.'
Emma Lavar, 32, first began suffering from blackouts, dissociative episodes, and hearing terrifying voices in her head when she was just nine-years-old.
When she turned 11, she began waking up with strange injuries that she had no recollection of, or 'coming to' in places that she didn’t remember going to.
Following decades of being incorrectly told that she had paranoid schizophrenia and emotionally unstable personality disorder, Emma was officially diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder in April 2021 when she was 31.
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and formally known as 'Multiple Personality Disorder,' is a dissociative disorder that stems from severe or repeated trauma in children.
The mind essentially dissociates in order to protect itself from emotions that are too painful to process.
Dissociative barriers prevent the formation of a single, cohesive personality, leading to distinct fragments or 'personalities' existing in a single body.
Emma, a freelancer writer and small business owner from London, explained: "Before Dissociative Identity Disorder was suggested to me, I was terrified I was being haunted or possessed.
"I would come home to find written notes in my bedroom or that someone had ripped up my posters or cut up my clothes.
"I would lose large amounts of time and had no idea what I’d done. Sometimes I would come to in strange places and have no idea how I got there.
"I have come back from blackouts fully clothed in the sea in Brighton or in hospital with chemical burns. I was absolutely terrified.
"I have permanent scars and injuries from incidents that I have no recollection of."
Emma, who lives with her wife Jocelyn, 33, her daughter, four, and step-son, 15, says she wasn't aware that during these episodes, her other 'personalities,' 'alters' or 'parts' would take over.
She says that these 'parts' often hold the pain from traumatic memories and are very distressed or confused.
She explained: "They may be desperate to make their pain end, or be so caught up in flashbacks that they don't realise that a lot of time has passed and they are in a 32-year-old body.
"Over time, the parts started to communicate with a therapist and now my wife."
Emma is currently aware of twenty different 'alters' in total, and is learning healthier and more harmonious ways to live with them, in a bid to stop them from resorting to self-destructive behaviours that can injure her.
"Therapy focuses on helping build communication between all the different personality states, breaking down the dissociative barriers the mind has built, processing the memories and emotions or beliefs surrounding the trauma until all the parts can come together as either a happy multiple or one fused personality," Emma shared.
Because of the nature of DID, Emma's 'alters' are different ages and have different personalities. One of Emma's 'alters' is an eight year old girl named Lavender.
"She holds a lot of traumatic memories," Emma said.
"She doesn’t speak because she is terrified bad things will happen if she does. She communicates through drawing, writing and small amounts of sign language.
"Theadora is an unknown age. She holds a lot of anger and is very traumatised. She is one of the main alters that harms the body. There is also Emily, 32 and Cassie, 16.
"They are what we call helper parts. They help with communicating with other parts in therapy and soothing them when distressed.
"They help with day to day organisation, making sure I get to appointments and commitments, as well as helping to keep the body safe.
"Clover, age unknown, is terrified of being recognised by people that have hurt us in the past, so will regularly change our hair or outward appearance in some way to keep us undetectable."
According to Emma, Clover has previously made her cut off all her hair, which she found incredibly distressing.
Emma also suffers from Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD) which encompasses the symptoms of PTSD – such as flashbacks and intense feelings of fear and anxiety – however it also affects relationships and how the person relates to themselves. The condition often occurs after long-term or repeated trauma.
"I was officially diagnosed with DID and CPTSD in April 2021 but it was first suggested to me by a therapist when I was 19 in 2009," Emma said.
"I had been suffering from blackouts, dissociative episodes, severe depression, horrible nightmares and distressing voices in my head.
"I started self-harming when I was 11 years old in 2001 to cope but I was becoming increasingly suicidal. I was relieved to receive my diagnosis after years of being misdiagnosed.
"It helps me to better understand myself and the distressing symptoms I have experienced most of my life."
Emma has an excellent support system but has faced severe barriers accessing mental health support.
"The mental health system in the UK is crumbling," Emma warned.
"There is very little money being put into treatments and community care for people with long-term mental health conditions.
"Receiving the appropriate therapy, particularly for trauma disorders, is a massive struggle and most people spend years on waiting lists or having to resort to paying privately for treatment."
Emma now uses her savings and inheritance left by her father to pay for private therapy, and is receiving specialised treatment with therapists that are experienced with the conditions she has.
"It's been a hard fight and it's involved a lot of my young adult life being lost in the mental health system and fearing I would never have a proper life or happy future."
Emma has also faced terrible discrimination in the wake of her diagnosis.
"I have received comments and messages telling me that DID doesn't exist, that I'm making it up or attention seeking," Emma said.
"It's incredibly difficult not to internalise these types of comments.
"People with this disorder are portrayed as dangerous or extremely chaotic, rapidly switching between wildly different characters wearing their own clothes, speaking in multiple accents and being very overtly different to everyone around them.
"We are no more dangerous than anyone else. DID and CPTSD, like all mental illnesses, make you a vulnerable person and more likely to be the victim of crime and abuse than the perpetrator.
"Real-life DID is a lot more boring, the differences between alters are generally quite subtle and most people probably wouldn’t notice switches unless they know to look out for them."
Thankfully, Emma is more hopeful now – with her proudest achievement becoming mentally and physically well enough to go through IVF and give birth to her daughter.
"She is my whole world, and she brings me deep and true happiness.
"My wife is incredibly supportive. She has been there for me through thick and thin. I am incredibly lucky to have her.
"I have been more open about my condition and how it affects my life over the last couple of years and the reaction from my close friends has been amazing. It has helped me to feel less alone.
"They are always willing to learn more in order to support me or understand me better. I'm really grateful.
"We're just normal people. Normal people that unfortunately had to endure abuse or trauma inflicted on us from a young age and we're trying to cope with the result of this. We're not dangerous, we are hurt, and we want to heal."
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