Embracing Fear and Conquering with DID

I have a severe phobia of the dentist.  I mean severe.   It's the chair.  Yes, not the shot, or the drill, it's the chair.  Lying in the chair represents submission, and as you can imagine that terrifies me.  You sit back in that chair and open your mouth, and then trust. 

Trust is a big issue for survivors of childhood abuse.  It is really a struggle for me.

My fear started when I got the reminder call about the appointment.  It increased as the time approached. I was emotional and distracted. The day of the appointment I was a basketcase, I couldn't concentrate.  I wish I was exaggerating, but I am really not. 

As I sat in the lobby filling out the new patient paperwork, I knew that as soon as I started walking toward the chair I would become, emotionally a child.  I would be paralyzed by fear and unable to speak up or advocate for myself.  I know this because it happens everytime I go to the dentist.  So I wrote a note to my new dentist and explained my situation.  The dentist, bless him, read my note and then came out to the lobby and sat and chatted with me for a moment to put me more at ease.  That was wonderful, but still when he said, "Come on back."  It happened.  The paralysis set in.  I was like a helpless child.

I sat in the dreaded chair, and the hygienist began the cleaning.  That's when it hit me.  I forgot to ask for laughing gas for the cleaning.  I hate metal touching my teeth, and what do they do in a cleaning but scrape your teeth with metal...argh!  As an adult, I would just put up my hand to stop him and ask for laughing gas, but I was not an adult at that moment.  I was a helpless child at the hands of an "authority figure".  I could not make requests I could only wait helplessly until it was over.

My body tensed, and my heart rate increased as my panic grew.  How could I get myself through this situation.  Desperately, and with frustration, I thought, "Why can't I dissociate myself out of this?"  Then a glimmer of hope came to me, "Why can't I?  Where should I go?"

I was ready to mentally transport myself somewhere else.  I figured I have been doing it unconsciously since childhood, so this time I would do it consciously.  That was my only goal.  As I considered where to go...it would have to be somewhere I felt comfortable, and somewhere well-established.  Some how I felt that I would not have the "strength" to go to a new place, I needed to go to a comfortable place in my mind I had been to before.

I chose my DID Landscape.  This is a common thing among people with DID, to have an organized space in one's mind for all one's parts.  I don't want to give too many details about my DID landscape, but suffice it to say that even though there are parts there that have painful memories, and one part in particular that I am avoiding, it is still a beautiful place that I created for traumtized parts to heal.  So I went there myself as I have many times before in therapy.

I stood at the entrance and thought, "Now what?"  Then, an idea came to me to go to the part of me that holds the memory that causes most of my dentist phobia.  That part is a  young girl, 4 yrs old (she has a name, but I am not comfortable sharing that). 

I approached her and took her in my arms, lovingly.  I rocked her and stroked her hair.  I spoke to her quietly, "I am so sorry for what happened to you.  So, so sorry.  I know you are scared, but what is happening now is different.  Feel what the body feels right now, and see that this is different.  I promise, I will never let anyone hurt you again."

Something amazing happened, the terror I felt eased, a very peaceful, healing feeling replaced it.  I felt so good.  I marveled at it.

At that moment, the hygenist (who was very gentle) slipped and that sharp metal hook hit my lip.  I thought, "Buster, if you do that again we are done."  And I meant it.  If that happened again, I would raise my hand and simply say, "I'm done.  I can't do any more today."  No explanation needed, it's my body and if I say stop, it stops.  That is when I realized, I was back in adult mode!!!  I can't express how incredible that felt.  I was no longer a terrified child helplessly submitting to whatever the "authority figures of the moment" subjected me too.  I was an adult that could speak up for my needs and defend my boundaries.  I was exhilarated.  I could hardly believe it.

When the cleaning was done, I glanced at the clock on the wall.  I was stunned. How could I have been at the dentist for an hour?  It literally felt like 15 minutes.  As I got up from the chair, my leg muscles, knees and ankles were so stiff and painful that it was difficult to get up (I hadn't had pain when I came in) but emotionally and mentally I felt like I could fly. 

Anthony Maragou


Photo Attribution: Anthony Maragou

Beneath the Mask: Dissociative Identity Disorder

I've been thinking about writing about this for some time. I have even hinted at it, some might say I did more than hint. Anyway, I did not think I had said it directly, so here it is...

I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).




Michael Drummond

My 16 yr old son asked me the other day, "Mom is DID the same thing as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)?"

I had told my teenage children quite awhile ago that I have DID, but I guess he didn't make the connection.  I explained that yes they are the same.  He then had more questions.  Can the parts really be different sexes? Yes. And have different medical issues?  Yes.  Different ages?  Yes. 

I could be wrong but I sensed a bit of "Wait a minute, you didn't tell me it was like THAT."  My point here is that even though he lives with me, he didn't realize.  DID is NOT obvious.  People with DID have families, hold down jobs, get college degrees...all the things that "singletons" do. (Yes, we call you guys singletons.)  The only difference is that our divided mind helps us be able to take care of all these day-to-day things while the skeletons rattle in the closet.

So the first thing I want you to understand about DID, is that you could know someone, even live with them and not realize they have it.  It is not obvious, it is not like it is portrayed by Hollywood.

Before I tell you a little more about how I experience DID, I need to make a disclaimer that I do not speak for everyone that deals with this disorder.  It is much more common than you would think; I have met others with DID, in real life and on line.  There are forums and hospitals and therapy groups for people dealing with this.  What I have learned from sharing with other "multiples" is that while we have much in common, there are also many differences.

I hope that by explaining a little of why I believe my "system" works the way it does, will help you understand why two people with DID can experience it so differently.  First we need to consider how it begins.  DID is commonly believed to begin in childhood as a result of severe, and often repeated trauma.  I think of it as a God-given gift to help child survive and cope.  A child's mind does not have the experience, the coping skills etc to deal with such trauma, so the mind resorts to chronic dissociation.

Remember I explained before that dissociation is something that everyone does.  Daydreaming or highway hypnosis (when you drive somewhere and then feel startled when you realize you remember very little about the drive...you were on "auto-pilot").  This sort of dissociation is normal.  But when a traumatized child uses dissociation over and over as an escape to the point that it becomes chronic, then it crosses in to the disorder side of the spectrum.  Because the abuse each person suffers is different, the severity of dissociation can vary as well. 

The way the "system" is set up varies greatly as well.  When I say the system, I mean the parts or alters.  Remember My Haunted Mind, where in each room there is someone that holds some memory or memories of my past.  What I didn't mention in that post is how real those "people" in the rooms feel to me. 

I want to tell you that I know they are not real and yet I can't...and let me tell you why.  This is a conversation that I have had with my therapist more than once.  I will mention to him the name of a part and say, "I know I need to help _____________ .  She's crying and upset and so alone, but I can't."

You have to understand that helping her means remembering what she knows, feeling the pain she feels, the pain she has held for me all these years.  The pain, emotional and physical, of rape.  Can you understand why I don't want to help?  It is not a matter of just giving her a hug, it's hearing what she has to say and feeling it.  So I tell myself and my therapist, "I don't have to help her.  She is not real.  She's part of me and therefore I can ignore her and keep that part of myself buried if I want to."

Doesn't that sound like a good solution?  I wish it worked.  But it doesn't.  Whenever I say or think that, the walls in the Haunted Mind start to melt and all the pain held by all those children in my mind comes rushing to me at once.   I fear that the pain will separate me from my tenuous hold on sanity.  I wonder, "Is this what a nervous breakdown feels like?"

To stop the pain, to stop the melting walls, I surrender.  "Ok, ok," I say to myself.  "She's real."  Not in a physical sense, of course, but in my mind she is real.  She has a name, and her own personality.  I can picture her in my mind's eye...and most of the time when I see her she is crying.  How can I then not go to her?  There in is my dilema.  I must help her.  What kind of monster would I be if I didn't? And yet helping her terrifies me.

I believe that at one point in my childhood, I thought if I was a boy then the abuse would not happen.  It didn't work, and now there is a little boy part with memories of his own.  I don't know his name, and really I don't want to know anything about him...and yet, I know in time, I will have to accept him too.

Another time I must have wished for a teenage brother to protect me. . .and so it goes.

The goal of therapy is either integration or co-operation between the parts.  I say "or" because some multiples do not wish to integrate.  They feel they will lose something in the process.  For me, I do aim for integration.  I think of it as my parts coming together, holding hands, sharing the pain equally, but also sharing joy equally.  We are not there yet, but someday. . .

I know I am taking a huge risk in sharing this with you.  I already feel that sharing that I was abused makes me INVISIBLE or an Emotional Leper and this because people don't know what to say so they don't say anything.  So why in the world would I tell you something that is going to make you look at me like I am some sort of Circus Side Show (my apologies to my friends with DID...that is certainly not how I feel, just how I fear others may see this).

I'm sharing for two reasons.  First I hope you will see that DID/MPD is really not "freaky" or "crazy".  Some of you that read this blog know me in real life and can say, "I never knew."  That is the point.  The whole reason for the dissociation is to hide things.  To hide the pain and the abuse from everyone including me.  AND then to hide the dissociation.  I may have younger parts of myself that feel absolutely real to me, but the rest of the "system" keeps them hidden from the outside world to protect them.   I want people to see that this is not "crazy", not what it is portrayed in the media as, but rather a creative way to deal with trauma no child should ever have to deal with. Not all survivors have DID, but many do...it is much more common than you realize. (I know I said this before, I'm repeating it for emphasis.)

Second, I share because I hope that if you understand the serious and life-long consequences of abuse, you will be more willing to take action to prevent it.  In our culture, we are far to likely to try and protect the abuser than the victim.  Case in point, I read an article from ABC News about Victim 1 in the Sandusky case.  When he and his mother approached the principal and the school counselor about the abuse they were told: "Jerry has a heart of gold and that he wouldn't do those type of things,"  And then they were told to go home and think about it.

Where was the concern for the victim???  This is the kind of thing I am talking about.  This has got to stop. 

The principal and the counselor told the boy's mother NOT to call the police, they would handle it.  Again at this point they were more concerned about "the nice guy" than the victim.  Fortunately, they were required by law to report it to the Child Protection Services so they did.  It was three more years before Sandusky was arrested (how many more violations occured during that time???) Because the authorities said they needed more witnesses...after all we can't prosecute this "nice guy".

We have to stop the denial, stop worrying about the perpetrators and start protecting victims.  The more we understand, as a culture, the effects of abuse, the more likely we will be to help the victims.  Or even better to work on prevention.  At least that is my hope.  And I'm putting myself on the line to help make it happen.

If you have any questions about DID, feel free to ask, I will answer them the best I can based on my onw experience and research, but remember I don't speak for everyone.

Photo Attribution: Michael Drummond