November 21, 2010
Freedom of Choice and Client Empowerment or Therapeutic Exploitation?
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I would like to make a follow-up comment from a comment made on the “What Would Your Perfect Treatment Plan Look Like?” blog.
Specifically, a portion of heartofindigo’s comment includes the following paragraph:
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a final comment: I wish that T’s would do exactly what you are doing, and ask. I have heard of so many… can’t think of a way to put this delicately… asinine demands on the patient. like the therapist doesn’t trust the patient’s process or intent or something. like the therapist has “superior knowledge.” unless one has DID, I don’t see how one can assume that they can make the judgment about what is working or not. that has to come from the patient, and so there HAS to be a partnership.
plus that will empower us to reclaim our power, which is the root of the problem in the first place.
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This is an extremely important point.
The dissociative survivor IS the expert for what helps them.
And from what I can see in reading through the comments in the previous blog, the normal 50-minute hour is far from helpful. For most dissociative trauma survivors, it’s not sufficient, it’s not enough, and in many ways, it’s not helpful. DID survivors simply need more time to make sufficient progress in therapy.
Should insurance panels be the final “experts” on how long sessions can be and on how many sessions a trauma survivor can have?
If DID clients are cash-paying for their therapy, can they make their own decisions about how much time they would like to have with their therapist?
Should therapists or counselors have the final say on how much time a dissociative client needs to work on their issues?
Should psychiatrists or doctors have the ultimate decision-making power to determine all treatment plans for dissociative trauma survivors?
Who gets to decide these things? Are clients allowed to have freedom of choice and the freedom to want or request something more or different than the norm? Do mental health professionals have the only vote about what is helpful?
In too many instances, treatment plans for dissociative survivors are designed by – and limited by — mental health professionals and insurance companies. And all too many DID survivors truly do not get their therapeutic needs met because the mental health professionals are setting “appropriate limits” to what they are willing to offer their clients. These limits are decided on based on the therapist opinion, and not on the clients’ needs.
In my personal opinion, a 50-minute session once per week is barely scraping the surface of what is needed to work with the dissociative population. Most DID survivors have a minimum of 5-10 insiders that could productively use the therapy session time at any given day, and the issues that these 5-10 insiders would be discussing would not be simple issues. Typically everyone in the DID system has complicated situations, painful issues, complex conflicts to discuss. Is this going to happen in 50 minutes? Not likely. Is everyone going to get a turn in 50 minutes? Absolutely not. In reality, it would be more likely that each and every insider could fill up a 50-minute session! To have to share such limited therapy time between so many inner people means that the pertinent and important issues just are not discussed in any great depth or detail. It takes a lot longer to make progress because so much just can’t be addressed.
Because of dissociative walls, the need to switch between inside parts, amnesia between many parts, time distortion, other dissociative complications, etc., it very often takes a DID survivor longer to dig into the issues of the day, and longer to get grounded and stabilized afterwards. Having the time to talk to a few of the insiders, to get their opinions about the topic, or to give them a chance to talk about their own issues does not happen quickly.
Part of what created and solidified dissociative identity disorder in the first place was having no where to discuss complicated, painful emotions, turmoil, and distress. For the therapy hour to remain a drop in the bucket in terms of meeting the needs, it leaves the dissociative survivor feeling like they will never get through the healing process. And in some ways, that is too close to being true.
But is it therapeutic exploitation to “allow” clients to have longer sessions and / or more than one 50-minute session per week?
When is too much? If a DID client needs more than normal, even for the dissociative population, should they be allowed to have more sessions than normal?
Should therapists be “required” to set an “appropriate limits and boundaries” by insisting on short sessions, even if DID survivors say and believe they need more time in therapy?
If clients say they need 2-hour or even 3-hour sessions, should they be allowed to have extended sessions? OR should therapists have the right and responsibility to limit these sessions to “normal limits” instead?
Whose opinion is correct?
In these situations, do therapists know best or do dissociative trauma survivors know best?
In case of a disagreement between the client and therapist, who should have the final say in length of sessions and frequency of sessions?
As heartofindigo stated, a big part of the healing process is about reclaiming personal power that was not allowed during the years of trauma.
Is freedom to decide length and frequency of sessions part of client empowerment? Or part of therapeutic responsibility?
What are your thoughts about this dilemma?
———-
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
http://www.AbuseConsultants.com
Copyright © 2008-2010 Kathy Broady LCSW and Discussing Dissociation
November 28, 2009
I’m Thankful for the Readers of this Blog
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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the US, and besides the wonderful traditional family meal and pleasant times with my kids, this time frame reminds me of something else.
Discussing Dissociation has been up and visible for nearly one year now. Yep, in a few days, it will be a year already!
Wow. Where has the time gone??!!!
There is truth to the saying that time flies, or is it because time flies when you’re having fun … or maybe I’m just getting older, lol.
Anyway, I’m being silly, but I do want to say today how much I appreciate all of you that have been readers here at this blog. The number of faithful, returning readers has been utterly amazing to me. If you look back through all the pages, you’ll see well over a thousand excellent comments from a wide variety of the readers. Wow! The input you all have made in this blog has brought it to life and given it a life-filled energy that I certainly couldn’t create on my own.
For the way each and every one of you have contributed to the positive, educational nature of this blog, I sincerely thank you. I truly appreciate your involvement, your thoughts, your comments, your questions. You’ve helped to make this little site a safe, comfortable community for dissociative trauma survivors. I think it’s a job well done, and once again, I do sincerely thank you for your part in this process. Writing a blog wouldn’t be nearly so fun without hearing comments from the readers! You all rock!
Many of you have questioned why I started this blog in the first place. The original reason is not as mysterious or worrisome as some of you may have thought. It’s a widely stated and highly recommended common practice for therapists to use blogs for marketing purposes. Marketing experts recommend to write what you know about, and to respond to the comments you receive. Blogs get quickly listed in search engines, and they are an easy, economical way for your target audience to get to know you, and to see what you do, and to become more familiar with the work that you do. It’s a simple as that. Check the blogosphere for blogs by therapists. You’ll see that most therapists write about their fields of work the same as I do.
I just happen to know about a very specialized topic – dissociative identity disorder. And my readers are a very distinct but wonderful population – dissociative trauma survivors or trauma therapists. (There aren’t very many of us out here — it’s no wonder that we are congregating together!) And yes, practically all of my blog articles have been very specific to DID, not that the topics couldn’t also apply to other populations, but the point of this blog is to “discuss dissociation” so I do tailor my articles to being about dissociative disorders, and the DID population. There’s no mystery there, lol. I think I’ve said that pretty upfront.
But something much bigger has been happening besides my having found a very effective marketing tool.
With all the positive sharing and support that has been created here, this blog has provided a deep sense of hope and healing for so many people. Having that absolute knowing that others are progressing along their healing journey as well, many survivors don’t have to feel so very alone. You might learn things from my articles, but you can also learn from each other, the same as I learn from you as well. It’s a wonderful circle of positive, helpful information, and that in itself is priceless.
Building a sense of safety, knowing you are not alone in your struggles, and learning from others who have been there too provide emotional foundations that so very crucial to healing and can augment your therapeutic process. Please remember, this blog is in no means a substitute for actual therapy, but it does provide a lot of educational support for survivors working on their own healing, or for therapists learning about working DID / MPD.
Again, you all have immensely helped to create that healing, informative atmosphere, and I am grateful for that.
We have to create and protect places of healing.
Even survivor-led blogs such as the truly incredible BTC blog have become targets for destruction by the “hazing / flaming / insaniacs” of the world. Do we really want the haters and gossipers to take over and ruin all the places of healing and support? How sad is this?!!
I know that you know there are predators and perpetrators out there in the world. For some of you, your abuse stopped years ago. For some of you, you are still smack dab in the middle of fighting your abusers. Some of you are being hassled and manipulated by internet predators (whether you know it or not), and some of you are safely away from any direct attack from anyone. No matter where you are in your life, there are abusers and predators out there in the world, (including those wolves in sheep’s clothing hiding within the dissociative population itself), so the importance of having safe retreats amongst all the danger and destruction is more important than you might realize.
Those of you that feel the loss of BTC’s blog can understand what I’m talking about. It’s a real shame that abusive people continue to ruin the good places and run off the good people. I think that is a tragedy. But it happens.
- Are you one that sits back quietly, doing nothing even though you see others destroying places of support?
- Do you believe the lies and negative gossip spread about helpers and healers?
- Are you so angry from your own abuse that you are willing to take that out on people who have helped you?
Surely the survivor population can see through the manipulations of abusers. You are adults now – you can start seeing through the tricks that are being played out there. Please remember to think for yourself the next time you hear some negative hogwash about someone who has dared to be a helper / healer. You can take a stand against that.
Complacency only allows abuse to continue.
Trauma survivors, I encourage you to ban together in protection of your valued and positive healing resources.
So many of you grew up without any safety or comfort or support. You learned to pull deep within yourself or to block out the world entirely. You survived it alone.
But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.
Most of you are still learning about how important and helpful it is to have places of safe connection, genuine relationship, and gentle bonding. It may be scary to be around people, but building a positive, healing, trustworthy community is a way of overcoming the need to be isolated in order to avoid abuse.
Again, I challenge you to protect your places of healing. Protect those that are your helpers. Stand firm around your leaders that fight against abuse.
Don’t fall into the trap of complacency or destructive participation.
Your healing resources are depending on that.
———-
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
Copyright © 2008-2010 Kathy Broady LCSW and Discussing Dissociation
April 12, 2009
Reclaiming the Holidays
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Do you remember the DiscussingDissociation article from December 2008 called “Holidays for DID Trauma Survivors… Making it Nice for the Littles”?
If you have not yet read that article, please check it out. It was written in reference to holidays during the Christmas season, but the points are still very much applicable today on Easter, and during Passover.
We have seen the numerous comments from people about how the Spring time holidays are difficult, painful, emotionally challenging, etc. I have been listening to dissociative trauma survivors for many years, and that is a consistent theme for survivors with DID/MPD.
While you cannot change the past, you can make a few things happen that will help you to feel better in the present.
At some point that works for you — don’t put this off forever! – do the memory work that is connected to the pain you feel about the Easter / Spring time holidays. Find the ones inside that have those horrible memories, listen to what happened to them, look at whatever images they need you to see to understand, address their concerns, and help to move them forward to the here and now.
Remember, as long as your internal parts stay stuck in time, and are internally locked in the past, they will continue to re-live and re-live and re-live those memories.
For survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder, memory work also includes doing internal system work and making changes in your internal landscapes. Read the January 2009 articles, “Using the Internal Landscape to Increase Internal Communication” and “When It’s Dark and Scary on the Inside…” as guidelines for working with trauma memories.
Also, since many trauma memories are related to or contained by child parts, it is also important to refresh your memory on how to work with child parts. Have a glance back at “Thinking Ahead – Preparation for Working with your Child Parts” and “Understanding the Child Parts in the Dissociative System”.
Working with the child parts that hold the painful trauma memories, and helping them to find ways to reconnect with the here and now, both internally and externally, is crucial in your healing process. If you are still hurting today, and your trauma happened years ago, a great deal of that pain you feel is coming from the child parts that experienced the pain and abuse in real life.
Don’t avoid those little ones just because they are hurting.
That’s not going to help. It’s not going to help you feel better, and it’s certainly not going to help those little ones feel better. It’s not ok to repeat the patterns of neglect and avoidance that you might have seen from your own parental caregivers while growing up.
Be courageous as best you can, and do some kind things to help your child parts to heal.
Find ways to give something positive and fun to your child parts today.
Give them a piece of Easter candy, especially if they have never had the chance to have safe, and yummy “real” and actual candy before.
Let them have a picture of a little duck or a baby chick and spend a few minutes coloring or drawing a pretty spring picture, with fresh grass, safe flowers, colorful blossoms, etc.
Play a few fun games (not hurting games) with Easter eggs or colored toys.
Let them sing some favorite spiritual songs or say some prayers today.
Let them do anything that is fun for them, something that does not get to happen just any day, ie: watching a favorite show on tv, having their favorite snacks, etc.
It doesn’t actually matter what you do with your kid parts as long as you do something nice, memorable, and positive for them, with them.
Give your kids a pleasant, positive memory today. Let something good become part of their life experience. The more you build something positive for their lives, the sooner your negative memories can be less enormous in proportion.
What good times are you going to have today?
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
April 10, 2009
Difficult Holiday Times
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For many dissociative trauma survivors, various holidays and times of year are more difficult than other days. Some survivors may know they typically have a difficult time at the change of seasons, or when Easter-time comes, for example, but they may not have the memories or internal information to understand why they consistently have a difficult time at that time of year.
- Are you struggling more now that Easter is here?
- Does Good Friday have any specific meaning for you?
- Does Passover have specific meaning for you?
- Do you consistently have trouble with functioning at this time of year?
- Do you remember anything that would make this hard time make sense?
When survivors with DID/MPD are sitting on unprocessed memories and their system is separated by strong dissociative walls, the host of the system may have absolutely no awareness of why certain times of year are more difficult than others. The host might know that there are consistently difficult times. They might have an acute awareness that they “hate this time of year” but they still might not have an answer for “why” certain times of year are more difficult than others. Host alters, fronts of the dissociative system, can be aware of the side effects of having a hard time, but still not have any explanation for what it’s about.
- Do you find yourself switching more than usual?
- Are you missing more time, even in small chunks? What about in big chunks?
- Are you experiencing more headaches, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, flashbacks?
- Are you seeing flashes of images, or fleeting snippets of pictures that don’t quite make sense?
- Do you feel unsettled or jittery?
- Do you feel confusion and time distortion, as if it is another time than 2009?
- Are you extra sensitive to certain smells, sounds, lights, and movements?
- Is there more noise, commotion, chaos, and activity coming from deep within your system?
- Do you feel not quite like yourself, as if there are others standing nearby to you, affecting you?
- Do you feel more suicidal or more vulnerable to self-injury, self-harm, and self-destruction?
If you are experiencing these type of symptoms, and yet have no answer for why these things are happening, you really can do something to help solve the mystery.
Any guesses for what to do?
Do you want to know why you are having such a difficult time?
My answer to that is to ask inside. Listen to what your insiders are telling you. There will be someone inside your system that knows why this time of year is so difficult. You might have insiders that have been particularly split off to handle situations from this time of year, so if you can find who that is, you will get some answers for what is going on.
Frequently, my interpretation of the above listed symptoms is that the dissociative walls – amnesiac walls — that previously blocked you completely from an awareness of what happened, is now starting to crumble. What was once kept from you, is now starting to seep into your awareness. For whatever reason, the dissociative wall is starting to weaken, and you are getting bits of information passed to you from others deeper within your system. Maybe they want you to know? Maybe they need your help? Maybe they are ready to begin sharing their story with you?
- Are you willing to help the others in your system that have experienced such difficult times?
- Are you going to turn your back on those ones in your system that are hurting and struggling?
- Are you going to continue to deny their existence because their life story is so completely different than yours?
- Are you determined to strengthen your dissociative walls? Or are you willing to lower those dissociative walls?
Understanding your life, your symptoms, your history, your struggles, etc all go back to having good internal communication. As you talk to your inside people, and ask them what THEY know about what is going on, you will get the answers you are looking for.
Someone inside will know why this time of year is difficult.
Someone inside will be able to explain what those flashbacks and picture flashes are about.
Someone inside will know why you are so sensitive to certain smells, sounds, movements, voices, etc.
The majority of the answers for why you are struggling are contained within yourself, within your internal system. Talking to the people in your system that are on the other side of the dissociative wall will give you a ton of answers to what is happening. Whether you are willing to listen to them or not, or believe them or not, is a totally different issue, but if you want to know why you are struggling, you can find out.
Lots of times, it will be because certain insiders are struggling, and their depression, or their fear, or their anxiety, or their panic, or their PTSD flashbacks will be overflowing onto you.
If you are not sure why you are having a hard time at this holiday season, look inside to find the part / parts of you that have direct knowledge of those hard times, and go from there.
You can do it.
If your insiders are brave enough to start telling you about their struggles, be brave enough to listen to them.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
March 28, 2009
United States of Tara – Going too Far
Ok. So I was all kinds of optimistic and hopeful that the Showtime series, United States of Tara, would be a positive statement for dissociative identity disorder. After all, Showtime interviewed Dr. Richard Kluft, an informed psychiatrist, one of the founding fathers of the treatment of DID/MPD. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
Well.
As a trauma therapist with 20+ years of clinical experience working with multiples, I have to say I’m quite frustrated that Showtime has presented multiplicity in this way.
First of all, the word is dissociation. Pronounced di-soh-see-ay-shun. The word is not disassociation. There is no additional “a” sound in the word. Saying dis-a-soh-see-ay-shun is the wrong pronunciation and a different word altogether.
Secondly, there is not a medication that can remove or prevent or end dissociative identity disorder. Medications can address various symptoms, and can even slow the thinking down, but medication cannot remove multiplicity. The idea of drugging away the parts is particularly offensive to me, and as far as I am concerned, it is totally opposite to genuine treatment. Insiders are there for a reason, and promoting the idea that the inside can be drugged into silence seems abusive to me. This idea is absolutely absurd and smacks of perpetrative behavior.
Moving on…
I understand the idea of “creating additional drama” for the sake of entertainment and to get a viewing audience. Fine.
And I can understand that the visual presentation of the various alters is metaphorical for how switching feels from within. It is true — or can be true — that when insiders surface on the outside, they “feel” like they look on the inside. Insiders are often confused and upset about looking externally very different than they feel internally. They are convinced they are shorter, or wearing different clothes, or have different hair, or are even a different gender, etc. And yes, internal parts are very often adamant about being a very different person from the host personality.
For the Tara show, the insiders get to look as extremely different on the outside as they feel on the inside. However, it’s not typical for DID’ers to actually present so drastically even if they wish they could.
The different presentations of Tara are excessive, but it makes the point, and it helps the viewing audience to catch on to a switch to one part from another. I would have hoped the viewing audience did not have to have that much help in recognizing switching, but maybe they do.
Now to my biggest beef about United States of Tara: the criminal behavior.
I suppose that somewhere out there in the world, there are multiples that beat up teenagers on school property, break in to and vandalize homes of others, urinate on others while sleeping, froth and drool in public, and sexually assault their child’s underage boyfriend. I suppose I cannot say that no multiple in the world would ever do that.
But really?!!! Is this the kind of message that we want the viewing audience to have about DID? Do multiples really present as the criminally insane?
Not to me!
The multiples I have met in the past 20+ years are not out-of-control monsters like this. Their inside parts know that there is a legal body age, and while they typically feel younger than the body age, the insiders have an understanding that they are not actually the same as outside people of that age.
DIDer’s might have flashbacks or a hard time functioning or emotional outbursts, but typically, trauma survivors will have enough self-control to manage their behavior without committing a crime in public.
Showtime crossed the line by making Tara a sex offender.
It is true that many multiples have been tangled up in sexual crimes, but typically, multiples that are in treatment have not chosen the life of a sex offender. All too many trauma survivors were forced to perpetrate as part of their victimization by organized perpetrator groups, or even by violent single abusers, but being forced to hurt others is not anything near the same as purposefully deciding to sexually offend in the day world.
Most multiples are not sexually inappropriate of their own volition.
For the writers of United States of Tara to present multiplicity in this light is cruel and inaccurate.
I’m disappointed, to say the least.
What a slam.
A great big huge insulting ridiculous slam.
I am not impressed.
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- What do you think?
- What are your thoughts about the show United States of Tara?
- Are you criminally insane?
- Would you do the behaviors that Tara is doing on this show?
- If you are multiple, what are your feelings about being portrayed in this way?
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__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
March 22, 2009
Child Parts – When They Hold Suicidal Power and Influence
We’ve had some very interesting discussions on the “What do you think about Suicide?” blog article. Thank you to everyone who writes and comments on this blog – your participation is valued and appreciated.
One of the topics that surfaced on that thread is the idea that trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD) may have child parts within their system that can be suicidal, and that the ability to control the suicidal behavior of these child parts seems overwhelmingly difficult, even for the adults of the dissociative system.
I’d like to write an official response to that.
Typically, one thinks of child parts as a permanently young child – an inside part that holds the trauma memories, feelings, rememberings, and experiences that happened when the body was of a young chronological age. These child parts act like children, think like children, reason like children. Their thinking is often very concrete and their grammar / spelling / speech is child-like as well.
So, how does a child part, who is likened after an actual child, have the ability to be suicidal when typically, children do not even understand what death is?
How can these child parts have the ability to act outside of the control of the adults in the system?
There is at least one possible answer for that.
For dissociative trauma survivors, their childhood was filled with abusive perpetrators. Some — not all — DID survivors have experienced an organized type of abuse by organized groups of perpetrators. These organized groups could have presented themselves as sex slavery groups, or cult groups, or governmental / mind control experimental groups. Any which way, the abuse was more than home-based, chaotic dysfunctional family-crisis abuse. With organized abuse, there would have been a goal, a purpose, and a long-term plan for ongoing and continued abuse and total control of the victim by the offenders.
Organized perpetrators very often purposefully split off child parts and attach suicidal programming to these children. Even while the children are at a very young age, these organized perpetrators demand complete control of the mind and behavior of the child. These perpetrators know they are committing horrendous crimes to their victims, and are invested in keeping the children silenced about these crimes. They instill these controls early in life, and then have every intention of keeping this level of control over the victim for as many years into adulthood as possible. Organized perpetrators actually want life-long control. They begin their domination during the victim’s childhood with the intention of being able to keep that child under their control for their entire life.
Using suicidal programming as a way to control and manipulate behavior is one of the most effective ways for abusers to protect their secrets. Perpetrators have a variety of horrific techniques that they use to accomplish this goal.
The result is that a child part can be cued or triggered into suicidal thinking, can have a suicidal plan, and could potentially follow the instructions planted in their brain with the same level of intensity as any other mind-controlled person. The child part does not have to understand what they are doing, nor do they have to understand what death is, nor do they have to understand the effects of their behavior. They just have to know what to do, step by step. These child parts have simply been taught clearly defined, specifically detailed behaviors to follow upon command, and they have been taught to follow those controls without thinking.
Perpetrators attach suicidal programming to young children not only at the earliest point of intervention, but also because it goes to their advantage that these child parts genuinely do not understand what death is. The children know what obedience is and the mind control trainers take advantage of that. Children cannot reason past the orders to understand that they are being told to do something that is harmful to them. They cannot grasp the concept of death enough to fear it the way an adult would, but they know what happens in they don’t obey, so the programming is attached to this level of thinking without any risk of interference by “fear of death”.
In effective trauma therapy, these controls can be removed safely, and the person — both the child parts and the adult parts — can reclaim their own power and control of their behavior. However, as long as the programmed responses are hidden secretly within the child part, the person is at risk for suicidal behavior.
If you are experiencing these kind of suicidal controls, please work with an experienced trauma therapist while addressing these issues. It is imperative that you handle suicidal programming with great caution, and do not assume that just any therapist can do this level of work.
Find a genuine trauma specialist to help you remove suicidal programming from your child parts.
Your safety matters. And yes, you can reclaim the control of your own life.
If you are considering individual therapy work to address these issues, please contact me through AbuseConsultants.com. Be very careful about exposing too much of this kind of personal information on a public blog site.
Your safety is important.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
February 24, 2009
Ten Benefits of Being Multiple
In the typical process of trauma therapy, your therapist and the dissociative trauma survivor will spend a great deal of time talking about how difficult it is to be multiple — and it is difficult, no doubt about it. For the typical multiple, there were years and years of pain and horror and abuse requiring the need to split over and over into a number of different personalities just to survive the unthinkable.
But the point of this blog is to talk about what an outsider / singleton sees as the benefits of being multiple and having Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD). Yes, there really are some advantages to being split!
I see the following 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.
Sometimes I wish I could do some of those things too!
The point being, despite the difficult beginnings required in splitting into multiple personalities, there are many good and positive attributes to being multiple.
What do you enjoy about your multiplicity?
What strengths do you have?
How has multiplicity enhanced your life?
What qualities of being a multiple would you want to keep, and never lose?
Your thoughts and comments are welcome.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
