December 28, 2015 • 48 mins
We talk about a Mad in America article that discusses dissociation and psychosis.
The website is HERE.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Over
about Dissociative IdentityDisorder. If you are new to the
podcast, we recommend startingat the beginning episodes and
listen in order to hear ourstory and what we have learned
through this endeavor. Currentepisodes may be more applicable
to longtime listeners and arelikely to contain more advanced
(00:32):
topics, emotional or othertriggering content, and or
reference earlier episodes thatprovide more context to what we
are currently learning andexperiencing. As always, please
care for yourself during andafter listening to the podcast.
Thank you.
(00:58):
This is Doctor. E, and one ofthe things that I wanted to talk
about is dissociation versuspsychosis for two reasons. One,
when you don't understand what'sgoing on with dissociation, it
could very easily feel crazy oroverwhelming. It can feel crazy
and overwhelming even when youdo understand what's going on.
(01:19):
And two, from the outside, thereare times when it can look crazy
or what they're describingsounds crazy if you don't
understand what's going on.
So it's important to understandthe difference between
dissociation and psychosis.There's several things about
this and the way perspective ischanging and the way research is
(01:40):
changing as well. So forexample, the old school ways of
differentiating between anddissociative identity disorder
were pretty simple. It had to dowith whether the voices were
coming from inside or outsidethe person and whether, for
example, if the voices wereheard made sense in context of
(02:03):
the person's stories or memoriesor need to keep safe as opposed
to command hallucinations, forexample, that were incoherent or
did not make sense in a realitybased way. Last week, however,
in the Mad in America articlefor science, psychiatry, and
social justice, there was anarticle published, I guess in
(02:27):
May, by a social worker thattalked about distinguishing
dissociative disorders frompsychotic disorders and
compounding alienation.
And I will provide a link to thearticle in the blog, but the
article itself was interestingand there was a lot of
discussion about it online. So Iwanted to talk about it on the
podcast as well. There areseveral things to know about the
(02:48):
article. For one, from the veryonset of his thesis statement in
the article, he makes clear thathis approach is that of both
psychosis and DID being anillness. This is important
because while it is true thatwhen there is trauma, although
there are some systems that saythat they are not trauma based,
(03:11):
but generally speaking, whenthere is trauma that has caused,
a lack of integration of thepersonality and development or
further dissociation because ofongoing trauma and neglect, then
that is a developmental andtrauma response, which does
cause changes in the brain.
(03:32):
And so there is that pathologyif you're looking at it from a
perspective of what has gonewrong. But as we pointed out in
the podcast when we interviewedDoctor. Ross, that pathology of
looking at what is wrong isdifferent than saying you are
wrong as the client or as theconsumer for mental health
(03:54):
services or as the person withDID. There's a difference
between the pathology of this iswrong and the story of what
happened to you. So the exampleDoctor.
Colin Ross gave in episode nineof our podcast was in an
emergency room when someone hasbeen in a car accident and is
brought to the emergency roomfor a broken leg. The pathology
(04:17):
is the broken leg, that's true,But the cause is the car
accident, not the person. So wehave to be careful when we're
talking about pathology and howwe assign that to a person
because it's one thing to say,this is not working and is not
functioning, and another thingto say, you are not working or
you are not functioning or youare unwell or this won't work
(04:41):
for you at any level ever or youcan't work in this way. Like,
it's a very delicate line andbalanced just from that piece.
So when he starts his articleand the quote is, between
dissociative disorders withtheir roots in trauma and
psychotic disorders, which aredefinitely illnesses of the
(05:01):
brain.
So it's unclear because itsounds like he's referring to
psychotic disorders as anillness of the brain and
dissociative disorders withtheir roots in trauma. But the
way it's written, it also soundslike he's saying both are
definitely illnesses of thebrain. So that was the first
sensitivity people had, and Ithink that piece maybe was just
(05:23):
a misunderstanding of thephrasing of the sentence because
I do think he's giving, becausehe has that clause between
there, I think he is saying thatdissociative disorders with
their roots in trauma, and thenseparately from that he's also
saying psychotic disorders,which is an illness of the
brain. So I don't think that hemeant it the way a lot people
(05:44):
took it. I think it'sunfortunate that the reading
came across that way, and Iunderstand why people were upset
about it.
Then the next piece of hisarticle that I think was
confusing for a lot of peoplewas when he talks about a person
recognizing alien parts ofthemselves and how for a
(06:05):
dissociative disorder that alienmay be perceived as an actual
alien or alien as in justforeign, that it's something
separate or different than who Iam. And so that could be
attributed to differentpersonalities, which would be
appropriate for dissociativedisorder. But if someone is
(06:25):
seeing those alien parts ofthemselves because of being
literal aliens or demons or CIAagents talking to them through a
brain implant, then they wouldbe diagnosed as psychotic. So
he's trying to differentiateagain based on the reality and
likelihood of what it is that'shappened. And so he's saying
most commonly people in thegeneral population who are not
(06:50):
well educated about DID, muchless like anything like RA or
any kind of ritual abuse, thatthey would not understand what
to do with that and rather thanbeing diagnosed with a
dissociative disorder, theywould be diagnosed as psychotic.
The next piece is that theauthor goes forward in saying
(07:11):
that professionals in the fieldcould do a better job of
acknowledging what the personhas inside them and what they
are going through, and thatregardless of how this is
described or presented, that itcould be very well a human
response to difficultcircumstances. Or he says,
(07:34):
quote, a very human response tovery difficult experiences, and
the brain may simply beresponding to those experiences.
So he's saying clinicians makeit harder for people with DID or
even psychotic disorders orpeople with DID that is
misdiagnosed as a psychoticdisorder. That professionals
(07:56):
make it harder for these groupsof people when they don't
understand what's going on anddon't listen to the story that
goes with what people aredescribing. His approach
however, was sort of the fourthpoint because he's speaking
clinically.
He speaks so much from apathology perspective that a lot
of people who do have DID werereally offended and hurt by the
(08:18):
article because they felt thathe was describing alters as a
symptom. So in a way this istrue if you're looking at the
DSM and part of the requirementto have a diagnosis for
dissociative identity disorderis having alters. That is part
(08:39):
of the diagnosis, and that'swhere he's coming from, the
clinical pathology piece.However, from the perspective of
insiders or headmates orpersonalities or the alters
themselves, however you callthem, it was really offensive.
And so many people withplurality as a community were
really intensely discussing thisbecause there were pieces of the
(09:01):
article that were very helpfuland pieces of the article that
were a little bit confusing oreasily misunderstood and easy to
take offense about the way hepresented things.
His main point is here. Let mequote this. That the idea that
professionals can define voicesas more psychotic if people find
themselves unable to talk tothem also ignores the
(09:25):
possibility of a spectrum. Itignores the possibility that
inability to talk may be anotherfunction of the degree of
alienation. So he then goes onto talk about how in any
circumstances when there'ssomething difficult to deal
with, we have a harder timeapproaching it.
And so just because someone whopresents as psychotic has
difficulty discussing the issueor discussing what's going on or
(09:49):
describing the voices thatthey're hearing or what the
voices are saying or doing doesnot mean that they're psychotic.
It could just very well be thatthose particular voices are
dissociative states that havemore difficult issues that they
are dealing with. And so in thatcase, rather than dismissing and
(10:12):
medicating them, professionalsshould actually listen more
attentively and work morecarefully to work with those
particular states. So I thinkthat's his approach, and that's
where he's going clinically. Butit is a very clinical language.
And so for just insiders who arealters being described as a
symptom, that's where I thinkthe offense happened and where
(10:37):
some hurt feelings came inbecause no alter wants to be
described as a symptom. An alterwants to be described as a
person or whatever is true totheir nature and how they
present themselves. And thisparticular article did not leave
a lot of flexibility for that.He did, to give him credit, he
(10:58):
was trying to advocate forclinicians to improve their
practice and he was supportingthe functional purpose of
dissociation. He even said,quote, There are times it is
helpful and some degree of it ispart of healthy human
functioning.
And then he even says, aparticular kind of dissociative
(11:21):
experience can also be part of ahealthy human functioning. And
then talking about how withouthelp or organizing that or
communication internally thatthis becomes more difficult. And
then ultimately what he's doingis selling a CEU course that is
supposed to help cliniciansaddress these issues better. So
(11:41):
in some ways his motives arevery good and he's trying to
actually help the client. Butthe piece that's off or felt
misguided, I think, to a lot ofpeople in the world of
dissociation or the community ofmultiplicity and plurality, I
think part of it had to do theway he talked about pathology
(12:02):
and the way he described alterssort of from the outside rather
than recognizing eachindividual.
So there was some heated debateabout this article online and
actually asked one system tojoin us to talk a little bit
about their perspective on thisarticle and some of their
position on this article andsome of the community response
(12:26):
to it. I will let our guestsintroduce themselves, and we
will speak to two of the altersin their system, which they
refer to as a sisterhood. Theywill also explain their own view
of dissociation and multiplicityusing the social model of
disability. They make somesignificant statements about how
(12:47):
coming out empowered them tofind their own voice and relieve
them from so much stress andenergy they had used to hide
previously. After discussing thearticle, we'll talk a little bit
about community within theplural and multiplicity
community, and why that sense ofcommunity is so important.
We'll also discuss the trauma ofhaving mental illness as a
(13:09):
child, and how dissociationactually protects us from
psychosis and then at the endafter the article we'll come
full circle we'll talk some moreabout differentiating between
dissociation and psychosis Ijust wanted to include you in
the podcast. Thank you forparticipating.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No problem. Our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Why don't you go ahead I'll let you go ahead and
introduce yourselves, and thenalso let us know who we're
talking to today.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Right. So thank you again for having us on the show.
My name is Pride, and with me isLiberty. She'll come in, when
she's talking. Otherwise, Ican't get her out of the front.
So a little bit of background onus. Our system is called new
upsilonzi, and that's threedifferent Greek, Greek letters.
(13:59):
And in Roman letters, it's n yx. We see the goddess Nyx as
kind of our patron goddess, andin a way, she represents the
collective unconscious, and thatis really where in our own kind
of intersystem mythology, youcould you'd call it, that's
where we come from. Again,there's 18 of us.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
We refer to each
Speaker 2 (14:22):
other as sisters, not not alters or other terms you
may hear more commonly. We haveno central person, so it's broad
essentially, you know,egalitarian here. So we've also
got a high level of coconsciousness, and what we use
(14:43):
to help keep memories togetheris what we call the they call a
shared I, and that's like thesingular pronoun I, shared I.
And that's where any one of uscan use that to refer back to a
time when it might have beensomeone else.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Oh, wow. That's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah. It's it it it just same nature for us. Our
switching, since again, like Isay, we're co present right now.
So really the switching is justvery, very smooth and blendy. I
will typically, switch midsentence while someone else is
talking, whereas Liberty willjust come crashing through
almost like Kramer on Seinfeld.
(15:27):
That's about it on as far asjust to give Dion, you know,
basic idea behind it. Again, wecan do a disclaimer also is that
we're not experts, andeverything that we say is purely
our opinion on the differenttopics.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like I said, we wrote these down, so I was reading out
of this. Okay. So so, again, asI said, my name's Pride, and I
am not an expert, and this ispurely my opinion. They reflect
more or less my personal opinionand, in a way, our our general
collective system opinions too.So first and foremost, we
(16:07):
consider multiplicity and DID tobe separate concepts.
We see multiplicity existing asa part of and apart from DID. To
us, multiplicity is a form ofdevelopmental adaptation.
Growing up, one uses the toolsavailable to them to adapt and
survive in the environment. Someof us who have the ability to
(16:29):
dissociate become multiple.Others don't.
So, ultimately, we seemultiplicity as being as a way
of being in and relating to theworld. I, myself, pride, look at
DRD through the lens of thesocial model of disability. It
(16:50):
isn't that multiplicity itselfis disordered. It's that we live
in a society that is hostile tothe very concept itself, and
liberty will go into this later.It's society what's broken, not
us.
Were society too accommodate formultiplicity, things would be
different. We, our system, havethe privilege privilege of
(17:13):
working in a position thatallows for us to be out and no
longer remain in hiding. When westopped out, when we stopped
hiding, and we're accepted byour colleagues, our ability to
function increasedsignificantly. It wasn't about
how much effort and energy wentinto suppressing each other and
holding each other back andhiding ourselves from the world
(17:36):
until we no longer had to, andI'll just break here. The best
example for that is myself.
I had to hide my voice for solong. And once I was able to
just speak out to myself indifferent places, it is just an
immense it is an immense feelingof relief to not hear voices,
(17:57):
but to hear one's own voice.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Finally spoken aloud. And, again, it's becoming more
and more accepted among ourcolleagues. We do work, like, in
the behavioral health field, Sowe don't experience as much
stigma or oppression orsomething as a system who worked
in another field, wouldencounter. So we do recognize
and acknowledge privilege thatwe do have. Oh, that I believe
(18:23):
that ran out.
So yeah. So so sorry.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Okay. So I've been waiting for this. Hi. My name is
Liberty.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Good to meet you.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So I am a writer. Okay? I I love writing. I am a
wordsmith. And I have I havewritten about over 80 articles,
almost 80, in a series of what Icall talking back to Tumblr.
And on Tumblr, there is a huge,huge community of systems that
(18:57):
is just at each other's throats.And it's just basically social
commentary on all that. Sothat's a little bit of a
background on me. I was one ofthe last of the sisters to come
out. I was so close to thefront.
I mean, people would think thatI'm a I'm a core original
person, but I'm a 23 year oldwoman, and the body is not. And
(19:24):
I am nothing like it would be oranything else. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
But anyway, I'm I'm seen as kind
Speaker 3 (19:31):
of this the mascot, if not spokesperson of the
system sometimes, but I don'tlike that. So let me go into my
response to that article. So I'mgonna build off what Pride was
talking about, especially thestuff regarding, like, the
social model of disability shebrought up. So so mainstream
(19:53):
psychiatry has done ourcommunity a huge disservice by
erasing erasure. Not justmultiplicity, but plurality in
general, the experience of beingmore than one.
And I would like to demonstratethis. I would like I would like
to show this for you and youraudience. It's very important
(20:14):
for people in our community. Ifyou've ever been curious as to
why they changed it frommultiple personality disorder to
dissociative identity disorder,you might wanna listen to this.
And I am quoting now.
It begins, I couldn't rid DSMfour of MPD because I had to
follow my own rules, and therewas no compelling proof that MPD
(20:38):
didn't exist as a meaningfulclinical entity. It was only my
personal opinion, howevercertain I was. The best we could
do to reduce the popularity ofMPD and inspire caution in its
diagnosis was to fill its textdescription with all the cogent
arguments against it. That I am
Speaker 1 (21:02):
so sorry. Back
Speaker 3 (21:04):
to me now. Okay. That comes from an article in the
Huffington Post entitled,multiple personality. Is it
mental disorder, myth, ormetaphor? And its author is
doctor Alan Francis, MD, who wasthe chairman of the DSM four
(21:25):
task force.
He basically wrote the book, thebook where it changed from MPD
to DID. So as far as main when Isay mainstream psychiatry has an
issue with multiplicity, itdoesn't get much more mainstream
than the guy who wrote the book.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Okay. So back to the Mad in America article, though.
Okay. So the the author suggeststhat the idea of being more than
one, being plural, is comparableto a delusion. He suggests that
hearing and listening to otherpeople you share a life with,
share a body with, share a brainwith is comparable to
(22:05):
hallucinations.
And I'm sorry, but I am not asymptom. I'm a person. I I'm I'm
pretty sure about that. I youknow, fight me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Right. So
Speaker 3 (22:19):
when you remove multiplicity and plurality from
the equation of, you know, thedissociation versus psychosis,
when you remove multiplicityfrom that equation, the lines
between what the author calleddissociation and what the author
presents as psychosis becomesblurred.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Because when the author was talking about
dissociation, he was reallyreferring to the general
experiences of plurality, butthat's not the paradigm or
context he was coming from.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
In the in the world he comes from, we don't exist.
The author reflects in a verycondescending, in my opinion,
and passive aggressive way howmainstream psychiatry has come
to view us, delusional singlets.Because to them, there's no such
thing as plurality. You can justlisten to the words they use
(23:13):
when they talk about us on talkshows and in the media. A woman
that claims to have DID.
A man who claims to havemultiple personalities. And then
they bring in skeptical expertdoctors to try and quote unquote
debunk us.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Sorry. They treat us as if we're some kind of
wheeling and dealing carnivalsideshow trying to pull one over
on the public. And whenever youtalk about legitimately
recognizing plurality as a validway of being and recognizing the
people in systems as people,they will come up with these
(23:51):
bizarre quasi legal what ifsabout criminal culpability. If a
system member commits a crime,can you hold the others
accountable? I'm sorry.
Yes. If the people sharing abody with a criminal aren't able
to prevent them from committingcrimes, the body goes to jail.
End of story. I think they'd besurprised to find out that this
(24:15):
community highly values bothindividual and collective
responsibility, probably morethan they do. And we vehemently
condemn people who hide whocommit crimes and hide behind
the my altered and it depends.
So that brings us back toPride's point about how society
views us. It's either one, theydon't see us at all. Or two,
(24:37):
when they do see us, they haveno clue what to do with us.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And here's the best part.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Here's the best part. Okay? Multiplicity and plurality
have yet to be scientificallyproven facts, but neither has
singularity. There is noscientific definition of
personhood, let alone a way toquantify it and limit it to one
per body. So there's no scienceon their end either.
(25:04):
For all we know, everyone couldbe multiple, and there's nothing
they can do to dis prove it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
How do you think that those kind of experiences in
this culture shift of thingsbeing becoming less supportive
of DID or of multiplicity orbeing plural or any of the
perspectives, really, how that'sdriven some of the community,
like the different groups andsupport groups and how much we
(25:33):
need each other when there's nosupport anywhere else. And then
following up on that, why isthere why are there systems,
like, attacking each other onTumblr? Like, when we have no
one else and we need each other,why is there not more unity
across the spectrum, really?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Well, to give the community some credit, the as
it's called the system discoursereally only exists on Tumblr.
I've found great communitiesboth online and many different
places that are all inclusive.You have people who, you know,
form from trauma, people who donot believe they did, people who
but everyone is multiple. Iguarantee you that I will I will
(26:14):
only say that there is onesystem I know. Okay.
There's only one who claims tohave no trauma experience. So
trauma is, again, it's prettymuch typical across the board,
but we respect people's beliefsabout what they how how and why
they see their system.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
The terms they use. Everyone is free to define
themselves and each other. Sowith that, I want I'll I'll give
you an example about how muchour community needs community.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
We've been isolated from one another and almost
actively kept from one another.Because for the for the longest
time and still pretty much,professionals have been the
gateway to one another. Right.We only have these, you know,
(27:08):
big national conventions once ayear or all these other things
that are put on by people whoare not multiple. And we have
and and when we do get together,it's like in the context of
support groups.
In other words, there's nochance for us to just sit
around, hang around with eachother, and be normal without the
(27:29):
outside the context ofpsychiatric treatment.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And to give it to illustrate this, us and two
other systems just last summerwere going around the kind of
the East Coast holding it wastwo different conferences we
went to. Holding pluralcaucuses. In other words, a
session during, like, you know,kinda after after hours at
(27:55):
night, where the only people whocome are multiple or plural in
some way, however they identifyalong that spectrum.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
The first one we did two of them. The first one we
did, these two systems showedshowed up. I I I'd say they were
about in their late fifties, andthey were just kinda sitting
there giggling with one another.And we asked them, you know,
hey. Do know do you all knoweach other?
And they said, we've workedtogether for twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No way.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
But they didn't know the other one was multiple until
they both showed up at this atthe caucus.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No way.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah. It was incredibly moving. It was
incredibly it really just waslike, wow. That's how in you
know, you to borrow a term fromthat's how in the closet we are.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
That we can, you know, hide it so much just from
systems that we work with andare side by side with all the
time. But then again, if youthink about it, if yeah. If
that's your normal, ifmultiplicity is your normal, and
you're around someone else'smultiple, you might not even
notice it. That's how we foundout we were technically, didn't
find out we were multiple. Wefound out everyone else wasn't.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Oh, that's really a good way of phrasing it.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah. I mean, we we did not
Speaker 3 (29:21):
know that not everyone had an inner family
that took care of them, and thatyou took care of, and that they
were the reason that you went towork, and you went to school,
and you fed yourself, and keptyourself alive, because there
were other people you had tolook out for, but no one talked
about any of this. Because ifyou did, people would think you
(29:41):
were selfish, and that was avery shameful thing in our
family to be, was to be thoughtof as selfish. And so that's one
reason why it took us so long tofigure out that, yeah, no one no
one talked about it. But, yeah,
Speaker 2 (29:57):
yeah, this is different from
Speaker 3 (29:58):
everyone else. So back to the back to the story.
But back to the story. Okay? Theother caucus we had was so much
larger.
There were about, I would say, agood 60 systems there at this
conference.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At this caucus. You know? It was it was guided
discussion. It wasn't a supportgroup. It was, you talking on
different topics that arerelevant to ourselves, our
community, our future, all thoseother things that we don't get
to talk about together with eachother because we're always being
monitored.
And then the coolest part wasafterwards, we all a lot of us,
(30:39):
about maybe 20 systems or so,went back to the condo we were
renting and just had kind of ahouse party. And it was in
pride's terms, and she'll comein in a second probably, the
words that she used to describethat simple house party was
(31:01):
extraordinarily normal. In otherwords, if you were just standing
there watching what was going onand you didn't know anyone here
was multiple or everyone herewas, there was just one single
was the spouse of one of thesystems, You would not know that
anything was different. Therewas no different.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
And we ordered we ordered pizza, and surprisingly
enough to have 20 systems in thesame party ordering pizza was
surprisingly easy. That's funny.And you know what? No one went
into crisis. No one, you know,just slept with each other.
No one got in a fight. Nonothing of those things
(31:44):
happened. And those are alwaysthe reasons that docs say, oh,
you shouldn't have themtogether. They'll trigger each
other, and it'll just go all,you know, haywire and
everything.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That's that always baffles me a little bit because
part of how we're built is toprotect ourselves and each
other. And so it kind of bafflesme when that line of thinking
comes up because it doesn't seemconsistent with what
dissociation is at all.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah. And and so to give you an like an idea of what
it was like, one thing that wasreally neat at the party was,
you know, being able to switchopenly and talk with each other
and meet tons of new people. Andso when psychiatrists say they
shouldn't let multiples gettogether and socialize because
it'll be uncontrollableswitching. Well, you know what?
(32:31):
When you're in a big group ofpeople and you wanna meet new
people, you gotta be able to sayhi to them.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And so, yeah, people were switching, but it wasn't,
like, out of control oranything. It was just, like,
brightest, extraordinarilynormal because it it's what we
are not allowed to be. We arenot allowed to be normal. You
know, we're not allowed to justhave these house parties and
(32:59):
hang around and everything. Sothere are some systems who are
really active, being doing somegreat activism.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
That's amazing. I would love to talk to them. Well
and also, just going back to thestory you told about the two
people who worked together fortwenty two years, that Mhmm. Is
so touching to me. I I found outabout the diagnosis, like,
twenty years ago.
Okay? Mhmm. And had been intherapy for almost two years and
(33:31):
had no idea. And I went intovery much denial, dropped it.
Many years passed.
I have a doctorate. I'm alicensed clinician. And then
when everything fell apart forme and I had to finally
recognize, okay, this is thething, and this is happening.
There was, first of all, no onewho knew how to treat or help me
(33:55):
in my area. There was no one Ihad not supervised and trained
myself, and it was reallydifficult.
And now we have a really goodtea after working really hard
and finding a good therapist. Wehave a good therapist, but she's
four hours away. And so we driveevery week four hours just to
(34:19):
get to therapy and then fourhours to get back home. And so I
can only imagine. Well and thenso then for me too, just me
personally, there's this layerof I don't know better word
like, professional shame.
Like, I don't know better wordsto say for it because I think I
(34:40):
knew enough to avoid, like,trauma cases. Like, I just would
not accept trauma cases. I wouldnot go there. Other people were
interested, and they could takecare of that. And I stayed away
from that professionally.
So that was the boundary I setsort of protective for myself
and other people. But there wasno way to get help and no way to
(35:04):
fight my own stigma that therest of the time I'm advocating
against.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Does that make sense? And so Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Absolutely. That makes
Speaker 1 (35:14):
total and complete sense. Of community that you're
sharing is just so touching tome because I keep finding more
and more people who wereclinicians or in the field in
some way and saying, it was hardfor me too. I couldn't find help
either. And I was alone in it orfelt foolish for not figuring
things out sooner or nothandling it better when I did or
(35:38):
all these things, like, are allour own coming out stories
become a part of this. I justthink that community piece is so
important.
So that story of the two peoplewho met and had been alongside
each other all along is just sotouching. And the movement,
there's several different peopledoing movements, like you said,
sort of to unite us together assystems that I think is just
(36:02):
really powerful and has its ownhealing involved in it.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
And we've got some great allies out there too.
There's one single his name is,I can shout out to Jim
Bunkelman. He's the widow ofRhonda, and they were a system.
And his story and his, allyshipand everything else has been
just incredibly, valuable. Theythere's a group called Plural
(36:29):
Activism.
It's a Facebook group, but it'salso a Yahoo group. But Yahoo
groups are kinda dying out.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Right. We used to all be there. I remember that back
in the day.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. We we got our start. I
mean,
Speaker 2 (36:47):
we did not come into the community through any of
Speaker 3 (36:49):
the other avenues, like, you know, other kin, you
name like, soul bonding oranything like that that a lot of
other people have. We just camestraight into the multiple the
multiple community, the plural.And if you don't mind me talking
about again, we've been multiplesince we're children. Our theory
(37:10):
is that early childhood onsetbipolar that was untreated,
people don't talk about thetrauma of actually having a
mental illness. Oh.
And so when you're alone in yourhead as a child and you are
feeling things that are not yourfeelings and thinking thoughts
that are not your thoughts thatyou don't want
Speaker 2 (37:30):
to think, it helps to be
Speaker 3 (37:32):
able to put some distance between that thing,
whatever that other thing is inthere, and yourself. And if you
can do that, if you are able todissociate, that's just what
you'll do. And so from a youngage, that's just what we thought
was normal because people toldus, no. You don't have you don't
have this. You don't have that.
(37:53):
You know? And it was just it wasmanic depression at the time,
now called bipolar disorder. Butgrowing up, eventually, things
started to fall apart. And whenwe were about 17, we started
seeing the therapist. We've beenseeing her for now, I think it's
twenty years.
(38:14):
We are incredibly fortunate tohave her, especially because we
we never knew until much, muchlater that she actually was
specialist in dissociativedisorders because we had no clue
about our multiplicity until,you know, in our thirties. And
she said that when we firstwalked into her office at about,
(38:36):
like, 17 years old, she knew wewere multiple.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
No way.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
But the reason she never said anything until we
discovered it for ourselves wasbecause she did not want to
influence us.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Oh, wow. Was really respectful.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah. Oh, and we've we've thanked her for that, but
she said, yeah. I know. Youknow? And so it's it's been
incredibly, incredibly helpful.
I mean, we really wouldn't behere without her, but we know
that's not the norm to have asay the same therapist all that
time does know what you're goingthrough, who has that
(39:15):
experience, and who is open toit and can recognize it and
validate that is not the norm.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
That's pretty special. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah. I mean, we have to
Speaker 3 (39:27):
we do recognize and acknowledge that a lot of what
we experience is from privilegeand that this is not always the
norm. And we do, when we, youknow, disclose to people, we do
mention that that there are oursibling systems out there who
really are struggling. And someof us actually believe that with
the DSM five is actually a goodthing.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Oh, yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Because if you look at it, what they've done is
they've taken multiplicityitself and separated it out from
all the rest of the stuff thatmakes it a disorder,
Speaker 2 (40:02):
like
Speaker 3 (40:02):
amnesia and anything else. And it has to be causing a
problem in your life. You can'tjust walk into a therapist's
office and say, hey. I'mmultiple. I need help.
It'll be okay. You're multipleand. You know? So that way the
folks who do really need helparen't are are able to access
it. And the folks who don't likeus, we just go in for bipolar
(40:24):
related stuff.
I I mean, you know, having onemental illness and sharing the
same brain, it all affects usvery, very differently. But it's
not DID. It's not themultiplicity that is,
disordering or disabling for us.That's actually it's
multiplicity has actually beenwhat has saved our sanity in
(40:44):
many cases. Mhmm.
Because that's what dissociationis, and the and multiplicity as
its end result, that's whatdissociation is. It's a defense
mechanism. But people don'treally ever mention what it is a
defense against. And in ouropinion, our non expert, it is a
defense against psychosis. It isa defense against going crazy.
(41:10):
It's a way protect your mind, toprotect, oddly enough, protect
the integrity. It's not toshatter or anything. It's to
protect your sanity. And sothat's why when I read that
article about, you know,dissociation versus psychosis,
from my perspective of the wholething, I just couldn't really
(41:31):
understand, like, why is thisconfusing to you? You know?
Why why why are you evenconfused by this? You're
comparing apples to, you know,not apples to orange. It'd be
having to like apples totomatoes or something. Tomatoes
still a fruit. Sorry.
Sorry. But you know, thecomparison sorry. The
(41:52):
comparison, didn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
That's really significant though, I think. I
think that's really powerfulwhat you said about dissociation
protecting us from psychosis.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yes. Yes. I mean, because we've never been
psychotic. We've got bipolar.We've got it pretty bad.
It's pretty intense if nottreated. You know, right now,
we're we are, like, on fivedifferent medications, and they
are very, very helpful for us.But, yeah, we have never been
psychotic. We've been to thebrink. We've been to the edge,
(42:28):
but it's always dissociation orsome form that has brought us
back.
So I I mean, that's that's ourunderstanding of the
relationship betweendissociation and psychosis is
that dissociation is there is toprevent it.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
I think that's really powerful. Thank you. Thank you
for
Speaker 2 (42:46):
sharing with No problem. Thank you so much for
having us on.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
This has been great. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So before we sign off, there's a little bit more I
want to share about this. I wantto go back to some of the things
that Doctor. Colin Ross sharedwhen we interviewed him and
things he has said in otherpresentations. I can provide a
link to some of the videos ofhim presenting where he talks
about this very thingdissociation versus psychosis
(43:16):
and differentiating betweenthem. But one thing he points
out is that the NationalInstitute of Mental Health has
decided to stop funding DSMcategories because now they only
fund things with a biologicalbasis, which means there's no
actual direct funding orresearch into dissociative
(43:39):
identity aspects of research arenot all appropriately
conclusive.
(44:00):
So one example Doctor. Ross gavewas the BRCA gene that indicates
when a woman is high risk forbreast cancer. This is not
actually true. Testing positivefor the BRCA gene means that
their body has a low capacity torepair damaged cells, and this
(44:21):
is more prevalent in groups ofpeople who have been
traumatized. So for example, theJews who survived the Holocaust
and their descendants have ahigher rate of not only cancer,
but also this particular gene,which I think he did not say
this, Doctor.
Ross did not say this, but Ipersonally think that's some
(44:42):
powerful imagery, likesymbolically there's something
going on that breast cancer wasnot as prevalent or a thing the
way it is now before thatpopulation had to literally wear
stars on their chest or broke ortheir hearts were broken by the
(45:05):
torturing and killing of theirfamilies. It's a physical grief.
Now I'm not saying that thisgroup of Jews are the only ones
who have breast cancer or whohave gone through that, But it's
when Doctor. Ross talks aboutthat and gives the Burkitt gene
example, he's talking about aspecific study that was done on
(45:28):
those descendants. So that's whyI'm referencing it.
But I thought it was such apowerful image because there's
significant historical trauma inthat population. The other thing
that Doctor. Ross points outoften in his presentations is
that dissociative identitydisorders or even dissociative
disorders in general are not inthe same category as psychotic
(45:53):
disorders. However, there's ahigh rate of people with
dissociative disorders who aremisdiagnosed as psychotic. So
how does this happen?
So one thing that we need tounderstand if you don't know the
clinical language is that whenwe talk about symptoms for a
disorder, there's two kinds ofsymptoms. Negative symptoms does
(46:17):
not mean you test negative forthe symptoms. It means it's a
symptom that is there becausethere's something that's
missing. Positive symptoms meanthere's something there that
shouldn't be. Does that makesense?
So negative symptoms meansomething's missing, and
positive symptoms mean there'ssomething extra there that
(46:37):
shouldn't be there. So whatDoctor. Ross points out about
negative symptoms and positivesymptoms is that the negative
symptoms for psychotic disorderssuch as a very flat affect or
being disconnectedinterpersonally are also the
(46:58):
positive symptoms for attachmentproblems that are caused by
trauma and neglect. And in thesame way, the positive symptoms
for a psychotic disorder such ashearing voices are the same
symptoms that are positive fordissociation. So what he's
(47:18):
saying is there's such a highrate of misdiagnosis of
dissociative disorders aspsychotic disorders in part
because clinicians don'tunderstand what they're seeing.
And when they see symptoms thatare positive for dissociation,
they're interpreting them aspositive for psychotic disorder.
(47:40):
And when they're seeing symptomsthat are negative symptoms that
also indicate psychoticdisorder, what they really are
are positive symptoms forattachment problems caused by
trauma and neglect, and thatthis is how it's diagnosed. So
that's why I wanted to add thatpiece at the end and include it,
in this podcast because I thinkthat explains a lot of what
(48:03):
happens clinically whenclinicians and psychiatrists are
not understanding dissociationand that this is how they
misinterpret and misdiagnosedissociative disorders as
psychotic disorders, which arenot the same thing at all. I
(48:24):
hope that's somewhat helpful. Wecan talk about it more in-depth
in the future, but that was whatI wanted to share today.
Thank you. Thank you forlistening. Your support really
helps us feel less alone whilewe sort through all of this and
(48:44):
learn together.
Over
about Dissociative IdentityDisorder. If you are new to the
podcast, we recommend startingat the beginning episodes and
listen in order to hear ourstory and what we have learned
through this endeavor. Currentepisodes may be more applicable
to longtime listeners and arelikely to contain more advanced
(00:32):
topics, emotional or othertriggering content, and or
reference earlier episodes thatprovide more context to what we
are currently learning andexperiencing. As always, please
care for yourself during andafter listening to the podcast.
Thank you.
(00:58):
This is Doctor. E, and one ofthe things that I wanted to talk
about is dissociation versuspsychosis for two reasons. One,
when you don't understand what'sgoing on with dissociation, it
could very easily feel crazy oroverwhelming. It can feel crazy
and overwhelming even when youdo understand what's going on.
(01:19):
And two, from the outside, thereare times when it can look crazy
or what they're describingsounds crazy if you don't
understand what's going on.
So it's important to understandthe difference between
dissociation and psychosis.There's several things about
this and the way perspective ischanging and the way research is
(01:40):
changing as well. So forexample, the old school ways of
differentiating between anddissociative identity disorder
were pretty simple. It had to dowith whether the voices were
coming from inside or outsidethe person and whether, for
example, if the voices wereheard made sense in context of
(02:03):
the person's stories or memoriesor need to keep safe as opposed
to command hallucinations, forexample, that were incoherent or
did not make sense in a realitybased way. Last week, however,
in the Mad in America articlefor science, psychiatry, and
social justice, there was anarticle published, I guess in
(02:27):
May, by a social worker thattalked about distinguishing
dissociative disorders frompsychotic disorders and
compounding alienation.
And I will provide a link to thearticle in the blog, but the
article itself was interestingand there was a lot of
discussion about it online. So Iwanted to talk about it on the
podcast as well. There areseveral things to know about the
(02:48):
article. For one, from the veryonset of his thesis statement in
the article, he makes clear thathis approach is that of both
psychosis and DID being anillness. This is important
because while it is true thatwhen there is trauma, although
there are some systems that saythat they are not trauma based,
(03:11):
but generally speaking, whenthere is trauma that has caused,
a lack of integration of thepersonality and development or
further dissociation because ofongoing trauma and neglect, then
that is a developmental andtrauma response, which does
cause changes in the brain.
(03:32):
And so there is that pathologyif you're looking at it from a
perspective of what has gonewrong. But as we pointed out in
the podcast when we interviewedDoctor. Ross, that pathology of
looking at what is wrong isdifferent than saying you are
wrong as the client or as theconsumer for mental health
(03:54):
services or as the person withDID. There's a difference
between the pathology of this iswrong and the story of what
happened to you. So the exampleDoctor.
Colin Ross gave in episode nineof our podcast was in an
emergency room when someone hasbeen in a car accident and is
brought to the emergency roomfor a broken leg. The pathology
(04:17):
is the broken leg, that's true,But the cause is the car
accident, not the person. So wehave to be careful when we're
talking about pathology and howwe assign that to a person
because it's one thing to say,this is not working and is not
functioning, and another thingto say, you are not working or
you are not functioning or youare unwell or this won't work
(04:41):
for you at any level ever or youcan't work in this way. Like,
it's a very delicate line andbalanced just from that piece.
So when he starts his articleand the quote is, between
dissociative disorders withtheir roots in trauma and
psychotic disorders, which aredefinitely illnesses of the
(05:01):
brain.
So it's unclear because itsounds like he's referring to
psychotic disorders as anillness of the brain and
dissociative disorders withtheir roots in trauma. But the
way it's written, it also soundslike he's saying both are
definitely illnesses of thebrain. So that was the first
sensitivity people had, and Ithink that piece maybe was just
(05:23):
a misunderstanding of thephrasing of the sentence because
I do think he's giving, becausehe has that clause between
there, I think he is saying thatdissociative disorders with
their roots in trauma, and thenseparately from that he's also
saying psychotic disorders,which is an illness of the
brain. So I don't think that hemeant it the way a lot people
(05:44):
took it. I think it'sunfortunate that the reading
came across that way, and Iunderstand why people were upset
about it.
Then the next piece of hisarticle that I think was
confusing for a lot of peoplewas when he talks about a person
recognizing alien parts ofthemselves and how for a
(06:05):
dissociative disorder that alienmay be perceived as an actual
alien or alien as in justforeign, that it's something
separate or different than who Iam. And so that could be
attributed to differentpersonalities, which would be
appropriate for dissociativedisorder. But if someone is
(06:25):
seeing those alien parts ofthemselves because of being
literal aliens or demons or CIAagents talking to them through a
brain implant, then they wouldbe diagnosed as psychotic. So
he's trying to differentiateagain based on the reality and
likelihood of what it is that'shappened. And so he's saying
most commonly people in thegeneral population who are not
(06:50):
well educated about DID, muchless like anything like RA or
any kind of ritual abuse, thatthey would not understand what
to do with that and rather thanbeing diagnosed with a
dissociative disorder, theywould be diagnosed as psychotic.
The next piece is that theauthor goes forward in saying
(07:11):
that professionals in the fieldcould do a better job of
acknowledging what the personhas inside them and what they
are going through, and thatregardless of how this is
described or presented, that itcould be very well a human
response to difficultcircumstances. Or he says,
(07:34):
quote, a very human response tovery difficult experiences, and
the brain may simply beresponding to those experiences.
So he's saying clinicians makeit harder for people with DID or
even psychotic disorders orpeople with DID that is
misdiagnosed as a psychoticdisorder. That professionals
(07:56):
make it harder for these groupsof people when they don't
understand what's going on anddon't listen to the story that
goes with what people aredescribing. His approach
however, was sort of the fourthpoint because he's speaking
clinically.
He speaks so much from apathology perspective that a lot
of people who do have DID werereally offended and hurt by the
(08:18):
article because they felt thathe was describing alters as a
symptom. So in a way this istrue if you're looking at the
DSM and part of the requirementto have a diagnosis for
dissociative identity disorderis having alters. That is part
(08:39):
of the diagnosis, and that'swhere he's coming from, the
clinical pathology piece.However, from the perspective of
insiders or headmates orpersonalities or the alters
themselves, however you callthem, it was really offensive.
And so many people withplurality as a community were
really intensely discussing thisbecause there were pieces of the
(09:01):
article that were very helpfuland pieces of the article that
were a little bit confusing oreasily misunderstood and easy to
take offense about the way hepresented things.
His main point is here. Let mequote this. That the idea that
professionals can define voicesas more psychotic if people find
themselves unable to talk tothem also ignores the
(09:25):
possibility of a spectrum. Itignores the possibility that
inability to talk may be anotherfunction of the degree of
alienation. So he then goes onto talk about how in any
circumstances when there'ssomething difficult to deal
with, we have a harder timeapproaching it.
And so just because someone whopresents as psychotic has
difficulty discussing the issueor discussing what's going on or
(09:49):
describing the voices thatthey're hearing or what the
voices are saying or doing doesnot mean that they're psychotic.
It could just very well be thatthose particular voices are
dissociative states that havemore difficult issues that they
are dealing with. And so in thatcase, rather than dismissing and
(10:12):
medicating them, professionalsshould actually listen more
attentively and work morecarefully to work with those
particular states. So I thinkthat's his approach, and that's
where he's going clinically. Butit is a very clinical language.
And so for just insiders who arealters being described as a
symptom, that's where I thinkthe offense happened and where
(10:37):
some hurt feelings came inbecause no alter wants to be
described as a symptom. An alterwants to be described as a
person or whatever is true totheir nature and how they
present themselves. And thisparticular article did not leave
a lot of flexibility for that.He did, to give him credit, he
(10:58):
was trying to advocate forclinicians to improve their
practice and he was supportingthe functional purpose of
dissociation. He even said,quote, There are times it is
helpful and some degree of it ispart of healthy human
functioning.
And then he even says, aparticular kind of dissociative
(11:21):
experience can also be part of ahealthy human functioning. And
then talking about how withouthelp or organizing that or
communication internally thatthis becomes more difficult. And
then ultimately what he's doingis selling a CEU course that is
supposed to help cliniciansaddress these issues better. So
(11:41):
in some ways his motives arevery good and he's trying to
actually help the client. Butthe piece that's off or felt
misguided, I think, to a lot ofpeople in the world of
dissociation or the community ofmultiplicity and plurality, I
think part of it had to do theway he talked about pathology
(12:02):
and the way he described alterssort of from the outside rather
than recognizing eachindividual.
So there was some heated debateabout this article online and
actually asked one system tojoin us to talk a little bit
about their perspective on thisarticle and some of their
position on this article andsome of the community response
(12:26):
to it. I will let our guestsintroduce themselves, and we
will speak to two of the altersin their system, which they
refer to as a sisterhood. Theywill also explain their own view
of dissociation and multiplicityusing the social model of
disability. They make somesignificant statements about how
(12:47):
coming out empowered them tofind their own voice and relieve
them from so much stress andenergy they had used to hide
previously. After discussing thearticle, we'll talk a little bit
about community within theplural and multiplicity
community, and why that sense ofcommunity is so important.
We'll also discuss the trauma ofhaving mental illness as a
(13:09):
child, and how dissociationactually protects us from
psychosis and then at the endafter the article we'll come
full circle we'll talk some moreabout differentiating between
dissociation and psychosis Ijust wanted to include you in
the podcast. Thank you forparticipating.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No problem. Our pleasure.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Why don't you go ahead I'll let you go ahead and
introduce yourselves, and thenalso let us know who we're
talking to today.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Right. So thank you again for having us on the show.
My name is Pride, and with me isLiberty. She'll come in, when
she's talking. Otherwise, Ican't get her out of the front.
So a little bit of background onus. Our system is called new
upsilonzi, and that's threedifferent Greek, Greek letters.
(13:59):
And in Roman letters, it's n yx. We see the goddess Nyx as
kind of our patron goddess, andin a way, she represents the
collective unconscious, and thatis really where in our own kind
of intersystem mythology, youcould you'd call it, that's
where we come from. Again,there's 18 of us.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
We refer to each
Speaker 2 (14:22):
other as sisters, not not alters or other terms you
may hear more commonly. We haveno central person, so it's broad
essentially, you know,egalitarian here. So we've also
got a high level of coconsciousness, and what we use
(14:43):
to help keep memories togetheris what we call the they call a
shared I, and that's like thesingular pronoun I, shared I.
And that's where any one of uscan use that to refer back to a
time when it might have beensomeone else.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Oh, wow. That's kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah. It's it it it just same nature for us. Our
switching, since again, like Isay, we're co present right now.
So really the switching is justvery, very smooth and blendy. I
will typically, switch midsentence while someone else is
talking, whereas Liberty willjust come crashing through
almost like Kramer on Seinfeld.
(15:27):
That's about it on as far asjust to give Dion, you know,
basic idea behind it. Again, wecan do a disclaimer also is that
we're not experts, andeverything that we say is purely
our opinion on the differenttopics.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Like I said, we wrote these down, so I was reading out
of this. Okay. So so, again, asI said, my name's Pride, and I
am not an expert, and this ispurely my opinion. They reflect
more or less my personal opinionand, in a way, our our general
collective system opinions too.So first and foremost, we
(16:07):
consider multiplicity and DID tobe separate concepts.
We see multiplicity existing asa part of and apart from DID. To
us, multiplicity is a form ofdevelopmental adaptation.
Growing up, one uses the toolsavailable to them to adapt and
survive in the environment. Someof us who have the ability to
(16:29):
dissociate become multiple.Others don't.
So, ultimately, we seemultiplicity as being as a way
of being in and relating to theworld. I, myself, pride, look at
DRD through the lens of thesocial model of disability. It
(16:50):
isn't that multiplicity itselfis disordered. It's that we live
in a society that is hostile tothe very concept itself, and
liberty will go into this later.It's society what's broken, not
us.
Were society too accommodate formultiplicity, things would be
different. We, our system, havethe privilege privilege of
(17:13):
working in a position thatallows for us to be out and no
longer remain in hiding. When westopped out, when we stopped
hiding, and we're accepted byour colleagues, our ability to
function increasedsignificantly. It wasn't about
how much effort and energy wentinto suppressing each other and
holding each other back andhiding ourselves from the world
(17:36):
until we no longer had to, andI'll just break here. The best
example for that is myself.
I had to hide my voice for solong. And once I was able to
just speak out to myself indifferent places, it is just an
immense it is an immense feelingof relief to not hear voices,
(17:57):
but to hear one's own voice.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Finally spoken aloud. And, again, it's becoming more
and more accepted among ourcolleagues. We do work, like, in
the behavioral health field, Sowe don't experience as much
stigma or oppression orsomething as a system who worked
in another field, wouldencounter. So we do recognize
and acknowledge privilege thatwe do have. Oh, that I believe
(18:23):
that ran out.
So yeah. So so sorry.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Okay. So I've been waiting for this. Hi. My name is
Liberty.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Good to meet you.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
So I am a writer. Okay? I I love writing. I am a
wordsmith. And I have I havewritten about over 80 articles,
almost 80, in a series of what Icall talking back to Tumblr.
And on Tumblr, there is a huge,huge community of systems that
(18:57):
is just at each other's throats.And it's just basically social
commentary on all that. Sothat's a little bit of a
background on me. I was one ofthe last of the sisters to come
out. I was so close to thefront.
I mean, people would think thatI'm a I'm a core original
person, but I'm a 23 year oldwoman, and the body is not. And
(19:24):
I am nothing like it would be oranything else. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
But anyway, I'm I'm seen as kind
Speaker 3 (19:31):
of this the mascot, if not spokesperson of the
system sometimes, but I don'tlike that. So let me go into my
response to that article. So I'mgonna build off what Pride was
talking about, especially thestuff regarding, like, the
social model of disability shebrought up. So so mainstream
(19:53):
psychiatry has done ourcommunity a huge disservice by
erasing erasure. Not justmultiplicity, but plurality in
general, the experience of beingmore than one.
And I would like to demonstratethis. I would like I would like
to show this for you and youraudience. It's very important
(20:14):
for people in our community. Ifyou've ever been curious as to
why they changed it frommultiple personality disorder to
dissociative identity disorder,you might wanna listen to this.
And I am quoting now.
It begins, I couldn't rid DSMfour of MPD because I had to
follow my own rules, and therewas no compelling proof that MPD
(20:38):
didn't exist as a meaningfulclinical entity. It was only my
personal opinion, howevercertain I was. The best we could
do to reduce the popularity ofMPD and inspire caution in its
diagnosis was to fill its textdescription with all the cogent
arguments against it. That I am
Speaker 1 (21:02):
so sorry. Back
Speaker 3 (21:04):
to me now. Okay. That comes from an article in the
Huffington Post entitled,multiple personality. Is it
mental disorder, myth, ormetaphor? And its author is
doctor Alan Francis, MD, who wasthe chairman of the DSM four
(21:25):
task force.
He basically wrote the book, thebook where it changed from MPD
to DID. So as far as main when Isay mainstream psychiatry has an
issue with multiplicity, itdoesn't get much more mainstream
than the guy who wrote the book.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Right. Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Okay. So back to the Mad in America article, though.
Okay. So the the author suggeststhat the idea of being more than
one, being plural, is comparableto a delusion. He suggests that
hearing and listening to otherpeople you share a life with,
share a body with, share a brainwith is comparable to
(22:05):
hallucinations.
And I'm sorry, but I am not asymptom. I'm a person. I I'm I'm
pretty sure about that. I youknow, fight me.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Right. So
Speaker 3 (22:19):
when you remove multiplicity and plurality from
the equation of, you know, thedissociation versus psychosis,
when you remove multiplicityfrom that equation, the lines
between what the author calleddissociation and what the author
presents as psychosis becomesblurred.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Because when the author was talking about
dissociation, he was reallyreferring to the general
experiences of plurality, butthat's not the paradigm or
context he was coming from.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
In the in the world he comes from, we don't exist.
The author reflects in a verycondescending, in my opinion,
and passive aggressive way howmainstream psychiatry has come
to view us, delusional singlets.Because to them, there's no such
thing as plurality. You can justlisten to the words they use
(23:13):
when they talk about us on talkshows and in the media. A woman
that claims to have DID.
A man who claims to havemultiple personalities. And then
they bring in skeptical expertdoctors to try and quote unquote
debunk us.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Sorry. They treat us as if we're some kind of
wheeling and dealing carnivalsideshow trying to pull one over
on the public. And whenever youtalk about legitimately
recognizing plurality as a validway of being and recognizing the
people in systems as people,they will come up with these
(23:51):
bizarre quasi legal what ifsabout criminal culpability. If a
system member commits a crime,can you hold the others
accountable? I'm sorry.
Yes. If the people sharing abody with a criminal aren't able
to prevent them from committingcrimes, the body goes to jail.
End of story. I think they'd besurprised to find out that this
(24:15):
community highly values bothindividual and collective
responsibility, probably morethan they do. And we vehemently
condemn people who hide whocommit crimes and hide behind
the my altered and it depends.
So that brings us back toPride's point about how society
views us. It's either one, theydon't see us at all. Or two,
(24:37):
when they do see us, they haveno clue what to do with us.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
And here's the best part.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
Here's the best part. Okay? Multiplicity and plurality
have yet to be scientificallyproven facts, but neither has
singularity. There is noscientific definition of
personhood, let alone a way toquantify it and limit it to one
per body. So there's no scienceon their end either.
(25:04):
For all we know, everyone couldbe multiple, and there's nothing
they can do to dis prove it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
How do you think that those kind of experiences in
this culture shift of thingsbeing becoming less supportive
of DID or of multiplicity orbeing plural or any of the
perspectives, really, how that'sdriven some of the community,
like the different groups andsupport groups and how much we
(25:33):
need each other when there's nosupport anywhere else. And then
following up on that, why isthere why are there systems,
like, attacking each other onTumblr? Like, when we have no
one else and we need each other,why is there not more unity
across the spectrum, really?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Well, to give the community some credit, the as
it's called the system discoursereally only exists on Tumblr.
I've found great communitiesboth online and many different
places that are all inclusive.You have people who, you know,
form from trauma, people who donot believe they did, people who
but everyone is multiple. Iguarantee you that I will I will
(26:14):
only say that there is onesystem I know. Okay.
There's only one who claims tohave no trauma experience. So
trauma is, again, it's prettymuch typical across the board,
but we respect people's beliefsabout what they how how and why
they see their system.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
The terms they use. Everyone is free to define
themselves and each other. Sowith that, I want I'll I'll give
you an example about how muchour community needs community.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
We've been isolated from one another and almost
actively kept from one another.Because for the for the longest
time and still pretty much,professionals have been the
gateway to one another. Right.We only have these, you know,
(27:08):
big national conventions once ayear or all these other things
that are put on by people whoare not multiple. And we have
and and when we do get together,it's like in the context of
support groups.
In other words, there's nochance for us to just sit
around, hang around with eachother, and be normal without the
(27:29):
outside the context ofpsychiatric treatment.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Oh, I see.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
And to give it to illustrate this, us and two
other systems just last summerwere going around the kind of
the East Coast holding it wastwo different conferences we
went to. Holding pluralcaucuses. In other words, a
session during, like, you know,kinda after after hours at
(27:55):
night, where the only people whocome are multiple or plural in
some way, however they identifyalong that spectrum.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
The first one we did two of them. The first one we
did, these two systems showedshowed up. I I I'd say they were
about in their late fifties, andthey were just kinda sitting
there giggling with one another.And we asked them, you know,
hey. Do know do you all knoweach other?
And they said, we've workedtogether for twenty two years.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
No way.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
But they didn't know the other one was multiple until
they both showed up at this atthe caucus.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No way.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah. It was incredibly moving. It was
incredibly it really just waslike, wow. That's how in you
know, you to borrow a term fromthat's how in the closet we are.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
That we can, you know, hide it so much just from
systems that we work with andare side by side with all the
time. But then again, if youthink about it, if yeah. If
that's your normal, ifmultiplicity is your normal, and
you're around someone else'smultiple, you might not even
notice it. That's how we foundout we were technically, didn't
find out we were multiple. Wefound out everyone else wasn't.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Oh, that's really a good way of phrasing it.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah. I mean, we we did not
Speaker 3 (29:21):
know that not everyone had an inner family
that took care of them, and thatyou took care of, and that they
were the reason that you went towork, and you went to school,
and you fed yourself, and keptyourself alive, because there
were other people you had tolook out for, but no one talked
about any of this. Because ifyou did, people would think you
(29:41):
were selfish, and that was avery shameful thing in our
family to be, was to be thoughtof as selfish. And so that's one
reason why it took us so long tofigure out that, yeah, no one no
one talked about it. But, yeah,
Speaker 2 (29:57):
yeah, this is different from
Speaker 3 (29:58):
everyone else. So back to the back to the story.
But back to the story. Okay? Theother caucus we had was so much
larger.
There were about, I would say, agood 60 systems there at this
conference.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
At this caucus. You know? It was it was guided
discussion. It wasn't a supportgroup. It was, you talking on
different topics that arerelevant to ourselves, our
community, our future, all thoseother things that we don't get
to talk about together with eachother because we're always being
monitored.
And then the coolest part wasafterwards, we all a lot of us,
(30:39):
about maybe 20 systems or so,went back to the condo we were
renting and just had kind of ahouse party. And it was in
pride's terms, and she'll comein in a second probably, the
words that she used to describethat simple house party was
(31:01):
extraordinarily normal. In otherwords, if you were just standing
there watching what was going onand you didn't know anyone here
was multiple or everyone herewas, there was just one single
was the spouse of one of thesystems, You would not know that
anything was different. Therewas no different.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
And we ordered we ordered pizza, and surprisingly
enough to have 20 systems in thesame party ordering pizza was
surprisingly easy. That's funny.And you know what? No one went
into crisis. No one, you know,just slept with each other.
No one got in a fight. Nonothing of those things
(31:44):
happened. And those are alwaysthe reasons that docs say, oh,
you shouldn't have themtogether. They'll trigger each
other, and it'll just go all,you know, haywire and
everything.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
That's that always baffles me a little bit because
part of how we're built is toprotect ourselves and each
other. And so it kind of bafflesme when that line of thinking
comes up because it doesn't seemconsistent with what
dissociation is at all.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Yeah. And and so to give you an like an idea of what
it was like, one thing that wasreally neat at the party was,
you know, being able to switchopenly and talk with each other
and meet tons of new people. Andso when psychiatrists say they
shouldn't let multiples gettogether and socialize because
it'll be uncontrollableswitching. Well, you know what?
(32:31):
When you're in a big group ofpeople and you wanna meet new
people, you gotta be able to sayhi to them.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
And so, yeah, people were switching, but it wasn't,
like, out of control oranything. It was just, like,
brightest, extraordinarilynormal because it it's what we
are not allowed to be. We arenot allowed to be normal. You
know, we're not allowed to justhave these house parties and
(32:59):
hang around and everything. Sothere are some systems who are
really active, being doing somegreat activism.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
That's amazing. I would love to talk to them. Well
and also, just going back to thestory you told about the two
people who worked together fortwenty two years, that Mhmm. Is
so touching to me. I I found outabout the diagnosis, like,
twenty years ago.
Okay? Mhmm. And had been intherapy for almost two years and
(33:31):
had no idea. And I went intovery much denial, dropped it.
Many years passed.
I have a doctorate. I'm alicensed clinician. And then
when everything fell apart forme and I had to finally
recognize, okay, this is thething, and this is happening.
There was, first of all, no onewho knew how to treat or help me
(33:55):
in my area. There was no one Ihad not supervised and trained
myself, and it was reallydifficult.
And now we have a really goodtea after working really hard
and finding a good therapist. Wehave a good therapist, but she's
four hours away. And so we driveevery week four hours just to
(34:19):
get to therapy and then fourhours to get back home. And so I
can only imagine. Well and thenso then for me too, just me
personally, there's this layerof I don't know better word
like, professional shame.
Like, I don't know better wordsto say for it because I think I
(34:40):
knew enough to avoid, like,trauma cases. Like, I just would
not accept trauma cases. I wouldnot go there. Other people were
interested, and they could takecare of that. And I stayed away
from that professionally.
So that was the boundary I setsort of protective for myself
and other people. But there wasno way to get help and no way to
(35:04):
fight my own stigma that therest of the time I'm advocating
against.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Does that make sense? And so Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Absolutely. That makes
Speaker 1 (35:14):
total and complete sense. Of community that you're
sharing is just so touching tome because I keep finding more
and more people who wereclinicians or in the field in
some way and saying, it was hardfor me too. I couldn't find help
either. And I was alone in it orfelt foolish for not figuring
things out sooner or nothandling it better when I did or
(35:38):
all these things, like, are allour own coming out stories
become a part of this. I justthink that community piece is so
important.
So that story of the two peoplewho met and had been alongside
each other all along is just sotouching. And the movement,
there's several different peopledoing movements, like you said,
sort of to unite us together assystems that I think is just
(36:02):
really powerful and has its ownhealing involved in it.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
And we've got some great allies out there too.
There's one single his name is,I can shout out to Jim
Bunkelman. He's the widow ofRhonda, and they were a system.
And his story and his, allyshipand everything else has been
just incredibly, valuable. Theythere's a group called Plural
(36:29):
Activism.
It's a Facebook group, but it'salso a Yahoo group. But Yahoo
groups are kinda dying out.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Right. We used to all be there. I remember that back
in the day.
Speaker 3 (36:41):
Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. We we got our start. I
mean,
Speaker 2 (36:47):
we did not come into the community through any of
Speaker 3 (36:49):
the other avenues, like, you know, other kin, you
name like, soul bonding oranything like that that a lot of
other people have. We just camestraight into the multiple the
multiple community, the plural.And if you don't mind me talking
about again, we've been multiplesince we're children. Our theory
(37:10):
is that early childhood onsetbipolar that was untreated,
people don't talk about thetrauma of actually having a
mental illness. Oh.
And so when you're alone in yourhead as a child and you are
feeling things that are not yourfeelings and thinking thoughts
that are not your thoughts thatyou don't want
Speaker 2 (37:30):
to think, it helps to be
Speaker 3 (37:32):
able to put some distance between that thing,
whatever that other thing is inthere, and yourself. And if you
can do that, if you are able todissociate, that's just what
you'll do. And so from a youngage, that's just what we thought
was normal because people toldus, no. You don't have you don't
have this. You don't have that.
(37:53):
You know? And it was just it wasmanic depression at the time,
now called bipolar disorder. Butgrowing up, eventually, things
started to fall apart. And whenwe were about 17, we started
seeing the therapist. We've beenseeing her for now, I think it's
twenty years.
(38:14):
We are incredibly fortunate tohave her, especially because we
we never knew until much, muchlater that she actually was
specialist in dissociativedisorders because we had no clue
about our multiplicity until,you know, in our thirties. And
she said that when we firstwalked into her office at about,
(38:36):
like, 17 years old, she knew wewere multiple.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
No way.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
But the reason she never said anything until we
discovered it for ourselves wasbecause she did not want to
influence us.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Oh, wow. Was really respectful.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah. Oh, and we've we've thanked her for that, but
she said, yeah. I know. Youknow? And so it's it's been
incredibly, incredibly helpful.
I mean, we really wouldn't behere without her, but we know
that's not the norm to have asay the same therapist all that
time does know what you're goingthrough, who has that
(39:15):
experience, and who is open toit and can recognize it and
validate that is not the norm.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
That's pretty special. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah. I mean, we have to
Speaker 3 (39:27):
we do recognize and acknowledge that a lot of what
we experience is from privilegeand that this is not always the
norm. And we do, when we, youknow, disclose to people, we do
mention that that there are oursibling systems out there who
really are struggling. And someof us actually believe that with
the DSM five is actually a goodthing.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Oh, yeah?
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Because if you look at it, what they've done is
they've taken multiplicityitself and separated it out from
all the rest of the stuff thatmakes it a disorder,
Speaker 2 (40:02):
like
Speaker 3 (40:02):
amnesia and anything else. And it has to be causing a
problem in your life. You can'tjust walk into a therapist's
office and say, hey. I'mmultiple. I need help.
It'll be okay. You're multipleand. You know? So that way the
folks who do really need helparen't are are able to access
it. And the folks who don't likeus, we just go in for bipolar
(40:24):
related stuff.
I I mean, you know, having onemental illness and sharing the
same brain, it all affects usvery, very differently. But it's
not DID. It's not themultiplicity that is,
disordering or disabling for us.That's actually it's
multiplicity has actually beenwhat has saved our sanity in
(40:44):
many cases. Mhmm.
Because that's what dissociationis, and the and multiplicity as
its end result, that's whatdissociation is. It's a defense
mechanism. But people don'treally ever mention what it is a
defense against. And in ouropinion, our non expert, it is a
defense against psychosis. It isa defense against going crazy.
(41:10):
It's a way protect your mind, toprotect, oddly enough, protect
the integrity. It's not toshatter or anything. It's to
protect your sanity. And sothat's why when I read that
article about, you know,dissociation versus psychosis,
from my perspective of the wholething, I just couldn't really
(41:31):
understand, like, why is thisconfusing to you? You know?
Why why why are you evenconfused by this? You're
comparing apples to, you know,not apples to orange. It'd be
having to like apples totomatoes or something. Tomatoes
still a fruit. Sorry.
Sorry. But you know, thecomparison sorry. The
(41:52):
comparison, didn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
That's really significant though, I think. I
think that's really powerfulwhat you said about dissociation
protecting us from psychosis.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Yes. Yes. I mean, because we've never been
psychotic. We've got bipolar.We've got it pretty bad.
It's pretty intense if nottreated. You know, right now,
we're we are, like, on fivedifferent medications, and they
are very, very helpful for us.But, yeah, we have never been
psychotic. We've been to thebrink. We've been to the edge,
(42:28):
but it's always dissociation orsome form that has brought us
back.
So I I mean, that's that's ourunderstanding of the
relationship betweendissociation and psychosis is
that dissociation is there is toprevent it.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
I think that's really powerful. Thank you. Thank you
for
Speaker 2 (42:46):
sharing with No problem. Thank you so much for
having us on.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
This has been great. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
So before we sign off, there's a little bit more I
want to share about this. I wantto go back to some of the things
that Doctor. Colin Ross sharedwhen we interviewed him and
things he has said in otherpresentations. I can provide a
link to some of the videos ofhim presenting where he talks
about this very thingdissociation versus psychosis
(43:16):
and differentiating betweenthem. But one thing he points
out is that the NationalInstitute of Mental Health has
decided to stop funding DSMcategories because now they only
fund things with a biologicalbasis, which means there's no
actual direct funding orresearch into dissociative
(43:39):
identity aspects of research arenot all appropriately
conclusive.
(44:00):
So one example Doctor. Ross gavewas the BRCA gene that indicates
when a woman is high risk forbreast cancer. This is not
actually true. Testing positivefor the BRCA gene means that
their body has a low capacity torepair damaged cells, and this
(44:21):
is more prevalent in groups ofpeople who have been
traumatized. So for example, theJews who survived the Holocaust
and their descendants have ahigher rate of not only cancer,
but also this particular gene,which I think he did not say
this, Doctor.
Ross did not say this, but Ipersonally think that's some
(44:42):
powerful imagery, likesymbolically there's something
going on that breast cancer wasnot as prevalent or a thing the
way it is now before thatpopulation had to literally wear
stars on their chest or broke ortheir hearts were broken by the
(45:05):
torturing and killing of theirfamilies. It's a physical grief.
Now I'm not saying that thisgroup of Jews are the only ones
who have breast cancer or whohave gone through that, But it's
when Doctor. Ross talks aboutthat and gives the Burkitt gene
example, he's talking about aspecific study that was done on
(45:28):
those descendants. So that's whyI'm referencing it.
But I thought it was such apowerful image because there's
significant historical trauma inthat population. The other thing
that Doctor. Ross points outoften in his presentations is
that dissociative identitydisorders or even dissociative
disorders in general are not inthe same category as psychotic
(45:53):
disorders. However, there's ahigh rate of people with
dissociative disorders who aremisdiagnosed as psychotic. So
how does this happen?
So one thing that we need tounderstand if you don't know the
clinical language is that whenwe talk about symptoms for a
disorder, there's two kinds ofsymptoms. Negative symptoms does
(46:17):
not mean you test negative forthe symptoms. It means it's a
symptom that is there becausethere's something that's
missing. Positive symptoms meanthere's something there that
shouldn't be. Does that makesense?
So negative symptoms meansomething's missing, and
positive symptoms mean there'ssomething extra there that
(46:37):
shouldn't be there. So whatDoctor. Ross points out about
negative symptoms and positivesymptoms is that the negative
symptoms for psychotic disorderssuch as a very flat affect or
being disconnectedinterpersonally are also the
(46:58):
positive symptoms for attachmentproblems that are caused by
trauma and neglect. And in thesame way, the positive symptoms
for a psychotic disorder such ashearing voices are the same
symptoms that are positive fordissociation. So what he's
(47:18):
saying is there's such a highrate of misdiagnosis of
dissociative disorders aspsychotic disorders in part
because clinicians don'tunderstand what they're seeing.
And when they see symptoms thatare positive for dissociation,
they're interpreting them aspositive for psychotic disorder.
(47:40):
And when they're seeing symptomsthat are negative symptoms that
also indicate psychoticdisorder, what they really are
are positive symptoms forattachment problems caused by
trauma and neglect, and thatthis is how it's diagnosed. So
that's why I wanted to add thatpiece at the end and include it,
in this podcast because I thinkthat explains a lot of what
(48:03):
happens clinically whenclinicians and psychiatrists are
not understanding dissociationand that this is how they
misinterpret and misdiagnosedissociative disorders as
psychotic disorders, which arenot the same thing at all. I
(48:24):
hope that's somewhat helpful. Wecan talk about it more in-depth
in the future, but that was whatI wanted to share today.
Thank you. Thank you forlistening. Your support really
helps us feel less alone whilewe sort through all of this and
(48:44):
learn together.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!