{"quotes":[{"text":"Once I had found the courage to tell Rebecca about the children in my head, it wasn't so hard in the coming months to tell Roberta. On the train from Huddersfield one day in May I made a roll call of the usual suspects: Baby Alice; Alice 2, who was two years old and liked to suck sticky lollipops; Billy; Samuel; Shirley; Kato; and the enigmatic Eliza. There was boy I would grow particularly fond of named limbo, who was ten, but like Eliza he was still forming. There were others without names or specific behaviour traits. I didn't want to confuse the issue with this crowd of 'others' and just counted off the major players with their names, ages and personalities, which Roberta scribbled down on a pad. Then she looked slightly embarrassed. 'You know, I've met Billy on a few occasions, and Samuel once too,' she said. 'You're joking.' I felt betrayed. 'Why didn't you tell me?' 'I wanted it to come from you, Alice, when you were ready.' For some reason I pulled up my sleeves and showed he my arms. 'That's Kato,' I said, 'or Shirley.' She looked a bit pale as she studied the scars. I had feeling she didn't know what to say. The problem with counsellors is that they are trained to listen, not to give advice or diagnosis. We sat there with my arms extended over the void between us like evidence in court, then I pushed down my sleeves again. 'I'm so sorry, Alice,' she said finally and I shrugged. 'It's not your fault, is it?' Now she shrugged, and we were quiet once more.","author":"Alice Jamieson","tags":["dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","mental-health","mental-illness","multiple-personality-disorder","psych","split-personality","therapy"],"id":1015,"author_id":"Alice+Jamieson"},{"text":"Isolation of catastrophic experiences. Dissociation may function to seal off overwhelming trauma into a compartmentalized area of conscious until the person is better able to integrate it into mainstream consciousness. The function of dissociation is particularly common in survivors of combat, political torture, or natural or transportation disasters.","author":"Marlene Steinberg","tags":["amnesia","catastrophe","combat","complex-trauma","concentration-camp-survivor","concentration-camps","consciousness","dissociated","dissociation","dissociative","memory","political-prisoners","psychology","soldiers","survivor","torture","trauma","trauma-survivors"],"id":2764,"author_id":"Marlene+Steinberg"},{"text":"Identity confusion is defined by the SCID-D as a subjective feeling of uncertainty, puzzlement, or conflict about one's own identity. Patients who report histories of childhood trauma characteristically describe themes of ongoing inner struggle regarding their identity; of inner battles for survival; or other images of anger, conflict, and violence. P13.","author":"Marlene Steinberg","tags":["dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","dsm","mental-health","multiple-personality-disorder","multiplicity","psychiatry","psychology","reference-works","scid-d","steinburg","textbook"],"id":86649,"author_id":"Marlene+Steinberg"},{"text":"When preparing for Book One, I talked to a couple of psychiatrists about psychosomatic phenomena, neuroses and dissociative conditions, for example the so—called hysterical blindness suffered by many who saw the Killing Fields in Pol Pot’s Cambodia: their eyes objectively see, but they are not aware of it and are blind because they believe they can’t see. One specialist told me that among modern Western people, ’metaphorical’ symptoms such as Fredy or those Cambodians evince are much rarer now than earlier in the twentieth century or before. Nowadays most people are better equipped by education to verbalise their neuroses, and have lots of jargon in which to do so. For most of the dissociative dimension, I could draw on things I knew from within myself.","author":"Les Murray","tags":["blindness","conversion-disorder","dissociation","dissociative","hysteria","hysterical-dissociation","mental-disorder","mental-illness","neuoroses","neurosis","neuroticism","pol-pot","psychogenic","psychosomatic","trauma","trauma-survivors","traumatic-experiences","traumatic-stress","traumatized"],"id":92364,"author_id":"Les+Murray"},{"text":"My client who has only three alter personalities besides the ANP was unaware of her multiplicity until she encountered a work-related trauma at age sixty. She became symptomatic as the hidden parts emerged to deal with the recent trauma.","author":"Alison Miller","tags":["apparently-normal-part","apparently-normal-personality","dissociative","dissociative-disorder","dissociative-identity-disorder","dissociative-states","mental-disorder","mental-illness","multiplicity","trraumatic-experience"],"id":104704,"author_id":"Alison+Miller"},{"text":"The primary treatment modality for DID is individual outpatient psychotherapy.Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision.","author":"James A. Chu","tags":["dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","mental-disorder","multiple-personality-disorder","psychology","psychotherapy"],"id":121652,"author_id":"James+A.+Chu"},{"text":"When experiences or emotions become too overwhlming, the mind clevely encapsulates the material and stores it for safe-keeping. Many people respond this way in the face of trauma, but the additional step that occurs in this process, in the case of DID, is the formation of distinct ego states that carry the experience.","author":"Deborah Bray Haddock","tags":["alter-personalities","compartmentalization","coping","dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","dissociative-parts","memory-fragmentation","multiple-personalities","ptsd","trauma","traumatic-experiences","traumatized"],"id":128739,"author_id":"Deborah+Bray+Haddock"},{"text":"Complex PTSD consists of of six symptom clusters, which also have been described in terms of dissociation of personality. Of course, people who receive this diagnosis often also suffer from other problems as well, and as noted earlier, diagnostic categories may overlap significantly. The symptom clusters are as follows:Alterations in Regulation of Affect ( Emotion ) and ImpulsesChanges in Relationship with othersSomatic SymptomsChanges in MeaningChanges in the perception of SelfChanges in Attention and Consciousness.","author":"Suzette Boon","tags":["betrayal","bond","complex-ptsd","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","emotion","emotional","fear","guilt","memory","mistrust","personality","ptsd","relationships","shame","survivor","trauma","trust"],"id":135904,"author_id":"Suzette+Boon"},{"text":"I believe the perception of what people think about DID is I might be crazy, unstable, and low functioning. After my diagnosis, I took a risk by sharing my story with a few friends. It was quite upsetting to lose a long term relationship with a friend because she could not accept my diagnosis. But it spurred me to take action. I wanted people to be informed that anyone can have DID and achieve highly functioning lives. I was successful in a career, I was married with children, and very active in numerous activities. I was highly functioning because I could dissociate the trauma from my life through my alters. Essentially, I survived because of DID. That's not to say I didn't fall down along the way. There were long term therapy visits, and plenty of hospitalizations for depression, medication adjustments, and suicide attempts. After a year, it became evident I was truly a patient with the diagnosis of DID from my therapist and psychiatrist. I had two choices. First, I could accept it and make choices about how I was going to deal with it. My therapist told me when faced with DID, a patient can learn to live with the live with the alters and make them part of one's life. Or, perhaps, the patient would like to have the alters integrate into one person, the host, so there are no more alters. Everyone is different.The patient and the therapist need to decide which is best for the patient. Secondly, the other choice was to resist having alters all together and be miserable, stuck in an existence that would continue to be crippling. Most people with DID are cognizant something is not right with themselves even if they are not properly diagnosed. My therapist was trustworthy, honest, and compassionate. Never for a moment did I believe she would steer me in the wrong direction. With her help and guidance, I chose to learn and understand my disorder. It was a turning point.","author":"Esmay T. Parker","tags":["alters","awareness","breakthrough","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","education","healing","mental-health","mental-health-stigma","multiple-personality-disorder","multiplicity","psychiatric-hospital","psychology","split-personality","stigma","suicide","understanding"],"id":163244,"author_id":"Esmay+T.+Parker"},{"text":"Treatment for DID should adhere to the basic principles of psychotherapy and psychiatric medical management, and therapists should use specialized techniques only as needed to address specific dissociative symptomatology.Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision.","author":"James A. Chu","tags":["dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-disorders","dissociative-identity-disorder","multiple-personality-disorder","psychiatrists","psychology","psychotherapy"],"id":187988,"author_id":"James+A.+Chu"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":34,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}