{"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":"With DID patients, if they feel hostility or aggression they take it out on themselves with self-harm... They’re self-destructive and repeatedly suicidal, more so than any other psychological disorder. So that's what's typical – not this wild aggression, or stalking women [or robbery].- Dr Bethany Brand, on Billy Milligan and Multiple Personality Disorder (DID).","author":"Bethany L. Brand","tags":["billy-milligan","dissociative-identity-disorder","insanity","mental-disorder","mental-illness","misconception","misrepresentation","multiple-personalities","multiple-personality-disorder","self-harm","self-injury","split-personality","stereotypes","stigma","suicidal","suicidality","suicide","the-crowded-room"],"id":28670,"author_id":"Bethany+L.+Brand"},{"text":"She was born under the sign of Gemini. And that stands for the good and evil twin. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both hiding and residing inside her heart. Her good twin was not bad at all. But her evil twin was even better, and showed up to be way too fatal!","author":"Ana Claudia Antunes","tags":["actress","aspects","astrological","astrological-omens","astrology","astrology","behavior","blond-beast","blonde","celebrities","celebrity","cinema","conflict","conspiracy","conspiracy-theories","conspiracy-thriller","culture","discussion","dispute","double","double-agent","double-personality","dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde","duality","entertainment-industry","fame","famous","film","gemini","good-and-evil","gossip","heart","hollywood","hollywood-culture","intellect","intellectual","intelligence","literature","marilyn","marilyn-monroe","misery","misticism","model","move","movies","murder","murder-mystery","murderers","murmur","mute","mystery","opposites","psychological","psychological-thriller","psychology","split","split-personality","spy","spy-thriller","spying","twin","twin-towers","twins"],"id":53593,"author_id":"Ana+Claudia+Antunes"},{"text":"The lifetime prevalence of dissociative disorders among women in a general urban Turkish community was 18.3%, with 1.1% having DID (ar, Akyüz, \u0026 Doan, 2007). In a study of an Ethiopian rural community, the prevalence of dissociative rural community, the prevalence of dissociative disorders was 6.3%, and these disorders were as prevalent as mood disorders (6.2%), somatoform disorders (5.9%), and anxiety disorders (5.7%) (Awas, Kebede, \u0026 Alem, 1999). A similar prevalence of ICD-10 dissociative disorders (7.3%) was reported for a sample of psychiatric patients from Saudi Arabia (AbuMadini \u0026 Rahim, 2002).","author":"Paul H. Blaney","tags":["africa","dissociative-disorders","dissociative-identity-disorder","dsm","ethiopia","mental-health","multiple-personality-disorder","psychiatry","saudi-arabia","split-personality"],"id":96208,"author_id":"Paul+H.+Blaney"},{"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":"Of course, I should have known the kids would pop out in the atmosphere of Roberta's office. That's what they do when Alice is under stress. They see a gap in the space-time continuum and slip through like beams of light through a prism changing form and direction. We had got into the habit in recent weeks of starting our sessions with that marble and stick game called Ker-Plunk, which Billy liked. There were times when I caught myself entering the office with a teddy that Samuel had taken from the toy cupboard outside. Roberta told me that on a couple of occasions I had shot her with the plastic gun and once, as Samuel, I had climbed down from the high-tech chairs, rolled into a ball in the corner and just cried. 'This is embarrassing,' I admitted. 'It doesn't have to be.''It doesn't have to be, but it is,' I said.The thing is. I never knew when the 'others' were going to come out. I only discovered that one had been out when I lost time or found myself in the midst of some wacky occupation — finger-painting like a five-year-old, cutting my arms, wandering from shops with unwanted, unpaid-for clutter.In her reserved way, Roberta described the kids as an elaborate defence mechanism. As a child, I had blocked out my memories in order not to dwell on anything painful or uncertain. Even as a teenager, I had allowed the bizarre and terrifying to seem normal because the alternative would have upset the fiction of my loving little nuclear family.I made a mental note to look up defence mechanisms, something we had touched on in psychology.","author":"Alice Jamieson","tags":["alter-personalities","alters","dissociation","dissociative","dissociative-identity-disorder","embarrassment","mental-health","mental-illness","multiple-personality-disorder","psychologist","psychology","self-stigma","split-personality","stigma","therapist","therapy"],"id":193974,"author_id":"Alice+Jamieson"},{"text":"The 'apparently normal personality' - the alter you view as 'the client'You should not assume that the adult who function in the world, or who presents to you, week after week, is the 'real' person, and the other personalities are less real. The client who comes to therapy is not 'the' person; there are other personalities to meet and work.","author":"Alison Miller","tags":["alter","alter-personality","apparently-normal-part","apparently-normal-personality","did","dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","mpd","multiple-personalities","multiple-personality-disorder","personality","psychology","psychotherapy","split-personality","structural-dissociation","therapy"],"id":203694,"author_id":"Alison+Miller"},{"text":"No, Ben. What I’m asking is: Are you the vehicle, and Georgie rides around in you? That is why Ben’s the driver, right?","author":"Jonathan Harnisch","tags":["book","book","books","delusion","delusions","literary-devices","literature","mind","mind-control","reality","schizophrenia","split-personality"],"id":282922,"author_id":"Jonathan+Harnisch"},{"text":"Another of the difficulties of having DID is the denial. DID is a disorder of denial. It has to be because if the original person knew about the alters and felt their pain, they would either go crazy and be hospitalized permanently, or would die.","author":"Eve N. Adams","tags":["alters","crazy","denial","did","dissociation","dissociative-identity-disorder","insane","mental-health","mental-illness","mpd","multiple-personality-disorder","split-personality"],"id":331505,"author_id":"Eve+N.+Adams"},{"text":"I resolved to come right to the point. 'Hello,' I said as coldly as possible, 'we've got to talk.'Yes, Bob,' he said quietly, 'what's on your mind?' I shut my eyes for a moment, letting the raging frustration well up inside, then stared angrily at the psychiatrist.'Look, I've been religious about this recovery business. I go to AA meetings daily and to your sessions twice a week. I know it's good that I've stopped drinking. But every other aspect of my life feels the same as it did before. No, it's worse. I hate my life. I hate myself.'Suddenly I felt a slight warmth in my face, blinked my eyes a bit, and then stared at him.'Bob, I'm afraid our time's up,' Smith said in a matter-of-fact style.'Time's up?' I exclaimed. 'I just got here.'No.' He shook his head, glancing at his clock. 'It's been fifty minutes. You don't remember anything?'I remember everything. I was just telling you that these sessions don't seem to be working for me.'Smith paused to choose his words very carefully. 'Do you know a very angry boy named 'Tommy'?'No,' I said in bewilderment, 'except for my cousin Tommy whom I haven't seen in twenty years...'No.' He stopped me short. 'This Tommy's not your cousin. I spent this last fifty minutes talking with another Tommy. He's full of anger. And he's inside of you.'You're kidding?'No, I'm not. Look. I want to take a little time to think over what happened today. And don't worry about this. I'll set up an emergency session with you tomorrow. We'll deal with it then.'RobertThis is Robert speaking. Today I'm the only personality who is strongly visible inside and outside. My own term for such an MPD role is dominant personality. Fifteen years ago, I rarely appeared on the outside, though I had considerable influence on the inside; back then, I was what one might call a 'recessive personality.' My passage from 'recessive' to 'dominant' is a key part of our story; be patient, you'll learn lots more about me later on. Indeed, since you will meet all eleven personalities who once roamed about, it gets a bit complex in the first half of this book; but don't worry, you don't have to remember them all, and it gets sorted out in the last half of the book. You may be wondering -- if not 'Robert,' who, then, was the dominant MPD personality back in the 1980s and earlier? His name was 'Bob,' and his dominance amounted to a long reign, from the early 1960s to the early 1990s. Since 'Robert B. Oxnam' was born in 1942, you can see that 'Bob' was in command from early to middle adulthood.Although he was the dominant MPD personality for thirty years, Bob did not have a clue that he was afflicted by multiple personality disorder until 1990, the very last year of his dominance. That was the fateful moment when Bob first heard that he had an 'angry boy named Tommy' inside of him. How, you might ask, can someone have MPD for half a lifetime without knowing it? And even if he didn't know it, didn't others around him spot it?To outsiders, this is one of the most perplexing aspects of MPD. Multiple personality is an extreme disorder, and yet it can go undetected for decades, by the patient, by family and close friends, even by trained therapists. Part of the explanation is the very nature of the disorder itself: MPD thrives on secrecy because the dissociative individual is repressing a terrible inner secret. The MPD individual becomes so skilled in hiding from himself that he becomes a specialist, often unknowingly, in hiding from others. Part of the explanation is rooted in outside observers: MPD often manifests itself in other behaviors, frequently addiction and emotional outbursts, which are wrongly seen as the 'real problem.'The fact of the matter is that Bob did not see himself as the dominant personality inside Robert B. Oxnam. Instead, he saw himself as a whole person. In his mind, Bob was merely a nickname for Bob Oxnam, Robert Oxnam, Dr. Robert B. Oxnam, PhD.","author":"Robert B. Oxnam","tags":["alcoholic","alcoholism","alters","dissociative-identity-disorder","mental-health","mental-illness","mpd","multiple-personalities","multiple-personality","psychiatrist","psychology","split-personality","survivor","therapy"],"id":340817,"author_id":"Robert+B.+Oxnam"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":14,"pages":2,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}