Posted by tinydancer on April 9, 2004, at 1:03:09
In reply to Re: Multiple Personality: A shameful, nonexistent dx? » tinydancer, posted by Miss Honeychurch on April 8, 2004, at 16:24:10
It is incredible, in a lot of ways. I think the strangest part of it is finding out that what I thought was perfect normal is in fact, abnormal!
No, my neighborhood people are not all aware of each other. That is what "co-consciousness" is about. The conflicts tend to be between myself and my people, not between them. If there is conflicts going on (for example an alter is screaming at me, or everyone is chattering and I cannot think straight) I might ask “Please stop, I want to rest!” It isn’t good to challenge them or try to yell back, it usually just provokes the attack.I imagine that my alters have logged on to pyschobabble, but I don’t think that they have written anything. I have written (and drawn) things that were completely another alter and not myself at all so it is possible.
The idea of having my neighborhood disappear is horrifying to me. I would never want this to happen. The goal in therapy now is not to make any alters go away, but to increase co-consciousness and working as a team to decrease the amount of conflict that can be so destructive and difficult to cope with.
I wouldn’t say there are any alters I am terrified of-that’s a strong word-but there is one that I’m scared and disturbed by called “The Gutter”, which is actually a gutter where “monsters” live. They are responsible for saying things that terrify me or frighten me. (An example would be one day when they said over and over again, “You are going to burn in hell” for hours and hours.) I have some alters that can make me feel bad, because they might say things about how much they hate me and hate being in my body. It hurts, because, obviously, they are a part of me.
Is there a concrete cause for MPD? Well, I’m not sure. My T has explained it such : If you imagine a lifeline with a normal healthy individual, that individual progresses normally step by step throughout. Someone who experiences terrible, horrific trauma may be so confounded by the trauma that they believe it happened to someone else. A new personality can be created-imagine this straight lifeline suddenly branching out all over the place. The personalities can be created at different periods within the individuals’ life, which is why alters can be children-the personalities created don’t age, they relive every day in a sense from the point they were created. As far as I know it is not chemical like depression, but it is a source of mystery still due to the fact that there is not a concrete cause for MPD-many children have suffered horrible abuse without becoming multiples, so it isn’t clear what causes it. It definitley seems to be a physiological thing. There isn’t any medication I can take to make the voices go away. I currently take Zoloft 150 mg, which helps with depression and anxiety. I take Seroquel or Zyprexa with psychotic episodes.
Neat question about the dream aspect. I don’t know! I know that sometimes a dream can affect me when I awaken and an alter might take over because I was triggered in some way and needed to protect myself.
poster:tinydancer
thread:334109
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040402/msgs/334380.html