late summer, 2023…writing to exorcize my experience watching the miniseries “the crowded room”.

it has been about the same amount of years that i have worked in forensics and was diagnosed with DID, around 1983. as a novice to both, i was sensitive and struggling to find my way…not knowing at the time what either would entail. for work, i was initially knocking on door of clients where childhood abuse was suspected. at home, i was journaling, reliving, negotiating, and meeting alters as they arose (last count 83). when asked, i would say that my work and my life story being parallel was a coincidence… no longer do i believe that. something knew where i belonged and as my career progressed, i found myself in jails, prisons, courts, maximum security hospitals working with people who have committed the same crimes i had suffered from years earlier. i was being given the opportunity to navigate my history through my profession. thinking back, without my system forming and revealing and cooperating, it would not have been possible to do the work at the intersection of psych and “criminal justice.” blessed with several alters who accompanied me/ the host/ the prominent part, we worked as a team of three. this was left undetected for my entire career. judges, lawyers, defendants, clients with psychiatric disorders, families, kids were in the company of three, seeing one. it has been 38 years or so, mostly retired, again my focus has turned inward.

thus i should not have been surprised by my difficulty in watching this miniseries. it was offensive. leaving me angry and wondering why we are at a place yet again of fictionalizing, exaggerating, and using DID as a commodity. the reality is mysterious and brilliant enough without the need to twist, meld, confuse and alarm the audience. the struggle is real. the reality causing the struggle is typically horrifying. just ask, consult and then honor those of us who have been forced to hide, then perhaps choose hiding so that we aren’t stigmatized and ostracized for an adaptive, artistic method to survive an early hell.

in my opinion, tom hollands acting was good, but not as a portrayal of someone with DID. perhaps the script failed him. there was no evidence in his acting that switching/shifting/regressions/ triggers were taking place, although there was opportunity for this throughout the series. he found himself in unbearable situations that would likely have caused shifting, none evident in his facial expressions, behaviors, thought process, responses…only the arrival of what appear to be other characters in the movie.

if one wants to understand the experience of having DID, one needs to be privy to the internal process. it would have served the viewers well had context been given, had internal processing been exposed, had internal dialogue been shown. instead, the system is exhibited as characters in his life, outside of himself. they seem random and without purpose, until it is uncovered at its end. co-consciousness is not addressed as it manifests in those diagnosed with DID. instead it is shown as characters talking to each other about the host. criminal responsibility, a legal term, could have been more thoroughly explained which would have led to the data indicating that the “insanity plea” is typically not used and not successful when an arrested person is diagnosed with DID. furthermore, if found Not Criminally Responsible, you are first found guilty.

my opinion….

response to a new york times article 7/24

i don’t know what it is about stories of suffering and the route to find my way back to before or beyond to after.

it feels physiological, as if i know, partly from my own experience, partly in camaraderie.

the before and after as reference points do not align with my experience. i had no before, only during… and the after is still going on, sometimes with the shade of the shadow lightening where the story, the reality, the truth recedes.

i didn’t know that was possible. i didn’t know that could be a desire. my spoken perspective was “this is the hand i was dealt, being a victim.”

that, i now understand, not only allowed me to remain a victim, but allowed me to continue to use the “defenses”, the protections that developed when i needed them, still thinking i need them.

it was a replica of events that intersected, combined, flashed me back to and wanting me to control for a different outcome this time, in my 50’s.

instead i crumbled as i imagine i stayed in my youngest tears, in an exaggerated terror, living as if i was three, in the mind of a woman who analyzes for a living…this time i could not find my way out even with my intellectual capacities, and my incredible skills of ruminating to lead me beyond the torment.

and this time, i was conscious of the trap, as an adult in an adult body and an adult world.

i wonder now whether the trauma of early life, because it was early, was less terrifying.

then i recognize the answer as “it was different”, not easier, which calls me back to “duh”, as i gently talk to myself. that earliest time resulted in dissociative identity disorder which is the direct result of prolonged hellishness … so there is no doubting there.

11/24

“Don’t believe the hype.” Public Enemy

i read a quote from a practitioner, that in the past i have willingly listened to, and learned from.

i read it as opinion.

it reads as fact.

“What healing means is a return to wholeness”, Gabor Mate’.

 my silent response was visceral, both for personal and professional reasons. there is a desperate tendency in us to receive and believe information from self proclaimed scholars or “experts”.  they speak with conviction and certainty.  the masses are led to inadvertently or intentionally follow these “beliefs” as absolute truths as told by the contemporaries of our time.  we are encouraged to give away our agency, our volition. in the not so distant future, we become ill equipped because of this surrender.

incidentally, those assigning elevated status are typically old white men, selecting old white men. this pattern of having a few chosen people in leadership, perhaps unearned or undeserved, is further reinforcement that our own truth, our own curiosity, our own spiritual quest should recede under their shadow. so much of what i was taught was taught to me by unexamined people, with no interest in self inquiry, willing to remain under a cloak, with no impetus for self exploration. the populous is then encouraged and led to a narrow perspective and more concerning, misinformation. the danger lies in the lack of space given between those lines quoted, where a parent, teacher, mentor, researcher states “this is truth, believe this”, instead of “here is a version, a consideration. examine it, question it, research it and conclude as you will.” many teachings still taught are obsolete, and diminish the person being taught, relegating them to believe that incorporating a critical perspective is not needed.

 how many have suffered at the hands and minds of self -professed “experts’ who have caught the public’s eyes, who have partnered with resourced people. the momentum carries them and they cannot be questioned because of their positioning and protection by those few who hold power and monetary resources. our society’s mind has become mostly lazy and willing to remain as such. there is a call for mimicry and the call is answered when the lesson is framed as best practice or “research shows that…” we cannot expect those benefiting in material wealth or social capitol to reframe and acknowledge themselves as limited as the rest, but for their access to a pulpit of sorts. when “experts” speak in absolutes for the purpose of having by in, they are further promoted. most people want to get in line behind them. life is easier. life doesn’t ask much from you. people love to be directed. “march forward. stop. think this. practice this. march to the left, turn”. we never notice we are wearing someone else’s ill-fitting uniform.

 our society is lost. we do not encourage thoughtfulness, expansion, examination. we are devastated when the self proclaimed “expert” falls from grace because of a scandal, or they die, or change their mind? scrambling, we seek for an immediate replacement. we panic.  we can’t progress without another thought leader, and in our haste, the next one is not vetted but moved into the prominent place to calm us.

 i was driven to write this as a response to an initial quote, which is alienating for me. i, myself, have no interest in “wholeness”, nor do i think it exists. 

 i have Dissociative Identity Disorder. this is a gift that has allowed me to endure what i endured. no need to indulge that history here, yet my wholeness is made of many. my many are made of courage. my many are made with outlooks that allow for creativity. my many are designed for me.

wholeness is not indicative of healing. healing means embracing all of who you are in loving compassion. perhaps it has come a time to stop looking to trust the self proclaimed “experts”.  instead change the way we listen. think. read. talk. wonder.  this path is plentiful, beautiful, scary. it is an adventure that you were placed here for.  relinquish your loyalty to these “experts”.  find your fullness.

as with most systems, the mental health practitioner is restricted, stagnant and controlled.  when we come to realize that the interaction between the client and practitioner IS the primary modality, we may then set out on the quest of self discovery to enhance the therapeutic offering. like in eastern philosophy, all should be an inquiry, a question, not  a proclamation.