Welcome to my Blog.

These are my ramblings in an attempt try and understand my Dissociative Identity Disorder. Thank you for reading my blog and I hope that together we can come to a better understanding of the human mind. If you have any questions or comments you are more than welcome to add them to my blog, or to email me. I would love to hear from you.

18 January, 2013

What causes DID?

I thought I would do a quick run down on the causes of Dissociative Identity Disorder (formally known as Multiple personality disorder). I know I mentioned this more in my earlier posts but might be time for some revision.
DID is caused by trauma. This trauma usually occurs before the age of about 8years old. In many cases this trauma is abuse, physical, sexual or emotional. Even neglect. Trauma can also be things like hospitalisation, accidents, and war. This trauma in most cases goes on for years. I have not yet seen a case of DID caused by one isolated incident of trauma. What I have also seen with DID is that the child has no safe place to land. By this I  mean that the child has no one safe they can turn to help them. There is no safe parent, grandparent or friend, who even though they may not believe them about it, they are there for them in a loving and protective way. Often the older sibling will be the one to develop DID, as the younger children have the older ones to go to. ( this is not always the case as I do know of younger siblings with DID, but it seems to follow that rough pattern).
DID is NOT and illness, there is NOTHING wrong with the functioning of our brain. We do not need medication the fix us. DID is a coping technique. DID is a healthy minds response to overwhelming trauma. In fact if we did not have a normal healthy brain we would not have developed DID. We are not sick, or crazy. We are traumatised! Severely traumatised, to the point where we cant function without having multiple parts in our brain. There is no magic pill to make us better, no perfect therapy that will make us suddenly "well". For those of us with forgotten abuse and abusers, we cannot and should not be made to remember. Our amnesia is there to protect us, from a past we are not yet ready to remember. It WILL take us YEARS to heal, with or without a therapist. Healing for us may not look like what you think it does.
Most of us started our lives by learning about the dark side of the human existence . We know about rape, beatings, abuse. We have been taught that we have no value except to be used by someone else for their release. We didn't learn that what we want and need has value. We become unimportant.
 We have to learn to be loved and to love. We need to learn that we can have a opinion and we have the right to say no! What we want DOES matter, and we can and should be listened too. I am 44 and many of these things are still major revelations to me. I am still amazed that I don't have to do things if I don't want to. I CAN CHOOSE AND DIRECT MY LIFE. It is my life, not someone elses and I can have control. WOW!
What we need is people who will listen and care. People who can be patient with us and let us learn our lessons in our time. We need to be loved and accepted, no matter how many of us there are. And we need to be believed. Because even if what we say is not how you saw it, it is our truth and it has made us who we are. It is important. We are important.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Lonnie, must get to Bridges one day soon and catch up with you all...I very much like this post...I can hear myself saying much of what you have written..

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Jane, it would be great to see you again.

    ReplyDelete