Mental health and “coolness”

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Had a few conversaions recsetly about people faking mental illnesses, specifially people faking DID. Now whenever these topics come up the first thing I think is “why would anyone fake this?” and the most common reply is “attention” or “be look cool”. Now ok the attention one I sort of get, but to look cool? really? How exactly is essentially saying “so ye, I was raped and abused as in infant and so my mind sort of split as a defence mechanism, so now I don’t remember large chunks of my life, I get awful headaches, doctors don’t trust me with medication, I can’t hold down a job and I get confused by really simple stuff” cool? Maybe I am just out of the loop and misunderstand the meaning of the word “cool” but to me the fact that a person was ABUSED is not a “cool” thing and pretending that you were abused just so that you have something to say when conersations start to die is also not a “cool” thing.

I don’t know, I just don’t get it… living with this is HELL 90% of the time. The constant noise, the never knowing what day it is, the never being able to plan anything as you’ve no idea if you are going to be functional let alone “you” on any given day, the “waking up” in unknown places and haing to go into a shop to ask “excuse me, thais may sound like an odd question, ut what city is this?”, not to mention the flashbacks, the nightmares, the insomnia, the “flashes” that make nosense, the fact that no therapist will touch you with a barge pole so you are constantly being bumped from one psych to another, etc…

Just some thoughts… Also if anyone I’ve been talking about this with reads this: none of this is a critism or anything like that, it’s just basically me thinking out loud and wanting to get some peoples opinions in order to help me to understand.

My Truth

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I’m very passionate about mental health and abuse awareness, mainly due to my own expieriances. I am very open about my past, which I know is something that many do not like, but I do not see why I should stay silent – afterall that’s what the abusers told me to do and I can’t let them win can I?

I don’t want nor do I expect pity or sympathy. I do not deserve it, and I do not want it, what happened happened and I am only who I am today because of it. I do not want hugs and people saying they are sorry, what I want, what I fight for every day, is for OTHERS to feel safe that they will not be judged. What I want is to make it so that those who currently suffer in silence scared of what may happen if they open up know that they are not alone, and maybe make it so that they no longer have to fear judgement and blame.

I know that my work and my speaking out will not end abuse, discrimination and suffering, but if I can just let people know that they are not alone and do not have to suffer in silence and maybe if I can make a few people stop and think then I am happy with that. I cannot stop abuse, I cannot change the world, but maybe I can help to plant the seeds of change, plant that idea in to the minds of others, and then they can help that idea to grow until one day change can and does occur. Maybe one day the things which I fight will no longer exist, but I doubt that I will see that day. I can do so little, but it’s the best I can do, I just have to hope that human nature is not as bad as I fear and that these seeds if change and the glimmer of hope will take root.

I tell my story, my truth, not for pity, but for the hope that I can help to ignite change in this world. I know most will not believe this, but I know my truth and I hope that a few of you know this truth too. This is why I spend so long creating websites, writting letters, speaking in schools, raising money and trying to spread awareness. It’s an inconvenient truth I know, but it’s a truth that needs to be known, I cannot just sweep it under the carpet when I know that it could help others. So I fight and strive with the hope of helping, of making the suffering of others that little bit better that bit more bearable.  I wish that this truth was not there, that it did not need to be spread, but it is and it does. And for this I am sorry

This is my truth

Common mis-diagnosis’s and co-mobidies of DID

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On average a multiple will be in the mental health system for 7 years prior to diagnosis and during this time may receive several varying diagnosis’s. They often include:

Temporal lobe epilepsy’

Dissociation is more common in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy than in any other neurologic disorder. The clinician should refer patients with dissociative symptoms for a thorough neurologic workup to rule out the presence of temporal lobe epilepsy or other organic processes. The standard EEG is of little help in distinguishing MPD from temporal lobe epilepsy because a high rate of nonspecific abnormalities has been detected in patients with MPD, most commonly bilateral temporal lobe slowing.

Schizophrenic disorders

The differentiation between dissociation identity disorder and schizophrenia can be made along several lines.

Patients with schizophrenia hear voices emanating from the external world, whereas patients with dissociation identity disorder hear voices originating from within the individual’s own head.

Patients with schizophrenia may experience visual hallucinations, although they are less well formed than those observed with certain other brain disorders. Patients with MPD occasionally experience hypnagogic phenomena.

Poor reality testing is observed with schizophrenia, whereas patients with MPD have essentially intact reality testing.

Tangential or loose associations accompanied by inappropriate affect are commonly observed with schizophrenia. Patients with dissociation identity disorder may have circumstantial association with appropriate affect.

Borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder has been diagnosed in 70% of a sample of 33 patients with dissociative disorder and in 23% of 70 patients with dissociative disorder. Putnam acknowledged that a large number of his cases resembled Briquet syndrome or somatization disorder, but, like other investigators, he proposed that once the diagnostic criteria for MPD are satisfied, MPD should be considered the superordinate diagnosis because working with the alternates can provide a therapeutic device that cannot be used in the unified individual.

Malingering

Malingering is said to be an important differential diagnosis in times when an obvious gain may result from mental health intervention. Malingering is the deliberate and fraudulent production of false and exaggerated symptoms to deceive observers for secondary gain that is recognizable with an understanding of the individual’s circumstances.

Dissociative amnesic disorder

MPD may prove difficult to distinguish from other dissociative amnesic disorders. With other dissociative amnesic disorders, behavior may be complex, but recovery is often complete, recurrences are less common, and the onset of amnesic spells may be intimately related to stressful events or to ingestion or intoxication.

The worst thing about DID

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the worst thing is not the loss of time, not the headaches, nor the feeling of being unreal. The worst thing is not the finding yourself in random places, or covered in random injuries. It’s not the constant chatter in your head, nor the inability to plan ahead as you have no idea if you will even be pressent or not at any given time. It’s not even the flashbacks, the lack of a memory or the way it messes up the way you think and learn making you feel asif you’ve basically become stupid…

nope… the worst thing is that in any given conversation where it is brought up there is about a 60% chance that someone there will claim that it’s not a real disorder, that alters are not real, that essentially you are faking.

If I wanted to fake a disorder (and god only knows why anyone would) then surely I would have picked an easier one to do so than DID???

Freud and dissociative identity disorder ( DID )

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The majority of patients in Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud’s book Studies on Hysteria (Breuer & Freud, 1895/1983) were described as having been victims of sexual abuse and up until 1895 Freud considered that the majority of his patients were suffering from the aftermath of sexual abuse in childhood.

Freud then rejected this idea. There has been a great deal of speculation regarding this decision. Freud’s biographer, Ernest Jones (Jones, 1953), proposed that given many of the fathers of his patients were part of his own social circle, it would have been difficult for Freud to publicly state that his patients had been sexually abused as children.

to then explain the symptoms of his patients, in the absence of any real trauma, Freud produced a socially acceptable theory that denied the reality of childhood sexual abuse. Once the memories of sexual abuse reported by personalities were rejected by Freud as not being memories of true events, then the interpretation of the nature of these additional, or ‘alter’ personalities had to change.

Whereas others, such as Morton Prince (Prince, 1905/1978), had embraced the idea that there could be parallel rational conscious activity which could be described as “subconscious” or “co-conscious”, Freud rejected this idea and invented his unconscious (Freud, 1915/1995). From this point onward Freud referred only to an unconscious as distinct from a subconscious (Ellenberger, 1970.).

The unconscious of Freud, therefore, was not able to hold accurate memories, assume rational control of the body, or to think as would a rational adult. If the sexual abuse was not seen to be true, then the alter personalities (or the “unconscious” for Freud) must be irrational.

Despite the many great contributions made by Freud, this theory and the acceptance of his theory meant that many victims of sexual abuse were not believed and many patients with multiple personalities (or Dissociative Identity Disorder – DID) were to be misdiagnosed. For most of the twentieth-century the reality of many DID patient’s condition was also rejected as their appearance did not fit accepted theory.

Ritual abuse. What is it? (potentially triggering)

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Many people with DID suffered some form of ritual abuse either in a cult or in some other organisation during childhood. As such I thought it might be a topic I should touch upon in this blog…

A cult is a group of people who share an obsessive devotion to a person or idea. Some cults use violent tactics to recruit, indoctrinate, and keep members. Ritual abuse is defined as the emotionally, physically, and sexually abusive acts preformed by violent cults, many of these cults do not openly express their beliefs and practices, often living separately from the general public, isolating and alienating their members from outside influences.
Some victims of ritual abuse are children abused outside of the home by non-family members, often in public settings such as day care centres and Sunday schools. Other victims are children and teenagers who are forced by their parents, or other family members, to witness and participate in violent rituals. Adult ritual abuse victims often include these grown children who were forced from childhood to be members of the group. Other adult and teenage victims are people who unwittingly joined and organisation or social group that slowly manipulated and blackmailed them into becoming permanent members of the group. All cases of ritual abuse, no matter what age of the victim, involve intense physical and emotional trauma.
Violent cults may sacrifice humans and animals as part of religious rituals. They use torture to silence victims and other unwilling participants. Ritual abuse victims say that they are degraded and humiliated and are often forced to torture, kill, and sexually violate animals or other helpless victims. The purpose of the ritual abuse is usually indoctrination. The cults intend to destroy these victims free will by understanding their sense of safety in the world and by forcing them to hurt others.
In recent years a number of people have been convicted on sexual abuse charges in cases where the victims had reported elements of ritual abuse. These survivors (mainly children) described being raped by groups of adults who were wearing costumes or masks and said that they were forced to witness religious-type rituals in which animals and humans were tortured or killed. In one case, in 1989, the defence introduced in court photographs of the children being abused by the defendants. In another case, the police found tunnels etched with crosses and pentagrams along with stone alters and candles in a cemetery where abuse had been reported. The defendants in this case pleaded guilty to charges of incest, child cruelty, and indecent assault.
There are many myths concerning the parents and children who report ritual abuse. Some people suggest that the whole idea of ritual abuse is nothing more than “mass hysteria”. They say that the parents of these children who report ritual abuse are often just on a “witch hunt”. These sceptics claim that the parents fear Satanists and used their knowledge of the Black Mass (a historically well-known sexualised ritual in which animals and humans are sacrificed) to brainwash their children into saying that they have been ritually abused by Satanists.

The practice of ritual abuse is a difficult topic for many to confront or even comprehend. The children are tortured and brainwashed in order to assure compliance and loyalty to the group. The memories of ritual abuse survivors are often so graphic and perverse that some people question whether any of the stories could be true. Yet ritual abuse survivors experience overwhelming pain and trauma related symptoms as they remember the abuse: flashbacks; body memories; dissociation; anxiety; fear; etc. all of which are also seen in torture victims from wartime incidents, prisoners of war and war crimes.

Ritual abuse is a real, systematic and brutal practice happening today

self injury, dissociation and amnesia

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Self-injury in all its forms, including accident-proneness or a tendency to be victimised again in abusive relationships, may actually constitute screen memories of abuse or symbolic memories that a person is using to keep explicit abuse memories out of consciousness. Repeatedly hurting oneself is a way of not having to remember the original hurt. Self-wounding may also be an unconscious repetition of past abuse in an attempt to make sense of a dim but haunting memory. The person is trying to knit the implicit remnant of the trauma memory into fabric of a continuous mental narrative.

The amnesia that many self-injurers have for their destructive behaviour may be related to the return of memories from which they have disconnected. Since the emotional pain of returning memories is overwhelming, the person enters a trancelike state in an effort to keep them blocked. Self-injurers with dissociative disorders often say that they “find themselves” with injuries on their bodies in the same way that they in strange places without knowing how they got there. Self-injuring can be a form of reality testing for abuse that the person, on some level, knows happened but has split off from consciousness. Injuring oneself can bring “forgotten” memories of abuse into the awareness in several ways. The wounds themselves can reinforce the reality of past abuse, long disavowed by dissociation and the persistent denials of family members who maintain that the abuse never happened or was an expression of love. The pain of self-injury can test reality by restoring the feeling of being alive. Self-injury can also re-enact past abusive events symbolically, recalling them behaviourally, and reinforce the persons conviction that he/she was abused as a child. The fear of remembering what one was forbidden to remember may make amnesia a survival tactic once again.

How trauma effects memory

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Traumatic memories are more likely to be “forgotten” than non-traumatic memories due to faulty encoding or retrieving. A major mental process contributing to amnesia in dissociative disorders is known as state-dependant learning. According to this theory, information encoded in one mental state is most easily retrieved at a later time when in that same state. If a person experiencing trauma dissociates into separate state of mind, different memories will become available to that person at different times. Data encoded in one state will not be available to a person who is in a different psychological state; it will only be available when the person returns to the same state he/she was in at the time when it was encoded. For example: Harris, a thirty-seven-year-old pharmacist who was sexually abused repeatedly throughout his childhood by an older cousin, developed a six-year-old alternative personality named Barney. Harris could not remember the abuse until an assault by an armed robber at the drugstore where he worked triggered Barneys return.

State-dependent learning theory explains the severe amnesia that occurs in DID. Experiences encoded in a psychological state of abuse can chain together into a complex and consistent personality if the abuse is sufficiently traumatic and persistent. These particular alert personalities of overwhelming pain and fear are outside the persons conscious cognitive awareness, they live on in an alter personality and are still psychologically active and influential.

The “lost time” or “memory gaps” of someone with DID have preserved their sanity but have also swallowed up vast chunks of their past and identity. The future of a person with amnesia can be compromised too. The inability to integrate traumatic memories caused the person to fixate art the time of the trauma and impairs the integration of new experiences. When Barney resurfaces Harris was unable to concentrate on his job as a pharmacist and fill prescriptions that were beyond the comprehension of a six-year-old child. For many people, traces of the painful memory tend to linger and intrude as flashbacks, obsessions, or re-enactments of the trauma in self-mutilation or other self-destructive behaviours.

What is dissociation?

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Dissociation is a mechanism that allows the mind to separate or compartmentalise certain memories or thoughts from normal consciousness. These split-off mental contents are not erased. They may resurface spontaneously or be triggered by objects or events in the person’s environment.

Dissociation is a process that occurs along a spectrum of severity. If someone experiences dissociation, it does not necessarily mean that that person has a dissociative disorder or other mental illness. A mild degree of dissociation occurs with some physical stressors; people who have gone without sleep for a long period of time, have had “laughing gas” for dental surgery, or have been in a minor accident often have brief dissociative experiences. Another commonplace example of dissociation is a person becoming involved in a book or movie so completely that the surroundings or the passage of time are not noticed. Another example might be driving on the highway and taking several exits without noticing or remembering. Dissociation is related to hypnosis in that hypnotic trance also involves a temporarily altered state of consciousness. Most patients with dissociative disorders are highly hypnotisable.

People in other cultures sometimes have dissociative experiences in the course of religious (in certain trance states) or other group activities.

Moderate or severe forms of dissociation are caused by such traumatic experiences as childhood abuse , combat, criminal attacks, brainwashing in hostage situations, or involvement in a natural or transportation disaster. Patients with acute stress disorder , post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), conversion disorder, or somatisation disorder may develop dissociative symptoms. Recent studies of trauma indicate that the human brain stores traumatic memories in a different way than that of normal memories. Traumatic memories are not processed or integrated into a person’s ongoing life in the same fashion as normal memories. Instead they are dissociated, or “split off,” and may erupt into consciousness from time to time without warning. Over a period of time, these two sets of memories, the normal and the traumatic, may coexist as parallel sets without being combined or blended. In extreme cases, different sets of dissociated memories may cause people to develop separate personalities for these memories – a disorder known as dissociative identity disorder (formerly called multiple personality disorder).

Why should WE prove anything to YOU?

I’m annoyed… seriously annoyed… Got banned from a DID forum for “making a mockery of DID” and being a “sorry excuse for a human being”… I don’t even know what I did!!! No one in real life takes anything I say seriously (oter than jack) and now I’m havng to prove myself online as well… should just go back to hiding it

It took 6 years for medical professionals to take us seriously. For 6 years they said stupid things like “stress”, “homesickness” and even “attention seeking”… 6 bloody years… Maybe the mother is right eh? maybe this is all an act to feel “special”? maybe the psychiatrist is right, maybe I am just using it as an excuse to self-harm and take ODs?

And even now about 60% of people think it’s all made up, then again about 50% of people don’t seem to believe in DID at all… I’m trying to change that, tring to spread awareness and educate people, so that others don’t get accused of lying, get things thrown at them, get shunned, and get belittled by doctors.

But now… now I have to prove to online people ASWELL as real life people that I am ill… my god!!! Seriously, why should I have to prove ANYTHING to YOU???? What I experiance is what I experiance, unless we find a way to put you into the brain so you can expriance it too there is no way to prove it is there? But here’s the thing… why would I lie? There are far easier disorders to fake, and why would I fake it anyway?  Why would I mock any illness? Why would anyone?

I understand that the internet breeds suspision, that noone can ever truely know who is at the otherside of the screne (as it were), but if you accuse someone of something then you need to at least explain why… then I can scan a letter from my ex-psych (as I have got one for these such occations) and send it to you. We did not fight for 6 years to be taken seriously by doctors only to then have fellow multiples accuse us of lying. If we are lying then maybe YOU are lying? Thought about that?

So have your stupid forum, ignore how much having someone invalidate us hurts. But in future at least have evidence to back up your claim if you are going to bann someone and accuse them of these things.