The several volumes of Engaging Multiple Personalities, 4 to date, are not DID memoirs. Rather, they are based on my experience as a psychiatrist treating patients with DID. In other words, I discuss in those Volumes the personal experiences of my patients as I understand them. This is fundamentally different than how those patients experience(d) their own DID; before, during our time working together, and sometimes afterwards in their journeys of healing.
At this point, there are many memoirs written by those with DID. I have had the honor of meeting a few of those people. I have read some memoirs, and more are being published each year. I believe this is a direct outgrowth and benefit of the internet’s ability to facilitate communities of support, communities of people dealing with the same struggles.
DID memoirs enable authors to further process some of their own journeys. At the same time, they can offer a helping hand to others with DID dealing with their own traumas. The more guideposts that are illuminated through the writings of those with DID – showing options, obstacles, and hope in healing – the more confidence is engendered throughout the DID community that healing is possible.
For me, the point of the memoirs is not to detail the despicable acts of cruelty that resulted in DID. Rather, it is that despite the early childhood traums, survivors have navigated their way toward healing. Publishing memoirs can also extend warmth and support to others with DID on their own healing journeys. In reading memoirs, there can be a tremendous sense of support from knowing that you are not alone in this. Healing can be an arduous task, and usually is a long winding journey. That sense of support that can be found in memoirs can engender hope, which is critical when one feels discouraged.
In each of the Engaging Multiple Personalities Volumes, I placed warnings to caution readers. Those warnings encourage readers who have a personal history of trauma to read them in a place of safety, in short doses, and to take steps necessary to avoid the re-traumatization that can occur when reading this kind of material. That very same advice is just as important when reading DID memoirs, perhaps even more so because the authors of DID memoirs directly experienced that same level of cruelty.
A therapist with skill and great empathy can, at best, approach a genuine understanding of the trauma with the concurrent risk of the therapist experiencing vicarious trauma as a result. But, that is still an understanding, not an experience. A patient can describe an experience using words, images and/or emotional body language, which is incredible important for the therapist to be able to help. But again, the therapist is still understanding the experience from the outside. It is not understanding the experience by having lived it.
For example, going into combat as a soldier involves a lot of ideas about what might happen, how it will feel, and how one might react. That is different than what actually happens when the bullets are flying, bombs are exploding.
When the reality of war is compressed into that very moment of direct experience, it is undeniable as you live it. It is not a guess, an idea, or an “understanding.” After the fact of the experience, your mind takes whatever protective measures it deems necessary to process the experience. For many, those measures manifest as PTSD.
It is my hope that psychiatrists and other therapists appreciate that early childhood trauma is indeed a battle in which a very young person, with little to no other defense mechanisms, may dissociate as a protective measure. With that understanding, compassion and empathy can expand. For those therapists with compassion and empathy who avoid DID patients, reasoning that they have no experience treating DID, it may be extremely helpful to read memoirs, whether they be by an individual, such as “A Fractured Mind” by Robert Oxnam or a collection from DID individuals, such as “Multiple Personality Disorder From The Inside Out.”
For those with DID reading DID memoirs, take care, stay safe, read in small doses in a protected space, and know that while everyone’s trauma experience has its own qualities, the overwhelming aspect of the trauma is something all those with DID share in common. Take heart in the bravery of others who have walked the path of healing before you and are sharing their memories to support and enable you to do the same. Best wishes always.
