A Husband’s Definition of Dissociative Identity Disorder

When my wife first came home 3 ½ years ago from a counseling session and suggested she might have dissociative identity disorder, my mind was blank. I had absolutely no idea what that meant. Then when I found out it used to be called multiple personality disorder, all the whacked out ideas that Hollywood has promulgated assaulted my mind. Aren’t those kinds of people always twisted sociopaths? Fear briefly gripped my heart.

Since that baptism by fire nearly 3 ½ years ago, my understanding of this personality disorder has become very intimate. Psychological terms like alters transformed into personal relationships with wonderful little girls like Amy, Alley, Sophia, Shelly and KA. What used to seem like extreme selfishness and sometimes emotional cruelty in my wife began to make sense. And a hopeless marriage was given a second chance to have a “happily ever after” ending.

So what is d.i.d.? The first word is dissociative. A layman’s definition of dissociation would be something that is “broken, hidden, split apart, compartmentalized, uncommunicative, etc.” This is a critical difference between me and my girls. I often tell my girls that we both have multiple voices in our heads, but the key difference between a singleton and a multiple is that the voices in my head do not block out or lock up any of the other voices in my head. Sometimes it’s a free-for-all in my mind, but all my voices get a chance to be heard. That’s not the case for someone with d.i.d. For someone with d.i.d. the voices get separated and compartmentalized. And since they are compartmentalized, each voice learns to act independently and often without any regard for the others. Sometimes they don’t even realize that there ARE others about whom they should be concerned.

Right now the little girls like to watch the series Charmed with me. I pointed out to the girls that the 3 sisters in the series are stronger as they learn to work together. But whenever they are separated they are much weaker. That’s another key thing to remember about dissociation. Dissociation weakens each person (alter) within the network because he or she does not have access to all his/her mental faculties. Amy and Karen swim like a fish. Shelly and Alley sink like a rock. Dissociation or the literal dissolving of the natural bonds between a person’s voices means the mental faculties available to the whole person must now be divided up, often unevenly, among the various girls within my wife’s network.

The second word in d.i.d. is identity. This is the part everyone knows about. A person with d.i.d/m.p.d. has different people/personalities in the same body. It’s the “fascinating” part of the condition that people think is cool or delightful or that gives ignorant script writers a new breed of perfect killers.

But let me reiterate again that I believe most people have multiple voices in their heads. At least I do. I have a defending voice that is quick to note violations by others against myself. I have a voice that is full of self-loathing and self-recriminations. I have a voice that is full of lust and sexual desire. And I have a voice that desperately wants to be taken care of. But because my mind is not dissociated, or separated, my voices all act as “me.” They don’t act independently, so I have never named any of them. They are all part of Sam. And Sam, I am, not Sam, we are.

The last part of d.i.d. is disorder. First I want to explain what “disorder” concerning this disorder is not. I naively didn’t realize how offensive that word is until one of my blog subscribers voiced her strong objections to it. From her perspective I can understand that being constantly told you are dysfunctional would be offensive and unhelpful.

First disorder does NOT mean the person is crazy, dangerous or contagious. Once you understand what’s going on inside someone with d.i.d., all the manifestations typically associated with multiples actually make sense from their perspective. After she was diagnosed with d.i.d. I told my wife that everything finally made sense. Crazy is worshipping the ground my wife walked on only to be ignored by her and treated as non-existent. Fundamentally I believe someone with d.i.d. suffers from a broken heart starved for love, acceptance and safety, but “that ain’t crazy.” And isn’t contagious so there’s no need to keep one’s distance. And from what I understand, it very rarely makes someone dangerous: sorry Hollywood, go find another disorder to malign! Alley, my wife’s defender, hated me when she initially came out, and I NEVER felt unsafe before or after she made her presence known to me.

Second ‘disorder’ does not mean that the person is mentally handicapped or “stupid.” In fact, from what my girls tell me, often a person with d.i.d. will be in the upper ranks of the IQ charts. Amy loves to crow about the fact that she is literally a genius.

Third ‘disorder’ does not mean that everything about d.i.d. is negative. I don’t have space to rehash a large portion of my blog in this entry. If someone asks, I will try to find the links to the most relevant posts on this point, but d.i.d. is NOT the black-hole, bottomless-pit, untreatable disorder that some therapists feel it is. Actually when I found out my wife had d.i.d. I nearly said, “Praise the Lord!” not because she had d.i.d., but because intuitively I finally knew how to bring about her complete healing. D.I.D. has many, many positive points to it both initially as it helps children cope during unbearable trauma and also as it relates to a person’s eventual healing.

I recently noted in my personal journal that the natural delightfulness of my wife’s insiders is probably what helped tip the scales in my willingness to stick out a sometimes one-sided marriage and see my wife thru the healing process. D.I.D. also has enabled me to literally give my wife the happy childhood she didn’t get originally. I have reasons to believe when we are done on this journey, she will be more emotionally well-balanced than most people I know. What other disorder gives you that hope???

However, ‘disorder’ does mean dis-order. After 3 ½ years of helping my girls 24/7, I believe there are two points which most negatively affect my wife. Your loved one’s experience may be different so keep that in mind.

The first point of dis-order comes from the dissociation. As I pointed out previously, dissociation means that each person in the network (or system) is actually weaker than he/she would be as a singleton because the mental faculties of the person are split and compartmentalized among the various people/voices of the network. My girls are finally at the point that they realize they really, truly need each other. During the first two years they would constantly block each other out and try to do things on their own, no matter what the task was or how bad the results. Many, many mistakes and failures occurred because of those attempts.

But finally, they are starting to realize that Karen is the best seamstress. Shelly can comprehend technology better. Sophia holds the ability for deep, restful sleep. They still don’t always act upon that knowledge. They still don’t always want to be part of a “team.” But they finally are acknowledging there is a problem and having a common goal among them is the only way to fix it.

But here’s a note of caution and frustration. Just because you or I can see that the lack of “team work” is causing so much of the dis-order, doesn’t mean we can force them to work together. A person who is dissociative has spent a lifetime being uncommunicative with others in the network. A while ago I discussed ways to encourage greater cooperation, but it’s not something that can be forced. In fact when I tried to encourage the girls to work together more, they resisted it more. So I had to take a more subtle approach that helped them to see the benefits of cooperation on their own.

The second point of dis-order most notable in d.i.d. is the “freezing” of the mental abilities. It’s not only the dissociation of their mental abilities that dis-orders my girls. When the trauma occurs, a child’s mind is broken up into pieces to quarantine the impact of the trauma. When that happens, the mental abilities associated with those “frozen” areas of the mind are never given the chance to develop properly. (Again I’m not talking mentally handicapped, but more like mental suspended animation)

So, my wife was a “klutz” because it seems that Amy controlled areas of the brain that controlled a lot of motor skills that never got developed when Amy got frozen. My wife was sexually dysfunctional because the inside girls clearly control various aspects that are critical to this area of a person: absolute trust, fun, daring, desire to be sexy, desire to please, animal attraction, etc. It is readily apparent to me which aspect each girl controls, and as they have healed and matured, all mental capacities under the control of the insiders have once again begun to develop and mature naturally. Slowly those traits are working their way into our sex life with a positive influence.

Dissociative. Identity.Disorder. Hopefully by defining the terms I can not only remove misunderstanding and offensiveness but also help promote our capacity to help our loved ones heal. Moreover, helping my girls on this healing journey has taught me a lot about myself and my own voices. The divide between multiples and singletons isn’t nearly as wide as either side would like to believe.

Blessings,

Sam, I Am