Arrested Development in Dissociative Identity Disorder

For the last 5 years my wife/my girls and I have been slogging it out with her dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder. Both she and her counselor credit me with doing the bulk of the heavy lifting when it comes to helping her through the healing process. But I was not trained for this role. I’m more like a staff sergeant as I help my girls in the trenches 24/7 and everything I know has been from OTJ (on the job) training.

But as we enter, what I hope is the final phases of healing in this disorder, I’ve been trying to look back at our journey and develop some kind of theoretical framework for what I’ve done and observed as I help my wife heal.

So in this entry I want to talk about the “arrested development”* that I’ve noted in the 6 little girls in my wife’s network. First of all this term is generally shunned and disdained by those in the psychological world. Here’s what Wikipedia says about the term:

In the field of medicine it means a stoppage of physical development. In the UK Mental Health Act of 1983 it meant severe mental impairment resulting in a lack of intelligence. And many researchers object that mental development can be “arrested” or “stopped” and suggest that it simply develops in other ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrested_development_(psychology)

So my hope is to rehabilitate the term as it specifically applies to someone with dissociative identity disorder.

When the girls first came out, they were very one-dimensional. They were like people coming out of the stone-age and everything in this world was new to them. They had to learn to access Karen’s basic knowledge of how things work in this world or more often, they simply insisted on learning things by the school of hard knocks and by asking me for help.

Moreover the girls told me that they each experienced a “stasis” of sorts. During their original childhood each was active to various degrees, and then suddenly they were “asleep” for nearly 3 to 4 decades until we awakened them starting 5 years ago. It was part of the Rip Van Winkle effect I wrote about here:

https://samruck2.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/the-rip-van-winkle-effect/

At this initial phase, when the little girls joined us, other than Karen, the traits that I later came to recognize in each girl were still hidden and untapped. These were also traits that Karen herself largely lacked or they were greatly stunted in her.

But as the little girls came out and began to heal and grow I noticed certain personality traits and intellectual abilities were associated with each girl. And as the little girls began to mature, the traits associated with each one also began to mature. It was, as if, the trait truly had been “arrested” by the dissociation-generated stasis and was eventually locked inside my wife’s brain when the little girls were buried deep inside. These traits were only reinvigorated once the little girls were brought back out to be reconnected with Karen in the larger network of Ka’ryn Marie.

As I’ve worked with and observed the 7 girls in my wife’s network these last 5 years, I’ve constantly noted that each girl has definite “spheres of influence” within the group as a whole. In other words it appears that when the girls were split off and dissociated from the original person born Ka’ryn Marie, they each took with them various personality traits and abilities.

In my personal journal I’ve noted some of the areas that each girl seems to have the major controlling influence over. A small sampling follows: Karen controls finances and sewing abilities along with major banks of photographic memories. Alley controls the logic and debating skills and also the desires to be sexy. KA claims queen bee status of all things pertaining to art (though all the girls claim smaller, sub-divisions under their queen bee and Karen holds a lot of the practical expertise needed for their artistic endeavors ). She’s also my romantic girlfriend. Amy is the certified genius, little business woman, and also drives the desire to play and have fun. Shelley controls the mechanical aptitude skills. Tina controls the organizational skills of the groups and can work all the other girls into the ground (I have to help counteract her tendency to be a workaholic and teach her to listen to the others’ needs for breaks). And even little Sophia controls things: currently she is the portal through which Tina communicates to the other 5 girls. She also controls the ability for sleep.

But as I said, I’m just a staff sergeant. I don’t have the theoretical training to explain things. I’m just more of an observer trying desperately to record what I see and adjust how I help my wife heal accordingly.

Maybe someday this little blog will find the attention of someone who can help me connect the dots and develop a more coherent framework. But for now that’s my take on how arrested development is related to dissociative identity disorder. And to me, the arrested development of each little girl’s skills and abilities was just as important to address as the dissociation that kept the girls apart. In some ways I believe this part of the disorder is even more difficult to correct than the more commonly recognized dissociative aspect for which the disorder is named.  The only way I’ve found to correct it thus far is by restarting the natural maturation clock which means being constantly outside.

Blessings,

Sam, I Am

*Note: Thanks go to a fellow husband with whom I correspond for alerting me to the phrase “arrested development.”