Before I began the journey with my girls through dissociative identity disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder, I was a confirmed religious and political conservative. To me one of the pillars of those positions is total personal responsibility. We are all responsible for our actions and inactions. Period. Plain and simple. Right?
However, as I have been deeply involved in the healing journey with my girls, I was confronted with the fallacy of this a priori assumption. I had never even questioned that someone might literally be unable to control every decision and action that proceeds from their being.
Humans are incredibly complex creatures, and I don’t want to launch into a complex philosophical evaluationof every factor that influences human free will. Philosophy’s not my forte. But in the beginning of our journey especially, as I watched my girls suffer from panic attacks and get triggered from “insignificant” events, I came to realize that they literally were NOT responsible for their every action and inaction. And that realization was a window into my own soul as well.
Dissociative identity disorder is just a disorder on a larger spectrum of human functioning. The more emotionally healthy a person is, the more, I believe, he/she has the ability to exercise freedom of choice in everything. But when a child is exposed to a traumatic childhood, that ability to act in healthy ways is significantly impaired. And that realization helped me take a large step toward proper compassion for my wife. More
Loving My DID Girl(s) 