How do I posit a working theory of human personality? I am just a husband who had only a smattering of psych discussions in classes more than 25 years ago on the subject (so reader beware! lol). And yet after 6 years of helping my girls heal from the fractured personality that dissociative identity disorder gave them, I have struggled to provide myself some kind of framework to use as I help them and figure out where to point them toward final healing. I’m still struggling how to conceptualize what I have learned as I have lived with their disorder 24/7 for over 6 years, but here it goes.
I think when we are born we have a large portion of the personality traits and abilities spectrum available to us. I do think there are other factors that determine our relative strengths and weaknesses in areas (which is outside the scope of d.i.d. and therefore this entry), but we start out with a full slate of personality traits available.
But trauma and choice and upbringing and experiences seem to chip away at our ability to access that full spectrum of available traits. I think people whom we would call “far right” and “far left” have over the course of their lives moved into very narrow positions within their possible personality ranges. They are then held captive from being able to see multiple perspectives at one time. Not only can they no longer see multiple perspectives, but they feel threatened by others who do. Hence, not only the religious wars against the un- and anti-religious and vice versa, but also our political and cultural wars between left and right. The more polarized one becomes, the smaller the amount of choices that are left to him/her within their personal paradigm.
We regularly use the language of multiples in our daily lives, and yet the stigma of hearing voices in our culture is such that we shun the value of holding multiple perspectives on a single issue. Our mind is trying to provide us with multi-layered and complex perspectives so that we can make the best possible decisions and experience life fully, but our cultural tradition upholds the ‘clarity’ afforded by simplistic, single mindedness over the more complex and mature ability to be double (or multi-) minded. Here are just a few of the terms that we use that hint at the multiple nature we all have within our brains: “fully engaged” vs. being on “auto pilot”, “on the one hand…, but on the other hand…” being “double minded”, “part of me thinks” etc. just to name a few. I wonder if Freudian slips can be better understood in light of multiplicity and recently experienced it myself when I had intended to buy a certain flavor of coffee to please my girls, but when I got to the front of the line, I ‘found’ the flavor I preferred in my hands… More
Loving My DID Girl(s) 