Jeffrey M's List: PC

• Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a mental illness that involves  the sufferer experiencing at least two clear identities or personality states
• fairly consistent way of viewing and relating to the world
• distinctly different ways of reacting, in terms of emotions, pulse, blood  pressure, and blood flow to the brain.
• formerly called multiple personality disorder (MPD) and is often referred to as  split personality disorder.
• 3% of patients in psychiatric hospitals and is described as occurring in females  nine times more often than in males
• disagreement among mental-health professionals  about how this illness appears clinically, and if DID even exists, adds to the  difficulty of estimating how often it occurs.
• skepticism is sometimes due to questions about why many more individuals who  have endured the stress of  terrible abuse as young  children do not develop the disorder, why more children are not diagnosed as  having DID, and why some DID sufferers have no history of tremendous trauma
• some believe to be these inconsistencies is that given the highly complex and  unknown nature of the human brain and psyche, many of those whom one would  expect to develop dissociative identity disorder are spared due to their  resilience
• significantly more often assessed in individuals in North America compared to  the rest of the world
• same disorder in children look very different than in adults. Studies that  verify the presence of DID using multiple resources add credibility to the  diagnosis.
• case study of DID as early as 1906, movies about DID first became well known in  the United States since the 1950s

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• after suffering sexual abuse by her stepfather that started when she was 2 years  old, split into 92 distinct personalities

• Truddi says her old self ceased to be after that. "Something has to give," she  says. "You can't dump that much on a human being and not lose  something."
  
  
• She now refers to her body, or the collective personalities' experiences, as  "you" or "we."
  

• Truddi says her memories are divided up between her 92 personalities, whom she  calls her troops. "We all remember different sections," she says. "Multiplicity  keeps you sane under the worst conditions. I am sane; we are sane. Believe it or  not, it's easier to deal with than the abuse was."
  

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  The very first time Truddi realized  she wasn't living alone was when she heard a small child's voice calling out. "I  said to myself: 'My God, I know that I talk to myself, but I'm hearing this  voice. What is this?'
• Truddi says her personalities don't always know one another, and not all 92 of  her "troops" are active. "Some of them are so damaged they kind of stay back in  the shadows," she says. "They don't give their names; they don't come out. It's  only lately that we're getting shreds and pieces from each one of them."
  
  

• Before starting therapy, Truddi says she and her "troops" wanted nothing more  than to confront—violently, if possible—her abuser

• Truddi's therapist, Dr. Robert Phillips, says what causes a personality split  like Truddi's is unclear. "It seems to be something about the brain, about the  mind, which allows this very creative process to come in and to help defend a  person. It usually is a person who is abused very, very young—before personality  is formed," he says. "When you're so young everything is overwhelming; the whole  world is overwhelming. Something like this just overloads, so the person cannot  stay there and take it."
  
  
• "It's the most functional way to help a child survive. A child does not die but  is able to survive and goes on," he says. "Many, many people who are multiple  function quite well. I've worked with a man who is a lawyer. I've worked with  people who are professionals, counselors, medical doctors. They are able to go  on and live life."
  
  

• she says having Truddi for a mother was wonderful. "I come home from school I  don't know who I'm coming home to," she says. "It's always interesting

• Among Kim's personalities are "Patricia," the primary personality; "Salome,"  a devout Catholic; "Judy," the personality who comes out at mealtimes and,  despite Kim's slight frame, thinks she weighs more than 200 pounds; and "Ken," a  depressed gay man.
  
  
• suspect Kim suffered severe trauma from sexual abuse as a young child that  caused her mind to split into these multiple personalities. To communicate with  "Patricia," "Judy," "Salome," "Ken" and the others, Kim's therapist sends emails  to each of them. "We've got all different email addresses," Kim says. "They have  their own password. So I've sat there trying to get in by thinking, 'What's the  first word that comes into my head?' And trying to think what may be their  password so I could actually look at their emails."
  
  

• do not, for instance, fight each other in her head.
  
  
• Patricia" says her situation isn't such where a single personality represents a  specific mood (such as "anger" or "fear"). Instead, each of her 20 personalities  has a full range of emotions. "They're different. I'm me, and they're them," she  says. "Me, as 'Patricia,' I've got my days where I'm angry and in a bad mood and  happy and sad. I'm completely whole as a person. And they are also."
  
  
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  Photo: George Burns/Harpo Studios

   

  Kim says whenever one personality  inhabits her body, the rest are totally unaware of what is going on

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• After her therapists suggested she try painting, all of her multiple  personalities displayed their own artistic styles. Watch how the paintings by  the "Ria Pratt" personality could hold the key to what caused Kim's split into  multiple personalities

• D.I.D is a creative way to cope with unbearable pain.  The main personality splits into several parts with dissociative or amnesic  barriers between them. It used to be a controversial disorder but Kim has had  extensive tests over 2 years by leading psychology professor at UCL, John  Morton, who has established there is no memory between the personalities and  that she has the misfortune of representing the British gold standard over  genuine dissociation.
• Kim has 20  main personalities, many fragments and 14 of the main  personalities are artists. Having no formal art training, 14 of the main alters  became interested in painting in 2004 after spending a short time with an art  therapist
• Many alters are unaware that they share a body with other artists.

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