Dissociative identity disorder and trauma

I've covered this subject before, and I want to bring it up again, as some significant things have been happening in my own life that relate to the phenomenon. In some respects, this blog has to be seen as a whole to understand it, but I'll talk about some of the enlightening things that have happened in the past 24 hours or so.

I've been doing a very powerful acting workshop over this weekend with a very talented actress and director who looks at the way an individual is fragmented into various parts. We all have these parts, of course. They're known as "sub personalities" most of the time, and they're aspects of the whole that is who we are. They're the bits of our identity.

In the case of psychological trauma, particular bits can become so at odds with each other that some of the bits get separated all together. In the case of unprocessed grief, that leads to the kind of stress diorder that I and many other people suffer from.

The weekend gave me the chance to explore a couple of these particular "selves" and I gave the reins over to one very damaged, hurt part of myself that's lurked in my life for a long time. He's been triggered, lately, during some of my ventures on the Guardian talkboard, as insults have been hurled back and forth between myself and other posters. The past few days have been particularly difficult, but I've had the chance to see some light through the difficulty and pain.

As I've always maintained, we can't actually be hurt by what people say. We can only ever be reminded of hurts and attachements that are, inevitably, based on or around fears.

In my case, a huge attachment to being crazy or bonkers or useless had been coming up for me in my time posting on GUT. My self esteem was put to the test often, with posters calling me all kinds of names. But I knew that they only hurt because some part of me believed them, and this is the real clue in understanding how this whole process works. At the core of it, my belief systems are really what dictates whether or not what someone says to me or about me is going to affect me. And this is the same with everybody.

In the improvisation, I allowed this character to emerge who was totally useless. He was angry, incompetent, and confused. It's a part of me that I've carried around a lot in my life. He's an aspect of me that I've hidden behind a variety of masks for a long time.

Something else came up over the weekend, as well. Since the monumental hoohah on GU over the subject of death, it brought some posters, and a dear friend, telling me that I have a very real problem with allowing myself to love and be loved. This was painful to hear, but I've had the chance to be able to process that, too.

I was watching the movie "K-Pax" last night, at the same time as I was mourning the loss of my friend, whom I'd written to, telling her goodbye, and that the friendship was over. I was crying really deeply, not just at the loss of my friend, but at what was going on in the life of the character in the film, Prot, who claimed to be an alien from the planet K Pax, who was on a mission visiting various planets in the galaxy.

We never really know in the film whether Prot really is an alien, but what we do know is that the body he inhabits is that of a man who'd suffered the terrible trauma of losing his wife and daughter to a murderer and rapist, who'd attacked them in their home five years previously.

As the film unfolds, we see that the man is discovering his real trauma, with the help of a doctor, and managing to face what really happened to him, and come to terms with the terrible rage, sense of guilt and shame, and profound grief at the loss of his wife and child.

At the point that he was breaking down under hypnosis, I found myself breaking into really deep sobs, as I found myself relating to what he was going through. Able to empathise myself, I could really understand what he was going through.

And then I realised something about my own fears. I realised that one the biggest reasons that I avoid real intimacy is the loss of the person I might love. Having been through the rape of a girlfriend myself, I've been terrified for years of it happening again in a new relationship. It's caused me to become so much more detached about relationships, and not wishing to get "too close" to someone. The way Prot behaved in the film reminded me so much of the way I'd been, as one of my dissociated "sub personalities" on GUT.

There are more things I realised over the weekend, but I really don't have time to go into them now, as I have to present a show today, for the workshop.

I had some thoughts, too, about our human need for connection, and what we are as a global community of spirits. This, I'll have to share another time.

But they've been profound thoughts.

I wish to say "Thank you" to all the people who've played in my drama, and who have allowed me to play in their in the past days and weeks. Whether you've been "good" or "bad" for me, or I for yourself, I do hope that you've learned as much about your own lives as I have about my own.

Wishing you all the very best, with much love...