Lunar Roses

In my various travels around teh intertubes, I came across information that led me to a video on YouTube flacking a very expensive DVD about how, gawrsh, Multiple Personality is a real thing that happens to real people. No kidding?

The production values suck, and I’m in a sour mood, thinking how the mental health system and current conventional wisdom are smacking Multiples around so badly and so blatantly that we’re all practically in tears to be given the slightest validation, even from someone who just wants to sell us an overpriced, badly made, video statement of the obvious.

Checking out the current temperature of Wikipedia’s main article on Multiplicity is always good for some cheap entertainment value. Yeah, I keep going back. I have secret hopes for things to work out for myself and my sisteren and bretheren. Sometimes the “there’s no such thing that doesn’t happen you watch too much TV” folks have had their way with it, and it’s relentlessly contemptuous of “those who claim to have multiple personalities.” I often wonder at this group’s agenda. Why so shrill? What’s so threatening? Are these the same people who claim watching Law & Order or going to a therapist “made” their daughters “claim” to have been raped by… um, them?

Sometimes the Otherkin crowd or whack spiritualish groups have successfully turned it into a catalogue of the bizarre and astronomically unlikely (giving lots of fuel to that first group - way to go, guys).

Today the article seems to be straining for some kind of balance - good luck with that - although it has plenty of WTF interjections, such as: “This makes recovery from DID a matter of re-training the reptilian complex rather than a function of the more social neo-cortex.” This little gem is marked as “dubious” - yeah, no shit. The reptilian complex is neither subtle nor complex (and good luck re-training it, Bubba). Dissociation as a means of defense from serious and relentless abuse is subtle, complex, and not a thing I picture an alligator having much success with. I respectfully submit that whoever came up with that one is an idiot, or possibly one of that not-to-be-discounted group of Discordians who have nothing better to do than yank people on Wikipedia. All hail Eris!

I get less angry about the intelligence or expertise of theories going ’round about How In The Hell This Could Possibly Happen, than about straight reportage of things like this:

“As an increasing number of therapists view DID as iatrogenic, or caused by reinforcing treatment teams, new approaches have emerged. Current standards of care may involve requiring the patient respond to a single name, and refusing to speak with the patient if she or he is a different sex, age, or person than initially presented. As the patient begins to respond more consistently to a single name, and speak in the first person, more traditional therapy for trauma may begin. Though some dislike this approach or criticize it as disrespectful of the client, it is highly effective, and many published accounts confirm this approach.”

Incredulous emphasis mine.

It reminds me of stories about the generation of Natives in North America who were separated from their families, as children, and placed in specially-built boarding schools, the better to strip them of their cultural identities. Speaking one’s native language was strictly forbidden: only English was permitted. Of course, no one had taught them how to speak English even well enough to understand the rule that they were to speak only English, and in attempts to gather information, they would speak amongst themselves in their native tongues. Punishment was swift and vicious, increasing with each “infraction.”

Eventually, through exposure, the children would learn enough English to understand the rule, and stop breaking it (and speaking). Imagine the self-congratulation amongst the wielders of belts, switches, and whips, at having taught those children good that they will by damn obey the rules.

Hey, if that metaphor is too complicated for you, I’ll go more slowly: people with multiple personalities have been hurt very badly. They created an impressive and wonderful way to survive horrible, inescapable situations. They went underground. They pretended to be a single person even though they were not, until finally they were able to speak openly about all the horrors (and some cool things too) they had to BE SILENT about for years.

When you, O Genius Healer, punish a multiple for allowing her multiplicity to be seen, and make it clear that you don’t want to hear the truth, eventually word will get around in the system, and everyone will once again go underground, go through the motions you require, and hopefully get the hell away from you.

It looks an awful lot like astounding success, and it is! Congratulations - you have successfully re-created the situation that required development of several personalities living in one body. You have re-traumatized people who are in trouble and came to you for assistance. You are an abuser.

That clear enough for you, Sparky?

The last time we had a stint in the hospital, the employee of the state who spoke to the judge about us told him that the women and girls who had stayed on a certain unit in the old state hospital had been introduced to the concept of Multiple Personalities, and “it was a contagion.” She told him we had been in the state hospital for more than two years.

See what she just said? We “caught” Multiplicity in a hospital, along with a bunch of other crazystupidbad girls.

Except we never stayed on the ward OR at the hospital she referred to; we were diagnosed by a psychiatrist in private practice TEN YEARS BEFORE we did our stint in state hospital. And don’t think she was confused - she knew what she was implying, how it would be heard, and that it wasn’t true. This woman has had a hard-on for us for years, and once again, I don’t get it.

What is so threatening about women who tell the truth about our lives? You would think, from the reactions we get, that the world will shake apart if we don’t Shut Up Immediately.

I’m tired of this battle. Even on the sidelines, watching people with more letters after their names than we will ever have duke it out over our experience of our own lives and whether or not we can even be trusted to tell the truth, or are simply bad people who enjoy lying to others - even just watching, it wears me the fuck out. Helpless rage: not my favorite feeling-state.

Like a fool, I’ve swallowed Rosemarie’s shiny philosophy that we are in the world to change the world, even if we change it stone by tiny stone, even if all we do is refuse to shut up no matter how horrible, weak-minded, or immoral They say or imply we must be. No matter how many times they show us that the world is not safe, people will hurt us for reasons we will not understand, WE ARE NOT SAFE. We never are. We never are safe.

Ruth, of Off-Label, created the following lyrics for a song about that wonder of therapeutic wonders, Cognitive-Behavioral therapy:

CBT Song (with apologies to Eric Idle)

Fuck you very much for CBT
Fuck you very much for reminding me
That the way I feel has no relation to what’s real
And that no one really cares what happened to me
So fuck you very much for CBT
For trivialising and reducing me
To an emotional bureaucrat in my crisis management hat
I shouldn’t say shouldn’t, and even ought at that
I should make my bed and comb my hair in my railroad flat
So fuck you all so very much

Well-said, as always. We truly are not worthy.

Ruth’s original post can be found right here.