Tag Archives: trauma

The Beginning of Happiness

Posted on December 28, 2012 | 21 Comments

Stop Being So Religious

Dissociative Identity Disorder treatment claims to be a 5 to 7 year process. I would like to meet the person who has begun and successfully ended DID therapy within that time frame. I would like to hear from that person about what treatment was like for them. Were they in and out of hospitals, like so many of us with Dissociative Identity Disorder? Were they still dissecting trauma years into therapy? Did they ever?

After several years, DID treatment started seeming redundant to me. After a couple more, I lost my patience and quit.

I don’t believe Dissociative Identity Disorder treatment is supposed to be about building a shrine to the past and wailing at it for 60 to 90 minutes, 1 to 3 times per week. And I don’t think anybody reading this believes it, either. But that’s exactly what DID therapy looks like to me.

I guess it’s no surprise that I’m happier without it.

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Posted in Treatment Talk

Tagged DID, dissociative identity disorder, trauma

Why I Love Skeptics: Exhibit A

Posted on September 14, 2010 | 17 Comments

I respect faith,
but doubt
is what gets you
an education.

-Wilson Mizner

My willingness to consider provocative ideas increases in proportion to my passion for the subject matter. I’m dedicated to broadening and deepening my understanding of Dissociative Identity Disorder and the mythology that surrounds it. To that end, I find that some of the most educational material comes from those who reject the diagnosis altogether. Skeptics provide valuable information that helps expose the roots of misconceptions about Dissociative Identity Disorder. Continue reading →

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Posted in Mythology

Tagged DID, dissociative identity disorder, grains of truth, memory, trauma

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Not Trauma’s Purple Heart

Posted on August 31, 2010 | 6 Comments

I’ve talked a lot about the causes of DID over at the Dissociative Living blog. It’s awfully difficult, I think, to understand the nature of DID without considering its origins. But unless you really do your research, the only factor in the development of DID you’ll ever hear much about is trauma. I find that really frustrating. Yes, DID is a trauma disorder, and that deserves acknowledgment and discussion. And I get why trauma is the main focus: it’s the key factor, the main ingredient, the raison d’être. But ignoring other developmental factors limits understanding of DID and that’s where misconceptions take root. I’ll always be on a learning curve when it comes to DID, but when I was first diagnosed I had almost no information. So I went hunting for it. I found a lot of what I now know is mythology; mythology that went a long way towards terrifying me into rejecting my diagnosis. One of the scariest ideas? DID is evidence of the most heinous, unimaginable trauma; evidence of that, and nothing else. Continue reading →