I get it now...

[rosebee]

Anyone familiar with author Torey Hayden?

She has a new(ish?) book out, Twilight Children

I'm going to cut the rest of these thoughts so I don't spoil the unfolding of the book's developments...


So Twilight Children is about 3 people, 2 children & 1 elderly woman that Torey worked with. If you're familiar with Torey's previous works you know she was a Special Education teacher. She's now a child psychologist at a children's inpatient psychiatric ward of a major metropolitan hospital.

1 of the children she chronociles her treatment of/work with is a 8 or 9 year-old girl named Cassandra. Cassandra was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward due to violent behavior, graphic lies & other problems resulting from the nearly 2 years she spent in an abusive hellhole following her abduction by her biological father.

Well several chapters into it, Torey locks on a clue that makes her think Cassandra is suffering from Disassociative Disorder (multiple personalities).
This turns out to be the case, and how Torey tells Cassandra that is what her problems come from, how/why they came to be, and begins to bring her on the process of recovery I found absolutely enlightening.

Multiple Personality Disorder (or whatever the official technical term is for it) has always been something I've accepted people as having, but I never was really able to put my brain around it. Now I think I get it.

Comments

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

there's a lot of controversy and anger within the plural community about the psych industry's insistence that plurality is a disorder that needs fixing, because there are quite a few plurals who have no psych history and are happy, healthy and fully functional. in many ways, it's not much different than a couple decades ago when homosexuality was considered a psych disorder (imo because the industry only sees those who are in distress, so characterises the aspect that's different than the norm as "wrong").

of the scores of plurals i know/have known, only 2 have integrated, and they did because that's what they were told they needed to do by their therapists. it didn't last with either, and in the end both said they felt they had submerged parts of themselves in order to try to be "healthy and whole" but that it caused more problems than it solved.

there's also the problem of assuming that plurality stems from abuse (it seems that it might for some people, but others have no history of abuse or trauma. we assumed ours was, but i often wonder if it's just that we were already plural and that by splitting up the trauma, there was less for any one of us to deal with. i really don't know. and again, i think it may well be that the industry sees plurals in crisis who are actually in crisis due to abuse related trauma, ptsd, etc., but since plurality is such a hot button, that's what they focus on "fixing"...)

iirc, the name preferred by the dsm iv and the american psych industry is dissociative identify disorder. the rest of the english speaking world uses "multiple personality disorder" and points out that dissociation and multiplicity are not the same thing.

i prefer plural, since i don't consider it a disorder.

[rosebee.livejournal.com]

In my worldview, only if something is causing you problems should it be fixed. It doesn't matter *what* it is. And it should only be fixed if the person wants it fixed.

If an individual is happy, healthy & fully functional, then that's all that matters and I have nothing but wishes of future happiness & good fortune. :)

The theory of plurality stemming from abuse makes sense, but I'm certainly not willing to say that there's no other way (& I think that even Dr's shouldn't make such automatic assumptions).

The book was most informative for me in explaining/showing how all these different elements come/live together inside one individual (a concept that had me completely baffled for quite some time). I'm still a little fuzzy on how the physical control of the body works, but I suppose that's different for every plural. For this girl, the main identity was aware of the others and could talk to them (when she was asked to or when she wanted to). The main identity was also very much unaware at certain times... there were times when it was obvious from the dialogue that another identity was the one talking & interacting with the world when a question would be asked anew by the main identity after the other identity had already asked the same question.

Because there's only one of me in this body, trying to wrap my brain around the concept of there being more than one has been extraordinarily difficult. The book began the explanation with how all people disassociate to some extent (like when you're driving down the freeway on autopilot), and that pluralism is just an extreme extension of that. It was put together in a way that made it easy for singular non-plural me to grasp. :)

[rainbow.livejournal.com]

ditto on the problem thing!

i'm glad it gave you more of an understanding! *happy hug!*