Dealing with MPD - My Journey

First, let me explain why I say MPD (Multiple Personalities) and not DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) as all members of the “esteemed” psychiatric community in the United States call it.

MPD – Multiple Personality Disorder
DID – Dissociative Identity Disorder

They look different don’t they? If you were to hunt down their definitions, you’d find that they echo each other’s definition. So why do they have different names? Read the definitions closer. They are identical, except for one very important line, and it is that very same line that is the reason that I say – that I am MPD instead of DID.

The Definition of MPD:

• • The presence of two or more distinct identities or personalities
• • At least two of these identities or personalities recurrently take control of the person's behavior
• • Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness
• • The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance or a general medical condition.
  

The Definition of DID:

• • The presence of two or more distinct personality states
• • At least two of these personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior
• • Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness
• • The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance or a general medical condition.
  

My alters (or family as I prefer to call them) would not like it if I called them a “Personality State”. Nor would your children like it if you called them a figment of your imagination.

I think that somehow, DID lends less credulity to the fact that indeed there are other personalities inside, they are real; they are distinct, complete separate personalities, with likes, wants and needs. It’s hard to live like this as it is. I have severe symptoms. I wake in the morning sitting at my desk, when I went to bed in my bedroom the night before. I physically cannot sit for extended periods, but one of my family members likes to be at the desk.

Worse yet, is the lack of psychiatric support. There is somewhere along the lines of 90% of the members of the psychiatric community who do not believe in MPD/DID to begin with. When other symptoms erupt – like my running battle with severe depression, hospitalization is always a battle. I am –forever- being re-diagnosed as BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder) or Schizophrenic – both are misdiagnosis of MPD. Doctors refuse to treat MPD in the local area, and then they medicate me for these disorders. When I was living in a group home, I was forced to take these medications, or return to living with my abusive parents.

I’m on Medicare and Medicaid due to disabilities beyond the mental part – (physically disabled as well as the debilitation of MPD, PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and Major Depression). The only local hospital that even offers a PTSD clinic is a private hospital. So, when symptoms of depression and suicidal ideation come about, it’s compounded by the knowledge that I’m going into a facility that doesn’t care if I’m MPD or not, it’s going to medicate me for something I’m not. Feelings of desperation begin to cloud and compound the feelings of depression. Then the angry insiders step out, the ones who want to quit, or who have only one way of expressing their anger and that is through cutting on the body. That scares me the most. I’m caring for children, I can’t be cutting.. But the feelings are soooo close.

Just this morning, I came into the office to have a cigarette, and discovered something extremely odd. There was an un-smoked cigarette, with a paperclip pinching the filter sitting on my desk. This has never happened before; to me it causes fear and wonder. Who did it? Why? When did it occur? I didn’t do it! I went to bed, I woke up in bed. I do not recall ever getting up in the night, yet when I got up this morning, all of the clothes that were on top of my hope chest that is at the foot of my bed, were on the floor – yet, my bed was not ruffled, nor were my blankets and sheet messed. I did not get under them at all last night, and it was cold.

I have a therapist, she’s a wonderful person. I go to her office, and chit-chat. I get to the point of getting comfortable enough to talk about something, and it’s time to go, our scheduled time is over. Poof – the time flies over my head and all I can do is look at the clock and say huh? It’s not that I’m uncomfortable talking to her. It’s not that anyone inside is uncomfortable talking to her – I don’t get that feeling. It’s that NOBODY wants to tell.

So, redirection, change the subject, I don’t even realize I’m doing it.. or am I ? Because sometimes, I don’t remember the session at all. Most the time that is. I don’t. Who was there? How did I get home? Must be James drove again, he’s the driver in the family. He’s 16, I learned when I was living in Phoenix. A very safe driver for one so young, but he can’t control it when Janet wants to take over. SHE is the suicidal one, and one of her constant, scary themes is driving at 100 miles per hour into a very sturdy tree or light pole.

Yet, we don’t talk about that. Not until the pain is so great, that it’s tearing us all up inside. I can hardly breath sometimes. Yet no tears come. I cannot cry. I have not cried in years.

The journey I’m on, is a long one, and I’ve been on it for years. I’ve got a long ways to go. I’m on a backwards slide, and right now the safety net has been ripped full of holes.

There’s only one patch that’s there, that I might catch.. if I land right.. but that’s highly unlikely at this stage of the game, there is little hope.