12/1/11
Plex:
The following reasons I know I am a multiple are not listed in order of significance. Some of these reasons would not constitute a basis for diagnosis standing alone, but when joined to the other reasons listed below, they make the diagnosis even more sure.
One of the earliest memories is one of looking down at my own infant body being nursed by my mother after a severe trauma (at a specific point in the trauma I was aware of a strong desire to escape what was happening to me along with a sense of crying out in my mind for help, followed by the sensation of floating to the ceiling away from the extreme pain and terror I had been feeling before I floated to the ceiling). There was both a desire to reenter my body to receive the comfort of my mother’s arms and of nursing along with an awareness that the baby I was looking down at had done a great service to me and a desire to let her be comforted before me.
At a slightly older age but still infancy, my parents left me in the care of a couple they trusted while they took my older brother to a different state for much needed surgery and rehabilitation. I believed my parents had abandoned me and I wanted to die. I have several very clear memories of trauma that took place during this time; but when my father came to pick me up, he commented (and wrote in his prayer journal) that he didn’t recognize the baby he picked up – that the baby he picked up was not his little girl. The next day his journal said, “We have our little girl back!”
My father kept a file of each of his children’s school work at each age (including before school started). Periodically I would pull my file out and look at the things in it. Some of them I recognized and others I didn’t even though they had my name on them. As I got older the style of handwriting changed significantly several times.
During my teen years I was aware of living very divergent lives simultaneously. I was frightened by this and I was convinced I was crazy and I had to keep anyone from knowing just how crazy life was for me. It was during my teen years that I remember hearing the different voices inside my head. [please note: hearing voices originating outside of ones head is characteristic of schizophrenia; but hearing voices inside ones head is characteristic of DID]. Some of my child personalities remember talking to others inside their head during elementary school, but I don’t.
During my college years, the different styles of handwriting as well as the different styles of doodling are clearly evident. You can match up handwriting styles & doodles with note taking habits. When we look at them we can remember taking some of them but not others. Certain hand writings were present for some classes but not for others. The last semester (following my mother’s death and during a time when my own physician was telling me that I shouldn’t attempt to take classes because my own health was so poor at the time) switching was out of control, and my notes scream multiplicity. In fact, the wrong personality was out during one final exam and I got a 15% score.
When I was first hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, an EEG was done. During the EEG there was a switch which showed up on the EEG strip. It puzzled the doctor and technician because the part of the pattern that changed was not the part that indicated seizure activity but the part that identified the patient (each person has a brain wave pattern that is distinct from every other person, like a finger print; and this was the part of the EEG print out that changed).
When I was diagnosed with a post-partum depression, I took my dog on walks; and frequently I would be walking along and suddenly realize I didn’t recognize the houses and stores I was walking past. I would go to the next street sign and it would also be unfamiliar to me. Then I would try to grasp onto anything familiar & realize I didn’t know what state I was in or what year it was. About that time my dog would sense my confusion and he would gentle lead me back to my house. Even standing in my own yard I would not recognize my house. Either my husband or my children would notice me standing out on the lawn and come out to get me.
The psychiatrist who diagnosed us had been working with multiples for decades. He really knows what to look for and he was/is confident about his diagnosis in our case. One of the reasons for his confidence stems from the fact that at the time a personality first presented herself who was not the birth personality, we were inpatient under his supervision. He gave orders that no one was to talk to me about multiplicity so I had no outside source of information from which to glean things to imitate. Even under these conditions, many of the evidences of multiplicity were clearly present. The therapy this doctor initiated was extremely successful.
This is not a comprehensive list but it is enough to make it clear that my symptoms were present long before I received psychiatric treatment, and the diagnosis is sound. I keep thinking of more things I could add, like medical tests and things that convinced my general practitioner that the diagnosis is correct and that he needs to take the multiplicity into consideration when doing medical tests or treating medical illnesses. That being said, I think what is here is enough.
If any of this raises questions in your mind or needs clarification to you, please send us a post and we will be glad to respond.
