The Bible was my lifeline long before I entered therapy of any kind; but I want to start this post with the first time I heard the words,”Multiple personality Disorder”. It was very early In my relationship with Dr. Hann. He asked me if I had ever heard of it. I didn’t know what he was talking about but the only thing that I could think of was schizophrenia and I was very sure I didn’t have that. The idea that he might think I did was frightening to me but he assured me that wasn’t the same thing.

A few weeks later, I experienced something between a dream and a vision. I’m pretty sure I was awake but this was very much like a dream that I couldn’t stop. In the dream, I was stuck half way down a laundry shoot. There were people in the room above me and the basement below me who were trying to get me. I was desperately trying to figure out the best way of escape when suddenly I was four different people, each with their own ideas about the best next choice of action. they were different ages and they looked very different from me and each other, but I knew that they were all me.

I was shaken by the experience and when I told my husband about it, he suggested that I call Dr. Hann right away. When I described it to him, he wanted to admit me to the hospital. Most of that week at the hospital went by uneventful until the night before I was to be released. I was part of a small group who were to plan my discharge.The group consisted of Dr. Hann, a social worker, a nurse, and me. What happened next is hard to explain.

We all stood in front of the door to a private room used for this type of meeting while Dr. Hann unlocked the door. The next thing that registered in my brain was the four of us sitting around a table. I had no sense of the passing time – it was like one second we were at the door, and the next second we were at the table. (That experience of loosing time happened frequently to me, and when I was expected to know what happened during that time, I had become pretty good at picking up clues, asking questions, changing the subject or moving the focus of the conversation away from me, or just faking it. It was embarrassing and it made me feel dishonest but I didn’t understand it myself so I couldn’t explain it to anyone else.) The first thing I noticed was everyone looking expectantly at me. I figured someone had asked me a question and they were waiting for my response. I apologized and asked them to repeat the question. Instead, Dr. Hann asked me to look at the clock. Twenty minutes had gone by since we entered the room, and I had no idea what was discussed during that time. Dr. Hann explained to me that they had been talking to a nine-year-old personality named Ellen. He could have told me that the room turned upside down – I had no idea how to react to that. I was stunned and quite honestly, I don’t remember what else was said during the rest of the meeting. The discharge was postpone. Since it was evening, I went back to my room and tried to grasp what had happened. A multitude of emotions and questions prevented sleep that night. Before the meeting ended, Dr. Hann told us that he didn’t want me to get any information about MPD. He didn’t want me to read or hear about it and then show behaviors suggested by what I learned. During the following weeks He was careful not to tell me what he was looking for. Obviously, he wanted me to establish communication with other personalities, but he didn’t tell me how it would happen.

I was already of the habit of writing in a prayer journal every day. But after the meeting that was supposed to be about my discharge, I would be writing in my journal and pause to think about what I wanted to write next, and during that pause for reflection my hand would write something without any connection to my thoughts. I would just let my hand be relaxed and I would read what was being written. At first that was a frightening feeling, but gradually I started asking questions in my thoughts and letting my hand go so I could read what someone else was writing.

I couldn’t get information from any outside source, but inside people were writing to me through my hand. Clearly there were other parts of me, or at least there were other beings controlling my hand at times. I sought to find answers in God’s Word. The only thing that I knew I would find there in which there were more than one being inside one body was demon possession. I looked at every passage in which demons were discussed or described. What was happening to me didn’t resemble any demon activity I could find, but, not surprisingly, I also didn’t find anything that resembled my situation either. That is when I called upon my Bible study skills I had learned over the years. Starting with a heart-cry prayer for God to lead me to truth, I started searching with a heart open to be taught through the Old and New Testaments. I was looking for anything that could validate what I was experiencing.

First came a promise: John 8:32 “You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” These words were spoken by Jesus, and they repeated in my spirit over and over. I knew I would find answers if I kept looking.

The passage that turned a corner for me was Ecclesiastes 4:8-12, “Here is one alone – no one with him; he neither has child or brother, yet there is no end to all his labor…Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor; For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie down together, then they have warmth; but how can one be warm alone? And though a man might prevail against him who is alone, two will withstand him. A three strand cord is not quickly broken,”

There it was – the principle of multiplicity. When one is injured and alone, unable to get help or be rescued, unable to tell anyone about the trauma they are experiencing, God has built into our brain the ability to sequester the trauma so that one keeps the trauma and all of the impact it can have on the mind, body, and soul; and that makes it possible for the other to live totally free of that trauma.

I read the verses all around the passage to be sure I wasn’t making it say something different from it’s intended message. I went to a man who was doing his Ph D in Hebrew and asked him if I was understanding it correctly; and he confirmed that I was.

I also thought about the fact that God Himself is three separate persons yet the three together are One. I thought about an egg, with it’s shell, white, and yolk, so here again is the concept of each being very different from the other parts, each part having a different purpose to fulfill, yet together they are one egg.

There were other passages of Scripture and examples that I saw in nature so that I became thankful to the parts inside me. Together we worked hard to build understanding and cooperation among us. There would be a lifetime of learning and adjusting; but we have not lost our reliance on Scripture to lead us into better understanding of our internal and external worlds.