Can DID/MPS people get better?

If you hear the diagnosis of DID/MPD you might feel like there is no use to try and get better because that cannot happen. I am here to tell you different. Yes the diagnosis might not be what you want to hear. But it could be worse you could have a different mental illness that does not have a cure. Do I mean a cure that you take medication for and one day you wake up and it is gone? No. It is not that way. The cure is one that takes hard work. First finding a great therapist that is patient, consistent, firm along with caring and willing to invest time is where to start. You might not think they are out there but I am sure they are I found one. Really God led me to her. They are not the only ones that is required to do some hard work you are as well. For me to get better I have realized a number of things. First of all I had to have a deep desire to recover what was stolen from me which was my wholeness. Then I had to learn to trust. That was very hard
because my whole life I was learning not to trust. You cannot just flip a switch that helps you to trust you just have to make an effort. I have also found it very helpful to journal. For me it was less embarrassing and easier to put some things on paper than to speak them out loud. It is helpful to share that with your therapist so they can understand how to help and direct you better. Also you need to have support people. Someone you can call when your therapist is not in their office. A person or persons that is willing to support you even when you try to push them away. Even though I am married that did not mean trust was easy. I will say that my husband and children were and are a big support to me. The biggest thing is to keep pushing even though you don't feel like it. Don't get discouraged when you feel you have slipped believe your cheering team when they say it is ok. Brush yourself off, take another step and keep pushing. I might have
made this sound like it was easy for me but many times I had to lean on someone else to help carry me when I could not take another step. But it is worth the fight. Believe it or not God is right there willing and able to help you along the whole journey. You are worth the fight that I do know. I know that because God made us all important. Just because you had severe trauma which caused the split does not mean you are any less important. Push on to recovery and become all you were meant to be.
If you want to chat you can email me at alters30@yahoo.com or if you want me to speak to your group feel free to contact me. I would love to help you and others along their journey. To know how I traveled my journey I have put some of it in poem form which I share in my book "Out of the Depths a Poetic Journey". Also my book "An Unspeakable Secret" is my journey to healing.

Does Being In Therapy Affect The Whole Family?

The fact that I was MPD was never a real big deal to me. I knew nothing different. I was also glad to be able to find out what was wrong. I had known for years that I had a problem I also had figured it was bigger than I wanted to believe. For years I cried inside myself I just wanted to be better. I had no idea what I had hid deep in the inner recesses of my mind. But what I did not know was how therapy would work when I started my journey. I still was in hopes of a quick fix. When you go to the doctor they tell you what is wrong if needed a surgery is done and in a few weeks good as new. Sad to say that is not quit how therapy works. In therapy to get the real healing needed you have to dig clear to the core of the problem carefully peeling back every layer. It takes you back to the depths of your own tortured soul. For me it was back to those childhood days of abuse. Even though therapy only lasted an hour it was felt long after leaving the office.
At some points in the early part I could not even drive so Steve would take me and pick me up. The boys would take care of things around the house, like laundry and even fixing frozen pizza. Things that I would have normally done Steve and the boys would do. There was not much sleep for Steve because I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming with nightmares. In reliving many memories I would become so suicidal that I ended up in the hospital. One time I went to Whitfield where I spent ninety plus days. The boys spent a lot of time with friends while Steve worked and went to school. After the fact our oldest son said "many days the only thing I wanted to do was go home where my stuff was". I was not always tuned into their needs not because I didn't want to be but I just could not. I think at any age children need to be shown you love them. When they feel neglected sometimes they act out, which happened at our house. After taking a trip
to school on an issue we decided it was time we had a family meeting. I will never forget sitting on the floor in our living room with our children. When they shared they was missing me doing things with them and sometimes they just needed a hug. My heart was broken we all sat there hugging each other and crying. We came up with a plan. If any of us needed a hug we just had to ask. That was a great help and it was used. My family was and is my greatest cheerleaders. I am not sure I would be where I am today if it hadn't been for their love. It does affect the family but you can do it, we did. God helped us to keep together. Thanks God for a loving family.

Life as DID/MPD

I would like to share with you some of what it was like being MPD. Although it was normal I never get used to some things. I considered myself a very forgetful person. I could not remember from one moment to the next what I was doing or saying. But I was able to remember later and wonder why I couldn't the moment I tried. I figured it came with being stupid. I had to concentrate very hard to just know where I was and what I was doing. School was hard. I became very organized so that no matter which alter (other personality) was in class the work could be found. I might be talking to someone then all of a sudden not even know them or what we were talking about. That was because of the switching. Switching was the changing of personalities. Sometimes it was very fast. The more stressful the situation the more frequent I learned to cope. I did find out that most people will continue to talk if given a chance, which is how I could find out what was going
on. Something I never got used to was being called weird. The old saying sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. That is not true. Words stay around long after broken bones are mended. I pondered those words for a long time trying to figure out what made me weird. I offended people and really had no idea what was the problem. If you happen to be one of those people I am very sorry. I have lost many friends because of being weird and there was no explanation for my actions or lack thereof. I did not have any real close friends that I could talk to or was afraid to talk to those that were friends. It was easier to push them away before they found out what an awful, stupid person I was. I also did not want the pain and rejection of them leaving me. I felt that if anyone got to know me they would not like me because of the how I was. I might have looked and acted like nothing was wrong but what I did was train myself to laugh and
pretend no matter how much I hurt. That did not stop what was going on inside. Inside there was a cry for help. I am sure that is how other abused people feel even if they do not have MPD. When I got married we had no idea all of this was in my past but we started finding out about eleven years into our marriage. That is when I began to fall apart and got the diagnosis of MPD. It was an explanation for the strange behavior. Then I began my journey to getting better. All of this does affect the whole family. It was not just me on my journey it was also my husband's and two son's. Next week I am going to talk about how recover affected the family.

What is Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder?

I am going to talk about different aspects of DID/MPD these next few weeks. To start what is MPD? Dr. James G. Friesen, Ph.D. the author of "More Than Survivors Conversations With Multiple-Personality Clients" says "it is not a disease. It results from dissociation, a God-given coping style that gifted children learn to use to protect themselves from the effect of serious trauma. There is nothing wrong with these people." No one wants to believe that anyone could treat a child in such a dreadful manner that it would cause their mind to separate into different parts to handle the treatment, but it does happen. There are many events in the news these days about people beating their child causing death or they just kill them. We do not question if this could really happen because we sadly can see the results, the dead child. What about the child that suffers in silence and no one ever sees what is happening. Why is it so hard to believe that severe
trauma can happen behind closed doors? There have been many studies about how awesome our brains are and how much of a mystery is still left to find out. To me there should be no reason why one should not believe in MPD. MPD is just that the brain separates into different parts to handle what is happening, creating different personalities, the worse the trauma the more personalities. The person is not purposely creating them it just happens as a coping mechanism to help them to be able to function in the world they have to operate in every day. They do not even know this has happened because it is normal to them. You do not need to be afraid of the person that has this because it is not contagious. These people also need to be embraced and helped as anyone that suffers any trauma. Do not continue to treat these people as if they have done something wrong. They are only trying to survive.