I asked 7 people who were diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) (also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)) a series of questions about having multiple personalities.
I hold these people in the highest regard for their courage and honesty.
Are multiple personalities real?
Jeanette Bartha, USA:
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters), and what do you think caused them?
I started to exhibit alters about 3-4 weeks after beginning treatment with an MPD expert. What caused them was having 100% insurance coverage, being sequestered on the ward, not seeing friends or family, a poor diet, no exercise, high doses of narcotics and a delusional doctor.
I’ve heard people with “MPD/DID” say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
No blackouts unless you count being given too many narcotics.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
They never knew about the details of my treatment.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
No, I wouldn't say I was acting. I was living up to his expectations and believed the alters were real - after a while and many truth serum interviews. I was assured by the doctor that I was not acting, lying, or mis-remembering.
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
Run! You're much worse than you were at admission. Get out of here.
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
It was an ah-ha moment. I had been jogging and my head cleared.
Are multiple personalities real?
Only in the minds of some psychiatrists and film-makers.
Roma Hart, Canada:
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters), and what do you think caused them?
October 1986 at the end of my first appointment with Dr. Colin Ross. I had gone to a university student guidance counsellor Lynn Ryan to get a form fill out for an extension to my unemployment insurance at the suggestion of my friend, but the form required a doctor and this guidance counsellor, who was also a student of Dr.Colin Ross, was sure that he would fill out the form for me. Although the unemployment was based upon a foot injury it just seemed easier to get an extension based on stress, I was certainly under stress, and when the student counsellor asked me what I did when I was under stress and I answered “I just switch to auto pilot” she immediately diagnosed that as another personality and became excited at the possibility of working with her idol and professor Colin Ross who held claim to being the only MPD expert in Western Canada at that time. I just needed the form filled out, I didn’t believe in multiple personality disorder and had read in a Psychology Today magazine several years earlier that it was junk science, no such thing existed. Nevertheless there Lynn and I were a few days later, in Ross’ office in the St. Boniface Hospital psych. building. At the end of the first appointment Ross asked me if he could speak to one of my personalities and I felt pressured to produce one for him. The student counsellor was sitting right beside me and I knew that I had a tendency to cry very easily when I has PMS, and that when I had PMS I hated being touched because my skin felt like it was on fire, an estrogen overload kind of effect. Well I just happened to have pretty bad PMS that day so I told the counsellor to touch me and I would switch to another personality. She did, worse than just a touch she started rubbing my back and I could not help myself from cringing and crying to get the hell away from her because she wouldn’t stop rubbing my back. Dr.Colin Ross was very pleased indeed for the apparent personality switch and I just nodded yes to every question he asked, I just wanted to get out of his office as soon as possible. I was terrified of going to a psychiatrist’s office and terrified of drugs but the student counsellor had assured me before going to that appointment that MPD was the only diagnosis that never required hospitalization and never required drugs, so I believed that if I were to get out of Ross’ office then I needed that diagnosis and no other. Furthermore, I needed that damn form filled out because I needed the money, I had no intention of ever coming back for another appointment. Well, Ross filled out the form and shook my hand welcoming me to MPD therapy at the end of that first appointment.
How many alters did you have?
I had 48 alter personalities, Ross said I had more but I was too bored to look for more and the MPD therapy was making me very sick.
I’ve heard people with “MPD/DID” say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
My so-called blackouts were nothing more than ordinary moments of distraction and day dreaming, for example missing my stop on the bus because I was looking out the window thinking about something. My periods of memory loss were nothing more than normal forgetting because something happened a long time ago. However, all supposed blackouts and supposed memory loss were rewarded by Ross and the other MPD support group members, it supported the cult like environment of the believers in MPD.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
Not my family, but I had one friend who wanted to be included in my MPD treatment program and seemed to love the drama.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
In the very beginning I felt like an actor, but by the second appointment I was completely sucked into the game. By the third appointment Ross had me convinced I was not only sexually abused by my whole family throughout my entire childhood but was also part of a murderous satanic cult. By the fourth visit he had me believe that I had an alien baby. The following month I attempted suicide. The following month, after standing in the hallway by the nurses station in the St. Boniface Hospital psych. building and yelling that “ it was all a lie and that nothing was true”, Dr. Colin Ross had me committed, forcibly injected with high levels of drugs, put in a seclusion room , and had one of his nurses sit beside me on the floor saying to me over and over again that it was all true. Well I never did that again, learned my lesson.
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
At the first step toward the St. Boniface Hospital I would have screamed at myself to stop and run in the opposite direction as fast and as far as I could. When I had decided to just go to Ross’ office and pretend I had MPD to get the form filled out I thought that nothing could go wrong, I wasn’t crazy, all I had to do was sit there and talk to him for an hour, no harm could ever come from that, in a few weeks I could just go back to work. Boy was I wrong! What would I say to myself back then? Lots could go wrong! So much could go very wrong very quickly, oh my goodness turn around and never go in there and never ever speak to or listen to Dr. Colin Ross or his whacko student ever again!!
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
I would watch the television show Sesame Street as a way to be kind to my child personality. There was one episode where Kermit the Frog and Grover were demonstrating emotions. Kermit would say this is what sad looks like, this is what angry looks like, this is what happy looks like, and then Grover would demonstrate what that feeling made him look like. Well, Hell! It was a light bulb moment for me. I remembered that before I met Ross I never had to switch personalities when I felt different emotions. Grover didn’t have to say he was a different name or a different person just because he was feeling a different emotion, he was still Grover all the time! That’s what I was like before MPD therapy! Geeeez! I was sick of MPD therapy and I was so sick of Ross not listening to me and always telling me to switch personalities. Then I remembered something I had learned as a student when I was in the university Faculty of Education, it was about “unlearning”. So I decided that if I had learned how to be MPD then I could unlearn it too. So that’s what I did, I unlearned it by stopping it.
Are multiple personalities real?
They’re only real if you believe in them. But they’re caused by bad therapy and bad therapists using junk science for personal investments of one kind or another. If you can manage to get away from those cult like influences and dust off your critical thinking skills then you’ll see that MPD is not a real thing and the personalities are not real thing either.
Sonja Karels, Netherlands:
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters), and what do you think caused them?
My GP started to treat me [for a nervous breakdown], but after a while he referred me to a Christian psychologist. A young man, just from school and we just couldn't stand each other. He was trying to put all the blame on my parents and I insisted I needed to get my own life in order, without blaming others. Back then he already believed my father did abuse me. (I found that out during an intake in a Christian center for abused women). We had a fight on the phone and I left.
Years later, I was married, with 2 small children I became depressed and anxious again, I also suffered from anorexia nervosa again... and I went to a conference to 'receive' healing from God. I really wanted to get better, to serve God better. And then I saw this psychologist and I thought I had to apologize to him, because otherwise God could not bless me (I don't believe that anymore, but back then I was theologically challenged and superstitious).
I apologized and he accepted my apologies and followed me everyday during that conference. After every meeting he wanted to pray with me, to ask God what was wrong with me. I felt cared for and loved and special. It was a very special treatment. And then on the 5th day I heard myself talk with a small childish voice and tell him that daddy did something when I was 3 months.
He should have said, “No, you can not possibly remember that”, but he was happy, finally the truth showed up. I was confused. Is that really true. He said, “Did you make it up?” No, it just happened I had no control.
He said, “We prayed, and God does not give stones when you ask for bread.” So I felt I had to believe it.
He told me he could help me, and I started therapy with him. Twice a week, 3 hours per session; I had to pay for it myself. After a few weeks I couldn't remember anything that happened in therapy. We taped the sessions and I had to listen to them during the week and write them down, word by word. DID was never mentioned; I found out months later what my diagnosis was. I was unaware of alters and lost a lot of time.
How many alters did you have?
At first 25, but they kept coming. The 25 remained, they were the strongest. But later we 'discovered' circles within circles and there would be 7x7 circles of witches behind every strong alter and a lot of others. The end count was more than 1000. But 42-45 with names.
I’ve heard people with “MPD/DID” say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
Yes, a lot. Sometimes even for weeks and once 3 months. But most of the time it was just a few minutes or an hour. One cause is medication. I was heavily medicated. The other is - I think - stress and preoccupation with the false memories, like daydreaming about bad stuff. Sometimes I couldn't remember being to the therapist. I would 'wake' up in my car not knowing if I'd been to therapy.
The 3 months, I'm not sure I really lost 3 months. It felt like that, is it summer already? Yesterday it was February. I have no explanation for that.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
Yes, they did. My husband would recognize the alters and speak with them. Some friends did too. My children could call forward the 'fun' alters and embarrass me. I remember rolling over the floor in church with a bunch of children. Something I would never do. But they called a boy alter. I have been told I looked different, spoke differently, wore different clothes.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
No, I wasn't acting. I wish I was, because then I could have stopped doing it. I've been confused by all of this for 9 years. Sometimes it did feel like acting, especially in therapy. Like I was a puppet on a string, acting, but involuntary.
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
It is not true, you are not abused. Stop believing that nonsense. Make a list, make a timeline. (And if I just could say one word, it would be TIMELINE).
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
In 2002 I was fed up with all the medication and I decided to taper off. The psychiatrist warned me against it, but I wanted to have a clear head. It took me one year. I had help from an online group. It was a long and slow process, but after 9 months I felt better. During that time I didn't have therapy and I broke off all contact with other 'survivors'. Suddenly I realized I didn't lose time, I didn't hear alters talking, something had changed. I told my husband to call me by my real name and nothing else. Doesn't matter if he thought he saw an alter, just my real name. It was a miracle and I loved it. But then I got depressed again and I remembered reading about integration that you need to get help to live as an integrated person. So I found another therapist. During the intake, 15 minutes in, he had a very angry alter talking and that brought me back in the multiple world.
I started doubting again, couldn't sleep, refused to take sleeping pills. Then I decided to make a list. A timeline. Stuff I knew that happened. First time to school at age 4; Little brother at age 5; Graduation at age 18. And another list with the new found memories. First baby at age 13; first rape at 3 months, etc. And full term twins born at age 18.
And then it hit me... graduation and full-term twins? During that year I became a Christian and made a lot of new friends, we would sport together, go to the beach together, have fun. We were also serious together. We did Bible study and talked a lot. Those people were between the ages 15-25. And no one saw my pregnancy? So that memory couldn't be true, but that was one of the most painful memories. I had more pain than delivering my 2 real children (without drugs). And if that wasn't true, how could the rest be true? And once I realized everything was false, I stopped believing I had multiple personalities. They told the stories, the stories weren't true, so they weren't true either. It was one big deceiving fictional mess.
Are multiple personalities real?
No! I've met too many people like myself. They claim to be multiple, they believe they are multiple, but when they are honest they all say they have doubts. I believe it is learned behavior. You act different and the therapist asks what your name is. You learn quickly to just give a name. And then you have an alter. This sounds like making up a name, but it doesn't work that way. At least not with me. When the therapist asked a name, some name popped up in my head and that had to be it.
Kim (a pseudonym), USA:
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters), and what do you think caused them?
I feel like I started to dissociate after I left a cult that I was in. I just would stare off into the distance for long points of time, and I felt like I didn't know who I was. This is actually a common phenomenon in cults and is caused by something called pseudo-identities. Where the cult will separate your core identity from the person you are supposed to be in the cult. It's how cults are able to make people do things they normally wouldn't do. (Example, the Manson crew killing 7 people, or Bob Jones cult drinking laced Kool Aid). I guess that's how dissociation started. When it got really bad, I entered a top-notch dissociative unit in the US. I went there, because I was dissociating so much. They are the ones who created the alters. I think what caused them was the same thing that caused the first one, it was like brainwashing. They convinced me and I didn't easily believe it, that it was true. I told them multiple times, repeating it over and over again "Dissociative Identity Disorder does not exist and I do not have it". But you have to understand that I was one mind, one measly patient, against dozens of professionals who claimed otherwise. And I was stuck on that unit for 5 weeks. Day in and day out I was fed the same stuff. And it wasn't just the top-notch psychiatrists, the residents, the nurses, the therapists and socials workers and art therapists and music therapists telling me this was a real disorder, there were thirty patients around me all playing the game and so at some point I broke down and in order to keep my sanity we took my denial and gave it its own alter. I called it the denial alter, the one who never believed, it lived in order for me to escape this horrible abuse whenever I needed to. And when I did that, there was no escaping, anytime I thought "this just isn't true". I would follow it up with "says the denial alter". I felt like that denial alter was my one and only identity, and when I put it aside like that I opened my mind up to be fractured.
How many alters did you have?
16
I’ve heard people with “MPD/DID” say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
I did and I didn't. I'm not sure that I can explain this well. I was probably suffering from PTSD, from the cult and from the dissociative unit, and from all the horrible memories bombarding my head constantly and the fact that I had been in so many psychiatric wards, had been put in so many seclusion rooms, tied to so many beds, given so many chemical restraints, etc. I dissociated a lot. My memory was like Swiss cheese constantly. My memory may have also had issues, because of all the medications they were pumping into my system. I never, not ever lost "days at a time". They were aware that I didn't. I didn't go to bed and wake up in the grocery store. There were times I would get on the highway and come to 4 miles down the road, having missed my exit. There have always been questions about whether I have temporal lobe seizures, but EEGs won't confirm them. I stay on anti-seizure medications and I don't have them. So we think it's pretty clear what's happening. But these instances were always used against me to prove that I did in fact have DID.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
My friends and family really didn't know that I had DID. I was pretty embarrassed about the diagnosis, so I kept it to myself.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
This is tough for me to answer now looking back. In many ways they would ask me to play the part. I would start to dissociate per usual which often led to them asking questions like "who am I talking to"? It was hard because I was sitting there trying not to dissociate and at the same time trying to delay the questionings being fired at me to which I had no answer to give them. Which at the time I didn't know it, but by delaying my answering, it made it worse. By delaying my answering I would be fired at more, with more questioning "Who are you?" "Can you tell me your name?" "Why are you here?" "Were you sent to help Kim?"
It sounds like something out of a cheesy horror film about aliens. It becomes terrifying to hear those lines of questioning. I would never give my therapist(s) names of my alters. I never felt like I was being honest if I did that. If what they said was true then they would have to hand me the names themselves from another alter they claimed existed, that told them, because I wasn't making them up.
Like I said previously I felt that I had set my own identity aside when I made the denial alter up. I think it's possible to fracture your mind, just not have multiple personalities. Not entire personalities. I think brainwashing can do this. I think hypnosis can do this. It's a total lack of identity and will create the worst insanity imaginable, you are at the mercy of your doctors and therapists and they keep feeding you lies.
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
Doctors aren't always right. Even doctors with prestige.
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
I found it as truth for myself. I had to look inside myself and really understand that none of this could be true and then stop listening to doctors. I came to realize that I knew myself better than they did, even if they claimed otherwise.
Are multiple personalities real?
No
Grace (a pseudonym), Australia
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters) and what do you think caused them?
I never displayed or demonstrated any sort of alternate personalities until I saw my psychologist and even then, it took me a month or so before I was convinced enough to play any sort of role (or let my inner child be revealed). Growing up in an over-protecting household I was emotionally underdeveloped compared to my peers and I think this was an integral contributing factor in allowing myself to become another person in front of my psychologist. The cause of my alters is simply due to the psychologist's method of treatment and her ability to encourage and persuade me to take on their roles.
How many alters did you have?
I was often shocked at my psychologist's interpretation of this. She explained my alters like a family tree with alters having numerous roles. I know for certain that I sketched and recorded over four hundred different aged personalities however my psychologist seemed to believe that some of them were the same alter at different stages of entrapment in the repressed memories and that I had produced more alters through therapy due to my resistance to it.
I've heard people with MPD/DID say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
I never experienced a "blackout" before therapy and simply could not recall important dates from my childhood. My psychologist explained this as being caused by my personalities living life without me knowing and this is why I could not recall important information about my infancy and childhood (such as my fourth birthday party etc); my alters had obviously lived the experience and the memories that were made during that time they controlled my body were individually kept by them. I taught myself how to "blackout" during therapy. I have always had a tendency to be hypnotised very quickly, even during some children's movies as I was growing up. During therapy I did not want to believe in the abuse I was "remembering" and desperately wanted to escape from accepting what was happening to me. Each week I would train myself to not be able to feel my body, I would take pins and thumbtacks in my pockets and hurt myself causing a dizziness to come over my whole body and slowly I would be able to make myself become emotionless and unable to feel my body. During my time in therapy I taught myself to hyperventilate silently and hold my breath for longer periods of time until the dizziness would take complete control of my body. Since I have stopped therapy I cannot do these things, I am incapable of shutting out physical pain and I am completely aware of everything around me. I never had any memory loss even in my times of "zoning out". I was aware at the time of everything in the room, and all that my psychologist was suggesting or encouraging me to participate in, I trained my body to be in a state of numbness during my sessions and also at home when I used self-harm to achieve the same feeling in order to block out the intensity of the emotional pain.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
I was encouraged to cut off all communication with the real world, including any social networks that were not sympathetic to my psychologist's beliefs. At the suggestion of my psychologist I was isolated with only four people that held the same beliefs as my psychologist who encouraged them to find my personalities and build relationships with my alters. They believed whole-heartedly in my different personalities. I would change the types of clothes I wore depending on my mood swings (such as wearing all black and looking quite the 'gothic' type during the so-called Satanic holidays/seasons and wearing dainty white/floral outfits for church-type events). After being convinced that I had personalities I allowed myself to often dress like a child, or teen depending on what personality my psychologist wanted to deal with that week. My rage and aggravation towards the therapy, the memories and abusers was often in direct conflict of my normal quiet/controlled/generous nature and this was also a contributing factor in the people around me believing that I had different personalities. Each horrific memory would bring a variety of emotions that I was incapable of facing and dealing with and I would become severely depressed which was interpreted as a different alter, or I would find myself enraged which was interpreted as a different alter, or I would make myself become numb and void of feeling anything...and yes, it was interpreted as a different personality. I think they honestly believed me because I was nothing like the teenager they had known previously, and my moods and emotions were heightened to the point of being incontrollable.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like you were acting?
I would say that I allowed myself to feel such horrific emotions on an unlimited level that it was easy to adapt my personality to deal with the trauma I was enforced to accept. I became so enraged at my parents that it was easy to allow myself to play the role of the abused child, I became so depressed and desiring death that it was easy to play the role of the child that was loyal to Satan. Yes, I was acting however I feel that the exasperation of the emotions that I was forced to experience provided a strong platform for me to be able to express myself, particularly with a sympathetic therapist. If I allowed myself to play the role of the abused child during therapy my psychologist would hold me tenderly and caress my head and shoulders. If I did not play the role that was required, I received hostility and resentment. This definitely helped me to act the role that was required of me. Yes, it always felt like I was acting, and I consistently stated that I was acting a role to my therapist; this was always interpreted as denial which my therapist had certain ways in dealing with this (financially, it was beneficial to play the role as quickly as possible and my therapist's time management issues also had a deep effect).
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
I honestly would not have listened. There were many educated people around me at that time attempting to open my eyes to what was happening to me. Close family members and friends had tried to explain how false memories could be implanted by incompetent therapists, and that I had no basis or evidence for any of the things that I was being convinced of, yet I remained loyal to my psychologist. I was in such a vulnerable state of mind at that time and my psychologist offered me a future where I was valued and possessed a type of rare gift that no other human around me could compare to. Having Dissociative Identity Disorder gave me a sense of privilege that I had never had before, and I wore that status like a badge of honour. Often during the sessions I would be riddled with guilt at knowing that I was going along with the whole process and that all of it was false, but also knowing that I could not stop or cease to play along with all of the roles as the financial investment had been so incredibly high and the emotional impact I had created in cutting off my family was so traumatic that going back was not even an option. Nothing I could have said to myself back then would have changed the intensity of the situation.
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
It has taken almost four years to re-train myself to stop waiting for a personality to suddenly be revealed. Once the relationship with my psychologist deteriorated, I started to realise that I did not have to act or play a role for anyone, including those people who continued to believe that I had DID. Fear kept me believing that I had these personalities: my therapist was persistent in reassuring me that I would need to have all of my personalities integrated to be free, to be normal, to live as a functional human being. For years I was terrified that there might have been some deeply traumatised child alters trapped in memories and that I would always be a dysfunctional woman with the possibility of an alter suddenly creating chaos at any random moment if these alters decided to appear. Self-analysis of my own behaviours and thoughts was the catalyst in helping me find that certainty that I had never had any personalities. I became friends with a new social circle of educated people who could explain in detail the processes that I had become entrapped in with my therapist and since then, I have no fear. I never genuinely believed I had personalities nor did I suddenly stop believing. The fear that I could be mentally unwell and that there was a possibility that my psychologist was correct kept me from simply admitting the truth.
Are multiple personalities real?
I have witnessed other women and men who are diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder and observed the "switching" of their personalities. I have also talked to their different personalities and there is no evidence that they are experiencing anything different from what I have personally experienced. Knowing how easy it is to find the right evidence and convince someone that they do have alters I would find it impossible to believe that it is real. As a deeply creative person, I sketched and scribbled in different handwriting on purpose, changed my appearance and interests on purpose and sketched my different alleged personalities with the sole purpose of trying to convince myself that what my psychologist was encouraging was real. It was never real, not for a moment. I do not believe multiple personalities are real, particularly after spending five years enacting them out and supporting their fake identities with creative approaches. The men and women I have seen with this type of disorder generally have been exposed to the same type of therapy with similar social networks who are sympathetic to the belief that multiple personalities are real. I have never seen any evidence that a person can have one identity that does not know the other identities within their being and have experienced this firsthand. During my five years of therapy I was constantly aware of myself, my feelings, values and beliefs as well as my surroundings and could never realistically agree with having personalities that I had no knowledge of, take control of my body and engage in activities that I could not recall later. This entire ideology was suggested to me by my therapist and supported with stories and theory that my therapist shared in weekly sessions to perpetuate the belief that this is indeed scientifically possible.
Poppy (a pseudonym), UK:
When did you start to exhibit alternate personalities(alters), and what do you think caused them?
I went to my GP, who sent me to a private therapist, as the NHS wait would have been six months. I had no idea the therapist specialised in dissociation and MPD. This was 1992. When I first started seeing this therapist, I told her my childhood was fine. My mistake was to say I couldn’t remember under five years of age. The therapist became convinced I had been abused under five years of age, that’s why I couldn’t remember it. This is when I was handed “The Courage to Heal”, which states you don’t need to remember your abuse - if you have a feeling you were abused you were. This is when I was told I was MPD and I started to develop the idea of alters, with the use of the book and confirmation from the therapist. I developed alters.
How many alters did you have?
I thought I had three, one girl, one boy and one who didn’t know whether they were a boy or a girl.
I have heard people with MPD/DID say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the blackouts?
No, I didn’t, I just had normal lapses like we all do like, “Where are my keys?”, etc, and this was put down to dissociation.
Did friends or family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
No, I didn’t tell anyone outside the therapy world I was in. I wish I had told people what was going on in therapy.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
Not then, but when I look back, I can remember being in a group therapy session, and the therapist pointed out, “Look at Poppy, she is dissociating, she can’t hear me.” I could - I was just doing what she wanted me to do, I could hear her. It wasn’t like acting - it didn’t affect me in the sense of how I behaved. I only had a picture inside of these 3 children. I had to keep them happy. They were all under 5 years of age (when abuse was supposed to have happened). I had a clear picture of them. When I came out of my false memories, they just disappeared. I was very sad - it was like losing part of me. I was never alone while they were there.
I just look at it now as though we all have these different parts of us. They aren’t alters -nothing like that - just different moods, even.
If you could say one thing to yourself at the time, what would it be?
Tell people what was going on in the therapy and hopefully they would have made me see sense and get out.
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
I was in therapy for 15 years, and had been out of therapy for about 10. I had started to have doubts about what I had been told had happened to me in my childhood. I couldn’t remember anything wrong in my childhood before therapy, but I came out believing all this horrible stuff had happened. I now believe I was brainwashed to think I had been abused. I believe nothing happened at all. My husband became ill and I just started to think more about what I had been told, and I researched false memories. The more I did, the more I realised I had been given false memories.
Are multiple personalities real?
No, I believe they aren’t, but rather all in the minds of recovered memory therapists. Once I realised, I had false memories they went overnight. I had none of this before I entered therapy. I didn’t even know what abuse was.
Roberta (a pseudonym), Canada:
When did you start exhibiting alternate personalities (alters), and what do you think caused them?
I thought I had DID because it sounded like me, lots of conflicting opinions, shitty memory, history of childhood trauma, it seemed to explain a lot of things about me. My first contact with the concept of DID and multiple personalities was by way of a YouTube video of someone claiming to have them. Once I had that in my mind, I began to see my various mood changes as different alters. In reality, I had just experienced a very real traumatic event that left me very depressed and I was searching for answers. I very much believe that if I had never seen or heard of DID I wouldn’t have experienced what I did. I felt very lost and alone at the time. I sought out a DID “specialist” therapist who confirmed the diagnosis in me. That’s when it started feeling very “real” to me.
How many alters did you have?
I think I had 5, but my therapist always insisted I had more.
I’ve heard people with “MPD/DID” say they have blackouts or periods of memory loss when being different alters. Did you? If so, can you explain the cause of the blackouts?
Whenever I was hypnotized by the therapist, I had partial amnesia for whatever happened while she was doing it. I was also pretty messed up after the sessions, I always had to sleep a lot after and I would be dizzy or sick for a couple days. I definitely think most of the “blackout” periods were hypnosis-based. I think I also started to rationalize normal forgetfulness and distraction as switching or “time loss”. I never experienced anything like a full blackout or a week of missing time or anything like that.
I personally think most of those accounts are exaggerated, but I can only speak for myself.
Did your friends and family believe you had different personalities? If so, why do you think they believed you?
Yes and no. My friends all believed me and most of the family members I told did too. I think some of them had doubts, but if they did they didn’t bring them up. I think they believed me because the diagnosis had come from a psychologist and I was “switching” in front of them.
Would you say you were acting? Did it feel like acting?
It never felt like acting while it was happening, but I definitely had weird feelings about it all. Everytime I experienced a “switch” or something like that, there’d always be a part of me thinking “What are you doing? Are you faking this?” I always rationalized that as “Why would someone fake this?”
If you could say one thing to yourself at that time, what would it be?
I’m not sure. I was very deep in it, and I believed it was all real. I’m not sure anything anybody said to me would have changed my mind. I definitely had to come to the conclusion myself. If anything, I would tell myself to see a psychiatrist before seeking private therapy.
What made you stop believing you had multiple personalities?
I noticed I wasn’t getting better in therapy, I was getting worse. I had a lot of weird feelings about the hypnosis and my worsening symptoms. I started researching the ISSTD (the professional organization my therapist belonged to) and I found all the controversy, the stories of institutional medical abuse in the name of DID and I realized I’d gotten myself wrapped up in a huge hoax.
Are multiple personalities real?
Yes- but only if you believe in them. Ask anybody in the depth of their DID therapy and they will tell you what they are experiencing is real. It’s clearly a very real epiphenomena of hypnosis based DID/ego state therapy. However, once you snap out of it and you stop believing, they go away. They are real in the way that ghost hunters will recount their tales of the paranormal— you can’t disprove that someone didn’t see or hear what they did while under a suggestible state.
However if you asked me if they are real in regards to “do people naturally exhibit multiple personality” I would say no.
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A note from the blogger, Orphia Nay:
Why didn’t I include answers from anyone who currently believes multiple personalities are real?
It would be promoting a sense of false balance by including unskeptical answers.
Good science is not divided on the issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-frances/multiple-personality-is-i_b_4695915.html
These people have seen both sides of the argument to the fullest extent.
They’ve lived and breathed multiple personalities and understood the reasons for and against alters to the depth of their beings, rationally concluding they are not real.
An earlier version of this blog post was first published on the former Dysgenics.com
Updated on 30 March 2019 by including a recent interview.
Updated on 13 July 2020 to add Roberta’s answers.
