Dissociative Identity Disorder and Therapy

writerpen

Just wondering if anyone has experience with this or knows an x-JW who has been diagnosed. After years of trying to un-do everything through countless therapies, it appears this has been the problem all along. I sit with my new psychologist, an expert in dissociative disorders, and she has all the JW lingo down, which tells me she's treated other x-JW's. She says, "I believe disfellowshipping is the worst thing that religion does." I smile politely. I haven't told her my story, but I can think of a lot of other worse things that I experienced: my sister being diagnosed with leukemia (and a court battle over blood); all the torture I was prepared for and subsequently feared every day of my life ("Okay xxxx, what are you going to say in the great tribulation if they tell you that they're going to cut your head off if you don't renounce our faith?"); all the beatings and screaming at home and watching my brother get it even worse; all the women hating; need I say more? Disfellowshipping, I told her recently (without elaboring on the traumatic thoughts I just mentioned), was the best thing they did for me.

MisfitMeL

I'm sorry, I don't have any firsthand knowledge of this disorder but I am glad to hear that you have been able to finally pinpoint the issue after all this time. Maybe now you could start to make way towards some tangible progress, especially since your therapist seems to have dealt with other ex-JWs. I wish you well and hope there are others here who could contribute personal advice through their own experience.

chickpea

i have just recently stepped down as
a moderator on a forum for adult survivors
of childhood sexual abuse... within that
membership there was a significant percentage
of members diagnosed as DID...

none, to my knowledge were associated
in any way with the b0rg...

it has been my great fortune and pleasure
to have become IRL friends with 3 people
who have "systems" so i have an outsider's
perspective.... a mono-mind who gets to
know the insiders.....

not sure what it is you are asking, tho...

PM me if you want to

writerpen

Thanks Misfit and Chickpea. It's a rare disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder). Chicpea, I'm an active member of another forum; although, I've not felt comfortable asking a question specifically about whether anyone was a JW.

Thanks again!

daniel-p

Yes, they used to call this multiple personality disorder (MPD), and during the nineties it seemed like every other sister in the congregation had it. Both my MOTHER and my SISTER had this and needless to say it made many years growing up hell.

Magically, their disorders eventually dissapeared.

One thing I noticed during those years is that it's contagious. When one came out with it, another came out with it, until everyone was clamoring for attention about the supposed histories of abuse, using their various personalities to impress upon everyone else the traumatic "memories." It got to the point where you didn't know what to believe anymore, and believe me, at first I wanted to believe everything they said... this was my mother and sister after all. But today I have no confidence that the abuses they claimed to suffer did indeed happen. This is after seeing the entire arc of the fruition and dissolution of their disorder, and hints from them that certain tales they told may have been distorted.

But anyway, that was my experience living with familiy members with MPD. Not saying there's no merit to the disorder... I'm sure they have a much better handle on it these days.

creativhoney

the psychiatrist told me that it was best in some cases not to label. I thought I had ADD - (obviously some things have to be treated with medication) but in this case he said that if I tried to label my organisational issues etc, then I would psychologically try to fit the bill of the symptoms - he basically meant we are all so different no one label fits anyone. - Id quite happily say now, that my attention problems were down to the eternal distraction of living a life i didnt believe.

oh by the way, In my cong it was M.E. that was the fashionable thing to have. or as I like to call it, bone idle.

daniel-p

creativhoney, that sounds like good advice. I really cant understand how everyone would be able to have the same exact kind of disroder when we are all so different. I think not using labels is also a good way to help keep the "copycats" at a minimum.

rebel8

Yes, other jws have been treated for DID, by me in fact. I worked on a hospital unit that specialized in it. I worked there for years.

I fully recognize dissociation occurs as a natural, adaptive response to trauma, ie PTSD, but I remain skeptical about DID, to be perfectly honest. All the cases I saw emerged after the therapist suggested it to the patient, when it benefitted the therapist's career, and made the patient's already serious illness worse. (JMHO)

Whatever your diagnosis, too much regressive therapy can be damaging. The focus should be on coping and returning to a normal level of functioning. (Another thing I saw the opposite of, sadly.) Again, JMHO.

I'm glad you are receiving professional care. You are brave to be seeking help. It's hard to do that under normal circumstances, let alone when you've been brainwashed to be paranoid about therapists.

Best wishes to you.

PS-Here are some things I wrote based upon my experiences treating ex-dubs.

writerpen

Yes, there is debate about the legitimacy of DID, just like there has been significant debate about the same for PTSD. What I do know is that I've been through years and years of various disagnoses, and now it seems that, finally, perhaps there's hope. There's the reality that the voices that have been in my head since I can remember (with the exception of the past eight years) are not what everyone else experiences, nor do other folks experience standing outside of their body watching what they are doing. Who knew that's not what everone else experiences? So, quite frankly, I do take offense at someone knocking my own experience.

What cannot be debated are the years of Bulimia, the years of stealing since the age of 16, and the years of cutting. Tell me, had I been raised in a non-abusive family, would all of this stuff had happened? I think not! I remember very little of my childhood, only blips of semi scenes, like my father stiching my screaming brother's cut hand up with thread and needle in our bathroom, or him beating the shit of my brother, or him saying that he could kill us at any time if he desired, or him saying that he was God, or him telling us that we better be prepared to have our heads cut off during the great tribulation.

It may be that your mother and sister were clamoring for attention. But in my case, eight years ago I finally got my life together, got a bachelors degree and master degree, am now in a 6-figure job, and now all these semi scenes and voices in my head are suddently back. Tell me I'm clamoring for attention! Why in hell would anyone want to threaten what I've built since leaving that horrid religion by making this shit up?

Lady Lee

Like Rebel I too have worked with multiples. Dissociative disorders covers a wide range of experiences. Not everyone is like Sybil although I have worked with people exactly like Sybil. Some people have no idea about the "others" and others have few barriers between them.

Unlike Rebel's work, most of the people who came to me had never had therapy before and it was a shock to me to find myself suddenly talking to "another".

I do agree with Rebel that the focus and goal of therapy should be at strengthing the coping skills of the person and not on regressive therapy although that might be needed on occasion. As those coping skills improve there is less need for the "others"

In the end you need to do what is right for YOU. It takes a lot of strength to do this kind of work. Please remember that you already have that strength within. After all, you are still here. You lived it and survived. The therapy is remembering and learning not reliving.

Glad to hear she knows about JWs and that cult personality that they develop to continue to live in that world.

Best wishes to you

Dissociative Identity Disorder and Therapy

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