When I first learned about DID, I knew it from schooling. The old DSM IV name. Multiple Personality Disorder. Movies like "Split", "Me, Myself, and Irene", "Multiplicity", "What about Bob", "Girl Interrupted" (Peripherally, at least... Borderline is close), "Playing by Heart", "As Good as it Gets" (identity concepts), spy movies, serial killer profiles, and movie star references. It's not a flattering dx. As one MIP shrink liked to say, it is one of the hardest dx's to treat. It does not respond to medication. Not well. It is not a Gold Star. It is not a badge of honor. It it associated with so very many problems starting with Body Dysmorphic, running through substance use, down past highly dangerous behaviors including self-harm (a hallmark) ... sometimes I think it's the male version of Borderline. Shrink won't diagnose you Borderline if you are male. They will put you in PTSD or Bipolar or Depression or if they have no other choice, they put you with the ones they don't know how to treat, the DIDs, then they label you an addict and a criminal and cast you out. You are now a user of the system. You are the incorrigible. The untreatable, with fantasy problems. They question your sexuality. They won't believe a word you say. You are their nightmare. Their demon. Because they can't treat the causes and they don't want you to exist. You are the darkness, the shadow, the demon in their mind. The one they can't treat. They think of it in overly simplistic terms and prefer to use the word Psychosis. That is their Psychosis, their demon. The DID haunts them, because they cannot cure it.
People with DID or trauma respond best to Psychedelics. Just like Woodstock, except there's a new name for the trauma. Vietnam is gone. I've never tried LSD, PCP, MDMA, or Psilocybin, but some of these are being studied or even in trials. I have tried THC, ketamine (Matthew Perry OD), and Spravato. I have never tried Propofol (Michael Jackson's OD).
The fact that I have been to the hospital from "Girl Interrupted", the fact that that movie has Borderline in it, the fact that I have DID, the fact that they are both Dissociative/Trauma Disorders, the fact that it is hard to treat, the fact that it is patterns programmed from the past, the fact that it involves memories, symbols, and songs generated from the past, that revolves around key event and circumstances, there's so many facts about DID that cannot be denied, that clearly connect to clear and powerful details of a persons life... It is the Psychiatrist's demon. It was Richards' demon. It haunted him. Right up until the Governor's office stepped in. Now he is released. Now it haunts him no more.
DID is about trust, about self-image. It is the reflection in the mirror, it is a name, and behind those things are memories and pasts, things that medication and medical intervention do not solve.
They called it by other names. First, I tested PTSD off the charts at Clarity. Then a licensed PTSD counselor confirms independently. Then the Psychiatrist started talking about dissociation, then the therapy, then it's medical PTSD, then changes in the scripts, then the Dissociation Inventory at the new LPC, who independently confirms PTSD... and what did the hours long test results reveal? PTSD OFF THE CHARTS. DISSOCIATION OFF THE CHARTS. THE SCORES WERE SO DAMN HIGH AND HOW DO YOU FAKE THAT STUFF? SOMEHOW PSYCHOSIS CAME UP ZERO. ZERO. ZERO. HOW DO I FAKE THAT STUFF? DOES PSYCHOSIS JUST RUN AROUND MASQUERADING AS SO MANY DIFFERENT THINGS? YALL MADE THE DAMN TEST. AM I THAT DAMNED INTELLIGENT? YOU'VE HAD EVERY SHRINK WITH A NAME UP THE EAST COAST LOOK AT ME. ONE OF YOU GONNA GET THE DAMN PICTURE? YOU SO SMART? A LITTLE GIRL FROM GEORGIA COMES OUT AND SHOWS UP YOU HARVARDS, YOU GONNA DESTROY HER NOW? YOU THAT DAMNED INTELLIGENT? Oh, no, some people think they know everything. Oh, they're big shots. On TV. They got their pictures on walls. Pricks.
You bring me out of a coma at Memorial, another at Beth Israel Deaconess, and you do it for this? Fucking Psychiatrists.
I still remember the machines. I was Frankenstein on their table. Whether it was ECT's Lightning bolt... 3 series, unilateral, bilateral, ZAP. I have phantom sensations on my head where they put the conductor. Then rTMS. Side of the head. Left side, generates nerve growth... Machine gun taps... Right side, calming suppressive waves... slow the neural transmissions... woodpecker... tap... tap... tap... tap... sharp... I can feel the tingling...
ECT makes it go away! BUT IT COMES BACK! IT TOOK CARRIE FISHER. Psychosis my ass. Bad psychiatry.
Then the VNS... electrical pulses from a pacemaker style battery up the vagus nerve into the base of the brain... activating pulses to encourage autonomic changes...
Before that it was the antipsychotics... Haldol, Thorazine, all the atypicals plus the first of the atypicals, the magical clozaril with its high maintenance and forest of physical degradations to the body, before that the mood stabilizers, the lithium, before that the stimulants and anti-depressants.
Oh it never ends with these doctors. I've switched mostly to PA's and NPs. Medication destroys your mind and body both. A little at a time or all together.
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