[identity profile] prettyrazor.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] multiplicity_archives
My abnormal psychology teacher, Professor Kramer, has earned my eternal adoration, and he has no idea. We were talking about Dissociative Disorders in class yesterday. I have taken three psychology classes so far, and there's a pattern with Dissociative Disorders. The first class, Psych 101, had Professor Beers, who was awesome and said, "I've never seen what I believed to be a real case of DID, so I'm skeptical." The second, Psych 200, has Professor Fantl, who insisted that DID is not real. (Why? Because there's no chemical cause.) He says that the "repressed memories" are actually implanted by therapists, and that DID is also caused by a therapist saying that the patient has it. (Explain to me, then, Professor, how one of my insiders told my therapist about it, and not the other way around.) I'm still in that class, and it is highly annoying to know that he doesn't believe in it. (He, of course, has no idea that I have it.) And, of course, there was Brielle, the CSL teacher I made the mistake of confiding in, who insisted that I just thought I had DID. Grrr.

Abnormal Psych class was the third time Dissociative Disorders have been gone over in class. When Professor Kramer got to DID, he did not deny it existed. He did not say that therapists implanted it into the patient's head. He said there is controversy about it, but he went on to explain that this is because no two cases of DID are exactly alike, and it bothers the psychiatrists that some people are coconscious and others are not, etc. He also said that integration was rare, and did not have to be the end result, which surprised me, because all you ever hear about in the psychiatric literature is that integration is the end goal. He did not treat the discussion like it was a waste of time, or foolish, or that it didn't exist. For the first time ever, I have met a professor who believes in DID. I was so happy that I left the room practically dancing on a cloud, I swear. What sucked was that I had no one to share it with, as none of them would have understood how wonderful it feels.

There was a girl in the class who has a friend that was diagnosed with DID last week. She discussed him, saying that one day chocolate ice cream was his favorite thing in the world, and the next he would, seriously, say, "Have you ever seen me eat chocolate ice cream?!" Professor Kramer took this example, discussing how each personality differs. He did not laugh at it or make it sound like less than it was. He talked about how hard it was, not only for the people around a person with DID, but for the person him or herself. He understood.

Professor Kramer has no idea that he just made this entire horrible semester worthwhile for me.

Date: 2002-11-14 02:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cirape.livejournal.com
I have the desire to take psyche courses in college just to see what they say...Diz wonders if we can get paid for hiring ourselves out to be a case study ;P (we doubt it, but it might be interesting).
Of course, if I took a psyche class and we got to DID/MPD/whatever you wanna call it (I like MPD better, myself, but...) I doubt I'd be able to keep my mouth shut ^^;; Goddess forbid it was ever on a test and we wrote stuff that was true for us but not the "correct" answer. Gehe ^^
|We have a friend(s) online with DID/MPD who did a speech on it once. We tried to help him, but the teacher made him throw that part out ^^; Was interesting what he said the reactions were, tho.|

--Micha-kun and |Diz-chan|

Date: 2002-11-14 02:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ladydancerhouse.livejournal.com
Oh wow, that's great =)

My general psych professor had to go over Dissociative Disorders, and he forgot. We pointed it out to him, and he was like oops. He admitted to me when I talked to him about it later that he'd have to take a full page off the final because he didn't cover it enough, and didn't cover MPD/DID at all, and he showed me the page. I looked at the list of questions and answered them all right (especially the multiple ones -- what can I say? we'd been through all the literature by that point). He looked at me really hard, and with a "hmm..." expression on his face.

Teresa shrieked at me that I'd blown their cover, and my ride showed up about then, so I was able to escape.

Too bad we changed colleges and never got the opportunity to do Abnormal Psych. Tsk.

*loves psych*

~Storm

Multiplied

Date: 2002-11-19 02:46 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bioengineer.livejournal.com
In the movie version of "The Three Faces of Eve", Eve's husband remarked something to the effect that he did not accept "this multiplied thing." I can sort-of understand why a professor "would not believe in" multiple personalities. (Before continuing to read this, perhaps you need to locate your sense of humor. Not that what comes next is funny.) Neither do I. Just as I do not believe in that I am typing an entry for this LiveJournal. I don't believe in multiple personalities, I live such. Perhaps something happened to the non-believing professor such that he cannot cope with some of his repressed memories and so has to deny same in order to keep on lying to himself. I knew, some of the time when I was alone, that I was experiencing time in a way no one else seemed to do by the time I was in third grade.

I took abnormal psych some years ago. The professor had no problem with my being multiple, indeed, he asked if I would talk to the class about my experiences, which I did. He invited me back term after term until he retired. And, yes, he agreed to and did serve on my Ph.D. thesis committee. Some psychology professors get it. For which I am thankful.

Re: Multiplied

Date: 2002-11-19 02:58 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bioengineer.livejournal.com
One of my alters just read the original post. Like Truddi Chase "When Rabbit Howls," I long ago deemed being integrated to be like a form of murder, and, like Truddi Chase, my solution to being multiple is co-consciousness.

How can I put it? Before I figured out what happened to me and why, my inner life was like a bar-room brawl in a grade C Western movie. Since I figured it out, my inner life is more like some sort of a wonderful and beautiful church service in a church where there is no condemnation of anyone, yet what is harmful is acknowledged.

Some years ago, in a hospital, I met another person with multiple personalities. That person easily recognized my being multiple, and I told my psychiatrist about this. He asked what she knew about it, what her training was. I said, "She lives it." So do I. So do others.

My choice, in second grade, was of three options. 1. Suicide, which I summarily rejected. 2. Kill the teacher and principal who were abusing me, which I also summarily rejected. 3. Find a way to not exactly kill anyone and still survive (i.e. Multiple Personalities so I could manage what was happening while staying at least alive in body if not mind).

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