Having multiple personalities means having two or more separate
alter personalities who can take charge of the body. Usually an alter who is not "out" or "presenting" will not have memory or what occurs when another alter has control of the body. One of the first goals of learning to live effectively with multiplicity, whether or not integration is the object of the work, is to develop co-consciousness so that alters can learn to share memories. This can be very important since sometimes an alter may engage in behavior which could be dangerous if not known by other alters. Co-consciousness is not always easily achieved, nor is it foolproof. An alter may choose not to share all memories, either consciously or unconsciously. Even though we have pretty good co-consciousness, we still do not have a continuous memory of our life. One way some multiples choose to deal with life is integration, while others choose either to continue to switch and/or to blend personalities for specific tasks. We use the latter method. We still switch, but that has a high price sometimes. Switching often produces intense headaches much like migraines, and switching headaches are just as difficult to treat, perhaps more difficult since there is so little known about why they
happen.
What used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder in older
editions of the DSM is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder. The problem is that many people have conflated the terms, when they actually represent quite different theoretical constructs. No one, certainly not most clinicians, really knows what goes on inside anyone's head, so elaborate models are developed. If you read a few articles from "Dissociation," the journal of the International Society for the Study of Dissociation,and if you are a multiple, you will know how silly many of these ideas are. But for those of us who live with multiplicity, there are some clearer models which usually work, albeit with adjustment for each
individual system.
The basic idea in MPD is that part of the personality is split off because of a traumatic event or series of events. This is an extreme case of compartmentalization in which more than simply information is isolated. One might say that the split off part contains memory (information) and personality (psychic energy). When I speak of psychic energy, I'm not referring to anything paranormal, but rather that portion of unexpressed energy which seeks resolution but cannot find it within the primary personality's realm of experience and behavior. Some people have theorized that MPD must occur before the age of 7 if it is ever to happen at all. Some also theorize that there is a given system of alters (e.g., an Internal Self Helper) which must be present for someone to have MPD. In our experience with our system and the systems of
over 50 multiples whom we have known personally over the years, there is tremendous variability in system composition and organization.
When the DSM-IV was being developed, there was considerable tension between two groups of theoreticians. One group favored MPD and the ideas listed above. The other group, which eventually gained more influence, believed that splitting seldom, if ever, actually happened. Instead, they posited, someone merely *believes* that they have an alter. They maintain that, as a means of protection and coping, a person dissociates from one state of reality or ego state into another. There are several type of dissociation, and we don't claim that they don't exist, merely that they fail to account for the internal experiences of most multiples we know. Of course, from the perspective of one who believes that dissociation is the proper model, one can never prove that it is not; that is much like the old saw about an insane person never being able to determine when they are sane. Theories for the development of dissociation do not generally require a maximum age for the first episode, nor do they require a particular set of alters and organizational rules. Instead, they rely on the notion that dissociation is a continuum ranging from the relatively common experience of "highway hypnosis" through depersonalization to discrete identities. While we tend to agree with the continuum idea, attempting to apply it to everyone who
has alters just doesn't work well, and there are holes such as the sharing or non-sharing of memories between alters which require more constructional contortions.
Alters can be male, female, or non-gendered. They may have names, be nameless, or be known for the functions they perform, e.g.,
Protector, Guardian, Speaker, or Typist. They can be any age (from infancy through ages greater than the body age) or ageless. They can have any sexual orientation including being asexual. They can have different health issues, different disabilities, different languages; virtually anything within the laws of physics and human ability can vary.
We must emphasize that not all alters are children. Most highly
developed systems have some adult and some ageless alters. More
simple systems, those with fewer than 5 or 6 alters may have only children, but not always. Virtually all systems we have met which are products of extreme abuse, generally 15 or more alters, have children, adult, and ageless alters. This is probably also a good place to say that some people feel that abuse is not necessary for the formation of alters regardless of which theoretical orientation one has. We have not seen such a thing first hand, but we are unwilling to say it doesn't exist.
One of the concepts we feel most important for people to understand about alter formation is that alters simply cannot be consciously formed; one cannot decide to be multiple and form an alter. The formation of an alter personality, whether done by splitting or dissociation, in an unconscious mechanism which is used in the same manner one might use another defense mechanism, e.g., sublimation, avoidance, or compartmentalization. One may consciously *think* about using these mechanisms, and everyone uses defense mechanisms, but actually making them take place effectively happens at a level below conscious thought.
Some have suggested that transsexual people possibly have MPD or a dissociative disorder because of the need to pretend to be something which they are not and this idea does have merit, especially in the area of dissociation. Because many of them knew about about their Gender Identity Disorder, whether they knew the name for it or not, they found it necessary to live an act. When one is essentially "on stage" all the time, it is plausible that some confusion about identity or reality could develop. Daydreaming is a very mild form of dissociation, and many have lived in a world of dreams about what was hoped that their lives would be or through outlets like science fiction in order to escape to another reality, even if only for a short time.
It is entirely possible that the combination of needing to live not being true to oneself along with the extensive use of day dreaming or escapist fantasies could predispose someone to be more likely to dissociate. We still are not convinced that traumatic events are required in order to form alter personalities which are totally independent of one another even though there is often such an association. Of course, many of us experienced trauma, whether TS related or not. Even the fear of discovery, if sufficiently intense, might present such a destabilizing effect that one walls off a portion of their consciousness. We agree that many TS people present MPD-like behaviors, but we think that most are not multiple. From our experience, we think that the incidence of multiplicity is higher in TS people than in the general population, but the vast majority of TS people are not multiple, even though they may speak about some of their feelings in the third person, e.g., "him" or "her."
There are plenty of phony "multiples" out there. Even though many don't want to talk about multiplicity or be around a multiple and think that if someone has MPD they are really sick (could we perhaps substitute gay for MPD and see how that plays?), some people want to have the notoriety of being seen as multiple. There was a person making the talk show circuit a while back claiming to be a multiple; sorry, no one who was really multiple that we talked to thought that guy was real. This person wanted to make a buck off of something sensational, and lots of talk show hosts were suckered into believing the story because they didn't know any better. The only people who can reliably spot multiples and phonies are multiples, and sometimes we can't tell someone that they are multiple because they don't know yet.
Integration is the process by which two or more of the alter
personalities become one. In theory it amounts to combining memories and personality characteristics. In practice it also involves loss and the need to reorganize how the system works. Integration works fine for some people, and for others it can be counterproductive. We don't rule it out for our system, but since we have tried it several times and didn't like the result, it seems unlikely. Some folks find integration liberating, while many such as us feel more comfortable keeping out internal family.
Many multiples also have PTSD, and that can cause someone to be very reactive when triggered by events which may include language, an image, a smell, a touch, etc. When triggered, a multiple may
switch abruptly, and if an onlooker is unaware of what is happening, which is usually the case, it may seem like either a major mood swing or that the person lost it, spaced out, or was on a bad trip.
Finally, we would like to be very clear about the unfortunate inclusion of the word "disorder" in association with multiplicity or dissociation. Being multiple or dissociative is not automatically a disorder regardless of how the DSM-IV classifies them. They are a disorder only if they have a significant negative impact on one's level of functioning. Part of the reason for the existence of this site is to help multiples find ways to work with their internal families so that their functioning is enhanced rather than affected adversely.
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