a 1922 photograph of Freud with a caption that points out the absurdity of expecting people with serious mental illnesses to get well with the power of positive thinking

Dissociative Identity Disorder: Learning to Trust

LGBTQ, Mental Health

The patients’ job in intensive psychotherapy is to ask why.

Why do I seek out women who are devoid of the capacity for love?

Why do I veer from an extreme identification with the middle class to an extreme identification with the poor?

Why do I force myself to fail economically just as I get closest to winning?

Why do I sometimes behave as if I hate myself?

I first grappled with the problem of internalized stigma during the early days of the AIDS epidemic when I wondered if the AIDS was God’s judgment.

None of the intellectual and political constructions that served me as gay activist in the 1970’s could defeat the internalized homophobia unleashed by AIDS.

I watched men die from grief, self-hatred, and fear and I was nearly one of them.

This was when I realized the true function of any ‘ism’ is to convince the target to self-destruct.

This was why any novel written about gays before Stonewall usually ended with suicide or the impoverished death of the gay character.

AIDS was the greatest tragic ending, infused with the dissonant myth of a loving, yet vengeful God.

Internalized homophobia was the least of my problems.

AIDS was trauma on trauma.

I didn’t know I had a dissociative disorder.

I was living in the worst possible place at the worst possible time
for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Any spot on my arm sent me into panic, so much, so I became a frequent
flyer at the local crisis clinics.

The shrinks eventually gave me a prescription for Xanax.

Xanax
                                 Xanax

The only thing I knew about Xanax was it made the fear go away.

The pharmaceutical industry reported Xanax had an anti-depressant effect.

By 1986 I was on a prescribed dose of eight milligrams a day.

A seizure when I decided to stop the drug was how I learned  Xanax is addictive.

2011 photograph of a mannequin in a shop window on Mission Street taken in 2011 with a Blackberry
Xanax

My DID allows parts of me to form attachments while protecting the parts that are fragile and afraid.

One goal of my treatment is for me to learn to trust a woman.

This process of building trust with a woman who wants what’s best for me and who acts in my interests is a path to becoming whole.

John C. Calhoun Homes
A digitally altered snapshot of one of my childhood homes.

As I enter my 8th year of intensive psychotherapy, the questions I must
ask are less confounding.

When I entered treatment in October of 2011, I felt like a helpless child.

It is now October 2018.

I feel more whole.

(c) Rob Goldstein 2015-2018
The Photo of Xanax found on Google Images

First posted November 1, 2015-updated November 8, 2017 – Rewritten and Updated October 21, 2018

 

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43 thoughts on “Dissociative Identity Disorder: Learning to Trust”

  2. I didn’t know you are the beginning of your struggles. I’m glad you’ve made it through so many years of what must have been absolute hell. Living through it and then sharing it publicly as you have done here shows your internal strength. Hugs.

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  4. I remember this post, Robert, it was one of the most candid pieces of writing, ever. I am glad to hear that things are getting better for you all the time. Progress. And I’m also glad that you are part of this WP world.

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    1. With the sordid goings on in Alabama it looks like everyone is going to get a first hand look at how the community colludes with the perp. I’m working on a piece about a character named Peter. I used one of the images I made to illustrate that for the adult survivor of child abuse thing to get over is the collusion of the community.

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  6. You are writing so very well Robert and I like your directly way to express yourself.
    It is not easy to work through any kind of abuse and might take many years. I used many years too. You are strong to fight so hard.

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    1. Thank you Keith. I decided to revise it and realized how much I’ve changed since 2015. But the content may be relevant for people who may be new to a mental health diagnosis. A diagnosis of DID is not easy to accept. I resisted psychotherapy for at least year.

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  8. I am STILL trying to determine if the xanax is what triggered my 5 grand mal seizures a little over a month ago. I do know that after the seizures I threw it away and will never have it in the house again. So easily prescribed with no regard to consequences. I am still struggling with the seizures though even on seizure meds so I believe the xanax just triggered something underlying.
    Therapy is something I have done most of my life. I’ve only had one person ever judge me for my mental health status and that was someone here on wordpress. Otherwise, wordpress has given me thousands of people that support this journey, this recovery, this processs. But dissociation is something that I have not learned to come back from. Through all of the therapy, I cannot seem to come back to me when triggered into leaving my body. But trauma does leave a heavy mark.
    Thank you for this post. It is very helpful to me in understanding myself and feeling connected to others that are trying their best!!!!

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    1. I didn’t know Xanax was addictive. I stopped taking them and within two days, I was having seizures and painful muscle spasms. I’ve learned to accept that the damage is done. I can heal some of it and learn to manage the symptoms but I will always have these symptoms. This is where practicing gratitude puts it all into perspective.

      People judge us even as they quietly collude with the everyday violence that destroys lives. How many children are quietly terrified of going to school because of preventable gun violence and bullying?

      We didn’t ask for this. No one asks to be raped, beaten, bullied, or gunned down while praying in a church.

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      1. All very excellent points. We did not ask for any of this and are left with the aftermath of the consequences of what someone else chose to do to us against our will in our innocence.
        And Yes! Gratitude is huge. It is how I get through the day and choose to LIVE and not just exist.
        I think I need to move into the acceptance of some of what you have said. To know that this will be with me and I need to accept that there will always be some symptoms and I need to accept that and be ok with that

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      2. I’ve discovered that I can live with DID and use it to my advantage. The fact is my alternates all reflect different aspects of the same sensibility. As a person, I have a sense of morality, a love of learning, an appreciation for the arts, and a reasoned belief in the existence of a divine force. I’ve learned that when my alternates ‘unite’ we make a powerful person.

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  9. PS: Upon news that my dr was retiring next year, when he asked me if I had a preference, I covered my mouth and closed my eyes and said with a mixture of shame and honesty, “I don’t want a WASP.”
    It took him a few to register what I was saying, and our family name was added to an appropriate list.

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  10. I love your raw writing style. I admire the way you cut down to the bone.
    I think my eyes almost fell out after reading 80mg of Xanax. I can all too easily imagine the immunity of straight doctors during the early AIDS days.

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    1. Did I or my spell check say 80. Well I guess 8 milligrams of Xanax might as well be 80. I didn’t find out that Xanax was addicting until I decided to stop taking it and had seizures. That was a nightmare. Thank you for your comments on my writing. I was taught to cut anything that seemed extraneous and to use as few words as possible.

      Almost all of my three sentence paragraphs start off as four page expositions. 🙂

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  11. Insanity… I guess we keep trying the same thing and expect different results because we believe that there should be some good in people. We always hope. We can’t accept because it’s hard to believe that someone could be that way (specially if they are supposed to be the persons who love us the most).
    At least, I got to that conclusion… I couldn’t believe why my ex called me useless and “the worst thing that happened to me”. I stayed with him for a long time because that was really hard to accept and I thought he was just mad at the time(s).
    We want to be loved and we expect at least the love from our parent and partners… If that fails, well, I guess we get a bit screwed up 🙂
    (I hope I was clear enough) 🙂

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    1. You were very clear. We want to believe that other people have some sense of responsibility, a heart, and that if they say they love us they mean that they want to be assets in our lives and to our journey. Who wants to believe that they shared their secrets with a sadist who will use the information for acts of psychological abuse. Sometimes we repeat these mistakes because we cannot fathom people who murder souls for pleasure.

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  12. “Why wouldn’t I identify with the only other people in my world who were subject to ridicule and random beatings?”
    wow. light bulb going on. in my world that was the Native American. still is, actually. The ones that couldn’t even play a role in a movie about a Native American – instead movie giants hired Latinos. I have no problem with Latinos. I have a problem with refusing to hire any culture because of bias against said culture. So I guess I understand that statement.
    Serious congratulations on year 6 of therapy – as long as it’s working. I quit after year 5 and never went back – so I admire anyone who is there after 6.

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      1. Good for you! Nice job! The thing I have to remember right now is even if I fall on my face, it’s still forward movement and I get up further than when I fell. But I know those “no progress” days – still better than “backward moving” days 😉

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      2. When one is never allowed to make mistake or to even speak ones mind one also doesn’t gain the insight that progress in life requires risk and making mistakes. The fact that we have both learned this is a sign of our strength.

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  14. What a testimony there, Robert. It was beautifully composed, hard to read, but easy to understand the best and most important line… that you now know the right questions to ask. That will go a long way in your recovery. Best to you always. 💕

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  15. Another powerful post that I want to come back and reread. We have led such different lives. Our issues and illnesses are so different. And yet… there’s a thread of familiarity that runs through what you write and that I recognize and is one reason I keep reading. (One, of several.)

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I appreciate your comments, though I can’t always reply immediately

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