I’ve learned a few things about blogging with Dissociative Identity Disorder in the years since I first posted this.
I’ve learned that most people can’t and won’t understand DID; the people I want in my life are the people who try.
I’ve learned that I do not owe anyone an apology for the DID, nor do I need other people to validate my diagnosis.
I’ve learned that when I’m confused and don’t know what to say, I say nothing.
I’ve learned to understand and accept the limits of what I can accomplish with DID; this is not giving up, it’s acceptance, and with acceptance, comes peace of mind.
I’ve learned that DID makes me vulnerable to online Narcissists. One of my personal rules is to avoid relationships in games like Second Life.
I’m going to level up with my blogging buddies. First, thank you to the people who read Art by Rob Goldstein. You are my teachers and friends, and I am grateful to you.
I have lived alone and in quarantine for almost five months as our President weaponizes COVID19 and divides our nation. I’m stressed and afraid, and this feels like it is never going to end.
Our press and political leaders behave as if we are the powerless victims of a king over whom the law has no authority.
None of it makes sense. I don’t understand why we can’t arrest and remove a criminal president who threatens our nation and our lives.
It looks to me as if Trump and his Republicans are killing us on purpose. Am I right, or is this paranoia?
This confusion and anxiety are intolerable. I am continually dissociating and losing time.
For my health, I have to take another break.
I’m not fond of frequent breaks, but I can’t focus for more than a few minutes at a time.
I’ll be back shortly.
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Rob Goldstein 2020
The Header photo is a from a series of Images from ‘Memories of Market Street.’
Dissociative Identity Disorder is a childhood-onset trauma symptom induced by an overwhelming confrontation with human evil before the brain can create a functional mind.
When my psychiatrist diagnosed DID in 2009, I was already too symptomatic to work. I had no interest in social media, but I compulsively staged virtual photoshoots in Second Life and posted those photos to my Flickr stream.
‘The Man Who Forgot He Doesn’t Exist‘ is an example of the images I staged and posted.
I still feel like a man who doesn’t exist.
With therapy, I eventually understood that I used my avatars the way a child uses dolls when asked to describe an assault for which there are no words.
Most people are unable to comprehend a person whose different emotional states and memories emerge as separate people with different names, genders, and world views.
It’s easy to dismiss these confusing and unsettling expressions of the mind as attention-seeking irresponsibility.
This short film, ‘Inside,’ is a weirdly accurate illustration of how it feels to be an ‘us’– minus the atmospheric asylum.
A primary goal of psychotherapy is getting everyone ‘inside’ to agree.
I see no difference between the individual narcissist and the cultist tribal communities that plague American culture.
The most horrific aspect of child abuse is that it often takes place in an institution or a community that doesn’t care or doesn’t want to bother. Hence, the adults blame the child if he reveals the abuse or the abuse becomes too apparent to ignore.
The best recent example of institutional abuse is Donald Trump’s detention camps, where children are separated from their families and treated like criminals.
How does a four-year-old escape the horror of a world that feels like a death trap?
A person with DID was a child whose mind shattered under the stress of life in an all-pervasive culture of evil from which there was no escape.
Recovery from DID and C-PTSD involves a never-ending cycle of accepting the damage, managing the symptoms, and healing what I can.
For me, healing means bearing witness to the evil, naming it, and working for change.
I want us to unite to make our world safe for children. I want us to protect them from evil.
Children do not choose to live in hunger and pain.
According to Peck, an evil person lies to himself to prop up an image of perfection.
They also;
Deceive others as a consequence of their lies
Project his or her evils and sins onto particular targets (scapegoats) while being reasonable with everyone else.
Commonly hates with the pretense of love
Abuses political and (emotional) power (“the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion”)
Maintains respectability based on lies.
Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency (of destructiveness)
Is unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim (scapegoat)
Has a covert intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury
According to Peck, evil people realize the wickedness deep within themselves, but are unable to tolerate the pain of introspection, or admit to themselves that they are evil.
Evil thrives on denial.
I’m revising some of my posts from 2015.
‘The Man Who Forgot He Doesn’t Exist’ was first posted in 2015,
I’ve kept the theme but completely revised the post.
I don’t know if I should make a new post but it seems practical to
keep the original.
A new and profoundly important paradigm for understanding overwhelming emotional pain has emerged over the last few years, with the potential to change the way we conceptualize human suffering across the whole spectrum of mental health difficulties. It is an evidence-based synthesis of findings from trauma studies, attachment theory and neuroscience, which offers new hope for recovery. It also presents a powerful challenge to the biomedical model of psychiatry in that it is based on scientific evidence that substantiates and attests to what many individuals with first-hand experience of mental health problems have always known — that the bad things that happen to you can drive you mad.
The ACE study proves that child abuse causes enduring neurological damage that can affect a person’s health and quality of life throughout the lifespan.
The body of a frightened child floods with hormones and prepares to fight, run, or die.
In less than an instant, the amygdala sends an alarm to the hippocampus, which tells the adrenal glands to release adrenaline.
Adrenaline increases heart rate and breathing, oxygen goes to the muscles and brain, which increases hearing and sharpens eyesight.
Adrenaline wears off and cortisol takes over; cortisol is a longer acting stress hormone designed keep the body alert.
Understanding The Stress Response, Harvard Medical School
If a child fears for his life, he may freeze and go numb.
It takes nine months for the fetus to become a baby that can survive beyond
the womb.
Between birth and the age of two, we have no words; for the first ten years of our lives, we are helplessly dependent on our parents and communities for our physical and psychological well being.
Child abuse is a betrayal of unconditional trust.
You don’t just ‘get over it’.
People with dissociative disorders report the highest occurrence of abuse and childhood neglect among all psychiatric disorders. This suggests dissociation is the ultimate reaction to significant trauma. Links between Trauma, PTSD, and Dissociative Disorders
A 2018 review found changes in the structure of the brain in people with DID. These changes are complex and include decreased limbic activity, increased frontal lobe activity, and changes in communication between these two regions.
One must accept what happened and make peace with it.
Acceptance means seeing what might have been and grieving the loss.
Acceptance means letting go of the idea that I brought it on myself, that I am shameful and not good enough, and it means not letting the dismissive arrogance I sometimes encounter gnaw at my soul.
Acceptance means holding abusers accountable for the messes they make.
Acceptance means believing the abuse will end.
I am not completely there.
How do I accept the evil of child abuse when the abuse never ends?
Art by Rob Goldstein 