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I have
read your information on
DID [on
A Guide to Psychology and its
Practice],
and what nags at me is whether or not this disorder is ever able to be fully
cured. Until I started working with my current therapist . . .
all the therapists I have worked with in the past have said it is likely
I will dissociate in times of great stress forever. I don’t think I
could bear that. . . . I cannot imagine anyone wishing to
be a multiple. It’s horrible, it’s insidious, and there is nothing
“cool” about it. . . . I have spent the past 16
years (when I first became aware I had been abused, tortured, raped etc.
and subsequently and finally to be officially sealed with the label MPD,
then DID) working on wellness. On my bedroom wall is a piece of white felt
over a cardboard square with green letters that say “Wilt Thou Be Made
Whole?” I see that and focus on that many times a day and live by the
promise of Christ that I will be made whole if I keep actively working on
it. . . . I am and have been working hard at wholeness,
integration, freeing myself from self-destructive patterns, and in the past
year have finally been able to begin some sort of communications with the
others. If a full and complete cure is possible, what happens to the alters?
I like to say they go to Altar Heaven to be laid on the altar of God, for
His wisdom to manage, but it is a mystery to me and the others as to what
happens to those folks. Some of them (I think) sabotage my efforts because
they are threatened with the thought of extinction and I don’t want
that fear to be in the mix of my core’s efforts towards wholeness and
oneness. I know we are all one, on the most basic level, but I suppose we
all need to know that nobody disappears or is denied a
share. . . .
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 s I say on A Guide to Psychology
and its Practice, on the webpage called
Personality,
the whole concept of “personality” is an illusion, in the sense that none
of us has a single, unified personality. Each of us relates to the world through
various ego states; that is, specific styles of
perception and interaction such as parent, child, teacher, student, sage,
fool . . . and so on. And most of us have relatively fluid and clear
communication among these various ego states, resulting in a certain richness of
personality.
Dissociative
Identity Disorder
When a child suffers severe and
prolonged abuse, ego states can be created to help cope defensively with
the abuse, and, if the emotional trauma is severe
enough, communication among ego states can be blocked unconsciously as a
way to “seal off” the pain from the rest of the
personality.
In psychological terminology,
this failure of communication among ego states is called Dissociative
Identity Disorder (DID), and an isolated ego state is called an
alter—short for “alter personality.” This concept of
an alter personality decribes the occasions when one alter can completely
take over the entire personality for extended periods of time, without the
conscious awareness of any other alters.
The
Cure
If DID is to be “cured,”
communication must be reestablished among the various alters so that they
can function cooperatively as ego states, rather than as independent—and
often secret—alters.
The success of the treatment depends
on many factors, such as the quality of the psychotherapy, the severity and
duration of the original abuse, and whether any forms of social support were
available to the child apart from the abusive environment.
Spiritual Aspects
of the Cure
Now, to get to your question
(finally), What happens to the alters spiritually? Well, if each alter
can be successfully brought back into full communion, so to speak, with all
the other alters, then you would have a normally functioning personality
with its own unique richness of ego states. You would be no different spiritually
than anyone else.
But what happens if you die with
some alters remaining “lost sheep”?
With no explicit theological
guidelines here, we can only hope that if the “main” part of the
personality remains firmly in communion with the Church, in a state
of grace, then any sin in any other alters will be purified in
Purgatory.
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Remember that
all alters in any one person are personality states, not separate souls.
So we can hope that if the main personality remains in a state of grace,
it can beg for mercy for any sins committed against
its will by other alters. Otherwise, “everyone” is in danger of
perishing. |
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In the Midst
of a Fragmented Family
To ensure that “everyone”
does not perish, you—the person who wrote to me, the main
personality—should consider yourself to be like a devout Christian
mother in the midst of a fragmented family. Many
women must cope with husbands who are not Christian or who are only
“lukewarm,” and they must raise their
children to live holy Catholic lives in spite of these difficulties. Saint Monica
did it. Saint Rita did it. And many other
women through the ages have done it.
So it will be important for you,
too, to do it—to prevent spiritual disaster. Treat your alters like
frightened children who must slowly learn to trust
you and be convinced of your absolute, unwavering sincerity. Your only
hope of convincing them of this is for you to live an absolutely pure and
holy lifestyle yourself, having
forgiven
your abusers, free from pride, free from
disobedience, free from
victimization,
free from defensiveness, truly
humble, perfectly
chaste, devoted to the Blessed
Virgin,[1]
and absolutely faithful to the Magisterium of the
Church.
This won’t be easy because
some of your alters have been so emotionally wounded that in their disobedience
they flirt with evil. But, when you can put your
total and complete trust in Christ, then your faith
will allow Him to cast out the
“demons” [2]
from you—as tradition says He did with Mary Magdalene—and return
to you the faithful children of your own
heart.
Notes
1.
Complete instructions for the Consecration to Jesus through Mary can
be found in Saint Louis Marie de Montfort’s book,
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
2.
Think of “demons” as what the devil himself represents: division,
discord, confusion, and disobedience. Alters are not demons; but, in casting
out the demons, Christ cast out the division within Mary Magdalene’s
personality.
Recommended
Reading
A treasure of a resource for psychological and spiritual healing. Information
gathered from my websites (including this webpage) is available at your fingertips
in book form.
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Emotional Trauma by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D.
Healing from emotional trauma is a matter of heart and soul to endure the emotional
pain of the trauma without fearing it. This endurance really is a “fight” with injustice
and evil, but it’s a fight that must be conducted without anger. It’s a fight that is not
a matter of getting rid of pain or of hating the pain. It’s a fight to accept the reality
of the pain of your past so as to understand it and find spiritual meaning in it. It’s
a fight to give the wounded part of you the respect of being understood. It’s a fight to
give the wounded part of you a spirit of dignity. It’s a fight of empathy for yourself.
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