Do Multiples Exist? - 2017 Update (018) Transcript

Audio Episode New

<voices overlapping, music in background>
Hey!
Oh! Good morning — oh! Do we have to get up?
Keep it down; I’m trying to sleep.
Yeah, we want to make that recording.
What are we going to record today?
What? What recording?
You know, the one about multiplicity.
You know, the usual — we’re trying to make a difference in the world or something.
Oh, yeah.
Well — I just really wanna help people!
I have no idea what to say.
I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there who have really good questions, and need really good answers.
Why talk to them? It’s not like anybody gives a shit.
Well what makes us an authority?
I don’t really think it matters how long we’ve been multiple, or how long we’ve known we’re multiple — we’re multiple!
<Aliessa laughs richly>

Episode 18: Do Multiples Exist? - 2017 update. So in the last episode, I dug up a 2005 episode that I had recorded while driving. And unfortunately, I had my iPod plugged in to the power in the car. And so there was this horrible hum throughout the audio, and I had to reduce that, and so the quality wasn't that good. So I want to bring us up to date here in 2017 and talk about some of the same issues, perhaps a bit more coherently and less emotionally. And this way, I can bring you up to date with what's going on currently in psychology and among multiples and in the real experiences that multiples are having both with friends, family, with therapists, and so on. Kind of consolidate the information in this episode for you.

So I went over four different situations in the last episode. And just to go over them quickly. I went over this idea, this theory, that the identities, multiples experience are all parts of one person. This may be a professional's opinion of what's going on, but quite often, I'm hearing from multiples that this opinion is being shared during therapy. Which really irks me, because basically it's like, if a therapist were blind and they're talking to a sighted client—and it is quite possible to be a blind therapist—a blind therapist trying to convince the client that the sky doesn't exist because they've never touched it. And that there's no such thing as the color blue, because they've never seen colors. So you have a therapist who comes from a paradigm of science, and comes from a paradigm of what they've been taught by the books, and what they've seen and experienced in their classes. And they've never experienced being multiple, they're never experienced having different people in their head. And they're telling the person sitting across from them "You don't have people in your head, they're just all parts of you. They're all different parts of you." This is not helpful. And many times this whole idea of parts—if you go back a few episodes, I'm doing system trust issues—this whole idea of parts sets up a "better than, less than" scenario. Then you end up with the person who claims they own the life and they own the body, and everybody else is just a part of them. And it sets up imbalances of power. It's rude. It's also not true, not from a subjective reality point of view. I don't care what's true objectively. I don't care what science thinks it's proving, since it's going to have a really hard time proving what's going on in our heads, or how we perceive the world and so on. So that actually gets into the next point I was making in that podcast, but I'll get there in a second. Essentially, what is helpful is what should be concentrated on. Not theories from outside of our system, but what works inside of our head.

And that brings us to behaviorism and any purely scientific method of attempting to observe what's going on with multiples. What's going on is going on inside of our head. It's part of our perception. Science can't prove that you think. Science can't prove that you have emotions. It can observe your hormones, it can observe brainwaves. It can't prove that you have a soul. So how is it that science is supposed to prove that there are more than one person in my head? I really would like somebody to tell me how scientifically it can be proven that there's somebody else in my head with me. So, science can't observe your average person and say what the total sum of their personal experience is, what their subjective experiences are. So how can they tell us—anyone—what a multiples subjective experiences are? It's impossible. At this point, with science the way it is, this is not possible. So what have they done? They've asked people to pretend to be multiple, and put electrodes on their head, or put them in an MRI or whatever they've done. And they've observed the brain chemistry changes, the electrical signal changes, etc. while an actor, or a lay person is pretending to be another person. And they have found significant differences in pretending to be somebody else, versus a multiple under those same circumstances. At least as far as chemistry and electrical activity in the brain go, acting as someone else is very different than being someone else. So let's take the whole observation of science out of the equation,. They have not yet proven that there's any resemblance between the brain activity of somebody with DID, or any other kind of multiplicity, versus people pretending. People acting, trained to pretend. So take it off the table. Just stop telling us we're pretending. This is not something you can pretend for 31 years. This isn't something that's fun to pretend. It's not an 'in' thing to do. You really have to look at the totality of the person.

Are there benefits to being multiple? That's its own conversation? Is it convenient in some way? Yeah. When I was getting hit and beat on and sexually abused and molested, it was extremely convenient to be able to pass that on to someone else in my head. Is it still convenient to have everything all compartmentalized? Yeah, sometimes it's convenient. But sometimes it's really inconvenient. When I look at my resume, and I look back at my last, let's, let's say paying job, the, the last time I got direct deposit from an employer. And I look at the skills that I used in that job, which is only 10 years ago. And those skills are still relevant today, but I don't have those skills available to me, that's not convenient. It's not convenient to not be able to go back into the workforce. Because basically, my resume does not support what I'm doing right now, or does not support a well paying job that I could have theoretically returned to. That's not convenient. I'm sorry. The day I was let go of that job, that person in my head was packed up and put away in a closet someplace and I don't have access to her. That's not convenient. We were so upset over losing our job that the person went away who had all those skills. This is not convenient. So that leaves us basically somewhat unemployable. Isn't that lovely? Isn't that convenient? You know, it's not convenient having to prove that I need Medicaid. That's not convenient. Trust me, I'd really much rather make the money then flounder in poverty. No, I'm, I'm not okay. Alright, so that said, this, this whole idea that multiples might be making it up—throw it out, please, just stop. There's nothing convenient about this.

And because part of the reason that we as multiples have such a hard time, why we go for so many years not knowing we're multiple, is because it's like a shell game. Okay, you know, it's it's the old games where they put a shell or something like a marble or whatever, underneath a cup, or they put a bead underneath a shell, and then they start moving the shells around. Well, the shells look the same, right? That's the whole idea of that game is, you have to guess what, which one has the thing underneath it and they all move around and they all have the same? It's kind of like we do that. So for years when we're hiding things from ourselves—okay, forget the rest of the world. We're hiding things from ourselves. Things that are so bad happened to us, we put the shell on top of it and move the shell. Trying to hide it. It's like, "No, no, there is no shell here. Doo doo doo doo doo." Moving them around, right? So we take the data, the input, the sensory input, the, the experiences, the feelings, the emotions, and we stick them underneath the shell, and we start moving the shell. The shells all have to look alike in order to hide the information. Everything's got to look like it's normal, and everything is, is still copacetic. And, you know. So, they all look the same. So for years, we try and pass as one another. For years, we're trying to hide the fact that we're multiple. What happens is, at some point, perhaps, our safety level goes up, perhaps our our environment change, perhaps we're no longer around abusers, perhaps something happens that re traumatizes us. Whatever it is, something changes. And the game is up. Somebody flipped a shell over. Now, let's say they flip a shell over that is not the one with the stuff. So they don't remember the stuff, but suddenly, they realize, "Oh, my God, we've got all these shells." Because this one looks different, its flipped over. The other ones aren't. Something's up here. Or they noticed the shells moving around. Because the more information that gets stuffed under each shell, sometimes you start noticing the gaps. You started noticing that something went missing. Takes a long time. Our systems are really, really good at hiding information. It's like, if there's something we studied to become as a professional, it's a professional memory hider. You know, we we've been doing this for a very long time. Ever since we were born, in some cases, sometimes since we were 2, 3, 4 years old.

But basically, we're a professional memory hider. And we're hiding things from each other in our system. You outside of the system, are looking at us and saying it's something we're faking. You're saying it's not true. You're telling us we're making it up. Sometimes we don't really know. We see the shell flipped over, we look the other shells and we're really not quite sure what's going on either. And you telling us that only increases our doubt. And it might make us go back into hide, "Ooh, flip that shell back over, go back to the shell game for a few more years." Therapists have done this to multiples by telling multiples they're faking it, by telling them DID doesn't exist, by reinforcing their doubts and fears. Look, because we're really good at the shell game, the memories we do have can be foggy. The memories we do have to go missing with no traces. The memories we do have can be uncorroborated by other people in the situation because they were threatened, because they are the perpetrators, and so on. So we don't always have our witnesses backing us up because of being threatened and so on. Or maybe they forgot too. Maybe because of programming from the people who did the abuse, telling us not to remember it, telling us how not to remember it, whatever it was so they can also forget because of programming. As much as there's false memory syndrome—and we'll get to that in a moment—as much as there's false memory syndrome about making up abuse, there's also false memory system about making up that we weren't. That we had a happy childhood. That was one I heard recently that you know, "How do I know this is real? I keep getting told I had a happy childhood." Whoa, wait a minute. Do you remember your childhood? No. They're telling you you had a good childhood. Who, who was it that might have abused you? I mean.

So being told about your childhood is not always the best thing either. I was told my personality changed at five. I was told I stopped kissing my parents. I remember not kissing them. But I was told that I used to and then I stopped at some point. Thankfully, the people were giving me the tellings were not people trying to hide stuff. They were people trying to tell me that things had happened. It wasn't people sweeping it under the rug, but it could have been. It could have been people telling me "Oh, you were always so happy, everything was fine, your parents were loving." Right? It could. So there are people out there, unfortunately, who have that end of the issue where, where people are covering it up. Even decades later, they're still sweeping it under the rug and covering it up, or "I was abused worse than you" or, you know, maybe they weren't abused as much, and you were, and—it can go all over the place.

So then there's the false memory syndrome people, I will say, I take it with a big grain of salt. But okay, fine. You say that memories can be created, they've done experiments with it, they've created memories, blah, blah, blah—great. So it goes both ways. If memories be can be created, so can the brainwashing required to tell a child to forget things. You can erase memories. So you can't have it both ways. You can't say that memories can be created and then tell us we can't re-remember things that we used to know. You can't tell us memories can be created and tell us that that good memories couldn't be created. You know, maybe bad things can be covered up by retelling the story enough times - you may be wiping out what really happened. Right? So let's say false memory sys—syndrome does not have to be a therapist creating memories of abuse. It could be abusers creating memories that you weren't abused. Hmm. Now, who has more stakes in the game? For a little while, I will admit, because I went through a little of this pressure and weirdness. There was, there was thought to be money in publishing a book about your multiple client. So there very well could have been, for a while in the early 90s, therapists who were over-enthusiastic to uncover bad childhood memories, and maybe they cause a little bit of controversy and problems. I don't think that that's the case anymore. There's so many books out there, both by multiples, on behalf of multiples. The, the amount of money there to be made is not as big as it used to be. Nobody's gonna hit the New York Times bestseller list because they came out with yet another book about multiples. So I am not believing that there is as much enthusiasm on part of the practitioner, not as much pay off for them to uncover things. But there is a whole foundation studying false memory creation. And there's still child porn rings, and there's still human trafficking, and there's still parents abusing their children, and there's still ritual abuse societies or groups out there who are abusing children. There's still Boy Scout leaders who I'm sure are doing things they shouldn't, and people in the Catholic Church. So there's a whole false memory syndrome nonprofit studying false memories, that their research could be used for nefarious means, as well as to, quote unquote, 'uncover' the psychiatric community accidentally planting memories in people. Just saying. So I think the accidental creation of memories a couple of decades ago, we can get over it, just like we kind of are getting over people being institutionalized for being gay, or all those lobotomies that psychiatry used to do.

Next, I want to talk about this, let's call it, this new dawn of theories about DID and multiplicity that I've only learned about—I don't know if they've only existed, but I've only learned about since 2005. So there's a developmental theory, looking at infancy and the development of psyche, our psychological processes. Where basically, when a infant is born, they're not a single well-formed personality, person identity, whatever you want to call it they are disparate interpretations of sensory input. There's all this information. And in theory, a child has not yet yet learned to filter extraneous information out. Their reticular activation system is not active yet. They can't filter, let's say, looking around the room for red and seeing all the red things popping out. The, their sensory input is mushy. It's mashed potatoes, it's coming in from all angles, it may be overwhelming. So when an infant is born, they're not a well-formed personality yet. When a child is born with the dissociative trait, which has been shown to be hereditary. So this, I'm going to say, is a potential ability to keep sensory information more separate than most. So that reticular activation system, for example, where you look around the room and you see all the red things pop out, well, it's even stronger in this group. Where they can filter more out, and they can hone in and be more narrow on what they pay attention to. So, bad things happen to the baby. So there's sensory input which would normally, for a normal child, be pretty overwhelming. But now there's sensory input that causes fear. Panic is induced in this baby. And it doesn't have to be on purpose. Humans have many different ways of reacting to fear. And I go into that one of the episodes, Reacting to Panic. So fight flight, freeze, fawn, and so on. So the baby has a reaction, probably fight or flight. Maybe one of the other ones, freeze for a baby, that would be very good one. So the baby has a reaction. Scary noise, react. This is normal. Child gets hurt, child starves, child is neglected, child is left alone too long. These are panic worthy for a baby, for a very young infant, and can cause these reactions as well. Enough of that going on and the baby starts—perhaps, if if they have the dissociative trait—compartmentalizing all these different things. Especially if the carer is erratic. Sometimes they're very comfortable and they're very safe. Other times they're very alone and they're very afraid. And it starts becoming dichotomy - safe, afraid, safe, afraid. Then maybe other things are introduced as they get a little older. So there's different pockets inside of their psyche, where all of these different things are handled. And as they get a little older, if it's continuing, these pockets gets stronger. And where a normal child would have more more of a central pocket have all of this information and all this experience that would grow up, all these separate pockets of information in the dissociative child who has a difficult upbringing become the—as they age up, become the different areas of the brain that, that develop their own identities, their own personalities, based on those initial fears that caused the pocket in the first place. Even if it was caused when they weren't an infant and it was caused when they were two or three or four, these become different pockets that grow at different rates, and develop their own identities.

Now, not, I don't expect every multiple to have different pockets of identity—different people or, or possible people in their head—who have different religions, have different skills, have separate memories—because not always, they don't always have separate memories—have different fear reactions, etc. But it is possible, you know, this is part of part of what's going on. So the the theory, the developmental theory is that we didn't start out integrated in the first place. And that multiples remain separated in these little pockets, where other children as they're introduced to a safe environment and given nurturing, and they don't have the dissociated gene and so on. This all starts to fuse together. They can't support all these separations, so they start to meld, fuse, integrate, become the different sides of a person, the different modes of a person, the roles they take on. The normal separations that we have. What works at school doesn't work at home, what works with my friends doesn't work with my parents. So all of these are normal separations of what we do on a daily basis. But for people who are multiple, these things can become completely separate and disparate inside of our head. So we're somebody else when with our friends than we are with our parents, than we are with our sitter, than we are with our school. So these are actually different people, making it extremely difficult when you come home from school to tell your parents how your day went. Or when you're at, you know, your house, and then you go to somebody else's house, you don't remember necessarily what happened, to tell somebody what's wrong. When you go to the doctor, you can't tell them. Or you were threatened into not being able to tell them, so that's along the brainwashing lines that I was just talking about, where you're told not to tell. Now you have a gag order on some part of your brain, so you have to squirrel things away in that corner of your brain so you don't accidentally tell anyone, or accidentally mentioned anything. So you'll lock it away.

So this can happen, you know, as as the brain develops, as these little pockets of memory develop. Things like being threatenedcreate the walls. We create the walls inside of our own head, but we do it because, as a reaction to being threatened, we know it's important on some level to keep it separate, or we're taught to keep it separate in some cases. It's very difficult to tell somebody who is multiple that they are faking it, or that they that is not true, or that they don't exist. Because to us, it's very clear most of the time. And when it's not very clear, it's probably because the separate people are still separate. So maybe somebody came out at the therapist office. You don't remember it, because you're compartmentalized so strongly, that they can front without your knowing about it. So you just, you leave the doctor's appointment, and you go "Wow, that really went fast. That was the fastest 15 minutes in my life." Or you don't even remember, when you walk out, you're like "Why am I walking out? I just came here." So the doctor may be the one that turns around—the therapist, the health consultant—may be the one that turns around and gives the diagnosis, even though the person has no memory of anything having gone on. Because the therapist, the health consultant knows that you have not—you have somebody else who came out in their office, introduced themselves said, "Yeah, that person doesn't know about me. But I know about them," maybe, or without the I know about them. "And I just want to let you know I'm here. Hi, how are you?" And leaves again, or says something about the level of abuse they went through, or whatever it is. And then at the end of the appointment, it's like "Thank you very much. I'll see you next week." And your appointment's over and you didn't even know what happened. So it can be that stark of a compartmentalization in the brain.

And that's the theory that comes from. The theory it comes from is that you started out that way and just stayed that way, and all the little parts developed into, we'll call it, possible people. And I just delineate the point at which somebody is a person as the point where they declare themselves a person. I make it pretty easy. You know, "I think therefore I am." It's very clear to me that somebody is a person when they say, "Hey, I'm a person." Because something that's not a person wouldn't really think to say that, unless you programming in artificial intelligence, right? And then it's a person telling the not-a-person to say it's a person. But in terms of a multiple system, the moment that somebody declares themselves a person, just take their word for it. It's pretty easy, right? Like, oh, okay.

So, do multiples exist? I emphatically say yes. But of course, you're welcome to disagree with me. And I am going to wrap up the episode at this point. And I'm sorry about the last episode being so, both disjointed in some ways, and the audio quality being not so great. Hopefully this makes up for it. And if you couldn't stand last episode, I think I've touched on most of the points from that episode and clarified them. Made it a little more coherent, with a little less arming and you knowing, hopefully. Having done Toastmasters and stuff since then, and learned about not doing that. So, hopefully this has been a very helpful episode for you. And if you are a person with multiplicity, and you are in doubt of yourself, hopefully it helped you. And if you're a person or a health consultant who is listening in to try and learn more about multiplicity, this is some of the ideas in the history that we as a group have had to go through and some of the fights that we've had to have in order to, I guess, carve out our existence and to be acknowledged. Because there's still a lot of controversy out there. And if you really want to see controversy, you should look at the history of the Wikipedia page and how many times there have been disparaging comments in it. And, and people have had to ask for things to be removed. And—I've had so many fights with them on Wikipedia, it's not funny, and not just about the multiple entry. But you get the idea. So having to fight with the world to say "No, we really do exist and this is real. Just because you can't perceive it, doesn't mean it's not true." So hopefully this has helped you and given you information, and helped at least to convince you that our subjective reality is as valid as yours.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of Many Minds on the Issue. Your Patreon support will keep this podcast coming. You can find more information, resources, and our Patreon link at K-I-N-H-O-S-T-dot-org Kinhost.org.