Dissociation – which self are you?
Do we all have multiple selves? Is this the same as Multiple Personality Disorder or can we suddenly find we have outgrown a self or find an unknown one has finally broken through to consciousness, ready to turn our present life on its head? To know what selves are we must define what they are not.Â
Selves are not facades even though characterisations can be.  Where a story teller or comic may use characterisations and have a strong sense of self or selves those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) may have a poorly developed sense of self and so have many facades and no well defined personal self to return to. With a poorly defined self of self those with BPD may be more prone to ‘splitting’ than those with other personality traits though this does not mean all people experiencing splitting associated with PTSD will have a poorly defined sense of self or BPD. For example, those with Schizoid Personality Disorder experience a splitting off or detaching from the emotional self yet may have a strong intellectual self.
Involuntary avoidance, diversion, retaliation responses (as seen in Exposure Anxiety ) aren’t facades either, more an extreme difficulty in daring the expression of self in directly social interactions. With Exposure Anxiety the person can have a very cohesive sense of self but be unable to easily dare share it. Similar may be seen in the social awkwardness of those with Schizotypal Personality Disorder .
Roles are not selves, they are personas and we all have them as well as a self/selves.  In a mid life crisis it may be the roles we cast off, not the self, or it may be that in an emotional breakdown the roles cannot be adhered to and without them the self weakens or another self begins to emerge ready to create a new life in place of the old one.
Bipolar states are not selves though if one had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) then some selves may manifest more in a manic or depressive extreme.
Gender Identity Disorder is about having a gender identity different to that of your physical body but does not necessarily mean there will be male, female or genderless selves. However those with Dissociative Identity Disorder may commonly have selves which are of any gender regardless of the gender of the body.
Selves function as cohesive wholes but where there are multiple selves, their patterns of interests, distressses and their collective personality traits may deeply clash with that of other selves in the same body. A self can also remain dormant until triggered, even made redundant and kept down for years.
Selves are identities but roles can be identities too. Dissociative Identity Disorder is where someone has multiple identities which are all experienced as competing selves. Those with PTSD can experience dissociation and form dual identities; the everyday life one grounded in the present and those of one or more selves who experienced the trauma or traumas associated with PTSD. If someone was born into a severely abusive, threatening or traumatic environment, then there may be such a multitude of PTSD episodes that the person may have many selves associated with those episodes as well as the one trying to live in the present day ‘daily life’.
Donna Williams, Dip Ed, BA Hons.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com
Hello Donna,
I am interested what your response would be to claims by some clinical psychologists that dissociative identity disorder doesn’t actually exist in nature, and that all cases are the result of iatrogenesis, in particular from suggestive hypnosis and the like.
Hi Lev,
I certainly think MPD had these claims levelled at it. I feel DID was more realistic a description, because it talks of identities rather than personalities.
I have worked people with Borderline who identified with MPD but interestingly resented the term DID… go figure.
I have met three people formally dx’d with DID, two of whom were also Borderlines, one of whom was not.
I feel Borderlines can be highly suggestible so would be more at risk of therapist suggestion than those with other personality disorders, although those who are Schizotypal are also known to be highly suggestible, particularly regarding issues like the supernatural and spirituality.
I had no formal dx of DID but was dx’d with PTSD by one of my therapists.
I personally question whether DID is distinguishable from PTSD and consider true DID as a developmental complication of long term inescapable trauma during the essential formative years, resulting in so many PTSD triggers that it becomes hard for the person to build a single identity.
Do I think suggestion of MPD or DID provides unscrupulous shrinks a chance to line their pockets through creating the ideal long term patient? Yep.
Do I think most shrinks are more scrupulous and professional than that? Yep.
Do I think there are highly suggestible, even bored or poorly developed personalities who are drawn to something as exotic as DID or so geared for entanglement as to want an intensive long term relationship with a shrink exploring it with them? Yep.
Do I think that accounts for all cases of severe PTSD with dissociative complications effecting identity? No.
It’s sort of parallel with the autism field. ie: does autism exist or is it generated by the media, the product of bad parenting, of neglect etc.
Hi Donna,
Can I just ask what PTSD stands for?
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Thanks. Now your blog makes sense!
I’m wondering how common you think PTSD is for adults with a ‘autistic mix’ who grew up undiagnosed and misunderstood?
To take one simple example (I’m aware it’s probably quite difficult to generalize with actual diversity of individual experience):
It seems to me that a child or adult struggling with multiple processing difficulties may be quite vulnerable to PTSD due to the stress of attempting to manage these issues – and that the behaviors then exhibited by the spectrum individual in this situation could be misinterpreted as personality disorder even when there may be an intact identity that is prevented from being expressed.
In your experience have to encountered this type of thing?
I’ve meet a number of people with personality disorders of some form (without autistic conditions)and there seems in these individuals great difficulty in experiencing a cohesive identity…and who struggle in a number of ways to live in such an embodiment.
yet I’ve also met individuals with a range of autistic difficulties who are ‘written off’ by psychology professionals as personality disordered and therefore ‘untreatable’ who’s external behaviors shift and drop away when things like: processing problems are treated, bio-chemical issues are managed, an environment of compatible sensory stimulation is achieved, day to day fits with their particular learning style etc etc…In these cases I’ve noticed a stable identity emerges bit by bit and disordered behaviors drop away.
very intelligent post Paula.
yes, I’ve encountered those with autism who have had extreme personality shifts following interventions and personally I experience extreme shifts if ‘stoned’ on casein (LSD like effect) or ‘high’ on excessive salicylate levels (cocaine like effect). There are things like B12 deficiency which when treated will also dramatically shift personality.
re PTSD and experiences, bullying has given many people with autism PTSD. Many who grew up not accepted by their families in the 60s and 70s, when their autism was called psychotic or disturbed were also traumatised. Today we have some children with autism who are treated as experiments who may develop trauma or personality/identity issues from being treated as a condition at the expense of recognition of their being a person in there too. So PTSD is very relevant to autism.
There are also cases where severe abuse since infancy contributes to health disorders and developmental disabilities if not adding to amounting to brain injury. If this occurs in someone already autistic it could theoretically exacerbate their autism.
There are also those with poorly developed identity who constantly lose themselves in others but this needs to be distinguished from echolalia/echopraxia and Exposure Anxiety and there is also a normal phase of early development in which this occurs.
Yip very interesting and makes sense!
Thanks, your blogs are very helpful.
Is ‘Exposure Anxiety’ a term coined by professionals in the medical field? I have spoken about this term a couple of times to 3 different psychologists and none of them have heard the term used before? When I Google it, it is always referenced to you. So is it a term used by you to describe something or is a real term? It is something i am most curious about 🙂
Hi Alex,
I coined it and was the first to write about it. It has been taken up by several psychologists and psychiatrists who have contacted me re their clients they felt may have it. I was asked to write a further concisive text on EA for professionals. EA is mentioned in Disapedia. Otherwise, no, there is not yet a DSM for an anxiety disorder revolving around fear of one’s own existance. Which given there is for fear of being social, fear of outdoors, fear of pretty much anything, its amazing nobody has ever coined a term for fear of feeling one’s own existance.
Hi Donna,
I have a client who I would love to ask you about…could I possibly email you?
yeah.
I loved your books, Donna. They inspired me to write my own. I put it on a blog and perhaps it will reach someone.
http://sarahsmithetal.blogspot.com/2010/03/in-and-out-of-iceglass.html
Nice to meet you Sarah.
As someone with DID, I would like to comment on what my experience of “selves” is. I have a number of selves that have varying degrees of connection with each other. Some are very independent and “I” hardly know of their existence. (“I” in this case as I’m writing is my public self – the self that most often interacts with the outside world.) Others are usually co-conscious with me, or can be co-conscious at a moment’s notice. We share some memories, other memories (old and new) are inaccessible to some and accessible to others. This can be a very confusing existence, but I have carved out a life for us – some public and some semi-public and some private.
Hi Sarah, nice to meet you. I thought there was only me (Donna), Willie (since age 2) and Carol (since age 4) but I’ve become aware of two others, a compulsive self sacrificer, Aunty Donna who I can trace back to a sort of staring ‘puppet child’ since about age 4 that became a compulsive helper by later childhood when put in the role of mother to my younger brother between 8-12. The other who I can see in pics since age 4-5 is a boyish cheeky monkey and seems to have differentiated from Carol (who is more sensitive, less adventurous) arose in being playpal to my younger brother, one he called Da Boy, so that’s what I call it. It’s rather teenage; fearless, bolshy, outgoing, adventurous and androgenous if not male (where Willie is fearless, solitary, serious and adult). I also learned that Carol was far more than roles from TV, she is the romantic, surrealist, quite dented girly girl. It was isolating and hard to have these others push through to the consciousness of ‘Team Donna’ and took certain catalysts to happen, but I regret nothing. It is said that for some a breakdown is a breakthough and I think the recent return to immune deficiency after 7 yrs remission was associated with inner earthquakes but in itself set them off. There is an assumption that someone with autism can’t have DID but I have met children and adults, verbal and non-verbal who have communicated about other selves and the battles between them. I would even say the severe isolation of sensory perceptual disorders and communication disorders may contribute to bonding and identity issues and those who go into care may have even greater challenges developing one cohesive identity during the early developmental phases.
Donna,
I understood all of your post except the very last part that says “those who go into care may have even greater challenges.” Particularly, what does “go into care” mean? Do you think that when you have a physical problem, i.e. the return to immune deficiency, you are more susceptible to a “breakdown?” I find that when I am tired for many days in a row I am more likely to have trouble controlling my dissociative episodes. However, when I am working through emotional experiences I am often exhausted physically. It becomes difficult to know if my tiredness causes emotional difficulty or if emotional difficulty causes the tiredness.
When I read your books I was really freaked out about how much I could relate to your personal experiences of your emotions. I do not relate much to your experience of physical sensations such as light and wind, but whenever you describe experiencing an emotion I’m right there with you. I wondered if I was autistic, but my therapist told me I was not. I am a highly sensitive person though – more sensitive to chemicals, sounds, activity, people’s energy, etc than most of the people I know. My two best friends are also highly sensitive – it’s nice to be with someone who understands that when I’m over stimulated I need to leave.
Dear Donna,
I think you are awesome, caring, multi-talented and articulate. My grandson has Asperger’s and I see a lot of him in you. Unfortunately, he does not see his place in the world, or recognize his genius and many talents. He sees normalcy or average as the goal to being successful. I am going to show him your one page bio, that is so honest. Hopefully, it will resonant with him. Thank you for being so forthcoming and open. Bless your heart for it has been a long hard journey which now has turned out to be a most inspiring one.
All the best to you.
Hi Donna,
May I ask you how you feel overall about your own identity now? And what it is that gives you such insight and self awareness of your own experiences?
I know for myself that what got me through years of identity confusion and feeling thrown about by ‘protective ego reactions’ which felt like another identity taking control…was a strong internal sense of who I was regardless…even if I found it difficult to express that identity.
For me I tended to feel a sensation of battling with ego defensive personas…that felt like small parts of my identity temporaily exagerated…
I feel there’s a strong relationship between the involuntary and compulsive avoidance, diversion and retaliation responses of acute chronic Exposure Anxiety and dissociative identity. With EA there is always one basic self, generally the most avoidant, with the next two being retaliative and diversionary in nature, which was the case with Willie and Carol. But I think EA sets up the foundations where under extremely PTSD circumstances disocciative identity can become more entrenched and expansive and I feel this was the case with me.
Insight? I had VERY LITTLE before typing. Much of it came via automatic expression through typing, music (and lyrics) and art. Through doing came awareness after the doing.
D.
For me autism is not about sensory hypersensitivity, which a large part of the population has, its about inability to filter incoming info so the sensory flooding results in heightened perception but also fragmented, tumbling, confusing input. Agnosias had far more to do with my autistic development (a world without meaning, recognition, familiarity, cohesion and its impact on communication, cognition, learning, relating) than sensory hypersensitivity. Mood, anxiety, compulsive and identity disorders only complicated all of that, made me a more complex ‘fruit salad’.
In care means looked after by welfare centres, foster families, shuffled constantly from family to family so there’s no continuity or bonding opportunities are diminished or easily disturbed. Health issues certainly alter life and processing so can mess up the works. Also health issues can have have past social complications. I agree re tiredness and that emotional disturbance can exhaust and exacerbate health issues.
A comment for Sarah,
Hi there…
I’m another who has read all of Donnas books which in my case lead me to a diagnosis of Aspergers and later ADHD and additional bi-polar, OCD, learning disabilities, sensory processing problems and so on.
Prior to these diagnosis ten years ago I had been previously diagnosed with Borderline, Antisocial and major depressive disorders. For me, I now recognise that my borderline behaviours were most likely EA and PTSD combining with disassociative experiences. What was seen as Anti social behaviours on the outside was my own dispair of being able to understand people and the world, therefore deciding not to bother trying anymore on the inside…with a protective survival persona hiding this despair and presenting a ‘tough, I don’t care’ attitude on the outside (I was a psych inpatient at the time and the trauma/fear of the environment caused severe identity reactions).
ANYWAY, my point:
Over the years I’ve studied psych disorders extensively at university and throughout my own therapy…as well as ‘insider’ accounts of their experiences of mental ill health and (dis)ability…
I came to the conclusion that the ‘boxes’ used to define disorders by psych experts are far to narrow AS those of us who have LIVED ‘mind difficulties’ can often relate to each others experiences even if the precise causes differ.
SO, I too can relate to many of Donnas experiences to some extent, and to experiences of people with a range of mind differences such as Borderline, DID, Autisms, learning disabilities, being super sensitive etc…
Nowadays I’m thankful for the internet and how it provides as all with information to help understand ourselves and know there are many others out there who experience mind difference too.
(Thanks for comment above Donna, as always)
I’d like to describe a sensory experience that is common for me. I think it is different from what you, Donna, experience. This experience I’m describing is episodic, not continual, and occurs only when I’m in emotional distress. Usually I don’t know what the stressor is. Noises become very loud – like grating screeching that is difficult for me to decipher. I can hear the words being spoken and they individually sound like words, but it takes a lot of effort for me to put them together and have them make sense. Sometimes I cannot make sense of the words together. Objects get a bright ring around them and seem to quiver in space. Space itself seems to become like a woven rug, and the individual fibers of space weave in and out in a motion that is hard to follow and very distracting as I am drawn to watch it rather than see objects or people. If my husband tries to talk to me when this is happening, I get even more distressed as on one level I know it is my husband but his face looks alien and unfamiliar. The only relief I get is to close my eyes and feel myself falling deep into the darkness created by closing my eyes. Sometimes then I cry and scream for a short time followed by a short time of experiencing “nothing” and that cycle repeats for an hour or two. Sometimes I completely “dissociate” (at least that’s what I think it is) as I re-emerge hours later hungry and tired but emotionally calm. I don’t know if this comment is appropriate for your site, Donna, just wanted to share in case someone finds it interesting.
what you describe is akin to the systems shutdowns and total shutdowns I wrote of in my books, particularly Autism; An Inside Out Approach. But it’s also what I wrote of in my autobiographical works as ‘the big black nothingness’ which I felt ‘ate me’ and disintegrated my ability to link to meaning. This would usually effect all systems – visual, verbal, body, rendering me completely meaning deaf, meaning blind, disconnected from body – but later only one or the other. The overload leading to this could cause extreme sensory heightening so it sounded like words had become louder, faster, more tumbled, and I’ve also had halos around objects though usually with dairy allergy. But the other stuff, and particularly the losing time part and coming out of it as if out of a sleep, I described in my article on atypical epilepsy. I was dx’d with Atypical Epilepsy in my 20s after and EEG. One trigger of my epilepsy was hyperventilation so I can imagine that especially in childhood, in an overloaded progressively hypomanic state that may have been common just before a seizure
http://blog.donnawilliams.net/2010/01/10/my-experiences-with-atypical-epilepsy/
Donna *)
I read about your atypical epilepsy. I’ve had a few tests done when I’ve been brought to the hospital for really weird behavior. Once I felt like I was falling into a black hole, called my neighbor who is a first responder, and she came over right away. She told me that when she got there, I was mostly incommunicative, and my eyes were not responding to light properly – they were dilated and would not un-dilate (I can’t think of the right word.) Then I began to have convulsions or something. I actually remember it somewhat – but it’s in a very heavy fog and seems like it all happened to someone else. Everyone chalks up my weird behavior to dissociation, which might be true, but I can’t help but think there is something physical that goes haywire in my brain.
Very interesting post Donna. As a member of an autistic collective…….(Athena and the Integral are the others) its cool to read this.
Take care and thanks for sharing
Ivan