Transcript: Episode 92
92. Guest: The Adaption System
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
***Interview Begins***
Interviewer: Bold Font
Interviewee: Standard Font
We are leaving for Africa tomorrow, and recorded some podcast episodes ahead of time, to air while we’re gone. And one of them that we recorded was an email from you, that Sasha read, and talked about on the podcast, and also I don’t even know how to respond to what she did. [Laughs]
Okay.
But anyway, we wanted to contact you, because you had such a unique perspective. Your email was so fascinating. And so I thank you for coming on the podcast and talking to us all the way from Germany.
Okay, so we live in Germany. Our body’s in the mid-thirties. We started psychology from 2008 to 2014, and we started our training in psychotherapy in 2015. So you have to know that training inside therapy is mandatory in Germany if you want to get licensed as a psychological psychotherapist - that’s the legal term. And if you want to offer insurance covered therapy, you really have to get a training, because there’s such a sharp line in Germany between counseling and psychotherapy. They’re like two completely different approaches.
And if you want to get training in psychotherapy, you have to have a Master’s degree in psychology. And then on top of it, you have to do your training. It will take between three and five years, and you can choose between four different approaches, which are psychoanalysis, depth psychology, CBT, and systemic therapy. When we had to decide which one to take, we just went with CBT, because it’s the most affordable strain of psychotherapy in Germany. So yeah, we just settled on that. We weren’t too fond of it from the beginning, so we also, in addition, started our training in the enactive approach by Ellert Nijenhuis. Yeah, and we are on our way becoming licensed, and in addition becoming officially trained in the approach of Ellert Nijenhuis.
In our private life, we are relationship anarchists. So at the moment, we are in two relationships, and we share our flat with two rescue dogs. Yeah.
Aww, so sweet. Ellert Nijenhuis is the name that Sasha butchers and then just takes off with --
Yeah.
-- on the podcast. It’s ridiculous.
Yeah, it’s super hard to say. It’s like everyone in Germany struggles so much with it. And luckily, our best friend, she studied psychology in Netherlands, and so she is familiar with Dutch and she really taught us how to say it correctly.
So, it’s a dutch name?
Yeah.
And now you have taught all of us to say it correctly. Thank you.
You’re welcome.
[Laughs]
Tell me what is the distinction you talked about between counseling in psychotherapy in Germany.
Yeah okay, counseling isn’t covered by any insurance whatsoever. Normally you can get counseling on a private bill, or at a counseling center, that is like state funded. But if you want to get psychotherapy, which is like a more medical approach, you will have to go to a licensed psychotherapist and there were some legal changes in the mid-nineties. Psychologist’s fought their way through all of the instances of our legal system for thirty years to get recognized as medical professionals, because before that you were only able to work when referred from a psychiatrist, and you weren’t able to work in private practice on your own.
Oh wow.
Yeah. So, it’s a really unique situation. This concept of psychotherapy is unique to Germany. If you go to Netherlands or Austria or any other country in Europe will be completely different.
Wow. What has been good about that and what has been not good about that?
What’s good about it is that everyone is able to afford psychotherapy. And psychologists are able to diagnose on their own. They are not dependent on the diagnosis of psychiatrists. What’s bad about it is it’s a lot of bureaucracy, a lot. You have to do so much paperwork. It’s hilarious.
I think that paperwork is probably the hardest part of the job, for sure.
Yeah, it is. If you want to start a long term therapy with someone, you’ll have to write a super detailed letter that’s proven by the insurance company, where you lay out all the symptoms - you discover it, and you have to lay out a complete plan of what you’re doing in your therapy, and it’s ridiculous.
Oh my goodness. What is your story of getting diagnosed?
It was a struggle. It really was. When we got in contact with you, we really thought about, Okay, what was actually our way to getting a diagnosis? And it actually started out when we were teenagers. We had our first psychotherapy, and we talked to her about our dissociative symptoms. We, at the time, weren't aware that these were dissociative symptoms. We thought, Okay, they’re just people living in our head. And she totally avoided the topic.
Oh no!
We really asked through our whole system if anyone had any memory of her responding to our stories, and no one was able to recollect anything about that. So, she completely avoided it.
That’s really tragic.
Yeah, and she was a child therapist. And when we turned 18, she said, “Okay now, you’re 18, now you have to get out of here.” Which isn’t actually correct. Normally if you start psychotherapy in Germany when you’re underage, you’re able to stay in the therapy, minimum, until you’re 21. So, she just tried to get us out, because again, she was freaked out by our symptoms.
So you’ve had the same common experience that so many people with DID have, of either having bad therapists or therapists who don’t understand or therapists who don’t listen or respond. You’ve been through that too.
Yeah. It was actually the same. And when we first discovered that it was something like dissociation or DID, we found a book on DID at the public library, and read it when we were 17 maybe. We thought, Okay, this has to be a thing in psychotherapy. People have to know about it. It’s an official diagnosis. People have to have training on it. And we were super shocked that no one actually knew what this was.
How did you end up getting help then?
When we moved to another city for our bachelors training, we ended up at a women’s counseling center that was specialized in sexual violence, and they offered group therapy actually for OSDD. It was -- we were super lucky that they offered this group therapy to us and that they took our stories for granted and said, “Okay, you may have this and you can come to our group therapy.” And they also referred us to the medical school of Hanover. They have a research group of dissociative disorders that we completed the SCID- D interview.
How long did that take?
Actually for us, it only took 90 minutes.
[Laughs]
Which is the minimum. You know, I went there as host, and no one else showed up. So, we went through it super smoothly, and so we ended up with only a diagnosis of Complex PTSD and depersonalization disorder, and said, “You don’t have any DID. Go away.”
Oh no.
Yeah. This led into a mess of a crisis for us.
So, in a way, as a system, one of those times where one Part is trying to function and get you through something as a system, but --
Yeah.
-- it backfires because they needed others to present?
Yeah, correctly. And I guess they even didn’t know about OSDD or that it was a thing. So, she couldn’t comprehend what we told them. Like we said, “Okay, there are others, but we don’t lose that much time.” So they may be thought, Okay, they make it up just like it’s Borderline Personality Disorder or something like that.
Oh no. That’s not the same at all.
Yeah. It isn’t, but that’s what they came up with. They wrote, “Okay, it’s Complex PTSD, and some traits of borderline.”
So, what happened next?
We -- because of said crisis, we went to a psychiatric hospital for some time - for six weeks. And there we actually received a DID diagnosis, because we really helped getting this diagnosis. You know, we knew which buttons to press to get this diagnosis, because we were in bad need of therapy to get any sort of inner communication and stuff. So we thought, Okay, only if we present them as the typical DID case, we will get said help.
So working together as a system, you were able to present enough to be able to get a diagnosis.
Yeah, it wasn’t that hard. We just told them, “Yeah, there are people living in our head, and we’re losing time, and there are children and they have toys in the outside world.” Stuff like that. And they were all like, “Check mark, check mark, check mark.”
So they were people who understood it already then?
Kind of, yeah. They gave us the right diagnosis, but actually not the right treatment, so it didn’t work out too well.
So even then they only got part of it right. You finally got the diagnosis, but not treatment?
Yeah.
Wow. So then what happened?
[Laughs] Okay, so after that, we tried two different therapists and we had to quit later because of our Master’s program starting. We moved to another city so we had to quit. And then we took time off from therapy, for let me think, seven years actually.
We did that after graduate school too.
Yeah, sometimes it’s not the right time to dive into your past.
Mm.
Yeah, so we stayed off the medical system at all. [Laughs] And we only restarted psychotherapy last year with our current therapist. He actually is one of our supervisors. Yeah. And he also got trained by Ellert Nijenhuis, so yeah, we started off with him.
How do you feel that that’s working, compared to what you’ve been through? It sounds like you’ve gotten one piece at a time - the wrong therapist, and then the right hospital and diagnosis, but the wrong treatment, and then now finally some treatment.
Actually, we think it’s our achievement, because we worked so hard into getting to know everything about dissociation, so that we really could make the right decisions.
Wow.
So we really, really checked if he was the right therapist for us, if he knew the relevant things about DID.
So you empowered yourself that way?
Yeah. We became experts on DID over the years.
And well, and not just experts, but then even took something where you were sort of being swept along in the current and kind of became proactive about it. You were able to intervene on your own behalf and say, “This is what we need. Are you a good match to actually help me? Because you knew so much. You became an expert, but you also used that knowledge well.
Yeah, we actually also use this knowledge on ourselves, so like self-treat our system. And we can do a lot between sessions, because we have the right tools available for us.
Wow. That’s powerful. So you’ve done a lot of your own work?
Yeah. We just -- we had this key problem that we couldn’t get any inner-communication going, or there was communication, but not communication between me and the rest of the system, because I am, as our host, have aphantasia. I cannot assess the inner world and I cannot talk to the others directly, because I don’t hear them. So, it was a little bit tricky to get this communication going. And one day in therapy, we actually got this communication going by default, as this was like a rocket start. Like from that day on, we made so much progress. We installed so much in the inner world.
What are some of the things that have been helpful in your inner world for you all?
Yeah so, we installed an inner safe place where Little’s can hide when there’s some triggering stuff going on on the outside. We actually also got some magical stuff in the inner world. For example, some basing salt for like an inner basing ?
Mmhmm.
To reach some pain from some flashback stuff like that. Yeah, and we learned from you about the lighting system.
Oh, right! Right!
Yeah, and we installed something similar as well. I’m super dependent on our co-host, because he’s the one who gets all the communication going between me and the others. Like when the others are co-fronting, I can communicate with them directly, but he’s the only one I can communicate with even if he’s further into our mindscape.
Oh, interesting.
And so I really need him and sometimes he is on hiatus for like a weekend or so, because he’s all worn out. And then it’s a struggle to get any communication going, so we installed this lighting system, so I can, you know, I can let the others know that I need their help.
That’s amazing.
Yeah.
We have a similar experience as far as some being able to communicate internally and others not, but how to get -- in english they say, “Get the ball rolling” -- how to get it started --
Yeah.
-- to make those connections, so that communication is even possible. Like once you make the connections, then you can practice different ways of what that’s like and how it works and what’s hard about it and how to smooth things out. But just getting started, that communication to make those first connections, is really hard. And those lights helped us so much.
Yeah, and we really listened to your podcast and we thought Wow, that’s what we need. That’s a good idea.
I’m glad it helped.
Yeah.
How have you taken all that you’ve learned about DID to help some of your clients?
Yeah so, we had our first internship of our psychotherapy training at a trauma hospital, and there we saw a lot of clients with dissociative symptoms. And sadly, we were the only ones at that whole hospital, or on that whole ward, who were in any way informed about dissociation and dissociative disorders.
Why is that? Why do you think that is?
Actually, Ellert Nijenhuis, he says okay, there’s like some kind of dissociation going on between PTSD and dissociative disorders. So, in the journals or even in the diagnostic criteria, they really don’t even talk about dissociation as part of PTSD.
Right.
It’s a historical thing. Dissociative disorders is like a hysteria line of psychiatric disorders, where like there’s women in their rooms going cuckoo. And on the other side there are PTSD, like soldiers, they went to combat and they come back home and say, “I’ve broken stuff” and stuff like that. They really suffered something and not just weird childhood stuff that these crazy women just made up in their heads.
Wow.
Yeah.
So what happened when you were in your internship and saw these people that no one else understood what was going on?
Like I tried to inform my colleagues about dissociation and it worked out to some degree, especially the colleagues that were on my level of their training, who were also interns. They really listened to me and made some progress with the therapy they offered. For the colleagues, it was like you are the one that can deal with these crazy clients that dissociate and stuff, and so a lot of clients were actually referred to me, because they were dissociative.
So no one else wanted to deal with them, so they sent them to you?
Yeah, basically.
Wow. Was that difficult when it was one of your own issues?
Maybe it’s due to my aphantasia, but it’s super easy for me to deal with complex trauma and also with DID cases. Now it’s super easy for me to navigate in their inside world, without getting stuck in there myself.
Oh, fascinating. Fascinating. How does that work?
For me it’s super easy to get creative about interventions for DID clients. Like okay, there’s this problem that there’s this no communication going and they locked away one of their Alters, because they are afraid of her. Then I think, Okay, what should we do? And then I think, Okay, maybe we should install a telephone so they can get in contact with her without facing her directly. And then we get this communication wire telephone going. You know? And we can progress from that. And that’s some stuff that normal therapists, who are not familiar with DID, they wouldn’t even think about. They’d teach some skills or stuff like that. [Inaudible]
Right. [Chuckles]
Yeah.
So they would just, the other therapist, would just sort of keep putting bandaids on the symptoms, rather than helping the system work together.
Yeah right, because they don’t think in the inner landscapes, they don’t have this 3D mobile of dissociative symptoms or dissociative systems. For them it’s just symptoms. It’s a list where you can check mark, but it’s not like a whole structure and it’s not meaningful to them. They just -- what I learned from Ellert Nijenhuis, every symptom is meaningful. Every symptom is a solution to a problem that occurred in the past, and that became dysfunctional over time. But it’s not just always a symptom, it’s a solution for something.
That’s a powerful thing that you’ve just said. Every symptom is a solution. That came from Nijenhuis?
Yeah, it’s not like you can root it to him, but his worldview or his view he has of humans, our human minds, yeah.
So, every symptom was meaningful and had purpose in the beginning.
Yeah.
And then over time, becomes dysfunctional. Like when -- like in a now time is safe kind of way, like in the current context where the body is, that symptom is now out of context, because it belongs in the past.
Right, yeah. Yeah.
Oh wow.
And --
That’s powerful.
Because he says, and I guess it’s basically true that dissociation is always multiple eyes, even like in PTSD. There is a minimum two separate eyes. You can communicate with the symptoms in quotation marks, directly and you can ask them, “Okay, what is the meaning? Why do you do it?” Nijenhuis calls it like the therapeutic internet, it’s www.whodoeswhatandforwhatwithwhatgoal… .
Wow. The thing I love about that is not just identifying what the actual need is, but also how validating it is of where it came from in the beginning and why it was needed then.
Yeah, just --
Not just “Stop acting out, because you shouldn’t be acting like this.”
Yeah.
That’s really powerful.
And I guess a lot of therapists struggle with destructive or bad or acting out Alters, because they treat them as bad or acting out. They are behaving that way because they view them that way.
So they live up to it?
Yeah.
How would you work with a destructive Alter or an Alter that was struggling in that way?
Normally I do this intervention, it is called “Multi Speak”, and the approach of Ellert Nijenhuis, where you get an inner conference room going, and then you start the communication between the Alters. For example, there’s this Alter that is constantly self harming --
Mmhmm.
-- And then you ask that Alter, kind of in front of the Others, “Okay, so why do you do it? What is the purpose of hurting yourself?” And then they will come up with an answer to it. And then you will say, “Okay so, it’s necessary that you do it?” And they will say, “Yeah, it’s necessary.” And you say, “Okay, but I guess you don’t like it that much?” And most of the time, they are like, “Yeah, I have to do it, but I don’t like it, because the Others, they will avoid me because of my actions.” And then you talk to the Others and say, “Okay, have you heard what she or he just said?” Most of the times they are like, “Yeah, we heard it.” And you ask them, “Okay, so do you get why she has to hurt the body?” And then they are like…they are super often like, “Not really. Yeah, maybe but it’s also destructive and it makes us anxious and stuff.” And then you say, “Okay, but how much do you get it, in percent or stuff like that?” And they’ll say, “Maybe 70%.” Okay, then you talk to the Other one and say, “Okay, they get what you do for 70%.” So you know, they get closer through it, and start avoiding each other less, because they get why the Others are acting the way they are acting.
So increasing communication and cooperation both?
Yeah. And then you try to find out how the Others can help the Alter that is self harming, to act in a different way. For example, release the tension in another way. And normally there’s often there’s an inner self helper, like a Part who knows a lot about the system, and has a lot of communication going with Others. And you can find a solution, what to do instead of self harming.
That’s amazing. Because it doesn’t just stop the behavior that’s hurting the body that they share, it’s also empowering the Ones who are hurting to get help. But also recognizing the One that’s hurting the body as one of the ones who also needs help.
Yeah. And to really state that they all share the same goal and the same goal or the goal of surviving. Even Alters who try to kill, like the person or the body or themselves or whatever, they kind of try to survive. They try to get away from the pain, and it’s mostly not about killing yourself, but to make the pain stop.
Wow.
So it’s like a weird idea of surviving.
Well, and then there’s so often this attempt to build congruence. And so when the inside and the outside don’t feel the same, or the Others don’t recognize what you’re feeling, doing things, or acting out, what you’re feeling and experiencing, so that Others do too. And hurting the body is one way of doing that.
Yeah.
So when you’re able to talk and communicate and cooperate with and understand each other more, then that congruence builds up and is more consistent. So the need to act it out is much less.
Yeah. And normally humans work in that way. They have an urgent need that really needs to be fulfilled, and they try something to get it fulfilled, and they are not seeing or their needs are not met, and then they do more of the same behavior. They do not switch like strategies, but they do more of it. So if an Alter is self harming and is not seen by the Others but is locked away, that Self with self harm more.
Yes.
Because that is their way of communication. It’s their language.
So almost like the more isolated they are, the louder they have to be.
Yeah. And especially child Alters, they often don’t have words or cannot elaborately talk about things, but they have to act out, so they show some physical behavior, some motor action.
That’s really powerful.
Yeah.
You are helping so many people.
But it’s also a slippery road.
[Laughs] I’m just thinking, with you in just one place there, how many people that you are helping and over time and how many people there are all around that need people like you.
Yeah, I really try to improve the knowledge on dissociation with the therapists and friends with and working together and being and intervision with them, because it’s super important. Like OSDD, I guess, or OSDD is the most common dissociative disorder and I kind of believe it’s like the most common psychiatric disorder as well.
That’s amazing.
And it’s overseen so many times.
That’s amazing. What insights -- you talked about the inner world specifically, and how you’re able to be creative and sort of navigate that -- what other insights do you bring, being a survivor yourself?
Mmm. I guess to be compassionate, to believe that people had traumatic experiences, that people actually do super cruel stuff, that only because a traumatic story is bizarre doesn’t mean it’s not real. And a lot of my client’s feedback to me, that I was the first one they could open up about their trauma, and they really felt our connection, and I was the first one actually to ask them specific questions. Because you know, some day in the past they talked to a psychiatrist and said, “Yeah, I hear voices” and then they got locked away and stuff like that. So they never brought it up again. And I directly ask them, “Do you hear voices?” And I said, “Okay, I just want to ask you this question, because it’s super common to hear voices, and it’s not about being crazy. It’s just a normal human experience.” And sometimes I’ll also say, “Okay, I asked you this question, and you were able to talk with me about it without fearing any consequences, but please, please be super careful in the future, with whom you share that information. Don’t open up about it to every psychiatrist, because a lot of them will not handle it well.”
So teaching them some boundaries even?
Yeah. It’s teaching people to navigate relationships to see red flags and to find good therapeutic relationships.
What do you think makes it harder to help other survivors, when you are one yourself?
Mmm. Actually, it’s not the client. It’s always the superiors.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah. I had a few superiors in a row, who were super narcissistic, and who really lost their shit a lot of times, and that’s the hard part.
Was it their response to you, or was it the trigger and how they behaved?
I guess it was the general behavior, because they really struggle with their responsibilities, but for us, every kind of anger or aggression is super triggering. So it’s always hard to navigate it.
How did you find the supervisor that you’re comfortable with now?
Actually, he teaches at the institute we are getting trained at. And he talked about okay, I’m in training with Ellert Nijenhuis, and I’m super fond of that approach and it clicked. We just said, “Okay yeah, that’s the right one.”
That’s amazing.
Yeah.
So are you out as someone with DID or not?
Uh, kind of. So, we’re always super suspicious, if we will get called out or something like that, because you are not able to complete your psychotherapy training and get licensed, if you suffer from a mental disorder.
Right.
So, our closest friends know about our OSDD and also some colleagues we are close with know about it to some degree, but we try not to be too open about it, because it’s always a little bit dangerous. You never know where information will spread.
That’s been our story as well, in that people have this community movement at times, for people to fight the stigma by coming out. And while I appreciate the people who are available and have the courage to do that, I don’t know that it applies to everyone. And for us, it’s in the same sort of category that we would lose our jobs likely, it’s very likely, we would lose our jobs if we were entirely outed. And that’s a scary thing when we’re providing for others, not just ourself. And so --
Oh yeah.
-- I agree with you. That’s a hard thing. I think it’s an unfortunate thing, and I think it’s a bias that our own profession has against the people it’s helping. It’s a reality.
Yeah.
What else? Is there anything else you want to share about dissociative disorders or your experience with them?
Maybe dive into OSDD, because I feel like there’s so much misinformation about OSDD going around and also a lack of information.
Yes! Tell me, please.
Yes, so because we are trained by Ellert, we follow his approach to a certain degree, that says OSDD is minor DID. It’s like DID, but to a less degree. Yeah. And as I -- if I’ve got it right, in your system, there are multiple Parts that take on with daily life?
Yes.
Like you play out different roles in your system for daily life?
Right.
And yeah, in our system, I am the leading host, or like if you would say it in structural dissociation speak, I’m the main ANP - apparently normal part.
Okay.
Yeah. We have a second ANP. No, we actually have three ANP’s, but they only co-front, and I nearly lose no time in day to day life. Sometimes it’s hard to remember our days when there was a lot of confronting going on, because they Others liked to take away the memory with them when they go back into the mindscape. But I’m nearly always aware what is going on, and it has been that way since we were 11 and I guess the most -- what’s the word, let me think -- it’s like the hallmark feature of OSDD, that you normally have one Part who does the day to day life, and then a lot of Others who like --
The EP’s? The Emotional Parts?
Yeah, the EP’s. Yeah, actually yeah, right. So they deal with specific situations. Like for example, one of our protectors, he will only come to the front when he senses we are in danger and then he will retreat back into the mindscape.
Wow.
But everything else is like in DID. You can have Alters who are super developed with their own age, their gender, their hobbies, their own looks, everything, their own voice. Everything is like in DID, but normally it’s like you only have one Part doing the daily life.
It’s -- the structure’s almost the same and the functioning is almost the same and the roles are very similar, but primarily just one who is fronting the most?
Yeah. Yeah. Our system, they can completely front, and sometimes they sometimes knock me out so I lose time, but it’s super rare.
That actually helps a lot. My friend Julie was asking about that on a podcast, when we were recording while we were driving. And I heard that and I didn’t understand how to answer what she was asking, and I think you just did.
Okay, nice. Yeah actually, listen to the podcast and I struggled not to instantly write a message and respond to that.
Oh no, it was good. We need the information. Even with DID, we only know our own system. And so for you to share your perspective of OSDD and what it’s like for you, is really, really important. And I’m so glad you came on the podcast to do that.
Yeah, we weren’t sure if it would be like in one of the episodes we hadn’t listened to at that point. So we just waited until we finished the last episode.
That’s a lot of listening.
Yeah. [Laughs]
We’re still learning and it’s so specific about our stuff as we’re trying to apply it, and when guests who we interview, if the guests don’t talk about it, then it kind of doesn’t come up. But I think it’s absolutely an important part of the community. And I think you are absolutely right when you talk about how common it is. And so, I think it is important we talk about it more and that people learn about it accurately. And so I really, really appreciate you talking to us about it today.
You’re welcome.
It was very kind and also we appreciated your email, because it was so direct and you did listen to it. And it wasn’t just hate mail. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Yeah, if you’re happy that you don’t get hate mail, that’s so sad. [Laughs]
[Laughs] So thank you for stepping up and just being a good person and kind and educating all of us. [Laughs]
[Laughs] You know, when we first found out that we had something like going on inside, we super quickly came up with the term ego state disorder. I guess it was coined by Watkins and Watkins --
Mmhmm.
-- Back in the 80’s, but we couldn’t get a hand on anything else. They use this term and then there’s nothing more.
Isn’t that fascinating?
Yeah, it’s like everything is focused on major fully blown DID, because it’s so fascinating, and then everything else, whatever, just a weird dissociative disorder stuff.
Which is so sad, because it’s not about all the exciting stuff. That’s one of the reasons, I mean there are others as well obviously, but that’s one of the reasons we don’t talk a lot directly about our trauma stuff on the podcast. It’s not about the shock value. That’s not what we’re trying to do.
Yeah.
And so this is a good example of, we need to talk about this more, especially because it applies to so many people.
It does. I have a lot of friends who suffer with OSDD, and I was the first one to bring it up to them, “Hey, maybe you have a dissociative disorder. Maybe it’s not normal that there are people living inside your head that rarely come up front. Maybe this is the solution to your eating disorder, to your addiction, to your self harm, whatever.”
I’m excited to read your research in the future.
[Laughs] Yeah, I’m planning on doing my PhD some time in the future, maybe when I’m a little less struggling with my own trauma history.
Right. You have such a unique perspective, and such a clear picture of what’s happening inside, whether that’s inside yourself or inside others. And I think it’s really making a difference and what you had to say today was very important. Thank you.
You’re welcome. You know Colin Ross? The guy you interviewed years ago? [Laughs]
[Laughs]
He’s super proud of himself that he --
[Laughs] I’m sorry. Keep going.
That he diagnosed the first DID case back in his residence, I guess.
Right.
He speaks about it in his autobiography.
Yes.
And actually, we like diagnosed our first DID when we were 19, because we had a girlfriend and she was losing time and we were like, “Yeah, that’s DID.” [Laughs]
[Laughs] There you go.
Yeah. [Laughs]
Congratulations!
Take this from us. [Laughs]
You set a new record.
Woo hoo! [Laughs]
That’s funny. Wow.
But we were puzzled by it, because you know, we were going through the world with not being helped by professionals at this time at all. And all around us we were seeing DID cases popping up, but no one recognized them.
It’s a hard thing to watch, isn’t it?
Yeah, it’s super hard.
Well, and it’s hard to watch the people struggle, and it’s hard to not be able to help all of them.
Yeah, it is. In my internship, we had this counseling session two times a week, where you could just come up and ask if you are likely suffering from PTSD or not, and wow, I saw so much OSDD and so much DID. And I knew that people would never get any help, because I cannot offer treatment to all of them. People who are in their 50’s and a part of the mental health system since they were teenagers, and never received the proper diagnosis.
That’s heartbreaking.
It’s super heartbreaking. People who are on antipsychotics for decades, gaining a lot of weight, feeling shit, feeling super numb for years, and not getting any better. I had this one client with dissociative psychosis, and if it’s hard to get a DID diagnosis or OSDD diagnosis, then it’s even harder to get diagnosed as dissociative psychotic.
Wow.
She has a clear cut system. She switches in front of me. I can talk to the Others, and when she gets psychotic, there are some Little’s taking over, and they are super convinced that their parents weren’t actually their parents, but they came from outer space. Which makes complete sense if your parents are shit.
Right.
You know? You hope that your parents are not your parents.
Right.
I myself hoped my whole childhood that I was adopted. So, it makes complete sense.
It does.
And when they take over, yeah, they tell everyone that they are from a different planet, and then they get referred to hospitals and stuffed to the brim with antipsychotics.
Oh, it’s heartbreaking.
Yeah. And they can clearly state that the aspect that’s helping them on this hospital space is just a time, because within one or two or three months, they will, the Little’s will run out of energy and will retreat back into the mindscape, and then the ANP’s will come back. Yeah, and then the psychotic episode is over. It’s not the medication.
I’m so glad you are out there in the world.
[Laughs] Yeah, hopefully there will be more informed therapists in the future.
I hope so. I hope so.
I guess one of my cousins also has a dissociative disorder going on, which makes complete sense, because my aunt, the sister of my mother, is heavily mentally disturbed as well. And when I see her posting things on Facebook, I’m often like, “Okay wow, there’s something going on inside you.” But I guess she will neve make it to any kind of therapy, because she doesn’t have the cognitive capacity to figure out what’s going on.
Oh wow.
Super sad.
That’s very sad.
Yeah. And even if you have DID, “Okay, I need therapy”, it’s super likely you will end up with some dupe, who doesn't know anything about trauma or dissociation. You will get treated for anxiety or depression forever.
That’s going to be a long time of anxiety and depression if you’re not treating what’s causing it.
Yeah, it is.
That’s depressing and makes me anxious. [Laughs]
[Laughs] You know, Ellert is always like, “Yeah well, if people come to my treatment constantly, they can be completely healed in 5 to 10 years.” And everyone in his seminars is always like, “Wow, that’s a short time.” And normally people come to my treatment for years and years and they never get any kind of solution. Yeah, because you’re not treating them for what they have, but you treat them for any weird symptoms they are presenting to you. [Laughs] I feel I’m so full of anger today. [Laughs]
Ugh! That is messed up. People are -- people need to help people. [Laughs]
Yes, please.
Or go home. That’s what they say. [Laughs] Oh my goodness.
Oh, one last thing.
Okay, yes.
If you can make the time and maybe afford a copy, please check ‘The Trinity of Trauma’ by Ellert Nijenhuis.
Oh, okay!
It’s amazing. It’s not like just a treatment approach, but it’s like a whole worldview, philosophical approach stuff. He refers to Spinoza and body cognition and stuff a lot. And it’s groundbreaking.
Thank you for talking to us.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it - talking to you.
Oh good, you were very brave. You did a great job.
I had a little help from one of our Middle’s, Dana, she’s relatively fluent in English. So yeah, she helped out a lot.
She did fantastic. Thank you all.
[Break]
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