Day: March 20, 2018

A quote from Robert Oxnam

Robert Oxnam is a person who has DID (he refers to it as MPD) and he has written a very interesting book about it called

“A fractured mind: my life with multiple personality disorder”

The book is interesting not only because of his experience, but also because of his insights into DID.

“If the inner guilt of MPD wasn’t enough, I was discovering that MPD patients have to deal with an outer environment och scepticism and doubt. I tried to imagine asking cancer patients to prove that they were really ill and not just faking the pain. the problem is that MPD is not like cancer, where there is clear-cut, undeniable Medical evidence. Only an experienced therapist can conclusively diagnose MPD and other dissociative dissorders. Much of MPD therapy, including the emergence and evolution of “alters” occurs withing the priviledged “safe space” of a psychiatrist’s office. By law and common sense, all outsiders, including family and friends, are excluded from this process”

After several years in therapy, I had zero doubt that I had MPD. I vowed that I would not waste time trying to “prove” my MPD to those who might doubt it. I felt nothing but profound sadness – even anger – for those who would feign this disorder, just as I would feel similar dismay over those who might pretend they were wheelchair patients.

I am well aware that “recovered memory” is a charged issue these days. It has caused many who have been aaccused of abuse, as well as some psychiatrists and lawyers, to raise serious objections to those who claim memory recovery – perhaps to get attention or revenge – thus giving rise to the term recovered memory abuse.

Being neither therapists or attorneys, those of us within the Castle complex can only tell our stories and let them speak for themselves. Our experience runs counter to those who dismiss all “recovered memories” or even disparage the entire profession of psychiatry.

Without the process of recovering memory – most notably in Baby’s story – we would still be shattered into eleven personalities. We owe much to the psychiatrists who specialize in this disorder, often treatinglimited income patients, for trying to help what Dr Smith estimates to be the thirty thousand Americans who suffer from MPD”