Serious question re: abuse and multiple personality

[Simoona]

Dear folks,<br><br>I come to you with a question because I have seen this discussed on this board and need some persective.<br><br>I have a close friend who was seriously sexually abused as a child by a close relative which went on for years. When exposed, very little was done and the parents, while they kept her away from the perp, did not prosecute because of the family. It went back to earliest childhood.<br><br>This person does not have any alternative personalities that are "public" but it appears that she may escape with an alternate personality into a realm of fantasy and delusion which she keeps hidden from pretty much everyone. Lately it seems to have emerged as an obsession over a celbrity which is, when combined with the other stress factor in her life, causing havoc. I believe her addiction to antidepressants (including prozac for the past five or six years) seems to have made this delusion an anchor for her "escape" from depression over abuse and other sorrows and difficulties in her life. But her real life is in a shambles.<br><br>I could use someone with any similar experiences to give me perspective.<br><br>When formulating this post my question was basically: does anyone have experiences of the sort where a fantasy personality like a multiple - (but really another "face" of the original, only hidden with no new name or demographic details) is a response to serious sexual abuse as a child.<br><br>I think it is a coping mechanism and the "little girl" needs a safe harbor with a total fantasy man. But now she is grown up and the fantasy man is damaging her real life as it becomes more obsessive.<br><br>Insight from experience is needed, not pop psychology.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[Dreams End]

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>This person does not have any alternative personalities that are "public" but it appears that she may escape with an alternate personality into a realm of fantasy and delusion which she keeps hidden from pretty much everyone. Lately it seems to have emerged as an obsession over a celbrity which is, when combined with the other stress factor in her life, causing havoc. I believe her addiction to antidepressants (including prozac for the past five or six years) seems to have made this delusion an anchor for her "escape" from depression over abuse and other sorrows and difficulties in her life. But her real life is in a shambles.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Hey there. My wife is DID, so I have some knowledge. Others may know more but your post was sinking! <br><br>As a cursory description this doesn't sound like DID (formerly multiple personality disorder) to me. From my experience, alters do not have problems with "delusions and fantasy." Some are maybe a bit "stuck" in the past, though. And the obsession with someone else...this all sounds maybe more like schizophrenia to me. But certainly this little bit of info isn't enough to judge. I'd ask these questions.<br><br>Does she hear voices, primarily INSIDE her head? Do the voices converse with her or each other? <br><br>Is the inner "fantasy" simply the image she has of the place where these inside people maybe congregate or talk to each other or "live"?<br><br>Does she have experiences of missing time where she cant' remember what she's been doing for the last few hours or days?<br><br>Do people complain that she's said or done things to them that she doesn't remember doing?<br><br>Does she have lots of headaches?<br><br>Yes answers to these would be suggestive that looking into DID might be helpful.<br><br>Also, the idea of "alters" can be misleading. They may "come out" and an observer might never know it. In fact, my wife didn't really register it in this way herself...she just thought of it as different parts of her personality taking over in needed situations: work, threats, etc.<br><br>So you, as a friend, might not notice. SHE herself may not even notice. But, as I said, your description sounds like it might be something else, though with a history of such trauma she definitely should seek help with someone familiar with treating trauma victims and specifically abuse victims. It may just be a "coincidence" that she also has schizophrenia or something similar, or they may be related.<br><br>I will say that on a couple of occasions my wife, under real stress and in the middle of breakdowns, actually did hallucinate visually and auditorily, but this is not a usual ongoing phenomenon from what I understand.<br><br>Is she in therapy? Help her find someone good if she's not. <br><br>I don't know if prozac can cause hallucinations, but all of her meds should be reviewed by someone competent. DO NOT let her simply stop...that's dangerous, but if the decision is made to reduce or change, it should be done slowly. I know that with my wife certain ANTI-psychotics made her psychotic. I think Risperdal has done this to others, but with her it was Seroquel (sp?). She took it the first time and was hallucinating very frightening things within 15 minutes. So meds could be the issue. <br><br>Also, bipolar disorder can result in hallucinations and, obviously, depression. <br><br>I hate to sound like I'm pushing the medical model here. Clearly she needs help to heal from the abuse, but someone very knowledgeable should help sort this out. <br><br>Here's a place to start with some really basic info on trauma and DID:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sidran.org/survivor.html">www.sidran.org/survivor.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>You can also send an email requesting a therapist in your area who is registered through them.<br><br>Good luck...try to keep your boundaries in tact as well when you are with her. You know, the whole "put the oxygen mask on yourself first before assisting others" deal.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

[banned]

...have an objective existence the way physical disorders do...as in, you either do or do not have a ruptured appendix or fractured femur, you don't have a 'tendency' toward rupture, or toward a broken leg.<br><br>I believe psychological phenomena exist on continua, and if you examine how the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) has changed over the last 20 years you can see that what is considered a psychiatric disorder changes and evolves.<br><br>My observations:<br><br>If this celebrity obsession is interfering with her real life it doesn't really matter what the precise diagnosis is at this point, she needs help from a trained professional. Someone who can assess whether or not she is delusional or not. Some people are obsessed but in a way that is still connected to reality--my own friends thought that for the 3 years or so when the Lord of the Rings films were coming out I was obsessed. I would go out in a pouring rain to scour bookstores for the latest magazine article supposed to be due out, likewise toy shops for action figures. Probably 70% of my conversation at times revolved around the films, the actors in them, the relatoinship to the book. However, I never began to believe that, say, Orlando Bloom and I were meant to be together, that he was sending me special messages in his interviews, and so on.<br><br>People who become delusional about celebrities can be dangerous--most of the 'stalkers' you read about believe there is something going on between them and the celeb which is not actually occurring.<br><br>Someone who has been molested and traumatized may find it possible to have a 'relationship' only in imagination, because there are no real risks to it. The celeb is not going to take their interest and use it as a pretext to painfully sodomize them--as may have happened to a little girl who responded to a grown man's seeming 'affection' for her.<br><br>It may take a skilled therapist years to assist such a person to reorient herself to relate to real men. Insofar as fantasy is an addiction (and it is) it's not easy to do, particularly when in the past real men have proven so dangerous, and sad to say many abuse victims have terrible taste in men, gravitating toward exactly the ones they should be avoiding. I'd rather see someone with their bedroom papered with photos of Brad Pitt and sit in the tub having imaginary convos with him than have that same person launch themselves into dating and pick an abuser or even a rapist. That's why longterm therapy with someone who understands all the aspects of the situation is necessary. <br><br>I also realize it's hard to find good therapists. And even if you do sometimes you can't afford to see them as often as needed, or in some cases, at all. If a person has a certain degree of self insight reading can help, as can support groups provided the groups are not dysfunctional themselves (ie, led by people who haven't worked out their own issues who end up acting out with the group members, or unmoderated and vulnerable to control by members doing the same.) <p></p><i></i>

[biaothanatoi]

I have to agree with DE. It sounds like schizophrenia to me. The delusions and the obsessions are not congruent with a DID diagnosis. <br><br>The two can appear similar and DID is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia. Dissociation is an aspect of schizophrenia, so some parts of the mind are effected by thought disorder and some are not. This can look like DID 'switching' because the person is talking normally and then suddenly becomes delusional. People predisposed to schizophrenia are more likely to develop it if they have a traumatic history, and your friend may well have trauma-related dissociation as well. <br><br>DE's questions sound spot-on to me. I'm paraphrasing from Phil Mollon's clinical psych textbook "Multiple Selves, Multiple Voices" here - <br><br>The key distinctions between DID and schizophrenia are:<br><br>a. DID patients usually experience their voices to be internally located, rather then external, as in schizophrenia;<br><br>b. DID patients do not show thought disorder or delusions abotu present reality (although they can be temporarily disorientated by flashbacks and intrusive memories);<br><br>c. Schizophrenic patients do not usually have a pattern of amnesia as DID patients do;<br><br>d. DID patients often have psychosomatic pains associated with alter switching, whereas schizophrenic patients do not;<br><br>e. DID patients may have auditory and visual hallucinations but these are trauma-congruent (similar phenomenon occur in all torture survivors). <p></p><i></i>