It is my hope that this book helps those who know and love people with DID: family members, lovers, coworkers, and friends. It is also my hope that those charged with intervening in families in which there is violence will take away a more nuanced approach to their important work, informed by a deeper understanding of trauma.Most of all, I hope that those of you who have DID know that the disorder itself is an incredible survival technique. You should feel proud to have survived. Trauma has had a major impact on my life, as it has on yours, but I’ve learned that my life extends beyond the pain and darkness. Survivors of trauma are full of life, creativity, courage, and love. We are more than the sum of our parts.

~ Olga Trujillo

Olga Trujillo Abuse Survivors Dissociative Identity Disorder Mpd Multiple Personality Disorder Trauma

Somatic Symptoms:People with Complex PTSD often have medical unexplained physical symptoms such as abdominal pains, headaches, joint and muscle pain, stomach problems, and elimination problems. These people are sometimes most unfortunately mislabeled as hypochondriacs or as exaggerating their physical problems. But these problems are real, even though they may not be related to a specific physical diagnosis. Some dissociative parts are stuck in the past experiences that involved pain may intrude such that a person experiences unexplained pain or other physical symptoms. And more generally, chronic stress affects the body in all kinds of ways, just as it does the mind. In fact, the mind and body cannot be separated. Unfortunately, the connection between current physical symptoms and past traumatizing events is not always so clear to either the individual or the physician, at least for a while. At the same time we know that people who have suffered from serious medical, problems. It is therefore very important that you have physical problems checked out, to make sure you do not have a problem from which you need medical help.

~ Suzette Boon

Suzette Boon Complex Ptsd Dissociative Identity Disorder Hypochondriac Medical Physical Ptsd Somatic Survivors Trauma

Due to previous lack of systematic assessment of dissociative symptoms, many subjects experience the SCID-D as their first opportunity to describe their symptoms in their own words to a receptive listener.

~ Marlene Steinberg

Marlene Steinberg Alter Personalities Ddnos Diagnosis Dissociative Disorder Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identities Dissociative Identity Disorder Dissociative States Listening

With respect to the acceptance of dissociative disorders, as with most issues in life, it is counterproductive to spend time trying to convince people of things they don't want to know.

~ Warwick Middleton

Warwick Middleton Avoidance Denial Dissociation Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identity Disorder Don T Want To Know Not Knowing Society Denial

Lies that cause survivors to deny or recent abuse memories and experiences ⸱ The alters who are designated to live in the real world,” going to school or college and holding jobs while interacting with others in adulthood, are trained, usually at home by parents, to disbelieve any memories that might come up.⸱͏ Children are taught to believe that they got the idea that they were abused from something they read or saw on television or from someone else’s experience or from a therapist. (This is a basic argument of those who attempt to discredit these experiences in the public eye and among professionals.)⸱ Children are also taught that if they experience flashbacks of awful abuses, those must be dreams or imagination or signs that they are crazy. Nothing bad really happened to them

~ Alison Miller

Alison Miller Abuse Survivors Abusive Cults Brainwashing Brainwashing Quotes Cult Abuse Denial Denial Of Abuse Deny Dissociative Identity Disorder Mind Control Programming Organized Abuse Recant Recantation Recanters Ritual Abuse

How was it that we were all so blind?

~ Joan Coleman

Joan Coleman Blind Can T See Child Sexual Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Survivor Denial Denial Of Child Abuse Dissociation Dissociative Identity Disorder Lack Of Awareness Society Denial

It is so much more threatening to have something out of hand than to believe that at any moment I can stop (I started to say This foolishness) any time I need to.

~ Flora Rheta Schreiber

Flora Rheta Schreiber Controllability Denial Denial Of Reality Dissociative Identity Disorder Lack Of Control Multiple Personalities Multiple Personality Disorder Need For Control Out Of Hand Powerless Powerless Quotes Powerlessness Sybil

A refusal on the part of psychiatrists and therapists to validate the horrors of their patients' tortured past implies a refusal to take seriously the unconscious psychological mechanisms that individuals need to use to protect themselves from the unspeakable. Such a denial is, however, no longer ethical, for it is in the human capacity to dissociate that lies part of the secret of both childhood abuse and the horrors of the Nazi genocide, both forms of human violence so often carried out by 'respectable' men and women.

~ Felicity De Zulueta

Felicity De Zulueta Abuse Deniers Abuse Survivors Child Abuse Childhood Abuse Complex Ptsd Denial Denial Of Child Abuse Dissociate Dissociation Dissociative Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identity Disorder Genocide Hidden Pain Horror Of Incest Horror Of War Ignore What Is Wrong Invalidation Misdiagnosis Mpd Nazis Not Serious Psychiatrists Psychiatry Psychological Defence Psychologists Ptsd Respectable Men Respectable Women Society Denial Survivors Survivors Of Abuse Therapists Torture Survivors Traumatized Unethical

Denial is commonly found among persons with dissociative disorders. My favorite quotation from such a client is, We are not multiple, we made it all up. I have heard this from several different clients. When I hear it, I politely inquire, And who is we?

~ Alison Miller

Alison Miller Child Abuse Child Sexual Abuse Childhood Abuse Ddnos Denial Dissociation Dissociative Disorders Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Disorder Split Personality

Some people have the experience of being accused of lying when they do not think that they have lied. Circle a number to show what percentage of the time this happens to you.[question from the Dissociative Experiences Scale]

~ Frank W. Putnam

Frank W. Putnam Diagnosis Dissociative Dissociative Identity Disorder Liar Lying Multiple Personality Disorder Pathological Lying Stigma

Dissociative Identity Disorder...is initially a useful coping response to an environment which is very difficult to endure. The problem is that dissociative responses-such as switching, blanking out, or going into a trance-become automatic, and, once the original abusive environment has been left behind, are of little use in life and may be detrimental.

~ Elizabeth Howell

Elizabeth Howell Child Abuse Dissociation Dissociative Identity Disorder

The child who attends school does not remember the abuse that happens at home or via the family, those memories are held in another part of the child's mind. The child does not even remember abuse that happened the preceding night.

~ Alison Miller

Alison Miller Child Abuse Dissociation Dissociative Amnesia Dissociative Identity Disorder Incest Recovered Memories Repressed Memories Split Personality

Many ritually abusive cults deliberately divide the personality system down the middle of the head, making sure that there is no communication between the two sides. “Left side parts might be instructed to speak to no one other than the perpetrators.

~ Alison Miller

Alison Miller Abusive Groups Child Abuse Cult Abuse Cults Ddnos Dissociative Identity Disorder Multiple Personality Organized Abuse Ritual Abuse