Multi-personalities, sounds good, lets all catch it!

by free2beme 19 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Lady Lee

  OK I'm back and I hope the keyboard is working better Yup so great

  I have worked with people who have DID. None of them were JWs but they had all been severey abused as children. Of the 20 or so people I saw only about 2 may have been faking it. But whether they were faking it or not the goal of therapy was to help them to develop healthier coping skills and learn ways to protect themselves just as Rebel said.

  The issue with JWs is slightly different. The recruitment process of JWs is controlling but not traumatic in the sense of severe sexual, physical and emotional abuse that my clients experienced. But the WTS recruitment is designed to maximize behavioral, emotional and cognitive controls over a person. In essense the true person winds up sublimated to the "new personality" that the WTS wants to impose on the indvidual. I'm sure all you JWs are well acquainted with the "new personaily" talks.

  A person is expected to do things (like going door to door for example) and preach to people - which is most likely something they would never do of their own accord. Shunning family and frienmds would also fall into this category - not a normal part of how a person would react to demands from others to avoid family and friends). Intelligent people with a full capacity to think, feel and behave in normal ways are coerced into the abnormal.

  I remember seeing this so clearly when a few years after I left the JWs I ran into an elder's wife. Her husband had died and I wanted to offer my condolences. I was stunned to watch this mature woman regress to a child-like behvior afraid to be caugth talking to me over a rack of items in a store. The transition was astounding.

  As Wednesday about pointed out there are a wide variety of dissociative disorders. They fall along a continuum of dissociation. One, daydreaming, is familiar to most people. Another is what is called "highway hynosis" - driving or walking from one place to another but not even being aware of the trip or the turns you have to make to get there. This is the normal end of dissociation. It isn't a disorder because it is normal.

  But the other end of dissocialtion is the full blown DID with a wide range of "personailites" with very few knowing of the existence of the other parts. The studies I have seen state that this end of the continuum always stems from severe child abuse/trauma that occurs under the age of 5. This type of dissociative disorder almost always interferes with the adult's ability to function in healthy protective ways with the world around them.

  But in between these two extremes there is a vast range of dissociative disorders. And my suspicion is that the WTS 'new personality" falls much closer to the "normal" end of this continuum than the end where full blown DID exists.

  Now those who might be faking it? Yup they definitely exist. But there are many people who have a wide range of other disorders often brought on by unrelieved stress. I know when I was a JW I had many psychosomatic disorders. The doctors always managed to find something to explain it but as soon as one got taken care of another would take its place. The final solution for me was to leave the JWs. And what do you know. They all disappeared. Life outside the WTS was a lot less stressful than life as a "happy" JW.
• 

  metatron

  Good Lord, Yes - malaise du jour sums it up.

  Anorexia, severe allergies, multiple personalities and now, self-multilation (see latest Awake).

  These poor people aren't faking it - you seeing a Western version of people suffering from a "voodoo" or shaman's curse.

  In the third world, you get cursed and slowly wither away and die. In the "educated" West, a "therapist" of some sort declares

  that your parents were secret Satanists - or that you are suffering from chemicals making you allergic to everything or some such other

  rationalization. All you need is belief! - and the body responds with real, objective illness - not just hypochondria.

  As an elder, I watched this sort of thing grow rapidly, jumping from one congregation to the next, as sisters spread the word

  and often created a sort of cult within a cult.

  I once asked a prominent elder's wife when her symptoms ("alters") started. She said it was when her last child went off to school.

  To me, this was evidence of 'having the time to be sick' - while denying one's creative impulses. The body is crying out thru the

  subconscious and , thanks to Watchtower constrictions, no one is listening. Get rid of the rules, dead meetings and sterile

  "ministry" and start LIVING! Take up painting, gardening, writing, hiking, volunteer work - Something creative and positive,

  for God's sake! Learn to understand that your body - and mind - are telling you - ENOUGH! I HATE THIS! Change now

  or suffer the consequences!

  metatron ( see "The Biology of Belief")
• 

  free2beme

  I just want to make sure this did not come off that I was making fun of MPD, as I know it is a real issue, I was more commenting on how it seemed woman in the congregation were all jumping on the band wagon and saying so many had something so rare. I don't make fun of mental disorders or illness and did not want that taken wrong and offend people.
• 

  metatron

  If there is a real problem with people cutting and mutilating themselves ( there is), then can people "mutilate" or "cut up"

  their minds? I am convinced they can, if their subconscious sees this as a "way out" , a sort of twisted escape. When I encountered

  the problem, I read up on porn stars and prostitutes who entered their 'way of life' because of early sexual abuse. Contrary to the

  shrinking, self loathing image presented by many ( including the Society), I often found the opposite - bold people who liked having lots

  of sex - and were quite happy about it! ( You can read interviews about Nina Hartley or Tiffany Million, for example).

  In life, it's not always what happens to you, it's how your mind interprets it. In the case of multiple personalities, I saw the

  scientific method often thrown to the winds - and a less obvious factor ignored among Witnesses - namely, that Witnesses are

  'schooled' in obsessive behavior - and these strange illnesses are just one more example of that.

  metatron
• 

  daniel-p

  I experienced the MPD wave back in the 90's with family and friends being diagnosed (more often than not, diagnosing themselves). Nowadays it is the "allergic to the 20th century" wave of auto-immune disorders. In addition to polular JW maladies, there is chronic fatigue syndrome and also Lyme's disease which I've seen many people diagnose themselves with.
  
  When I was younger, and trying to make sense of all this insanity in my family, I did some research and came across this thing called "somatization disorder" which is also related to "conversion disorder"
• 

  daniel-p

  I experienced the MPD wave back in the 90's with family and friends being diagnosed (more often than not, diagnosing themselves). Nowadays it is the "allergic to the 20th century" wave of auto-immune disorders. In addition to polular JW maladies, there is chronic fatigue syndrome and also Lyme's disease which I've seen many people diagnose themselves with.
  
  When I was younger, and trying to make sense of all this insanity in my family, I did some research and came across this thing called "somatization disorder" which is also related to "conversion disorder" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somatization_Disorder, http://www.cfsdoc.org/somat.htm, http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/conversion_disorder.htm.
  
  Basically, it consists of psychological problems being manisfested in physical maladies. From what I've seen in my own family and in the JW congregations I've been in, in many cases these various diseases attack the same demographic. It is nearly always women in their mid 30's to 50's, have suffered severe psychological stress early on in their lives (abuse, neglect, severe illness), and these women (primarily) often avoid psychological help and instead seek medical (conventional or alternative) help for the latest symptom.
  
  I can surely see why there might be a higher prevalence of these types of disorders among the JW rank and file, as there has long been a mentality that states if you have some insurmountable psychological problem, it just shows that you are spiritually weak. Seeking help from psychiatrists, etc, is looked down upon in the organization. When I was at Bethel, the overall mentality (not had by all) was that if you were unhappy or depressed in your assignment than you just wern't spiritual enough. Depression is VERY high among Bethelites and pioneers - I think the reason is two-fold: For one, that type of service attracts people who feel they can never do enough - a psychological problem that can ruin lives. Second, that type of work constantly deprives people of mentally-productive activity, pride and sense of accomplishment, and privacy. I've seen many beautiful women remain beautiful while serving at Bethel or pioneering because they do not bear children, but inside they become a mental wreck.
• 

  Lady Lee

  that Witnesses are 'schooled' in obsessive behavior - and these strange illnesses are just one more example of that.

  BINGO

  JWs are taught to control every natural feeling and thought they have, They are taught to act in ways that go against their true nature. It is going to come out one way or another and since so much has to be submerged the only "acceptable" reason for not going door to door or to meetings is illness. Been there and done that too.
• 

  Scully

  I can see that it is popluar to belittle illlness that some doctors may not quite understand yet, and have no cures for. Just b/c the doctor can't fix it, does not mean a person is not ill. Yes I have seen it all, hypoglycemia, chemical sensitivites, "the yuppie flu" (chronic fatigue syndrome) or fibromyalgia, adrenal stress. . These are real illness and they are painful and those that have them suffer . It is so difficult to be ill ane made sport of at the same time.

  I do not feel that this discussion is belittling toward those with legitimate diagnoses. What people are taking issue with is the tendency for *some people* to claim they have these illnesses when they do not in fact have them. Whether it's sympathy or empathy or attention seeking behaviour, when a person just "says" they have CFS or MPD or DID or bipolar disorder without ever having been diagnosed, just because they can mimic the symptoms - that is what is truly insulting and belittling to the people who are genuinely suffering with those illnesses. In my opinion, that behaviour is a huge disservice to those who have been diagnosed with those conditions.

  The "posers" (or "fakers" for lack of a better word) may definitely "feel" their symptoms and experience the debilitation and pain to the same degree that their counterparts do. But you know as well as I do that the mind and the power of suggestion are forces to be reckoned with, and some people can talk themselves "into" symptoms the same way other people can talk themselves out of feeling pain by using biofeedback and other techniques. Or as in the case of Munchausen Syndrome the patient can manufacture an illness and/or symptoms by harming themselves with medications and chemicals. It's still attention-seeking behaviour.... and it is a waste of precious health care resources dealing with this problem.
• 

  Scully

  And just to give a recent example of how easily suggestible people are (nurses included)....

  Yesterday, being Christmas, my colleagues along with staff from the other wards on the floor decided to throw a big potluck to enjoy the holiday spirit. Everyone brought a different dish from home and shared it with everyone else. Part way through the shift, one of the nurses decides to play a practical joke. She brings a patient out from the caseroom and we admit her to our unit. She gives report to the admitting nurse at the nursing station and says - with everyone in earshot - "Oh by the way, is anyone else feeling sick after eating so-and-so's meatballs?" Even though she called back later and said she was joking, by the end of the shift 3 of our nurses were saying they felt nauseated and had upset stomachs. One of them even started vomiting.

  Don't try this at home!
• 

  free2beme

  Never had a desease I didn't read about.