We Answer Some Follower Questions: Part II

When @MentalErrorist sent us a series of DM’s this past week, asking us questions about our Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, we decided after several exchanges that 140 characters was no way to get some of our answers to his questions across adequately, and asked him if we could answer his questions in a blog post (because he reads our blog, as well as follows us on Twitter), like we had with some of our other followers back in May (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/we-answer-some-follower-questions.html). It's easier than having to ask these questions, should they arise again in the future from someone else, all over again.

One of the questions @MentalErrorist asked us about was whether or not we “share a common sense of humour? Or [if it’s] coloured by [our] different experiences.” He also asked about The Other Girl, and who Frank is and whether or not she is a spokesperson, or just what we call our collective - collective being what many people refer to our system*, these days.

We are each different, we are individuals, and have different characteristics, as far as we, people who are close to us, and James (The Boyfriend) are concerned, and as such, the easy answer would be to simply say "yes", our senses of humour are coloured by our different experiences, and memories.

We don’t always agree with each other, those among our system, sometimes in extreme ways, as we have written about a few times here in the blog. In addition to not agreeing with each other there are definitely differences in our senses of humour, although more often than not our milder styles of humour is something we all enjoy about each other, it’s where it starts to deviate that some of us are less entertained by each other, and sometimes appalled; for instance, some us do not think it’s funny to make jokes about turning people into sleds using their flesh, kicking puppies, stabbing annoying spoiled children, jokes about sex…and some of us actually make jokes about these things, but also 98% of the things we joke about on Twitter are not made-up jokes, they are things in our mind that we are trying to deal with through humour, trying to remove from our brain in the form of words - and some of the things in our mind disturb some of our alters*. There are currently** ten alters in our system that we know of.

On occasion we joke about things that later make one of us uncomfortable, for example, for some of us sex commentary (or jokes, if you will) makes us uncomfortable; or, like for our youngest alter…kicking puppies, makes he upset; same when The Boyfriend says something mean about the cats (her "kitties") - but just like when any number of our followers makes a joke one us may not find particularly funny, we shrug and in our case talk to each other about it. It tends to be difficult to do/say something to most of us that would offend us, but then…everyone has their one weak spot, we’ve offended ourselves on occasion.

Like other people who claim to not be offended by anything, there’s always something that will do it, it's part of being human, and have sensitivities.

Our differences actually extend into all facets of our life, not just our humour, from food, tastes in movies, sometimes things that interest us on a recreational level, even things like drinking and…sex.

We could write an entire blog entry on how we each differ in how we handle intimate relationship activities (sex stuff), and just like our sense of humour, our differences are coloured by experiences we’ve had, and sometimes we are not sure what those experiences are, for some of us anyway.

For example, just a short one, one of us (“Ten”, [since has been named Joy] who the boyfriend has written about: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/10/perfect-ten-james-blog-post.html) hates kissing, and she calls it “gross”, she tells James, to his face, that kissing is gross; it’s not the she thinks it is gross, or he is gross; she says it makes her feel gross, sometimes it makes her want to cry being “intimate” which makes her uncomfortable, because she feels “dirty” (she doesn't like to feel that way at all)…and not in the way some of us like to feel dirty, because between you and me? I like things a little dirty sometimes...but not like our Emmie.

Now that I feel we have answered that question (and if not, please let us know where we can clarify), let’s move on to @MentalErrorist’s other question.“You mention "The Other Girl"...was she the first? It wasn't really clear on who "Frank" was either, other than...is "Frank" your spokesperson? Or just a collective?”

The Other Girl…we wrote about her about five months ago, most of what you need to know about her can be found in this entry: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/06/other-girl.html. She was what is known as our core*, as far as we understand, and we have since “eliminated” her.

We have come to find out that eliminating a core is not a common thing to do, but thanks to one of our followers who is a psychotherapist; who is also our internet friend (who we hope to meet someday), who reads our blog, who sometimes offers e-mail support when James needs someone to talk to, who works with, and has worked with, patience “suffering” from DID/MPD; we know it has been done, and successfully, with very positive results.

Frank (me) is one of our Others, I am the second known personality (as far as we understand), and until this past year (March?) I had only known about one of our other alters, Bethany, who is the youngest alter in our system – some professionals may refer to her as our “Little” (which is a term used in Dissociative Identity Disorder to describe a personality aged about 1 years old to 9 years old…Bethany is 6). It became clearer, since I knew how old she was, that some of the behaviors I was attributing to her were not possible for a six year old.

There has been a lot written about me (Frank) this year, maybe it hasn’t been clear who I am, but there will be even more written about me in the next story (story twelve) written about our lives (this one being the eleventh and most recent one: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/11/dawn-of-something-different.html), so maybe it will become easier to understand.

I guess I can be considered a spokesperson, however I am an alter* and my main function, in the past, as it is now, is to try to organize all of the personalities to work together, sometimes to organize/motivate us to survive, cope and/or escape bad/negative life situations; in the past I have worked to make sure The Other Girl could take care of her situations, not knowing that each time I had helped her I was helping other alters, it’s not something I understood until this past year, when I got tired of not having my own life, and got tired of her negatively impacting our lives, and worked to “eliminate” her and found out about the other alters...and in eliminating her have to be the responsible replacement-core, because none of us can actually be the core.

We have, I have, learned this year that alters are not usually aware of each other early in life, and in some cases, they never come to that point unless there are circumstances which force it to happen. Circumstances like therapy, from the right therapist (we have had many therapists and mis-diagnoses), in a mental health situation; or events that finally…for a lack of a word…set it all on fire.

~ Frank

*Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder common terminology

Personality Specific Terms

Alter: alter states, selves, parts (a subjective term); distinct personalities; fragments alternate personality, personality state, ego state or identity with its own unique perspectives, abilities, memories or other traits that differ from the Host or Executive personality.

The Core: The original birth personality.

Host: is the alter personality who dominates the control of the body most of the time and is often unaware of the other personalities. The host is usually the alter personality who will initiate after experiencing symptoms of mental distress, such as, anxiety, triggers or recovered memories.

Executive: When a personality (alter ego) has control of the body.

Switch: To switch from one personality to another. The process of an alter coming out from the subconscious mind into the consciousness mind while the other alter (who was already in the consciousness mind) slips back into the subconscious mind.

Who's out? A common question used to determine which personality is executive or host.

Co-conscious(ness): (The Core) A state of being aware of what the other personalities are doing and saying.

Other Common Terms:

Acquired: Anything that is not present at birth but develops some time later. In medicine, the word "acquired" implies "new" or "added." An acquired condition is "new" in the sense that it is not genetic (inherited) and "added" in the sense that was not present at birth.

Triggers: Hysterical conversion symptoms or body memories. Physical phenomenon such as pain, smells, tastes, etc.; re-experienced again.

Dissociation: In psychology and psychiatry, a perceived detachment of the mind from the emotional state or even from the body. Dissociation is characterized by a sense of the world as a dreamlike or unreal place and may be accompanied by poor memory of the specific events, which in severe form is known as dissociative amnesia.

Re-live: A total memory recall (includes visual, emotional, physical and all other senses).

Losing time: Also known as a Dissociative Fugue, is the period of which an alter personality is in the subconscious mind and has no recollection of the time that is being utilized by the alter personality who is occupying the conscious mind. Therefore when the alter switches into the conscious mind they realize that minutes, hours, days, or even months and years have passed since they were last aware of time.

System: is the structure of relationships between the alter personalities who live within the internal world of a survivor with D.I.D. Every system is created and operates in it's own unique way, just like every family living in their own homes run their households different from the next door neighbour.

Inner (Self) Helper: is usually the alter personality who has a good understanding of the system and how it works. The I.S.H. is also among the typical group of helpers or protector personalities.

Grounding: is the process of disrupting a dissociative episode and is accomplished by tugging on an earlobe, rubbing the hands together, or shuffling the feet back and forth. This type of physical stimuli can bring the survivors mind back to awareness of their surroundings, and helps to make them feel less animated.

** When we say that we know of it’s because DID/MPD Mapping is a process, a process that for us had been interrupted by many stressful life events this past summer (all of which have been written about). More on what mapping is…

Mapping is a technique used to learn about an individual's internal personality system. The client is asked to draw a map or diagram of his or her personality states. As therapy progresses, the client is asked to update the map; also known as personality mapping or system mapping. [source: http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?print=true]

Information on mapping Dissicoiative Identity Disorder: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/dissociativeliving/2010/11/dissociative-identity-disorder-mapping-the-system/ (Written November 4th, 2010 / by Holly Gray)