Dissociative identity disorder (DID) continues to be a largely
misunderstood – and sometimes controversial – mental illness. Lucy Adams shares her experience of living with the disorder.
Colac woman Lucy Adams knew something was wrong when she noticed she was dropping out of her own life.
“I used to lose time and I thought I was going mad. I used to come home with all these bags and think, ‘I didn’t buy this stuff’,” she says.
Lucy has dissociative identity disorder – what used to be known as multiple personality disorder – which is triggered by complex trauma.
She has suffered from various forms of abuse through her life and was sexually abused as a young child.
“From that point on, I hardly remember anything of my life, which means that’s when I was accumulating parts who knew the stories of what had happened.”
Lucy describes it as a sort of safety switch, which the brain performs to protect the person from suffering by hiding away the abusive experience.
“So these parts come out to protect the host from what they know happened, but the host doesn’t know.”
Over her lifetime, Lucy has accumulated 36 distinct “parts”, as she describes them, who make up her “mob”. And they’re not all human.
“I have John, who’s a stone, he’s a very tough little fella, about seven. Stretch, he’s 10 and a half, he’s like an elastic band, then there’s a little one called Mewsy and she’s a cat, she was abused very young.
“I have an Irish sheep farmer called Paddy and he’s got a dog called Rusty, he’s a bit of a character. Then I’ve got Prue, who is 38 and she is a very smart dresser.”
Lucy says it takes a “fairly extreme” amount of stress or anxiety for her to switch between her parts, and people have said they can tell when she makes the switch.
Having dissociative identity disorder has drastically impacted all aspects of Lucy’s life.
“It’s affected my work, it’s affected my mothering. I can’t drive anymore because I don’t want any of my younger parts driving,” she says.
“It’s even affected where I’m living. I live as far away as I can from people who abused me. So it’s been huge.”
Lucy says she’s “extremely grateful” to have access to a disability support pension when she needs it, because “it’s like working in a full time job to get through this”.
Colac is in the National Disability Insurance Scheme launch site of Barwon. In order to be found eligible for the scheme, Lucy had to prove she had what’s known as a psychosocial disability.
But Lucy says she sees her mental illness as a challenge, rather than a disability.
“My role in it is for me and my guys to learn to manage it better.”
As far as community perception of the disorder goes, Lucy says the label carries with it an “extreme” amount of stigma.
“For instance, when I went in to have an operation – a physical one – the surgeon got me to see a psychiatrist to make sure I was going to be fine in theatre and not, you know, do anything.
“People are very unsure. Do you have violent parts? What’s going on? People don’t really understand it enough to know, so I’ve learnt to take someone with me if I go to a specialist interview.”
She hopes if more people like her share their stories it will help break down some of that stigma.
But she doesn’t think all attention is necessarily positive.
For example, she wasn’t a fan of the television series The United States of Tara, a comedy-drama which follows the life of an American housewife with DID. In her opinion, it wasn’t “helpful”.
“But other people I know identify with it very greatly and say it really helped them. So it’s a very personal thing, and I know they had an excellent psychiatrist overseeing that program.”
Lucy says the hardest thing about suffering abuse and living with DID has been coping with the grief and loss in her past, including her sense of self.
“It’s very hard to get around that in a hurry. You can’t even wonder what would I have been like if I had never been through this, because that can almost destroy you if you think about it too much.”
If you or someone you know needs help, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
Read the full story... (off-site)- Topics:
- Health
- Author:
- Lily Partland
- Source:
- ABC Ballarat
- Date published:
- Wed 8th Oct, 2014