David Yeung's Blog, page 12

The Meaning of Forgiveness – Part 1

During the past few months, the question of forgiveness has repeatedly come to mind. I think this is somewhat both a haunting and daunting topic that usually arises at some stage of everyone’s healing process.

In the context of DID, the question is why should anyone even consider forgiving the person who abused them? It is not sufficient to do so just because one is told to believe that it is the right thing to do. Even if one is told to forgive as a matter of religious doctrine, one still needs to understand the connection between the doctrine and the forgiving of such a crime.

It is often instructive to understand the origin of a word that is used so often and that can be so loaded. In the context of Christianity, the Greek word translated as “forgiveness” in the King James Bible literally means “to let go,” as when a person foregoes demanding payment of a debt. In his parable of the unmerciful slave, Jesus equated forgiveness with canceling a debt. [Matthew 18:23-35.]

The word translated as forgiveness is used to convey the state of mind we have when we let go of resentment, for when we give up any claim to be compensated for the hurt or loss we have suffered. But forgiveness of debt doesn’t mean the debt never existed. It doesn’t mean you have to loan more money to the debtor.

We must be honest with ourselves and with others: There is a big difference in letting go of a debt of few dollars as compared to letting go of the pain and anger connected with the abusive perpetrator of our early childhood trauma. If we lose some money because someone has failed to repay us, or someone has dealt with us in not such a good way, we can usually figure out how to proceed the next day or the rest of life because our core being has not been ruptured and split apart. An abuser has adversely affecting one’s entire adult life, and we cannot simply go about our business. There is no way to give a clean slate back to the child who has been psychologically pulled apart by trauma. There is no do-over.

To put it in another way, if one’s whole life is ruined because of an early abusive relationship with the perpetrator, it is a different story than simply forgiving a debt of money or a minor inconvenience that one has the capacity to simply “let go.”

Forgiveness also means pardon. Is it possible to pardon a perpetrator if the perpetrator does not even own up to the damage he has caused? Does forgiveness means somewhat condoning the evil act and/or allowing it to continue, possibly hurting future victims? What are the options for forgiveness?

First, one must be honest. Letting go does not mean denying the damage that has been done. Letting go does not mean nothing ever happened. Letting go does not mean condoning the evil act.

Second, one must protect oneself. Most early childhood abuse is based on the most fundamental betrayals imaginable. Letting go does not mean allowing a perpetrator to ever get close enough to harm you again.

Third is perhaps the most difficult. If you let go of the pain and anger, you might be able to understand that most people who abuse others were themselves abused. This does not in any way shape or form undermine the critical important of the second point about protecting yourself. It simply means that you can understand the abuser was or is in pain, is confused, and is likely driven by their own trauma.

Again, that does not mean you let them anywhere near you ever. It does not mean you let your child or other children anywhere near them. Instead, it means that you can let go enough to wish that they are able to process their own pain and trauma. Letting to in that way is forgiveness enough so long as you remember that it is not your obligation to help them process anything. It is their obligation, and it is theirs alone.

In this way, you can be very clear why you might forgive them, while at the same time remaining absolutely firm that your letting go does not permit them to come anywhere near you, ever. If they wish to make amends, they can turn themselves in and confess to the authorities. If they wish to do something beneficial in penance for their evil deeds, they can anonomously donate all of their money to a charity devoted solely to protecting children from abuse. Why anonomously?  Because that prevents them from evey being seen as an angelic benefactor for abused children. Whatever they may choose to do, or not to do, is their choice, their problem, their concern.

The original meaning of forgiveness requires nothing from you other than letting go of what you hold onto.

It is a dangerously false assertion, religious or otherwise, to presume that forgiveness means giving someone a clean slate, to presume that it demands you ever share space with an abuser. You have nothing to prove to anyone about your forgiveness. Please be extremely clear and firm about that. Forgiveness is solely about your letting go, not what happens to or with anyone else.

In short, forgiveness does not mean forgetting what has happened and pretending that from now on, one can have a “real” relationship with the perpetrator, as if nothing pathologically evil had ever happened. It does not mean that with forgiveness, one can “be friends” with the perpetrator. It does not mean, in the case of incest, that one can have a normal father-daughter or sibling relationship with the abuser. Such things are not possible. To hold them out as a goal to strive for will prevent healing rather than foster it.

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Ebook of Volume 3, Living in Multiplicity is now available!

I am happy to announce that the ebook version of Engaging Multiple Personalities Volume 3, Living in Multiplicity, is now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079PSBYLT

The pricing for both the hard copy and ebook is as low as we could do on Amazon to make it as accessible as possible to the DID community itself.  I hope it is helpful.

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Living in Multiplicity – Volume 3 of Engaging Multiple Personalities is Now Available

I am very happy to be able to announce that Volume 3 of Engaging Multiple Personalities: Living in Multiplicity has just been released.

It is now available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1983581690/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1517120009&sr=8-4-fkmr0&keywords=engaging+multiple+personalities+by+david+young

This Volume is written directly to and for the DID/MPD community and its support network. It is practical advice for Living in Multiplicity. It addresses issues for people who are still looking for a therapist with experience treating DID, to begin to build a foundation for healing right now.

The ebook version should be available in the next several days.

 

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Complex PTSD – Part 3

Integrating Approaches in the Treatment of PTSD

We have not advanced much from the old days of Descartes when the scientists started thinking in terms of either the material world or the non-material world. We still think in terms of “either-or.” We are still stuck to picking either the drug or talking cure.

There is a prevailing tendency to believe that talk-therapy it is too slow to work or it is ineffective.  We cannot prove that it works through a double blind control study to prove its efficacy.  Yet in clinical experience we have come across cases where the right kind of listening and talking can achieve wonders. For example, when the diagnosis of DID is correctly identified, effective remedy is instituted, and patient’s useless medication is discontinued, the patient achieved rapid improvement. 

However, such cases are dismissively labeled “anecdotal.” They cannot be reproduced in a laboratory. Without double-blind studies paralleling pharmaceutical research, it is claimed that they do not validate any particular approach. This disparages the history of psychiatry from its inception until the advent of pharmaceutical industry control over psychiatric training programs, insurance reimbursement, and the consequent denial of the impact of the many schools of psycho-therapy from Freud, Jung, Frankl and others.

An Integrated Approach to Treating PTSD

[1] In PTSD, we identify the “hyper-aroused nervous system.” In that hyper-arousal, the individual is also robbed of his confidence. Why? It is because he is not in control of his own body, which suddenly and without warning transitions into a hyper-kinetic state.

The first goal in treatment is for the body to relearn the experience of remaining in the here and now, appropriate to the reality in which it finds itself. Putting it simply, if you are running, your pulse rate should be high. If you are resting for a few minutes, you pulse rate should reflect a resting state of the body. In the PTSD experience, the pulse rate skyrockets even when the body is not running. In fact, the body starts to move in response to the messages it is being bombarded with – message of danger. These messages come all the time, when there is no danger, when the individual is simply sitting at home.

Several of my earlier blog posts discuss grounding exercises to aid the individual to achieve this goal. Surely yoga and meditation make sense as a fundamental exercise to get in touch with the here and now body. Many experienced therapists advise their clients to do these exercises of yoga and mindfulness. The “scientific” therapists, perhaps more accurately the pharmaceutically trained therapists, shy away from such advice. Why? According to conversations I have had, it is for fear of being ridiculed since there is little peer-reviewed literature to support yoga and meditation as an adjunct in the treatment of PTSD.

[2] We need to open our eyes and listen with deep empathy. We should be openly waiting for our clients to tell us what their concern in life really is.

I had a patient who was given ECT and kept in hospital for months. Her diagnosis was depression, accompanied by self-mutilating behaviour. No one seemed interested or inclined to listen to her story. It was as if her life of being abused by family and neighbors was irrelevant to her mental health.

Her children were taken away to be adopted out by relatives. She was trying hard to leave her abusive husband while her church insisted that she should try to reconcile with him. No wonder her depression never got remitted despite being seen by numerous doctors. No therapist ever came close to the Complex PTSD issue, not to mention the DID diagnosis. No one seemed to show any inclination to listen for the patient to communicate these problems in her life.

In short, we need to go back to square one. Therapists need to make sure they have a firm therapeutic alliance with the survivor, before they even begin to try to understand each and every case. There is no short cut.  Making a diagnosis of depression and prescribing an antidepressant is a far cry from thoroughly assessing and understanding the individual. The ability to write a prescription has little to do with learning about the nature of the trauma that is causing the disability.

The right direction

The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine [NICABM ] offers a good program in training therapists to do trauma therapy. The works of Colin Ross, Judith Herman, B, Van de Kolk and others are very important. There are several self-help groups of DID survivors that have organized themselves that have a lot of good information and some training programs.

But, in short, the therapist who only offers pills will not get to the heart of the issue. Medication can be an important adjunct to psychotherapy, particularly in an immediate crisis. It is never a substitute. Complex PTSD can be healed through the efforts of the survivor and the support of competent therapists.

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Complex PTSD – Part 2

Understanding the mind-body connection in Complex-PTSD

PTSD is more than a brain disease. Human beings are not simply a chemical stew that needs a little “salt here or pepper there” to fix them. Time and time again I have come across the knee-jerk reflex respond of colleagues in trying to find the right medication as soon as they have identify a symptom, be it depression or anxiety. Their next thought is always trying to find the latest drug for depression or anxiety. We can do better than that. We must do better than that.

Treatment of Complex PTSD should include assessing the biological, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of a patient’s life. In PTSD, the entire body-mind system has been overwhelmed by a tremendously potent destructive force. The result is that the individual is dis-empowered. The dis-empowerment often manifests as an almost complete loss of confidence in coping with the ordinary ups and downs of life. Therefore, we must look at the entire life of the patient to pro-actively assist in their re-empowerment.

The neurological system of individuals with PTSD has been damaged. It has been re-set to hyper-vigilance, like an alarm system that has been accidentally set to be hypersensitive. It is as if you are in a house with a motion-sensor that will not stop setting off the alarm. There are only a few small corners in which you can move without setting it off, because it is ready to go off with the blink of an eye. Imagine how difficult your life would be if you had to constantly suppress blinking your eye, and how terrifying it would be to know, as you uncontrollably blink, that alarm is about to start screaming. One shouldn’t be surprised at the speed with which flashbacks and re-traumatization occur.

Through the impact of trauma, PTSD is not only a brain (autonomic nervous system) disease. it is also a psychological disorder. Now in hyper-vigilant state, the tiniest cue will set off a huge autonomic storm. One’s bodily reactions trigger the traumatic state of mind just as the memory of trauma triggers one’s bodily reactions Together, they mutually suppress, if not destroy, the memory of what it was like to feel secure and at peace.

The thought processes of the Complex PTSD individual are overwhelmingly preoccupied with fear, distrust and loss of confidence. The individual cannot perceive any hint that there is a pathway to even a moment of tranquility. The individual is constantly living in the past, poised to re-experience the trauma of being attacked, or facing another earthquake or explosion. The whole autonomic nervous system is now detoured toward re-traumatization.

Meanwhile, the fundamental question of what is the meaning of life and its purpose is thrown out of kilter. Questions arise with only angst, not answers, like: “Why is this happening to me?” or, in a sick family, “ Why was my sister spared when I was chosen to suffer?”

Given the depth of the impact of the trauma at the root of Complex PTSD, there is no reason to expect that a simple solution, such as deep brain stimulation, or a magical pill is going to heal such a condition. While these things may help, we need to accept that more is needed to bring about healing in the individual. We need a multi-pronged approach.

 

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Complex PTSD – Part 1

Understanding PTSD and Complex PTSD

These days, most people are familiar with the general concept of post-traumatic stress disorder. Usually, they are familiar with it as it applies to returning veterans, and to some extent as it applies to others who have experienced overwhelming distress for which they were unprepared, like earthquake survivors.

It was not until 1980 that mental health professionals seriously acknowledged the long term impact of these kinds of trauma by coining the diagnostic label of PTSD. PTSD is diagnosed after a person experiences symptoms for at least one month following a traumatic event. However, symptoms may not appear until several months or even years later.

PTSD is characterized by three main symptoms:

Re-experiencing traumas through intrusive distressing recollections of the events, flashbacks, and nightmares.
Emotional numbness and avoidance of places, people, and activities that are reminders of the trauma.
Increased arousal such as difficulty in sleeping, difficulty in concentrating, feeling jumpy as well as being easily irritated and angered.

In 1992, Judith Herman pointed out that for the group of survivors of early child abuse, such as incest, the concept of PTSD does not adequately cover the injuries inflicted on these individuals. This inadequacy also covers cases of prolonged repetitive distress such as in cases of kidnap victims or political prisoners. Herman considers these cases as belonging to a special kind of PTSD that she proposed to call Complex-PTSD.

Complex-PTSD

Herman pointed out that these cases typically have a history of subjection to totalitarian control over a prolonged period (months to years). There are usually features of alterations in consciousness, including amnesia or hyperamnesia related to traumatic events as well as other dissociative features.

The repetitive nature of the assaults inevitably deepens the effect of the trauma, making it an almost indelible imprint that is destined to be long-lasting. Deeper damage affects the person in the cognitive area. A common example is in the forming of almost a delusional negative beliefs or expectations about oneself, others, or the world, e.g., “I am bad,” “No one can ever be trusted,” “The world is completely dangerous at all times and in all directions”.

Prognosis of Complex PTSD

Early childhood abuse is usually silent, hidden, ignored and/or being denied or dismissed, often even by professionals.  They suffer alone.  They are voiceless.  Their primary fear is that their experiences are not believed.  The implicit memory may be highly distorted or even forgotten. We have yet to develop unified systematic approach in how to cope with such cases.

I have come across numerous instances among my peers that, despite identifying dissociative tendencies, have:

[a] Expressed the attitude of “So what, the past is passed;” or “What can you do about it.”

[b] Failed to pursue an analysis to determine whether or not there was early childhood trauma because the emphasis is on the constitutional factors, such as how many siblings or uncles are suffering from bipolar or alcoholism etc., and diagnoses that are treatable with medication.

[c] Based diagnoses on perfunctory information gathering by simply filling in the blanks, neither yields accurate answers nor leads to correct diagnoses. 

The prognosis for those patients from such colleagues is almost always bad. It is so bad that they avoided taking dissociative patients that were victims of early childhood abuse because there was no medication to prescribe. They just saw a long painful path of treatment failure and had no experience of positive outcomes. The solution for most was to note the dissociation, avoid the dissociative diagnosis and avoid working with the early childhood or other trauma material.

They often chose to diagnosis such patients with Borderline Personality Disorder or Bipolar Disorder, diagnoses that would allow them to prescribe medications despite the fact that, though the failure to address the fundamental issues, the pharmacological treatment would fail. The result was often a diagnosis of treatment resistant depression – identifying the patient’s depression as the obstacle rather than their misdiagnosis and consequent erroneous treatment.

This kind of prognosis is a failure on the part of therapists. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that further damages patients seeking to heal from early childhood trauma.

 

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Repeating Myself Again

I find that I am repeating myself more and more, perhaps because of my encroaching senility or perhaps because misconceptions die hard. I think it is because once the general pubic has been brainwashed, one has to repeat the truth again and again in order to undo the misconceptions.

[1] Corrective emotional experience

A genuine experience of kindness and love may convert a victim of cruelty to a kind loving person. Whether it is portrayed in fiction, such as in Les Miserable, or as displayed by Pope John Paul, long before he became Pope, carrying a concentration camp survivor on his back because she could no longer walk, kindness is an incredibly corrective experience that changes people.

For individuals with DID, it takes time for many of the alters to be convinced of the genuineness of kindness, but it can happen. Corrective emotional experiences cannot always be created elegantly with a swift and fundamental impact. But, little by little, it is like a river cutting a new path through the ground.

[2] The Time Factor for Therapists

I hear all the time that mental health workers have no time. This forces them to look for quick answers. The result, coupled with the intense marketing of pharmaceuticals, is prescribing pills for “quick” solutions. Psychiatric labelling and prescribing a drug instead of listening to their client is often the order of the day, “You are depressed, take the antidepressant.” Time constraint is not a good reason for looking for a short cut. Most of those short cuts have the grave risk of other problems that will obscure the root issue of trauma. Remember, we don’t just take cough syrup if we have a chest infection.

As always, a reminder that looking for evidence of traumatic childhood abuse does not mean gathering of details like preparing a police report. The client will find their right moment to offer clues of such trauma. The therapist must remain open to recognizing those clues, rather than trying to force them out. Healing starts when the survivor feels safe enough to express their experience, is believed, and is emotionally supported. When that happens, the isolation they have felt since their early trauma starts to dissolve.

[3] Leaving the Past Behind

Time and again I hear mental health workers say that traumatic childhood experience is something we should leave in the past, that it isn’t happening now, so move on to the future.

In the absence of processing the trauma, this is nonsense. I do not advocate dwelling in the past, but without healing, the past is like an old festering wound that refuses to go away. If we have an infection in our foot, we can limp along for quite awhile. We can do our best to avoid banging it against the curb when we cross the street. But when we accidentally hit the curb, we might scream in agony. We can ignore the infection for only so long until it spreads further and our whole being is under attack.

Leaving the past behind without healing the trauma is like that. We need to heal the past that is encroaching in the present.

[4] Out of Sight, Out of Mind

There are many phenomena that remain out of sight and, as a result, out of mind. We ignore them thinking that they do not exist, or that they are so rare that we simply will never run into them. Kind of like a “no harm, no foul” mentality.

The problem with that view is that in normal social interactions, we are primed to avoid the sordid and the painful that is not right in our faces.

Do not dismiss the evils of refugee displacement, gender inequality, abuse of power, cruelty to children, PTSD sufferers unable to heal, marginalization of the disabled and the disenfranchised. We can only ignore them to the extent that we believe they either do not exist at all, they are not in our sphere of experience, or are very rare.

We all have difficulty handling bad news and need to keep a sense of balance in order not be overwhelmed by negativity. At the same time, we need to recognize that there is indeed pain and suffering constantly within, around and among us. These are not rare. Recognition of this needs to be accompanied by appreciating positive aspects of our lives. In other words, remain grounded with a balanced grasp of reality.

[5]  Practice Kindness

We are surprised when we are informed that a respected person in position of power get caught for abusing over a hundred of victims under his care over a period of decades. We do not need to wonder why these cases usually take decades to get exposed. Victims are trapped so as to remain in their position by design of the abusers. Let us increase our awareness, not be surprised, and practice kindness with insight wherever we go towards ourselves and each other.

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Trigger Warning: Reports of abuse by men in power Part 3

What is happening now, people speaking out about having been abused, is incredibly important. For a single victim of abuse to think about speaking out is like thinking about going down a dark alley alone late at night. It is quite scary. From those initial victims speaking out despite the fearful consequences, speaking out is no longer going down a dark alley alone. Instead, it is going with dozens if not hundreds or thousands of friends, holding hands, protecting and cheering for each other. No longer so scary and not nearly so difficult.

Many men have been brainwashed to believe silence means consent, many women have been brainwashed to believe whatever they say or do will not make a difference in a male dominated authority structure. Don’t accept that brainwashing. Your body knows the truth of its experience. Trust that.

Look at the impact of a few brave women speaking out. #metoo, among other efforts, is forcing some of the abusers out in the light – calling them to account for their heedless destruction of the lives of others. This call to account involving adult celebrities has led to starting to open the doors to acknowledge the evil impact that pedophilia have wrought on so many child stars, whose lives often fell apart completely under the pressure of their unresolved trauma.

It is spreading to the music and fashion industries as well as into politics and corporate executive offices. Let’s continue that push, extend it to all survivors of early childhood abuse. Sunlight is the best disinfectant; natural, bright, and healing.

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Trigger Warning: News of Abuse by Men in Power Part 2

People ask why it took so long for these celebrities to speak out, just as they ask of individuals abused as children – with and without DID. Because the current reports involve adults for the most part, people are now beginning to accept that there is an impact of power dynamics. Where abuse happens in a setting involving a high differential of power between the abuser and the abused, the victim is usually completely intimidated. Whether it is a celebrity predator, an Olympic team doctor, a local clergyman, or a family member, these attacks often happened in one of two ways: 1) so unexpectedly that one is usually taken off-guard, rattled and confused, in which case the first thing that arises in conscious thought is: “Who would believe me?” or 2) following a period of grooming, a step-by-step dismantling of personal boundaries a little at a time, that appears to shift the abuse to some twisted and illusory appearance of consent. And, again, the conscious thought is: “Who would believe me?”

Imagine being a very small child, the level of intimidation is life and death. The power differential with respect to adults, particularly adult family members, is incomprehensible.

In most cases, as survivors fear and sometimes learn, the accusations are readily brushed off for an extraordinarily long time. Survivors, DID and otherwise, often find out long after the fact that they were not the only target. Why? Because abusers rarely limit their abuse to a single target. It is part and parcel of the power dynamic that enables ongoing secrecy.

As we see in the current news reports, survivors are told how important and prominent the abuser is. They are told how the survivor’s life would be destroyed if they speak out. In family abuse, the child is warned that the entire family will be destroyed. Further, reporting abuse usually requires going to or through someone whose responsibility is to screen the information and then to convey it to someone higher up. At any point in the chain, the report can be suppressed, dismissed or ignored. Protection is crafted for the abuser, not the survivor. The survivor’s life, as they once knew it, is undermined and often destroyed.

How does it work? A scenario like this may help to illustrate it: An abusive man in charge of the local orphanage has dinner with the police chief of the city. The next day, the police receive a complaint about sexual abuse in the orphanage. It would be tempting for the chief to deem the report a lie – after all, he just had such a nice dinner together with the purported abuser and nothing seemed amiss. If he thinks there might be even a smidgeon of possibility, it would be much easier to minimize the offence as a simple case of confusion that can simply be brushed off. Isn’t it more important to protect the reputation of the purported abuser and the institution from such terrible claims? No, it is not.

You can substitute anyone in a position of power for the orphange director in the above example. You can substitute anyone for the police chief in that example – anyone in the money chain connected with the abuser. And remember, abusers are used to hiding their tracks. Even good people often miss the clues that their old friend, a pillar of the community, has an incredibly hidden dark side.

Evil deeds must be called out as quickly as possible – even if “as quickly as possible” means decades later! Why? Because any time an evil deed is covered up, it will fester and grow, like a deep infection that periodically erupts to the surface. Old or new, whenever you identify an infection is the time to treat it.

It is quite understandable that the victim, having been caught by surprise, remains silent. The longer they remain silent, the harder it is to speak up. The more they see those who speak up be dismissed as crzay or as liars, the harder it is for them to summon the courage to speak out themselves. A perpetrator, however, takes that silence as encouragement. He is free to do it again because, after all, the victim(s) is (are) too cowed to speak up. The longer the silence, the less believable people will find their words when victims do speak out.

Perpetrators, notoriously, will re-offend. Like thieves, people almost never stop once they got away the first time. The victim meanwhile has the unrealistic wish that this will not happen again to them. Why not listen to the warnings about speaking out, after all, this man is powerful—he could throw you out of the school, or ruin any opportunities which you worked so hard for years to approach. Can you stand up to a world class famous coach in hockey, swimming, or gymnastic coach who has taken you under his wing? Especially when you are representing your country at the Olympics and becoming world famous? Could you stand up so easily to a father who has been abusing you from as far back as your memory can goes?

We should be shouting to the heavens our support and appreciation for the many celebrities as well as the ordinary men and women who have summoned the courage to speak out. It is only in this way that our children, our friends and our society can be protected from this scourge.

It remains extraordinary that in this day and age, we seem to accept the mind-set of a man that can speak about how he can “grab a women by her pussy” and people will still elect him as a leader. The message this has sent continues to reverberate. But, now, that reverberation has resulted in the gathering of strength, of the coming together of survivors who are gaining power by exposing the abuse. Exposure is the disinfectant to protect ourselves and our children.

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Trigger Warning: News of Abuse by Men in Power Part 1

The year 2017 is becoming an eye opener for many people about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse. It is now, finally, being widely and publicly acknowledged that 1) sexual abuse is common; 2) sexual abuse is often covered up and under-reported; 3) abusers often hide under a veneer of respectability, and 4) the power dynamic at the center of abuse enables abusers to continue to abuse and suppresses victims from speaking out – often for decades.

The recent cascade of reports from abuse survivors accusing men in power of taking advantage of women and children (of both genders) does not shock me, nor does the fact that the events in question often have been hidden far longer than most people can imagine. These dynamics are well known to survivors of early childhood abuse and to members of the DID community. As a psychiatrist who worked for many years on the impact on survivors of early childhood trauma, I feel compelled to comment in support of survivors speaking out. No matter how long ago the abuse happened, and no matter who the abuser was, these testimonies are critical for healing those attacked. They are critical for protecting others from harm right now as well as into the future.

Many of the same arguments used against these survivors of celebrity abuse have been made against early childhood abuse survivors with DID. Despite their lack of celebrity involvement, my clients’ histories of abuse are quite similar to those now being made public. Unfortunately, very few people pay attention when the attackers are non-celebrities who might be parents, siblings, doctors, clergy and others in the community, just as very few people pay attention when the victims are not celebrities. As Jane Fonda pointed out, people are paying attention now because the victims are celebrity white women now coming forward.

The loudest and most common ways survivors are attacked are by assertions that because the abuse happened so long ago, the report is unreliable; because it is a case of he said/she said, the report is unreliable; and because the abuser is a well-regarded person in the commuity, the report is unreliable or even fraudulent. These statements are the marks of actual ignorance, self-serving intentional ignorance, and/or participatory enabling.

I cannot speak for everyone, but I can certainly speak as to the survivors that were my clients, dealing as adults with their early life unprocessed trauma. Here it is: I have zero doubt about the fact that my clients had been abused. Zero doubt.

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