Delusions vs. early childhood trauma memory

Part of my internship for my counseling degree was with the inpatient psychiatric ward of a hospital. The hospital did not acknowledge DID and, as a student, I was advised not to make any waves. While it was clear many were delusional or schizophrenic, there were times I would have at least screened for dissociation. Instead, the hospital psychiatrists simply prescribed medication for delusions or "hearing voices" that would be against treatment guidelines for dissociation. No one bothered to even distinguish if "hearing voices" was from inside or outside. Outside voices usually goes with schizophrenia, but not always.

One of the reasons so few were diagnosed with DID in the past is that those with DID were misdiagnosed as schizophrenic. Colin Ross, M.D. wrote a book on this topic but is also supported in much validated research. I had one client who came to me while still heavily medicated from being diagnosed as schizophrenic for several years. He did not believe he was getting better. His psychiatrist was very nice to work with me and wean him off the zombifying medications. While the client was not DID, he had dissociated memories of abuse. His personality blossomed as the medications wore off. He maintained his antidepressant and antianxiety and healed to have a much more functioning life. In early interviews with him, he disclosed he was diagnosed as schizophrenic because he heard a voice and, in fact, had a name that went with the voice. Maybe not clear to all, but clearly to me the sign of a self state.

Tyler, the young boy whose healing is described in the first post of Believe the Children recalled adults dressed up as gorillas. Actually, he told me they were gorillas who could talk to him and who forced him to engage in sexual activities. Perps in gorilla suits. A 5-year-old reporting to a therapist who is not open to understanding DID that gorillas touched him in bad places and was made to do sexual things likely would have been labeled delusional or having fantasies. I shudder to think where that little boy would be now if he had seen someone who did not hear what a 5-year-old was trying to say or use techniques to help the child explain what a "gorilla" meant.

Tyler did not dissociate. Adults healing now from DID may have a similar trauma memory of a group of clowns or devils or gorillas forcing themselves upon the child. Remember the intentional unbelievability factor of child porn and exploitation groups. I have to wonder what is going on with therapists who are treating DID but then believe they are working with someone delusional if a memory comes up outside the therapist's realm of believability. What is happening to survivors of sophisticated and/or organized pedophilia in the hands of a therapist who cannot accept that the "delusions" are intentional and very treatable in someone with DID?

In my attempt to help my client with community law enforcement, I was repeatedly asked if she wasn't really delusional? How did I KNOW she wasn't making her current abuse up for attention? This is the life of every survivor. It's stepping through landmines to get help at any level. Change needs to happen.

Dear skeptical therapists: It doesn't matter!

I'm a psychotherapist who intimately knows the world of DID and has gained great insight into the world of abuse from whence I came. I was fortunate to find a qualified therapist once I overcame my fear of going to a therapist. However, there has been a battle raging in the psychotherapy and world of psychiatry for years about "ritual abuse" and "mind control" being real. It must be delusional because there is no proof. How long did the US go before believing the holocaust existed? How many more could have been saved if someone had gone to see about the reports instead of saying "this could never happen"?

It's not about who did what or how it was done, it's about the survivor's distress. As therapists, our job is "first do no harm" and provide the best care possible. It doesn't matter if you believe a person was made to worship Satan or whether babies were killed and Lord knows what else happened. Remember Capricorn One? The American people were led to believe that a space capsule had landed on Mars when it was all made up on a stage using props. It is known that children will believe what they are told is true. Abuse statistics (without any adjectives to the abuse) are known to be high. Abuse is scary to a child. Often it is terrifying. During a state of heightened fear, the believability factor becomes greater. Fact.

I have processed memories where I was convinced for several years that at least one baby was killed in front of me and an 11-year-old boy. Later processing proved that both were hoaxes because my younger sister and my then 11-year-old cousin are alive. Were an actual child and young boy murdered to fool me? I'll never know. I do know props that look real were used and all technology available to include virtual reality were employed. More invasive things such as drugs were used to distort realities as well. All create a memory steeped in trauma. The survivor needs to heal from the trauma. Where it came from is irrelevant.

If a survivor says "I was gang raped by six gorillas," it is not delusional unless the survivor shows delusional tendencies in other areas of their life too. In trauma, what a child remembers is locked in. Healing from processing the gorilla memory is proof of no delusion. But if a therapist declares the survivor delusional for having such a memory, IMO, the "first do no harm" rule is violated. We don't have to have had experienced something firsthand to help someone heal from it. I have worked with grief but have not experienced loss of someone I loved (consciously).

Is it a phenomenon that survivors worldwide disclose similar memories of unbelievable abuse? Or is it because it is THAT pervasive? As therapists, we have to step back and treat our clients with respect regardless of what comes up as a trauma memory. If we are unable to do so, it's time to refer to a therapist with a more open view of how trauma might be instilled in a young child so as to appear unbelievable when it surfaces.

As survivors, you have the right to withdraw from treatment by someone who invalidates your memories and find someone who will treat you respectfully and with the intent to help to include consultation with others in the field with more experience.

We, as a society, must stop looking at the circumstances of the abuse, and must begin to see survivors in need of help to heal. We are not delusional. The sick f*cks who did this to us are not a delusion either.