Elvira Madagain (drawn by Gray)
You see them on the covers of books about multiple personality all the time.
“the UFO of psychiatry”
“the fascinating suspense of a top mystery thriller ...
enthralling from the first scene to the last”
“a psychiatric adventure”
“a Gothic horror tale could scarcely bring more chills to the spine”
“more fascinating and suspenseful than most novels”
Does this mean it comes with the territory, that any book about multiplexity is seen as some kind of entertainment for all?
It’s not only publishers that promote this kind of sensationalizing either. Television talk shows and movies about multiple personality are also seen as prime time amusement. As Dr Frank Putnam, psychiatrist and author, said multiple personality “elicits intense fascination”. Time and again we have had many people enthusiastically curious about our condition, who ask copious questions and we accept this and even encourage it. We want people to know and understand the condition. We want some kind of context that presents us as “normal”, given the environment we grew up in. Just as cancer, AIDS, depression, anxiety and schizophrenia have grown to be more commonplace in our society we want multiplexity to fit in too. The fact that a human mind can create different personalities or wall off memories of abuse for years is definitely intriguing and makes us all wonder how humans can be so creative and adapt so well to the most adverse of situations.
However, it is the disrespect for those of us with the condition that is inherent in the media portrayals and statements where we are displayed like some sideshow freak. But we, and most multiples, are people who have suffered immensely from terrible trauma and the difficult management of more than one personality. We haven’t chose this kind of life just for fun. We had to do this in order to psychologically and literally survive childhood abuse. And as the quote says it is “the gift of life we gave to ourselves” (Quiet Storm). It is “the response of a creative mind seeking to escape the saturation of childhood terror and pain.” (Truddi Chase “When Rabbit Howls”)
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