MPD/DID - Articles: Therapy & Memories

Therapy & Memories

Therapy is a difficult process of trying to heal the damage of the past while working to create a future worth living for. As a survivor, it’s a difficult balance made more difficult by the fact that many of us have given up hope that we can have a future worth living for. It becomes easy for us to be swallowed up by the past, land in deep depression, and dance with suicidal thoughts.

People have different opinions on how therapy should work, how intense it should be, how long it should last, and what tools it should use. First of all, it should be pointed out that there is no right answer, no fast-track, no less-pain-more-gain option. You have to find out what type of therapy you are most comfortable with, willing to stick with, and that does the least amount of damage to your present life.

When we were first diagnosed with MPD the common treatment focused on integrating all of the dissociated parts into one whole, often required hospitalization, and was expected to last on a weekly basis of therapy for 7 to 10 years. Shortly after I was diagnosed the false-memory backlash began. Treatment quickly changed to minimize the risks (creating false memories, being overly focused on memory work, taking every memory as 100% accurate/factual, doing memory work so fast that the person needed hospitalization to stay safe, being sued, etc.) the patients and the practitioners were facing.

I guess the first thing that needs to be addressed is the difference between recovered memories and false memories. People can forget things, push them out of their awareness, or dissociate them. These memories can resurface later, thus they are “recovered” from the mental abyss where they hid. “False memories” are memories which are supposedly created by a therapist or patient in response to trying to do too much memory work. If you are spending time in therapy searching for one specific memory, and you just can’t find it because you have either totally forgotten it or your brain doesn’t feel safe in letting you remember it yet, you run the risk of your brain creating a memory to fill the void.

The biggest problem is that the “False Memory Syndrome” supporters believe that therapist and patients were creating false memories on purpose to either tarnish someone’s reputation, get more money from insurance companies for treatment and hospitalizations that weren’t necessary, or to try to earn a reputation or status as an expert in the field or a patient who could go on talk shows and write a book. This type of outlandish, irresponsible, reckless behaviors probably did happen in rare cases. But the fear of the “False Memory Syndrome” movement has thrown a majority of survivors and therapists into a place of fear: fear of backlash, fear of lawsuits, fear of being called a liar/manipulator/fake, and fear that they are doing something wrong.

Memory work is a critical part of therapy for survivors and Multiples. So how do you face the challenge of doing the necessary memory work while trying to avoid the risks?

First, find a therapist who has worked with other people who face your same issues. You don’t need an expert, or someone who writes books, you just need someone who have a firm grasp on recovery issues for survivors and people who dissociate. If you can’t find anyone in your area who has worked with Multiples in the past, be sure they are open-minded enough that they will work with you as a system instead of as an individual who has delusional people in their head. You have enough troubles without dealing with a psychiatrist or therapist who doesn’t think MPD exists.

Once you find a therapist that you can work with, it’s time to agree on your goals for therapy. Do you want to integrate? Do you want help keeping yourself together so you can maintain your job? Do you need help stopping a destructive or addictive behavior? It’s ok to go to therapy with one specific goal to work on, and that specific goal *not* being “I want to remember everything that happened to me so I can move forward.”

There tends to be three typical patterns of therapy for survivors and Multiples:

Those who avoid it because they believe they are functioning well enough without it, or they have had too many bad experiences with therapy and choose not to return.
Those who go to therapy “when the going gets tough.” They may start and stop therapy every few months or years, but prefer not to let therapy become their main focus. They may be attending school, work, have a family, or may just not be ready for deep memory work. Some people don’t really care to dig out and examine old memories, they would rather just move on.
Those who go to therapy, commit to regular sessions for a long-term basis, and want to delve into the memory work. They may be very dysfunctional and need the extra memory work focus. They may also have the false belief that “If I get it all out in the open and over with, I’ll heal faster.” The danger with this thinking is that if you overwhelm yourself with memories you can’t handle in a healthy way, you run the risk of being a danger to yourself. Your mental health should not be destroyed by therapy.

Can you believe your memories? That’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself and with the help of your therapist. I believe that most memories related to abuse and trauma are accurate. I believe that the brain stores them differently, and that they are more accurate than non-traumatic memories. I also believe that sometimes the memories are accurate in meaning, but may not be totally factual (what a camera would have recorded at the time). I think the most important parts of the memory are the most accurate (such as that the abuse did happen, who the perpetrators were, etc.).

The key is to remember that memories serve as a way of recalling a past event, and as a way of communicating what that past even meant to us (how we felt, thought, reacted, feared, hoped, tried to make sense). Memories are also complicated when you’re dealing with dissociation or MPD. It can be hard to stitch time into a linear format when dissociation has been involved. It can also be hard to figure out what is factual, what is “a kid trying to make sense of the senseless,” and what is “metaphoric communication” from other alters.

What about SRA/RA (Sadistic, Satanic, or Ritual Abuse)? Is it real? I think it is real. I think these are the hardest to believe memories, and the hardest to say if they are factual. People who abuse in sadistic or ritualized ways often tend to manipulate the victim’s senses, increase fears, and distort perception in order to have more control or power over their victim. These types of abusers can go out of their way to do things that will make it difficult to remember correctly (such as using drugs or alcohol on the victim to impair their ability to remember/process correctly) and will do things to make the totally factual memory seem impossible or improbable (for example, using special effects to make a child believe they have witnessed a murder of someone who is still very much alive). These tricks make the victim question themselves, and make it easy for other people to ignore or invalidate the victim’s memories later.

Imagine that you break a glass on accident, a piece cuts you, and a small shard of glass remains under the skin. The skin can heal over the glass, but that shard can continue to do damage under the skin. At some point you may realize there is something wrong, that the pain should have been gone, that the wound keeps reopening, and you seek help from a doctor. The doctor will have to open the wound up to remove the piece of glass so you can heal completely.

This is how memory work should function. The unresolved, unprocessed, painful memories can cause more problems if they are not removed from hiding so complete healing can take place. Depression, anxiety, dissociation, self-destructive behaviors, poor judgment, maintaining abusive relationships, addictions, and suicidal thoughts are all red flags that something is under the skin and needs to be dealt with. The key is knowing when to stop looking. How many layers of skin and muscle are you going to let be moved around or destroyed in your search to make sure there isn’t another piece hiding below the surface?

In my opinion, if memory work is causing repeated suicidal feelings, hospitalizations, or significant inability to meet your basic needs/care for yourself, then you are doing too much memory work. You don’t amputate your legs if you just have an ingrown toenail. If your present life is falling apart and you’re losing all reason for living, then memory work needs to stop immediately. Therapy should then focus on coping skills, managing stress, building internal communication and cooperation, and being able to function at a basic self-care level.

Remember, it’s about balance. You need to remember enough that you understand what went wrong and how it affected you. You need to remember enough so you can learn how to make better choices now. You need to remember enough so you can move on. But you don’t have to drown, you don’t have to put your life on hold, you don’t have to remember every single abuse incident, and you don’t have to die.