Dissociative Identity Disorder
As
I researched Kristin's symptoms online, I kept coming across
'alters,' 'dissociation,'
and 'dissociative identity
disorder,' all of which were new to me.
Dissociative identity disorder is classified as a mental illness but some
Christian counselors were also calling it a God-given mechanism, especially for
children, to survive unbearable trauma.
For example, when a little girl is being raped by her father, which her mind cannot process, three things can happen to her: (1) She can lose her mind and go insane; (2) Her brain can literally shut down, in which case she dies; or (3) Her mind can quarantine - i.e., 'dissociate' - the memory of that trauma and shield it from the rest of her memory so that she can survive without going insane. The quarantined memory then becomes an alternate personality ('alter') who is frozen at the age when the trauma occurred, remains hidden for as long as the danger remains, and then reveals herself later in life when she is far away from her abuser and/or feels safe enough to come out of hiding.
The first time I bounced this off Kristin, she had dismissed it, saying that what is inside of her are just demons. As I learned more about dissociative identity disorder, however, I continued to share what I was learning, and she had continued to dismiss them. Now, with more time, good internet access, as well as more data points from Kristin, I took another look at dissociative identity disorder, asked her to reconsider its possibility, and presented some of the potential evidences from her:
1. Having baby alters could explain why she arrived in southeast Asia the first time holding a baby blanket.
2. She told the youth pastor that all demons had been cast out of her, and then told me less than 24 hours later that she still had demons; that would make sense if all of the demons had been cast out from one of her alters but not from her other alters.
3. A baby alter had curled up into fetal position, licked the ground, flailed around like a baby and made baby gibberish sounds in front of the Pentecostal church.
4. An alter had smeared toothpaste down her arm and walked into traffic when she was with the young American pastor in Korea.
5. A child alter had decorated the living room of our apartment in China with pages from a children's coloring book.
6. An older alter who doesn't like me was popping up occasionally to say horrible things to me out of the blue and then pop back down; the alter who is up when I return after a long walk can't answer my question about why she had said what she had said because she isn't the one who had said it and doesn't know what the other alter had said to me.
She again dismissed dissociative identity disorder and repeated that she was just dealing with demons.