Читать книгу Our Collective Life - JD Kennedy - Страница 2

We are called The Collective. The Collective is the group of members (commonly called ‘alters’) that reside within the body of Jo, a 46 year old woman. Although we did not have a name for it in the childhood or early adulthood, approximately 15 -20 years ago Jo was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID).

The Collective is real. The members are real. Their thoughts, feelings and memories are all their own (although some details may have been left out for confidentiality).

Dr David ____ is our psychiatrist and has known the Collective for many years. This book is, for the most part centred on a tumultuous period in our life when, if it wasn’t for David’s support, the vast majority of us feel we would have not made it through. Due to his expertise and never ending patience, we did, indeed, come out the other side – bruised and battered perhaps, but we survived.

And so it is this therapeutic relationship of a person with DID and their primary mental health professional that the vast majority of this book is based on. However we did take some artistic liberty in regards to the therapy sessions.

Firstly, what is attributed solely to Dr David is actually more an amalgamation of a few different mental health professionals (psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers and three different psychiatrists). We have seen quite a few professionals over the years, but it was decided that to save any confusion it would be easier for the reader if we simply credited it to the one person who has worked with Jo and the Collective the vast majority of the time and has, by far, helped us the most. If we have offended you, Herr Doktor, or indeed anyone else, we apologise.

Furthermore, time and the distressing nature of the content has meant the concrete memories of therapy has somewhat eroded, especially when it comes to the recall of the teens and littles/children. Their accounts/stories could not be substantiated, which caused a great deal of concern when talking through the notion of publishing. In the end it was decided how the particular members recalled it was how it would be written without trying to analyse the content or attempting to go back and trying to confirm their stories. If this how they choose to remember their therapy sessions, then who are we to tell them they must be mistaken or their stories can’t be factual? Hopefully we do them and the process justice.

Finally, we need to acknowledge we are a work in progress and will, in all likelihood, be one for many more years. We are still in therapy with Dr David, and it is unclear how long this will be the case. Yet it was decided the book needed an ending, a sense of completion for the reader. So, as much as we would love to say the ending is 100% accurate, alas it is not. In many ways the ending is more one of wishful thinking, one that we hope will be possible in the not too distant future.

The Collective