Читать книгу Faith Born of Seduction - Jennifer L Manlowe - Страница 25

If the sexual trauma is chronic, a coping device called multiple personality disorder (MPD) may emerge. Not until the early 1980s did psychiatrists make the connection that patients with MPD almost invariably (95%) had been sexually or physically abused.⁶⁷ Multiple personality disorder has undergone rapid analysis alongside an exponential growth in known cases. Women with MPD outnumber men by at least four to one.⁶⁸

Fragmentation of the self into dissociated alters (inner characters created to carry overwhelming emotions) is the central feature of MPD. The array of personality fragments usually carries shattered aspects of the self, as in Haddock’s case. She has a compulsive cleaner named “Priscilla” and an extremely sensitive alter named “little Priscilla” who “carried my pain.” Often personality fragments include at least one “hateful” or “evil” alter, as well as one who is an impeccable performer along status quo lines.

While helping professionals should honor the survival techniques employed by each survivor—for they enabled her survival—they must be wary of crossing over into pathologizing or valorizing such symptoms (such as MPD or dissociation). These symptoms emerge as a result of the violence, and because these dissociative devices succeed, a terribly unjust distribution of the emotional burden is carried by the survivor.⁶⁹ In Melinda’s words, “[A multiple personality disorder] is a survival mechanism and has nothing to do with your creativity and intelligence.” Multiple personalities cause the survivor rather than the society or family to bear the burden of her victimization.