Scared Selfless

by Michelle Stevens, PhD

  Eventually, I stopped rocking. My mind returned to my body and decided to join the world again. Once I could focus, Leah explained the rules of commitment. I was on a seventy-two-hour hold, and the hospital would have to go to court if they wanted to keep me longer. In the meantime, the best thing to do was to cooperate by going to group therapy and meeting with the psychiatrist. If I wanted to go home, I should let the doctor know. She made it seem as simple as that.

  —

  AFTER ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES, Leah had to go. It was a brief encounter but very powerful. There was something healing in the way she treated me like a sane person even when I obviously was not. Unlike everyone at the hospital, and unlike Javier, Leah didn’t talk down to me or seem to judge me for the way I acted. She spoke to me like I was a normal, sensible person. She treated me with respect.

  I think we all have a tendency to fulfill the expectations of the people around us. When I was being treated like a crazy person, I acted like a crazy person. But when Leah treated me like a person who could take charge, that’s exactly what I did. Shortly after she left, a group therapy session was announced.

  Suddenly, I was gangbusters to join the milieu, and for the first time since admission, I left my room and entered the world of the psych ward.

  The hallways looked pretty much like any other hospital. They were wide and clean and bright. Doctors and patients buzzed about. There was a lot of activity at the nurses’ station. Group therapy was held in a little conference room where a bunch of folding chairs were arranged in a circle. I took my seat among the other patients. There were men, women, young, old. I was learning that mental illness doesn’t discriminate. It affects all types.

  A young woman came in right after me and sat down. I instantly recognized her face. She was my roommate, although we hadn’t yet met. I’d been too busy rocking on the floor to stop for handshakes.

  An older lady walked in and announced that she was a social worker. She said it was time for the group to begin. She asked everyone to introduce themselves and say why they were in the hospital. I shot my hand up right away, eager to go first. I was all go-getter energy now—a complete contrast to the basket case I’d been ten minutes before.

  When I look back, it’s obvious that Leah’s visit triggered a switch in my personalities. For weeks, I’d been depressed, anxious, fearful, slow. Then all of a sudden, I was Little Miss Take Charge. This is a prime example of the subtle and not-so-subtle ways DID operates.

  When a new personality took over, I didn’t do something obvious like speak in an accent or announce myself by a different name. Still, there was a dramatic change in my mood, my attitude, and the way I interacted with the world. I was, quite literally, a different personality. Unless others are specifically looking for DID, though, they probably won’t define these changes as such. Had a doctor been observing me in the hospital that day, he probably would’ve seen my mood swing as symptomatic of bipolar disorder—a common misdiagnosis for those suffering with DID.

  Unlike the frightened mess who had been wheeled in the night before, this new personality was all brazen confidence. “Hi, I’m Michelle. I was brought in here last night ’cause I tried to kill myself.”

  “Why did you do that?” the moderator asked.

  “I dunno. I guess I was depressed,” I said, with absolutely no emotion. “And my therapist wouldn’t call me back.”

  “Why are you depressed?” the lady probed.

  “’Cause I was sexually abused by my father,” I announced, as if it were a weather report.

  Across the circle, my roommate started to cry, clumsily wiping away tears with the backs of her hands.

  “Alma,” the lady said, turning to her. “Does Michelle’s story resonate for you? Would you like to share your experience?”

  “I’m here because I’m depressed too,” Alma whispered, never looking up from her lap. “I came to the hospital because I want help. My father molested me when I was little, and when I think about it, I just—” Alma started crying again.

  Even though I’d been a zombie just an hour before, in my new state of mind, Alma struck me as a sap. All that boohooing bullshit wasn’t going to get her anywhere. I was repulsed by her weakness. Depression was for sissies.

  —

  RIGHT AFTER THE SESSION, a nurse told me it was time to see my psychiatrist. This was the guy with the power to decide my fate. I was ready for a fight.

  Following the nurse down the hall, I saw a tiny man driving a scooter. He was at least one hundred years old, and as fate would have it, he was also my shrink. I followed Dr. Zippy into his office. I had to stand, as the scooter made it impossible to fit a chair in the space.

  He started reading over my chart.

  “Oh, my, it says here you tried to commit suicide last night,” he said. “Why’d you do that, dear?”

  “I was pissed at my therapist,” I said defiantly. “He wouldn’t call me back, then he stuck me in this stupid place.”

  A little smirk washed over the old man’s face, then he looked at me with a bit of amusement.

  “It seems like you’re angry,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m angry! I don’t fucking want to be here!”

  “Well, then, let’s send you home,” he said, as he scribbled in the file.

  Wait? What? After all the drama involved in being locked up, less than twenty-four hours later—with no assessment, no med consult, nothing—they were just going to let me out?

  I had to wait about an hour for Chris to return to the hospital. The minute she arrived, a nurse simply unlocked the security door and sent me on my way.

  A few weeks later, I received a hefty bill from the hospital for my brief, unwanted, and apparently unnecessary stay.

  —

  HISTORICALLY, THE END of a suicide attempt triggered a period of rebirth for me. After my first, at age fourteen, I’d shaken off depression and attacked high school like Tracy Flick in Election. After my second, at eighteen, I’d morphed from college flunkee to straight-A student. This time around, things were different. I wasn’t in school, so there were no grades to be made, no clear-cut path for how to be a winner. On the contrary, I was a loser and had been for years. I couldn’t hold down a job, couldn’t make a living, and despite countless opportunities, I couldn’t get arrested as a writer. (This might have been easier if I ever actually wrote anything!)

  Well versed in unemployment, I had a lot of free time on my hands, and what I did with that time was read. I read about depression. I read about anxiety. I read about psychological trauma and child abuse and suicide and psychotropic drugs. The point of all this reading was to help myself. I was desperate to understand why I had so many problems and why I couldn’t get over them. Living close to UCLA, I spent my days stalking its graduate library for answers—and learning a lot about psychology in the process.

  Truth be told, I’d always been interested in psychology. I was constantly in search of answers, and even in high school, self-help books were my favorite obsession. (I’m fairly certain I was the only teenager in my class clutching a copy of Gail Sheehy’s Passages!) Fascinated by the mind and the process of psychotherapy, I nearly switched majors from writing to psychology before the Writer thwarted the effort.

  Remember, in DID different identities are usually in charge of different functions. In my case, the Preppy was in charge of all things domestic, while the Writer was in charge of professional goals. Trouble is: Alters tend to remain static. As a result, the Writer never changed, never evolved, never grew up. At thirty, she was still approaching her career with the narrow mind-set of a teenager. The writing thing wasn’t working; it didn’t engender success or happiness. But the Writer didn’t know how to see new possibilities or make new plans. She was stuck at a dead end.

  Something about the suicide attempt finally shook things up. Crises have a way of doing that, of inviting change
. After I got home from the hospital, I could finally see that my dogged determination to make it as a writer was making me miserable. For my own sanity, I decided to give up writing altogether and explore other interests. It was time to figure out who the hell I was.

  —

  AROUND THIS TIME, I had my first appointment with Leah, who offered to see me after obtaining Chris’s blessing. Even though I’d been impressed after her visit to the hospital, I was nervous to begin therapy with someone new. I was so frightened during that first session, in fact, that I never spoke above a whisper and never made eye contact. Even with these impediments, Leah managed to work her magic. She spoke gently and exuded kindness, slowly putting me at ease.

  One of the things I remember about that first session is how Leah tried to help me look to the future. She asked me what I wanted to do with my life. Before I even knew what I was saying, I blurted, “I want to do what you do. I want to be a therapist.”

  I couldn’t even look at her when I said it. I mean, the idea was ludicrous! I’d just gotten out of a mental hospital after my third suicide attempt. I wasn’t built to be the doctor. I was doomed to be the patient.

  But Leah didn’t see it that way. She didn’t seem to think the idea was ridiculous at all. “The only difference between me and you is a lot of years of training,” she said.

  I didn’t believe her, of course. But I sure did appreciate the way she acted like we were equals. The dynamic wasn’t like doctor/patient but more like teacher/student or mentor/mentee (or Yoda/Anakin, considering my dark side!). Leah’s confidence in me—however unwarranted—filled me with a hope I hadn’t known in years. Unlike other therapists, she wasn’t just suggesting that I could learn to cope with mental illness or lead a satisfying life in spite of it. She was saying I could overcome my craziness so completely that I would one day be the fucking doctor! It was a revelation.

  While I was initially suspicious of Leah’s optimism, over time I came to learn that it was the result of her unique mind-set. When most therapists meet a patient like me—angry, impulsive, prone to wild mood swings, unable to function—they immediately see a personality disorder. I got labeled “borderline” or “avoidant” or “self-defeating” depending on my behaviors—which, unbeknownst to anyone, were dependent upon which of my personalities showed up for therapy.

  The trouble with such diagnoses is that they are highly subjective and highly damning. There is no blood test for borderline personality disorder (or bipolar disorder or ADHD, for that matter). Yet once a diagnosis is in a patient’s chart, she is branded for life. Forevermore, the mental health industry sees a chronic condition rather than an individual person with distinct problems and needs. As a result, patients marked with supposedly intractable disorders are often treated as if they were incapable of getting well.

  Leah wasn’t like that. She wasn’t into diagnoses or labeling or judgment of any kind. When I walked into her office, I got the feeling she saw me—not my history of mental illness. It was refreshing to be truly seen for the first time.

  As our sessions continued and I got to know Leah better, I also realized that she knew a hell of a lot about psychological trauma. Most shrinks I’d met had no knowledge of trauma and how it affects victims. It wasn’t even on their radar. That’s not surprising; most colleges don’t offer any classes on the subject, even as electives. The few therapists I’d met who had an awareness of trauma, like Javier, seemed to be introduced to the concept through their patients. Again, that’s not surprising, as a staggering percentage of mental health clients have a history of abuse or neglect in their childhoods.

  Leah knew about trauma because she was a survivor herself. She’d done the long, hard work of healing through therapy. Then she’d gone off to pursue her doctorate at USC, where John Briere, one of the foremost experts on psychological trauma, ran a clinic for victims. She’d read his work and heard him lecture and incorporated all that solid research—as well as other credible research—into her practice. Working with someone who had actual knowledge—particularly firsthand knowledge—of many of my issues proved to be a godsend.

  The first time I noticed how differently Leah approached things was just a few weeks into treatment. I was sitting on her couch, pontificating on all the reasons I’d never amount to anything in life. I explained to Leah how I was moody and impulsive, angry and controlling. I told her I couldn’t get along with people and was jumpy all the time.

  Leah listened intently as I listed off my faults. Then she smiled sweetly after I’d exhausted my last vice. “Michelle,” she said. “I understand that you’re down on yourself, and I understand that you feel you’ve got a lot of problems. But the moods, the need for control, the social problems are all effects of child abuse. They’re symptoms. They’re not you.”

  When I think back on this moment now, nearly twenty years later, I’m still overwhelmed with gratitude. All my life, I’d been told, implicitly and explicitly, that I was a horrible person because I was moody, manipulative, bossy, selfish, rude. My parents, my teachers, my therapists all condemned me for these traits. Now here was Leah telling me they weren’t traits at all; they were merely symptoms. This was a huge distinction—the difference between being born with green skin versus a bully throwing a bucket of green paint over my head. Both made me unattractive. But paint, however thick, can be scrubbed off. Green skin, on the other hand, is in the DNA. It can’t be changed; it’s permanent.

  I had always thought of myself as the Wicked Witch, but Leah’s comment gave me hope that perhaps I could change.

  This was the watershed moment when my healing finally began—a mere sixteen years, seven therapists, three suicide attempts, and one committal after my journey through the mental health system first started.

  —

  EVEN AFTER FINDING a knowledgeable, kind, and dedicated therapist, it took many more years to heal. As in the past, growth came in stages, with therapy sometimes helping me to progress in life and life sometimes pushing me to progress in therapy.

  For the first few years after the committal, I saw Leah once a week. I’d drive to her tiny office in Santa Monica, sit directly across from her, and talk about God knows what. I say “God knows what” because I genuinely don’t remember most of these early sessions. In hindsight, it’s obvious that my alters were showing up for therapy. That’s why I don’t remember anything.

  In the early stages therapy with a person who suffers from DID, alters often come out in therapy without the host’s knowledge because the personality system doesn’t feel the host is strong enough to hear what the alters have to say. Interestingly enough, I don’t think my other personalities ever showed up for any session with Javier. Unlike me, my alters were smart enough to know who could be trusted.

  Leah has since told me that during these early sessions I would routinely announce “I have to go” partway through appointments and walk out the door. I don’t remember doing this, but I have since noticed that the phrase “I have to go” is something my alters say just before they relinquish control of the body. They are announcing their departure before they jump back into my subconscious and let another personality take control.

  I know it sounds weird when I explain these things. Honestly, it felt weird at the time. I was highly dissociative during this phase of my life and often felt like I was in a hypnotic daze. While my alters were coming out more often, I still didn’t realize I had them. If Leah knew, she didn’t tell me because, unlike a lot of other therapists, she was careful not to challenge my denial system. “We should respect it,” she’d say. “It’s there for a reason.”

  This hands-off approach was the crux of Leah’s style of therapy. While other therapists wrote treatment plans or devised confrontations or directed their clients toward certain goals, Leah just listened attentively, provided genuine empathy, and occasionally offered a nugget of knowledge if she thought it was helpful. In the biz, Leah is what w
e call a “nondirective” therapist—meaning she doesn’t attempt to push or pull the client any which way. Instead, she works to create a warm, nonjudgmental atmosphere where the client feels safe to open up and explore. The content of sessions, the pace of progress, and the healing process are all up to the client. This approach presumes the client has an inner wisdom and, like a flower, has an innate capacity to grow strong if given proper conditions.

  —

  WITH LEAH’S NURTURANCE, I began to blossom. It started with a coup d’état. As mentioned earlier, the Writer—who’d always been my dominant personality—was forced to step down. In her absence, some of my more passive personalities finally got a chance to step forward and start changing my life for the better.

  If this is hard to understand, imagine multiple personalities as a group of siblings. Each has his or her own interests, goals, and needs. But just like in families, each sibling is not going to receive equal treatment. The louder, bossier, more assertive siblings tend to dominate while the quiet, passive siblings are forced to take a backseat.

  In my personality system, the Writer had always been dominant. And just like any self-centered sister, she acted like the others didn’t exist. The Writer made decisions in life with no thought to how it affected the others. If they tried to intervene, the Writer bullied them into submission. How did she do this? Mostly through trash talk.

  If the Preppy was feeling the urge to have a baby, for instance, the Writer—who had no interest in children—would call her a “lame, loser housewife.” Then the Writer would remind the Preppy that she’d make a terrible mother because she was a “weak, crazy bitch.”

  These exchanges played out daily as thoughts in my head. One personality would express a thought or plan or desire (“Oh, look at that cute baby! I think I’d like to have a baby someday.”), and another personality would tell her that what she wanted was stupid (“Why the fuck would you want a baby? All they do is tie you down.”). Kind of sounds like the dialogue in an unhappy family, doesn’t it? The kind where everyone is mean to everyone else and the bullies use abusive tactics to gain control? That’s because personality systems tend to mirror the dysfunctional families in which they grew up.