281 SelfWork: A Personal Story of DID (Dissociative Identify Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality): A Conversation with Lyn Barrett

Warning: There are references made in this episode to childhood abuse and suicidal thoughts/attempts. Please listen with caution. Here are international suicide prevention hotlines and resources.

Lyn Barrett is a guest you'll never forget. She suffered from DID (which used to be called multiple personality disorder) and now manages a fully functional life, As part of her healing process with an eye to helping others with DID, Lyn Barrett wrote her own memoir. This retired teacher, school principal, and pastor was diagnosed with DID in 1992 and, after very intense therapeutic work, lives a happily integrated life. In her book, Crazy, Reclaiming Life From The Shadow of Traumatic Memory, Barrett takes us through her journey from happy wife and mother to internally living with more than ten distinctive personalities or “alters.”

Her opening quote is: “Trauma freezes the memory narrative. It is the task of survivors of early childhood trauma to thaw it out and turn it into story.” The term “dissociative disorders affect about 2% of the US population. It is a persistent mental state that is marked by feelings of being detached from reality, being outside one’s own body or experiencing memory loss (amnesia). Often misdiagnosed, DID is known predominantly to be caused by severe childhood trauma combined with a disorganized attachment style When long-term child abuse occurs before a child’s typical personality integration around age 9, the healthy state of a singular self may be disrupted. The experience of memory loss of time, people and events can result in two or more distinct and separate identities that serve as a coping mechanism to function within the abuse.

So, in this episode sponsored by BetterHelp, sit back and learn how intensive abuse can be lived through - and healed - and how your wonderful mind acts to protect you.

You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!

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