Everything You Know About Dissociative Identity Disorder Is Wrong

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Sep 30, 2010

As many of you have been waiting for, I am honored to present the Burble’s first guest post by Holly Gray, author of Don’t Call Me Cybil. If you haven’t already done so, check out Is Multiple Personality Disorder Real, and then enjoy!

My name is Holly Gray. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. When I was diagnosed with this mental illness in 2005, all I thought I knew about DID was born of misconceptions and stereotypes. I’d never met anyone with DID. I’d never read any books or articles other than sensationalistic material that pops up in a search engine query. I couldn’t have cited an educated source for any of my supposed knowledge. A movie perhaps, a television crime drama, or a friend of a cousin’s boyfriend’s friend.

In other words, I had no legitimate knowledge of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Like any other mental illness, if your education comes from anecdotal evidence and entertainment media you’re not just uninformed, you’re misinformed.

Dimensional Diagnosis of Mental Illness

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Apr 23, 2010

There is a recognition among many of us crazies, as well as the professionals that treat us, that most of us do not simple fall into one camp – we’re bipolar with a hint of ADD; we have a borderline personality disorder with depressive and psychotic features; we suffer from schizo-affective disorder with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction mixed in. Humans are complex, and their brains even more so.

My Depression Isn’t Your Depression

And what’s more, my depression isn’t like your depression. In fact, so much so, that using the same word is almost nonsensical. I sleep 15 hours a day, but you only sleep 3. I have a successful job, but no family or friends. You have neither but participate in online support groups 10 hours a day. I think about killing myself every day but you actually plan for it once a week. You never cry but I cry all the time. Are we the same? Am I more depressed than you, or less?

And things get more complicated when you compare personality disorders and bipolar and ADD and PTSD combined with comorbid conditions like addiction. And yet somehow we’re supposed to suss this all out, find a label, and a treatment that goes with it. That’s pretty tough.

Can’t Not Talk About Shock Therapy (Electroconvulsive Therapy, ECT)

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Mar 10, 2010

I hadn’t planned on discussing my electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) experience with many people. I found it terrible, scarring, not to mention futile and immensely embarrassing; those aren’t generally feelings I like to talk about. I still find the idea of shock therapy, well, shocking. Incomprehensible. Absolutely impossible.

Write About What You Know – I Know ECT

The problem with being a writer is that you write what you know, and you’re driven to write what plagues you most. At least I am. I can’t write about fluffy bunnies and sparkling rainbows, because these aren’t the things that occupy my conscious mind. But ECT. Ironically it erased pieces of my brain only to seemingly permanently occupy others. I’m acutely aware of its happening and yet find it completely unbelievable.