The Correlation Between Multiple Personality Disorder and Child Abuse

Behind Closed Doors: The Correlation Between Multiple Personality Disorder and

Child Abuse

"Each day that we pretended, we replaced reality with lies, or dreams, or angry schemes, in search of dignity… until our lies got bigger than the truth, and we had no one real to be"

From "For Children Who Were Broken"

by Elia Wise

Have you ever wanted to be someone else? Throughout history the idea of not being just us has intrigued everyone from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. But imagine having no control over who you are. Imagine having 30 people inside of you, and every one of them wanting to be in control. This is the case with Multiple

Personality Disorder, and it effects thousands of people in the United States alone. But why does MPD fascinate us? It has often been found quite interesting. Movies, books, and even talk shows have been made trying to show the harsh reality of the disorder, but how seriously are we expected to take

Truddi Chase and the "Troops" when they are on The Oprah Show? How worried are we for Sybil when we remember Sally Field as Gidget? As grim as this disorder is we often don't realize the severity unless we hear it from "the voices."

Using the psychoanalytical approach, I will show how past abusive experiences have driven some to MPD. Citing case studies from such books as When Rabbit

Howls, The Truddi Chase Story, Sybil, and Jennifer and Herselves the correlation between MPD and abuse will be made. There are more similarities to these examples than just MPD, all were driven to MPD due to excessive physical, ual, or emotional abuse from a parental figure. Also, each of these studies show the cause and effects this disorder has on .

Most MPD sufferers are , in fact female MPD sufferers outnumber men by a ratio of nine to one (Hales, 1993). This may be true because will keep their feelings of hostility toward others to themselves, whereas men would be more likely to lash out in random acts of . For instance, Anna doesn't want to believe that she is getting beaten, so she believes if she becomes someone else, it is not really her that is taking the abuse. However, it is only a matter of time before the abuse increases or takes another form. The effect compounds, one more personality develops, and so on until "the voices" have consumed Anna and left her broken, with every facet of her personality now being an independent mind.

With statistics showing that some form of abuse happens to as many as one out of