Readings on Multiplicity

I am a reader. When I first started dealing with my multiplicity I searched for any book I could find on the subject. I hunted through the libraries, arranged for interloans from other libraries, I saved my money and ordered in books, and I searched the Internet for reading material. I wanted to learn all I could about multiplicity, I wanted to read people's stories, to understand what was happening. Living in a small city in a country far away from most others my options were limited. The Internet was a blessing but also added to the frustration when I found sites selling books but no money to buy them. I craved knowledge, understanding and to know I wasn't alone. And my hope was through books I would find all those things.

But if I were looking to find ourselves in these writings I was disappointed. What I found were storied of pathetic souls, unable to function, that were "tortured by voices in their heads". As an abuse survivor I read with horror, wondering if that was the life I could expect. If I was somehow doomed to live that way, unable to function, unable to live without trying to destroy myself. It also played into my own sense of denial, how could any of what I knew about my life be real if I wasn't this incapacitated. Why was I am to perform well at school, maintain reasonable relationships? What I saw in those countless books were people living with the curse of MPD and unable to recover from the tragedy of their pasts. If I was looking for inspiration all I found was despair, I saw nothing of myself in those pages. These people were foreign to me and I only felt more alone.

I also turned to books written by people calling themselves specialists and professionals. Text books for therapists, informational books for both multiples and the general public. The patterns I saw in personal stories travelled over to these books and were amplified. Stereotypes written as absolutes and the only possibility. People spoken about as caricatures and roles. It angered me to see people without first hand experience of multiplicity setting out such rules for how a multiple works and functions. The tolerance and acceptance I developed for the stories of other multiples wasn't transferred to these professionals. For the multiples their experiences were their own, and as much as I couldn't relate to them, and even though many annoyed me immensely it wasn't my right to judge their reality. However when it came to people that spoke with the voice of authority on a subject they had only studied or worked with, I was unable to give them any respect of tolerance. I wondered who had given them this authority to speak on my reality and the reality of countless multiples. It is their absoluteness, their inability to accept or acknowledge any multiple that steps out of their preconceived ideas of multiplicity that angers me to most. Statements like all multiples have a host, or all systems can be mapped in the following way, show an arrogance and really points to their limited knowledge.

Over the years there have only been a few books that have had a positive impact on my life. These books have helped me feel less alone, less crazy. Some have given me inspiration and encouragement to find my own truth, others have held little gems amongst the irrelevant matter that have helped us grow. These books remain special to me, and I am thankful for them.

When I first read "When Rabbit Howls" it terrified me. It was read during a time of great denial and self doubt. I couldn't accept we were multiple, it felt too self important, too attention seeking for me to do so. I clung to the belief I was just making it all up. I found one morning, a copy of this book on the bookshelf, someone had brought it, and since there seemed nothing else worth reading I started it. It wasn't long into this book I found myself in a panic, there seemed so many connections, so much I understood. I have had friends read this book and say it was too confusing, too hard to get their head around, and yet for me there was no confusion. But it challenged my denial, when you see aspects of yourself so clear on the page it is hard not to acknowledge that. So I was unable to continue reading. I put it down and refused to read it for many years.

When I finally got to a point in my life where there was more acceptance, of my multiplicity and myself I returned to this book. It's pages are now discoloured and it looks worn, for it is a book many of us have read, and one of the few we have kept. I believe the reason we all find this book of value is it talks of many real aspects of multiplicity. The story shows the life both in the Earthen World and in the Troops other world. Although, to my memory little is said about what the other world is like, there are descriptions of the movement from one place to the other, and you get to overhear the conversations held there. Many books on multiplicity focus on recovery or the life they lead in this world. There are few that talk openly about the actual multiple experience. This book does perpetuate many stereotypes about multiples, and is probably responsible for the supernatural, psychic one, but aside from that it remains one of the few stories of multiples I have time for. Perhaps because it was one of the first written by the multiple themselves.

"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" was one of the books I have read that spoke to me, that allowed me to accept myself more. It was long before I spoke of my own multiplicity that I first read it. In the pages she showed another world, a place for the main character, as real as the Earthen one, and for me that resonated. But in the first reading it also brought fear, because it seemed to say that this world was part of a severe illness and the character was hospitalised for it. I feared that my world also made me crazy and thus the secrecy grew tighter. When this book is discussed within the multiple community there always seems such debate over whether she was an undiagnosed multiple. I do not think so myself, I do not know what made her have this other place, but to me there seems no sign of multiplicity in the story. Rather a young girl that finds her way to another place. But when no book on multiplicity talks about other worlds it is interesting and validating to see someone's other world discussed and investigated.

Although reading it later as an adult more comfortable with her own multiplicity and her world, I find some aspects of this book depressing. Her world seems to deteriorate, become a punishment to her. In doing so it seems to show that it is only a creation of her mind and when her sickness takes over it taints her world and thus it gets turned against her. Therefore the reader gets the impression that other places are delusions of the mind, created out of sickness and little more than metaphors of the mental health of the person. Like all books I have learnt to take what I need from them and set aside those parts that irritate me. With this one I still enjoy it for the experience of someone with a structured world, a world with culture, mythology and history. It allowed me to recognise my own and now offers a sense of acceptance.

I brought "MPD from the Inside Out" at a time of great isolation. It was before I could afford a computer, before the Internet or ever talking to another multiple. I felt alone, and crazy, as if cast out into a world I knew nothing about. It was this book that first gave me a taste of the multiple community of people that I never knew existed. I found myself understanding people, and having people understand me. It was a relief and a lifeline at a time of a lot of confusion and pain. Now looking at it I see there is a lot of MPD as a disorder about it, a lot of fluffiness and despair. But it still shows me that I am not alone, that I am similar to others as well as different. And as the people's writings show their differences from each other I am able to more accept my own differences. I am beginning to learn, and this book has been helpful for that, that I do not have to be identical to every multiple to be accepted as one.

The last book I wish to mention is "Safe Passages to Healing". This book has been invaluable in our healing from ritual abuse. But it has also helped us develop a better understanding of ourselves and create more of a community out of the disruptive untrusting sects we started with. It has a fluffy, disordered flavour to it, but when you take the time to see beyond that there is also a lot of value. It was this book, and the Team Spirit Journals from which I built my knowledge of how we as a community work. They both gave us starting points to investigate and develop from. We might not operate exactly how they speak in their articles but we were able to look within ourselves and find what fitted and discard what didn't. For that they were invaluable to us in learning who we were and how we operated.

I no longer read many multiplicity books, partly because I have run out of options in obtaining them. I have read everything I can get my hands on for free and do not have the resources to purchase new ones. But also because I have gained all I think I will from these types of books. I now look to other sources to develop my understandings and knowledge. Books that challenge me, that help me look inwards to who I am, that open my mind to other experiences and ideas. It is my belief that books should expand the reader, and I have discovered that reading of multiplicity, at least in book form only confines the reader to a small box, offering little but set forms and ideas. And for me there is no longer purpose in such readings.