Autumn Asphodel

[gib]

Meet Autumn...



No, here name is not really Autumn. She doesn't reveal her real name. Autumn Asphodel is one of 5 alter egos who occupy the same body. She only refers to her "real" self as the "host". She's also not really a "she", at least she wasn't always a "she". She was born a he and at the age of 22, underwent surgery to become a she. You can watch the video here:



Now, I'm not sure where I want to go with this thread. This girl fascinates me, not just for how intriguing a case of DID she is, but also because of my fixation on demonology and how this could clearly pass as a case of demonic possession (but I'll get to that later).

I suppose there's also this: the splitting of her psyche into 5 personalities reminds me of a similar phase I went through as a teenager in which I identified 5 personalities within me. Those personalities within me were:

* The Intellectual
* The Artist
* The Angel
* The Demon
* The Hopeless Romantic

I wouldn't say I was ever a case of DID--I always thought of myself as one person--but I did see these 5 sides of myself as, I guess, *potential* personalities that could split up into dissociated beings. I always thought that it was the intellectual who held them all together. It was just in virtue of the intellectual's awareness of the other four that I remained integrated, and that if it wasn't for that, I may very well have had DID. Looking back on this now, however, I'm pretty sure I was making a lot of shit up, but that is what I thought at the time.

As for Autumn, her Big 5 are:

* Autumn Asphodel (protector #1)
* Iris (protector #2)
* The Host (her core)
* Sexual Alter
* Unknown

She says that she's mainly a composite of Autumn, Iris, and the Host, and that the Sexual Alter is typically repressed (though she's recently acknowledged her presence) and there is this fifth "unknown" persona among them.

In the first video above, she allows each one in turn to express itself to the camera and say a few words. She says this isn't typical, that usually it's Autumn, Iris, and the Host kind of sharing control, but that for the sake of this video, she is allowing each one to speak on their own behalf while holding the others temporarily at bay.

Iris seems the most angelic, the most at peace, and the most confident, able to brush off abuse and ignore it. Autumn is second in line, a lot darker than Iris but only because she's the fighter, being able to take abuse because she can laugh at it. The Host, on the other hand, is the hurt, frightened, and radically mistrusting one whom the protectors are defending against abuse. Everything is a threat to the Host, and she appears extremely vulnerable and terrified when forced to speak on her own behalf without the protectors as shields. She also looks the most exhausted. She wears no makeup except fake eyebrows (most likely she has to because she shaves her eyebrows). The Sexual Alter, from what I gather, is a relatively new addition to the gang and presents herself as a seducer. Autumn (her public facing self) says that she used to think she was asexual but recently came to grips with the fact that she has a sexual side, and I'm lead to presume that's what the Sexual Alter is, but I get the impression that the Sexual Alter is not a "sexually active" persona but one who uses sex, or sex appeal, to manipulate and gain control over others, especially men. And then there's the "unknown" personality who does nothing but cut the Host down for being fake; she denies the reality of her disorder, and even struggles with whether to refer to the host as 'I' or 'she'.

Now, for me, there's a question of whether this is real or all just an act. The three main personalities seem pretty authentic--Iris, Autumn, and the Host--Iris seems pretty confident and relatively fluent in her speech whereas the Host seems to totally lack confidence and stutters quite a bit. But then when it comes time for the Sexual Alter to speak, she seems incredibly fake--like she's trying too hard. She even stutters over the word "seduce". I'm not sure how it works with DID. I'm sure it's all acting, just without the conscious awareness of the fact that it's acting. And she says she doesn't typically let the Sexual Alter out to play--she even says she keeps getting repressed--and so she's probably not used to acting as the Sexual Alter. But even if this is unconscious acting, the question I'm asking is: is this a youtube publicity stunt? Does she even have DID or does she just pretend to because she's a youtube attention whore? This seems to be what the "unknown" personality wants us to believe, calling her "fake" over and over again, but then why reveal that at all? Perhaps to make it even more melodramatic and controversial, and thereby gain more attention? A game she's playing with her audience? Or is it just a side to her that doubts herself? Even if this were all just an act, it's still pretty fucked up. And that doesn't really say anything about her sexual surgery, whether it was real or not. Either way, I think this girl does suffer from some form of mental disorder.

Then there's the question of whether this is a mental disorder or spiritual possession. If we go with the latter, I would diagnose the "unknown" personality as the original spirit, a demon, who remains unknown because, well, demons don't usually want to reveal their identity. They prefer to remain in the unconscious and torment or influence the host from there. Demons rarely all out take control of their host's body, which is the usual picture of demonic possession we have in our culture (think The Exorcist). Typically, possession just means to be owned (to possess something), which puts the host under the spirit's control but not always in the stereotypic sense of controlling their bodies and speaking through them. However, I think it's fair to say that spiritual possession does mean that the spirit takes residence in the host's mind or body. Sometimes it allows for the host's autonomy, but other times not, often just influencing the host in some way. The intention isn't always the same either. Most demons simply want a refuge from hell, but there are those who wish to torment and destroy the Host's soul, damning them if they can. So my guess would be that the "unknown" was the original demon who tormented the Host until it convinced her to get the surgery, and at some point thereafter (probably around the time the Host admitted that she was a sexual being) it relinquished, either freely or through coersion, the Sexual Alter--that is, her sexuality--as my guess is that this was the part of her taken hostage by the demon up until then. Yet ownership of the Sexual Alter doesn't seem to have been given back to the Host--it still seems to belong to the demon. By "relinquished," therefore, I only mean was forced to reveal to the Host's consciousness, but I don't think that means the tether was severed. Iris and Autumn are benevolent spirits, I would surmise, and possess her in order to protect her, as much as they can, from the demon. I'm not sure how long they've been with the Host.

^ That's if we give full credit to the utmost spiritual interpretation.

But then, in Meet the Alters (Part 2), she confesses that the "unknown" was really an internalization of all the criticisms she was getting online--a lot of people accusing her of being fake--so relegated all those criticism to a new alter--the newness and the uncertainty of the source must have been why it was "unknown".



At the same time, however, in this very video, a "new" alter introduces itself--the "Controller"--and this one seems just as dark and demonic as the "unknown"--almost as if to replace it. It's as if she exorcized her own demon by demythologizing it but then it returns in a different guise. So I'm not sure whether this is literally a demon or not (I take these things with a grain of salt) but there is definitely a dark sinister force working within her, something that wants to utterly destroy her. At the same time, this seems so staged--as if it was planned all along--adding a bit of extra drama to please her youtube fans.

Now, in the course of writing this, I realize there's a bit more to my own Big 5 personalities than what I explained, a bit more which brings me closer to DID than I at first realized--still far from being a case of DID, but it starts to get eerie. Check it out: Although today I consider myself an integrated individual, it's questionable when it comes to the demon. At the time, when I considered myself a composite of the 5 personalities: intellectual, angel, demon, artist, hopeless romantic, I had not yet experimented with drugs. When I did, the demon took on a life of his own. I started getting delusions that the demon was literally a demon that grew from within--from just a "side" to my personality to an actual demon occupying this body with me (drugs will do this to you). The other personalities kind of disolved and melded back into one (there were a few other "characters" who came and left over time, but they were minor and shorted lived), but the demon remained a separate being:

http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=177120&start=25#p2433432

This delusion was drug induced, like I said, and I kind of turned it on and off as I came in and out of my drug induced stupers. For a good long while, I was confused--Were demons real? Was I just making them up? I got over my confusion a long time ago, coming to grips with what I think is real and what I think is unreal (today, this question is more a matter of choice than an answer to be sought out), but the demon has never really become fully integrated back into me.

In fact, he has a name: Guessius. If I recall, this comes from "Guess"--as in: "Guess who!"

Every once in a while, I remind myself that Guessius is a psychoanalytic symbol of myself (lately, of the drug use), but I've never been able to shake the sense that he is "with" me, that this is not just something I'm inventing in my fertile imagination (though, formally speaking, I know that I am).

Yet I wouldn't go so far as to say this is an instance of dissociative personality disorder. I've never "become" Guessius--he has only ever been "with" me, never possessed me. For the most part, he just wants a sanctuary away from hell, and I allow him a spot in my mind in which to stay. Our contract stipulates that I own my own soul, that I am always in full control over my mind and my body, and that he is subserviant to me. It has worked quite well as he only wants peace. So there's never been the impulse for him to "take over". He accepts his status as just a figment of my imagination. If this weren't the case, then I *might* have a case of dissociative personality disorder. But who knows.

In any case, all this leaves me with two questions: 1) What is DID? And 2) How does DID relate, if at all, to spiritual possession?

I'm not so sure there's a difference, but that's clearly debatable.

To start with the first question: I think most of us have a basic, and probably oversimplified, understanding of what DID is. It a mental disorder whereby an individual's consciousness or mind is split into two or more personalities--often without their being fully conscious of one another or one another's activities. People with DID often report that they "black out" when an alter takes over and fail to recall any memories of what went on in the interim. This is traditionally explained psychoanalytically--that is, as the result of psychological defense mechanisms invoked, typically, to deal with trauma--the subject "pretends" to be someone else, or "makes believe," in such a way that they are not conscious of the fact that they are doing so, the consequence being that they are better able to deal with some trauma or hardship (for example, the Host becoming Autumn in order to handle abuse).

In Autumn's case, however, she expresses full awareness of all 5 personalities (though the Controller in part 2 seems to have showed up unexpectedly), and in fact says that denial of their coexistence is bad and that it helps her condition to acknowledge their presence (she mentions being in therapy in one of her videos, and I'm guessing she is being guided by her therapist to recognize and resist denial). Therefore, Autumn is an atypical case (she even says that about herself).

This, coupled with the accusations of being fake, I'll bet culminated in the "Unknown" persona. The Uknown was right in a sense. If DID is just acting like a different person without knowing it, then it is fake in the sense that it is really her pretending to be multiple personalities taking turns controlling one body. However, this is not the same as a publicity stunt. It still qualifies as DID. So in that respect, she is not faking. She really does suffer from DID. If DID is really pretending, but by way of really powerfully defense mechanisms, defense mechanisms so powerful that the alternate personalities don't always remember or even know about the others, then playing such a game with one's self can seriously disrupt one's life and cause one to lose control.

Now if there is a spiritual tinge to DID--particularly, if it counts as spiritual possession--then what does this tell us about spiritual possession. To me, it says that spirits, if they want to find residence in a person's soul, must do so through an inner "personality" that the host invents or recognizes. It's like the host saying: here, you can have this piece--it's separable from the rest of me. The host, therefore, must at the very least recognize different "sides" of his or her personality. This is something we all do to one degree or another (my Big 5 being a case in point). It is a bit more rare, however, that a person will feel comfortable slipping into the rolls of the different personalities under different situations. I would think this is also required for a spirit to take over one of those personalities. But assuming the stage is set in this way, a spirit can enter into one's mind and fit itself into one of those personalities and essentially become that personality (like fitting a hand into a puppet). Ideally, this is done unconsciously such that even if the host is aware of his or her alters, he or she remains unaware that it has actually been taken over by a foreign spirit.

This also means that even if one is able to identify a particular alter as an alien spirit, that doesn't mean the alter's personality is that of the possessing spirit. The spirit that calls itself the Sexual Alter, for example, may have nothing remotely like sexual seduction on its mind, but plays the part of a seductress anyway because that's the personality it was dealt.

This is why I question how one can distinguish between pure cases of DID and cases of spiritual possession. How would one distinguish? It's almost as if the condition of DID was invented just because psychiatrists wanted to rule out any possibility of spiritual possession, so they just invented a different interpretation, a psychological secular interpretation, but without a means to meaningfully tell the difference.

^ What do you think, dear readers, of DID, spiritual possession, and the difference between the two?

[surreptitious75]

I do not think demons exist and so therefore multiple personality disorder is the most rational explanation
The most rational explanation in your case is bad acid that has got nothing whatsoever to do with demons

Can someone with multiple personality disorder make them appear at will as she apparently can
Is it not true that personalities only appear when they want to not when the host wants them to

[James S Saint]

It's all a little simpler than that.

Schizophrenia
First realize that "spirit" merely refers to a behavior as if it was an autonomous being. "Demon" is similar but a specific kind of behavior, specifically the kind that causes division of the whole, "de-mon", "anti-one". And each more modern nomenclature for such behavior refers to a strong shifting of behavior with mere nuance differences between the classifications.

Thus, once you get the concepts straight, anyone with multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or dissociative identity disorder (DID), by definition is possessed by "a demon spirit", a behavior that divides the whole.

And the reason they blackout and often have hallucinations and delusions is simply because of the manner in which the brain stores memories. It is much like application programs in a computer with each application being a different "personality". Each application has a portion of computer memory associated with it that is separated from the other applications. As one app is running, the other apps temporarily "blackout" and have no memory of what the computer was doing. Each personality type or bent associates memory through different vectors that seldom cross paths and thus have no association with each other and thus do not trigger recall of each other.

The consciousness of each personality application can only access memories that have an association with itself, literally stored in slightly different locations in the brain. Memories function through associative vectors wherein each thought has to have some acknowledged association between the trigger thought and the memory. Thoughts from one conscious personality, even though generally the same thought as another personality, carry the subtle attitudes and emotional connections with it. Those more subtle associations with each thought have a great deal to do with memory vector associations (because memory is greatly concerned with threat and hope assessment, PHT).

Due to those subtle attitudes being different for each conscious state, the memory vectors are different even though the conscious thought would seem to be the same thought. Differing personalities are merely differing modes of operation. The tendency to shift from one to another mode of operation is the behavior once called "demon possessed".

That sensitivity and willingness to shift operating modes (personalities) is usually medically instigated, not really inherited (despite what they say). It is a sign of social manipulation and corruption. And because it is a disturbance of the memory system's association mechanism, misdirected memory vectors often bring up alternate mode memories that should have been isolated from the concurrent consciousness. This is much like when one daydreams and later loses certainty as to whether he dreamt a particular event or actually experienced it. Sometimes such can happen immediately and lead to hallucinations (wakeful dreaming) and delusions (mis-associated attributes).

It is all merely a breaking down of the memory association mechanism, invariably due to medical contamination (usually acquired during infancy, although drug use can retrain the brain into the scrambled condition). Being "demon possessed" is a physiological condition that can often be handled psychologically because the mind affects the brain just as the brain affects the mind.

[James S Saint]

I might add that all of this is also closely associated with the current plague of autism, ADD, and ADHD. In those cases, the working memory mechanism is very easily disrupted through practiced distractions, switching of attention, such that concentration and stable memory is difficult to achieve. Daydreaming and adopting slightly new personalities is common as a drifting of the operating mode toward imagined self images.

The direction of the drifting is strongly affected by sensed levels of confidence or insecurity. Such drifting can be easily the result of any variety of inner physical or emotional discomforts due to anything as simple as diet or as remote as conversations of doom and gloom or by feelings of social guilt, rejection, or approval. Many current ILP members are experiencing that condition.

It might be of interest that being working-memory sensitive or unstable and thus having attention problems can be used to help treat the more serious schizoid conditions. The ability for the mind to be persuaded by fantasy imaginings provides for influence to be had from consciously led efforts. Merely by concentrating on allowing oneself to imagine themselves as a more secure type of person (although more details are required), they can instill a longer term stability of behavior, thus "exorcising the demon", just as more ancient Catholic priests were doing.

The mind can often fix the mind, even though the break was medically instigated. But at times, additional medication is still at least temporarily required. The larger social problem is that such injuries are far easier to create than to remedy, entropy is easier than anti-entropy. It is easier to spill milk into the carpet than to entirely clean it up.

[Meno_]

James, can You account for the difficulty in coming to terms with a lot of differential diagnosis, especially the ones having a continuum based assessment between autism on one end and schizotypal personality at the other end, on the same axis.


What does that say for prominent figures having that latter diagnosis, and having presumrd to work to their benifit, rather then to their detriment?

So, the question remains , whether, Society is playing a game on them, or,vice versa.

[James S Saint]

James, can You account for the difficulty in coming to terms with a lot of differential diagnosis, especially the ones having a continuum based assessment between autism on one end and schizotypal personality at the other end, on the same axis.

That's pretty easy: They are idiots.

Of course, I don't really mean truly technical "idiots", but most certainly on the whole, the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and the new armies of postmodern young Obama-physicians and business minded MDs are filled to the brim with people who have nearly zero analytical diagnostic skills. They are, as most public institutes of today, programmed to believe themselves to be members of a superior elite intelligencia, not at all unlike the Hitler youth of 1940 Germany. They are too proud to give credence to the idea that they might be wrong about anything or that they might need to examine more carefully or deeply. They are drones for the cause. They demonstrate this daily by their use of such vague category distinctions as those to which you refer. Ask ten of them any question involving analytical thinking and you will probably get ten different answers. And they don't even notice what might be wrong with that.

They will even tell you that they can't actually fix anything, only treat the condition (which inexplicably never really improves). Yet the best of such that I ever knew charged $400 an hour .. just to listen.

So, the question remains , whether, Society is playing a game on them, or,vice versa.

Society is never "playing the game". People play the games. Society is the muddied playing field within which you are but a blade of trampled grass.

[gib]

Syrup,

I do not think demons exist and so therefore multiple personality disorder is the most rational explanation
The most rational explanation in your case is bad acid that has got nothing whatsoever to do with demons

Though I appreciate where you're coming from, the question of whether spiritual possession is real or not (and in what way is it real) has, for me, never been as black and white as this. I don't know what counts as the "most rational explanation." I'm sure a scientific minded person would agree with you. I'm sure a deeply religious person would disagree. Typically, I find that when pressed to explain what counts as a "rational" explanation, most people reveal something along the lines of: it makes the most sense to me, or: it leaves the least number of questions lingering. <-- But even there, it's a whole can of worms to decide why more questions would arise from one explanation rather than another, and how do you enumerate the number of questions that arise, and are there really more questions that arise or simply the questions that arise draw more attention or seem more important to answer. I think the last thing "rationality" means in this case is: when the rules of formal logic are applied, this is the conclusion we arrive at.

But in any case, I know I'm drawn to spiritual explanations for things a lot more than the average person. This is partly because spirituality fascinates me, but also because of my anti-epistemicism--that is, my heightened skepticism over so-called knowledge--and this is not just a consequence of how limited I think human beings are in their ability to know things, but of how politically motivated people are in disseminating information. People lie. They deceive. Even in expounding scientific reports and teaching children in our schools. The process by which religious institutions indoctrinate children so that they become believers is the same process by which scientific institutions indoctrinate children so that they become believers. Formally speaking, unless I was actually there to see it myself, I don't say that I know this or that scientific fact, I say I'm told this or that scientific fact, or that I read this or that scientific fact. So setting the epistemic bar so high, and not knowing the true nature of the universe and spiritual reality, I'm inclined to place different interpretations of things (like cases of DID) on relatively equal footing.

Can someone with multiple personality disorder make them appear at will as she apparently can
Is it not true that personalities only appear when they want to not when the host wants them to

I have no idea how DID works. Again, it's probably not as black and white as this. I know Autumn calls herself an atypical case of DID primarily because she doesn't deny the existence of her alters, and when push comes to shove, admits they are all her (and I think this is probably in large part a result of therapy). From what I can tell, DID is acting, but it's acting on an unconscious level using defense mechanisms that can result in loss of memory and "black outs," leaving the subject on a conscious level to not know what the hell's going on. But as such, this means that the host can call upon the alters at will if she believes she can--that is, if this is all play acting, then all she has to do is play act that she can call upon them at will.

James,

It's all a little simpler than that.

Schizophrenia
First realize that "spirit" merely refers to a behavior as if it was an autonomous being. "Demon" is similar but a specific kind of behavior, specifically the kind that causes division of the whole, "de-mon", "anti-one". And each more modern nomenclature for such behavior refers to a strong shifting of behavior with mere nuance differences between the classifications.

Thus, once you get the concepts straight, anyone with multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or dissociative identity disorder (DID), by definition is possessed by "a demon spirit", a behavior that divides the whole.

Interesting concept, James, but I don't know if this is the concept of a demon, just a concept. The layman's concept, and that of deeply religious people following traditional Western theology, is that of a literal incorporeal spirit who invades a person's body and takes control of it, essentially overriding the host's control. This *may* be a misconception of the original concept, but if it is, the original concept is lost to history and this is what the modern concept has come to mean.

And the reason they blackout and often have hallucinations and delusions is simply because of the manner in which the brain stores memories. It is much like application programs in a computer with each application being a different "personality". Each application has a portion of computer memory associated with it that is separated from the other applications. As one app is running, the other apps temporarily "blackout" and have no memory of what the computer was doing. Each personality type or bent associates memory through different vectors that seldom cross paths and thus have no association with each other and thus do not trigger recall of each other.

You're right about computers (although they don't always work this way), but I'm not sure this is how it works in the brain (have you studied this?). But on an abstract level, I agree that it works this way. Each personality has its own set of memories that it keep separate from the others. If personality A sensed, during a pre-conscious stage, that memories from personality B are coming to consciousness, then she will block those memories out. Since DID is just play acting on an unconscious level, she would have to know, on an unconscious level, that those memories are associated with personality B, and therefore would know to block them out (as opposed to letting them in an wondering where the hell they came from). <-- If this is the case, I would surmise that the organizational structure of the memories is driven more by associations (i.e. which personality it is associated with) rather than where in the brain they are stored. Metaphorically, you might think of the personalities as colors. Personality A might be red. Personality B might be blue. If the subject is currently acting out the red persona, and she senses a blue memory coming in, it's the blue that signals to here to repress it. In the brain, you can imagine the red and blue memories being scattered all about, or strewn amongst each other (such that if you were to look at it from a distance, you'd see a blotch of purple in the brain). So it's more a property of the memory, its associations, rather than where it is in the brain.

The consciousness of each personality application can only access memories that have an association with itself, literally stored in slightly different locations in the brain. <-- Literally? Memories function through associative vectors wherein each thought has to have some acknowledged association between the trigger thought and the memory. Thoughts from one conscious personality, even though generally the same thought as another personality, carry the subtle attitudes and emotional connections with it. Those more subtle associations with each thought have a great deal to do with memory vector associations (because memory is greatly concerned with threat and hope assessment, PHT).

I agree with this. Memory associations are not just records of things that happened, of experiences from the past, but emotions and attitudes and such as well. The latter come from things that happened and experiences from the past, which almost always come with some kind of emotional tinge, leading to attitude formations, but the actual event or experience need not always be stored in memory, or come to consciousness from some kind of trigger, whereas the attitudes and emotions associated with the memory more often do come to consciousness. It's the latter which really define, or at least heavily taint, the personality who, in the past, experienced those events.

Due to those subtle attitudes being different for each conscious state, the memory vectors are different even though the conscious thought would seem to be the same thought. Differing personalities are merely differing modes of operation. The tendency to shift from one to another mode of operation is the behavior once called "demon possessed".

Mm-hm.

That sensitivity and willingness to shift operating modes (personalities) is usually medically instigated, not really inherited (despite what they say). Well, I'm sure genetics has something to do with it. You don't think there are certain brains which are naturally more prone to DID than others? It is a sign of social manipulation and corruption. And because it is a disturbance of the memory system's association mechanism, misdirected memory vectors often bring up alternate mode memories that should have been isolated from the concurrent consciousness. This is much like when one daydreams and later loses certainty as to whether he dreamt a particular event or actually experienced it. Sometimes such can happen immediately and lead to hallucinations (wakeful dreaming) and delusions (mis-associated attributes).

Well, if we go with the play acting theory of DID, this is a good analogy.

It is all merely a breaking down of the memory association mechanism, invariably due to medical contamination (usually acquired during infancy, although drug use can retrain the brain into the scrambled condition). Being "demon possessed" is a physiological condition that can often be handled psychologically because the mind affects the brain just as the brain affects the mind.

These medications which result in DID, were they around in mideival Europe when demon possession was thought to be commonplace?

I might add that all of this is also closely associated with the current plague of autism, ADD, and ADHD. In those cases, the working memory mechanism is very easily disrupted through practiced distractions, switching of attention, such that concentration and stable memory is difficult to achieve. Daydreaming and adopting slightly new personalities is common as a drifting of the operating mode toward imagined self images.

But not dissociation... or is there dissociation with these disorders? If not, in what way does the mechanism for storing memories change with cases of autism and AD(H)D? Being distracted or failing to pay attention, in the case of AD(H)D, would result in certain inputs not being remembered at all (for example, what the teacher is saying to the class). Or are you saying it is always remembered, just that if the subject is not paying attention, they will be remembered in a different spot in memory (dissociated) and the subject will find it hard to recall those memories since being distracted or not paying attention results in no associations being formed to those memories?

The direction of the drifting is strongly affected by sensed levels of confidence or insecurity. Such drifting can be easily the result of any variety of inner physical or emotional discomforts due to anything as simple as diet or as remote as conversations of doom and gloom or by feelings of social guilt, rejection, or approval. Many current ILP members are experiencing that condition.

You know this from personal experience or you just done a lot of heavy studying?

It might be of interest that being working-memory sensitive or unstable and thus having attention problems can be used to help treat the more serious schizoid conditions. Huh? So becoming AD(H)D can be a treatment for schizoid conditions? The ability for the mind to be persuaded by fantasy imaginings provides for influence to be had from consciously led efforts. Merely by concentrating on allowing oneself to imagine themselves as a more secure type of person (although more details are required), they can instill a longer term stability of behavior, thus "exorcising the demon", just as more ancient Catholic priests were doing.

That sounds like saying: if a dark "evil" personality comes off as a possessing demon, then exorcism can be achieved by nurturing a more light, benevolent, confident personality in one's self. One simply has to concentrate on acting out that personality and sticking with it. <-- Is that what you mean?

In Autumn's case, those would be the protectors I suppose.

The mind can often fix the mind, even though the break was medically instigated. But at times, additional medication is still at least temporarily required. The larger social problem is that such injuries are far easier to create than to remedy, entropy is easier than anti-entropy. It is easier to spill milk into the carpet than to entirely clean it up.

Yes, I agree with that. It's much easier to crack an egg than to mend one.

On the note about medication causing disorders, what would you say about my own case? I have ADD (or something close to that). In grade 3, I was put on ritalin. It seemed to work in terms of helping me focus in school and improve my grades, and not only while I was on it, but after they took me off (it was like I learned how to focus, at least in school). Now, it was obvious to everyone that I had something like ADD before they put me on medication (so obviously, the medication didn't cause it) and after putting me on medication, the problem, at least insofar as my ability to focus in school and get good grades, went away, and seemed to stay away even after the medication was lifted. <-- What do you say about that?

[surreptitious75]

I am very sceptical of explanations for anything that are non scientific as there is no way of determining how true they might be
Ever since the Enlightenment science has been the only consistently reliable methodology for explaining observable phenomena
I am atheist so I do not consider non scientific explanations valid. I accept that science can not answer everything but that does
not mean other methodologies can. I think everything has a physical explanation for it even if some explanations are not known

[James S Saint]

My apologies gib, I forgot how terribly superficial you are. When I say "medical", I am referring to the biochemistry of the physiology, not medicinal pharmaceuticals, ie toxins, radicals, viruses, fungi, bacteria, and even sonological and radiological influences on the physiometrics.

[Meno_]

James, can You account for the difficulty in coming to terms with a lot of differential diagnosis, especially the ones having a continuum based assessment between autism on one end and schizotypal personality at the other end, on the same axis.

That's pretty easy: They are idiots.

Of course, I don't really mean truly technical "idiots", but most certainly on the whole, the fields of psychiatry, psychology, and the new armies of postmodern young Obama-physicians and business minded MDs are filled to the brim with people who have nearly zero analytical diagnostic skills. They are, as most public institutes of today, programmed to believe themselves to be members of a superior elite intelligencia, not at all unlike the Hitler youth of 1940 Germany. They are too proud to give credence to the idea that they might be wrong about anything or that they might need to examine more carefully or deeply. They are drones for the cause. They demonstrate this daily by their use of such vague category distinctions as those to which you refer. Ask ten of them any question involving analytical thinking and you will probably get ten different answers. And they don't even notice what might be wrong with that.

They will even tell you that they can't actually fix anything, only treat the condition (which inexplicably never really improves). Yet the best of such that I ever knew charged $400 an hour .. just to listen.

So, the question remains , whether, Society is playing a game on them, or,vice versa.

Society is never "playing the game". People play the games. Society is the muddied playing field within which you are but a blade of trampled grass.

Thanks for that, James

[gib]

My apologies gib, I forgot how terribly superficial you are. When I say "medical", I am referring to the biochemistry of the physiology, not medicinal pharmaceuticals, ie toxins, radicals, viruses, fungi, bacteria, and even sonological and radiological influences on the physiometrics.

Ah, so by medical, you meant the body's own natural biochemistry. My apologies. I can see how my superficial understand blinded me to your *obvious* definition that only a deep thinker would apprehend.

[James S Saint]

I said nothing about "natural".

[gib]

Oh, well aren't you a fountain of clarity. Come back to me when you're ready to stop talking in riddles.

[James S Saint]

Oh, well aren't you a fountain of clarity. Come back to me when you're ready to stop talking in riddles.

Ask another question when you are willing to paying attention to the details of what is written (not PRESUME).

[gib]

Oh, well aren't you a fountain of clarity. Come back to me when you're ready to stop talking in riddles.

Ask another question when you are willing to paying attention to the details of what is written (not PRESUME).

Okay James, I will not presume. I must ask what you mean by the things you say. Let's try it:

What do you mean by "ask"?

What do you mean by "another"?

What do you mean by "question"?

... etc, etc, etc.

^ No presumptions here. I'm done with that. I mean, I certainly can't take your meaning at face value (like I can with everyone else for some reason); you obviously have very deep and profound meanings to the things you say. When you say "apple," you might actually mean "orange"--so I'd better not presume to know what you mean. I must pause to ask before I come to you with a response.

This is starting to feel like a conversation with Magnus.

[James S Saint]

This is starting to feel like a conversation with Magnus.

I saw how you enjoyed that one.

[gib]

Meet Jessie:



^ Here we have another interesting case of DID. Once again, by amazing coincidence, we have 5 personalities. This girl has four boys dwelling within her: Ed, Jamie, Jake, and Ollie.







Ollie, for some reason, did not make an appearance in the above video. I've not watched any of Jessie's other videos, so I'm probably jumping to conclusions, but I'll bet Ollie is the traumatized one who did not want to make an appearance in the video.

Things I find fascinating about the case of Jessie:

* All boys. Why does Jessie consistently choose boys? Is it her choice? It's also fascinating that only one of them (Ollie notwithstanding) appears to be gay (Ed), which means that not only is the gender consistently opposite of Jessie's natural/original gender, but the sexual orientation is often opposite as well (though I'm really only speculating here since Jake and Jamie, even though they act straight, might in fact also be gay--which is really weird to say because you have a male oriented sexual preference dwelling inside a female body, yet this isn't considered a straight female, but a gay male living inside a female body ). I'm also curious to know how Jessie's husband feels about these boys and visa-versa. When Jessie's husband makes love to Jessie, do the boys (at least the straight ones if they are straight) black out? And even if they do, they have to know that they are technically married to a man and that he occasionally makes love to them, or at least their bodies... awkward. This also makes me wonder: assuming at least Jake and Jamie are straight boys, do they miss the opportunity to make love to a woman? To have a girlfriend?

* All different ages. We're not told in this video how old Jessie is, but Jake is 24, Ed is 26, and Jamie is 28 (all 2 years apart). Is this indicative of how long they've been a part of the host? Depending on how old Jessie is, that means they entered into her life at an extremely young age.

* Fully articulated American accent. I'm speaking of Jake here. Jake apparently is American! Or Canadian maybe (any other country speak with our accents?). Now, learning to speak with a different accent isn't that hard. It most likely was an acquired skill that evolved over time. What would really surprise me is if Jessie acquired Jake at a very young and started speaking in a perfect American accent right from the get-go. <-- This would really give the impression of being possession by a foreign spirit.

Now again, the question of spiritual possession comes up: in this case, the three alters being presented here seem rather innocuous--relatively good, or normal, spirits--and not only that but very human--that is, if we are to go with the interpretation of "spiritual possession," I'd place my bets on human souls who have departed this life and have been given the opportunity to "possess" another person's body for a while (as opposed to a non-human entity like an angel or a demon). There's also the possibility of psychic connection which I've entertained: other human beings concurrently living somewhere else on this Earth forming a psychic connection to the host and speaking through here. Now, this is all notwithstanding Ollie, the fifth personality, whom we didn't get to see. It's quite possible that Ollie is the "demonic" personality (which would explain the lack of appearance, especially given Jessie's desire to not portray DID in a bad light). And on this note, there is a readily available psychological explanation for why cases of DID so often feature a "demon" personality, thereby confounding it with cases of actual demonic possession. It's because cases of DID are usually born from trauma, and the initial split is often one whereby one personality takes on the trauma and all the horrible memories while the other gets to live relatively trauma free with their own set of memories which aren't nearly as horrible. The traumatized personality is "shut off" (i.e. repressed into the unconscious) so that the host or the person as a whole can go on living life without having to suffer or relive the trauma. This, however, means that the traumatized altered is, when expressed, going to come off as a possessing demon or at least haunted by demons--it is going to seem very dark, disturbed, very bitter and angry, spiteful, maybe full of hate, and quite possibly "evil"--and if not these, then certainly being the victim of these, thereby giving the impression of something very "demonic" in its midst.

One last thing to note about Jessie: in the intro to her video, she speaks as the host--the normal (original) person she thinks of herself as--and she decorates the video with a lot of innocent seeming, pleasant, happy themes--like something out of a medieval princess fairy tale:



I'm talking about the music and the superimposed banners and such. She sounds British from the accent, so this may be common among Brits given their long history, but it also seems to serve her purpose of trying to distance the reputation of DID away from the crazed, inner-psychopath, demonically possessed (gee, I'm helping a lot here, ain't I ), stereotypical image, and closer to something you might find in a kids fairy tale book. <-- I would expect this to come quite naturally to cases of DID.

[gib]

UPDATE:



I just watched this video and have gotten a few questions answered.

1) Jessie's husband is bisexual... 'nough said.

2) Ollie is not the demon--the reason why Ollie didn't make an appearance in the first video is because Ed and Jamie didn't want to subject their son to that kind of public exposure--that's right, Ollie is Ed's and Jamie's SON!!!--don't ask how it happened--the whole birds and bees theory flies right out the window with this one (maybe they weren't wearing contraceptives that night)--but apparently, they had a kid together and named him "Ollie".

3) Jamie is gay... or at least bisexual.

A few more interesting tid bits:

4) Jamie is a doctor.

5) Jake is a rock star.

^ This reeeally is play acting, isn't it?

But then again...

6) Jamie really does need prescription spectacles, because his eye sight gets blurry, unlike any of the other alters.

So if Ollie isn't the demon, then who is? Does there need to be a demon? I suppose not, but if cases of DID are really born out of childhood trauma, then there would have to be (I would think) at least a few personalities which are most strongly tied to the traumatic experience--and in that sense, closest to the "demon." After watching the above video, I would have to nominate Ed--he seems the most troubled and aggressive, and the one whom it has been most difficult for Jessie to get along with.

^ All this coming from the point of view of a drug crazed, demon possessed, divorced 40 year old ADD kid--no biases here!!! Total, total, total impartial objectivity! <-- Right here!

[James S Saint]

.
Since you seem to be fascinated by the new age gender bender trope industry:

The Gender Bender Trope
A character has undergone a complete physical sex change, usually through magic or applied Phlebotinum. Depending on the medium, genre, and storyline, this may be a one-time temporary change, a recurring change (causing the character to jump the gender line often), or even permanent.
.
.
Phlebotinum is the versatile substance that may be rubbed on anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Examples include but are not limited to: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, and Green Rocks.
In essence, it is plot fuel. Without it, the story would grind to an abrupt halt. It's the science that powers the FTL drive on the starship so the characters can get somewhere, it's the magic that hatches the Egg MacGuffin so the protagonist can save an endangered species, it's the strange things unknown to science or magic that do basically anything except those limits and dangers required by the plot. The reader does not know how Phlebotinum would work and the creators hope nobody cares.
.
.
First Law of Gender-Bending

"Once a girl has been created, circumstances will conspire to keep her a girl."

Not only are male-to-female Gender Benders a lot more common than their female-to-male counterparts, they are also a lot more permanent. One might think that the same Applied Phlebotinum that can change a male into a female should just as easily be able to do the opposite, but that's rarely the case
.
.
Second Law of Gender Bending

"Any character, after being gender bent, will come to enjoy their new gender more than their old gender."

A fictional character that gets his or her gender bent often becomes gradually accustomed to life as a new man or woman. Eventually they likely will experience an epiphany: that they are better off in their new gender than they ever were in their old one. This is the Second Law of Gender Bending, where a gender bent person would, if offered a chance to revert to their former gender, turn it down because they have come to enjoy the benefits of the change.
The epiphany typically takes one of two forms:

• A reluctant admission, either because they've changed too much to return to the way things were or are loath to admit the enjoyment they get from their new lifestyle.
• A jovial acceptance, where they quickly discover how much fun life is after the gender flip, and they never want to go back.

.
.
Third Law of Gender Bending

"Any gender bent character will either embrace or be subject to all of the stereotypes associated with their new gender."

Characters who change sex typically adopt—or be forced to adopt—"gender appropriate" dress and behavior. Most of the time this means dresses and makeup for a man turned woman and aggressive and macho behavior for a woman turned man. Frequently rationalized as being due to the characters having stereotypical views of gender roles, particularly when the character in question is depicted as being in need of a lesson in gender equality.

[gib]

.
Since you seem to be fascinated by the new age gender bender trope industry:

The Gender Bender Trope
A character has undergone a complete physical sex change, usually through magic or applied Phlebotinum. Depending on the medium, genre, and storyline, this may be a one-time temporary change, a recurring change (causing the character to jump the gender line often), or even permanent.
.
.
Phlebotinum is the versatile substance that may be rubbed on anything to cause an effect needed by a plot. Examples include but are not limited to: nanotechnology, magic crystal emanations, pixie dust, and Green Rocks.
In essence, it is plot fuel. Without it, the story would grind to an abrupt halt. It's the science that powers the FTL drive on the starship so the characters can get somewhere, it's the magic that hatches the Egg MacGuffin so the protagonist can save an endangered species, it's the strange things unknown to science or magic that do basically anything except those limits and dangers required by the plot. The reader does not know how Phlebotinum would work and the creators hope nobody cares.
.
.
First Law of Gender-Bending

"Once a girl has been created, circumstances will conspire to keep her a girl."

Not only are male-to-female Gender Benders a lot more common than their female-to-male counterparts, they are also a lot more permanent. One might think that the same Applied Phlebotinum that can change a male into a female should just as easily be able to do the opposite, but that's rarely the case
.
.
Second Law of Gender Bending

"Any character, after being gender bent, will come to enjoy their new gender more than their old gender."

A fictional character that gets his or her gender bent often becomes gradually accustomed to life as a new man or woman. Eventually they likely will experience an epiphany: that they are better off in their new gender than they ever were in their old one. This is the Second Law of Gender Bending, where a gender bent person would, if offered a chance to revert to their former gender, turn it down because they have come to enjoy the benefits of the change.
The epiphany typically takes one of two forms:

• A reluctant admission, either because they've changed too much to return to the way things were or are loath to admit the enjoyment they get from their new lifestyle.
• A jovial acceptance, where they quickly discover how much fun life is after the gender flip, and they never want to go back.

.
.
Third Law of Gender Bending

"Any gender bent character will either embrace or be subject to all of the stereotypes associated with their new gender."

Characters who change sex typically adopt—or be forced to adopt—"gender appropriate" dress and behavior. Most of the time this means dresses and makeup for a man turned woman and aggressive and macho behavior for a woman turned man. Frequently rationalized as being due to the characters having stereotypical views of gender roles, particularly when the character in question is depicted as being in need of a lesson in gender equality.

^ Good work, James. Did you write that?

[James S Saint]

No. That's industry standard.

[Jakob]

I think that a demon in this case or a second or third or fifth personality is a set of terms to value oneself in.

Its just a standard of self-valuing that can cohabitate in the same body as 4 others. Pretty simple nothing to worry about any more than "normal" humans - who might in many cases even be more happy if they had several personalities too.

I find it healthy to wear masks from time to time, it offers pathways into experience, which is the real identity.

If you don't find me convincing, listen to my alter-ego:

" As humans, most of our time we spend in avoiding experiences. In our seeking-out of what we aim to experience, we are shifting and sneaking along the invisible walls facing us from every direction but the one we seek to disclose - the walled off area of "the real" is however constantly accessible, these walls can be broken down with the force of intent. The lack of this intent is precisely what makes us effective as prolonged identities, which leads finally in complex beings to what we can begin to call experience.

The identity of experience is experience accepted into the being as its being. The same mechanisms that cause experience, also perform a lot of activity going on that is not 'owned' by the organism. Freud goes into this as a repressed - suggesting that the identity of this experience is already 'the name of the subject', but actively kept away from its consciousness. I would propose that we address this differently - as 'untranslated affect', affect not yet interpreted in terms of the particular self-valuing.

Psychoanalysis is not the art of retrieving experiences to consciousness, but to identify physical affect as experience. This is always done after the fact, also when there is no 'repression', or what I would call simply an insufficient power to identify in terms of self - the delicate dove-like beauty of the self to itself facing very dangerous and compromising affect, "raw" affect, which can not be specified, categorized in 'true terms' as Spinoza has it - pleasure or joy (laetitia), pain or sorrow (tristitia)and desire (cupiditas) or appetite. "

Since the belief in Ego is as hollow as belief in One God, it is only natural that people fall away from the illusion into a poly-egotism, to later on realize the plurality of being-as-such, and create new Pantheons of Pleasure.

[Meno_]

Or pain and then they are condemned to suffer another illusion and find a way to return but then whoever opens that door must go down before another turn of the great wheel.

[gib]

Since the belief in Ego is as hollow as belief in One God, it is only natural that people fall away from the illusion into a poly-egotism, to later on realize the plurality of being-as-such, and create new Pantheons of Pleasure.

It would be interesting to see just how much an artifact of modern day civilization this one ego really is... how prevalent does DID become the further back in history, and into pre-history, we go. Would a single ego have been the exception rather than the rule in pre-historic times? If so, that would explain a great deal of the spiritual/religious orientation of early man--the belief in spiritual possession.

[Jakob]

Since the belief in Ego is as hollow as belief in One God, it is only natural that people fall away from the illusion into a poly-egotism, to later on realize the plurality of being-as-such, and create new Pantheons of Pleasure.

It would be interesting to see just how much an artifact of modern day civilization this one ego really is... how prevalent does DID become the further back in history, and into pre-history, we go. Would a single ego have been the exception rather than the rule in pre-historic times? If so, that would explain a great deal of the spiritual/religious orientation of early man--the belief in spiritual possession.

Well you can see it in politics. People have been possessed by Hillary Clinton, who in turn is evidently possessed -
there is no entity, no reality, no accountability - one facet kills, the other moralizes - both in her and her supporters.

I am not being annoying. I mean this 100%. Modern Liberal Ideology is a haunted house. Hollywood is a world of demonic possessions. Actors, in general, are schizoid and lack that singular moral accountability, as we have all been able to see recently.

I think that Trump is someone who is not possessed by spirits - and an exception in politics -
beautifully, this means he gets surrounded by spirits - like Kek, et all.

I mean this dead-seriously, Gib. I am sure our civilization has come to an end, Trump is a transition figure to prevent complete dissolution of life in the process.

Facebook makes schizoid, Snapchat guarantees complete insanity, complete detachment of ego forms from the classical notions of Apollonian unity.

(Apollo is the symbol designating one-ness of ego. Dionysos, his brother, signifies the reality underneath it - when its healthy. When its not, you get this.)