I/we have gladly agreed to do a blog post for Judy Cohen, Outreach Coordinator for the American Recall Center for “Talk about Your Medicines” Month. I don’t usually talk about medicine because the combination of medicines one might take is very unique for each individual and their various conditions of body and mind health and wellness. But, I honestly believe in transparency in making our shared worlds’ better understood with the promise of higher social and intellectual engagement.
As to a better introduction to me/us, we’re originally from Minnesota, but have lived in the Chicago area for about 34 years. We have been in a steady relationship with our boyfriend for twenty years, and we have three adult sons and soon to be four grandchildren. We have a BA in Psychology from St. Mary’s University in MN and we’ve worked toward our Masters from two online Universities in both Educational Psychology and Adult Education specializing in e-learning, technology and design. We’ve written a published book, “Ann’s Multiple World of Personality: Regular NoCream or Sugar,” (2010) and we have continued to write at least one blog for a time span of 11 years.
After completing our degree in psychology we worked for twelve years in the field of Adult Intellectual Disabilities doing direct client moderating, programming, staff training, groups, and specializing in adult day-training accreditation. Over the last three years, we have been on disability for various reasons and have a service dog to help especially with anxiety needs. For a hobby we quilt and practice our “domestic Goddess” skills – the skill-building in household care keeps us grounded while satisfying our partner who still asks, “What do you do?!”
Over the last couple of years, we’ve worked on several social networking “news systems” concerning Multiples (Dissociative Identity Disorder - DID). “The Multiplicity Project,” is our private mind map work. The actual system of a “mind map” is hosted by a software company called, “The Brain.”
Our “Multiples’ mind map” is an attempt to curate information on Multiplicity through ongoing contemporary online searches for relevant information and views on the subject of Multiplicity. The Brain software, in general, offers people a way to “Organize and find everything the way you think.” Our mind map in particular assists in ordering how our system “as a Multiple” works with our current plans towards personal and professional actions and projects, responsibilities, goals, vision, values, and Life Learning/Sharing practices. This method has been developed from a sketch of the work learned from David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done.”
One other book that has or is being very valuable to the project is Paul Dell and John O’Neil’s book, “Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: DSM-V and Beyond (2009).” We are at the beginning stages of trying to understand the work, but it includes a collection of papers by 65 of the leading experts on 46 chapters in the field on Multiplicity. It is more orientated from the perspective of the medical community, but it is a gem in that it provides an all-around understanding of what has been compiled in the professional field. It is a goal that we will one day be able to tie together the experiences of real Multiples with the knowledge bank of studied professionals to better understand the dynamics of Multiplicity in a more holistic and integrative manner.
In the area of life prioritizing, the Multiples’ mind map helps us drill into other Multiples experiences or the people who know or think they know about what Multiplicity is or means within our current and especially online human-social condition. We include definitions that occur within the field, make connections to Multiples who blog or Twitter, and trace down thoughts of people considering Multiplicity through mainstream culture, daily living, psychology, regulated practices, social interactions and other worldly domains.
Lastly, the Multiple mind map better helps people understand the Multiples’ perspective in understanding and trying to understand better their own dissociation, individuation, integration, behavior, thoughts and feelings. The interactive mind map and other information is at its beginning, but can be found at http://newsdidmpd.blogspot.com/. We are also a member of an online Multiples’ group, “Plural Activism” and utilize a plethora of information collected over many years from a leader in the Multiple community by the name “Astraea.” Our regular blog site and links can be found at http://annsmultipleworldofpersonality.blogspot.com/
Given all of the above “tidbits” into our being, we have several diagnosis or conditions that affect the way we work, why we work, and how we work, which gets us back to the subject at hand, the medicines that we take that support our life-giving.
Firstly, we have dissociative identity disorder (DID), severe depression, PTSD and additional trouble with anxiety and obsessive tendencies. We have had the same psychiatrist prescribing psychiatric medicine for fifteen years, Dr. Robert Marvin, from University of Illinois – Chicago. The medicines we are taking have been very stable though fine-tuned over time. There is one other caveat in that there is no medicine known to treat DID though there are medications that help some of the parts’ symptoms especially in calming and in helping us intellectually/emotionally process steadily and function more routinely.
Secondly, in addition to mental illness, we have the physical conditions of degenerative arthritis, stenosis and several disk problems making mobility very difficult. We have diabetes 2, tendency toward ulcers, hypothyroid and neuropathy in part because we are morbidly obese. We’ve been through gastric bypass surgery which assisted us with about 50 pounds weight loss, though we remain as a whole generously overweight. We are seen for our medical conditions over the last ten plus years by Dr. Maria Albright, Family Medicine also from the University of Illinois – Chicago.
The following is a list of medicines we take other than over-the-counter arthritis pain medication and Vitamins B12, D, Calcium and a Multi-vitamin for women over 50.
RisperdoneBupropionEscitalopramBuspironeMethylphenidateMetforminGlyburidePataoprazole Levothyroxine
In Multiple Circles, it is very contentious as to taking medicine or not, as well as seeing some kind of therapist or being followed-up with therapy. The people against medical models state that they don’t want to be controlled by substances or “professionals,” and see medical intervention as a personal threat to their freedoms, especially mental acuity. In a sense, they don’t want to be “tamed or feel docile and imprisoned within themselves” much like the “character victims” in the movie, “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975).” It is also true that people might be for example Multiple and knowingly believe that they don’t have a medical condition as a Multiple to be treated (Multiplicity does not equate to being disabled).
Personally, I/we find that if we’re not on “our medicine,” we are less likely to be working our personal or professional goals and objectives and we feel “warbly” in our ability to be otherwise more logical and communicative no matter which internal age group we are speaking from. There is a better chance at age regressions when upset or emotional, as well as feeling less able to socialize and to leave our home environment. Our depression is especially horrific in that it seems within 24 hours of being off anti-depressants we get very suicidal, which then prioritizes (for both ourselves and our team) the need to be working on emergency stabilization procedures rather than all the other things we could be doing that we consider as positively enabling through our projects and responsibilities. Once our “system” (Multiplyingly speaking) is down it takes a lot of energy to get everyone back to where we were before we lost our balance.
To summarize, we take medicine because we want to be our better selves. Taking medicine does not make our “conditions” go away. It doesn’t change the status of being a Multiple. It does allow us better passage though of mind and body to do the things that are important to us that are of our choosing and not that which is controlled by biological imbalances. We may not have an ideal life though often we’ll argue that point, and we may be now on disability, but being “disabled” does not keep us from wanting to achieve and contribute back to society. We like to be proficient, which is more likely to happen with a good medicinal balance. We’re not concerned with the need to be on medicine the rest of our life, because we know we could choose to step away from it at any given moment of time. Though in stepping away, we’d have to be spending more of our time stabilizing on just day to day activities like taking showers, washing clothes, or getting off the couch. We though as “one person” and our support team of medical allies, friends and family all contribute input as to our ability to be in self- or other-caring relationships and produce more capably with medication. It is because we choose a life of its highest quality that we choose that which assists us in best balancing our life.
Ann M. GarveyOctober 8, 2014
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