What Is MPD?

        First of all, let me begin by saying, that everything written here, on these pages, is from a layman's point of view. I claim no special education, nor do I hold any degrees in psychology, psychiatry or medicine. I do have a wealth of information, gleaned from personal experience, observation and personal study. I only ask that you withhold judgment until you have read the material. Take what is of assistance to you, and leave the rest.
        MPD also known as Multiple Personality Disorder,is not, in my opinion, a disorder, nor is it a mental disease. For those who choose to hang on to the "label" MPD, I will call it Multiple Personality Defense.
        Multiple Personality Defense is generated as the result of sustained and intense physical, emotional, sexual and/or ritual abuse in early childhood. Often, the family background of the abuser is steeped in religion and religious ritual, torn between religious upbringing and emotional and physical needs. Often sexual and ritual abuse begins with a desire to "purify" the child for the glory of God. But this is, in reality, a severe distortion of the truth. Therefore the child is assailed with the double messages of religious training, which state that sex is evil, dirty or unclean, as well as holy and purifying. These double messages in turn generate a major dilemma which can not be resolved without falling from grace.
        A sexually and ritually abused child is generally overwhelmed by abuse in some very fundamental ways. First fear and pain paralyze the child emotionally and mentally. It's perceptions of reality become locked in a struggle to survive. Concepts of good and evil lose all meaning, as does any concept of self. The only means of survival is to generate another existence, another self that is untouched by that struggle, that pain and fear. This "new self" can then begin anew, unsullied and insulated from the activities within the real world. The problem is that as soon as this new self emerges into the real world, it too falls victim to that distorted reality. And so the process begins again. I call this The Multiple Personality Defense.
        Generally, the expression we call MPD does not surface until later in life, most often in the person's late twenties or early thirties, and usually as the result of a new emotional trauma. Often, when it does surface, it is extremely terrifying. There comes an awareness of "others", all struggling for dominance over the body and life's activities. In reality, these others have been functioning for quite some time, and are well entrenched, with their own identities and their own activities. In fact, only the awareness is new. The fact that our "Main" personality had no knowledge of these other aspects or "Alters" and their activities is the source of this terror.

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