The Power in the Feminine Shadow
85
|
The Three Faces of Eve
Price: $6.43
List Price: $14.98 |
|
Sybil (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Price: $14.68
List Price: $24.98 |
|
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Price: $6.47
List Price: $14.98 |
|
20th Century Fox Best Actress Collection (Anastasia/The Three Faces of Eve/Norma Rae/Boys Don't Cry/Walk the Line)
Price: $27.80
List Price: $39.98 |
|
Multiple Personality Disorder from the Inside Out
Price: $7.75
List Price: $22.95 |
|
The Magic Daughter: A Memoir of Living with Multiple Personality Disorder
Price: $31.49
List Price: $11.95 |
|
The Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder (Clinical Insights Monograph)
Price: $31.45
List Price: $34.95 |
|
A God Called Father: One Woman's Recovery from Incest and Multiple Personality Disorder
Price: $13.48
List Price: $17.50 |
Good Girl, Bad Girl
This past weekend Bill and I watched the classic 1957 movie The Three Faces of Eve. The film stars Joanne Woodward as a woman afflicted with multiple personality disorder, and Lee J. Cobb as the psychiatrist who helps her get herself together (so to speak).
In the film, Woodward plays Eve White, a drab, mousy, but conventionally 'good' sort of woman who is troubled by blackouts. During these blackouts, a woman who calls herself 'Eve Black' emerges. Eve Black is Eve White's alternate personality and is opposite her in every way--racy, sassy, and just a little bit trampy (as trampy as a woman in a 1957 movie can be and still come out OK in the end).
During the course of treatment a third woman emerges: Jane. Jane is grown up and sensible, intelligent and capable of self-reflection. Shortly after Jane's emergence, both Eve White and Eve Black 'die' and bingo! Ms. Woodward is cured and free to go out and marry Paul Newman.
Watching this movie made me remember the hysteria of the late 1980s and early 1990s over 'multiple personality disorder' and the carnival-like atmosphere that came to surround that diagnostic category.
At first, MPD was treated like an absolutely authentic and real problem; a bona fide mental condition most often caused by a traumatic early event. (In The Three Faces of Eve the event turns out to be Eve having had to kiss her dead grandmother at a funeral when she was six. In more recent years the trauma was usually incest and/or physical childhood abuse).
The early trauma was thought to trigger a defense mechanism called 'splitting' during which a person actually pushes an event away from what that person considers to be her 'self'. Over time, 'splitting' was thought to become habitual in some people, eventually forming more than one complete personality within a single human being. Each personality was amnesiac for the others, and the goal of therapy was to get all the personalities to recognize each other and combine into a single entity so that the patient could lead a more normal life.
But very soon after MPD first appeared in the popular press, MPD sufferers seemed to start crawling out of the woodwork. By the mid 1990s, you couldn't turn on daytime television without seeing half a dozen women with the 'extremely rare' condition on various talk shows, each accompanied by her psychotherapist handler.For reasons that are more interesting in retrospect than they were at the time, the vast majority of MPD patients were women.
It was not long before this infamous and ubiquitous throng of MPD victims started to 'one-up' each other in various ways, cranking up the media volume. More and more personalities began to appear in a single patient. (In the movie Sybil I think Sally Field has a couple hundred or some such nonsense.) More and more outlandish childhood traumas emerged as the instigating event of choice. (Satanic Ritual Abuse! Sex with five uncles and a hamster.. and Satan! In diapers! Eating babies.With Satan! And so forth...)
The carnival atmosphere was hard to take, especially for people who were suffering with genuine dissociative disorders (like traumatic amnesia), and for competent therapists who knew that dissociation was indeed an effect of trauma, but also knew that each individual case tended to be somewhat less weird and certainly a lot less lucrative. In other words, women do develop amnesia as a result of incest, rape, and other major life traumas (as do men), and they are often afflicted with severe emotional damage after such events, but they don't usually start 'performing' on Oprah or penning bestsellers.
Something definitely seemed 'off'.
So the pendulum suddenly swung the other direction in a big and ugly way. Suddenly all cases of purported childhood abuse and MPD were labeled as probable false memory syndrome. A brand new talk show circuit began, this one featuring the victims of unscrupulous therapists who had 'planted' false memories in their perfectly sane female patients just to make a buck. The former victims of childhood trauma and abuse became current victims of bad psychotherapy. The victim carnival got louder and uglier by the day, with some professionals eventually claiming that almost no one was a victim of anything, ever, until suddenly, the whole topic kind of fell right off the popular radar.
People couldn't just think about it anymore. So it went away.
|
The Pocket Pema Chodron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)
Price: $3.26
List Price: $6.95 |
|
The Pema Chodron Audio Collection: Pure Meditation:Good Medicine:From Fear to Fearlessness
Price: $24.99
List Price: $39.95 |
|
Pema Chodron 2010 Wall Calendar: Awakening the Heart
Price: $9.69
List Price: $13.99 |
|
Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears
Price: $12.34
List Price: $21.95 |
Demons for Tea
Watching The Three Faces of Eve it struck me how this good girl/bad girl, victim/bitch dynamic has always been a part of our popular understanding of women. Women as sexual objects are either good, truthful innocents who are victimized by bad people (usually men, but sometimes bitchy women); or else they are bitchy conniving whores who run around victimizing others.
Hysteria happens when society begins to sense that somehow this duality in the female personality is being explored in a way that allows women to claim their dark side openly.
Social hysteria is alarming and upsetting: It feels and looks as if a match has been set to a can of gasoline that no one even realized was there. Everyone freaks out, some bad ugly stuff happens, and then it all submerges until the next outbreak.
We've seen it before. The Satanic Ritual Abuse fad. The Salem witch trials. The Inquisition.
I think that much of the problem is generated by the Western tendency to fear and repress what psychoanalysts call The Shadow. Required repression of The Shadow is a social obligation which is especially exaggerated for women, both because of the nature of the traditional female role in society (we want good mothers, not chainsmoking ones), and the tremendous fears that accompany the possibility that any given woman will break out of this role (Bette Davis! Oh my!).
In
short, we are taught to be 'good girls' and it is much, much more
important for girls to be 'good' in terms of societal expectations than
it is for boys to be good. Boys are expected to go through a
period of badness, which is where the phrase "Boys will be boys" comes
from. But girls are taught to tow the line or else. When big numbers of
girls start behaving badly, or even when girls start to have very public bad dreams, social hysteria often breaks out until it all
stops and everyone resumes their proper persona.
Yet all 'good girls' do have a 'bad girl' inside of them wanting to get out.
Society
is scared to death of this fact, as are individual girls and women.
It's too bad, because repressing The Shadow can result in illness,
dysfunction, depression, and frustration. Acknowledging and
accepting the Shadow inevitably releases enormous power within a
personality.A whole person is always more powerful than a partial person. An honest person is always more compelling than one who conceals.
The logical consequence of the repression of the feminine Shadow is that when women are cut off from their darker sides by social restrictions and guilt, they are also cut off from their power.
In terms of social roles, men have full access to their darker nature, and they routinely tap that dark side to succeed in business, wage war, win sexual conquests, and so on. Women who are competitive, ruthless, deceptive, angry, or too invested in pleasure are derided and scorned. Usually we call a woman who possesses those qualities a "bitch." Bitches get ahead in the business world, but even in today's post-feminist environment few people, male or female, admire them.
I admire them.
I noticed about 15 years ago a fascination within myself for bitchy women who don't follow the rules. Over the years I have learned to acknowledge and integrate the parts of 'Pam' that are not really all that laudable--anger, envy, greed, competitiveness--but I rarely get pats on the back for it and to tell you the truth its a work in progress. I still give off a vibe similar to Glenda in The Wizard of Oz. Even so, being honest and authentic is so important to me that when I see that in some way I'm not being honest, it's worth it to me to "take the heat" and have a look at whatever it is I'm not looking at.
But how much easier to just claim that only the 'good' parts are really me!
To some degree, we all have multiple personality disorder. We all play roles that we know are required of us in order to get by in different situations. (Anyone who has survived a corporate environment, male or female, knows what I mean.) We adjust who we are, or who we seem to be, to the situation at hand. To some degree that's normal. It's what allows us to function as social creatures and get along with others.
But when social roles become too rigid and the punishments for not adhering to them become too great, social hysteria and illness result.
Watching The Three Faces of Eve, it struck me how the whole MPD thing with women was a sort of a ritual, a play, a pantomime, in which society was allowed to look at all the social faces of woman in a safe setting, and consider what including all of those sides in its prescriptive roles would look like: Diagnostic categories as social theater.
In practical terms, the hysteria surrounding MPD ferried women as a group from the rigid roles of the 1950s to the much less rigid roles of the 21st century. MPD became the defining story of that cultural transition.
We've come a long way, baby--but we've got a long way to go.
In the Buddhist scheme of things, duality is illusion. When you are being pursued by demons, you don't run, you don't have an exorcism, you invite them in for tea. You sit those demons down, have a look at them, make friends.
Cookie, anyone?
PrintShare it! — Rate it: up down flag this hub
Comments
How right you are, looking back over my life there is potential to have more personalities than Sybil. You learn from these events which make you stronger, I find it very difficult to comprehend multiple personalities with the exception of schizophrenia which is another issue entirely.
Teresa, what a thoughtful comment! I wish we really could have a tea party. Wouldn't that be marvelous? You, Mighty Mom, Amanda, Robie, Sally's Trove, Angelie, Countrywoman--and all the rest of us HP girls. We'd never stop talking. We'd collapse from exhaustion before we left. It would be tons of fun!
I do think there is a tradition in literature that reveal the punitive function of "psychotherapy" for women. Teasing out the physical problems (low serotonin levels) from the societal BS is no small task, and sadly so many of us have to take that task on in a state of distress and illness.
I thought of so many more things to say as I was writing this, but I had to keep it reasonably short. I wish I had time to write what I wanted and somewhere to publish it. Thank your for your excellent insights and your supportive words.
Thank you for taking the time to comment Hawkesdream. Cool screenname by the way!
Pam, thank you.
I have known several people with MPD, one of them male. It's real. That's what it is -- but for a long time I have suspected that many of the coherent patterns mental illness takes are themselves acculturated and part of how culture sets expectations for people who have reached their limits.
Your hub showed some of the things that have puzzled me for years as making a lot of sense. I've seen references to "the shadow side" all my life, going back to watching Star Trek as a kid and seeing that wonderful episode where Kirk gets split into his wimpy good side and carousing-violent bad side by way of a transporter malfunction. It's there in so many descriptions of human nature, taken for granted as part of the structure of personhood.
You're the first one I've read who admits that men are acculturated to accept dark emotions and reactions in themselves. It's eye-opening. That "shadow side and good side" angel-and-devil structure in the psyche gets passed all around popular culture and people act as if that's how everyone's made up -- one of the great fictional examples of that myth-story is in the first Star Trek series and the person who got split into Good and Bad versions was Captain Kirk.
But you just showed me why I would look at that and look inward and not find any shadow. No part of who I am is so unthinkably different from me that I'd reject it -- I've got a full range of emotions. I'm aware that courage is doing something I meant to even if I'm scared stiff, that if you don't have fear you'll never understand courage. I do have compassion, empathy, gentle emotions that some guys refer to as their "feminine side" but don't think of that as separate from the grit or the rational -- it's all me feeling different things and doing different things and responding to the world in a complex way.
Back in 2004 I found a very good model for looking at self and world in a Japanese philosopher's book where he talked about the social self and inner self as a useful separation -- that who you are socially gets filtered to fit in with that social group and some things in the self get kept private. That way of viewing it does not deny any part of the self, just keeps some tact about what gets displayed where -- no roaring obscenities and starting fights at the great peace n love gathering where everyone's mellow.
I used that example to separate it from the traditional expectations like "don't shout obscenities at a church social" because for people not in the mainstream it's very easy to think there are no social expectations.
This completely makes sense to me. Many women that I've known seem to believe that your emotions can be just turned off like a light switch. It's one of the things that makes me lean toward hanging out with free women who do get openly angry etc., the interesting ones that get called whores or bitches for being real as opposed to the traditional nice girls. Nice girls are scary!
Most men just lie to them. It's part of that social contract. I don't like doing it, so when I wind up with one there's an ugly period as boundaries get established and they learn that I'm not going to pretend the world is all pink and pretty and nothing bad ever happens to good people.
I can now understand where they're coming from though, the terrible and unnecessary personal sacrifices that nice girls make in order to think of themselves as nice girls. It still doesn't atttract me, but it's understandable now. Thank you for showing me what the social pattern is and that my not internalizing it shouldn't be a big surprise. It was just my gender that protected me from looking at myself and the world that way.
After hearing every cool woman I've ever known (and some rotten ones) describe themselves as bitches and empower themselves to be bitches and use the word all the time, I set my writer's mind to how I could describe that personality trait in a more positive slant. I like free women. I like whole women. I like strong women who have a good level of common sense and sanity -- who are growing, creative, artistic and powerful.
I think of gentleness as self control, as being able to feel the anger at its peak of rage and then behave assertively, using it rather than abandoning yourself to it and just doing whatever feels natural, a balance between heart and head.
One of the reasons guys do not like sharing their feelings is that women acculturated to what you're describing will then judge those feelings and act as if the guy is supposed to be capable of the same mental flip -- not feel what he feels. That's living in unreality. So big a part of the "normal" though that a lot of men just routinely lie to those women about their feelings in order to get by, which means there's less real intimacy. If I can trust my lover or friend not to judge my feelings but just accept them as what they are, feelings, then pain caused by misunderstandings can pop like a soap bubble, false fears get defused immediately, and a lot of times neither one says something he or she needs to apologize for later on.
Thank you for clearing that up for me and setting off so many other thoughts -- I'm fitting it into much of the rest of how I look at people and the world. Something that writers do all the time! You'd do some pretty spectacular novels if you set your mind to it, Pam, because you're so good at observing people.
Thank you Robert,
There is so much good stuff in your comment here. Your attitude is very much in line with an more Eastern perspective, one I like myself much better than the endless pressure to be 'good' and think of oneself as 'good'. Right you are--acknowledging and accepting the parts of ourselves that we fear or that society fears doesn't mean we run out and indulge those parts--if anything it makes us LESS likely that we will do that.
You see this played out with these right wing Bible thumping politicians who keep getting caught with gay prostitutes or whatever. I always think, Dude, if you were just an eensy bit more honest with yourself and courageous about facing who you are you could spare yourself and the rest of us from all this acting out.
I agree that 'good girls' are scary. And often mean. When women go at men with this "tell me what you are feeling, tell me what you are thinking right now," what they usually mean is "reassure me, tell me what I want to hear, make me feel better this instant." It's so deceptive and selfish. If you ask someone what they are feeling you have to be ready to accept whatever comes next. That is a responsibility that comes with the question. But what people usually mean instead is, "I suspect you are feeling something that rocks my boat and makes me uncomfortable. Confirm my suspicions so I can lash out at you and pressure you to feel something else." That is so messed up.
I'd like to write novels, Robert. Maybe I will get the chance someday!
After reading a few of your hubs I think writing a novel would be a slam dunk for you. Very insightful hub. Don't know that I could add anything new to what your other commentors have said so let me simply say that your hubs never disappoint. I look forward to your next one.
PGrundy, those movies about multiple personality were always very amusing, though hard to believe.
Concerning chemical imbalance in women, there'd be a lot less of it if we were living up to our full potential. Hunter-gatherer women don't ovulate except when there are enough resources to support a baby. Once they have a baby, it takes years before their body allows them to make another one. This mean that the monthly ebb and flow just doesn't happen. It would be a waste of resources. It also means these women are more stable -- more like men. They also have a higher muscle to fat ratio, and can give as good as they get.
Now, I know you hate Ayn Rand, but if part of the problem that you see is that women give in too easily to the dualism of sex-bad, service-of-others good, then she's written some good things about that. A lot of people think that her writings on sexual repression are anachronistic, because no one is repressed that way anymore, but here you are saying that some people -- maybe a lot of women -- are. If so, why not stop giving in to social pressure. If you don't like the corporate environment and it makes you sick, why not opt out?
On a slightly different topic, I've noticed that many people now-a-days are really ill at ease with the fact that their pets have sex lives. Many of the spay and neuter advocates tell you that dogs are happier after they've lost their sex drive. Who are they kidding? It's they who are happier about it -- not the dog.
And why exactly is the word for a female dog a pejorative?
Hi Bill & Aya,
Thanks for you comments. Aya, good point about the word "bitch". I don't know why that would be pejorative. Why should it be? Food for thought.
I was actually just making some observations about cultural changes since the 50s and social hysteria regarding women, not suggesting women should or shouldn't be more or less aggressive or more or less repressed. I think that Westerners both male and female are conditioned to be 'good' and to make value judgements about feelings and thoughts when there is good reason not to do that.
This hub is just my personal 'reading' of the MPD phenomenon tied in with my recent viewing of the 1957 movie about it, and the point I make here is, I think, both more general and more personal, less political.I had a lot of thoughts watching the movie and just some of them down.
Aya I enjoy your unique perspective even though I often feel we are on different planets or something. You are never boring. :o)
Pam, this Hub reminded me of what has happened in recent years regarding the diagnosis and treatment of autism and attention deficit disorder. I don't mean to derail this comment thread away from the feminine aspect, but I can't help but see the similarities among MPD, autism, and ADD in terms of going from the unknown or relatively unknown, into the limelight, because of the way information can now be delivered to us through this Internet / electronic world we live in.
As for the shadow we women live in...once upon a time, women were the ones who held the power. And that's another Hub.
As always, this writing of yours is rich and deep and gets the all thumbs up.
Thanks Sally! I know what you mean about ADD and autism--there are some similarities as far as diagnostic categories being exploited for reasons that seem more political, cultural, or even in some cases hysterical.
I don't want to open up a can of worms here, but I suspect ADD of being one of those conditions that is grossly overdiagnosed to sell drugs and/or avoid addressing the real problem whatever it happens to be. I see this with kids all the time. You look at the kid and see a behavioral problem and the parents are all about "he has ADD he can't help it" and yet just looking at them together you see why its happening and its nothing to do with any initial disease. I guess that's another parallel--concealment. The diagnosis serves to conceal and yet hysterically amplify some other issue that is never directly addressed.
My name is Legion: for we are many.
We are all required to play roles. It's a lot worse for women though. The double standard is not as blatant as it once was but it's not really much less severe, just more subtly applied.
Hopefully the day will come when we will value every individual without prejudice. We should be able to appreciate with impartiality, all the complexities, skills, talents and strengths of each person, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation.
Another interesting and well written essay.
Thanks CWB. We watch classic movies a lot on the weekends, because weirdly, even with the gazillion channels on cable its mostly crap. We've been watching screwball romantic comedies from the 30s a lot too--I think that would make a good hub. Women in those movies were a lot sassier and less restricted, and the movies are surprisingly racy. I love movies. I know it is totally escapist but it's the one high that isn't illegal and won't kill me. Movies have saved my sanity so many times. Thank you for commenting and for reading this.
Pam, you are amazing. Each article of yours is so meticulously and immaculately carved out that a reader is compelled to say...'Hats off!'
Regarding personality disorder which happens to be my choicest subject, I have always been of the opinion that every individual suffers from this disease (if it is one); it's only a matter of degrees. As you stated, it is perhaps due to undue repression that a person sub consciously finds an outlet for the animal inside him / her. There are too many societal pressures sometimes which force a person to find a way of spitting venom in the faces of those who set 'obnoxious rules'; in the process the innocent also get affected but that's the law of Nature, perhaps. Thumbs up for this one too.
I wrote a paper about the Eve/Mary complex in an art history class when in grad school. The concept is as old as Western civilization. I really do think one of my main goals in life has been to never to fall into either category. And I actually have never admired bitches--but then I've never admired bastards, lol, either. Case in point--I believe Camille Paglia is one huge bitch. Cannot say I appreciate that! And she talks a lot about these issues--just I feel she takes on the perspective of a chauvinist male.
It's only recently that I've lived around SO much testosterone, lol, that I even get the 'good girl/mother' thing in regards to who I am. That's a real handy tool in the hands of some, that word... But also stupid, so I categorize it there.
I find what Aya had to say about hunter gather women extremely interesting--because it is coming at the issue from a perspective I've never thought of before--environmental/physical.
Women do indeed seem to have large ocurences of mental problems. This would include my mother, who went a bit 'hormonal' or something, to the tune of being placed in a mental facility for a short time, after having an embarrassing affair, and my best friend--who, ending a 'good girl' marriage of many years, ended up in a psych ward on anti-psychotic meds when she could not cope with, basically living alone for the first time in her life (also including an embarrassing affair that ended up in the courts). I just see it a lot as a dissonance of 'roles.' Roles fortunately, I have NEVER been interested in--and plan to pursue my authentic self as honestly as I can into old age, hopefully avoiding 'going crazy' like many around me.
What I find fascinating with MPD is that a personality can develop asthma or change eye color depending on the personality; this pretty much confirms, we are influenced by our thought forms, it changes our brain waves and physiology.
I was a little out of control for a few years, I think it would be called my shadow self years. I met it, faced it, and let it go. One thing, I learned is that no matter what part of myself I was expressing, it didn't change the core of who I am. I didn't become a monster, or someone I wouldn't recognize. The shadow and light do coexist, and sometimes when we experience the shadow self, we learn to be even more compassionate and non-judgmental, but of course that depends on the temperament of the individual.
Another fine piece, Pam! And do let me know how the tea party goes. :)
Hi anjali--Thank you for the compliment! I agree that we all are like this to some degree, and I know therapists who say the same thing. It's all a matter of degree.
Lita--Teresa alluded to the tradition in women's literature on this topic. I think that diagnostic categories are often created and used punitively with women, and that many times the 'crazy' behavior and/or emotions are completely reasonable responses to unreasonable situations. Thomas Szasz wrote a great book on this way back in the 60s or 70s--The Manufacture of Madness. I think we tolerate much less from women, even today, when it comes to deviance from the 'norm'--whatever we agree that is. BTW Camille Paglia IS a bitch, but she's not a bitch I especially admire. I'd have to write another hub to explain what I mean by that I guess, but you know, Bette Davis is a stylish sort of a bitch, Camille Paglia is just an icky person all around.
Hi VioletSun--You should be AT the tea party! I knew I would forget someone's name. Lita too. We would have such fun. Thank you for your comment. :o)
hi plz tell me do u know abt any indian gods . i am asking this by seeing the last pic of u r hub
I do know a bit about that. Shiva is the god of Creation/Destruction and Kali reflects the darker aspect of his consort (wife). The kind gentle side is Parvati. I guess it would be nice to post a picture of her too. I will do it now.
I couldn't agree more about cable Pam. It's almost entirely drek. That's recently become a new favorite word of mine. Drek. Has a sort of nauseating ring to it.
Anyway, movies have long been an escape route for me as well. I've always loved a good scifi flick. Problem with movies on cable, unless your willing to part with an arm or two for the "premium" channels, is the commercials. I don't know about you but I just can't watch a full length movie that's interrupted by ads every ten minutes. Old video tapes and now DVDs are my only choice.
Interestingly enough, now that we have all these digital stations being broadcast, if you have a digital ready TV and a good antenna there are usually multiple public broadcast stations in any given area. Sometimes you can find Nature or other real educational stuff with NO commercials!
What the hell does this have to do with your hub? Sorry. I just got up a little while ago and I'm babbling.
No problem CWB! You are so right. TBS is the worst. And ION. Start watching a 75 minute movie on one of those and you'll still be watching it four hours later because of the commercials. We watch the Turner Classic Movie channel a lot because there are no commercial interruptions and where we live it is not a premium channel. Last night "A Night at the Opera" with the Marx Brothers was on--one of the better movies. For my money, their absolute best was "Duck Soup" but I also like "Animal Crackers." The more 'produced' they were I think the less funny they were. When they were just cut loose to be their Vaudeville wacko selves, that was the best ever in my book.
But, whya duck? Wasn't there something in there about a paraducks. I can't remember it was so long ago I saw Duck Soup.
I'm not a real comedy fan per se. The only "comedian" I ever really appreciated was George Carlin and now he's gone. I'm afraid my sense of humor is as dark as my outlook for the human race.
ColdWarBaby....Have you ever heard of a guy called Phillip? He is the leader of a cult for the dark and dreary. He has a television show in America. I think you would be able to find your soul there. He would even have you on his show. In some circles he goes by the name Doctor Phillip. Look him up.
Thank you
there is no one other then God.plzzz bleve in God.
"In the Buddhist scheme of things, duality is illusion. When you are being pursued by demons, you don't run, you don't have an exorcism, you invite them in for tea. You sit those demons down, have a look at them, make friends."
Complex subject nicely handled! Thanks for the insight ~
Very interesting Hub. I have something of a pet interest in cases of MPD and DID, having seen signs of such in myself over the years, though never to the sensational extent that the movies and talk shows take it. I can't say for sure whether or not I have the condition, but I've suspected...
But that isn't the point of my comment. I wanted to say that I particularly like your insights into dual nature, the sides of ourselves that socially we're forced to suppress in order to conform. We've all got facets of our personalities that we show or don't show, express or don't express, acknowledge or deny. It doesn't mean it a separate person living inside us. It could just be another part of who we are, wanting a little screen time. And who's to say that's a bad thing. Isn't it better to acknowledge and understand all aspects of oneself, after all?
Bravo! Incredibly insightful article. well-written, researched and delivered. The 'Three Faces of Eve' is one of my favorite movies, along with 'Sybil'. i enjoyed the way you handled the material; pinpointedly concise. And, tell me isn't Joanne Woodward one of the most believable and powerful actresses ever to portray a role?{Not to mention the fact of having been married to one of the most sexiest men on the planet: Paul Newman} Her voice, her voice is so alluring, definitive and sexy. The voice says it all. The pictures were extraordinary! I became a fan of yours today. Thank you.
Thank you Paula! I agree about Joanne Woodward--She is one of the best of the best.
Ria--I agree. I think we all play these roles to some extent and we even all dissociate to some extent. I think what makes the habit a problem is when it is so unconscious it interferes with having a functional life. For most of us it actually helps life run smoother though--that's why we do it!
Gerg, thanks. One of these days I will get to writing some Buddhism articles too. HP doesn't have tons of them. I know there must be at least a few Buddhists lurking around here. :0)
I agree with many of your points, as far as the stereotypical presentation of DID in the media, and the spcietal encouragement to 'repress' aspects of ourselves (especially for girls) is concerned. But beyond that, I believe I disagree with many of the conclusions on multiplicity itself, because for most multiples there is nothing cookie cutter about it. There is not 'the shadow side' and 'the good girl', rather, everyone in the group has their own shadow sides and their own good aspects, as everyone is a complete person. (Multiplicity being different from cases of dissociation, perhaps, although I have never actually seen a case of real dissosciation except as portrayed by popular media. I do, however, know many multiples.) Most multiples I know live perfectly functional lives, many are not 'amnesiacs' and are co-concious. But even those that are can learn other ways to communicate. But regardless, every person even within a multiple system has a 'myriad of sides' to them, the 'three faces of Eve' as it is. Popular culture likes to think of multiples as being 'fragments of a mind' or 'two halves' - a mind that's aspects split off into parts. So one would end up with the bad boy and the angry one and the crying one - etc. But it does not work that way. Everyone has their own identity, with anger, lust, fear, remorse, etc. Traits may be more or less dominant, as everyone is unique.
Going back to Star Trek, there was an interesting episode 'Tuvix' on Voyager. Tuvok and Neelix are combined in a transporter accident. (That dangerous transporter!) Tuvix is not a multiple, but he is basically like an 'integrated multiple' (ie, the result of a multiple who has integrated to become one). It is an interesting episode to study multiplicity in reverse.
I don't like bitchy women, but the real scary woman is a woman who can bury you after an emotional relationship. It doesn't even have to be more than that, if you accidentally cross these bella donna's you will pay or run.
Anybody else know a woman like that? I have only met one in my life, and one was plenty.
Interesting article that gave me some pause for thought.Most people just don't like thinking about really bad stuff that has happened to them or other people. The 'false memory syndrome' line is a way for people to ditch the problem of caring or reacting to others who have suffered in the past. The 'get over it' mob and the 'deal with it' characters are the worst kind of emotional cowards. This isn't to say that there aren't people who will do anything for attention but then if you care about that person, you can at least try to help them understand why they need so much.
Hi Amonite--It's a difficult issue. I do think professionals are seeing DID differrently than they did in the 90s, and you make some good points here. As to people who identify themselves as multiple, I think that it is their right to identify however they wish. It's interesting though--that some would choose to embrace a diagnosis as a normal identity. It's not that I'm not aware that happens, I'd just not sure how I feel about it. I personally would not choose to do that. Thank you for your thoughts on this, they're very insightful.
bgamall--I was married to a GUY like that! lol! He STILL has all my stuff, but I did get new stuff. Certainly makes you gun shy.
Will, I agree. Some day I will write a separate hub about False Memory Syndrome. I think it is used just as you say to shut people up when they have problems that make others uncomfortable. It was a very reactionary theory.
Hi Pam
Sign me up for that tea party right away! It would be such a laugh, all us girls putting the world to rights!
As to MPD, (don't you just love all these TLAs (three letter abbreviations).) I wonder if we don't all experience this to some extent. I know that when I'm working I'll put on a suit, smudge on some lipstick and rake my hair into some semblance of order, but when I'm in at -home slob mode, I slop around in jeans and barely bother with a hairbrush let alone mascara! My personality tends to be more mellow and laid-back when I'm in slob mode, and more sharp and focussed when I'm in the workplace. To a great extent I feel we act as mirrors, reflecting back behaviours and attitudes appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes we are so multi-layered that it's hard to know which one is the real person, and if pressed we don't even know ourselves! (Or perhaps that's just me!)
Hi Amanda,
I think that is it exactly. You could see MPD (now called DID--Dissociative Identity Disorder) as a pathological version of what we all do fairly naturally in our day to day lives. I used to teach in Women's Studies and had a lot of students with sexual abuse and rape histories. Some of them, in the process of working through their own problems with a professional, would kind of 'fall in love' with their disorder. I just don't know how else to describe it. They'd explain their disorder and limitations in diagnostic terms not long after saying, "Hello, my name is..."
While on one level this seemed self-defeating to me, on another I do think the diagnosis (and the Women's Studies department) created a protective space within which they could work out some emotional stuff using a dramatic template of sorts--all these interacting identities--so I don't think it was always totally invalid--but to kind of settle into a diagnostic category as an actual primary way of identifying and just stay there on a permanent basis--that strikes me as kind of annoying. I know that if early in a relationship someone informed me of their status as a permanent multiple and introduced me to all their 'selves' and explained how I was to deal with and treat each of them, I'd think, "Hmmm, this all sounds pretty high maintenance. Think I might have to pass on this." But clearly some people choose to do this.
It seems to me a healthier goal would be to get past the diagnostic category, to come to terms and move on and have a normal life, so far as that is possible. So many of these TLAs end up being ends in themselves. As in, "here's my list of annoying qualities that a shrink has given me total permission to inflict on others for all eternity because I can't help it." I don't think that is the best use of diagnostic categories.
My daughter turned us on to "The Three Faces of Eve"
Great movie. She was beyond the understanding of almost everyone.
I thought your Hub was a good read and had a lot of good points (and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with much in general). Still, I don't happen to believe that all women have those three (or more) sides.
If one doesn't see the "standard", physiological, sexual responses as a "dark side" (and most don't these days); and if one doesn't seen justified anger as a "dark side", there is definitely such a thing as a woman who has no dark side. By "justified anger" I mean becoming angry when someone else tries or succeeds at victimizing the woman; or becoming "healthily" angry on behalf of others who have been victimized. There is such a thing as living completely without any urges or instincts to be envious, greedy, or competitive.
It does take a certain type of personality (in men or women) to become successful in, or even reach, high levels in the corporate world; and I think on a scale indicating "levels" of those "dark side" (envy, greed, etc) traits, many high level corporate people (even "good" ones) have to be a little higher on the scale.
What can throw "the world" off, however, is that women who don't have, or have never shown, those "dark side" traits; seem like "Nice Eve" - but then if "Miss Nice" ever gets legitimately angry, others can think it "came out of the blue". In fact, a sickening thing is that many people (women and men) believe that women have no right to be angry over having been victimized, mistreated, or not respected. That's where "everyone" can start thinking the generally nice person they thought they knew was either being phony all along; or else has "snapped" into being different from "their old selves".
When "feminine looking/sounding" women will not sacrifice their attractiveness, and believe "the world should figure out that a person can be strong, independent, and powerful - even in a pretty skirt and sandals"; "the world" doesn't figure it out. People either can't imagine that such a person may be strong, powerful, independent and/or more intelligent than they are; or else they can't get what she looks out of the mind and realize that smart, strong, people don't always come packaged in a 6' foot frame and a 3-piece suit. This perceived inconsistency is what often makes people see women's expressing "the real them" as "a little crazy" or "unbalanced" or "inappropriate".
Women who decide they are not willing to sacrifice their own feminity (in their clothing, hair, and voice) in order to "be taken seriously" in a "world that won't take you seriously if you have fluffy hair and a pale pink sweater" are sometimes among the strongest. If they weren't, they'd "buckle" under to social beliefs about images (the way so many others do).
Women who "look/sound feminine" can either choose to alter their own image in order to be taken seriously and "match" their strong, inner, selves; or they can choose to be seen as "out of character" or "mentally ill" if they show their stronger, powerful, selves and make a few jaws drop as the result of it. Women are often in a lose/lose situation; because even with all the progress made, "the world" still often doesn't "just get it" that women are people who are very often strong, capable, independent-minded ("oh, no! - the nerve of it all!") but who often have exterior images that don't match their interior selves. If "the world" could figure that out, women's exteriors wouldn't be such a problem for them; and anger and assertiveness would not be viewed as "another side".
Lisa, I don't think we really disagree. I was just talking about a narrower topic--kind of remembering the hoopla about MPD through the lens of the old movie. I think you are right on in what you say--women are often in a double bind situation: Adopt a traditionally feminine persona and fail, or adopt a more aggressive one and be labeled insane.
I think much of the depression that is so rampant right now is stuffed legitimate anger. No one treats or even wants to hear the anger or make adjustments that would address where that anger comes from--we just dispense antidepressants. In this way I think diagnostic categories often perpetuate social problems. You know, maybe people are depressed for good reason, but if we make depression an illness and medicate it, we don't have to look at that.
Thanks for your thoughts.
PG, this is amazing! Already, I'm "at one" with my feminine dark side.
One question: What do I do if my feminine drak side tries to bitch-slap my masculine bright side?
I'm totally confused ...
CW, should that happen, just make sure to get a video clip for You Tube!
We are definitely products of our environment as you suggested. Yet, each of us has the opportunity to become aware of what can be labeled as "the shadow side." Dreams often signal a possibility to awaken to other aspects of ourselves that want to be acknowledged. It's the acknowledgment or the acceptance of these shadows that helps us to be less judgemental of others. We let go of creating "war" and begin to create "peace." Awareness does not mean acting out on our "shadow side". Awareness of an angry goddess can help us to set firmer bounderies or reach out in positive ways.
Judith Morton Fraser
interesting subject... some hardcore psychology at work here.
pam, interesting hub as usual, do you see how it all happens? that the root of the word hysteria is hyster, so it's an emotional problem pretaining only to women while men just get 'testy' for obvious reasons. i always wondered how those multiple personality types found the time do be so many people! i have a hard time with just one and still don't get anything done!
Hi Delores,
Thanks for commenting. I too have problems getting much done with only one personality to manage. :)
Got the yard raked today though!
thanks
Wow this is very new to me..about the personalities of a woman.for this information it give me a new knowledge about it.its a good article you have..two thumbs up for this..
Thank you Hammerj--I appreciate you taking the time to read it. :)
Well pgrundy my mom loved that movie and joanne woodward was a great actress. That lets people know that there are others with that sickness and there are some that beat against all odds with hope,faith,and courage.
Teresa McGurk says:
9 months ago
One of Zelda Fitzgerald's watercolors is of a sort of mad picnic tea party. She was institutionalized, as so many women are (the number used to be one in four in the States would at some point in their lives be hospitalized -- however briefly -- for mental "discomfort").
There's a lot of exploration of the shadow self in literature -- Charlotee Perkins Gilman's "Yellow Wallpaper," Bronte's Jane Eyre -- and it seems to me that the approach taken by these writers is much more intuitively tuned into the real pressures imposed on women than psychotherapy ever has been (psychotherapy is such a new hobby -- I won't call it science, as that would imply they know what they are talking about).
You have a great talent for clear-sighted presentation of issues, no matter what the topic is. I always perk up when I see a new hub from the grundy-girl, as I know it will be thoughtful, engaging, and enlightening. And funny. The Three Faces of Eve (I think it was called All About Eve in the British release) shows us what Margaret Atwood's hilarious The Edible Man illustrates, but in an entirely different manner -- inappropriate behaviour is censured, or misunderstood, or feared -- strong women are sometimes an anomaly that society does not know how to react to.
Integrating the realization that there is a degree of recurring temporary chemical imbalance inherent in women with an awareness of this as not necessarily a bad thing is important. I'd love to join you at a tea party for the demons -- I'll pour.