Episode 18 - The Mom With 20 Personalities

I have to admit that I have a horrible cold and concentrating is not coming easily. I've tried to get too much done today and now my brain is mush. I'll do my best to stay sharp, though!


20 Years Ago: Truddi Chase, The Woman With 92 Personalities


Recap
We start by seeing Oprah interview Truddi (prounounced like Trudy) Chase 20 years ago, a woman who was brutally raped as a little girl as young as 2-years-old by her stepfather.  Despite intensive therapy, Truddi, who passed away earlier this year at age 75, dealt with her pain by splintering her mind into 92 distinct personalities in her head. It's very emotional seeing Oprah, in 1990, break into tears trying to explain why Truddi's mind is so broken. In a video from a special 20th anniversary interview, Oprah explains that she was just in the midst of really processing her own abuse and Truddi's story simply hit too close to home.

Oprah revisits Truddi's story at the end, and shows women who were inspired by Truddi to share about their own sexual abuse as children. One young woman, Erin, describes how she was ready to kill herself, but one day she was home and saw the show with Truddi and it gave her the courage to come out about the abuse and know she wasn't alone; a letter from one of her abusers, admitting their wrong, is what she said allowed her to forgive him.

Oprah has Truddi's daughter, Kari, on the show. She describes that it was tough having a mother with 92 personalities, but that we all have good days and bad days. She says she never met the real Truddi, because she believes the real Truddi was dead, asleep, whatever.

Kim Noble: The Mom With 20 Personalities Inside Her Head


Recap
We come back to today, and Oprah tells us, voicing over video clips, about a woman from England named Kim Noble. She looks like a normal mom, but 15 distinct personalities live in her head, from Judy, "a 15-year-old bulimic" to Ken, "a depressed gay man". Psychologists believe that she was severely traumatized as a small child and so she developed dissociative personality disorder. Patricia tends to be in charge most of the time, but each personality considers itself to be it's own person so when Kim's daughter, Aimee, turned 13, each personality gave it's own card and present.

After Aimee's birth, Kim proved she could capably raise the baby. Eventually, therapists recommended that Kim try painting as a therapeutic routine and each personality has its own methods and style. Oprah opened by showing us paintings from each of Kim's personalities, and we come into the studio with Kim.

Highlights

• Patricia is present and says things became too much so Kim is sleeping, that she just disappeared.
• There's no way for the current dominant personality to know who was dominant last; one way to tell is to see the latest painting and then that tells who was present, since each personality has its unique style.
• To communicate with each personality, the therapist sends e-mails to each personality. Kim (as Patricia) says that each personality has its own e-mail address, knows their own password, so other personalities can't read one another's e-mail but they can reply to the therapist.
• Patricia says she feels completely normal when she's dominant; each alter personality feels totally normal when they are dominant.

Aimee, Kim's Daughter

Recap

Oprah talks to Aimee, Kim's 13-year-old daughter. Aimee says she has known her whole life that her mother is different in this way. She considers the main personality, Patricia, to be her mother. Later, during the part with Dawn (read below), Oprah asks if Aimee is happy and ok; Aimee says that she is. She wouldn't be if she were taken away from her mother. She'd rather go through the difficulties of her mom's disorder than be taken away.

The Personalities Come Out

• Bonny, a mother figure, who originally was dominant, has gone into seclusion. When Aimee was young, the constant threat of her being taken away by social services caused Bonny to leave and go into hiding. 
• Then, Ken comes out. He's a 21 year old gay man who doesn't acknowledge the other personalities. He thinks Aimee is one of his friend's daughters. When Ken looks in the mirror he sees a gay man, not Kim's body.
• Salome is devoutly Catholic and is angry, agitated, and speaks of the good Catholic woman who was murdered and has an evil daughter.
• Dawn thinks it's 1997, that Sky was her baby and social services took away. She doesn't think Aimee, sitting next to her, is her daughter. Aimee is a friend's daughter. This causes Aimee to cry, and Dawn asks if she ever met Sky, because she (Aimee) would have loved her (Sky). Oprah cuts to present, asks Aimee why she was crying, and she begins crying again and explains that she felt rejected.
• Ria Pratt, 12 years old, has painted pictures of ominous things happening; Ria says bad things happen and children get hurt and they're not happy. People don't believe the bad things happen, and the adults in the pictures are smiling. They think the bad things happening are funny. Ria says it's her fault, because she took the sweet.
• Patricia, in the studio with Oprah, says she doesn't have the memories and couldn't cope it she did. Oprah asks who has the memories and Patricia says Ria does.

Oprah asks a clinical psychologist, Dr. Mary Sue Moore, what she sees watching the tape of Ria. Dr. Moore explains that she sees something extremely traumatic happened to Kim, and so the personality Ria developed to capture the memory and protect the rest of the person from ever having to know what happened. This keeps the rest of the person safe.  

One encouraging moment at the end of the show is finding out that Erin, the woman mentioned earlier in the Truddi Chase recap, just had a law in Illinois passed. It's called Erin's Law, and it requires education so that children can recognize abuse, know how to be protected from it, and hopefully avoid it.

Gospel Filter Review
This is an extremely painful episode. I'm also praying, praying, praying like crazy because what I feel led by Jesus to write about is yet another touchy and controversial topic. It is also intensely personal and I pray that, similar to how these women sharing their stories encouraged others to share theirs, me sharing mine will point people to the Savior who has cleansed me and who is continually healing me.

First, I want to say that I love the idea of Erin's Law.  As I shared briefly in this post, in which I spoke about forgiveness (and I encourage you to read it, since forgiveness was a small theme in this episode)  I was sexually abused by my biological father starting as early as possibly only a few days old. It went on until I was nearly 5, and I never said anything because I had absolutely no way of knowing that it wasn't normal. He said it was, he was my daddy, and I trusted him. A "good touch, bad touch" talk at my preschool was what alerted me to something being wrong, and I shared it with my mom who quickly left him and reported it to the police.

Tragically, because I was so young and so confused, the defense lawyer was able to convince the judge that my mom had put lies in my head and manufactured the abuse. I was too confused--what normal daddy doesn't help his daughter get clean in the bath? How come that was ok but his methods of what he said helped me be clean wasn't ok? Plus, I was far too young to remember details like days of the week, time of day, even seasons, and the constant questioning from so many sources--lawyers, psychiatrists, my mom, the police, etc, made it difficult to keep the facts all straight in my head. My biological father was let free, given the same visitation rights as a "normal" divorced father, and eventually began abusing me again, this time using threats to keep me silent since by then I knew it was wrong. I am grateful that other children might have the chance to learn early on what abuse is--it's not just being offered candy by a stranger who abducts you--so they can be better protected.

There were many, many factors in why I stayed silent. I was also sexually abused in four other instances, each by separate men. I can't remember exactly why I didn't speak up about them, but I do know that there was a stigma attached to the abuse, both by society and by what I heard in my head. Everyone, from my mom to the psychiatrist to well-meaning family members and friends' parents, told me that my father was a sick, sick man, a pedophile who saw little girls, even his own daughter, as a grown woman whom it was ok to have a sexual relationship with. He was sick and wrong, and it wasn't my fault. I see now how this is something to be very careful with, because telling me it wasn't my fault also told me that I should be ok, as though if I brought it on myself it would be fine to suffer, but since I was totally innocent then I shouldn't be upset or hurt.

My story includes hearing, very clearly in my head, that I was strong. I remember once, in the middle of being abused, coming up with my means of enduring. I had seen other girls who were a complete mess, and I knew that since my father was so "sick" that he'd be doing this to someone else if I weren't there. I can still hear the thought, some 20-odd years later, "Some other little girl's life would be ruined if he hurts her, but I'm strong and I'll be fine so I'm glad that, if this has to happen to someone, that it's happening to me."

I thought that I came up with this, that I figured it out. For over two decades I believed this, and when I became a Christian at 16 I saw the many, many horrible things from my past as things God brought into my life, to show how strong He'd made me when I endured well, so that way He could use me to encourage others who'd had horrible things happen to them.

I now know this was a lie, told to me by a very real enemy.

 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
              Ephesians 6:12

There are many other verses, and I encourage you to read this book and to listen to this lecture series (four lectures, about an hour each) for deeper truth about these matters. I cannot do them justice in one blog post. I will say this--God is not a God who causes bad things to happen so He can be glorified. He does not always choose to stop them, but I believe God gave me a clear vision of what was really happening to me as I lay in that bed so many times as a little girl. I clearly see my Heavenly Father, my sweet Jesus, the Holy Spirit, weeping over what was happening to me, present with me, while demonic forces--evil spirits, unclean spirits, Satan's henchmen, whatever you will call them--were whispering both in my ear and to my earthly father as he was abusing me.

To be clear, my earthly father is absolutely still responsible for his sin. Just because the enemy enticed him doesn't make him innocent. The sin in his heart wanted to do the evil that the demonic presence urged him to carry out. I do not know for certain, but I wouldn't be surprised to know that he was abused as a little boy and the same evil, lying demonic spirits probably enticed his abuser as well.

Additionally, though I was innocent and absolutely did not deserve what was done to me, for many, many years I listened to the lying enemy who told me I was strong and that God was honored when I didn't seek Him but instead tried to prove how strong He'd made me. I believed the lies that God was the ultimate abuser who brought suffering into my life. I believed the lies that victims are bad and pathetic and that if I allowed myself to feel hurt over my abuse then I was pathetic and bad. I believed that God is not a good, loving Father whom I can trust.

Yes, what happened to me was absolutely evil. But I also had sin in my heart that wanted desperately to believe these lies, and even found comfort in them. It's been the sweet grace of my loving Father to reveal the truth of His character, and as I see the truth of His character revealed to me, particularly through His inerrant Words in the Bible, I have been able to repent of believing the lies and, in Jesus Christ's name, rebuke the liar.

I believe that sexual abuse, particularly of children, has an inherent demonic link. I believe that the demonic presences that both caused me to be abused and that lied to me about how to respond are demons who have hounded both sides of my family (my mother and my biological father) for generations and generations. The cycles of abuse and the lies about how to respond didn't begin with me. I also believe that my own confused sexuality, not understanding how sex can be a beautiful gift from God meant only for my husband, instead confused about themes of it being dirty and wrong and only exciting when there was some illicit, ungodly aspect attached to it, for the last two decades has been part of the continued demonic presence and lies. I have repented of believing those lies and continue to cling to the Holy Spirit to be the one to teach me the truth, to help me believe it, but I am not so naïve as to think that it's only my own sinful heart that I am dealing with.

Likewise, I believe that these women with fractured personalities aren't simply dealing with flesh and blood--there is a clear demonic presence that I could sense in my spirit through the TV screen. These women--Truddi and Kim-- have been tortured not just by human oppressors but by dark spiritual forces thirsty for their death. The fact that neither Truddi nor Kim existed anymore once the personalities takes over is a sign that the enemy found victory in torturing them until they committed psychological suicide. I cannot say for certain, but I wonder if these women's personalities aren't multiple demons who possess them and take over at different times. Scripture tells us Mary Magdalene had seven demons, so this isn't unprecedented.

We are not fighting merely against the physical world. But here is the truth, the good news. Just as the rest of Ephesians 6 goes on to say, we are not fighting alone. God fights for us. For the non-Christian, it begins with repenting of sin and receiving Jesus' free gift of salvation through His innocent blood shed on the cross and His resurrection which conquered Satan, sin, and death. Jesus's death conquered Satan and frees you from slavery, and if you belong to Him then He helps you (Hebrews 2:14-18). In the meantime, Satan has influence over this world and in spite of his imminent defeat, he is clawing for every bit of death he can bring. The Christian gets to have joy in knowing that God fights for us. The Holy Spirit will show us if we have left our house in a state of insecurity, and He will not only reveal the lies, but He'll help us repent, He'll kick the enemy out, and He will continue to keep our doors and windows shut and locked as we rely on Him.

There was a great sermon about this on Sunday, and once it's available online this upcoming Sunday I will post it, so stay tuned. In the meantime, pray with me. First, pray that God would reveal His truth to you. Pray for a hunger for His Word, so that He can use it to shed light on the darkness. Pray that the Holy Spirit would put in you the desire to repent and get rid of the darkness; lies bring us a sick and twisted comfort. There is a reason we believe them. Pray that Jesus would rebuke the enemy from influencing you (Satan cannot indwell a believer, since we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't stop him from whispering in our ear. And, lastly, pray for Kim and her daughter. Pray that Jesus Christ would come into her life, save her, and set her free from the demonic bondage that is keeping her in chains. And, if you are a Christian, don't take this lightly. You are in a war. You must put on your armor, you must fight, and you must continually cling to the one who goes before you and fights for you.

Up Tomorrow
Why She Sued Her Husband For $12 Million And Won