Comment by Frank on 08 Jun 2010 at 11:20 am

Hi Karen,

I think your story should be a movie! I am a musician and would like to offer you advice on what kind of music would compliment your story. If a movie is to be made please contact me. I am your music fb friend.

Thank you!

Frank

Dear Frank,

Thank you for your enthusiasm and thoughtful compliments!  I agree, it would make a great movie! I am honored by your request to offer advice if a movie were made. I know where I can find you… Thank you!

Karen

Comment by Grateful Dad on 08 Jun 2010 at 6:44 am

Hi Karen!

I’d like for you to know how your book helped my twenty two year old daughter. She was raped when she was ten by a relative who babysat her. Kaitlyn is not a multiple like you but to share what happened as a child she would make up these stories about what happened to a ‘friend’ of hers. She would do this over and over again and my wife and I would tell her what we thought. Then a point came where we had to do something for this ‘friend’ of hers. We assumed she was a neighborhood child in great distress and in need of intervention. We called the police. Lo and behold after an hour of the police questioning my daughter cried out there was no ‘friend’ who was raped, SHE was raped. Devastated we were, sought help, and had the man arrested, but she continued the next twelve years referring to her rape in third person. I read you story. Karen I gave my daughter the book after I finished. I made a good choice. She received knowledge and swears a new direction towards healing. I applaud you for being so brave. I respect Dr. Baer for his patience while helping you heal. Switching Time is the best source to cover not only mpd but rape, self esteem, depression and of how abuse can destroy many areas of one persons life. I choose you for my favorite inspirational person. My daughter shines today. The lonely sad look in the way she carried herself seems to have lightened. Five months ago today she read your book. I love having my daughter back! Thank you.

Grateful Dad

Baltimore, MD

Dear Grateful Dad,

Thank you so much for sharing your inspiring story of hope. I can empathize with the reason your daughter chose to talk in the third person. I have done that myself. As a child, I couldn’t explain away all that was happening to me. There were times that I needed to think in story form about someone else in order to understand what was happening to me. My alters were created to protect me and help me survive, much in the same way your daughter chose to experience her rape outside of herself in the third person.

I am not a therapist and can only share my experiences, but I believe your daughter’s choice was her best effort to deal with her pain. Please know that your daughter’s healing will continue, but what’s most important is that she no longer needs to hide and hold her pain inside. Knowledge brings power and understanding.

I admire your efforts to find help for your daughter. That’s what I hope to hear from all parents who sense something is not right with their child. I’m glad to hear you and your wife called the police once you realized there was a problem. I know that must have been hard, but necessary to do.

Thank you for all your kind thoughts and compliments. I’m touched that you believe me to be an inspiration. It’s my desire to encourage hope through sharing my story. I’ll pass your letter on to Dr. Baer.

Wishing you and your family all my best!

Karen

Comment by Nadia on 7-6-2010 at 12:15 am

Dear Karen,

I am hurting badly. I am about to deliver a baby from after being raped by my father. I have two months to go in my pregnancy and haven’t told anyone it was my father who raped me. I was a virgin before that rape . I feel sick at the thought. And get this he slapped me around for getting pregnant!!!!!!! I am thirteen and my father raped me. I want to give this child a chance of a better life by putting her up for adoption. How do I explain that away to those in the family already calling me a whore? I am afraid. I have nowhere to live and am suppose to start in high school in August and my baby is due in September. I read your book for ideas on how to dissociate and my friends mother told me about you. I have been pretending okay but feel bad. I don’t want my new high school friends to think I am a whore.

What would you do Karen? I need advice. Can you help me and send an answer before August? Thank you!

Nadia

Dear Nadia,

I understand and empathize with your experience. It’s terrible to hear that your pregnancy is the result of being raped by your father. A baby should be welcomed and celebrated. It’s unacceptable that you are struggling with this alone.

Please know that you are not a whore; you are a victim. What happened to you was not your fault, no matter how your father or anyone else tries to explain away your pregnancy. You have done nothing wrong! You are a young adult just beginning to explore life, love, and all that comes from building respect and trust in relationships. What happened to you is criminal. Your father stole your freedom and your innocence. That is not acceptable. That is illegal. Your father needs to be imprisoned.

At thirteen it’s hard enough to feel confidant when your self-esteem is not challenged. There are choices you can make to turn your life around in a positive way. First, you don’t need to start school in your last month of pregnancy; you can be excused with a simple note from your doctor.

If I were you I would immediately report your rape to the police. Tell the police that your pregnancy is the result of your father raping you. Tell them what you have shared with me. What your father did was a criminal act. Rape is rape. Rape is a crime.

I admire your decision to have a family adopt your baby. It sounds to me as if you are wise beyond your years, and have thoroughly thought through your decision to find a family for your child. I believe there are organizations that can help you. Of course, there will be steps that must be taken in order to secure the safety of you and your unborn child. The police will help you with this. I would immediately plan to speak to the authorities, without your father knowing. He will be arrested, and he must be, because he has raped you and committed incest. You must not try to protect your abuser, no matter how much trouble you think it will cause.

I know you are afraid. I would be, too! Please don’t carry this alone. Please seek help and know that I am here if you need support. Though I am not a therapist and can’t give advice, I can share my opinion. Dr. Baer agrees with me on this, too.

Wishing you all my best to safely make the right decisions for you and your unborn baby. Thank you for choosing me to write to about your thoughts. I have faith in you. I believe you already know in your heart what’s the right thing to do. Don’t be afraid. Be brave.

Karen

Comment by Kellie on 03 Jun 2010 at 2:15 am

How are you? I am a woman who was terribly abused. In some odd way I can feel all you went through like it was happening to myself. When reading I was sick. I felt everything you did. It hurt so bad. I am glad you survived. My pain subsided when I finished reading. You amaze me.

Dear Kellie,

Thank you for sharing! I’m sorry to hear that you were abused. What you have described is called empathy. I am an attuned person, too! Whenever I hear or read someone else’s story, I attach my feelings to theirs. Time and again I have felt the pain of others as my own. I’m often glad to have the ability to empathize with others. Why? Because it helps me understand their pain. It helps me gain knowledge and understanding on a much deeper level. In my opinion, that’s the best way to learn.

Thank you for your thoughts and compliments! I am glad to hear that your pain subsided once you gained peace at the end of reading my story.

Wishing you all my best!

Karen

Comment by Matt on 30 May 2010 at 9:11 am

Hey K.O.!

Love that you are you! Love that you don’t care what others think! Love that you spread inspiration after your hurt filled past experiences. I could never survive what you did. I feel privileged you share with me and never met me. Are you as happy as you make others happy? I hope you are! Thank you kind sweet child of God.

Matt

Dear Matt,

Thank you for recognizing my uniqueness! I truly appreciate your kindness. I believe in being true to myself. I am simply me: one woman who happened to survive something horrific. I believe we all learn from each other. In sharing my story I hope to bring knowledge to a once misunderstood and incomprehensible illness: multiple personality disorder.

Regarding your not believing you could survive a similar experience. Yes, if you believed in yourself and had faith, you could. Sharing and helping others makes me happy.

God bless you!

Karen

Comment by Sean on 31 May 2010 at 9:18 pm

Karen,

I’m a high school student and as a source of a psychology project, I decided to read this book. I had no idea what was coming for me! I found that my eyes were glued to this book for an entire week, absolutely fascinated with the twists and turns that you actually survived! It’s absolutely incredible. I had originally signed up for this psych class with the intent of seeing if it was really for me, and reading this book has opened up a whole new realm of interest in my life! My excitement for this book is so contagious that i spread this amazing story to 3 of my friends and even a teacher! They’re reading this book right now. The accomplishments of both you and Dr. Baer are awe-inspiring and fascinating to an endless degree! As you can see your incredible story has gotten me very excited! Thank you,

Sean, sophomore in high school

Dear Sean,

I apologize for my delayed response. Thank you so much for sharing! I’m touched by your enthusiasm for psychiatry and how one’s mind can alter experience when there’s a desperate need to survive. I continue to find myself fascinated with how the brain functions.

Thank you for all your thoughts and compliments! Dr. Baer and I appreciate you sharing your optimism with your teacher and fellow classmates! That’s the way it should be; when we read something awe-inspiring, it should be shared.  I feel your excitement. That has brought renewed meaning for me to continue sharing in the best way I can!

Wishing you all my best as your journey to discovery continues!

Karen

Comment by Kerri on 30 May 2010 at 6:30 pm

Hi, Karen,

I am a survivor of an abusive childhood but the way I have moved on from it is so different to the way many others do. Rather than reliving the abuse over and over again, which the mind does ad nauseum, I got influenced by the Buddhist philosophy of concentrating only on what is happening right now. How that worked for me is that I would recognize that, right now, (whenever it was that I would sink into suffering) I am having memories of the abuse but because those memories bring me suffering, I choose to stop thinking about them. For that to work though, I had to first accept that such abuse was part of my childhood because I found that the years I spent reliving the abuse were caused by a resistance to the fact that the abuse did, in fact, happen. My mind would scream ‘how could they have done that to me?’and I would relive it again and again because I kept fighting the fact that people did such things. It was only after I realised that I was arguing with reality that I was able to then say whenever a bad memory came up, oh, it’s just a memory, I accept that it happened to me, but it’s over now and I don’t want the pain of reliving it in my life anymore. So I will move on and think of the positive things in my life instead. When I adopted this approach to my past, my suffering was relieved immediately. You yourself say many times that the past is the past. Do you think that survivors of child abuse would be better served by therapists if we weren’t encouraged to keep going back in time and reliving the abuse, and instead focused on just accepting without question that it did happen but that it is all over now? Any behavioral and emotional issues that are caused by the abuse can be dealt with as they happen right here and right now, rather than endlessly going back to the cause of them. I say this because perhaps healing can take place a lot quicker with this approach. I read of how DID suffererers spend many years in therapy. Buddhism is a philosophy that says we can move on to a happier life a lot quicker than that. What are your thoughts?

Regards,

Kerri

Dear Kerri,

Thank you for sharing! I’m glad to hear that you have found a way to heal that’s best suited for you. That’s so important. But for some, like me, there was no forgetting. I tried that with no success. My past memories of abuse would come to me whenever triggered by something and sometimes even startle me awake at night. Forgetting was not an option. How I personally wished to forget the horror I endured.  It would have saved me many years of grief, low self-esteem, therapy, and struggling to get through each day. I am happy that works for you, if it really does.  Often forgetting is just temporary.

I don’t believe anyone chooses to relive the abuse once suffered. It needs to be dealt with as the memories come forth. For me, it was like living in hell, but after the initial shock of my memory pain subsided, I was able to move forward. In my opinion, there are no quick fixes. I believe that though it’s possible to put the past behind you without dealing with it, the trauma left undiscovered and unacknowledged will come back ten-fold. There were times I tried to forget being abused, but forgetting just allowed my wounds to fester until they burst. I was a mess. If I knew then what I know now, I would never have attempted to hide or neglect my memories.

Accepting my past abuse was the first step. When a dark thought permeates my day, I quickly put those thoughts aside, but acknowledge them and make sure I understand that although they are a part of me, there is no room in my present or future to keep them in my life. As time passes, the duration of these dark thoughts becomes less. I no longer worry about holding onto to the past. I am free of those who have once hurt me. I will be hurt no more.

I’m not sure how to answer your question regarding therapists wanting their patients go back to talk about their past. That was never a part of my experience. Dr. Baer never encouraged me to specifically talk about my past. Whatever we talked about came from me. In my case, what worked for me was exactly what I received. My therapist never force-fed me into recalling my past or anything else.  What he did was force me to take charge of my own therapy!

Thank you for your challenging questions.

Karen

Comment by Aubrey on 28 May 2010 at 7:38 am

Karen! You are AWESOME and INSPIRING! Thank you Thank you Thank you for each new day’s encouraging moments on facebook and here! When I wake I check my facebook and know there will be some form of wisdom from you. I enjoy it! Don’t worry if you need time for yourself BECAUSE you have stored many good stuff in your BOXES. I like your Photo quotes too.

Whatever comes my way, there is something in your box that speaks rights to my heart. Thank you for surviving to share with us opinions! Love ya!

Aubrey, from Seattle

Dear Aubrey,

Thank you for your kind thoughts and compliments!  I am touched by your checking for inspiration on my Facebook page!  When I check Facebook each morning, I search for the same type of inspiration. It helps me start my day, too! We are all the same! We all need a bit of inspiration each day.

Please know that all I post here and on Facebook comes from my heart and brings meaning to my life. I believe if something helps me get moving it may help someone else. I share because I care.

Wishing you happiness and a sense of calm!

Karen

Comment by Dupree’s Mom, Amy, on 25 May 2010 at 7:00 pm

my goodness my daughter blows my mind sometimes!!! she came to me this evening after reading your Thomas Edison quote and asked if you were the one that Switching Time was about….i said yes and she asked if she could read it. i told her it was waaaaay too grown up for her…that it even made ME cry and that she will need to be older to read it. i told her that i had hoped you would write a children’s book someday and she said she really wants to read it and wanted me to tell her what was so bad that i cried….i explained the basics..that all the grown ups that were supposed to take care of you hurt you in very very serious ways. she wanted to know how old you were…she was upset that you were so young. then i tried to explain Multiples….i hope i did it justice Karen!! i likened it to when you are sitting in class and you dont want to be there so you day dream…your mind takes over and pretty soon you arent in class anymore and you dont have ANY idea what the teacher said or what you missed when you “come back”. i explained that for you, the things that happened to you were so painful that your mind made lots and lots of people to take you away and try to help you forget what was happening and then other people were made to help you live the best you could……she thought that was pretty amazing….

we love you miss karen….you are such a testament to the strength we all posess no matter what…

you are just amazing. im grateful to have your story to tell my daughter and im so glad my boyfriend read it!! i’m so glad my “sister wife” Nikkee let me borrow it!!!.

now write that childrens book!!!!

Dear Amy,

You’re daughter IS amazing! I love that she put two and two together on her own, had a question, and came to you with it! How wonderful to hear that her trust in you is solid. I could never go to my mom about anything. I was threatened into silence and trusted no one. My alters became my family.

I loved the way you explained multiplicity to your daughter, Dupree. I couldn’t have done better myself. That’s why I share my story, to bring awareness to adults who in turn gain the knowledge to be aware and share with their children. Your daughter may be a bit to young for the book, but not too young to know that there are people who can hurt her.

I am writing a sequel and a companion book for children on trusting their instincts. I believe there are many signs to be aware of if we pay attention to them. My hope is to bring awareness to all so that no children suffer as I have.

I believe I survived for a reason. God willing, I will continue to use my voice to help to the best of my ability.

Thank you, Amy and Dupree, for sharing! Thank you Nikkee for your support! I am touched and shedding happy tears as I write…

Have a wonderful day!

Karen

Comment by Dupree on 25 May 2010 at 6:57 am

Karen i know you don’t like to think about your past but my mom told me about the book that you published, i could not even think of that and i am sorry for what happened and i am happy that you got better god bless you.

Dear Dupree,

Thank you for your kind thoughts. I truly appreciate them.

I am glad to hear that your mom has talked to you about what happened to me. That means a lot to me. Knowledge brings awareness. It is my desire to encourage hope through sharing my story.

Wishing you all my best!  God bless you!

Karen