Bridget on Questions for Karen: “Hi Karen, I just got done reading your book. I was told that there was possibly a sequel that had…” Sep 20, 18:26Karen answers Rhiannon
Richard Baer on Jun 18th 2009
Comment by Rhiannon on 13 Jun 2009 at 2:06 amThank you so much for sharing your story with us! What a horrific way to live your childhood and early adulthood! But you are an incredible woman, and you’ve gained so much from your experiences.Kudos to Dr. Baer for never giving up on you!! What an amazing person he must be.I read your story out of curiosity, as I’ve always been fascinated by dissociative identity disorder. I would recommend this book to anyone who is even remotely interested in this topic.Thank you, again, for sharing!! It’s painfully obvious how difficult your life has been, but through it all you’ve managed to turn your life around and make your story a positive model for all who read this!You ARE amazing! Don’t ever doubt that!
Dear Rhiannon,
Thank you for your compliments! My childhood was indeed horrific, but as a child I didn’t really think about it that way. By dissociating the trauma and abuse as a young child, I was able to live each day out of much of the awareness of being abused. I believe that multiplicity, the creation of alternate personalities through dissociation as a coping mechanism, was God sent. My alters functioned for me during childhood, but the same way of coping could not protect me as an adult.
As an adult, alter chaos caused me much stress. It was then I knew I needed to seek help and that losing time was not normal. I had always thought my lost time was ordinary, and that everyone lost time. When a traumatic experience, such as being strapped down during my cesarean section, without adequate anesthesia, the alters were triggered back into action to help me survive.
I will always be grateful to my alters for helping me survive the extent of my abuse as a child, however, as an adult my alters were no longer needed and living with them caused more problems than they helped. For me to live as one woman, my alters needed to integrate.
And, yes, Dr. Baer is an amazing person to have never given up on me. I don’t know what I would’ve done if he had given up on me, or worse, sent me off to another therapist after I had built trust and rapport with him. I’m sure I wouldn’t be here today, trying to help others, along with myself. It takes great courage for any doctor to step up and take care of a patient like me. I am the lucky one.
Thank you again for your encouraging words; they truly mean a lot to me. And thank you for recommending Switching Time.
Karen