Comment by Maria on 01 Mar 2010 at 10:31 am

Dear Karen,

Thank you for being honest in sharing your journey. People like me need to learn from people like you and not from made up doctor medical facts written in books. Doctors learning from books do not make good doctors. Doctors who learn from people like you are more likely to succeed. I think your therapy with Dr. Baer went well because he learned from you and ignored the books that told him this illness does not exist. How intense and overwhelming your story is but well needed and appreciated.

Maria

Dear Maria,

Thank you for your compliments! Dr. Baer and I wanted to share the truth so that all would understand how complex multiple personality disorder is. If we decided to sugarcoat my story there would be no knowledge gained. As difficult as it was to share the truth, I believe Switching Time was meant to be. My wish is to encourage hope for all those who have suffered from abuse.

I’m not sure about the training doctors go through before receiving their medical degrees.  But I do know that Dr. Baer not only learned from books, but from his own experiences in hospitals and clinics treating patients, and from his own psychoanalysis. Medical Doctors who choose psychiatry should go through intense therapy on their own before they are allowed to treat patients. It’s not easy work.

Dr. Baer did not ignore medical books, there simply wasn’t enough good information on MPD for him to treat me in a way he thought would be helpful. It took Dr. Baer’s determination, common sense, book smarts, and my alters’ help to treat me. He did the best he could. I believe my story is one of the first complete documented cases written.  Now there’s a real book for doctors to learn from!

My therapy with Dr. Baer worked well because we made a great team!   We worked very hard for over eighteen years, just so I can experience living as one woman, free of abuse.

Thank you for your questions.

Karen