Comment by Austin on January 10, 2009 11:24 pm

Hey Karen,

What’s wrong with you? How could you find humor in the show about tara coming to showtime next week? If you are truly cured you should be irate with this show. It should insult you. You have been judged incorrectly because this show damages all you tried to accomplish. This show sucks. It hurts people like us who suffer. I am an alter of Kevin and being gay might have caused me to be too sensitive. I like you and feel hurt for you. Why aren’t you angry?

Austin

Dear Austin,

I am not downplaying the severity of MPD/DID.  My childhood abuse was horrific and has traumatized me for so many years.   But I’ve come to acknowledge and accept all that happened to me.  If I hadn’t accepted my pain, I wouldn’t have survived.  Comedy is relief.

“The United States of Tara” is unlike what I’ve experienced.  It’s just a television show and meant to entertain.  I’ve only viewed the first episode and don’t want to comment too much until I view more episodes. The first episode was entertaining and interesting to me to see how an incomprehensible illness can be turned into a comedy.

But I really don’t see this show as just a comedy.  I also see this show as a drama.  Tara’s alters may be overly exaggerated, but in a way, how else could the audience pick up on the different alters if they were portrayed as they would really be?  My alters’ switching was subtle and those who knew me would only notice a slight change in my mood when I’d switch. My experiences were much different than “Tara’s.”

The United States of Tara is not my story.  It does not offend me.  And it certainly doesn’t damage all that I’ve accomplished.  I’m interested to watch each episode.  I admit, I needed some time to think over all that I felt after the first episode.  I was a bit shaken, but then again, I never even let myself watch the entire movie Sybil.

Please don’t feel hurt for me.  I’m okay with this show being aired.  Would anyone rather see the true horror that creates an alter?  I think not.  I can laugh at many of the things my alters did in order to protect me.  I believe we all laugh at ourselves at times.

I believe having survived this illness myself, it’s important to see this show as another way to bring awareness to an illness. What’s most important is that people will pick up a book, hopefully Switching Time, and read what multiplicity really is and form their own opinions.

Karen