We Are Jackie: Living with Multiple Personality Disorder

By Wilkinson B. Dunlace

Wilkinson B. Dunlace married his wife, Jackie, without realizing the extent of her early-childhood abuse.

He would learn that she was victimized from an early age, and she recorded a vast quantity of material intending to share her story to help others struggling to cope with the after-effects of abuse.

Jackie died before she could write her personal history, but relying on her journals and his insights, her husband reveals her journey toward healing and empowerment.

While Jackie did not know it at the time, her healing received a boost in May 1990 when she was diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. The diagnosis explained her feelings of low self-esteem, a sense of lost time and bouts of unexplained depression.

Coping with the trauma of abuse, however, was not easy, as Jackie was frequently hospitalized and suffered from anxiety and severe depression.

Many people have written books about multiple personality disorder in a clinical manner. This one brings readers into the family to highlight the highs and lows that those coping with the condition can expectand how they and their loved ones can persevere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781532029653

Wilkinson B. Dunlace

Wilkinson B. Dunlace is a retired schoolteacher living in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. He was raised in Toronto and began his teaching career in the early sixties with a metropolitan school board. In 1970, he was appointed principal of Kik-Onong Indian Day School under the auspices of the Federal Department of Indian Affairs. From 1973 to his retirement in June 1996, Wilkinson was employed by a large, central Ontario school board.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 Wilkinson B. Dunlace.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2964-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2966-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-2965-3 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 09/25/2017

This book is

dedicated to the memory of Jackie’s journey toward survival and self-empowerment and to the many others of both genders who are following the same path. It is also dedicated to every supporter, support group and therapist entrusted with the healing process and involved with the reaffirmation of the human spirit.

FOREWORD

I got a gal and she sure looks classy,

Smooth as a car with a fibreglass chassis,

Spicy as a magazine and twice as sassy,

Jackie, you’re the one for me!

—Bobby Helms

I’m coming to terms with my diagnosis of MPD, but it is still scary to me. Can’t always accept that that is what is wrong with me. Still want to deny it. Don’t always think that it is how the abuse has affected me. Yet there is so much evidence that it has. Really mixed-up feelings—anger, fear, sadness, depression, denial, fascination and feelings of being different. Hate feeling different. Scared to have others think of me as frightening. Want to tell everyone … want to tell no one …

—Jackie

Journal entry

I see your true colours shining through,

I see your true colours, and that’s why I love you.

So don’t be afraid to let them show, your true colours.

True colours are beautiful like a rainbow.

—Cyndi Lauper

Can one really ever come to terms with the effects of early-childhood abuse?

Can one ever describe the feelings associated with abuse?

How does one cope with the effects?

What does it take to heal?

Is there really any closure?

Abuse victims and their supporters confront these issues daily while trying to recover from the damages inflicted. Some may analogize these effects to a stone being dropped into a pool and releasing outwardly concentric circles. The ripples touch the victim and everyone within the intimate circle of the victim. Yet this may not be a strong enough comparison. These ripples may extend with the force of a tsunami, whose destructive power wreaks havoc upon the landscape.

Extreme abuse shatters its victims’ sense of self while depositing an assortment of diverse and even contradictory emotions. Waves of flashbacks, dark memory recalls and sporadic nightmares challenge the belief system at the very core of the person’s soul. Structural damage may claim secondary victims within the sphere. Primary family members and supporters may be battered and shaken by the rise and fall of emotional upheavals experienced by the victim. Relationships and family units may collapse under the weight of the tidal onslaught of reactive and explosive feelings left in the wake of the abuser. The effects of abuse wash in and out of every nook and cranny of a person’s being. High ground can look unreachable when someone is being pummelled by the worst of psychological storms.

My late wife, Jackie, victimized at an early age, struggled with the effects of abuse for most of her life (and so did I). It is Jackie’s journey toward healing and empowerment that we are exploring, as well as her successes and setbacks. To help you better understand the nature of Jackie’s journey, her story will be told in the first person, as she recorded it over the years in her many journals. I began to read these journals about one year following her death. Any commentary from me will be my own effort, as a supporter, to complement and try to comprehend her experiences and related emotions.

Family dynamics will be examined, both prior and subsequent to her diagnosis of multiple personality disorder (MPD). Jackie’s journals revealed the darkness that shook her very core but also the strength and determination she rallied to cope with the effects of abuse.

This book is intended to be an inside-out approach to explaining MPD, from a personal perspective. It will explore internalized feelings, suppressed memories, the advent of nightmares, missed diagnoses and the vast time and money spent on healing. Also, our own family’s reactions to Jackie, a wife, mother and grandmother, will be on display. Jackie’s transformation from a victim to a survivor will be the epicentre of her journey. Lastly I, in the role of supporter, from a bird’s-eye view, will attempt to illustrate the many contradictions and pitfalls one may expect travelling on what seems a parallel track.

In May 1990, Jackie was given the diagnosis of MPD, which explained the many symptoms resulting from her life experiences. These included feelings of low self-esteem, a sense of lost time and bouts of unexplained depression. Adding to these were a few attempts at self-destruction, which culminated in frequent hospitalizations. A revolving-door pattern of treatment, discharge, therapy, anxiety and rehospitalization became the norm during the early years of our marriage. Everyone involved believed the cause was depression and treated it accordingly. It would be many years before depression was defined as a symptom of something still greater.

In recent years, the term MPD has been changed to dissociative identity disorder (DID). Since Jackie always referred to it as MPD, that term will be used. The debate over the reality of MPD has occupied psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and other medical theorists for more than a hundred years. Is it really possible for someone to develop multiple entities or personalities? Pierre Janet, as early as 1889, may have been the first to postulate this idea, using the term successive existences. This was in response to one of his patients who seemed to exhibit other selves. This patient may have been the first ever to be diagnosed with this condition. Disaggregation was the term Janet used to describe a noticeable change in his patient’s thought and memory process to explain other selves. Later this term became dissociation. Janet purported that the splitting off parts became alters. These alters were able to function independently from the host, with their own thoughts, actions and identities. Past traumatic experiences triggered the symptoms, which in turn released the alters as a defence mechanism.

Many patients and therapists would attest to a complex defence designed to enable the patient to cope with an environment steeped in contradictions. Later thinkers, such as William James (1890), Martin Prince (1906, 1914, 1919) and Sandor Ferenczi (1955), added their own perspectives to the question. Ferenczi first proposed his viewpoint in 1932, but he was ridiculed by the International Psychoanalytic Congress. He remained publicly silent on the matter for a little more than two decades. This ridicule was not too surprising in an era when a concept such as multiple personalities was thought to be too incredible to conceive.

Sigmund Freud in 1895 joined the debate, having read Janet’s reports. Freud took a slightly different tack, to include repression as a central theme, which resulted in a split between conscious and subconscious. It is not my intent to delve further into the content of their thinking. The reader may wish to study further the names listed, as well as others such as Putnam, Laskey, Buck, Clarey and Klein. Suffice it to say that Jackie would have been pleased with such support, even from more than a hundred years ago, to give her validation!

Skeptics have provided counterarguments, asserting that patients can’t possibly host other selves. Are the therapists looking for something that’s not there? Is MPD tangible or just a delusion? R. Aldridge-Morris (1989), Ian Hacking (1998) and N. P. Spanos (1996) authored their concerns and respected reasoning. Some doubters have claimed that therapists create a milieu in which suggestions and/or false memories are instilled into malleable clients to support such a diagnosis. Within a pliant state, clients can be manipulated to accept the belief of MPD. A lengthy list of skeptics is also available to consult. Anyone with MPD already has a personal list of skeptics, which may include past therapists, physicians, family and friends.

From my perspective, such a therapist-driven initiation would be a compromise in ethics. The question of false memories being implanted, either internally or from an external source, is a major sticking point, since memory recovery is a primary factor in the healing process. From Jackie’s point of view, in a confrontation with her the skeptic would do best to rethink his or her position. If one of her alters were triggered, I think the skeptics would be left hoping that Jackie was a false memory!

Another way of looking at multiple personality disorder might be to compare it to a prism. If one shines a light into a prism, the light is separated into the colours of the rainbow. Each colour has a name, which evokes feelings associated with how one perceives each colour. These colours can embrace a wide range of human emotions. If another prism is lined up accordingly, the colours can be reconstituted to a solid white beam. The conjecture around MPD is similar. If the impetus of abuse is applied to the victim, the victim may develop a rainbow of alters, male and female, each with a specific name, purpose and characteristics. In theory, a therapist, acting as a second prism, can help in the process of merging as many of the alters as possible, while aiding the patient with their management. MPD patients are truly rainbow people!

Jackie displayed a number of known MPD symptoms. At times she could feel anxious, experience eating disorders, receive a constant flood of confusing thoughts, face some ambivalence with identity and recall chilling memories of chronic abuse. These proved challenging for her in her search to determine the accuracy of her memory. Sexual dysfunction became problematic as well. In addition, Jackie experienced time lapses and time gaps. On occasion, Jackie had difficulty staying grounded in the present and also with remembering how she’d gotten from point A to point B. Dependency on therapists, testing of limits and a search for real parental affection surfaced. The issue of time was a major stumbling block in her recovery. It would take much therapy to minimize the effects of time gaps.

Jackie’s memory reflected another quandary. She often told me that she couldn’t remember much of her early life prior to our meeting. She once informed me that vast periods of her childhood were blank and yet other memories stood out, some of which were strangely disturbing. She was troubled by not being able to remember her entire grade 4 and grade 6 years. This is not the time during which I felt the abuse had been initiated, but to me it was a significant indicator of some marked traumatic incidents in her life.

Equally puzzling to me for three decades was a specific cycle of depression. For about five years Jackie experienced a sense of being down during late January and February. This I attributed to post-Christmas letdown or the dragging effects of winter, with its shorter days of daylight. Seasonal affective disorder is a reality for many people. Some solve this problem with medication, or by becoming snowbirds or by incorporating both solutions. For Jackie we found, once her memory became unblocked, that these times coincided with a cycle of abuse by one or more assailants.

To dissociate is to create a means of handling a stressful situation. Everyone dissociates to some degree. The young child holding the telltale crayon behind his back denies to his parents being responsible for the marks on the wall. We deny speeding infractions; we deny blame for incidents during the day that may lead people to judge us negatively, or we may lie to a friend who asks how well an ugly outfit looks on her. We dissociate on resumes by embellishing the truth. Our favourite team didn’t really get beaten that badly did it? I once worked for someone who changed the minutes of a meeting to delete any references that could be construed as a personal reflection of his ability to lead.

Some adults whom we revere have turned dissociation into an art form. Athletes who initially deny use of performance-enhancing drugs command huge salaries, respect and admiration—until their actions and denials are called into question. It is debatable whether there really is suitable punishment or much in the way of public disapproval. Disgraced CEOs tend to find membership in this group. Perhaps the epitome of dissociative mastery belongs to politicians. This group can deny past mistakes, promise new mistakes and call their opponents on their mistakes while praising or feigning shock at mistakes in other jurisdictions. Selective amnesia tends to be prevalent at frighteningly elevated levels within this group.

That’s not to say that all of the above would be diagnosed with a dissociative condition. Dissociation is a widespread state in society. MPD patients dissociating, then, is not surprising. However, Jackie’s MPD and related dissociation became strengths. Her dissociation had its roots in severe and repeated childhood trauma. This was her method of escape and survival. Fragmentation into alters to protect her was a consequence of having no adult to shield her or act as a role model. Jackie gradually embraced her alters. I confess I wasn’t so sure of this feeling initially. Other supporters may understand this dilemma.

Dissociation, MPD and overcoming childhood abuse are complex issues. Therapy is time-consuming, it’s not always easy or productive and it commands far-reaching commitment and a leap into the unknown. A support system of family, friends and therapists is needed for the journey. This was the journey Jackie chose. This is what made her rainbow colours glow in later years.

PREFACE

The writing of We Are Jackie originated with my wife’s journey to heal from early-childhood abuse. She recorded her thoughts and compiled a vast quantity of material with the intention of writing a personal history. Her death necessitated an effort on my part to complete her endeavour. By taking up this task, I broadened the scope of this investigation. I felt a need to include my own efforts to understand and support her unequivocally. As I did so, it became apparent that her feelings would impact my own feelings in our daily lives.

As the writing progressed, I accessed more outside studies and materials to add authenticity to observations and conclusions reached. Many of Jackie’s sisters in her various groups confirmed some commonalities with issues of abuse. I was soon to learn that the effects of abuse are universal. Many lives are touched within the proximity of the victim or survivor. Behind each story are family members and other associates whose lives have also been impacted. Thus, my writings of Jackie’s story took on some comprehensive characteristics of the issue of abuse.

The writing process then needed to include information on the importance of a family and a therapeutic support system. This expanded support system became a focus. Though Jackie’s story is but one among countless unwritten ones, it did become representative during its development. The road to survival is not an easy one. This knowledge became apparent to me as our family supported Jackie in her journey. A successful journey through emotional minefields ended with the knowledge that Jackie became a survivor.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been completed without the support of my children. Encouragement came from many of Jackie’s friends, who shared memories of how she touched their lives. I would like to include a special thanks to my one-person technical crew: MEB’s help was invaluable in the transcription of this work.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Children Of The Forties

Our Early Years

The Tour

Here Comes The Son

Relocation

The Gathering Storm

A Vision Of Hell

Voices From Within

Effects Of Abuse

Catharsis

Fifty Shades Of Therapy

The Sisterhood

From Camper To Advocate

Voices From Without

Surviving A Survivor’s Healing Process

Lessons In Contradictions

Five ’Tions:

Emergence Of A Diamond

Aftermath

New Challenges

Into The Millennium

Ramblings Of A Male Supporter

CHILDREN OF THE FORTIES

Whatever happened to Randolph Scott

Ridin’ the trail alone?

Whatever happened to Gene and Tex

And Roy and Rex and the Durango Kid?

—The Statler Brothers

War babies! Jackie and I were both born in east Toronto during the early forties. We were not to meet for a number of years, but we shared some commonalities despite our separate backgrounds. Toronto was a hub of industry dedicated to the war effort. Daily newspapers reported the current events of the world conflict as it raged far away in Europe and Asia. My earliest memories include observing sailors in navy whites strolling downtown and along Gerrard Street while my mother visited grocery stores to use her rationing coupons for family meals. Every family either had members attached to the armed forces or knew of someone directly involved. Two of my uncles enlisted in the air force and went overseas, while my father was a deferred volunteer, due to the age of his children and his designated job, which provided for the war effort. Jackie’s father enlisted and landed in England for the duration. Not all enlisted men served on the front line.

When the war ended, Toronto began expansion into a major metropolis, second only to Montreal. The postwar boom fuelled further growth, turning farmland within city limits into subdivisions. This growth kindled a positive financial outlook for the average family, which had sacrificed through the years of depression and war.

Both Jackie and I recalled seeing durable black cars from a previous era being superseded by more stylish, colourful ones as the automobile industry powered the economic engine. We both lamented the passing of horse-drawn city wagons. Jackie was a horse lover who enjoyed sneaking into the urban dairy and bread barns that housed these animals. There she would pet these mounts while daydreaming of riding each one off into the sunset. Alas, the horse-drawn wagons went the way of the ice truck that carried the ice chips we coveted—into extinction.

Radios were a key source of home entertainment; we gathered in the living rooms to listen to and imagine the stories being enacted. Jackie’s favourite program was Maggie Muggins, and she had the doll to prove it. Television was a dream waiting in the wings.

Movie theatres provided an escape on Saturday afternoons. On Danforth Avenue it meant the Century, Palace, Odeon, Allenby and the Prince of Wales. Jackie’s favourite was the Community, while I was partial to the Ace. There were no Cineplexes; all theatres were single auditoriums. These single entities held a fascination for me, especially the ones with ornate settings. We admired the heroics of Tarzan, Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and chuckled through the antics of Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy and the Bowery Boys. But it was the westerns that captivated us. Hollywood produced cowboy heroes who created magic on the screen. The westerns defined good and evil. Jackie and I would debate the merits of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Jackie preferred Roy and his wife, Dale Evans, while I was inclined toward Autry. Jackie indicated a desire to have Roy and Dale as parents. It was an innocent enough comment but one that would have significance later.

The westerns provided us with our first contact with Indians. The question was to what extent the film industry was factual in its portrayal. A blue-eyed Jeff Chandler playing the role of Cochese left us with some doubts. How many other historical events were marked by distortion or a lack of facts? Our youthful frame of reference would someday change after first-hand encounters.

Churches dominated Sundays. Recreation was limited. City officials chained the playground swings and slides. Open Sundays were decades away. A puritan element still prevailed in Toronto as religious organizations reached their zenith in congregational attendance. A small-c conservatism was the order of the day.

Jackie’s family lived originally on Valleyview Avenue, about a kilometre away from mine. The first memories she shared with me were of that place.

I remember my house on Valleyview Avenue; I was 5. I remember the school principal taking me on his knee and being very kind to me. I liked my grade 1 teacher, Mrs. Barber, a lot. I remember dressing up as a bride and using the dining room lace tablecloth as a veil and then going outside to play with the boy next door, who was the same age. We lived right next to a banquet hall, which was often used for weddings. People from the hall spied us playing and took us into the hall, where they took pictures of us and gave us wedding cake. My mother was not pleased to see the absence of the tablecloth, and I was lectured.

I loved my school and my teacher. It was traumatic to move away from both during the school year. My father was home from the war and had built a one-bedroom, one storey-home for us to live in. I had Mrs. Black to complete grade 1 at my new school. I was scared of her and her pointers. She hit hands when displeased. I wanted to go back to Valleyview School. The next year I had Mrs. Barber again, in grade 2. She had transferred into my new school. I asked in grade two if she would take me home. I don’t remember why …

Discipline or abuse? This was a routine happenstance of the time. Striking children at school was seldom questioned. After all, wasn’t there a strap in the principal’s office? Many educators believed there was a direct connection between the butt or hand and the brain; strike one of the former and the latter end would light up. Admittedly, not everyone was disciplined in such a manner, but fear had been instilled to lessen the thought of transgression.

I was the first child, then D about 18 months later and then K about three or four years after. M was about five years after me, then C about ten years younger. Five children were born within ten years.

I was also a member of a blue-collar family, the middle of seven children. Our extended family of cousins came and went as they pleased. Intergenerational contact was prevalent then. My mother talked on the phone to her mother at six o’clock every night. These vertical family bonds we came to value.

I met Jackie on March 7, 1958, at precisely 8:28 p.m. Normally I’m not that good with exact times, but on this occasion I took note. We attended different high schools, but on a whim I crashed her high school dance. She actually crossed the floor and asked me to dance. Fascinated, I took her into my arms. Later I learned the true story from Jackie. A girlfriend of hers had bet her a nickel to ask me. We spent the evening dancing to the strains of the songs of the day that pervaded the airwaves. If I had known, I would have paid the nickel myself. This was one girl I wanted to know better.

On the surface our families were similar, with numerous children. Jackie enjoyed her brothers and sisters and became like a mother to them. There were vertical connections as well with her maternal grandparents. Money was a little tighter due to her father’s employment situation. Jackie preferred to spend time at her grandparents’ house, which was just down the same street.

We often watched television during its infancy. Black-and-white images emerged from the set, bringing our beloved westerns into the living room. Jackie’s screen mom and dad, Roy and Dale, were soon joined by a grandfather conscript, Ward Bond. Jackie likened him to her cherished maternal grandfather. It seemed possible that one could create an imaginary family, for reasons yet unknown to me.

Jackie’s maternal grandparents doted on her and the other children. Financial help was also given from time to time, as it was in many families.

My mother’s parents were kind, caring people. My nana was gentle but sometimes stern! She was very religious. Go to church or the devil will get you. She was impatient with me when she was trying to teach me to cook. I loved her dearly.

Jackie’s grandmother was indeed another mother figure. Coupled with her grandfather, she taught Jackie the meaning of love. Her grandfather’s love did not extend to Jackie’s father. The wedding of Jackie’s parents was marked by his absence. His disapproval must have hurt Jackie’s mother, who was an only child. Though he disapproved of the marriage, he gave the couple a lot upon which Jackie’s father built the family home. He may have disliked Jackie’s father, but he enjoyed the children, especially Jackie.

The cow jumped over the moon-e-o. He made us porridge with brown sugar and real cream, warm in my tummy. Went to Grandpa’s for breakfast every day on the way to school. Talked to his yellow birds. Pretty, sing nice. Like his birds. Liked being with Grandpa. Pretend he’s all mine and nobody else’s. Pink shirt, nice hairy arms, and lots of hugs. He taught me how to make pretty scarves. Never seen a man sew before. Said he learned when he left home and didn’t know what to do with himself sometimes.

I knew Jackie’s grandfather for about a year. His health was deteriorating gradually. Jackie was attached to the amiable cockney and so dreaded the inevitable outcome.

He’s sick, so sick. He screams with the pain. His head hurts so bad. I can’t stand to hear him scream and cry. Not my grandpa. Maybe if I cook him some eggs he’ll eat them. Won’t eat for nana. God, all he’s getting is one meal a day. He’s gonna die. I wanna stay home and take care of him. They won’t let me. My grandpa loves me. He’s nice