Dissociative Identity Disorder Awareness Walk 15 Minute Speech

On March 9th, 2019, my parts of consciousness and I hosted the first ever Dissociative Identity Disorder Awareness Walk at Harvey Bear Trails in San Martin, CA.

Over 20 people attended, for which I am forever thankful for.

Thank you so infinitely to everyone who helped make this walk possible!

Among these warrior soul friends was our dear soul friend Haley, whom we had just met in-person for the first time, after being friends online for many months.

We both gave speeches and look forward to continue our mental health advocacy work alongside one another, even when living on opposite sides of the country.

My speech was 15 minutes in length, and went a little something like this.......

March 9th Speech for DID Awareness Walk

Part One: Introduction

Welcome, brave beautiful warrior soul friends, to the first ever annual dissociative identity disorder awareness walk! We are so thrilled you’re here & so grateful for this opportunity to grow in unified community. Thank you so much for supporting our cause & for taking the time to join us today for this mental health advocacy celebration.

I’m going to talk a bit today about consciousness & personality.

It’s natural to have curiousity about personal identity. Exploring who we are is a big part of this exciting journey of being a human!

How many of you have ever taken any kind of personality test? Either those silly facebook ones that pop up every so often, or the official Myers-Briggs personality test? How many of you have ever taken a personality test of any kind?

I used to spend countless hours over the many years exploring potential insights about my internal identity.

It’s human nature to desire insight into who we are & why we experience life in the way that we do.

The specifics of how life is experienced takes places within our consciousness, our subconscious neuropathways being the “filter” through which all information, sensory data, & life experience are processed through.

But what happens when your entire life experience is distorted, & seemingly simple tasks become nearly impossible? What happens when your brain & body seem to be fighting against you, or against each other? The Gift of Sanity should never be taken for granted, though it often is.

Consciousness is the inside of the brain while Personality is the external manifestation of each individual’s consciousness.

The foundation of every person’s consciousness forms as subconscious neuropathways grow during early childhood development.

The process of brain formation for every human being involves the right & left brain hemispheres operating independently of one another until they integrate: most integration happens by age 8, which is around the time each person’s baseline “personality” emerges, but the two brain hemispheres cannot fully communicate with each other until age 12 when the brain’s corpus callosum fully develops.

For some people, that integration never happens, & the two brain hemispheres continue to develop independently of one another.

This causes structural dissociation, which exists on a spectrum. The most severe end of the structural dissociation spectrum is “tertiary,” which is where dissociative identity disorder {DID} falls under.

I am so grateful to live in the time period of history that I do because now we get to explore neurobiology & understand some of the complexities of consciousness that were previously glossed over & labeled with generalized assumptions that proved inaccurate in the end.

Dissociative identity disorder is not just a disorder where personality manifests uniquely; it is a beautifully vast, deliciously complex neurodevelopmental disorder that involves a fascinatingly unique formation of consciousness, connecting the mind & body in a way like this world has never seen before.

Part Two: Brain Development & the Gift of Sanity

The merging of the brain’s subconscious parts occurs gradually over the many years of early childhood development. The ONLY way these two hemispheres ever communicate is through the corpus callosum: automated brain hemispheric communication should never be taken for granted.

Because the two brain hemispheres operate independently of one another during this critical period of development, events of remarkably high stress can cause a rerouting of brain wiring as the brain lends itself to fragmentation for optimal survival purposes. Multi-conscious minds are quite literally the human mind attempting to evolve yet at a steep price of losing portions of sanity.

When we are little, our right brain hemisphere is more active in life experience than our left brain hemisphere. This is why babies are more responsive to emotional context & creative connection than verbal narrative or logical rationale.

Everyone should have a stress ball or toy of some kind ~ go ahead & raise that up in your left hand & give it a good squeeze or a couple squeezes. By squeezing with your left hand, you are now activating your right brain hemisphere. All trauma-related parts of consciousness develop in the right brain hemisphere within a dissociative identity like mine.

As time proceeds, the left brain hemisphere becomes more engaged, yet still operates fairly independently of the right brain hemisphere. Please take your stress ball & now raise it up with your right hand & squeeze it a few times: you have now activated your left brain hemisphere. For those living with a dissociative identity, this is where the “going on with normal life self” exists.

For multi-conscious minds, the two brain hemispheres continue to exist independently of one another without awareness of the other hemisphere or the data it holds.

Integrated uni-conscious minds experience a beautiful, wonder-filled Gift of Sanity that allows for internal communication & collaboration between brain hemispheres, subconscious parts, & the various lobes within the brain.

Without this integration, however, the Gift of Sanity becomes inaccessible. Seemingly simple tasks become impossible.

The Gift of Sanity is what allows for your life experience to unfold in the manner that it does, creating opportunities for you to sanely interact with the world around you.

You are able to feel hunger pains as an appetite grows, & able to taste flavours & feel textures of food while eating, because of the Gift of Sanity.

You are able to feel exhaustion & choose relaxation & invite peaceful slumber towards the end of each day because of the Gift of Sanity.

You are able to accurately perceive time & space & tell where you are in relation to time & the things around you, instead of constantly running into walls or not knowing what year it is, because of the Gift of Sanity.

You are able to engage both left-brained structure & right-brained creativity together at the same time because of the Gift of Sanity.

Your ability to have continuity between days & understand the occurrences of yesterday in relation to today is because of the Gift of Sanity.

You are able to feel the enjoyably pleasant texture as you pet your dog or cat because of the Gift of Sanity.

You are able to learn new information, have new experiences, & create new memories because of the Gift of Sanity.

Your ability to feel the ground beneath your feet is because of the Gift of Sanity.

Your ability to translate vibration into sound is because of the Gift of Sanity.

Your ability to be aware of body pains & have a chance to accurately respond to them… Your ability to understand jokes & have a sense of humour… Your ability to spontaneously choose an alternate route while driving… Your ability to interpret life experience beyond the raw data of pure stimuli… Your ability to choose where you place your focus & attention… Your ability to exist here within this present moment… Your ability to understand the words I am speaking right now is ALL because of the Gift of Sanity.

This Gift of Sanity is not a luxury that everyone is blessed enough to experience, however---at least, not on a regular basis. I wish the world could know more about the Gift of Sanity so it would not be taken for granted & induce harmful concepts like mental health stigma.

For a brain like mine, the left & right brain hemispheres have not integrated & caused my consciousness to develop in pieces, creating an experience of multiple states of consciousness {that can manifest as multiple identities or “personalities”}.

Under any form of stress or stimuli, I can sporadically lose access to my left brain hemisphere, which includes my language centers & all construct of linear time, AND // along with my frontal lobes.

Your frontal lobes are responsible for// helps you with

• important cognitive skills

• emotional expression

• problem solving

• memory

• language

• judgment

• motor function

• problem solving

• spontaneity

• initiation

• impulse control

• social & sexual behavior

• “It is, in essence, the “control panel” of our personality and our ability to communicate.” {HealthLine}

• It is also responsible for primary motor function, or our ability to consciously move our muscles, and the two key areas related to speech, including Broca’s area.

Without access to frontal lobes, I can’t use my prefrontal cortex, which is the only way I can

• ability to be mindful & curious

• ability to retrieve & manipulate already learned information

• ability to learn new concepts or skills

• ability to integrate new information

• ability to regulate impulsivity

• ability to test reality

• ability to have a sense of self

• ability to manage dysregulated autonomic responses

Part Three: Nervous System Dysregulation

Along with my brain developing differently throughout my entire life, my nervous system is also chronically dysregulated.

The nervous system is in charge of practically everything happening within the brain & body: eating, sleeping, breathing, thinking, speaking, growing, healing, reading, learning, processing & responding to sensory stimuli, perceiving present pains, moving the body’s limbs, balance & coordination, regulating body temperature, creating new memories & accessing old ones, feeling emotions, stress management, & more!

If the nervous system is dysregulated, literally ALL of these modalities of operation are dramatically affected & severely impacted but without any conscious awareness of what is happening internally.

Part Four: Personal Story

The most terrifying part of all of this is that medical professionals fail to understand this, or are even concerned enough to research it further. Everything I’m sharing with you today I’ve learned in the past year & a half in a desperate attempt to save my own life.

In 2014, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder type II. The symptoms mimic those of a dysregulated autonomic nervous system, with mania or hypomania mimicking a dysregulated sympathetic nervous system & the depression end of bipolar mimicking a dysregulated parasympathetic nervous system. I was so deeply relieved to find answers for the inexplicable symptoms plaguing me since age 10, which made it all the more devastating when their treatments only worsened my condition.

I advocated daily for mental health awareness by sharing facts, insights, & resources while tirelessly working on my blog & fundraising for big-name mental health non-profit organizations like NAMI & DBSA. I spent several intensive years in psychiatric treatment, individual therapies, group therapies, CBT, DBT, EMDR, support groups from clinical doctors & non-profit volunteers alike & saw over 40 doctors in 4 years---yet no effective care or hope was ever provided. I landed in ERs, lost homes, lost jobs, lost relationships; lost myself, lost my hopes & dreams, & ultimately lost the ability to feel like a human being.

Years of nonstop healing journey efforts left me homeless, disabled, & existing in such deep misery that death sounded sweeter than life.

The need for awareness is desperate. Doctors have no idea how to help, & people struggling like me have no idea how valid they actually are. All of the YEARS of “insanity” I experienced with immense judgment & condemnation turned out to have neurobiological explanations: I was never crazy; I was all too self aware in a world refusing to acknowledge me.

Multi-conscious minds have so much to offer this world! We are the human consciousness attempting to evolve. We are the complexities of consciousness manifested through subconscious parts that every human being possesses. We are

Here today is a brave beautiful warrior soul friend Haley who helped me to appreciate my mosaic mind. Let’s welcome Haley, everybody!

Part Five: Call to Action

I invite you to join the Dissociative Identity Movement. Launching in March 2020, this annual worldwide mental health advocacy mission seeks to expand awareness about dissociative identity disorder & surrounding topics, including consciousness & personality, trauma & mental health, & more!

Whether you know about mental health in depth or have never explored the topic, EVERYone is welcome! EVERY voice is needed!

If you’re interested in being a part of world change, please grab a flyer at the registration table to find out how you can get involved!

{Introduce Haley.}

Here today is a fellow warrior who is a part of the Dissociative Identity Movement. Let’s welcome Haley, everybody!