M.J. Rodgers - Beauty Vs. The Beast

“I’m a psychologist in private practice. Five and a half years ago, a man named Lee Nye came to me plagued by troubling blackouts. In the course of my therapy with Lee, I discovered that living inside him, he had another separate and distinct personality named Roy.”

Kay instantly shot forward in her chair. “You mean he’s one of those multiple-personality people?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t he just tell you that?”

“He didn’t know. Neither of his personalities was aware of the other.”

Kay leaned back again, taking a moment to consider his words. Multiple personalities were the latest of the legal hot spots. She’d followed several recent cases with interest.

In those cases, defendants with the disorder claimed that since only one of their multiple personalities committed a crime, their other personalities were blameless and shouldn’t be punished. It had become a very sticky legal issue, no doubt about it.

Kay believed that most of these defendants were only doing what defendants had done since the beginning of the trial-by-jury system—latching on to the newest legal loophole that would allow them to get out of taking responsibility for their actions.

She carefully kept the cynicism out of her tone.

“I confess I know very little about this condition. How is it possible for a man to possess two personalities inside him and not know it?”

Damian Steele had been watching her intently with that open face and those secretive eyes. She knew it was impossible, but she had the uncanny feeling that he had been reading her thoughts as easily as a highway sign warning of a divided road ahead.

He raised his hands off the arms of his chair and slowly brought them together. His fingers moved as though to interlace, but instead butted up against one another.

“The two Nye personalities had been living separate mental lives and saw themselves as separate identities. When each personality started to seek control over the consciousness, their identities began to clash.”

She leaned forward slightly. “You describe these personalities as having separate identities. Is this multiple-personality phenomenon an intense, extended form of role playing? Like an actor throwing himself into a part so thoroughly, he forgets he’s acting?”

“No, Kay. There is no conscious intent to role-play. The divergent and distinct personalities are absolutely real to that person. That’s why a clash resulted when these two both sought control over the consciousness.”

“How were these personalities able to coexist before without a clash?”

“Lee—the personality I treated—had been submerged for many years while Roy held control over the consciousness. Then Lee began to lay claim to the consciousness approximately six years ago. Lee’s emergence caused each of the separate personalities to experience memory blackouts during the time the other took control. After one of these blackouts, Lee would suddenly come to awareness and find himself in a place he didn’t recognize, with people he didn’t know and with absolutely no memory of the intervening hours, days or maybe even longer periods of time.”

“A kind of recurring amnesia.”

“Yes.”

“And you say the clash between the two personalities began about six years ago because this Lee personality that was subordinated started to come out?”

“Yes.”

“Why did Lee start to come out?”

“Because the previously dominant personality—Roy—had been steadily getting weaker over the years, and Lee had been steadily getting stronger.”

“Ah, it was like a tug-of-war between them.”

“In a manner of speaking. Only, since neither knew about the other, each was tugging, as you put it, against an unknown.”

“Tugging against an unknown,” Kay repeated, trying out the words in an attempt to better grasp the elusive concept. “I’m striving to relate this to something familiar in my own personal experience, but I confess I’m having trouble finding anything.”

“I doubt you ever will. This phenomenon is hard to relate to normal experience. The individual I treated was born LeRoy Lyle Nye on August 20, 1952. That means his body is in its forties. But Lee, the man who came to me for treatment, can remember very little personal history before six years ago.”

“Because he only came to life six years ago?”

“In some respects, yes, but he is an adult. He views himself as a man in his early thirties and behaves consistent with that view.”

“Surely this Lee personality must have suspected something was amiss when he could only remember back such a short time.”

“He thought very little of his past. The present and future claimed his primary focus. His blackout episodes were far more disturbing to him than his lack of earlier personal memories. The latter he accepted as a mere inconvenience.”

“He only felt inconvenienced? I would think a normal person would be frantic.”

“Because a normal person would feel the loss. But when Lee thought about his lack of memories, which wasn’t often, he merely assumed others had the same difficulties remembering as he did.”

“Is Lee’s reaction typical for someone with his disorder?”

“There is very little that is ‘typical’ in a multiple-personality case. Each is as individual as the mind from which it evolves. These cases were once thought to be rare. Now, most in the field believe they are far more common than any of us imagined. The literature is growing on the subject, but we still have much to learn about diagnosis and treatment.”

“You realize, I expect, that the concept of two separate and distinct personalities existing in the same mind is rather an unusual one for the layperson to envision, much less accept.”

His left hand swept across the thick, unruly hair at the side of his head. It was a rough, square hand, a tool for the impatience that she sensed had set it into motion. But it was also a servant to the disciplined mind that returned it to the arm of his chair. As she had earlier sensed, this psychologist could be just as complicated as his subject.

“Kay, multiple personality disorder or MPD still seems like science fiction to many people, even many psychologists. Some postulate that the affected individuals possess not many personalities, but many fragments of one personality.”

“Which approach do you consider more accurate?”

“I’m a pragmatist. I don’t fixate on disputing or embracing labels or adhering to hard-and-fast data.”

“So how do you approach treatment?”

Damian rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, the heels of his shoes disappearing into the thick mustard-colored carpet, his long, lean legs crossing at the ankles.

“I believe achieving results is what is important, not how the results are achieved. Patients come to me or any psychologist because they want to eliminate their disruptive feelings or behavior, sometimes both. I try what I believe will work, and if my method doesn’t work, I drop it and try something else until I find what does work.”

“What did you try with Lee when he came to you?”

“Lee wanted to eliminate his disruptive blackouts. Nothing in his present life appeared to be causing them. His lack of memories strongly pointed to the possibility of past trauma. I hypnotized him to discover what that past trauma might be. It was under hypnosis that Roy emerged.”

“So up until the time you hypnotized Lee, you didn’t know Roy, the second personality, existed?”

“That’s correct. Actually, Roy never came out in my sessions with Lee unless Lee was under hypnosis.”

“Are you saying he had to be hypnotized into being Roy?”

“No. What I’m saying is that under hypnosis, the control Lee exerted over the shared mind was relaxed sufficiently to allow Roy to be called out at will.”