Paul's Related Pages:

• Paul's Answers to Questions on Enlightenment and Description of the Journey
• A Visual and Interactive Model of Dissociation

The Path to Healing

Yes, it's true! You can free yourself from past trauma and the scourge of dissociation. I am not a trained expert, indeed I have not really ever understood a book on spirituality or enlightenment (although they were read in an unenlightened state). I am merely a "patient" considered disorded for many years because I could not free myself of past trauma and dissociation. I am doing all of this purely based on my own intuition of what I know is the path I need to take and have indeed taken, guided by an understanding and completely supporting therapist. Take this for what it is. This is my truth as I know it right now. It may not be yours.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is the body's natural response to a traumatic, and unnatural, event or events (trauma can be anything from childhood abuse to war and terrorism to environmental disasters). It involves overwhelming a person's ability to cope and disrupts functioning of mind and body. Related to PTSD is dissociation, which is a mental process marked by extreme internal and external disconnection. Both PTSD and dissociation are on a continuum of severity and both interact with each other and almost always co-exist.

The first level of skill one learns in dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and dissociation is grounding. Actually what you ultimately want to do is the exact opposite! But for people who are at the beginning of dealing with these difficult issues, only grounding is possible for the moment. So do it, but realize there is another, far greater, skill that will lead to total wellness. Grounding is simply like taking a pill; it will not heal you.

This much more powerful skill involves the opposite of grounding. When you feel yourself being dragged into a memory or part of yourself, what is really happening is that your mind is controlling you. It does you no good to allow yourself for this to continue, unless you are in a safe place specifically focused to process the memories or dissociated states. Grounding is the poor man's solution to this problem (and as I've said it's not a true solution only a band-aid). I do not know how to teach this skill I am about to reveal. But it involves freeing yourself from your mind. You observe your thoughts without judgement and you liberate your senses. I have achieved this state only relatively recently by simply looking inside without judgement. What I saw truly astounded me and changed my life.

The Consequences of Enlightenment

Through my experience, I was able to achieve a new level of consciousness. I experienced such vastness that cannot be described with words and a sense of calm that was deeper than anything I had ever thought possible. I opened my mind to true consciousness and saw the enormity of our existence and suddenly was able to access seemingly infinite knowledge. I realized that there is the earth-bound world and there is real conscious awareness, a whole other aspect of the universe I had never realized existed that transcends physical reality.

What I was able to achieve has turned the tables on everything I believed to be true before. The Laws of Physics seem trivial now in comparison to what I now know. All scientific research on how the brain works is trivial. Interpreting data, circuits understood in terms of math and models is simply a mirage. The brain is not math, it is not chemicals, it is a miracle. There is no amount of intellectual knowledge that will explain what it can do. And those who are studying the brain and looking at the details of biology have no concept of what they are truly working with.

I saw heaven when I achieved this state. I connected to everything in the universe. I realized that I am not separate, but rather I live together with all of humanity.

Einstein wrote:

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

Einstein was a very smart and creative man. He recognized that we can achieve great things when we allow ourselves to look beyond ourselves (and make use of the right side of our brains).

Releasing Memories and the Role of Dissociation

When you live in a place of disease of the mind, you do so because that is all you know. Struggling with whether memories of trauma are "real" in truth means nothing. What matters is only your reality. Your truth. It does not matter if they are fear-based (implanted as a reflection or interpretation of what happened) or whether they are an historical record of what was physically and emotionally done to you. Just accept.

During my awakening, I saw the parts of my dissociated self. My experience of them was inspiring. I was proud of them. I am not ashamed at what my earth-bound internal structure is and always will be. It saved my life. I will not ever doubt that there are parts within. I will not ever disrespect them. I will not ever shut them out. I made direct contact with the parts within for the first time ever in my life. (Note: I didn't quite stay on this path, and have since been caught off guard; there is work that we need to do to keep us on the path because we are continually tempted to go back to the earth-bound interpretation that is so prevalent).

I am also immensely humbled by my experiences. I know without doubt that God exists. Everything seems now to be put into proper perspective. What is important and unimportant now makes complete sense to me.

A couple of days after the experience, as I remained in a state of pure peace and perpetual bliss, I began to consider what its impact was on me. I saw its effects all around me. Everything was perceived differently. I felt and saw energy coming from all living things. I wanted to give myself to people. The world was completely new to me (and this is coming from someone who has spent a fair amount of time studying the world and looking for, photographing, and teaching about patterns in nature).

I now know that many, if not all, psychiatric disorders as well as physical and emotional pain are caused from our inability to free ourselves from our thoughts. What is needed is not more pills and doctors who say "it's not your fault, it's your brain's" but rather for someone to tell you "You can control this, I will show you how... Simply let go of control. Stop trying to think." I realize this runs completely counter-intuitive to what we have always been taught. But I can assure you that it is the only route to wellness.

Otherwise you are simply a slave to your mind. And you will perceive this, rightly, as insanity.

I understand well that our system of education teaches kids how to calculate and think and forces kids to live on the left side of their brains. How sad. How limiting. "Move to the right" and you begin to see what we are capable of. But we tell kids that thinking is "where it's at". All our tests are based on that belief.

Likewise, psychiatric medicine needs to shift from a continual assessment of thoughts and intellectual work towards yoga, meditation, and other forms of self-soothing and approaches to achieve conscious awareness. These are not just "extra" techniques to help you on your intellectual journey. They are an integral part of the solution. The problem is that while many clinicians will accept (or perhaps even applaud) these techniques, they don't, to a large extent, truly embrace them. They think that they are done separately. This is just plain wrong. Everything has to work together. There cannot be a separation. Unfortunately, this is difficult to achieve because most clinicians cannot straddle these two ways of working. So medicine, along with education, is stuck. Stuck until mindful and creative methods become truly accepted and part of clinical training of the next generation of healers.

What does this mean in terms of dissociative disorders and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)? How can a dissociative disorder lead to enlightenment?

I thought my lifelong ability to separate out my mind into discrete parts must have something to do with this transformative experience. But in what way? How?

When I had my experience of full consciousness, a freeing of my senses from my mind, I realized that I am not alone. I am connected to all of humanity and this could be easily interpreted as "I am more than one".

Well, it is a fact that I have already lived a life of there being more than one inside of me.

I believe that the presence of dissociative states makes it easier to achieve enlightenment. It's a primer, so to speak. Crudely explained, "many minds" inside of you is a microcosm of all of human consciousness, where there are infinite minds all sharing the same infinite space. This is not at all, I believe, a necessary requirement, but it may make achieving enlightenment easier.

If the parts are just inside your head, but yet you still are also still only thinking within the context of your own head, then this will cause immense difficulty, disorder, self-destruction, and internal chaos. You are still a slave to mind, except now you have many parts which just complicates things as each part is, itself, a slave to your mind. You have simply become many slaves. And, to some extent, each part is slave to each other. You become inextricably bound to mental and physical illness. Forever.

If you can free your mind and connect to all of human consciousness, there will be no such thing as illness or disorder. You will be completely healed and transcend all that has plagued you for so long. Why? The parts inside will just join the rest of humanity. This is why healing can not really be called integration. You will be healed when you know what "one" means (it means both one and infinity at the same time, a physical truth that defies mathematical logic). You will be englightened, like I have been.

This is what makes enlightenment extra special for those with dissociative disorders. Our internal landscape has been so chaotic and complex for so long. To free ourselves from those struggles is simply astounding. Dare I say miraculous?

Where Can You Go From Here?

Now the obvious question for me is: Does this state of complete awareness last forever? Have I stayed healed? The answer has been mixed. As I wrote above, sometimes thoughts reassert themselves, sometimes you lose faith, sometimes we fall into our parts, sometimes we fall off the path.

It is a process. But I do know that once you achieve the state of enlightenment and full conscious awareness, you open the door for the rest of your life! Yes I lost this fully conscious state where there was nothing but bliss, but it's still there. I know losing it is only temporary, as I continually achieve different levels of conscious awareness that exist on a continuum.

I appreciate that while you may know the dictionary definition of each and every word on this page, you may not yet understand what the words mean when they are put together as sentences. That is okay. It's hard to put an experience like this into words. Maybe you need to come back to this, and eventually it will begin to have meaning for you. You will begin to know.

I wish you well on your life's journey and I pray that you may one day understand the meaning of this page and reach the place I have been blessed to reach.

Please feel free to write me if you have questions, comments, or suggestions. Send mail to: paul@mindparts.org.

The logos at top left and right were designed in Summer 2008 by fellow survivors I met online to increase DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and other dissociative disorders awareness. Obviously they have two different messages. If you are interested in purchasing a pin of these logos, follow this link.

External Resources:

• After Silence, a message board and chat for survivors of sexual violence.
• International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, the professional resource and publisher of peer-reviewed journal.
• Sidran Institute, PTSD and dissociation resources (mainly many excellent books).
• Many Voices, newsletter for trauma and dissociation which has been in existence since 1989.
• The Trauma Center, a research, training and clinical services center led by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk at Boston University.
• David Baldwin's Trauma Information Pages.
• University of Oregon's Scholars' Bank: Dissociation Journal and Jennifer Freyd (ed) Journal of Trauma and Dissociation.
• (Wo)Men Speak Out, Ophelia and Chris De Serres's excellent activist organization with multimedia resources.
• Mosaic Minds, a clearinghouse of information on dissociation.
• Kinhost, a publicly edited Wiki for people with multiple personalities.
• Keepers Korner, information and support for people with DID.
• The Wounded Healer, a trauma support community.
• Survivorship, for survivors of ritualistic abuse, mind control, and torture led by a friend of mine.
• Survivors Art Foundation, healing through art (an excellent healing tool).
• NeeDID Exchange, a support network for DID and dissociative disorders.
• Let the Truth Ring Out Webring.
• alt.support.dissociation, an internet newsgroup.