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- [00:00]
Julian Morgans
Hey what it was like listeners. Did you know that every week we release a whole other episode just for subscribers? Not just that, but subscribers get ad free episodes and access to the whole back catalog. You know, it's a good time. It's great. So if you're already a subscriber, thank you. Thanks for supporting the show. And for those who haven't subscribed yet, well, what are you doing? Not only will you get access to some great content, but you'll also be helping us to dig into the really hard stories that that blow your mind. So please hit subscribe on Apple or Spotify and join the club. You'll love it.
- [00:39]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [00:57]
Verizon Terms Announcer
$20 monthly promo credits applied to account over 35 months with a new line on unlimited. Welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic domestic data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms apply for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.
- [01:09]
American Red Cross Announcer
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- [01:40]
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- [02:19]
Vivian Conan
I was on my fifth therapist at the time and I said maybe I've been reincarnated and I have all these other people inside me. Like I felt something inside me pushing and pulling me, but I had no idea what it was. So that weekend I just happened to be looking for a video to rent and I went to the VCR store. I just happened to see Sybil and it looked interesting. It was the story of a woman who had 16 personalities. After I watched it, I realized it was very dramatic for me that I realized, oh my God, this is what's wrong with me. This is what I am. And at first I was horrified.
- [03:05]
Julian Morgans
Hey, I'm Julian Morgans, and you're listening to what It Was like, the show that asks people who have lived through big dramatic events what it was like. Hey, everyone, welcome back. So you might have noticed that we've just been doing heaps of stories about killers and people who get abducted. And, you know, I've just been really absorbed in these kinds of stories. I don't know why. And I guess today's story is kind of connected to true crime in a roundabout way. So what's been happening is that I've been just, just like deep in these sort of true crime rabbit warrens, just looking around, reading serial killer stories, watching serial killer films. And I started noticing the same psychological explanation for this behavior, for homicidal behavior, just popping up over and over again. And it's what used to be called multiple personality disorder, and most people still know it by that name, even though in the modern term, because it got changed back in the 90s, is now disassociative Identity Disorder. And this basically describes someone who's living with two or more distinct identities and, and usually as a response to trauma. And you've seen this everywhere. It's the big plot twist on Shutter island, it's the big plot twist on Fight Club, it's in Primal Fear, it's in Secret Window. And it's just such a movie staple that honestly, I think I've never stopped to think about what a real world version of this would look like until I came across today's guest. So Vivian Conan is an 83 year old woman from New York who's lived most of her life with Disassociative Identity Disorder. And I think that's the last time that I'll say the full term. Like the acronym, the distilled version is just did D I D. And she didn't know that she had it for decades. And as you'll hear, she spent, well, 40 years basically piecing together what was happening to her. And so this episode is like a bit of a quieter introspective one. It's basically about someone trying to understand who they are and why. And although that can be kind of like quiet, like on the surface level, no one dies, no one gets abducted, but on the inside, that. That's a huge journey. As we all know, the human brain is Just, it's a wild place. And I think the fact that it can effectively run several operating systems in the one piece of hardware, that's incredible. But what's really fascinating to me about this story is just the lived experience of it. It's Vivian realizing that not everyone slips in and out of different people. She had to realize that that is not a normal, widespread experience, and it was unique to her and her journey to discover that and to try to blend these characters together. It's really fascinating. So let's get into it. Here is my conversation with Vivian Conan. Hey, Vivian. Welcome to the show.
- [06:09]
Vivian Conan
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [06:12]
Julian Morgans
So let's start with your childhood and your background. Can you just briefly give me a bit of information about where you grew up?
- [06:21]
Vivian Conan
So I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in post World War II, in the 1940s. 40s and 1950s. My mother was an educator, a teacher, and then a principal of school. My father was a postal worker, and I have a younger brother, but I have a very large extended family. That was a big part of my life. My nuclear family was a bit problematic, but it was a little mitigated by my extended family. My father was very, very controlling. His parents died when he was in his teens, and he had to drop out of school to support his younger siblings. And so he was very concerned that if he and my mother die, my brother and I should be able to support ourselves. So he wanted to make sure that I would survive in the world. When I was 10, 8 years old, he taught me typing and stenography. So he. And he was very autocratic. So he could be very strict physically, as well as yelling. And my mother. My mother was more easygoing in terms of structuring how we learned, but she was very unhappy in her marriage and could blow hot and cold.
- [07:52]
Julian Morgans
Okay, and how did that shape you? How would you describe yourself as a child?
- [08:00]
Vivian Conan
Well, I was two ways outside of the house. I was always laughing. I was boisterous. I had a lot of friends. I was the loudest one in school. I was always laughing in the house. I was very quiet. I was not a happy child in the house. But when I went out of the house, I didn't know I wasn't happy. And so I. I looked like the most happy kid on the block.
- [08:33]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Yeah. And then I think. So you say that you are kind of two ways, but then it feels to me like you had a third way as well. Like there was a sort of private internal world, and you had this thing called the Atmosphere. Can you tell me what that was.
- [08:48]
Vivian Conan
That developed when I was maybe 6 years old or something like that? I had this, I guess you would call it an imaginary world where kindly grownups looked over me. Like, first they were doctors and nurses because I always noticed that when you went to the doctor, they were very nice to you, and I just thought they were the ones who were going to rescue me from my family. And so at first, it was just doctors and nurses in the atmosphere watching over me, and I didn't really know who they were. But then over the years, I added people to the atmosphere. So anyone who was the least bit nice to me, it could have been a bus driver, it could have been a teacher. There were real life people, but I created a second version of them that went in the atmosphere. And even when the original person was no longer there, like the teacher went home or the bus driver, I never saw again, still they stayed in the atmosphere with me all the time. So over the years, the atmosphere got more and more people in it. And the purpose of the atmosphere was they understood me. They understood how I felt. They didn't have to do anything about the trauma or abuse or what, anything. It was just enough for me that they knew and they understood. They knew how I felt, and they were with me 24 7. And that's what got me through many, many hard times.
- [10:38]
Julian Morgans
Wow. It sounds like a glorious place. I mean, it's. You are kind of doing like a private version of what it feels to me like spirituality does on a grand scale. You're collecting these sort of benevolent beings to look over you in times of adversity. And, you know, that sounds really comforting.
- [10:55]
Vivian Conan
Yeah. I mean, years and years and years later, when I was writing a memoir, my writing teacher said, it sounds like some people's version of God. They're just watching over you. And I'm not a particularly religious person, and I never felt God, but maybe his description was a little bit correct.
- [11:17]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And tell me about you, because I understand that you sort of had a. Like a fractured version of your own identity. And in particular, there was a version of you that you called Ellen Willow, who appeared at a fairly young age.
- [11:33]
Vivian Conan
Can you.
- [11:34]
Julian Morgans
Can you tell me about Ellen?
- [11:36]
Vivian Conan
So Ellen Willow came around when I was around 15 years old. I used to stand in front of my bedroom mirror and talk to faces in the mirror who were not me. At first, I didn't really think anything of it. I don't think I talked to them. I think I talked for them. Like, I would say Something, but the words would come out of their mouth in the mirror and then I could answer them. So I was talking to them and also talking for them that way. It was a two way conversation, but there were different people in the mirror and I was very, very unhappy. But none of the adults in my life understood it. So somehow I became Ellen Willow. Ellen Willow was named after Willow is because willow trees are very sad. And Ellen was the mother of Scarlett o' Hara in Gone with the Wind. And she also had. She put up with a lot of hardship in her life without complaining like she was the person she was supposed to marry. Her family didn't let her, so she married Scarlet's father. And she never told anybody about her sadness. She just went about her life. So Ellen Willow is named after that. Ellen Willow became very real for me. She was a 15 year old writer who lives in Nebraska and Nebraska is very, very far from New York. And to me, Nebraska was the end of the world when I was a teenager. I mean, I'm sure people who live in Nebraska wouldn't like this, but to me it was the wilderness. So Ellen Willow was a maid, like a housekeeper for a very wealthy family who was very good to her. And they didn't know that she was a writer who published novels under a pseudonym. And I didn't even know what the pseudonym was. And Ellen Willow always felt that if she was the perfect mate, this elderly couple would want to adopt her. So the elderly couple that Ellen Willow lived with were some of the atmosphere people also. And at first Ellen Willow was only in Nebraska in my mind. But little by little, Ellen Willow came to take over my life while I was in Brooklyn. And I even sometimes told people my name was Ellen Willow. But my family all knew that I liked to write and they thought that I was using Ellen Willow as a pen name. And sometimes when I would write cards, like a card to my cousin, I would sign it Ellen Willow. Sometimes I would sign it Vivian. She felt like another person, but nobody in my family ever questioned it.
- [14:53]
Julian Morgans
Did you feel yourself sort of sliding into the character of Ellen Willow? Like was this a sort of physical experience or would you just sort of slide in and out seamlessly?
- [15:05]
Vivian Conan
I would slide in and out seamlessly. So I'll give you this example. Like one of my high school jobs in real life, this was I worked in a pajama factory making buttonholes. And it's a very boring job. So while I was doing it, my mind would turn back to Ellen Willow and Ellen Willow, the elderly couple. She worked for were having a dinner party and they had asked her to buy some things from the bakery for the party. And in real life, my mother had asked me to stop in the bakery after work and get something. So in my purse I kept Ellen Willow's money separate from my mother's money. I bought the stuff from my mother, but in my mind I was buying the pastries for the Nebraska dinner party. And when I was walking home, I was seeing not the regular houses in Brooklyn, I was seeing these different kind of houses that were in Nebraska. But as soon as I walked up the steps and gave my mother the bread, I gave her her change from the right part of my pocketbook. I don't know if that answers your question.
- [16:26]
Julian Morgans
No, no, that's very evocative. The Ellen Willow thing sounds like this entirely immersive world where it's just sort of like you've got these two worlds, these two lives superimposed over each other and one sort of fades in and out of focus and the other one comes to the. To the foreground. And I mean, it sounds confusing.
- [16:44]
Vivian Conan
It's actually not confusing because Ellen Willow was a very, very competent 15 year old and nothing bothered her. And if I was not such a happy 15 year old when she took over my body, I did not feel bad. I felt totally in control. So it was. She was, she was a relief for me, but she felt very real to me.
- [17:15]
Julian Morgans
Okay. But Ellen wasn't alone. You had a few other. Well, I guess they're alters, aren't they? That's the terminology to describe these characters.
- [17:27]
Vivian Conan
The terminology could be alter, alter personality, but I like to call them parts. The condition was renamed from multiple personality disorder to dissociative identity disorder, partly to emphasize that they're not really separate personalities. There's one person who's dissociating parts of themselves into different aspects, or so I like to call them parts. And the name was also changed to emphasize the dissociative aspect of it. And I don't know if this is a good time for me to explain what dissociation is.
- [18:10]
Julian Morgans
No, let's do it.
- [18:12]
Vivian Conan
Okay. Dissociation is a walling off of parts of your feelings or knowledge so that it doesn't break, bother the rest of you. And I give you an example that's not a disorder. Like if a disaster happens, like a flood or a fire or something, people dissociate their emotions while they run around doing everything they can to secure themselves for safety. If they were going to allow their emotions to be part of this they would never be able to get out of this disaster. And it's only once the danger is past and you're in a position of safety that you are safe to let your emotions come back. So that's dissociation. So dissociative identity disorder is most often caused by ongoing childhood trauma at the hands of someone the child knows well, usually a caregiver. And the child cannot leave home because the child needs the caregiver to live. So there's some way the child has to be able to live with this person without knowing of the trauma that the person has caused them. And so they dissociate it. The trauma is walled off in a part of your brain or your mind or where you don't know about it. Just like the disaster victims wall off their emotions to go, so the rest of the child doesn't know about the abuse and can then go to school, play with friends. And so with dissociative identity disorder, there could be more than one split. And each of these is like a walled off internal silo that is holding emotions about particular aspects of the trauma or knowledge of it that the rest of the parts don't know. Sometimes knowledge can flow one way and not the other. Some parts don't know anything. Some parts know more than others. A lot of people with dissociative identity disorder say that they are a system. And everybody who has the dissociative identity disorder has a different system. But there are commonalities. Like there are usually child parts, they're called littles. There are usually protector parts, and then there are others. But it's always called a system.
- [21:00]
Julian Morgans
Okay, so can I just repeat some of this just to make sure I've got it clear? But essentially, the version of Vivian who was suffering, living with your dad, got kind of walled off. And you adapted these other versions of yourself, these other parts, to live out the other various parts of your life that were necessary for a young woman to live. You know, there was a version of you that was at school, or there was a version of you, you know, that was the sort of servicing other roles. But essentially they didn't know so much about the traumatized version of Vivian who was suffering at the hands of your dad.
- [21:38]
Vivian Conan
That's great. It wasn't just my father, it was my mother in a different way. And it winds up that when I finally found out what was the matter in my 40s and then going to therapy in my 50s, that it was attachment trauma. And that was more my mother, and that was more what caused the atmosphere. But yes, there are different parts that are are dealing with that. And some of my parts were to deal with my mother and some were to deal with my father.
- [22:13]
Julian Morgans
Hey, it's time for a quick ad break here, but please don't go anywhere. Stick around because we'll be right back.
- [22:25]
Verizon Advertiser
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- [22:44]
Verizon Terms Announcer
$20 monthly promo credits applied to account over 35 months with a new line on unlimited welcome. In times of congestion, unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic Data roaming at 2G speeds. Additional terms apply for phone offer. See verizon.com for details.
- [22:56]
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- [23:27]
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- [23:49]
Vivian Conan
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Vivian Conan
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- [23:56]
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- [24:51]
Julian Morgans
Okay, so at the moment, I mean, like, this atmosphere thing you're describing sounds really positive. Well, I could imagine a couple of ways where I'd find that really useful in my own life. And, you know, Ellen sounds like quite a nice person as well. So I'm wondering if there were parts of you that you found destructive at an early age. And specifically, I'm thinking you had a part of you that you called Lisa. Is that right?
- [25:18]
Vivian Conan
So Lisa was around 17 years old, and Lisa would hold all the pain for us. It's emotional pain that I'm talking about. She would get suicidal, and she would also get crazy. So if Lisa is holding the pain, when Lisa is out, meaning in control of my body or in front, and I'm not talking currently, I'm talking about a long time ago because I'm not so volatile right now. But when Lisa was out, I could be very suicidal. Lisa was also the most attractive of us. She liked to wear nice clothes and nice earrings, and she would go out with men and sleep with them to get someone to hold. Like, the babies and the young kids needed someone to hold them. So Lisa would sleep with people to get someone to hold them. Like, we look the same on the outside, but inside we're feeling either 6 or 17 or whatever.
- [26:23]
Julian Morgans
Wow, that is so interesting. That is so interesting to me that in some way, your brain correlated flirtiness or sort of social aptitude with these darker parts of your own personality. You know, depression, suicide, that they were sort of bundled together. That's really interesting. I don't know what that says.
- [26:44]
Vivian Conan
Well, the dissociation is adaptive when it first starts. So if there's one part of me that's holding all the pain and all the feelings of suicide, there's other parts of me that don't feel suicidal at all. And actually, this is a problem. Like, when I was in the hospital, ostensibly, they thought I was suicidal. And then the next day, like, a different part of me is out, and I don't feel suicidal at all. And the hospital staff and the doctors don't understand what happened. They don't realize I have at that time what was called multiple personality disorder, and they don't understand how I could change like that. But, yes, it's walled off.
- [27:32]
Julian Morgans
Okay. And what was happening in your life at the point where you were hospitalized for the first time?
- [27:43]
Vivian Conan
I was seeing a therapist who didn't really understand what was going on. And I liked him. And I had two versions of him, an in person version and an atmosphere version. And his in person version was very much like his atmosphere version in the sense that he was gentle and he tried to understand. So I mistakenly thought he understood more than he did. I didn't realize he was perplexed about me. And because I felt comfortable with him, I let him see parts of me that most of the outside world didn't see. I let him see the pain. I spoke nonsense syllables in his office. I would moan or I would scream, but I could go back and forth also. So I thought he understood me totally. I didn't realize he didn't. And I also was a little bit suicidal at the time. And he suggested that I go to the hospital. And I went for the. He made an appointment for me. And so I thought, well, if I went to the hospital, it would be like a real live version of the atmosphere and the doctors and nurses there would understand me and I would be able to get a rest. So it wasn't what I had envisioned, but that's how I got in the first time.
- [29:22]
Julian Morgans
Okay, and was this a helpful experience?
- [29:25]
Vivian Conan
No, it wasn't. I was quickly disillusioned that the staff was not really tuned in. If you haven't checked, you're only there for 30 days, and these are all residents being trained. I didn't know what was going on and they didn't know. And they classified me as schizophrenic. They gave me medication for schizophrenia, Stelazine and Thorazine. And it had a really bad effect on me. It was not a good experience.
- [30:03]
Julian Morgans
I'm sorry, Vivian. It sounds. It sounds really. You seem like a happy person. You know, you seem like you're able to talk about this very objectively and reflectively, but it. This sounds like a really hard journey.
- [30:17]
Vivian Conan
Well, it was a hard journey, but I'm in a good place now. First of all, I'm now. And that happened when I was in my 20s. And the therapist that I'm seeing now, I started seeing when I was in my 50s. I'm seeing him about 30 years. And people say, like, long term, they don't understand it. But Oliver Sacks was seeing his therapist for 40 some odd years. And if he hadn't died, he would still be seeing his therapist. It keeps me steady. It keeps me on an even keel. If I start to backslide or I go through like a period of stress and the atmosphere starts to come back or my parts start to get more active. My therapist understands what's happening, and before it gets out of hand, can help me to get on a straight path. And it's not intense the way it was when I first started seeing him. I was seeing him for two double sessions a week. Now I see him for one single session a week, and it really keeps me okay.
- [31:23]
Julian Morgans
Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm really pleased that you got to this place. I mean, you. You held down a job in insurance for decades. You know, you had a very respectable 9 to 5. How did you manage to remain employed while emotionally dealing. Dealing with all this other stuff through.
- [31:43]
Vivian Conan
The power of dissociation? I have two careers. I'm a librarian and an IT systems analyst. I was working as an IT systems analyst, and because I needed money to pay for therapy on the weekends, I worked as a librarian. So I worked seven days a week. But I never stopped being a librarian. And when I retired from the it, I still do work part time as a librarian.
- [32:13]
Julian Morgans
Okay. Okay, that makes sense.
- [32:14]
Vivian Conan
So I think that just. So part of my father's thing was that having a job is the most important thing in your life. And so for some reason, I was always fine at work. Even during some times when I was in the hospital, they would allow me to go out on pass and go to work. And like, I was never not okay at work. And if at all, sometimes would happen that I would switch during work and something like an inappropriate part of me would come out, I would instantly go to the ladies room and I would put myself in a stall and lock the door and just wait there 20 minutes or whatever, until. Until I got back an appropriate person. So I was 100% always okay at work.
- [33:08]
Julian Morgans
Wow. Okay. You had a system for it.
- [33:12]
Vivian Conan
I had. There's one of my parts called Almost Vivian. And Almost Vivian, she's not active now because I'm really okay and I don't need her. But her job, she's like the system administrator. She made sure we got up on time to go to work. She made sure there was food to go in the refrigerator. If she saw we were switching, she would step in and, like, be the facade and get us to the ladies room. She was like system control. So that's what Almost Vivian and I. I mean, she hasn't been around in a while. I could thank her. But I don't need her now. How many.
- [33:53]
Julian Morgans
How many parts did you have?
- [33:56]
Vivian Conan
I never counted them. I mean, they're fluid. Some go and some come. I can't really say. I don't know.
- [34:04]
Julian Morgans
Sure. And how did you manage personal relationships through this period in your life? Like, you know, particularly intimate relationships, you know, how would you hold down a partner?
- [34:17]
Vivian Conan
Well, I had a lot of girlfriends. I did not have a lot of boyfriends because part of me always felt like no matter how I looked on the outside, a good part of my life I spent looking at the world from a six year old point of view. And it was really hard. It wasn't until like I started to get more blended and I started to let go of the atmosphere that I was. I mean, I never married and I never had children. So that could tell you that.
- [34:53]
Julian Morgans
When you were a kid were these things that you wanted.
- [34:59]
Vivian Conan
When I was a kid, I never understood why anybody would want to get married. I mean, I guess I just had my parents, my parents as an example. And I also could not, I mean, I could not imagine what I would say to somebody sitting across from the dinner table or saying with them all the time. I went out on dates and I had like boyfriends every once in a while, but it never lasted. And I didn't understand why at the time. I mean, theoretically, yeah, like, like that's what you do. You grow up and you try to meet someone and get married. But I never really pictured myself doing that. Yeah, yeah, I wanted it, but it just didn't seem that I would be capable of it.
- [35:55]
Julian Morgans
So you remained kind of a mystery to yourself for a long time. For decades. You were kind of. You knew that your experience of the world was different to others around you, but you didn't have a diagnosis that felt right. I mean, how was that? Did you, did you feel alone with this?
- [36:16]
Vivian Conan
I just chalked it up that something is the matter with me, that I just. Therapy wasn't really helping it. And I figured it out though, when I was in my 40s, like I was on my fifth therapist at the time. And she said to me one day, you're a puzzle because nothing bad is going on in your life now, but you're always upset. Why do you think that is? And I said, I don't know, like, maybe I've been reincarnated and I have all these other people inside me. Like I felt something inside me pushing and pulling me, but I had no idea what it was. And she said, there's no such thing as reincarnation. And anyway, I don't know how to do hypnosis. So I said okay. I mean, I was kind of relieved. I didn't want to think that. So that weekend, I just happened to be looking for a movie, a video to rent, and I went to the VCR store where you rented movies for a week.
- [37:21]
Julian Morgans
I remember the movie.
- [37:21]
Vivian Conan
And I was walking up and down the aisles, and I just happened to see Sybil. And it looked interesting. It was the story of a woman who had 16 personalities. She was played by Sally Field. So I took it home, and after I watched it, I realized it was very dramatic for me that I realized, oh, my God, this is what's wrong with me. This is what I am. And at first I was horrified because multiple personality disorder sounded so freakish. And I really considered myself like, I'm the girl next door. I go shopping in the supermarket. I go to work, I have friends. I go out to eat. I might come home and do crazy things and lie on the floor and get paralyzed and talk in nonsense syllables and feel suicidal, but I didn't think I was strange. And multiple personality disorder just sounded so bizarre. And yet, all of a sudden, I had some explanation for so much of my life. Like why I could be fine at work and not fine the second I got out of work, Why I could switch back and forth during the day. I used to read a lot of books of psychiatric disorders to try to figure out who I was. And, like, schizophrenic or whatever, they stayed like that the whole time. I could change that. This diagnosis explains so much. So I went back. When I saw that therapist again the next week, I told her about the movie, and I asked her if she thought there could be other people in me. And she said yes. And she had no experience with it, though. And then over the next year, she became very not comfortable with the idea. Like, so. Because now she's friendly to the idea. Different parts of me felt more comfortable coming out to her. And I started meeting them myself for the first time. Like, they would come out with names like Emily and Lisa. Ellen Willow is the only one whose name I knew. When I was a teenager, I did not know any of the others. There was the girl of the dead leaves, almost Vivian. I didn't know. And these parts of me, because they felt she was safe, they started to come out, and she started getting very, very uncomfortable. And she believed, I'm surmising that this is what made her act the way she did, that. She believed that if I did have multiple personalities, her job was to force me to be one person. And if I didn't have them, her job was to knock the idea out of me. We eventually parted ways. The diagnosis was eventually confirmed by two psychiatrists who had experience with this. So I was right. Now that I look back on it, I don't know how I did it all. I actually could not do it now. And one interesting thing that I was realizing lately when I was more dissociative than I am now, I was more bionic. Like there were parts of me that could do anything and parts of me that felt very insecure and one they didn't contaminate each other. Once I became more blended, the insecure parts of are going into the secure part and vice versa. And I never feel as super competent as I did. I could never be the director of a library now, but I was then because everything that didn't support that was totally walled off. I was not a whole person. I was the part of the person that needed to do that job.
- [41:27]
Julian Morgans
We're going to pause here for a of weeks couple quick ad break but stick around because we're going to come right back for more what it was like.
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Julian Morgans
Well will you look at that. It's exactly what I ordered.
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Julian Morgans
It would be crazy if if there were any catches.
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- [42:47]
Julian Morgans
Wow. I mean in some ways that sounds like a superpower, you know, to have like a totally confident version of yourself that you can slide into when required. That would be really useful sometimes.
- [42:59]
Vivian Conan
Well, dissociation starts out being adaptive. It winds up becoming maladaptive when you're no longer in the abusive situation, but the divisions still remain. And I could just give you like an example of if I was at a party and I was with my chronologically aged peers, but I was not emotionally their Age, I would try to camouflage it by serving the coffee or taking away the dirty plates so I didn't have to spend a lot of time with any one person. And if someone said to me, how is your job? I would say fine. But I would never think to say, and how's your job? Because that's not something a 6 year old would think to say. So I was interacting with people my chronological body age, but I wasn't interacting as their peer. And in that sense, like the parts that are holding the pain or the knowledge of trauma, they're frozen in time and they don't know that the war is over and so they're still holding the trauma. So the dissociation is maladaptive. And once I became more blended and my young parts started blending into my older parts, I was able to talk to people better, more as an equal. And at the same time I'm losing the atmosphere and relating more to real people than to the atmosphere people. That was almost harder to do. That was a really hard thing. But I mean, this therapist that I have understood this and he worked with me through all this and so I am in a pretty good place right now.
- [45:07]
Julian Morgans
I'm happy to hear that. I'm really glad to hear that. Has the atmosphere gone?
- [45:12]
Vivian Conan
The atmosphere is gone. I would say if I'm under a lot of stress, it could come back in a very mild form for a few hours, but it's not going to stay. The dissociation that's not gone, but it's very, very mild. And it's mostly in the background. And it's something that I. That is called. I don't just call this. It's a term used in the field, functional multiplicity. It means it's not getting in the way of my functioning at work or in relationships with people or in any way. It's just there and it's benign and it's part of my parts are not in agony. They're not at war with one another. Where the way I like to say it is, it's more like an orchestra that everyone is doing the same thing together. They're not making wild noises in cacophony or something like that?
- [46:16]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've been using the word blended, which is. That's a great word. Would you describe yourself as pretty much 100% blended these days or are you sort of like, like maybe this is a hard, insensitive way to ask, but where on the, on the percentage scale do you think you are?
- [46:33]
Vivian Conan
I'm not 100% blended, but I'm pretty blended. I have one or two parts that are holdouts. We're working on that in therapy. So. Yeah.
- [46:42]
Julian Morgans
Okay. Do you have. Do you have advice? Do you have some advice for anyone who's listening to this, who, I don't know, has their own sort of mental health journey, just sort of generally, like, what would you offer?
- [46:57]
Vivian Conan
Well, everybody's mental health journey is different. I could speak to people who have had trauma histories. You know, like, you're not alone. And trust is a very hard issue. And finding a therapist who you could trust. And if you don't feel comfortable with the therapist you are, don't stay. Don't think it's you and not the therapist. I will also say that dissociative identity disorder is not as rare as some people think. It's somewhere between 1 and 1.5% of the population. I think autistic people have a lower percent. So it's not that rare. And there's a lot of clinical things written about it. But only lately there are coming to be groups advocating for themselves about what the experience is like and how to make your life easier, how to deal with parts. And if you go to meetings or join a group where other people who are dissociative, you can learn coping strategies from their experience. It's very, very interesting. There's a group, it's called an Infinite Minds A n infinite minds, and it's.org, not.com. it was started by a special ed teacher in Florida who was going through a lot of problems and was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and finally found out she was dissociative. And she looked online to find information about it. And what she found was all for clinicians. It was not for people who were themselves dissociative. So she started this organization. It has online events all year, both in person and virtual. And I highly recommend you go to an infinitemind.org. there's a lot of resources on there. There's a lot of things that will make you not isolated, not a freak, that they're. And don't feel that you're the only one.
- [49:16]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, And I think that's really good advice as well. Don't feel like a freak. That's pretty universal. Something that I just was wondering then was the parts of you that have faded or been blended into the whole. Do you ever miss them?
- [49:32]
Vivian Conan
No, because they were peripheral parts that were actually causing trouble. Like, the ones that are left are the ones that have the heart of me. And the emotions of me, they were just protective parts and protector parts. Think they're protecting the system. They can be difficult. They can fight with other people. And one of them I called, the one who curses cars. And it just started out like when cars would make the wrong turn on trying to cross the street. She would yell at other people and curse other people. And I do not miss her. But, like, the parts that are left are child parts who have a lot of hurt or who were protecting the ones from hurt. And those are the ones I still have to deal with. They don't want to leave, and I probably would miss them, but I don't miss the parts that I don't need anymore.
- [50:31]
Julian Morgans
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, what a title. The One who Curses at Cars. That's. It's all in the name. So we see people with multiple personalities in pop culture a lot. And I think specifically I'm thinking of movies where there's a serial killer. It's always the serial killer who sort of like kills people when they are someone else. You know, they're going off into some other character and then they go and, you know, do all sorts of horrible things. When you're watching these kinds of movies, what are you thinking?
- [51:02]
Vivian Conan
I don't watch that. I watched one just to see. It's hard. It's so destructive to. To the whole trying to get better. It's. It's. It's a bad. It makes people afraid. It makes therapists sometimes afraid to treat you. Some therapists don't tell other therapists that they treat this. It sensationalizes something. If you had cancer and your disease was sensationalized, people and people were afraid of you, that would be horrible. It makes you afraid to come out to tell people. I don't go and tell people. I have what used to be called multiple personality disorder. Like, for people to be afraid of you when you're really a trauma victim who's suffering is really horrible. Those movies do a very big disservice.
- [51:55]
Julian Morgans
Yeah.
- [51:56]
Vivian Conan
That's all I could say.
- [51:58]
Julian Morgans
No, I can see that. Yeah. I think it's a great analogy. You know, if you were demonizing people who are living with cancer, that's not helpful. You wrote a book a couple of years ago. Could you tell us about that?
- [52:11]
Vivian Conan
I did. The book is called Losing the Atmosphere. It actually took me 25 years to write, and I was not the same person at the end of those 25 years than I was in the beginning. And I also not the same writer. So it's a better book for Having waited. But the book covers my life from birth to age 65. And it's written novelistically. Like I chose not to write it from the perspective of what I know now, looking back and layering meaning on it. I wanted the reader to experience what I was experiencing as I experienced, experienced it. So I'm much more 3D now. I used to be 2D and sometimes only 1D. So I am a more rounded person because I have different aspects in me. Where before that's what I was talking about being bionic at work, I was not a well rounded person. I was just super bionic.
- [53:16]
Julian Morgans
Well, Vivian, this has been absolutely fascinating. I'm wondering, is there something that you want the audience to take away from this? If there was one piece of wisdom or a learning that you could impart, what would it be?
- [53:32]
Vivian Conan
Well, for people who don't dissociate, don't be afraid of people who do. They're just people like you who have been traumatized and are trying to live their life and they're not going to hurt you. And they also could use some understanding. And for people who do dissociate, you're not alone and you're not crazy. You actually found a very creative way to navigate your life and, you know, like, just feel proud of yourself. You survived this. And try to find other groups or read books. Don't feel that you're alone.
- [54:13]
Julian Morgans
That's great. That's really good advice. Vivian, thank you so much for sharing your very 3D fascinating conversation. I've loved it. It's been really nice to meet you.
- [54:27]
Vivian Conan
Thank you. I enjoyed talking with you.
- [54:32]
Julian Morgans
Hey, thanks for listening today. If you'd like to learn more about Vivian's story, you should read her book. It's a great read. I highly recommend it. It's in a lot of bookstores. It's online, of course, it's on Amazon. It's also just on Spotify. If you have a premium subscription, you can listen to the audiobook on Spotify. And you should also stay tuned for our premium subscriber experience. This week's episode. I am looking at three of the most wild stories that are happening right now around the world. That's kind of newsy, but. But also these are like very what It Was like style stories. These are crazy things. These are unusual things and they're available right now for our subscribers. See you there. What It Was like is produced by Rachel Tuffery. This episode was edited by Ellie Dickey, who also does our research. Our cover art is by Rich Akers. Our theme music was produced by Jimmy Saunders and this whole thing has been a super real production.
- [55:30]
Vivian Conan
Foreign.
- [55:43]
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