Stop Using the Satanic Panic to Gaslight Me
Dissociative Identity Disorder Actually Exists, Just ask the DSM-5
I have seen a hilarious meme on Facebook a couple of times with an elderly woman holding a book, and a little girl sitting next to her. The woman says to the little girl: “these are the stories of our ancestors.” The girl asks “what book is that, grandma” and grandma responds with “the DSM-5.” While it’s humorous, it’s funny because it’s got truth to it.
My trauma in life makes a lot of people uncomfortable, which is to be expected as it’s severe, but in no way does that make my trauma false. Someone not being able to bring themselves to believe in someone else’s trauma merely because they can’t fathom it or because it makes them uncomfortable, is cruel.
People like myself who have Dissociative Identity Disorder are often disbelieved because of the moral panic that was the Satanic Panic. It is often used to gaslight me. I’m told my trauma is symbolic, or that it’s not true, that my memories couldn’t possibly be correct because they’ve never heard of such a thing before.
They either choose to bury their heads in the sand, or actively crusade against those of us with DID, saying things like we are fakers, good actors, and other such nonsense. People actively seek to discredit me and others who have this disorder, because they refuse to believe it can happen. Often I think they know it happens but to admit it would be unfathomable and so rather than just keep it to themselves, they attack.
I’ve been told it’s all in my head by people who I thought knew better. I’ve been told that my mental health professionals are idiots to “go along with that charade.” I was told “it’s not your fault, you can’t help it, you wouldn’t have so many mental health providers if you actually had DID. They give you the medicine to try to calm some of your delusions.”
I’ve seen stories of other adults with DID whose relatives (surprise, surprise), insist that every mental health professional in the person’s life is bat shit crazy because they weren’t abused and that the family insists it didn’t happen, and claiming that the person has always been a liar.
Growing up with multiple personalities caused from my parent’s severe abuse of me, they always made sure to caution me that therapists and psychiatrists were evil. I was told these people would tell me I was abused, help me to process memories, and convince me that they did a lot of horrible things to me that never happend. My parents knew they had made me multiple, and they spent my entire childhood also using the Satanic Panic to gaslight me.
The problem with the Satanic Panic is that some mental health professionals at the time did some unethical things that caused a lot of heartache. The Satanic Panic existed just as much as my Dissociative Identity Disorder also exists, but having Dissociative Identity Disorder doesn’t mean Satanic Panic, despite the many people that want to make it that way.
Those who were involved in the Satanic Panic as clients were children. I and most others weren’t and aren’t diagnosed with DID as children, and it takes many years of mental health services to get a diagnosis. Therapists hypnotised these children, and planted suggestions to get the outcomes they wanted.
I have never been hypnotised by a mental health professional, nor have I had things suggested to me as memories. Most of us who suffer from it haven’t had this happen. The Satanic Panic has been used as a weapon against us telling the stories of our abuse. It’s about keeping us trapped in our abuse rather than healing.
Lyn Barrett, in her book Crazy which is her DID memoir, discloses that her parents, particularly her father, also used the Satanic Panic to gaslight her. He spent a hell of a lot of time, just like my parents did, trying to convince her that it didn’t exist and that therapists made it up.
My repressed memories came to me over time, and many are still coming even today. Not once have I ever had a mental health professional guide me into having a memory. My memories come when I am at home going about normal life, not when I’m in therapy.
Just because the Satanic Panic existed, and just because it was a hoax, does not mean Dissociative Identity Disorder is a hoax. It means that someone led a good con that devasted the lives of a lot of people. My life has been devastated to the point that I have Dissociative Identity Disorder.
If someone isn’t “comfortable” with my diagnosis, they can choose to listen and learn, to treat me with respect and believe what happened to me, or they can choose to break off the friendship or acquaintance if they can’t handle it. I’ve had that happen and it’s at least an honest response.
While the Satanic Panic was a horrible thing, so is Dissociative Identity Disorder. Both of these things can be true at the same time. Nobody gets to gaslight me over my trauma and my disorder by throwing the Satanic Panic in my face.
