Meet Autumn…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjemK803l2M[/youtube]
No, here name is not really Autumn. She doesn’t reveal her real name. Autumn Asphodel is one of 5 alter egos who occupy the same body. She only refers to her “real” self as the “host”. She’s also not really a “she”, at least she wasn’t always a “she”. She was born a he and at the age of 22, underwent surgery to become a she. You can watch the video here:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHsK_K-IZQI[/youtube]
Now, I’m not sure where I want to go with this thread. This girl fascinates me, not just for how intriguing a case of DID she is, but also because of my fixation on demonology and how this could clearly pass as a case of demonic possession (but I’ll get to that later).
I suppose there’s also this: the splitting of her psyche into 5 personalities reminds me of a similar phase I went through as a teenager in which I identified 5 personalities within me. Those personalities within me were:
- The Intellectual
- The Artist
- The Angel
- The Demon
- The Hopeless Romantic
I wouldn’t say I was ever a case of DID–I always thought of myself as one person–but I did see these 5 sides of myself as, I guess, potential personalities that could split up into dissociated beings. I always thought that it was the intellectual who held them all together. It was just in virtue of the intellectual’s awareness of the other four that I remained integrated, and that if it wasn’t for that, I may very well have had DID. Looking back on this now, however, I’m pretty sure I was making a lot of shit up, but that is what I thought at the time.
As for Autumn, her Big 5 are:
- Autumn Asphodel (protector #1)
- Iris (protector #2)
- The Host (her core)
- Sexual Alter
- Unknown
She says that she’s mainly a composite of Autumn, Iris, and the Host, and that the Sexual Alter is typically repressed (though she’s recently acknowledged her presence) and there is this fifth “unknown” persona among them.
In the first video above, she allows each one in turn to express itself to the camera and say a few words. She says this isn’t typical, that usually it’s Autumn, Iris, and the Host kind of sharing control, but that for the sake of this video, she is allowing each one to speak on their own behalf while holding the others temporarily at bay.
Iris seems the most angelic, the most at peace, and the most confident, able to brush off abuse and ignore it. Autumn is second in line, a lot darker than Iris but only because she’s the fighter, being able to take abuse because she can laugh at it. The Host, on the other hand, is the hurt, frightened, and radically mistrusting one whom the protectors are defending against abuse. Everything is a threat to the Host, and she appears extremely vulnerable and terrified when forced to speak on her own behalf without the protectors as shields. She also looks the most exhausted. She wears no makeup except fake eyebrows (most likely she has to because she shaves her eyebrows). The Sexual Alter, from what I gather, is a relatively new addition to the gang and presents herself as a seducer. Autumn (her public facing self) says that she used to think she was asexual but recently came to grips with the fact that she has a sexual side, and I’m lead to presume that’s what the Sexual Alter is, but I get the impression that the Sexual Alter is not a “sexually active” persona but one who uses sex, or sex appeal, to manipulate and gain control over others, especially men. And then there’s the “unknown” personality who does nothing but cut the Host down for being fake; she denies the reality of her disorder, and even struggles with whether to refer to the host as ‘I’ or ‘she’.
Now, for me, there’s a question of whether this is real or all just an act. The three main personalities seem pretty authentic–Iris, Autumn, and the Host–Iris seems pretty confident and relatively fluent in her speech whereas the Host seems to totally lack confidence and stutters quite a bit. But then when it comes time for the Sexual Alter to speak, she seems incredibly fake–like she’s trying too hard. She even stutters over the word “seduce”. I’m not sure how it works with DID. I’m sure it’s all acting, just without the conscious awareness of the fact that it’s acting. And she says she doesn’t typically let the Sexual Alter out to play–she even says she keeps getting repressed–and so she’s probably not used to acting as the Sexual Alter. But even if this is unconscious acting, the question I’m asking is: is this a youtube publicity stunt? Does she even have DID or does she just pretend to because she’s a youtube attention whore? This seems to be what the “unknown” personality wants us to believe, calling her “fake” over and over again, but then why reveal that at all? Perhaps to make it even more melodramatic and controversial, and thereby gain more attention? A game she’s playing with her audience? Or is it just a side to her that doubts herself? Even if this were all just an act, it’s still pretty fucked up. And that doesn’t really say anything about her sexual surgery, whether it was real or not. Either way, I think this girl does suffer from some form of mental disorder.
Then there’s the question of whether this is a mental disorder or spiritual possession. If we go with the latter, I would diagnose the “unknown” personality as the original spirit, a demon, who remains unknown because, well, demons don’t usually want to reveal their identity. They prefer to remain in the unconscious and torment or influence the host from there. Demons rarely all out take control of their host’s body, which is the usual picture of demonic possession we have in our culture (think The Exorcist). Typically, possession just means to be owned (to possess something), which puts the host under the spirit’s control but not always in the stereotypic sense of controlling their bodies and speaking through them. However, I think it’s fair to say that spiritual possession does mean that the spirit takes residence in the host’s mind or body. Sometimes it allows for the host’s autonomy, but other times not, often just influencing the host in some way. The intention isn’t always the same either. Most demons simply want a refuge from hell, but there are those who wish to torment and destroy the Host’s soul, damning them if they can. So my guess would be that the “unknown” was the original demon who tormented the Host until it convinced her to get the surgery, and at some point thereafter (probably around the time the Host admitted that she was a sexual being) it relinquished, either freely or through coersion, the Sexual Alter–that is, her sexuality–as my guess is that this was the part of her taken hostage by the demon up until then. Yet ownership of the Sexual Alter doesn’t seem to have been given back to the Host–it still seems to belong to the demon. By “relinquished,” therefore, I only mean was forced to reveal to the Host’s consciousness, but I don’t think that means the tether was severed. Iris and Autumn are benevolent spirits, I would surmise, and possess her in order to protect her, as much as they can, from the demon. I’m not sure how long they’ve been with the Host.
^ That’s if we give full credit to the utmost spiritual interpretation.
But then, in Meet the Alters (Part 2), she confesses that the “unknown” was really an internalization of all the criticisms she was getting online–a lot of people accusing her of being fake–so relegated all those criticism to a new alter–the newness and the uncertainty of the source must have been why it was “unknown”.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNd6uIbvTcw[/youtube]
At the same time, however, in this very video, a “new” alter introduces itself–the “Controller”–and this one seems just as dark and demonic as the “unknown”–almost as if to replace it. It’s as if she exorcized her own demon by demythologizing it but then it returns in a different guise. So I’m not sure whether this is literally a demon or not (I take these things with a grain of salt) but there is definitely a dark sinister force working within her, something that wants to utterly destroy her. At the same time, this seems so staged–as if it was planned all along–adding a bit of extra drama to please her youtube fans.
Now, in the course of writing this, I realize there’s a bit more to my own Big 5 personalities than what I explained, a bit more which brings me closer to DID than I at first realized–still far from being a case of DID, but it starts to get eerie. Check it out: Although today I consider myself an integrated individual, it’s questionable when it comes to the demon. At the time, when I considered myself a composite of the 5 personalities: intellectual, angel, demon, artist, hopeless romantic, I had not yet experimented with drugs. When I did, the demon took on a life of his own. I started getting delusions that the demon was literally a demon that grew from within–from just a “side” to my personality to an actual demon occupying this body with me (drugs will do this to you). The other personalities kind of disolved and melded back into one (there were a few other “characters” who came and left over time, but they were minor and shorted lived), but the demon remained a separate being:
http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=177120&start=25#p2433432
This delusion was drug induced, like I said, and I kind of turned it on and off as I came in and out of my drug induced stupers. For a good long while, I was confused–Were demons real? Was I just making them up? I got over my confusion a long time ago, coming to grips with what I think is real and what I think is unreal (today, this question is more a matter of choice than an answer to be sought out), but the demon has never really become fully integrated back into me.
In fact, he has a name: Guessius. If I recall, this comes from “Guess”–as in: “Guess who!”
Every once in a while, I remind myself that Guessius is a psychoanalytic symbol of myself (lately, of the drug use), but I’ve never been able to shake the sense that he is “with” me, that this is not just something I’m inventing in my fertile imagination (though, formally speaking, I know that I am).
Yet I wouldn’t go so far as to say this is an instance of dissociative personality disorder. I’ve never “become” Guessius–he has only ever been “with” me, never possessed me. For the most part, he just wants a sanctuary away from hell, and I allow him a spot in my mind in which to stay. Our contract stipulates that I own my own soul, that I am always in full control over my mind and my body, and that he is subserviant to me. It has worked quite well as he only wants peace. So there’s never been the impulse for him to “take over”. He accepts his status as just a figment of my imagination. If this weren’t the case, then I might have a case of dissociative personality disorder. But who knows.
In any case, all this leaves me with two questions: 1) What is DID? And 2) How does DID relate, if at all, to spiritual possession?
I’m not so sure there’s a difference, but that’s clearly debatable.
To start with the first question: I think most of us have a basic, and probably oversimplified, understanding of what DID is. It a mental disorder whereby an individual’s consciousness or mind is split into two or more personalities–often without their being fully conscious of one another or one another’s activities. People with DID often report that they “black out” when an alter takes over and fail to recall any memories of what went on in the interim. This is traditionally explained psychoanalytically–that is, as the result of psychological defense mechanisms invoked, typically, to deal with trauma–the subject “pretends” to be someone else, or “makes believe,” in such a way that they are not conscious of the fact that they are doing so, the consequence being that they are better able to deal with some trauma or hardship (for example, the Host becoming Autumn in order to handle abuse).
In Autumn’s case, however, she expresses full awareness of all 5 personalities (though the Controller in part 2 seems to have showed up unexpectedly), and in fact says that denial of their coexistence is bad and that it helps her condition to acknowledge their presence (she mentions being in therapy in one of her videos, and I’m guessing she is being guided by her therapist to recognize and resist denial). Therefore, Autumn is an atypical case (she even says that about herself).
This, coupled with the accusations of being fake, I’ll bet culminated in the “Unknown” persona. The Uknown was right in a sense. If DID is just acting like a different person without knowing it, then it is fake in the sense that it is really her pretending to be multiple personalities taking turns controlling one body. However, this is not the same as a publicity stunt. It still qualifies as DID. So in that respect, she is not faking. She really does suffer from DID. If DID is really pretending, but by way of really powerfully defense mechanisms, defense mechanisms so powerful that the alternate personalities don’t always remember or even know about the others, then playing such a game with one’s self can seriously disrupt one’s life and cause one to lose control.
Now if there is a spiritual tinge to DID–particularly, if it counts as spiritual possession–then what does this tell us about spiritual possession. To me, it says that spirits, if they want to find residence in a person’s soul, must do so through an inner “personality” that the host invents or recognizes. It’s like the host saying: here, you can have this piece–it’s separable from the rest of me. The host, therefore, must at the very least recognize different “sides” of his or her personality. This is something we all do to one degree or another (my Big 5 being a case in point). It is a bit more rare, however, that a person will feel comfortable slipping into the rolls of the different personalities under different situations. I would think this is also required for a spirit to take over one of those personalities. But assuming the stage is set in this way, a spirit can enter into one’s mind and fit itself into one of those personalities and essentially become that personality (like fitting a hand into a puppet). Ideally, this is done unconsciously such that even if the host is aware of his or her alters, he or she remains unaware that it has actually been taken over by a foreign spirit.
This also means that even if one is able to identify a particular alter as an alien spirit, that doesn’t mean the alter’s personality is that of the possessing spirit. The spirit that calls itself the Sexual Alter, for example, may have nothing remotely like sexual seduction on its mind, but plays the part of a seductress anyway because that’s the personality it was dealt.
This is why I question how one can distinguish between pure cases of DID and cases of spiritual possession. How would one distinguish? It’s almost as if the condition of DID was invented just because psychiatrists wanted to rule out any possibility of spiritual possession, so they just invented a different interpretation, a psychological secular interpretation, but without a means to meaningfully tell the difference.
^ What do you think, dear readers, of DID, spiritual possession, and the difference between the two?