Memories of an Essence

by

Ralph B. Allison, M.D.

This story is based on the true life history of a woman who created 69 alter-personalities, starting at the age of six months. She was successfully treated by the author and achieved psychological integration at the age of 30 years. This was written as a collaborative effort by the now recovered ex-patient and her former psychiatrist after they met again 13 years later. 

Chapter 1 - Her Day in Court (click to download)

Marcia, an angry persecutor alter-personality, takes the rest of "them" to Superior Court to terminate a probate conservatorship. On the witness stand, Becky, the Inner Self Helper (ISH) testifies along with "Sad Marie," the "identified patient" alter-personality. Marcia loses her appeal, but reveals in therapy why she had to have her day in court. When her father died, he disinherited his children, and she never had a chance then to go to court and challenge his will. Her anger at that insult by her father fueled her hatred of all men. The author shows the course of therapy which led to the removal of this anger from Marcia so she could integrate with the original personality, Marie. Also, a view of the exorcism of Misty, an angry Internalized Imaginary Companion (IIC), is described from the inside. The process is really the recycling of anger-energy into something more beneficial for the total organism.  After integration, Marie was able to handle a similar legal battle appropriately when she sued her ex-husband in small claims court and won. An essential part of the recovery process is to replay a conflict badly handled while dissociated and do it properly when integrated. The agencies involved are the Public Defender's Office, the County Counsel and the Superior Court of Yolo County, California. 

Chapter 2 - Who Am I? (click to download)

In her second visit to the author, Sad Marie says, "I don't know who I am." Under hypnosis, an eight year old Mary Lou comes forth to greet him. Because of his troubles with prior patients with Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), the author calls in his supervisor for support. He then introduces Mary Lou to Sad Marie, the identified patient. When he tries to explain the situation to Marie's mother, he faces a stone cold woman who denies her daughter has anything wrong with her. While working at the Sacramento Rehabilitation Facility, Mary Lou adopts her therapist, the author, as her "father," and her supervisor, Rebecca Worth, as her "mother." This allows her to mature with the support of two mentally healthy "parents." This is approved of by Becky, her ISH, since the hidden original personality, Marie, is about to appear for the first time in 30 years. This one needs a proper set of new parents since her natural parents were responsible for her disappearance in the first place. When the original Marie appears, she is introduced to the author by Charity, one of Becky's "supervisors." Faith, Hope, and Charity are the Celestial Intelligent Energy (CIE) who actually "raised" her since the age of six months, when she left her body in the charge of alter-personalities. A brief glimpse of Marie's life in Thoughtspace during those 30 years is given. The author meets the original Marie for the first time when she is emotionally six months old, the age she left the body when her mother tried to kill her. They get acquainted, one a psychiatrist and one a six month old infant in a 31 year old body. 

Chapter 3 - School Daze (click to download)

During therapy, Sad Marie enrolls in junior college to learn American Sign Language (ASL). When she was 10 years old, her false-front alter-personality decided to become deaf to avoid hearing her parents argue. Her school nurse sent her to special classes for the deaf where she learned sign language. Eight months later, she turned her hearing back on. In therapy, the author learns of the various alter-personalities who were students. Helen was created by Becky to go to kindergarten where she had to cope with bullies. She had difficulties in the early grades, because alter-personalities took over her body unexpectedly. She was then accused of not taking responsibility for her actions. Kay was made to do schoolwork in the upper grades, specializing in mathematics, history, sewing, and music. Marie, a false-front, joined the "Over-Passionate Society" which introduced her to school age sexual exploration. A major tragedy happened in high school, at age 12, when her dress caught on fire, leading to the need for skin grafts. Wendy was created to cope with physical pain, and remained as a rescuer. To get through the registration at the junior college, Wendy has to take over. Sad Marie attends classes for two years, but is hospitalized so often she does not earn a degree. Another student alter-personality is Michelle, but she and the other "students" are uninterested in what is taught in junior college. Lisa Kay, an angry persecutor, keeps coming out around school to create crisis after crisis. The author meets with the staff of the college center for the disabled students to show them how to bring out a rescuer alter-personality when a crisis occurred. They are able to intervene and allow Marie to stay enrolled under difficult conditions.

Chapter 4 - Wildcat to Pussy Cat: The Saga of Lisa Kay (click to download)

Here is the complete story of the most flamboyant of Marie's persecutor alter-personalities, Lisa Kay. She was formed at age 8, to fight for her only pet's life when her father killed her dog in front of her. Even though angry at everyone who even slightly insults Marie, she tries to seduce any man she can. She is the drinker and smoker in the "family." She is the only one who can have fun, in all ways imaginable. She took the name of the fetus Marie therapeutically aborted on St. Valentine's Day, and she never lets Sad Marie forget the shame of that day. She challenges the therapist in every way possible, including a fight on the floor of the clinic. She threatens to kill anyone who is the slightest danger to Marie, but can be bargained with if one realizes that she only wants to be treated with respect. With the help of Rebecca, her "mother," the author finally is able to have Lisa Kay discharge all her anger-energy from her body and become ready for integration with the original Marie. She contributed many benefits to the present day Marie, including a love for bungee jumping.

Chapter 5 - Sad Marie and the Mental Health Service (click to download)

This chapter focuses on the identified patient and false-front alter-personality, Sad Marie, in her role of relating to the Yolo County Mental Health Service. This agency is one of the best organized and operated small county mental health services in the state, and only because of the expertise of the staff is the author able to complete Marie's integration. The agency is described in some detail, as many different services are utilized during the three years of therapy. Sad Marie was designed as the presenting patient, one whose depression is so unremitting she will never be discharged from psychiatric care. This keeps her in the system until the author moves to the area and takes charge of her treatment. She had been in the care of several other psychiatrists, who kept her alive until the author arrived. Fourteen years after integration, Marie meets again with her "adopted mother," Rebecca. Rebecca had left the area before the original Marie came out, so she had never met her "real daughter." During the meeting, the author age regresses Marie to the time when Sad Marie existed and has them meet again. The author uses the situation to thank Sad Marie for her persistence in bringing the body in for therapy while getting very little attention herself in return.

Chapter 6 - Day Treatment and Night Rescue (click to download)

When not in college, Marie is expected to be in some activity program while living at the half-way house in Davis. One assignment is Stepping Stones Day Treatment Center at the Mental Health Clinic. This is staffed by three people with no experience in dealing with a "multiple." They try to work with her alongside the chronic schizophrenic and bipolar patients they already have. Although Sad Marie agrees, as always, Marcia and Joyleen object. They finally sign in, too. In spite of good intentions, the staff's lack of skill and understanding of the MPD patient do not make this experience useful for Sad Marie. The author has to keep running to the center to deal with crises the various alter-personalities create. Becky's comments on the staff's expectations of her "charge," Marie, are included, showing the inherent nonsense of many of the expectations. When Sad Marie proudly tells the nurse there how the author's unorthodox treatment helps her, the nurse's skepticism could cause him difficulty with the administrator. Conflict between what is going on in formal therapy and what is going on between this nurse and Marie, her client, leads to great confusion. The Day Treatment staff are constantly asking Marie to sign "No Suicide Today" contracts, while Becky knows there is no real danger of suicide. But the staff will not listen to Becky. A major problem is that the staff expect Sad Marie to grow and mature under their supervision. They fail to realize that she is designed by Becky to be just what she is, a sad alter-personality who will be guaranteed a place in the mental health treatment system. Becky did not give her any capacity for growth and development. So she is a failure in the eyes of the staff, through no fault of her own. In contrast, Sad Marie has an excellent experience with the Suicide Prevention Service, which is staffed by volunteers. The author, who had started a similar suicide prevention service in Santa Cruz County, meets with their volunteers and instructs them how to handle calls from any of Marie's alter-personalities. One volunteer, a nun, even meets with Marie personally and tries to help her through some hard times. They do a wonderful job of taking the emergency call burden off the author's back when he is too tired to deal with calls after work. Unfortunately, the author makes a mistake in not having educational sessions with the Day Treatment staff, as he does with the Suicide Prevention volunteers. He feels that calling such meetings would imply that the professional staff are not competent to handle any and all kinds of patients, and he wishes to avoid this implication. He, too, is a fellow member of the same staff, and he doesn't want to alienate his peers. This lack of training of the Day Treatment staff is a serious error on his part.

Chapter 7 - A House Is Not a Home (click to download)

Much of the time, Marie lives in Sihaya House, a half-way house for the mentally ill, and also in a Satellite House for mentally ill women called Pine Tree Lodge. Initially, she lives free in an apartment her mother manages. But she cannot stand to have her mother around her every day. When she is awarded her Social Security grant for total disability, she moves into the women's
Satellite House. The scene then shifts back in time to the various homes Marie lived in with her family. She was raised in a suburban neighborhood in Sacramento by her natural parents. When her father divorced her mother, her mother married a used car salesman. He was drunk most of the time and refused to work. They had to move many times because of lack of money. When her mother went to jail for embezzlement, she and her siblings lived with relatives. When she was 18, she married her first husband, and they lived in a series of dingy apartments. After many suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations, she was sent to Crestwood Manor in Sacramento, a long term psychiatric facility. When her mother took her out of there and housed her in an apartment building she managed in Yolo County, the author began treating her. In Pine Tree Lodge, Sad Marie lives with two other mentally ill women. One is schizophrenic and one is manic depressive. This is a wild time for all three, and the author is called in for various crises. Lisa Kay threatens to kill the schizophrenic woman because she disrespects Sad Marie. Wendy, a rescuer alter-personality, falls in love with an alcoholic epileptic patient living at Live Oak Lodge, the home for mentally ill men down the block. She stops doing her rescuer work, and Becky has to recall her from duty and reprogram her. Sad Marie moves to Sihaya House, with a new set of rules to follow. One of them is that she cannot switch personalities within the building. She is assigned a black college student as counselor, and conflict develops between him and a racially prejudiced white counselor from the Down South. When Marie becomes upset, she obeys the rule and develops an ulcer instead. She stays the maximum allowed 18 months and then moves back to Pine Tree Lodge. 

Chapter 8 - Who Wants To Work? (click to download)

This chapter is dedicated to the staff of the California State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, who go beyond the call of duty for Marie. Her "Voc. Rehab." counselor, Haley Richmond, supports her attending junior college to learn sign language. Haley supplies the video camera when the author needs to videotape several of Marie's alter-personalities for therapeutic purposes. Haley then sends Marie for vocational assessment to Rebecca at the Sacramento Rehabilitation Facility, where Marie works as receptionist and file clerk. Here, Lynn comes out and becomes angry at a male staff member who dares ask her not to swear at their customers on the phone. In trying to solve various crises, Rebecca and Lisa Kay become like mother and daughter and this leads to Lisa Kay's reformation into a helper type alter-personality. Haley is a most creative Voc. Rehab. counselor, who supports Marie's attempts to learn how to live a somewhat normal life. After integration, Marie marries and divorces a second time. Then she becomes involved in volunteer activities in Juvenile Hall and Child Protective Services. Because of two back surgeries, she is again eligible for Voc. Rehab. services and is trained in office and computer procedures. She is hired as an Office Assistant in a State office, and is employed by the State ever since.

Chapter 9 - Miracles of Modern Medicine (click to download)

This chapter reviews Marie's travels through the maze of the traditional medical care system. She started out with a wonderful family doctor, the kind who is obsolete today. He knew the family and took care of all medical and psychological problems as well as he could, including her severe burns. However, he was unaware of the sexual abuse Marie's father subjected her to every evening while her mother worked, so no intervention was ever attempted. He saw her with somatic symptoms because of this problem, and he did what he could to help. Sad Marie's trips to numerous hospital psychiatric wards are next. Some experiences were good, and some were terrible. No one made the correct diagnosis, and she kept returning because of suicidal attempts or hysterical acting out. Her experience with two previous psychiatrists was not harmful, but not very beneficial either. They kept her alive, which is all Becky expected of them. The author provides details of Marie's care in Yolo County Hospital and Woodland Memorial Hospital (WMH). Unfortunately, one contracting psychiatrist at WMH, Dr. Lucien, appears to hate both the author and this patient and does all he can to make their lives miserable. When Marie is admitted while Dr. Lucien is on duty, he first insults her, then straps her down and heavily sedates her. In contrast, his two partners are gentlemen and good doctors. This creates many problems over the three years of treatment, as Marie needs to be admitted a number of times for specific procedures. Dr. Lucien's misbehavior causes the creation of Jill, an alter-personality made to destroy all psychiatrists, including the author. She thinks he is Dr. Lucien, and she tries to choke him. Fortunately, her body is then appropriated by Charity, one of the CIE, for the first time. With Charity's help, he neutralizes Jill's hatred of psychiatrists and converts her into a helper. After integration, Marie becomes addicted to pain killers given her by her orthopedist afterback surgery. She almost commits suicide because of them, and Becky has to jolt her into joining Narcotics Anonymous. She has been a member of an NA or AA group ever since, regularly working the 12 Steps. The chapter concludes with a list of criteria Marie has developed on how to tell an ethical therapist from an unethical one. In her view, an ethical therapist interacts with his patients, stays awake during sessions, is willing to try new methods, avoids labeling patients, and will not cross the line separating patients from family. An ethical therapist sees crises as a window of opportunity for change.

Chapter 10 - Genealogy of Me (click to download)

This chapter is the prime example of the use of the "memory management" talents of Becky, Marie's ISH. The author needed to understand how such a dysfunctional family came to be, and Marie, herself, could not have known from personal experience the historical data which would explain it. So the author asked Becky to bring to him the information which explained who did what and why before Marie was born. She did as requested, and the family tree is reported here. Becky reports on Marie's mother's background, including personality characteristics and backgrounds of her maternal grandparents. The relationships between her mother and her mother's siblings is included. Becky tells how Marie's father and mother met and courted. Difficult years of that turbulent marriage were followed by divorce. Her mother then married drunken used car salesman who sexually accosted Marie and her younger sister. Her mother then embezzled money from two employers and was sent to jail twice, leaving her children with relatives. Then Becky reports on Marie's father's family tree, including sketches of his parents and siblings. On the surface it was a normal family, but his father was an alcoholic who put one son up for adoption because he was out of work at the time. Marie's father never forgave his father for giving away his brother. Her father fell in love with a young lady, Marie, who didn't want to marry him, and he married her mother on the rebound. By naming his first born daughter after his lost love object, he felt he owned her and had the right to sexually abuse her from her first birthday on. When Marie was 12, her parents divorced, and her father remarried twice. He died alone of an undiagnosed brain tumor. Whether or not it had anything to do with his sexual misbehavior is a mystery. Marie eloped to marry her first husband at age 18, and he was an irresponsible, abusive mate. Lisa Kay was his first and wildest sex partner, and various rescuer alter-personalities had to come out to deal with his violent behavior. Marie delivered their only child, a son, at Stanford Medical Center. When she returned home with her baby boy, Marie found her naked husband taking nude pictures of her best girlfriend in their living room. Lisa Kay got his pistol and shot him in the shoulder as the two exhibitionists fled the apartment. When she became pregnant again, her husband threatened to leave her if she didn't get an abortion. Her alter-personalities arranged for a therapeutic abortion, which Marie didn't want. A year later, she was pregnant again, and this time her husband beat her into aborting at home. Becky also reports on her interactions with Marie's ex-husband during therapy. The story of how all this affected her son comes next, and it is not a sad tale. He always knew the difference between his "real mother" and those "other ladies" who were inside her. Although his father took him out of state after their divorce, he visited his mother while under the author's treatment. He has since gone onto college and is developing his own career plans.

Chapter 11 - Integration of the Psychic Siblings (click to download)

Becky organized the integration process and told the author what he had to do when. Her plan was as follows: 1. Neutralize all persecutor alter-personalities. a. To do this, the author age regresses Sad Marie, the identified patient. b. The author uncovers memories of each traumatic incident which brought each persecutor into being. 2. The author presents each memory to Linda Lou, a special false-front alter-personality 3. Mary Lou accepts all these memories as hers. 4. Sad Marie ceases to function and needs to be hospitalized. 5. The author officiates as Mary Lou and other alter-personalities integrate into Marie Francis, another false-front alter-personality. 6. Charity, the Spiritual Professor and Project Manager, appears in Marie's body for the first time to meet the author. 7. The original Marie shows herself to the author for the first time. 8. The original Marie is hospitalized, and Marie Francis and the rest of the other alter-personalities integrate into her. 9. Much later, Spiritual Integration will bring Marie and Becky back together. This chapter covers how all this happened, much of which is recorded in hospital records. Marie meets her second husband-to-be when they are both patients in the Day Treatment Center. He is a manipulative and abusive man, but she has no one else to turn to. The author takes a job elsewhere and plans to leave town. This leaves Marie without her "adopted dad," and she is in a panic. She threatens to kill herself because of a breakup with her boyfriend and is sent to Napa State Hospital. There she does her final healing by herself and gives up her ability to dissociate and make alter-personalities or IIC ever again. The story of her miserable second marriage and how she terminates it honorably comes next. Her story of moving from being totally destitute to becoming a volunteer to being employed full-time by the State comes at the conclusion. Her present occupational success has taken place without anyone at work knowing anything about her psychiatric history. In no way does she ever capitalized on her status as a "recovered multiple."  A list of the 49 alter-personalities who integrated into the original Marie during her hospitalizations are tabulated at the end of the chapter. The other 21 alter-personalities Becky made were younger false-front alter-personalities who integrated into her the first day the original Marie came out and resumed control of her own body.

Chapter 12 - Becky and Her CIE (click to download)

This chapter is the "chalk-talk" intellectual presentation needed to explain how and why all the experiences reported took place. Here the author explains the meanings of terms he invented to write about these nonmaterial subjects. First is a discussion of the two realms in which we humans live, which the author calls Physicalspace and Thoughtspace. Physicalspace is the "real world" we all know about, while Thoughtspace has been called the Astral Plan, Heaven/hell, and the shaman's Spirit World. Next, the author explains where memories are stored in Thoughtspace, in the Akashic Records. It is here that the records of Marie's relatives are located, from where Becky retrieved them when the author needed them. The Essence Memory System is described, explaining how traumatic memories are stored after being coded as to dangerousness on recall. The characteristics of ISHs such as Becky are described here. Included is a discussion of the difference between the "Birth Personality" and the "Original Personality." An introduction to the role of the Essence/ISH in reincarnation is presented, with Becky explaining how reincarnation really operates. The author had to invent a new label for those nonmaterial entities who call themselves Faith, Hope, and Charity. They agreed upon "Celestial Intelligent Energy"or CIE, for a collective label. Faith chose as her title, "Spiritual Guardian of the Essence," and she provides her job description. Hope chose as her title, "Spiritual Teacher of the Guardians of the Essences," and she provides her job description. Finally, Charity chose as her title, "Spiritual Professor of the Teachers of the Guardian of the Essence," and she provides her job description. The book ends with their comments to those of us in the human race whom they monitor and supervise, with the sentence, "We are here. Listen to us and grow."

To contact the author: ralfalison@charter.net

Note: All material on this site pertaining to Memories of An Essence is copyrighted 2004 by Ralph B. Allison, M.D.