Search Results

Truth: An Awesome Responsibility So great and perfect is our awesome God that we cannot comprehend how much he must lower himself to use the smartest, strongest and least sinful of us This brief web page is so solemn it might turn you off this entire web site, most of which sparkles with joy. Nevertheless . . . my heart cry is to know God so intimately and extensively that I not only be in love with my Lord, enjoying him and delighting in all his wonders, but that I live in holy fear; revering the consuming fire of the Almighty, before whom all things lie naked and exposed. Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways . . . James 3:1-2 My privileged but grave responsibility is to make my writings as much of God as I possibly can. All of us know, however, that if infallibility were ever to touch a member of humanity, it would be a frustratingly fleeting encounter. And to fallibility, each of us must add serious limits in knowledge and understanding. Even writers of not some mere spiritual masterpiece but the very Word of God freely confessed that God’s “knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalm 139:6) , that they know only “in part” (1 Corinthians 13:12) , and that “as the heavens are higher than the earth,” so are God’s ways and thoughts higher than theirs (Isaiah 55:9) . My heart aches that NetBurst.Net be exclusively God’s website, sparkling with divine perfection, unstained by human failings, half-truths, false presumptions and inability to understand the infinite. Everything within me craves the beauty and security that would bring. But no such site exists. Over and over and over I have pleaded with God to let me be his dictating machine. I keep thinking that this would be the ultimate honor. To my never-ending amazement, however, the Lord keeps indicating that he has no interest in reducing anyone to that level. (For a brief but moving explanation, see Creativity .) The dilemma is that God chooses to use people, and as much as this is God’s glory, highlighting his stupendous love and humility, it is the crux of many challenges. I find myself spiritually obligated to ensure you are acutely aware of the hazards of the human element in any communication. It is my conviction that emphasizing my fallibility and ignorance is so important that I have placed a link to this page at the end of almost everything I have written. Straining to think of what would most stir readers’ curiosity, enticing them to visit this page, I chose to label the link My Shame . I dare believe that parts of this site are truly of God, but the gold is mixed with dross. The result is a glorious paradise strewn with landmines. This side of eternity, these two elements hide wherever a Christian steps. Our very survival hinges on a deep dependence upon the Holy Spirit. As much as I loathe the fact, you must read my writings with the same prayerful vigilance needed for anything else claiming to be from God. When at last my eyes are opened and I stand before my Judge, the risen Lord, I will fill with shame for every deficiency in this website. I take seriously my responsibility to present truth and I presume the accuracy of my teaching is somewhere within the current average for born again Christians. That means my writings are almost certainly riddled with imperfections. Except for the writings of Scripture, every preacher, teacher or writer faces a similar prospect. Jesus rightly put me in my place when he said: Matthew 23:8-10  But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. Ultimately, truth is a Person: the Lord Jesus Christ. All truth originates from him and is embodied in him. Unless we constantly seek him and cling to him, letting go of everything else, we will be deceived, regardless of whether, like the Pharisees of old, much truth is mixed with our deception. There might be a powerful anointing of God upon a sentence of mine. It could have come as a direct revelation from the throne of God. But that does not make it impossible for the next sentence to be straight from Satan. Remember Simon Peter: one moment commended for receiving a revelation from God, and soon after rebuked by Jesus with the stinging words, ‘Get behind me Satan’ (Matthew 16:17-23) . For the exalted Lord to so lower himself as to use my writings highlights the astounding grace of God. That he who is perfect would dare taint his reputation by using the imperfect is a mystery that leaves me awestruck. And yet our Lord’s stupendous love moves him to want to use each of us. So for the Lord to powerfully use these web pages proves the magnitude of God’s mercy, not the accuracy of my writings. No matter how authoritative I sound and how many Scriptures I use, and no matter how much I yearn and pray and strive for divine revelation and inspiration, let nothing lull you into assuming that everything I write is of God. Neither assume your ability to instantly discern truth is much better. I will be judged for any error I live or propagate and for every time I settle for a half-truth or allow my thinking to be unconsciously tainted by the world’s brainwashing. Nevertheless, you have access to the Word of God and the Spirit of God, so you must share responsibility if you choose to follow someone’s error, rather than seriously consult the Spirit and the Word. My Shame My biggest source of shame is how far short of my own words I fall in my everyday living. I hope I love and fear God too much to live in deliberate sin. I try hard because nothing is more important than daily living revealed truth. I dare not add to my shortcomings, however, by implying I have yet traveled nearly as far as I can see. I pray you do much better. No one knowing the real me is very impressed, but I fear the inflated guesses of anyone using my writings to imagine what I am really like. The last thing the world needs is yet another idol, no matter how puny. Were I in the top 1% of Christians, I would only be one of millions, since estimates suggest there are hundreds of millions of Christians. As it is, I might not scrape into the top 50%. Famous Christians, like the rest of God’s people, are usually wonderful people. The Christian superstar mentality, however, does enormous damage to the body of Christ. A few are so exalted as to endanger their spiritual walk, while the average Christian is made to feel inferior. The problem with the limelight is that it puts others in the dark. Don’t fall for that trap. Either God could move the world through YOU or he isn’t God! To focus on any human would be a tragedy. Keep looking past the vessel to Jesus. He alone is the rock, alongside whom everyone else is shifting sand. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth (John 16:13) . I must not be content with ignorance but keep pursuing more truth. Nevertheless, the Lord says in his Word that we currently only “know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:9) , that “the secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us” (Deuteronomy 29:29) and the psalmist sang, “I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me,” (Psalm 131:1) . We are not called to be know-alls but to know the One who knows all. ‘So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ”We are unworthy servants . . .” ’ (Luke 17:10) No Christian is Exempt from the Danger of Deception The danger of Christians falling into spiritual deception is emphasized with astounding frequency in the Bible. To let the seriousness of this impact you, note the sheer volume of these warnings, even if you let your eyes whiz over these Scriptures for only a couple of seconds: New Testament Warnings to Christians About Being Deceived . Reminder If you agree with something in these web pages, make sure that it is because the Spirit of God agrees with it. Likewise, if you disagree with anything written, ensure it is because the Spirit disagrees. The issue is not whether Scripture can be twisted to conform to what I write. I have already managed that. Nor is the issue whether what I write is popularly preached in pulpits, or expounded in the best Bible Colleges. It probably is. The issue is whether these web pages conform to the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of Scripture. Intimacy with the Lord Jesus is our only protection against deception. Even the great apostle Paul, whose writings and revelations are clearly in an utterly different league to mine, acknowledged that we “see but a poor reflection” (1 Corinthians 13:12) . Every day, seekers of truth walk through a minefield satanically strewn with hidden dangers. Jesus will lead us safely through, but only if we fix our eyes on him. Related Pages The Bible: Divine Protection Against Deception Short, but very helpful Spiritual Deception The Spiritual Essentials for Accurate Bible Interpretation Creativity: Why God is not Interested in us Becoming his Dictating Machine

Breakthrough in Creativity For Christians Our Lord is Creator as well as Savior, and the Maker of rainbows and nightingales didn’t suddenly lose his creative urge at the close of Day Six. God’s creativity is inexhaustible. And you were made for him. He longs to express his creativity through you. As an instrument and musician together make beautiful music, you and your Lord can unite to create exquisite beauty. What you can do together defies imagination. When God does something, it’s not just functional, but beautiful; not arid necessity but brimming with unexpected joys. Consider the sun. A lesser god would have stopped at making it an essential power-house. Our Lord even went far beyond making it an exquisite time-piece. His love and ingenuity soared as he fashioned a warm bath of pleasure, delighting and inspiring all humanity. It forms weather patterns, sculpts clouds, sends leaves twisting and twirling like a ballerina. Its rays don’t just illuminate, they sparkle and dance, they paint rainbows and the ever-changing splendor of endless sunsets, splashing color through all the earth with unrestrained exuberance. Everything God does displays the inexhaustible creativity and extravagant generosity of the One who invites and empowers us to imitate him. Creative people long to be more like Father! The Creative Process Discovering how our creativity and God’s creativity mesh is both exciting and critical. If we get this wrong whatever we produce, no matter how good, will be less than what God wants and, no matter how much we enjoy our involvement in it, we will still miss a large part of the greatest joys a human can experience. It is so vital that we are convinced of the principle described below, that I will quickly examine it from many different angles, not to be repetitive, but to confirm that no matter how we approach it, truth leads to the one, thrilling conclusion. When writing my favorite book, I pleaded with God that it be all of him and none of me. That seemed spiritual and I sincerely meant it, but God did not seem interested. His revelation came only in drips, and putting it together was like trying to thread needles with spastic hands. All of God? I could not possibly have poured more of my own effort into that book, yet I knew God was there – powerfully. My prayer to become God’s dictating machine fizzled because I had not counted on God’s love. He ignored my offer, just like the father in Jesus’ parable ignored his prodigal son’s offer to relinquish sonship and become a hired hand (Luke 15:18,21-24) . The Almighty wants to give us the thrill and honor of genuine involvement in his magnificent purposes. Being creative is God-like and he longs for his children to know this joy. If, through his inexplicable love, Christ wants me as co-heir, he wants me as co-author not a dictating machine (see 1 Corinthians 3:9; 2 Corinthians 6.1). From the age of four, I loved helping grandpa lay cement paths. Almost anyone could do a better job than a little child, but that was irrelevant. I was irreplaceable. I had a special place in grandpa’s heart. And you have a special place in God’s heart. Physically, the Lord is totally self-sufficient. He needs us no more than a handyman needs the services of a four-year-old. But the Father’s joy could never be complete without your contribution. Has ever a father’s heart swelled with loving pride at a child’s pathetic attempt to help him? Then how much more will the boundless love of your Father in heaven be stirred by your attempts – even your weakest attempts – to honor him with your service. To strangers, your ministry may just be one of thousands. But not to someone who loves you. And you mean most to the One who willed you into existence, fashioned you, redeemed you, and longs to fulfill your every need. Expect a personal invitation to a royal command performance in the presence of his Majesty, the King of kings. Divine love is a compelling reason for God valuing our efforts. Here is another: our raw natural abilities are as much a product of God’s creativity as anything he could ever do. Is it hard to believe the exalted Lord would like the sound of your voice or the work of your hands? Remember who created that voice and those hands. Beware: denigrating our gift comes close to denigrating the Giver. There’s a point where humility degenerates into an insult to the One who made you and empowers you. I’ve fallen over the edge too often. And here is something even more significant: creativity is among our God-given gifts. For our Lord to deny our (consecrated) creative efforts he would have to deny his own skill in making us. All of God, none of me? ‘That’s good!’ she gushed when he finished his song. ‘Oh, it wasn’t me,’ he humbly said, ‘it was the Lord.’ ‘No, it wasn’t that good!’ Some people’s claim to divine inspiration produces such mediocrity that it seems an excuse for laziness or, more likely, a failure to see the hole in the ‘all of God, none of me’ half-truth. Self must die – sinful independence, pride, selfishness, and trying to earn heaven’s approval. And we must yield everything to Christ, acknowledging that his ways are higher than ours. But to go so far beyond this that we renounce and denigrate our divinely-created mental and physical powers is as unchristian as gnostic heretics who taught that everything physical is of the devil. Paul’s ministry was an astounding mixture of hardship (torture, deprivation, shipwreck) and miracles (healings, earthquake, snakebite survival, blinding of Elymas’ eyes). Likewise, your ministry, whether it be music, literature, art, dance, preaching, or whatever, should be a peculiar mixture of the natural (plain hard work) and the supernatural (divine intervention). The same passage of Scripture that emphasizes the prophetic (ie supernatural) side of music, also points to the existence of a training system (1 Chronicles 25:1-8, especially 7,8) . That our Lord wants us to be submissive but active partners in his work, not mindless robots, is demonstrated in the penning of Scripture. In the original language, the individual style of each human writer is very obvious. It is truly the Word of God, yet the Lord ordained it that each sentence bears the imprint of the human writer. He chose to use, rather than over-ride, the individual personalities of the writers. If this is so for Scripture, which is more God-inspired than anything we could produce, it will be true of even our most Spirit-filled efforts. A man and a woman in love long for a union, the natural result of which is offspring that are neither entirely the man’s, nor the woman’s, but bear the unmistakable marks of both. That union, Scripture boldly declares, has a spiritual parallel (Ephesians 5:31-32) . Though this initially shocks our impure minds, it rings true. The human desire to express love in this manner was placed within us by the One who fashioned us in his image. The inexhaustible creativity of God longs, through our union with him, to birth within us unique and wondrous things, bearing the image, not just of one partner, but of both him and us. A musician and an instrument unite to produce sounds which neither would produce without the other. We are living instruments fashioned by the divine Instrument Maker with greater sophistication than any man-made instrument, having our own creativity. Like an instrument maker with his cherished instrument, our Maker longs to blend his ability with ours to produce unique sounds to bless the world. So, both to express his unfathomable love for us and to display his own genius in creating us, the omnipotent Lord treasures our contribution. But because that same love yearns for intimacy with us and that same creativity forever craves new expression, the Almighty longs to couple his supernatural ability with our natural effort to birth something as unique and as precious as is a child to its loving parents. The product of this supernatural union will be in one sense human, in another sense divine; an earthly art glowing with heavenly glory. Let’s clarify the often misunderstood role of human effort. As a proud attempt to earn salvation, good works are abhorrent. Wrong attitudes turn good works sour. As an expression of loving submission to God, however, sweat is beautiful. For the Spirit-filled Christian in divine submission, human exertion and divine enabling are not opponents but allies. View inspiration and effort not as an incompatible mix of oil and water but as bricks and mortar. They merge to build a monument of love for the glory of God – glory that his father-heart longs to share with us. Human Instruction Versus Heavenly Inspiration Those who are called to minister in music, art, dancing, acting, preaching, or whatever, will seek to refine their gift. If we are ever hesitant, the parable of the talents is sufficient to seal the matter for us (Matthew 25:14-30) . Yet as we grow in Christ, our motivation intensifies. Our love for God fills us with a longing to develop the abilities he had graciously bestowed upon us. We treasure the gift because we adore the Giver. A man takes from the earth a precious diamond and spends hours studying and cutting it, desiring to reveal to the fullest the beauty God has placed within it. In like manner, we labor to display the beauty resident within our gift, that the Giver might be glorified. Longing to see our Lord’s eyes sparkle with joy, we polish his gift till it gleams. We want it to shine so brightly that he can see his face in it. Then we want the whole world to see that face. For the secular artist, training and practice are simply a matter of common sense. Our motivation is much deeper and sweeter. Yet sometimes practice and training seem at odds with ministering in the Spirit’s power. A lady I admire was very much used of God until she started taking singing lessons. Formerly, when she was in church worshipping her Lord, God would often suddenly give her an entirely new song. There was no time for rehearsals. The song was divinely created for that specific occasion. The moment there was a pause in the service, she would share that beautiful song with the congregation. With remarkable consistency, her songs would blend in with the rest of the service in ways beyond human control. Since commencing singing lessons, however, her training seemed to be hindering her ministry. My guess is that her lessons had simply made her more self-conscious, causing her to focus upon correct voice production, rather than focusing upon her Savior. Such a change of focus would probably have an adverse affect upon any ministry, let alone one so dependent upon hearing from God that very moment. The solution, it would seem, is not less practice, but more. Eventually, such things as correct breathing should become almost second nature. Then she will be able to concentrate upon the Lord and sing correctly as well. The result will surely be an even more effective ministry. Conclusion Souls are God’s responsibility, sounds are our responsibility. That’s the way many Christian musicians view it. God wants us to do our best, but they imagine that’s about the limit of his interest in our art. The Lord is expected to take the back seat, politely applauding the finished performance, but basically leaving us to our own devices, artistically. We now know differently. Creator God longs to be involved in our art – guiding, inspiring, tutoring, and at times actually creating and physically expressing himself through us. Our loving Lord wants partnership, not dictatorship, nor disinterest, in every area of our lives. ‘Open my lips,’ prayed the psalmist, ‘and my mouth will show forth your praise’ (Psalm 51:15) . ‘Take my lips and speak through them, take my mind and think through it,’ became one of Frances Ridley Havergal’s favorite prayers. Let’s never forget that creativity has its ultimate Source in God, not man. The further one goes from the source the more polluted the water. Forget about following the world; you will lead it, if you draw close enough to the true Source of creativity. Be not quick to assume God is not in your creativity just because it didn’t come in a technicolor vision or arrive at supersonic speed. God assists and inspires us in a thousand ways. The Spirit of the Almighty resides within us. Every day we speak with God. Every day we’re seated in heavenly places. To us, the supernatural is commonplace. It would hardly be surprising if our efforts are more divinely inspired than we realize. Yet each of us could probably develop still further our ability to receive from heaven. My passion is to inspire you to enter into an ever-deepening partnership with the Creator, the One who ‘gives songs in the night,’ the Origin of ‘every good and perfect gift,’ the Lord of sound and time, who is constantly worthy of a new song. Seek him. Yield to him. Harmonize with him. The result will last for eternity. Next Page: Breaking Through Barriers To Creativity

Accountability    Perhaps you might argue that people who enter eternity having refused Christ’s free offer of salvation (free to us but ever so costly to him) face such an appalling future that nothing they do could make it worse. Those who have accepted Christ’s salvation, however, will be held accountable for their actions: Romans 14:10,12  You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. . . . So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.   1 Corinthians 3:11  For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.   1 Corinthians 4:4-5  My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.   Matthew 16:27  For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.   Romans 2:6-8  God “will give to each person according to what he has done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.   2 Corinthians 5:10  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.   Galatians 6:7-8  Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.   Hebrews 13:17  Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. . . .   Related Scriptures   Ecclesiastes 12:14  For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.   Matthew 12:36  But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.   Colossians 3:23-24  Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. . . .   Hebrews 4:13  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.   1 Peter 4:5  But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.   Revelation 2:23  I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.   Back to Main Page

Your Amazing Potential if you have Dissociative Identity Disorder Of course, not everyone has every ability, but people with Dissociative Identity Disorder are likely to feel certain they do not have certain abilities and yet have those very abilities locked away in a part of their brain that is currently controlled by another alter. These abilities could already be quite developed but if not, they can be developed at remarkable speed. I am not sure that you can grasp how passionately I wish I had a fraction of the potential for intellectual development found in people who are beginning to discover their alters. For me to not have Dissociative Identity Disorder but to know so many people who do, is like a starving person who cannot eat, acting as waiter at a feast. I would be out of my skin with excitement if I discovered I had alters. The possibilities are almost limitless and will vary from person to person but the following are some examples that someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder might discover. By connecting with his or her alters, a person might end up with remarkably improved: * Eyesight * Manual dexterity * Ability to use the non-dominant hand * Surefootedness, such as ability to climb rugged terrain * Athletic ability * Short-term or long-term memory * Musical ability * Speed reading skills * Creative cooking * Mathematical ability * Direction finding and navigational skills * Ability to thoroughly enjoy marital relations * Grammar and spelling * Creative writing * A flair for public speaking * Sense of humor * Linguistic ability * Artistic ability * Dress sense * Parenting skills * Ability to handle stress * People skills * Freedom from certain phobias * Spiritual abilities such as spiritual warfare * Special experiences with God I have no idea which of the above list will apply to you but there are sure to be at least several.

Do People With Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) Have Superior Brains? M.P.D. Does Multiple Personality Disorder (M.P.D.) Increase One’s Intellectual Powers? Introduction: Helping people who would like to read this to actually find it, is more challenging than for most topics. Although Dissociative Identity Disorder is the more fashionable term, some people have only heard of multiple personalities or Multiple Personality Disorder. A further complication is that some would type into a search engine only the abbreviation, and some would use periods, and some not, and some using spaces and some not, thus giving eight more options (D.I.D., D. I.; D.;, DID, D I; D;, M.P.D., M. P.; D.;, MPD, M P; D;). Still more perplexing is that search engines tend to give priority to webpages that mention a term several times. As you read the following, you will see how this has influenced my writing style. If I could find the time, I’d engage in scientific research to confirm my conviction that Multiple Personality Disorder (Dissociative Identity Disorder) develops one’s brain far beyond what it would normally have been. Of course, no sane person would want anyone to suffer the trauma that causes Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and until healing commences, D.I.D. is more of a handicap than an advantage, but I believe that ultimately a person can enjoy intellectual advantages from having had multiple personalities. Athletes focus on developing their bodies to perform at a level far beyond what they would otherwise achieve. Genetic factors aside, most people vary in their speed, strength, stamina and health, not so much because of deliberate training but primarily because of circumstances, such as the type of job they end up in. Just as the performance our bodies can achieve varies according to deliberate or accidental training or circumstances, so it is with our brains. In fact, no part of our bodies is capable of being improved by training or circumstances more than the brain. In psychology, learning has been defined as creating a permanent change in the brain. To understand how having multiple personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) could end up an intellectual advantage, consider this analogy: Imagine a laborer daily working in a job that involves moderately heavy lifting. His fellow workers use both arms for the task but he is forced to use only one. Since the load is not shared between each arm, each time he lifts, his lifting arm is effectively bearing twice the weight than borne by the arms of his fellow workers. The muscles in that one arm would therefore end up not only developing more than those in his other arm but stronger than the arm of any of his fellow workers. Now suppose that although he was allowed only to use one arm each time he lifted he was permitted to sometimes use his left arm and sometimes his right. Each arm would grow unusually strong because each time he lifts, one arm must bear the full weight, but in this scenario he will end up with superior strength in not just one arm but both. While he is unable to use both arms together, however, he has little advantage over his fellow workers and often a disadvantage, since using only one arm is awkward. But suppose after a year or so of lifting this way he is allowed to use both arms. He would then be able to lift heavier loads and achieve more than those who had always used both arms. This is how I believe it is, intellectually, with people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.). For years they have had to perform mental tasks, one alter at a time, thus being forced to use only a portion of their full intellectual capacity at any given time. This puts them at a significant disadvantage to other people. Like lifting with one arm, each part of the brain controlled by a specific alter is forced to develop beyond the corresponding part of the average person’s brain. If, after years of this, the person begins to heal from Multiple Personality Disorder (M.P.D.) so that alters begin to work together – thus allowing the person to access different parts of the brain simultaneously – one would expect the person to then have greater intellectual power than if he or she had never had multiple personalities (MPD), just like the laborer who finally gets to use both arms. One reason for believing that having multiple personalities affects the very structure of the brain is the very age at which Dissociative Identity Disorder (D. I.; D.;) commences. When neuro-scientists speak of the plasticity of the brain, they mean the ability of the brain to undergo change, move functions from one part of the brain to another, adapt to brain injury, and so on. Research confirms that although older brains have more plasticity than was once thought, the brain’s plasticity is greatest in babies and thereafter slowly declines through the years. (Just one outworking of this is the well-known fact that the younger a person is, the easier it is to learn a new language.) People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D I; D;) usually have their first alter at a time when they were little children or babies – at a time when their brains were particularly capable of significant “re-wiring” and anatomical changes. Psychologists keen to understand how the brain works and what it is capable of, have paid much attention to studying people who are bilingual. An observation they consider significant is instances in which bilingual people have suffered an injury to the brain that causes them to lose an entire language and yet their ability to use the other language has remained intact. I think findings concerning bilingual people are relevant to people with Multiple Personality Disorder (M P; D;) because it seems likely that having multiple personalities would cause various skills, abilities and knowledge to be duplicated and stored in separate parts of the brain, similar to what apparently happens when learning a second language. One alter, for example, was formed in her twenties without the ability to read and write. She had to teach herself these skills all over again. If this was the genuine learning from scratch that it seems, then this woman has the ability to read and write stored in two separate parts of her brain. If so, then extrapolating from the findings concerning bilingual people, it is a good guess that if she were to suffer a brain tumor, head injury or stroke, her chances of one of the parts of her brain storing this ability being unaffected would be higher than would for people who have never had Dissociative Identity Disorder. A friend of mine, when in her twenties, nearly died from an infection that caused a dangerously high body temperature to rage for several consecutive days. Thereafter, her short-term memory was significantly impaired. Years later, as she began to understand Dissociative Identity Disorder, she discovered young alters that were exceptionally good not only at remembering events from years ago but with recalling numbers and so on encountered just minutes ago. By gaining the help of these alters, her ability to perform tasks that required short-term memory skyrocketed. This same woman had a poor sense of smell but discovered younger alters who had a much better sense of smell. She found that a younger alter could smell something and transfer to the host exactly what it smelt like. I presume that in both cases the parts of the brain habitually accessed by the host had been slightly impaired, whereas those parts accessed by the younger alters still functioned well. Creativity is of immense importance not just in the arts but in scientific advance, inventions and problem solving in every imaginable field of endeavor. It is well established that children are usually more creative than adults. The experience of people with Multiple Personality Disorder (M. P.; D.;) suggests that through their child alters, are much more able to tap into their creativity than if they had not suffered this disorder. My observations of people with multiple personalities also suggest that they are unusually skilled at multi-tasking. A young alter wrote in an e-mail apologizing for the spelling, explaining that her host was busy and unable to help her. My curiosity raised, I asked what her host had been doing. She replied that while she had been e-mailing, another alter was on the phone to a second person and yet another alter was working on figures and Instant Messaging the figures to a third person. At the same time she was handling interruptions from a fourth person who was with her in person. Her only restriction was that she had just one set of hands. She had the phone on her shoulder, and kept alternating between typing a little of the email while mentally working in the Instant Messaging, and then swapping to typing the Instant Messaging while mentally working on the e-mail. People who have seen this woman at work have been flabbergasted, but I expect that many others with multiple personalities could do equally amazing multi-tasking. Another thing I have observed in people with Dissociative Identity Disorder is that if a particular alter has been working long, stressful hours that would exhaust anyone, that alter will take a day’s rest and ask other alters to take over while the tired one is recuperating. What is happening here? The person is still working. I believe it is like someone lugging a heavy bag in one hand. When that arm tires, he swaps hands and keeps going, feeling refreshed even though he is still carrying the bag. It seems that by swapping alters, people with Dissociative Identity Disorder are able to swap the part of the brain that has tired for another part that is relatively fresh. That’s a valuable ability that I expect few other people have. So, although it is only a guess on my part, it might be that Dissociative Identity Disorder could give a person extra stamina. If you were using your right arm to perform a skilled task for hours at a time, it would be a real advantage if you could give yourself a break by swapping arms. This would depend, however, on whether the part of your brain controlling your left arm has developed the necessary skills. It likely to me that not only muscles, but parts of the brain, can tire after hours of concentrated effort. So if someone with D.I.D. had developed different parts of the brain to perform the same task (mathematical calculations, for example) then when one part of the brain tires, the person could switch to using another, fresher part of the brain to continue the task, whereas other people would have to stop or would become less efficient at the task. D.I.D. I see Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder) as like splitting a computer into several smaller computers and then having to maximize the efficiency and programming of each computer in an attempt to match the performance of people who have larger computers. I see healing from Dissociative Identity Disorder (D I; D;) as linking each computer so that a super computer is formed. This is not merely restoring the brain to what it would have been had fracturing not occurred, but taking the brain beyond that level because the fracturing had forced each part of the brain to develop more than that part of the brain would have done had there been no fracturing. This is why I believe that having multiple personalities (M. P.; D.;) can end up producing a brain that is superior to what it would otherwise have been. I have permission to share the following with you from someone commenting on this webpage. Your webpage really fascinated me! I say this, not because I feel that I personally have a superior brain, because I’ve always felt quite stupid. I never thought of multi-tasking as being related to D.I.D. I’ve been told most of my life that I can multi-task like no one else. Even though, by nature, women are often better at it than men, I’ve been told by women that I can do it in a way they can only dream of. My dad one time told me that he was sure I’d no idea what he’d just said to me because not only was I listening to him, I was also having a conversation with my three-year-old daughter, my mother and my sister. All different conversations were going on simultaneously. As well as this, I was baking and looking in the cook book for instructions, plus I was texting my husband on my phone. So I repeated back to my dad what he had said to me and I answered his question for a second time. I was also able to repeat back to my mom, sister and daughter what they had been saying to me and answer my daughter’s questions, plus show him that the text I sent my husband wasn’t messed up in anyway at all and neither was the stuff that I was baking. My dad sat there in amazement! My mom, sister and daughter all knew I could do that, so they never thought anything about it. So, I guess, with that in mind, maybe we who have D.I.D. do have superior minds, although I’ve never felt that I do, in any way, shape, or form! The following is where it gets really weird in that it turns out she is clearly far more intelligent than she had been indicating – so much so that, like me, you will probably feel intellectually inferior to her. What is significant, however, is that she saw herself as unintelligent, in fact, “stupid”. This is very common with people with Dissociative Identity Disorder for two reasons. One, they usually receive such putdowns from their abusers that their self-esteem has been brutally crushed. Two, as hinted at below, by alters remaining isolated from each other they often do not realize they only have limited awareness of all the abilities other parts of them have. She writes: I was a horrible student in class all of my adolescent years! There were a few subjects that I excelled at, most of those being some sort of art (drawing, painting, sculpting, etc.) or music. My primary instrument is the violin. From when I was only twelve years old right through to ending upon high school graduation at age eighteen, I was the “student teacher” and substitute orchestra teacher/conductor, for my orchestra. I also play the piano, string bass & bass guitar, as well as cello, viola, flute, clarinet, French horn, trumpet, trombone and trap set drums. I can play just about any instrument handed to me. I was always good at writing, drama, debate and public speaking. Although I was always an extremely shy person, some part of me comes to life when I’m on stage – a part that is usually hidden away somewhere. I was horrible at Math and Science, although I’ve always loved certain sciences, like Astronomy. I absolutely love Astronomy! I also enjoy Archeology. One day when I was in my mid-twenties, however, it was just like the whole Math & Science thing “turned on” for me! They both made a whole lot more sense than they ever had before. Now, I know that it was actually one of my parts – that’s what my counsellor calls alters. I now call on this part when I need help with Math. Apparently she always loved Math and Science. Unlike me, she could understand it completely. It was amazing when she finally stepped up to the plate and started to do those for me!

The Courage to Heal From Child Sexual Abuse Child sex abuse survivors share the secrets to inner healing from sexual abuse Once I looked to God in anger and said, “God, I have had eight different abusers!” “No,” he replied, “you’ve had nine abusers.” I was floored. I could only recall eight. Then God revealed that the ninth abuser was me. In various ways I had abused myself over and over again. Often I did not know why, I just felt I needed to treat myself badly. It seems I had been brainwashed by those who claimed I deserved the abuse that they had dished out. I now also realize that by focusing on the obvious pain of self-abuse I was deadening my awareness of the pain of the little child inside – the part of me that was hurting so deeply but I didn’t want to admit it existed. Nevertheless, self-abuse grew less and less effective as a means of deadening my internal pain. For that I am grateful. I needed to heal and for healing I had to be aware of what was going on inside of me. Irrespective of one’s gender, sexual abuse is devastating. The above was written by a man, I’ll call Jake. The following is by a woman I’ll call Ruth, with an occasional thought added by NetBurst.Net ’s founder, Grantley Morris. Until the last few years, I had always despised and hated the person I was at age twelve. I so detested a photo of myself taken the day I turned thirteen that I have felt like defacing it, because I looked like a sweet and innocent child. It was a lie. How could this child be sweet and innocent, since she had deliberately had sex with a man old enough to be her father? That twelve-year-old stole my innocence! She deliberately gave away the most precious, personal thing I ever had: my virginity. I had every right to detest her! But my attitude to her slowly changed as I began to realize that two other people ought also to take responsibility for what happened. One was the man who deliberately set out to seduce me. I was extremely angry with him when a few years after the event I discovered that he should have gone to jail for what he did to me. Where I lived, to have sexual relations with anyone under sixteen was called “statutory rape” and was a criminal offence. And the other person? My mother – who told me my father rejected me at birth because I was a girl and too ugly to be his kid anyway. My mother – who blamed her divorce on me for not being a boy. My mother – who told me I was so plain that no one would ever want to marry me. My mother – who never showed a normal duty of care towards me. How could she let her twelve-year-old daughter go on long car rides with a man whom my mother didn’t know? It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized I had been so vulnerable to seduction because this man was the first person ever to validate the fact that I was female! I was a sitting duck. I now find it strange, but nevertheless common among abuse survivors, that many of us would rather blame ourselves for what happened to us as children, than admit that our parents or other respected people – the ones who should have loved us, nurtured us and protected us – had let us down so badly. However, if the Bible emphasizes anything, it is that no human is guiltless. It goes on to say that God, through Christ, offers us forgiveness that we should joyously accept and, with equal generosity, forgive everyone else who has hurt us. And that includes forgiving ourselves. Forgiveness is meaningless unless there has been an offense. The only way we can forgive those who have hurt us is by first facing the truth that they did wrong and have gravely hurt us. Telling ourselves that they have not done wrong is simply a failure to face reality. Jake read of Ruth’s struggles and wrote to her saying: If the Son of God wrote a letter to twelve-year-old Ruth, I expect he would say something like this: Before you were in the womb I knew you. Before you were thought of, every part of you was written in my book, flawless and holy. I made you just the way I desired, perfect for me. I was there when your father left. I felt the cut so deeply as it wounded your gentle heart. You see, there was a time when my Father left me as I hung on that tree. My grief was so intense that the earth shook as darkness covered the land. My dearest child, I understand. I was there when your mother left emotionally; when she forsook your feminine heart, and traded it for a lie. I felt the pain of your injured heart; the scar you were not meant to bear. I was there, Ruth, I was there. I was there when the deceiver came in the form of a man to steal from you. I saw your pain and shame. I heard your whimpering cry in the night. I was there when you thought no one was there. I held you as you cried to sleep; your pain kept you from seeing me. I was there even when the tears would no longer run. I was there. I felt the cuts of the ripping knife as the words of your mother ran deep. Those words were not mine; I would never have sent them. I was there, feeling your pain, seeing your life being drained. I was there, holding you. Your pain kept you from seeing me. I sent my word given for you: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up” (Psalms 27:10, KJV). My dear Ruth, you are risen with me, the Christ, and even now sit at the throne of God next to me. I am here. My voice you know. Now here is what I say: Twelve-year-old Ruth, will you make a trade with me? Will you give to me those rags that you wear; the ones you think you deserve? I will not take them from you, for I am not like the one who deceived. In the place of rags here is a gown sparkling white and clean; one that will never fade for all eternity. Will you trade me, twelve-year-old Ruth? Will you let me take that crown of thorns that cuts you and makes you bleed? I have a tiara to put in its place for all the holy ones to see. You see, my dear Ruth, the trade is done, it is just that you cannot see. The rags are no more, nor the crown of thorns, for I bore it all at Calvary. It is the way you see yourself that you should trade, so that you may truly see reality. Will you give that pain, fear and shame to me? With the greatest love, Your true Father Reader, with an occasional alteration to fit your exact circumstances, the above is what your loving Lord would also whisper in your ear. Ruth continues: Bitter years of experience have taught me that doing our utmost to lock past hurts into a box can suddenly backfire. No matter how successfully we fool ourselves into thinking we are keeping the past in the past, all the pain keeps fermenting and festering. We might suppose that all is peaceful but we are sitting on a volcano of torrid emotions that could erupt at the most inconvenient of times. When it finally erupts it seems such a disaster, but it is actually progress towards healing. At last we find ourselves facing reality. If you have been letting God rule, it means that the God who has been watching over your healing believes that you are now ready to stop living in denial and reach out to that little, hurting, desperately needy child inside. No matter how you feel about it, that child is loved of God and needs to know it. That child also needs your love and compassion and nurturing and affirmation that both the child – and the adult you – missed out on. To find full healing you must get to know this child. This will most likely involve briefly re-living the horrible pain and trauma that caused you to hate him or her. I often hear survivors say, “I was molested as a child, big deal, a lot of people were.” This is only looking at the fact of what happened. It is not validating the emotional trauma experienced. It is trying to convince oneself that what happened was insignificant. I am reminded of when my young son complained about a splinter. I thought he was being a crybaby. The splinter was only about 1/16th inch (1 mm) long. It couldn’t be causing that much pain. But I was seeing only the tip. The splinter had gone in vertically. The hidden part was about 1/2 inch (12 mm) long, and thicker than the exposed part. No wonder he complained about the pain! Likewise, for those of us who have been sexually abused, our pain is far deeper than anyone can see, and far deeper than we are usually willing to admit to ourselves. But if you have suffered abuse, your innermost being, your very self, knows just how deeply you were hurt – spiritually, emotionally, physically and sexually – and the real you will never find genuine and lasting peace until you let the Great Physician attend to that painful memory that has become an abscess. He needs to drain the poison, tenderly bathe the wound and apply the soothing ointment of his love to your soul. The fact of abuse cannot be changed, but the emotional pain can be healed, if you let the Great Physician access to it so that he can tenderly extract it. Remember how Jesus often asked hurting people what they wanted from him. He knew they were hurting – like he knows you are hurting – but only an abuser would force himself on others against their will. The good and gracious Lord is the exact opposite. He longs to heal but moved by the deep respect he has for you, he waits until he is invited. The God of Truth needs you to acknowledge the truth of your pain and to trust him to touch that ever so tender part of you with his healing hands. We are usually afraid to acknowledge the extent of our hurt because it seems bottomless. Some of us think if we start crying, we will never stop. Others of us fear that our rage will be uncontrollable if we admit to ourselves the guilt of others. Some us of mistakenly suppose that God will be angry with us. But when at last we muster the courage to face the reality of our suffering and invite the tender God of Truth into that hidden part of us, we find that any pain that results is fleeting and the peace is endless. It is then that we regret all the years wasted avoiding healing. For Much More Help See: Forgiving Yourself How to Change Your Self-Image Comfort, Understanding and Healing for Abuse Survivors Help & Support for Both Genders The Danger of Living in Denial

Feel Ugly? Could You Have A Distorted Body Image? Body Dysmorphic Disorder (B.D.D.) “Am I ugly or do I just feel ugly? Is what I see when I look in the mirror what other people see or do they see me through different eyes?” Too few of us who feel ugly seriously analyze such questions. We feel certain we are not beautiful or attractive but although we differ as to the degree of distortion, simple experiments reveal that almost all of us have a distorted body image. Not only is this not merely a female affliction, it is thought to affect both genders equally. Nor is it a minor problem. Full-blown Body Dysmorphic Disorder is associated with disturbingly high suicide rates. There is much truth in the old adage, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” If we hate ourselves, we are almost doomed to see ourselves as less physically attractive than neutral observers see us. Moreover, if we were presented with a line of people sorted according to the size of their tummy, nose, or whatever, and we were asked where we fit into the line, we would most likely get it surprisingly wrong. Not only do we not see ourselves the way others do, we don’t see ourselves as a tape measure does. “I’m ugly,” you tell yourself, “No one could find me attractive.” But just as skinny anorexics think they are fat when they are not, many of us think we are ugly when we are not. Very many people want plastic surgery to change their appearance when the problem is not their body, but their body image. According to one survey, only 2% of women think they are beautiful. This gives an indication of how serious and widespread this issue is. When a body image problem becomes so dominating as to cause significant distress or handicap, it is called Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD). It involves preoccupation with one or more bodily feature that the person supposes to be unusual – such as marks on the skin or lack of symmetry or a body part being too small or too big – that most people can hardly notice or else consider insignificant. People suffering from BDD are often very reluctant to seek help because they fear others will think them vain or self-centered. They usually have low self-esteem and judge themselves almost solely by their appearance. Some feel able to settle for nothing less than perfection in their appearance. They might be envious of other people but in reality if they had the body of someone they envied, they would soon find imperfections and most likely end up feeling no better about themselves. You might not have full-blown Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) like Melody had, but if she can overcome BDD, you will see there is great hope for you. Here’s Melody's story. What I saw when I looked in the mirror was akin to a horrendous Halloween mask. I could literally watch myself “morph” into a hideous creature right before my eyes. How had I reached this point? When I was little, my mother had never told me I was pretty, but instead allowed my siblings to make fun of me and cruelly tease me about my looks, as kids can be prone to do. I was a very sensitive child, and I would cry in my heart. More dangerous than the teasing, however, is that I believed every word they said. My teenage years were even harder than my earlier years because of how I felt I looked – ugly. I hated everything about me. Sadly, it even made me cry on my wedding day. I so wanted to be a pretty bride, but after spending hours getting my hair done, I still felt so ugly. I learned to smile for the world, so that no one would know how I really felt about myself. I never shared my “secret” (that I hated everything about me) with anyone. Not even my husband knew, until well into our marriage. If someone complimented me, I instantly disbelieved it and never let it live for even a moment. I felt they either pitied me for how I looked, or were outright liars, or had really poor taste! I blamed everything on my looks. If someone didn’t like me, it was because they thought I was ugly. If someone got a promotion over me, it was because of how ugly I was. And so on. Circumstances came to a head in my early thirties. I became more depressed than ever before. Thoughts came saying I was too ugly to deserve to live. The more I opened my heart to these thoughts, the stronger they became. The more I believed them, the more they “fed” me their lies. They became almost like friends, because they understood my life-long battle with my outward appearance. I found it torturous to look in a mirror. As I looked I saw body parts become distorted as if I were looking into a fun house mirror. I saw some features on my face grow to enormous size, and others shrink to an unnatural size. My self hatred grew. It was often agony for me to be out in public, not only because of my deep depression, but because I thought I looked so hideous that I would scare people if they had to look at me. My husband loved to go out once a week with me for supper. I knew that he worked so hard and it was a release for him, so would I force myself to go for his sake. Despite my best intentions, however, we sometimes had to turn around and go back home because it was just too much for me. I had known Jesus from the age of four. I knew he loved me – even in my (imagined) ugliness. But deep down, I harbored anger at God for making me so ugly, when with all his power he could have made me pretty. I loved every verse in the Bible, except Romans 9:20, “ . . . Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” Those words were exactly what I would rail against God. I said he made a mistake, and didn’t know what he was doing. I told him that he loved those that are pretty more than he loved me. He didn’t answer me a word, for he is always right, and deep down I knew it. Nevertheless, I stubbornly held on to my pain and anger. Until one day . . . At the end of my rope, so to speak, in the pain of another deep depression, I stopped sidestepping from that scripture and fully surrendered to the Lord. I no longer wanted to believe I had found a part of the Bible that was somehow incorrect. I was finally at a point where I would rather accept the way I looked, than carry anger towards the Lord anymore. I still felt horrendously disfigured, non-human, ugly, monstrous. Nevertheless, I was at last willing to tell the Lord that if this is the way he made me, then I know he is all-wise, and that he does not make any mistakes, and he always chooses what is ultimately best for those who love him. To my delight, once I gave it all to the Lord, my inner healing began. Almost immediately, he gave me the grace to love myself and accept myself, for the very first time that I could remember. In those early days after my surrender, it was God who was fighting for me but he began teaching me how to fight for myself. After about two weeks, I was able to join the Lord in defending myself. I had never fought for myself before, only against myself. I could never fully stand before because I had been at war with myself. Now I was whole! Now, instead of seeing myself or my body as my enemy, I could unite with myself and with the Lord to fight those things that were attacking me. The Lord began to teach me how I could ward off the fiery darts of the enemy by telling satan/demons that I was accepted in the beloved (Ephesians 1:6). I found that I could begin to look in a mirror and not cry or be disgusted. That was the first step. The enemy had lost this battle but he didn’t want to give up easily. Early in my healing, when I would look in the mirror, and would notice my features beginning to distort, I would quickly look away and tell myself that what I was seeing was not the truth. I began to look at myself in the mirror and speak kindly and lovingly to myself. I had previously spent an unnaturally long time obsessively looking at myself in the mirror, and I realized that this was unhealthy and was not a useful way to spend my time, so I limited that kind of obsessive behavior. The Lord taught me that I had the power to stop following negative trains of thought. Just because they entered into my mind, I did not have to “join in” with their negative, demoralizing, self-critical messages. He revealed that I had the choice to not let minor things become major issues for me. We all have the choice to let minor things just waft over us, instead of letting them upset us. I do not have to act like a victim. I have the power to choose. It is up to me whether I major on a “bad hair day” or whether I refuse not to so focus on the minor as to let my mind turn it into something big. But beyond stopping destructive thought patterns, we need to replace them with positive, truthful, self-validating and honoring messages. The Lord showed me that unrealistic expectations of perfection would always end in sorrow. He said that to break free from misery I must be willing to let go of my infatuation with perfection. Nothing this side of heaven is perfect. In fact, he revealed that there is beauty in imperfection. Much in nature – clouds, mountains, streams and so on – are beautiful precisely because of their imperfection and uniqueness. I needed to embrace that concept and apply it to myself. Then there’s the staggering thought that, for those granted the understanding, nothing in the universe is as beautiful as Jesus’ scars – the very marks that some would call ugly disfigurements. Because I often felt as if just being me – wasn’t “enough,” I began to tell myself, “I am enough, just the way I am. God loves and accepts me just the way I am, so I will do likewise.” The Lord sometimes dropped whole sentences into my heart, such as, “I am more than how I look.” As commonplace as that may sound, I had never in my life thought like this. Previously, I would have dismissed such thoughts – and had I done so now, I could have lost my healing – but now I was keen to grab such thoughts like a starving child grasping for crumbs. I chose to believe positive thoughts and savor them, repeating them over and over to myself. As I continued to heal, I also found that the Lord would bring back kind words/compliments from others from my past. I used to immediately dismiss such things, but now it was like I was hearing them for the first time and was able to allow them into my heart and it also helped to heal that wound within me. I had no idea at the time that what the Lord was personally teaching me is what is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), a method psychologists have developed to treat Body Dysmorphic Disorder. Taking great care about what I think is something I need to vigilantly stay on top of, lest I become entangled again in the snare of destructive thinking. Slowly, as I walked in faith and in the victory that I had won, I began to see myself through different eyes. I began to tell myself that most of all I wanted to be beautiful in the Lord’s eyes. He says in Proverbs 31 that a woman who is truly praiseworthy is one not with mere outward beauty but who one who fears the Lord. 1 Peter 3:4 showed me that it is my inner heart that needs to be cultivated more so than my outer appearance that will grow old. 1 Samuel 16:7 says that God looks not on our outward appearance, but on our hearts. I purposed in my heart not to base my opinion of myself on what people may say or think (whether good or bad), but on those things that really matter in this life. It will not end up mattering at all what we looked like physically during our stay on earth, but it matters what we have allowed God to do in our hearts. I want to set my mind on things above, not be disappointed for all eternity by letting myself be sidetracked by earthly things (Colossians 3:2). The Lord has brought me to a place where my greatest desire is that if anyone sees beauty in me, it is because of the beauty of the Lord within. Isaiah 53:2 says that Jesus did not have physical beauty that we should be attracted to him, but his attraction is the beauty of the Lord upon him and his godly nature. Repeatedly, (e.g. Leviticus 19:18; Luke 10:27-28; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14; Ephesians 5:29; James 2:8) the Bible says that we are to love others as we love ourselves. I had always thought it would be prideful to love myself – and was taught that in church – but the Lord showed me that while we are not to love ourselves in a selfish or prideful way, we are allowed, and even commanded, to love ourselves. It is true that the Bible tells us to hate ourselves, but it also says we are to hate our parents (Luke 14:26). The use of this word “hate” means that God must be absolutely first in our affections, but the rest of Jesus’ teaching and Scripture stresses that we must love and honor our parents and to not do so is a grave offense (Matthew 15:4-10; 1 Timothy 5:8). And just as we must love and honor our parents, so we must love and honor ourselves, since the Bible is emphatic that God loves us. To not love as God loves is to put ourselves at odds with God. We cannot claim to be godly unless we love others (ourselves included) as God loves. That means we must love every part of ourselves, and not reject parts we deem not acceptable. We must want and strive for the best for ourselves; to embrace and accept ourselves, even our imperfections. We should cooperate with Christ in changing those character traits that need to be changed and accept the rest of us. When we can have mercy towards ourselves, it is easy to extend it towards others, and when we can love ourselves, it is easier to love others as God loves and sees them. Ephesians 6:11-16 – about putting on the armor of God – has taught me much, not only about thoughts affecting BDD, but for life in general. God has shown me that I need to hold every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and to make sure it is the Truth and/or in the spirit of Truth (2 Corinthians 10:5). I wish I could better explain how the Holy Spirit has helped me totally reverse how I view life, and myself and other people. He continues to alert me to wrong thought patterns, causing me to challenge their validity. If a thought is erroneous in nature, or not edifying, he shows me the better way to think. A good scripture for this is Philippians 4:8, where we are challenged to think on things that build us up – things that are true, pure, praiseworthy, and so on. He has shown me certain triggers I need to stay away from. One such example for me is television shows about plastic surgery. For my own well-being – so as not to give the devil the slightest opportunity – I must abstain from watching such shows. I enjoy my freedom far too much to let something like this bring me down. As the Bible says, it is the little foxes – the seemingly insignificant things – that can spoil the vine (Song of Solomon 2:15). Let me share something that just happened the other day as an example of my ongoing healing and learning to build a healthy foundation. I innocently watched a show the other day that featured people styling hair. I awoke the next morning with a slightly uneasy feeling. I knew in my heart or spirit that I needed to address something. The show came back to mind and the Lord reminded me that at one point while watching it, I admired a facial feature of a particular woman and had the fleeting thought, “I wish mine looked like hers.” It was quick and fleeting, but the Lord showed me that it was a covetous thought and that it was invalidating how I looked, and could lead me into dangerous thinking, if I didn’t address it right away. The Lord has been speaking to me lately about covetousness and being content with what I have, down to the tiniest of things. He is leading me to a more pure way of thinking; inspiring me to dwell in thankfulness for where the Lord has placed me, in all areas of my life. To do anything else borders on covetousness and ungratefulness to the Lord, as he always chooses what is ultimately best for me at any given time. Philippians 4:11,12 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances . I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation , whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. (Emphasis mine) So, needless to say, I repented and determined by his grace, not to compare myself to anyone – as he had already showed me the dangers of doing this. 2 Corinthians 10:12  . . . When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. Through Christ, I have maintained my healing for over two years, now. I have resolved to always be vigilant to not allow the lies and distortions of truth by the enemy to take over my mind and heart anymore. The wounded part of me that allowed my Body Dysmorphic Disorder to grow needs to continue to heal, and the last thing I need is to sabotage the healing by re-infecting the wound with contaminated thoughts. By his grace I stand steadfast in the liberty Christ has given me (Galatians 5:1). Deep Thoughts – by Grantley Morris Body Dysmorphic Disorder is like using an electron microscope to examine a work of art and complaining that the result looks hideous. If we engage in intense microscopic examination, we will end up so deluded by the details that we completely miss what the artist intended and – surprise, surprise – everything seems meaningless. It takes no more than average ignorance to look at a painting close up and complain about what seem to be imperfections. You need a great intellect, however, to truly appreciate great art. Ironically, we live too close to life to be able to see the really big things. Body Dysmorphic Disorder is but one of a huge range of tragic consequences. Squandering our lives chasing after fame or money or pleasure are just a few of the other possibilities. Only faith in God empowers us to see things from the eternal perspective – to sufficiently distance ourselves from the small stuff to see the big picture. “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God,” says 2 Corinthians 4:7. To become fixated on one’s physical appearance is like being handed a priceless present and mistakenly supposing that the cardboard box it comes in is everything. We become so preoccupied with the packaging, so disappointed with the disposable, that we fail to discover the exquisite gift within. Significantly, the words prior to “we have this treasure in jars of clay” are: 2 Corinthians 4:5 For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. If we focus on ourselves, the big things fall out of focus and we end up lost. Only by making Jesus our focus can we find our way out and get on with life. Someone else with Body Dysmorphic Disorder has kindly let me share her story with you. I'll call her Jan. So acute is her condition that she believes that only about three times in the last fifteen years has she been able to look in the mirror and see what she really looks like, rather than a gross distortion. Amazingly, she confided to me that during her long marriage this affliction has never hindered her intimacy with her husband. She joked that she is “too ugly to walk to the post box but stark naked [making love with her husband] is just fine.” The key to her remarkable freedom is her attitude to lovemaking. Jan says, “I guess it’s because I’m not focused on me – it’s about giving.” We all know the parable of the talents. A man entrusted his wealth to three servants, assigning them with the task of maximizing his investment. While two worked hard at it, the third put his feet up and did nothing. When the master came to the third servant and discovered that he had not even tried, the master said, “That’s fine. You aren’t as good-looking as the others so you couldn’t have achieved anything anyhow.” Actually, that’s not quite how Jesus’ parable goes. It’s vital that we not let ourselves be sidetracked by the superficial and let trivialities trash our enormous potential. We live in a dangerously shallow world that emphasizes the unimportant. That world will end. Even in this life the outward shell withers and it is only inner beauty – the fruit of God’s Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) that lasts. We must not let the world’s values corrupt us: Luke 16:15 He said to them, “You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” John 7:24 Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment. 1 Samuel 16:7  . . . Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. 1 Peter 1:24-25 For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you. 1 Peter 3:3-5 Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.  . . . 1 Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men’s hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God. What turns a “nobody” into a hero? Heroes are ordinary people lucky enough to be thrown into situations where almost everything goes wrong and then they refuse to let that stop them. Within every Christian is the power of an eagle to face contrary winds and soar higher the fiercer they blow. The imperfections of life are our opportunity for glory. Born with a rare disease, Lizzie Velasquez suffers abnormalities including a brown eye and a blue one and being appallingly skinny. A short video of her slipped out and went viral. To her horror, it had four million hits, she was voted the ugliest person on the Internet and the Internet flooded with multiplied thousands of cruel comments about her looks. Like a moth drawn to a deadly flame, she kept reading what people had publicly written about her. Not one comment was positive. Some said that for the sake of others she should put a bag over her head whenever she was in public. She even received tips as to how to kill herself. People might call her physically ugly but her courage and beautiful heart are so immense as to totally eclipse her physical appearance. Instead of surrendering to bitterness or hiding in false shame, she has used her looks to launch a career as a motivational speaker; urging people not to let outward appearance define who they are, not to surrender to bullying, and so on. Lizzie Velasquez is living proof that physical appearance is nothing like as important as most of us suppose. Being genuinely ugly need not hold us back. In fact, Lizzie’s physical limitations have given her far greater opportunities than me to positively impact huge numbers of people. In the light of this, I am not the slightest surprised that Lizzie has called her disease-ravaged physical appearance, “the greatest blessing in my life.” Having learnt what she has achieved, there is a real sense in which I wish my physical appearance were actually many times more hideous than I have often imagined it to be. Being born with genetic defects raises a complex matter that is outside the scope of this webpage but I feel compelled to at least touch on it, lest, in our failure to think things through, we end up in the ridiculous situation of accusing God of evil. In his astounding love and power, God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). The Almighty keeps pouring out his goodness upon what seems a hopeless situation until it not only stops evil in its tracks but makes it do a complete U-turn. We can get so excited about the good that God brings out of disasters as to lose sight of the fact that it was originally evil and anti-God. We are not yet in heaven, where everyone not only longs to do every single thing in total submission to God’s perfect love and wisdom, but actually achieves it. To sin is to act in defiance of God’s perfect ways. The result not only breaks God’s heart but ends up hurting other people whom God loves and also defiles the person who sinned. All of us are works of art that have been vandalized by sin – not merely marred by our own sin and the sins of our contemporaries but even by the sins of our distant ancestors, whose anti-God activities ended up affecting not only the environment but the human gene pool. Just as it broke God’s heart when people said cruel and hurtful things about Lizzie Velasquez, so it breaks his heart that each of us was born to parents who not only treated us with less than perfect wisdom but passed on to us less than perfect genes. Yes, God could have rendered us incapable of having children, but what an enormous loss that would be. And yes, God could have forced us into total slavery to his perfect ways but the results would be chilling. It would, for example, reduce us to little more than machines who could never be praised and honored for doing good. A man wrote to me, upset with God because his wife, who had taught Sunday School and belonged to an anti-drug organization, had ended up addicted to drugs and left him, taking the children as well. I replied, “You could have kidnapped your wife and imprisoned her, thereby forcibly preventing her from taking drugs and from leaving you. You chose not to do so because you are too decent a man for that. Do you really expect God to have lower morals than you and forcibly prevent your wife from breaking God’s heart and yours?” God is not just all-powerful; he is love. You cannot fervently love someone without aching for that person to love you – especially if you know that person desperately needs you in his/her life. To deeply love someone means you could have everything else in the universe, and yet without that person’s love you would still be heartbroken. To love is to make oneself so vulnerable that even having unlimited power could not help. Omnipotence could easily force someone to obey you. Or it could produce something like a ‘love’ potion, causing a person to be under the illusion of loving you. But genuine love can never be compelled. If it involves force or chemicals or deceit or bribery it is a sham, and can never satisfy your yearning for that person’s love. There are things that not even omnipotence can achieve. It cannot, for example, produce a square circle. It can easily turn a circle into a square, but the instant it has straight sides it is not a circle. Likewise, when someone is forced to act in love, it is not genuine love. Even with unlimited power, there is little anyone could do to induce genuine love in a person, other than be loving and wait for a response. We would be appalled if a man kidnapped a woman and raped and enslaved her because he claims he loves her, wants her as his wife and is convinced he can make her happy. It would be an immoral abuse of power, regardless of whether he used physical force or threats – in which case she would be conscious of the violation of her rights – or if he used drugs or hypnotism so that she is unaware that what is happening is against her will. Real love respects the desires of the beloved, no matter how much it clashes with the lover’s personal longings, and no matter how certain he is that the person would benefit from a lifelong intimacy with him. This is just a fraction of the complexities God must grapple with. We vainly pit our puny intellect against the Infinite Mind, using brain cells he gave us to try to out-think him. If God’s ways don’t always make sense to us it merely confirms that our combined brain power couldn’t light a single galaxy. God wants a relationship with us more intimate, more permanent and more exclusive than the most wonderful marriage any human couple could ever experience. When we learn that he wants us to love, honor and obey him, we back off in horror before discovering that in every way we benefit from this relationship and it is God, not us, who gets the raw end. He loves you more than you love yourself and has your best interests at heart even more than you do. He alone has infinite understanding and – as demonstrated by Jesus suffering on the cross for you – he is utterly unselfish and would sacrifice anything for your eternal happiness. To disregard the advice of someone of infinite intelligence who wants only your best, makes as much sense as deliberately harming yourself. Any time we fail to love, honor and obey the God who is devoted to our welfare, we ruin that part of our lives, relative to what we would otherwise have enjoyed and achieved. Humanity can boast one perfect Person – Jesus. We killed him. Yet our only Innocent gladly suffered the injustice to free the guilty from suffering eternal justice. In this cataclysmic exchange, the Innocent and the guilty traded places, making it spiritually legal for his suffering to end your suffering. As incredible as it seems, this has ushered us to the brink of a new world where the longing deep within us will be met – deceit, abuse, and hurtful actions will be swallowed by goodness; misery will dissolve in endless joy. Nevertheless, temporary earthly pain continues for a wonderful reason. A paradise of harmony, trust, openness and love would quickly spoil if just one of its citizens acted remotely like we presently behave. To enter a perfect world without shattering its perfection, would require a personality transformation more radical than ever seen on earth. Through Jesus’ intervention, God can perform this miracle and make us fit for such a world, but he won’t abuse us by forcing a personality change upon us against our will. We must be willing to let God take our pet sins from us and let him, in his unlimited wisdom and love, rule every part of our lives. But there must be a Day of reckoning. All evil must be removed. Even the self-righteous have been demanding it for millennia, though they have no idea what they are asking. Our response before that terrifying moment will determine whether we’ll be around to enjoy an evil-free environment. The suffering of humanity’s only Innocent (Jesus) blazed the way for the total removal of all suffering and when he re-visits this planet he will complete his mission. But how, without unprincipled favoritism, could he eradicate all evil without destroying you and me? Only by us letting him wrench our darling sins from us, and trusting him to have taken their horrific consequences upon himself. Then we will be spared and no one can accuse God of injustice or favoritism. He has borne the penalty himself. Humanity quivers on the brink of extinction, mesmerized by sin like serpent’s prey. Each moment that God suppresses his explosive urge to extinguish evil, is a moment in which billions of us have yet another chance to come to our senses and let Jesus deliver us from our infatuation with sin. But the end of this period of grace is hurtling toward us. Soon all suffering will cease. All wrongdoing will be destroyed, along with everyone still caught in its deadly embrace. Keys to Feeling Good About Yourself You Can Find Love How to be one with Jesus Forgiving Yourself Being Convinced About God’s Love for You Being Convinced that God has Forgiven You Forgiving Those who have Hurt You How to Change Your Self-Image & Boost Self-Esteem Courage to Heal Survivors share secrets to healing from sex abuse Healing From Sexual Abuse A vast resource of comfort and support Where Was God When You Suffered Unspeakable Horrors? Revenge! “I hate myself!” Christian help when you hate yourself A page that provides many more valuable links

The Poem By Louise Plaskett Under the half-frozen soil A seed awakens And starts to push away its shell Putting forth a tiny, shivering shoot Through the dark soil it travels On its upward climb to light Until, one day The crust of springtime’s earth splits before the thrust And the green shoot rejoices As the world of light opens before it And the warm rays of yellow sunshine Welcome it and beckon to it with encouragement. Suddenly, little shoot feels the stinky impact Of a shovel full of aged manure And wonders why it tried so hard to leave its safe seed. Warm rain falls and the stench lessens As the sinking nourishment unites with the ground Feeding the baby plant, that it thrive Its roots established in softened, enriched soil Until the day when the first bloom appears. No hint of foul odor mars its perfume The dark humus a perfect backdrop For the beauty of the garden. Do you ever feel as if someone threw manure on you? After struggling through the darkness Finally, a ray of light And before you can enjoy it Buried in excrement! To have to push further up Through the unpleasantness. But the trial will settle The Water of Life will mix it with good soil To enhance growth And when your bloom hits its apex And wafts sweetened fragrance to the wind around you You will shine A glorious flower in the garden of God. Beauty comes at a price So wade in the fertilizer and don’t choke on it And don’t abandon your brothers when they’re covered in it Grow above it by the strength of Abba, through Jesus Drinking in His refreshing rains, washed by Him, together Basking in His Sunshine together Reaching up out of it together Blooming together Until faithful love’s perfume makes His garden a treat to the senses All over the earth And rises as a sweet incense offering to Heaven. In the autumn of our lives When our petals droop, wither, and die That incense will bloom above eternally Before the face of the Master Gardener. Back To: Page about Self-Hate

To God, You Are Special! Why, in God’s Eyes, You are Irreplaceable You might not like yourself and you might be convinced that everyone on this planet feels the same way about you, but God is mind-bogglingly superior to everyone on this planet – not just in power but in his warmth and in the depth of his feelings for you. So intense is the Almighty that he loves you as if there were no one in the universe but you. One reason for this is that there is genuinely no one in the universe like you. There has never been and never will be, another you. God has made no one in the universe just like you. He treasures your uniqueness. Not only are your facial features unique, along with each of your fingerprints, toe prints, palm prints, footprints, voice print, iris patterns and the DNA in every cell of your body, but evidence is mounting that everyone has a unique typing rhythm, walking gait, ECG (heartbeat) and on and on we could go. In fact, with sufficiently sophisticated analysis, just about every tiny aspect of you is unmatched by anyone who has ever lived. Even if God were to abandon his commitment to making everything unique, and he chose to craft someone with an absolutely identical body and intellect to yours, your experiences are utterly unparalleled. Every conversation you have ever had, all your personal choices, your precise place in time and space throughout your existence, the total array of every sight and sound and object that has ever touched and shaped you, could be matched in no one else. No one in the universe has ever had exactly the same combination of thoughts that you had in the last hour, and the same applies for every single hour of your entire life. Even, if you go to sufficient detail, your exact mishmash of sins is unique, providing God with a unique challenge (and he is certainly up to it!) to transform your life into something beautiful. In countless trillions of ways no one’s full story or testimony has ever been, nor will ever be, like yours. You might be ho-hum about that, but it fires God. If you don’t think much of yourself, your uniqueness might mean little to you, but to someone passionately in love with you, your distinctiveness makes you utterly irreplaceable. To whoever loves you, it means that there is no substitute for you in the entire universe. To a stranger you might just be one of millions, but not to someone who truly loves you. If a child in a large family died, no sane person would dare try consoling the grieving parents by saying, “Don’t worry, you can easily adopt another child.” Not one, not a hundred, not a thousand children could ever replace that child, and neither could a trillion dollars. If imperfect human love perceives the uniqueness of a loved one and delights in that uniqueness to the point of making that person irreplaceable, this is magnified stupendously in the way God feels about you. Everything that distinguishes you means so very much to the God of infinite detail who keeps track of every hair on your head. To mind-boggling extremes he is the most attentive of lovers. You move him, you fascinate him, you captivate him. In the nicest, most respectful possible way, the infinite God of love is, as it were, infatuated with you. Nevertheless, if you push him away, he will not abuse his power, violating the dignity he has decided to grace you with, by forcing himself upon you. Instead, the All-powerful One selflessly chooses to endure the pain and suffer his heartache in secret. Truly, the Lord of the universe is worthy of all power because he wields it with matchless nobility and exquisite selflessness. The Perfect One is not too good to be true, but far too good to be human. He totally eclipses everyone in being worthy of your time and your unerring devotion. You are loved. You are respectfully but passionately desired. You ’re special to God, not because of your greatness but because of the greatness of his love. It ’s not that you are perfect but that his love is perfect. You can kick off your shoes, slip off your masks and rest in that love. Make yourself cozy, let your cares float away and bask in his love. Lie in the warmth as you snuggle content and enjoy that love. Let go of your sin, luxuriate in peace, knowing the reality that God is love. The Almighty is never half-hearted about anything. He loves you not with part of his heart but with all his heart. And this astounding Person who loves with his whole heart knows no limit. He is infinite. The implications threaten to fry every circuit in the human brain. In the late nineteenth century, mathematical genius, Georg Cantor, proved that no matter how much you add to infinity or subtract from it or divide it or multiply it, the result is still infinity. Despite any of those mathematical procedures, infinity is so mind-bogglingly different to anything finite that the quantity remains unchanged. Fuelled by this finding, let’s blast off on a ridiculous fantasy flight. If the God of infinite love could somehow love someone else a trillion times more than he loves you, he would still love you and the other person exactly the same – infinity. If his love for you could somehow be diminished to only a trillionth of his current love for you, his love for you would still be infinite. A friend of mine who had been so hurt that he had never before let himself love anyone, began to fall in love with God. This scared him because his love for God meant that if God were to reject him it would hurt deeply. I explained that there is nothing to fear about the perfect love of God. Human love is at best imperfect, and anyone with imperfect love might stop loving and if so, the human might reject a person or turn nasty. But because God’s love is perfect he keeps loving and loving and loving and will never reject anyone or hurt anyone. Tragically, people reject him and leave him, but for as long as their hearts beat, he keeps longing for them to come back into his warm, welcoming arms. Creator God, Almighty Ruler of the galaxies, sees in you things he sees in no one else – and it thrills him. And not only does God treasure you as irreplaceable, there is no one in the universe – not even his matchless Eternal Son – that he loves more than you. This latter astounding truth is expounded in the third link below. In the meantime, cling to the truth that in the heart of the all-powerful Lord is a craving, an ache, a longing that nothing but your companionship can ever satisfy. For the God who might seem to have everything, only you will do.

Positive Confession? Or Living in Denial? Brave or Stupid? Many of us have an inner wound due to some highly unpleasant past event and until it is healed it is like an open physical wound in that even a gentle touch on that area can be distressing. Just as serious physical wounds need attention, and neglect can make them worse, so it is with inner wounds. Trying to suppress or ignore inner pain is neither being spiritual nor strong but will prevent healing and perhaps even worsen the situation. When people suppose they are avoiding pain, and think the damage they have suffered is untreatable anyway, people are content to let traumatic memories and disturbing matters remain buried. Nevertheless, the surfacing of suppressed memories through upsetting dreams, flashbacks or whatever, can be a blessing – and might sometimes be a direct act of God – because the damage can be treated and the pain can end, provided people with these pasts stop living in denial. The surfacing of these memories long after the event makes sense and reveals divine wisdom because with the passing years these people have gained maturity, greater spiritual awareness, and sometimes greater access even to human help than when the original trauma occurred. Whether it be credit card debt, early signs of cancer or past trauma, problems are never solved by ignoring them. Putting a crisis out of your mind might give you temporary peace but the problem will only worsen and you will inevitably end up wishing you had faced it earlier. If you have a full bladder and you ignore the urge to empty it, the uncomfortable feeling will go away in a while. In time, the discomfort will return, reminding you of the need to take action. You can ignore it again and it will fade away. Keep ignoring it, however, and the pain will keep returning with increasing frequency and intensity until you either take decisive action or you embarrass yourself. Inner wounds caused by past trauma act the same way. The memory and/or associated pain will make its presence felt but you can ignore it and it will go away. Eventually, the memories and/or inner pain will come back and, if ignored, they will keep returning with increasing frequency and intensity, because ignoring a problem merely gives it time to grow worse. Nightmares, flashbacks and/or inner pain are your mind dutifully alerting you to matters you must face before they become even more serious. It is warning you that, despite your attempts to move on, you are still being crippled by past trauma. Most likely, your lack of recovery is because you have left past events languishing in the dark – where things always seems scarier – instead of devoting sufficient effort to prayerfully re-examining them in the reassuring light of God’s truth. For instance, lurking in the murky depths of your consciousness could be the fear that ugly incidents in the past indicate that God abandoned you and that he is not good and trustworthy, or that because of those unfortunate events God sees you as untrustworthy or unforgivable, or that you see yourself that way. If so, these are not merely events in the past; they are fears and lies that hold you back right now and will continue to do so until you identify the lies that haunt you and you explode them with God’s truth. You need never fear truth. The Healing Lord is the God of truth and he moves in an atmosphere of truth, not one of living in denial. Just as Jesus offers full forgiveness but we must confess our sins – admit to ourselves that we are morally damaged – so healing is available to us but we must first admit that we have been internally wounded. To deliberately live in denial is to resist the Spirit of truth. Even though he knew they needed healing, Jesus – the truth (John 14:6) – didn’t heal people without them facing reality and admitting their problem ( examples ). As much as Jesus wanted to heal them, their healing hinged on them admitting that they were sick and needed healing. Had they out of shame or through priding themselves in being macho said, “I’m fine,” they would have missed their healing. This principle applies to emotional healing as well as physical healing. There is no truth that takes God by surprise. There is nothing too hard for him or is beyond his ability to forgive. Defeatists and escapists say nothing can be done about the past, so just forget it and get on with life. The truth, however, is that much can be done about the past. We can heal from the pain of the past, we can forgive those who had hurt us in the past, we can learn from mistakes that occurred in the past, we can identify sins in our past and enjoy God’s cleansing, we can seek to undo damage that we did to people in the past. All of these are very important to God and sidestepping any of them displeases him. Yes, the apostle Paul wrote, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead . . .” (Philippians 3:13) but this is the same man who at least twice in his spoken testimonies (Acts 22:3-5; 26:9-12) and at least four times in his writings (1 Corinthians 15:9; Galatians 1:13; Philippians 3:6 1 Timothy 1:13-15) (and no-one knows how many other times not permanently recorded) glorifies God by recounting his sordid past. In fact, most of the Bible is devoted to recording past events – often analyzing them over and over. Should someone who has made marriage vows forget the past and commit adultery? If someone cheated you out of thousands of dollars before he become a Christian, does he honor God by “forgetting what is behind,” declaring that he “is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come” and continue to live in luxury at your expense, or should – before moving on – he do what can to rectify his past by returning your money? It was after Zacchaeus had resolved to put right his past misdeeds that Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house . . .” (Luke 19:8-9). Let’s not pervert the Holy Word of God in a shameful attempt to justify cowardice or sin. God wants us not to bury the past but to learn from the past so that it ceases to be a useless waste and what was once a stumbling block is transformed into a stepping stone to greater things. We were born again not to hide from the past but to take the hand of our victorious Lord and boldly face it. The crucified Lord who did not sidestep the ugliness of our past but in his own body bore the full consequences, wants us to partner with him to resolve and restore our past so that we can live in freedom and purity and wholeness. If you kept spending more money than you earned, every day that you refused to face the need to budget, the more serious the financial crisis would become. If you were lost and heading in the wrong direction, to push on as if everything were okay would keep taking you further and further from safety. If your car began making an unusual noise, ignoring it could turn a minor repair into a needlessly expensive, inconvenient, and even dangerous, experience. I could keep piling on example after example, but surely there is no need to risk boring you by drawing from the well of countless more examples. The stark fact of life is that living in denial is the highway to disaster. If understanding the problem is essential to finding the solution, then refusing to acknowledge the problem perpetuates the problem. If the truth sets us free, then keeping ourselves ignorant keeps us imprisoned in a self-imposed dungeon of despair. As enticing as it seems, living in denial ruins our lives by perpetuating the problem. In fact, it almost invariably intensifies the problem. Moreover, living in denial is contrary to the God of truth who loves you so passionately that he yearns not to dominate you but for you to co-operate with him in saving you from your dilemma. We long to keep ourselves in the dark about our situation, but God is light. “. . .  what fellowship can light have with darkness?” asks God in his Word (2 Corinthians 6:14). “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” asks the prophet (Amos 3:3, KJV). How can the God of truth and light partner with you in your healing and in granting you peace if you are committed to a methodology totally opposed to his ways – if he declares “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32) and you prefer to languish in slavery to lies about yourself; if he “searches all things” (1 Corinthians 2:10; Hebrews 4:13; Revelation 2:23) and you want to bury things; if he says people “loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19) and you think it is good to keep things in the dark? The emotions we don’t want to face are inside of us, whether we deny it or not. They don’t scare God. The only problem is that they often scare us . He wants you to have the courage to get really honest with yourself and with him and face your fears and your past disappointments, frustration, anger, inner pain, and so on. He is not shocked. He knows it already and he still loves and accepts you. Rather than force himself on you against your will, he honors you by restraining his longing to deliver you and tenderly waiting for you to trust him enough to invite him into the dark corners of your life and let him touch that ever so tender part of you with his healing hands. It is in the dark that shadows loom and harmless things seem terrifying. It is when we bring them into the light that sanity returns. God wants you empowered to get on with your life but this cannot happen until with Christ you face the ghosts of the past. Living in denial is a sure way to keep the pain nagging in the background and hinder healing. Distressing dreams or emotional pain can be an invaluable way of helping us face reality so that we can heal. Various things are needed to resolve emotional issues associated with past trauma. A key matter is to end the blame game. Nothing festers the wound, preventing healing, like blame, whether it be God, other people or ourselves that we blame. Our one and sure hope is to let our crucified Lord do what he longs to do by letting all the blame be placed on his innocent shoulders. There is blame – grave offences have been indeed committed – but we let all blame die with the One who died for the sins of the world; the one who was tormented so that our torment could end. An obvious key to finding peace is talking to God about the issues. Something we can foolishly overlook, however, is talking to people about the things that disturb us. Many of us think ourselves too spiritual for this. If so, we are more “spiritual” than God. For Scriptures exposing as a lie our temptation to keep things solely between God and us, see Our Need of Human Help. It would be negligent, however, not to issue this warning: when it comes to being wise, sensitive and understanding, the average person is sadly lacking. Trusting some people with your secrets is like trusting a butcher to do open heart surgery. Make a matter of serious prayer the choice of who you share with. Then, as it were, test the waters to see if he or she is both worthy and competent before launching into a full revelation of whatever concerns you. “Therefore confess your sins to each other . . . so that you may be healed” (James 5:16). Here’s a powerful saying: You are as sick as your secrets. Keep pounding heaven’s door until every personal implication is revealed. In the dark, things seem more frightening that they really are. It is when they are brought into the light that they lose their power to terrify. It is then that they cease to haunt us. Living in denial can never change reality. Nothing can change the past. But embracing the truth of our past empowers us to change our future reality and find true healing. We cannot expect God to miraculously flood a sensitive area of our lives with peace if we keep trying to run from it rather than face it head-on. God’s longing is not to anaesthetize but to heal; not to promote cowardly living in denial but courage. Readers’ Comments You are right about burying things, Grantley. I have buried a lot in my life and God has taken me step by step through a lot. Many things took a long time to surface because whenever he would touch anything that hurt I would run. This has happened so many times, even since becoming a Christian. I spent all last year in intensive counseling and ministry to get to heart issues and breaking off lies that I have believed. Healings took place and it began to open me up to freedom I hadn’t experienced in years, not to mention that God started using me again. Then when God put his finger on a situation that I revisited, I started my old thing of turning away. I pressed on, however and trusted God, and he brought about a deeper healing. Your teaching has reaffirmed that by letting God touch sensitive issues and not running away I am heading in the right direction. If and when there is more, I will not be so quick to turn away again. A woman writes: I always thought I was so very strong. I thought I had built up impenetrable fortresses. I saw myself as a female warrior. Nothing could mess with me. I was as tough and rugged as any man. I could laugh at pain. If I hit the dirt I could get up off the ground every time, saddle back up and ride on with the best of the soldiers, sword at my side. No girly princess garbage for me. I’ll rescue myself, thank you. But despite having for all this time believed myself to be fighting, I’m now seeing that I was actually running away. To have believed myself all these years to be so strong, only to discover I’ve been a coward is a hard pill to swallow. Writes someone who had suffered severe childhood abuse: This webpage was like being hit between the eyes. I had previously talked to God about my past but only now have I seen that I hadn’t told him everything. Whenever thoughts of the past would come I had always tried to shoo them away. And whenever I remembered the bad things that my dad or others had done, I would always try to excuse their actions by telling myself such things as, “They are just people. People make mistakes.” This I did out of fear that I might end up hating them. Now I see that trying to forget the past is like each day trying to torment myself more and more. Forgetting is the worst response. The real solution is to bring my rotten past to the loving Lord. Putting fresh food with rotten food will not make the rotten food edible. Instead, the rotten will slowly pollute the fresh food. Even if you throw out half of the rotten food, the half that is left will still affect the new. So it is with us. When we don’t give the Expert all of our past, we are preventing full healing. I feel so much better now that I have told Daddy God what I had within me. This is the beginning of the healing. I feel that full healing will be a long process but regardless of how long it takes, I know that it will be worth it. My desire is to live in God’s best. Another woman writes: I had a real phobia of men with blue eyes. This intense distrust did not include blue-eyed animals or women and didn’t even extend to prepubertal boys. The shade of blue I thought most menacing was a bright blue iris surrounded by a darker ring. I had no idea why I felt this way and why it would take me quite some time to warm up to blue-eyed men I’d have to work with or with whom I’d interact at church. About five years ago (I’m now in my early 50s) I was praying about this and the Holy Spirit told me he’d like to show me what caused this phobia. I immediately recoiled. “NO! If it were bad enough to cause a lifelong phobia in the first place, I’d probably have a heart attack now if I saw it!” He was gentle and did not force me but he kept nudging me for about a week to let him show me. Finally I decided my desire to be free of the fear exceeded my fear of the discomfort confronting it would cause, so I told him I was willing to have him show me. What followed turned out not to be nearly as scary as I had supposed, so please don’t be disturbed by the way it starts off: All of a sudden I was about two years old, naked, and flat on my back on a steel table in a hospital that smelled like antiseptic. (I’ve never liked that smell – it gives me chills.) I was in terrible pain in my ears and throat. I was fighting like a wildcat but being forcefully held down by a group of strangers in gowns and masks. All I could see was their eyes. Then a man with blue eyes surrounded by darker blue rings bent over me and his eyes were all I could see. (It was the doctor, but I was too young when it happened to make that distinction.) Then the vision ended. I checked with my mother, who told me that when I was 18 months old I was in danger of losing my hearing due to constant infections of my ears and tonsils. She is sure that the memory is of me in the operating room just before being put under. With the knowledge of where the phobia came from I was freed from it. Now I’m perfectly okay with blue-eyed men of any eye shade. The Holy Spirit knew how to help me, but he wouldn’t force it on me. He just gently persuaded. Because I was willing to trust him, I am now healed of a lifetime torment.

Help for People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (D.I.D.) Also Known as Multiple Personality Disorder (M.P.D.)     Healing and Integration of Alters (Alters are Also Known as Insiders)   Part 3   Start at Part 1    Danger   Before moving on, I must alert you to two serious dangers and hindrances to healing. One is caving into a fear of people so that you let no one close enough to help you on your healing journey. The other danger is  becoming too dependent upon a single individual . Let’s investigate that latter danger more deeply.   The first person I ever knew who had Dissociative Identity Disorder – I’ll call her Samantha – had fled a dangerous cult to live interstate with a young woman I’ll call Julie. Samantha had suffered horrific Satanic Ritual Abuse and needed virtually around-the-clock care from Julie to protect her from suicide and other dangers. So she moved in with Julie. Julie was an inexperienced but devoted and competent counselor and Samantha quickly became highly dependent upon her emotionally. The strain upon Julie was such that she ended up getting sick and had to take a compete break from helping anyone. This was so devastating to Samantha that many of her alters took it as rejection and she tragically ended up returning to her abusers. To my knowledge, virtually all the healing was lost and, years later, she is still in torment.   Another woman with D.I.D. found acceptance and the father’s love she had always craved in a kind pastor. This caused her to feel an abnormally strong bond with this pastor such that she was constantly battling feelings of jealousy regarding him, and when he needed to move to a church in another part of the country it felt like rejection to her and it proved a huge setback in her healing journey.   These are just two examples of how people with Dissociative Identity Disorder can quickly develop unhealthily powerful attachments to those who show them kindness, and what initially feels good and speeds their recovery can end up sabotaging their healing.   Until they heal, people with D.I.D. might have many casual friends but deep inside they are tortured by extreme loneliness and intense yearning for acceptance, further compounded by the belief that anyone discovering the full truth about their past would reject them. They feel haunted by dark, tormenting secrets that they keep suppressing from everyone (and even from themselves). To release that fearful pressure and isolation by sharing their secrets and find warm acceptance is such a relief that it powerfully bonds a person with whoever the secrets are shared. This, combined with the false but strong deception that virtually no one would accept them if they truly knew them, typically causes people with Dissociative Identity Disorder to feel strongly attached to, and dependent upon, a counselor or whoever they open up to.   To understand the power of the forces at work, remember that parts of the person are literally like little children desperate for a parent’s love and approval, others are like older children yearning for a best friend and still others are like teens pining for romantic love. It is not at all unusual for some to be sexually attracted to someone of the same gender as their own body. And all these different alters can believe they have found in the one counselor (or friend they have opened up to) all the love and acceptance they have been starved of all their lives. Almost overwhelmingly powerful forces combine, not only on a conscious level, but on an subconscious level.   Little children typically think their parents infallible, and starry-eyed lovers are blinded to faults in the person they idolize. People who are hurting are exceptionally sensitive. Alters can take the tiniest thing as a huge personal insult. Bring all these components together and the result is such intense emotions that if you and your alters bond exclusively to one person, then even temporarily losing access to this person can feel not just like being orphaned but being widowed, and like being betrayed by your best friend,  all at the one time .   What makes these attachments so dangerous is that no one but God can guarantee never to die or get sick or need a break. It also puts enormous pressure on the person who is the object of this dependence. Becoming so crucial to another’s healing and well-being can easily so overload a helper that he or she cracks under the demands placed on him or her. Moreover, it makes the person with Dissociative Identity Disorder dangerously vulnerable to exploitation if the one they depend so highly upon has the slightest moral weakness.   It is for very good reason that it is considered not just unwise but highly unethical for a counselor to have a romantic relationship with someone he or she is helping. Doing so is enough to get professionals deregistered because it is well established that people who are emotionally wounded are highly vulnerable and can so easily end up feeling emotionally attached to anyone offering them support. This is further exasperated by the fact that people with Dissociative Identity Disorder usually need prolonged help.   Anyone recovering from Dissociative Identity Disorder needs to be in a position where the most significant person in their recovery could at any moment die or be forced by circumstances to withdraw without it undermining much of the progress made.     An alter wrote to me, saying: My host’s husband left her alone with all her outside children to raise all by herself. He told her, “You need too much.”   We don’t want you to go away from us like he did because we need too much because that made our host cry and cry and cry and throw up until she almost died. We don't want to make that happen to her again.   I replied:   Precious Friend,   I understand your needs. They are very deep, intense and critically important. I feel for you and long to be used of God to help you have all these needs met. But although humans can facilitate, your needs are so great that it is critical for your well-being and for other people that you don’t look to other people to meet your needs. You actually need someone who is available 24/7 and who can guarantee not to burn out or die. Otherwise you are vulnerable to more heart-break – and you have already suffered far too much of that.   I will do my best, but the only safe and totally effective way to meet your needs is through Jesus and through each part of you loving, understanding and supporting every other part of you.   As you understand, it is not fair on yourself, or on any counselor, to look to a counselor as if he were a substitute husband who pledges to be with you till death and gives you priority over everyone else who needs him. I know you don’t think this is what you are asking but it is so easy to slip into this degree of dependence without realizing it.   Nor is it safe for you, or fair on any husband, for you to unconsciously make a husband into a substitute mother and father for your every alter, even though your alters desperately need it. This does not mean that your needs cannot be met but they must be met through Jesus and through you loving and supporting each part of you. My role must not be primary, but must be to help you discover how to have your needs met by Jesus and by yourself.   Since only God is immortal, infallible and unchangeable, alters need to learn as quickly as possible to keep availing themselves of human help while at the same time shifting their dependence as much as they can from humans to God. For this reason I have established a DID group, an important goal of which is that members bond to the group rather than to myself or any individual in the group. Other people are an important part of the healing process but alters are best helped by looking primarily to God and their host for nurturing, approval, parenting and so on.   The Goal of Integration   In another webpage I explain why I believe people with Dissociative Identity Disorder have superior brains. So I don’t believe the goal of integration should be to become entirely like people have never had D.I.D., any more than the goal of a genius should be to lower himself to having “normal” intelligence. (I do not have D.I.D. myself, so I say this without bias.) The goal should be for all the alters to be identified and work harmoniously as a team that dearly love and support each other, know each other’s secrets, and have full access to each other’s memories and abilities. I do, however, think it best to try to avoid having some sleep while others are awake. For all of them to sleep at the same time and be alert together will avoid unduly exhausting themselves and having to struggle through on less than full intellectual capacity.   Towards Wholeness and Integration   A child alter, who had been formed because of sexual abuse, was greatly disturbed. She who had seen herself as a little girl had come to realize that she had the body of a mature woman. This alarmed her because she believed that a sexually mature body would make her more subject to unwanted male attention. She found comfort when I explained how having an adult’s strong body, and the authority and believability that goes with it, made her less vulnerable to molesters. But she was still upset by the thought of no longer being a child.   Among the blunders I mentioned earlier was telling an alter who thought she was four years old that she was an adult. This is the alter. Before I blundered, she had already grasped that she had an adult body. To point out that she also had an adult mind had seemed a small step to me, but not to her. Until then she had seen herself as a little girl trapped in an adult’s body. She found the thought of being a full adult horrifying because she saw it as being robbed of her childhood and of her dreams. After me telling her too early and too bluntly, she had coped primarily by living in denial of what I had said.   A couple of weeks later she asked, “How old am I really?”   I looked to the Lord, anxious not to make another mistake.   I began a careful explanation of how she had come to exist as an alter and concluded with, “It’s most unfair that you’ve been dumped with all the pain and have missed out on all the good memories, but Jesus suffered so that he could take all your pain upon himself. You got left behind when the rest of you grew up but God wants to make you happy by helping you catch up so that you are reunited with the rest of you. That way, you’ll get all the good memories that you deserve – the memories that until now you have been robbed of.”   I ended by specifically answering her question. “I believe that at present you are emotionally four years old. I’m not sure what your mental age is, but you certainly seem smarter than a four year old. And you have the beautiful, strong body of a mature woman. These three things are out of step. It’s no wonder you’re confused. It would be confusing for anyone. But God wants to heal you so that all of you is the one ‘age’ with happy memories and no confusion.”   Usually, when little alters fear losing their childhood, it indicates that they have not yet received all the fun, love and nurturing that they need. If this need were left unmet, the effect of deprivation during childhood would continue and one would expect the whole person would go through life suffering from unfulfilled emotional needs. If so, the Healing Lord understands and will not let these little alters miss out on what is needed for emotional wholeness. So little alters need not fear. God will not rush things. He will not let them miss out on the nurturing they long for.   As I continued to explain to her things mentioned elsewhere in this series of webpages, peace began to settle upon this dear alter. She no longer saw herself as a separate person trapped in someone else’s body but as a vital part of one person. Now she saw herself as having been tragically disconnected from the rest of her and that union with her other parts represents true fulfillment and the end of confusion. She was not the freak that she had seen herself as, but simply someone who, through no fault of her own, had been deeply wounded emotionally, and God wanted to heal that wound. Becoming one with her host was not the frightening loss that she feared but the gaining of new memories and abilities. It was discovering that she was a key piece in a jigsaw puzzle that would never make sense without her. It was a healing, a coming home, a restoration, becoming whole.   Just a little while later, this alter began finding herself merging with two of her fellow alters whenever they met with Jesus. I asked her what it felt like to be one with the other alters. She replied that it made her feel stronger, more capable and more alive. The experience took nothing from her; it added to her. It enriched her.   It is natural for alters to mistakenly suppose that integration would mean they would cease to exist. This is far from the truth. Not only will they never cease to exist, integration means gaining more abilities – the abilities of the other alters. There is no loss. It is a win-win.   One woman with D.I.D. put it this way:   As much as I hate having this disorder I often used to worry about who I would be without it. Through your webpage I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. I would be more, not less.   A woman had many alters who were excitedly discussing forming into groups of two or three and merging with each other. Some, while not committing themselves to permanency, were actually trialing it for a few days at a time. This had come about naturally, without the slightest input from any counselor. Many of them would have loved to merge with their protector alter whom they greatly admired. The protector refused, fearing that merging would result in gaining each other’s weaknesses. She worried that gaining any weakness would lower her ability to protect the alters, should that need ever arise. Moreover, she did not want to inflict her own weaknesses upon any other alter.   I told the protector that I expected that each would gain the other’s strengths and that weaknesses would disappear, unless all the alters she merged with had the same weakness. At my suggestion she asked God about it. He always comes up with brilliant insights. He replied that it would be best to wait a little while before merging with any other alter and that she should focus first on merging with God. This alter was already a very committed Christian but at times was a little tentative in her relationship with God, as is typical of someone whose trust has been seriously violated by humans. Of course, God’s response is very scriptural. For example:   1 Corinthians 6:16-17   . . . For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.   The alter concluded that by merging with the perfect Lord, her own weaknesses would cease to be an issue.   Bursting Out of Confinement   In Heidelberg Zoo, Germany, a bear was confined in a small cage for years. Every day it would continually pace up and down as far as the cage would permit – twelve paces up and twelve paces back. Finally, the bear was released in a large new enclosure, but to everyone’s dismay, all it would do was walk back and forth, twelve paces up, twelve paces back.   Alters are like that. It’s not that an alter does not have the skills or memories or emotional ownership of certain events that a fellow alter has. It is simply that such alters are living in denial, or mistakenly think that they are more limited than they really are. They can access all the memories and skills of the full person but they believe themselves incapable of going beyond the narrow confines of who they think they are. They usually see themselves as having no existence before a certain age, nor beyond a certain age. They need to be freed from the confines that this self-image imposes on them.   As alters begin to heal, they will occasionally draw upon memories or skills outside of the age they imagine they are limited to. For example, an alter who thinks she is a child might display maturity or vocabulary or a skill that the person never had at that age. Or an alter might speak of an event that occurred before he was formed as if he personally experienced it. This often happens so naturally that alters are unaware that they are doing it. They can be greatly helped if, when you notice it happening, you gently draw to their attention that what they are saying or doing indicates that they truly are the full person that you have been telling them they are.   Since alters exist in an attempt to protect other parts of the person from at least some of the trauma of deeply disturbing experiences, they retain the deepest emotional reaction to experiences. Not surprisingly, they also sometimes seek to protect the rest of the person by keeping unpleasant information to themselves. Although these secrets seemed horrific when the alter formed, the host has since matured physically and probably spiritually, or circumstances may have greatly changed. For any of these reasons, the secrets are likely to be less upsetting to the host than the alter supposes. It is also not uncommon for an alter to be trying desperately to keep a secret without realizing that the host already knows about it.   Metaphorically speaking, it was as though artificial roadblocks had been set up in her host’s brain dividing the real person into several alters. Neural pathways from each alter to the thoughts, memories, viewpoints and so on of the rest of the person are all in place and full access can easily be established once each blockage is removed. As an alter stops holding on to secrets and looks to God for healing, the blockage slowly dissolves, thus allowing the alter, simply by thinking, to access memories and skills that the alter hadn’t known he/she had. As this begins to happen, the alter becomes increasingly like the whole person, with just a slightly different perspective unique to that alter.   Once confidence is gained and an alter reveals his/her secrets to the rest of the person, a significant reason for the alter to exist as a separate entity vanishes. To unite with other alters the alter must also like those alters and (if the alters are older) not be afraid of growing up or losing his/her individuality. The alter is then likely to merge with one or more other alters and the process continue until all the alters have integrated into one person with the full power of all the memories and skills and perspectives of each alter combined. The order in which merging takes place might surprise. For instance, a teenage alter might happen to have more in common with one in its thirties than one in its twenties and so the teenage alter could merge with the thirties alter, while the alter in its twenties temporarily continues to remain separate. Moreover, it is often a case that opposites attract. Alters with a particular weakness will often team up with those who can compensate. A timid alter might team up with a courageous one; an alter lacking a particular intellectual skill might team up with one that has that skill, and so on.   I should point out, however, that it is not uncommon for an alter to remain silent for a while and for the host to misinterpret this silence as indicating that the alter has merged with another.   Helpful Points in Healing   Since most people have more than one alter, each alter needs an individual name to help you identify which alter you are speaking with. Sometimes alters choose for themselves demeaning names, such as Shame or Reject. I never use such names because doing so reinforces a lie they have believed about themselves. In fact, if they let you, consider using an opposite name such as Honor or Beloved. Sometimes alters choose normal but diverse names. Three alters of the one person might be named Jack, Bill and Brian. It might slightly aid their sense of unity, however, if they could be referred to by the age that they formed. For example, if the host’s name is Jack, they might be called three-year-old Jack, six-year-old Jack and twelve-year-old Jack. On the other hand, even referring to them by age could be slightly negative by helping them feel locked into that age. One woman told me the Lord had instructed her to start using a hyphenated name for each alter, with her birth name appearing first. For example, if her birth name had been Mary and she had alters called Little-One, Precious and Mother, their names became Mary-Little-One, Mary-Precious and Mary-Mother. I see God’s wisdom in this as it reinforces to each alter that she is part of one person. A name can have such a powerful impact upon a person that, in the Bible, people’s names were sometimes chosen by God. I’ve seen alters profoundly helped by being given a significant, positive name. So choice of names is worthy of prayer.   We all love testimonies of people who, by becoming Christians, undergo dramatic transformations of beliefs and behavior. We have explained, however, that until they are helped, alters are trapped in a time warp, and if the time in which they are trapped is before their host’s conversion, those alters will, as one would expect, be like non-Christians and have not yet experienced any of the spiritual transformations that the host enjoyed later in life. This situation will continue until the alters are specifically taught the gospel message, yield to it, and are trained up in the ways of the Lord. So it is not unusual for a Christian to have an alter that hates God or has other habits or views that disgust the Christian part of the person.   It is hardly surprising that when alters first surface after feeling despised and rejected for years, they are often bitter and unpleasant to talk to, just as almost anyone would be after suffering a tragedy and then cruelly treated, rejected and kept in solitary confinement, year after year. Please don’t add to their torment by letting their reaction upset you. Show them kindness and acceptance and minister the love of Christ to them.   Alters need to be loved and prayed for and coaxed into the kingdom of God. They need to be taught Christian principles that might now seem so basic to hosts that they have forgotten that they had ever needed to be taught them. Just like anyone else who has had little exposure to Christian teaching, most alters must be taught such basics as the need to forgive those who have hurt them, to renounce sins and any occult links and, once they have yielded to Christ, to learn the authority that they have in him. Each of these is a huge step, so be gentle and patient.   If an alter’s host has already surrendered to Christ, I find it easy to have faith for the alter to likewise yield, but keep remembering that alters are deeply hurting and so deserve great tenderness. Usually the trauma they suffered involved having their trust violated. So trusting anyone – God included – is highly challenging, possibly even terrifying, for them. Trust takes time to develop.   Not only are alters deeply hurting, they almost expect to be rejected and easily misinterpret even harmless remarks as rejection. They might act stony hard but it is simply an attempt to steel themselves against the pain of rejection. Deep down they crave unconditional love and acceptance. If they begin to feel they can find this in you, they will be keen to please, and any trouble they cause will not be due to not wanting to please you, although they might deliberately test you to see if you would reject them, as they fear. So discipline would not increase their motivation. I urge against speaking sternly to alters –even to very annoying ones. Don’t tell them off like naughty children. Each alter needs and deserves deep respect and lots of unconditional love and patience and gentle persuasion.   Being stern with an alter is likely to drive the alter into hiding. If that seems like peace to you, it is a false peace. If you have alters, they are an inseparable part of you. It doesn’t take much intelligence to realize that to hurt a part of you is to hurt yourself, and to not coax an alter into the open where he/she can heal, is to cripple yourself.   You’ll be astounded at how a few days of compassion and gently explaining the gospel will transform a nasty, God-hating, sin-loving alter into a delightful, God-loving friend and ally who is keen to live a life of purity and to please you and other alters.   Sometimes, when you have been ministering for weeks to a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder and yet another alter speaks to you for the first time, the alter has heard much of what you have told other alters. Often, however, the alter has not heard and you have to repeat it all over again to the new alter. This can sometimes be tiresome for the person helping, but it must be done. Often the host and other alters can help the new alter but I have frequently underrated how much I’m still needed to repeat what I have already told the person’s other alters.   Since each alter will behave rather like a normal traumatized person of that age and gender, the more skilled you are at emotionally supporting people, the better you will be at helping alters. For some practical tips in how to emotionally support people who are hurting, see the link at the end of this page, titled How to Comfort the Hurting.   It is both very important and healing to parent child alters as you would tenderly parent a normal, deeply hurting, fearful child. This can be particularly challenging if you are inexperienced with children, but most new parents start off inexperienced, too. Buy each young alter his/her own toys. Play them Christian children’s music. Hug them, praise them, tell them you love them. Sometimes even adult alters that seem very tough can desperately need such expressions of parental love and approval. For the sake of baby alters, you might even need to wear diapers, use a pacifier, and drink formula milk from a bottle. An adult man found there were often times when, if he did not do this, he would get so stressed as to fall into sin. But he found using baby items so humiliating that he had to learn over and over just how critical it was for his healing and his own peace.   Listen long and hard to each alter. Teach, guide, play with, empathize with and even joke with the alter. If a host finds times for certain alters to manifest themselves freely, they will be more settled at times when the host particularly wants them to be quiet.   It is important to know that God is eager to take alters into his temporary, intensely personal care. It is not unusual for the alters of Christians to enjoy times in heaven playing with God or receiving personal instruction or comfort from him. One child alter often played before the throne of God with several other, unrelated child alters, some of whom spoke languages that were foreign to her. One of their favorite games was playing with what seemed to be a harmless ball of fire. An alter I know once found herself in what seemed like a pleasant and private heavenly hospital ward in which Jesus sat on her bed and personally comforted her. Not surprisingly, such experiences are deeply healing. Encourage alters to feel loved of God and safe with him and to spend much time with him.   Wrote one alter in a written prayer:   We hide in you. You have a secret place for alters and we know it is a safe place. . . . Daddy, thank you for loving and protecting alters. We would be in deep trouble without you, but we are with you and you love us.   It is not uncommon for a host to feel overwhelmed by the incessant demands of several needy alters. Such a person is able to enjoy respite by handing one or more of the alters over to God for a while.   With the help of her host, one of Alice’s younger alters wrote the following to one of Jake’s younger alters about the games God plays with her. Do not regard these games as trivial. Imagine how healing and bonding to God such experiences would be to a traumatized little girl who is never allowed to play, and for whom touch was usually painful, sexual, or both.   God plays lots of games. My favorite is “Tickles”. I love it when he grabs me and spins me around, smiling and laughing. Then he gently tickles me and kisses my tummy. I squeal in delight.   He dances with me too. I love to spin around in his arms and I feel so safe. We sing a lot together. I love to sing.   We play hide and seek. He pretends he doesn’t see me and I pounce into his lap. Then he grabs me and cuddles with me. Or I call him and he surprises me with where he is. Sometimes he is behind me and that isn’t fair ’cos I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. He clowns around and we giggle and giggle.   On another occasion, Alice typed as God spoke to her little alter. Here’s part of what he said:   Sweetie, you are my delight. I love alters. They are special people with special needs. When the world shuts them up I have a place in my heart for them. I love you and the times we play together are more than precious to me.   The Lord is far better at understanding and helping alters – and anyone else for that matter – than we are. Nevertheless, there is no avoiding it: people (alters included) need people. One host was so frustrated with his child alters that he sent them all off to God, hoping never to see them again. I understand his reaction. It was a huge trial for him. Some of the alters were not toilet trained. One wanted a pacifier and formula milk and couldn’t even speak. Imagine a grown man acting that way. In fact, his wife had left him because of it. The Lord made it clear to him, however, that, respite breaks and special healing sessions aside, the man must care for his own alters. Seeing the wisdom of what God had told him, I pointed out to the frustrated host that he would remain fractured – and hence below his full, God-given potential – while his alters were not with him. God can heal in amazing ways but this man needed to bond with his alters, and they with him, for him to find true wholeness. Like any other human bonding process, spending considerable time with each other is essential.   Human Help   There is much that people can do to help and comfort their own alters. In fact, when coupled with continually seeking divine help, I used to think that healing oneself should be the norm. However, an alter I had helped wrote the following to a man who had alters, and sent me a copy:   Alters are lonely people. It is so much better not to suffer alone. I needed to talk to someone outside myself, not merely with the host I split from. I needed a safe place to say some very personal stuff and talk graphically about the things that hurt me. I needed to trust someone and to know that I could be accepted for who I am. For me, Grantley was that someone. This has helped me so much and I am grateful both to God and Grantley for their help.   Before reading this I had been vaguely aware of the value of alters talking to people other than those who share their own body. Now that I have stopped to consider it, however, the importance is obvious. Someone in solitary confinement can, of course, talk to himself and God, and doing so would be invaluable. Nevertheless, anyone in this situation will develop a desperate need to talk to other humans.   This same alter explained why she would never reveal herself to a professional counselor. An alter’s most pressing need is for a friend, not a clinical healer or anyone paid to spend time with the alter. If you felt rejected and painfully lonely, would you pay someone by the hour to listen to you? Many of us would find that so hollow and humiliating that we would prefer to remain lonely! This alter believes she is typical of all alters in not wanting someone who, with an air of superiority, looks at her as a patient or a case study. She feels the same way about any do-gooder who might treat her as an object of pity or someone to be helped, rather than as a valued friend. An alter’s self-esteem is typically so low that it could barely endure such a put down. Alters need and deserve a genuine friend – someone who not only gives a listening ear and shares insights but who values their friendship. And this is not hard to do. I’m not surprised that someone who has helped large numbers of people with Dissociative Identity Disorder said he has yet to find an alter he didn’t like. Of course, many need to be relieved of their pain before they become likeable.   Moreover, I have since discovered an alter who would let both a friend and me help him but refused to accept his host’s help. The host had previously despised and rebuked him for years, sometimes regarding the alter as his sinful “flesh” and sometimes as a demon. Even though the host had now completely changed his attitude, the alter continued to resent him for his past behavior, thus limiting the host’s ability to help the alter. I was eventually able to help the alter forgive his host, but it took a while.   Someone else wrote to me frustrated that her alters would reveal their secrets to me before ever telling her. I explained that this is because they regard me as more expendable than her. If I were to reject an alter (which I would never do), the alter would be less devastated than if it were her who rejected the alter. So her alters often prefer to test my reaction before taking the ultimate risk of letting her know their secrets. Even if they knew her so well as to feel secure in her love and ongoing approval, however, there is another hurdle: they have devoted their entire existence to keeping secrets from her to protect her from distress and her alters look to me for a sign as to whether she could cope from knowing their secrets.   Another practical difficulty in someone trying to cure themselves without the support of anyone else is that when alters first surface their deep emotional pain tends to overwhelm the rest of the person, making it very hard for the person to think with sufficient clarity to effectively minister to his or her new alter.   I mentioned earlier in this series of webpages my friend with D.I.D. who chose a psychologist as a prayer partner. My friend told him that he could not afford a counselor. The psychologist replied, “Counseling is sometimes overrated. God is God. Jesus does the healing and it is his choice as to how he heals.”   The difficulty in relying solely on a friend for help, however, is that the friend would need to be a very special person, led of the Spirit and endowed with wisdom. For at least some basic preparation, both the friend and the person with the alters should, in addition to studying these webpages, read those on the link at the end of this page, titled How to Comfort the Hurting.   Whoever alters choose to confide in, it will need to be someone the alters (not just the host) feel relaxed with. I know a host who thinks a certain woman is wonderful but one of her alters cannot tolerate her because the woman reminds her of someone who deeply offended her. It is important that the chosen person believes both in the host and in alters, and is trustworthy, gentle, patient, faithful, unshockable and nonjudgmental. Before sharing with anyone anything about your alters, question them about their understanding and attitudes concerning both demons and alters. Ideally, the person should not only believe in alters but also in demons, and preferably have had experience in casting out demons and also in differentiating between alters and demons. An alter may feel more trusting of one gender than the other. As the alter heals, however, exposure to an honorable person of the other gender could be healing.   It can also be very powerful (sometimes it’s the ultimate) for an alter to minister to someone else’s alter. Being alters, they can really identify with each other and gain acceptance. The ministering alter must, of course, be a strong Christian and able to withstand any insults or seduction that the other alter might try. Such contact should be supervised.   Alters – even ones formed as adults – can be so desperate for an approving mother or father that they would love the counselor or friend to become a substitute mother or father. It ends up being far safer and more healing, however, if Jesus and an alter or the host take on the parenting roles. That way there is availability 24/7 without any danger of abandonment due to the substitute parent burning out or leaving. Moreover, the healing advantages are obvious: the more deeply bonded the person is with Jesus and with every part of himself/herself, the better.   One of Jake’s alters used to call himself “Reject.” Despite him not being happy with his new name, we renamed him Beloved. In the following, he is replying to an e-mail from one of Alices’ alters who, coincidentally, also used to call herself “Reject”. It highlights several things about alters and the powerful way God ministers to them.   I’m not hitting any of the other alters anymore.   For the last few days I went to porn thinking that it would help me, but Terry [one of the younger brother alters he used to hit] keeps singing praise to God and I can hear him inside. When I go to masturbate he starts crying and praying and I can’t continue. I want to be like Terry.   I told Jesus to be Lord of my sexuality today and asked him to be my Lord also. Jesus told me, “Well done!”   Terry says that when I do bad things it hurts him, too. He just keeps praying for me and doesn’t stop. He is afraid of me. I don’t want him to be afraid of me. I don’t hate him anymore. He just loves too much. I am afraid to be loved.   Thank you for telling me that I am wanted. No one ever wanted me. Thank you for wanting me to live.   Jesus wants me. I am just scared at times of him. He has not hurt me, though. He took me to heaven with him for a little bit. He does love me. I am still confused sometimes, though.   I am Beloved of God. I don’t want to be Rejected ever again.   When you sent the e-mail about Jesus blowing his love on me, I felt it blow over my spirit. I don’t really understand that, but he does love me.     By the way, it is important for anyone with D. I. D. who has the tiniest attraction to porn to place a porn filter on all Internet access. You cannot expect currently unknown alters to have the degree of self-control that you have, nor can you expect little alters to be able to tolerate what you can tolerate. Disregarding this can cause significant setbacks in one’s healing. A link at the end of this page provides a list of porn filters.   A three-year old child who has been traumatized can be seriously triggered by television programs rated for general viewing. Something as innocuous as falling asleep in front of a T.V. can have most unpleasant consequences. When the host is asleep, little alters are often more active, not less, and the host is unable to monitor what is seen.   Hindrances to Integration   Total  healing and  full  integration might take years but the good news is that throughout your healing journey you will enjoy the benefits of continual improvement. Like a young athlete who will become world champion, you will keep getting better and better even though you cannot expect to reach your peak in just a few months.   The first step towards full integration is for alters to reveal themselves. By reading these webpages you have come to understand that each alter needs to feel safe enough to do this and that upon first surfacing, each alter usually has so much pain – and sometimes bad habits – that the host and already-surfaced alters are reluctant for a new alter to manifest himself/herself. So the surfacing of alters is usually a slow, drawn-out process and yet even then the person usually feels that it is happening too quickly. There are various factors affecting how long it takes for all alters to be identified. An obvious factor is how many alters a person has. People who have suffered long term Satanic Ritual Abuse could have over a hundred.   Even with daily counseling and only thirty alters who get on well with each other, it is likely to take at least a year – probably much longer – for all alters to be identified. Moreover, I know of no way of ascertaining that every alter has revealed himself/herself. Often there are alters that no other alter is aware of, and even if an alter knows, he or she might feel obligated not to reveal another alter’s existence without that alter’s permission. Thankfully, invaluable moves towards integration will begin long before all alters have appeared. As alters mature, they will become increasing alike and various alters will team up.   Beyond the mere surfacing of alters, full integration is also slow. What particularly makes integration a drawn out process is that each alter must want it. Just because certain alters have been conversing with you for months and have undergone significant healing does not mean that they do not have further serious issues that need to be worked through before they are ready to integrate. There are so many potential obstacles to an alter wanting integration. Let’s list some of them.   *  An unwillingness to accept present-day reality   The person’s real gender, actual age or current marital status are examples of reality that an alter might not be ready to accept. Desperately wanting to keep living in denial would make such an alter recoil from uniting with an alter who accepts reality.   *  An unwillingness to accept truths known to another alter   An alter might, for example, be so desperate to love and respect a certain person (a parent, perhaps) that it refuses to believe another alter’s experiences that shatter the myth – perhaps by proving that the person was an abuser. For such an alter, integration would involve gaining memories that the alter refuses to accept. So the alter will remain separate until it is willing to accept this.   *  Wanting to monopolize access to a certain skill   An alter’s concern that she might end up ignored or undervalued by other alters could move the alter to keep other alters dependent upon her by monopolizing access to a certain skill or useful memories she has. Integration involves each alter having full access to all memories and skills, and until she feels more secure, such an alter will refuse to let this happen.   *  Fear that integration means ceasing to exist   I have explained earlier in this series of webpages the benefits to alters of integration.   *  Maintaining a different sleep schedule from the other alters   An alter might prefer to avoid stress by sleeping at times when the rest of the person is interacting with people. Young alters need to play and might be given no opportunity to do so except when everyone else is asleep. Another reason for a different sleep schedule might be that an alter feels it is safest for at least one alter to be on guard at all times against any possible attack. The result is working in shifts with alters, rather than seeking to work in unison.   *  Going into hiding whenever things get difficult   Leaving it to other alters when things get tough will obviously hinder integration.   *  Not wanting to share another alter’s beliefs or hopes   For example, cultivating hopes and dreams might be important for one alter but might appal another who is terrified of the pain of dashed hopes.   *  Falsely blaming an alter for past traumas   One alter, for example, might believe that another acted inappropriately and so blame the alter for what happened. Such ill-feeling will block integration.   *  Resentment over genuine offenses   An alter might in the past have “hit” or insulted another alter or have wished an alter were dead. Unless alters forgive each other, they will not merge.     *  Intolerance of immaturity   This can take many forms. For example, when allowed to manifest herself, an alter formed as a baby might need diapers or want to be bottle fed. Older alters could strongly resent this. Or older alters might want to watch movies that would terrify children, or do other things inappropriate for children and hence upset their own young alters. This will hinder healing and so block the path to integration.   *  Moral objections   An alter might swear, use porn, smoke or do something else that another alter strongly objects to on moral grounds. Until resolved, this will divide alters.   *  Differing tastes   There might be serious disputes over choice of food, clothing, music, use of money, and so on.   *  A significant person in the alter’s life might not want integration   Alters might resist integration because they fear that a counselor or loved one might like them less after integration. Or the loved one might be consciously sabotaging integration because he or she prefers to relate to someone with alters. The loved one might, for example, be so keen to have children that he or she encourages alters who think they are children to continue to be childish.   Alice, whose alters are nearing full integration, writes:   One of my alters set some ground rules that we all follow:   1.     Do not take out your hurt on other alters. They are hurting too.   2.     Do not use force on another alter. Each of us knows what it is to be manipulated and treated roughly, so we do not perpetuate this by treating others badly.     3.     Do not make fun of another alter. We all know how hard it is to communicate and how confusing it is when alters first surface. We have all been trapped by isolation and this expresses itself in many forms. Let each alter come to terms with what she is experiencing and to communicate it as best as she can.   4.     Above all, never betray an alter. Anything confided to you, including the mere existence of an alter, is a sacred trust that must not be revealed to anyone without the alter’s full permission.     These rules have helped alters become friends. It starts from the moment any of us become aware of an alter who is new to us. Remembering how lonely and confused we once were, we immediately offer her our friendship and remain faithful and kind to her, no matter how unpleasant she might initially seem. If she hurts us in any way, we refuse to take it personally but compassionately realize it is because she is delirious with pain. We must love as Christ loves, in full faith that such courageous love will slowly melt the heart of a bitter, angry alter; transforming her into a beautiful and precious friend. And on the way to this transformation we teach her our ground rules.   Maintaining those ground rules has made us dangerous to hell. United, we fight together as an army against everything that would seek to bring us down. We can read each other’s minds and function as one, switching around to let some rest or to let each other’s strengths be used to achieve what is needed. The most critical thing, however, is to be submitted to God in all of this.   When Alters Seem to Have Disappeared or Died   It is common for alters to suddenly “vanish,” especially after something triggering occurs. In extreme cases, other alters – and even the missing alter – can mistakenly believe the alter has died. I’ll say a little more about “dead” alters soon but this little section applies to all alters who have gone missing.   Even when it is known not to be serious, losing contact with an alter can be quite disconcerting. You might even suddenly find yourself without knowledge or abilities needed to perform key tasks at work or elsewhere.   No one can say with certainty when these alters will return but they are sure to do so eventually. Here are some hints that might speed their return:   *  If an alter who has gone AWOL, has a favorite toy or doll or activity, hold the doll, play the game, listen to the alter’s favorite music, etc. That can help the alter feel safe and he or she might come out enough for you to talk with the alter, allowing you the opportunity to provide needed reassurance, an update on what has happened since the alter withdrew, etc.   *  Even if you are not sure the alter is listening, tell the alter something encouraging several times throughout the day such as, “It is safe now” (if that is true), “I need you,” “I’d love to speak with you,” etc.   *  Another way is to ask alters who are out to see if they can locate the silent alter and pass on a message.   *  It is good to prepare ahead of time for such emergencies by creating in your imagination a safe place for alters to retreat to when they feel the need to withdraw. This safe place can have a locked door, or whatever, but ensure it has a speaker phone or some means of getting a message through.   Dead Alters   Sometimes alters will be convinced that an alter that was once in their system has died. Often they will be saddened by this and they might even blame themselves for it. The supposed death might have happened years ago and it might have seemed like suicide and/or be precipitated by bad treatment from other alters.   What actually happened is that the alter thought to have died went into deep hiding and has not been seen since. If an alter seeks God about the fate of the missing alter it will often be revealed that the alter has been with God ever since the disappearance and is so content that the alter has no desire to return to the stresses of earthly life.   This might sound cozy but the practical reality is that some of the person’s intellectual capacity (quite possibly including a special talent) and the alter’s special experiences with God are rendered inaccessible and effectively lost for as long as that alter remains with God (or otherwise hidden).   So despite it meaning that the alter must re-enter the harsh realities of everyday living, the alter’s return is very much in the interest of the rest of the person and of that person achieving the most for God on earth. It is therefore advisable to entice the alter back. Prayer for this will help, as well as passing on messages that the alter is loved and that earthly life is now better than when the alter left. Any alter who treated this alter badly should also apologize.   Feeling Excessive Guilt For Loved Ones   Many alters have spent almost their entire existence selflessly relieving the distress of other parts of them by bearing the distress themselves. They take upon themselves unpleasant memories and/or associated negative emotions – such as guilt, shame, blame, regret, sorrow, depression, loneliness, fear, worry, anxiety, anger, self-loathing and feelings of inferiority. This they do to enable other parts, especially the host, to focus on necessary tasks, such as study or work, without the crippling distraction of all these distressing feelings and concerns. Their efforts sometimes even work for physical pain and tiredness. This unique type of help ends up being almost an automatic response, an addiction, and a way of life. Some even see it as their sole reason for existence. This carries over to other relationships so that when they suppose a loved one – sometimes even an animal – in the external world is suffering, they slip so easily – almost unconsciously – into attempting to relieve the loved one’s suffering by suffering on that person’s behalf.   None of us can know exactly what a person is feeling. If someone has an open wound, the slightest touch could send him reeling in pain, whereas for other people the same touch might not hurt at all. So alters, having suffered deeply themselves and often having inner wounds that are not yet healed, typically assume that loved ones in the outside world are more sensitive and hurting more than they actually are. This, combined with the expectation that suffering on someone’s behalf will relieve that person’s distress, drives them even more to want to suffer for the loved one. Moreover, there are several factors causing alters and child abuse survivors to have a highly exaggerated sense of responsibility for the welfare of others.   All the factors cited above and in the link combine to make it exceedingly difficult for alters to stop their habit of acting like an alter to people in the outside world. Despite the best intentions, however, suffering on behalf of someone who does not share one’s body and brain cannot ease that person’s distress. So alters who attempt to help in this way are left feeling such failures and so devastatingly guilty that it could even lead to self-harm.   Even without Dissociative Identity Disorder, dwelling on guesses about what a loved one might be suffering often ends in needless worry and attempts at empathy that overshoot the mark. Since people with D.I.D. are even more susceptible to this torturously futile habit, it is helpful for them to be alert to the danger and try to stop themselves or their fellow alters whenever they notice thoughts drifting towards negative guesses as to what their loved ones are feeling. Alters can benefit from continual gentle reminders that their guesses are likely to be wrong and that the more they think about a loved one’s “suffering” the more likely they are to slip into feeling within themselves the very things they mistakenly suppose their loved one is feeling. Help alters understand that trying to ease someone’s pain by bearing it for the person can never work with people in the outside world and that no rational person would expect them to even try. Alters need repeated reassurance that no-one other than Jesus can be anyone else’s alter. Assure them that God has great plans for them and a real purpose, even though it does not include bearing other people’s pain and distress.   Spiritual Blockages to Healing   No one in the universe comes close to Jesus in being able to set us free, empower us and heal us. If, however, any part of us is scared of Jesus or suspects he is harsh or frowns on us then, instead of snuggling into him and enjoying to the maximum his companionship and encouragement and wisdom, we will find ourselves instinctively staying somewhat aloof from him. This aloofness will rob us of so much warmth and comfort and spiritual power and access to divine wisdom and healing we would otherwise tap into. To break this artificial barrier created by not realizing how safe, trustworthy and kind Jesus is, every alter needs to read  How Much does God Love Me? Receiving a Personal Revelation of God’s Love for You  and all the links there. And to remove misguided fears that God might disapprove of them, they each need to read  Forgiving Yourself  and then keep following the first link at the end of the text on each page. They also need to make a declaration like the following. I suggest each of them study it and then read it out loud:   The real Jesus Christ is pure, holy, safe and trustworthy, and I declare to be a lying impostor anyone claiming to be Jesus who would ever want to relate sexually to anyone or in any way harm me. The real Jesus is good and perfect, the only eternal Son of God, through whom and for whom all things were made. He is the Innocent One who by dying on the cross took upon himself the full punishment everyone’s sin deserves so that through faith in him I can now be rescued from all evil spiritual powers and granted his innocence and become spiritually one with the Holy Lord, destined to rule with King Jesus on God’s throne forever.   Having broken the power of all evil, Jesus rose triumphant from the dead and returned to heaven where he rules until the end of the age when he will fully execute his victory on the cross by destroying all evil. By virtue of who he is as the eternal Lord and through his victory on the cross he is far more powerful that the combined forces of every other power in the physical and spiritual universe.   I proudly declare that through faith in Jesus dying on the cross to secure forgiveness for my every sin, I belong to him and because he is utterly unselfish, good, kind, wise and trustworthy I want to forever obey him in everything he asks me to do. Because I belong to the Lord Jesus Christ and he is far stronger than anything that would seek to harm me or my loved ones, I call upon him for total protection against any threats, curses or negative consequences associated with terminating every agreement I have ever made that God wants me to break and every tie with people or spiritual beings that God wants me to end.   I hereby permanently break any commitment, promise or agreement I have knowingly or unknowingly made with Lucifer (Satan or the devil) or with any other spiritual being that is not in total submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God and rightful Judge of every being that exists. If I have made to anyone else any promises that are not in accordance with God’s holy will for my life, I likewise break them all.   I also permanently refuse to accept any so-called benefit associated with an agreement I previously made that does not have God’s approval and, instead, I claim all the blessings and protection that are mine because of Jesus. Through Jesus I am free and through my spiritual oneness with him I exercise his authority to resist all evil and compel it to leave me.   For further help in exercising the authority Jesus has given you over evil, see  Susan has a Secret  (especially good for children and young alters) and  Spiritual Warfare: Turning Spiritual Attack into Victory .   Challenges for those with Dissociative Identity Disorder   Eight things anyone with Dissociative Identity Disorder needs constant reassurance about:   *  Even though the symptoms are disconcerting, you are not going insane.   *  Like the rest of humanity, alters can have demons but alters themselves are not demons, even though they can display anti-Christian beliefs and behavior and some alters can believe they are the opposite sex.   *  When an alter first reveals himself/herself, unwanted feelings and habits are likely to surface within you that you had thought you had mastered. It can be deeply disturbing both to you and to the other alters. Not surprisingly, it will feel to you as if you are getting worse instead of better. Nevertheless, although it may take a while, each alter will heal and the appearance of a previously unknown alter is a significant step towards peace, joy and fulfillment like you have never before enjoyed.   *  We have noted that when one alter finds acceptance, another is likely to think it could be safe enough to make an appearance, and then another alter could be emboldened to appear, and then another . . . So even when a person is experiencing significant healing he/she is seldom able to bask in the benefits before being hit by another challenge. Keep reminding yourself of the progress made and remember that if things were slower, your full healing would be delayed.   *  Except for sinning, let your alters express themselves as much as possible when alone or with someone who understands alters. This is vital for your healing and should be allowed even to the extent of letting them embarrass you or even use offensive language if they feel the need to express their pain or hostility.   *  Respect alters. Don’t betray their confidence, make decisions without consulting them, and so on. Disregarding this – even accidentally – is likely to create an enemy within, which will, to say the least, be unpleasant and delay your healing.   Writes one of Alice’s alters to one of Jake’s alters, trying to smooth over one such incident:   Please don’t hate Jake. He is hurting and confused, just as you and I are.   *  Seek to change alters, not by force or suppression, but by the healing power of ending the alters’ feeling of isolation and rejection, and tenderly ministering the love of Christ and the power of the Gospel to them. Coax and pray them into the realization that God is always forgiving, never angry or judgmental, towards anyone who lets God into his/her heart. Keep reassuring them that God is on their side and is gentle, understanding and wants to bring comfort and take their pain from them.   Continues Alice’s alter in her e-mail to one of Jake’s alters:   We aren’t going to get anywhere if God doesn’t help us. He wants to. It is time for us both to yield to God. You can go to God just as you are with all your pain, confusion and frustration. He will sort out all those things that leave us so confused.   *  Despite initial distress, the surfacing of a new alter will not only ultimately lead to the reduction of inner pain, it can mean access to exciting abilities that will delight and/or empower you. It is not only older alters who can prove to be of immense importance. For example, one young alter might have far better short-term memory than the host and other alters. Locked within another young alter might be a huge reserve of creativity, causing a person to soar to heights of creativity beyond anything the person could otherwise achieve. Yet another little alter might have spent years being personally nurtured by God and have amazing spiritual insight and intimacy with God.   If you have alters, those you least expect to have special ability could end up making invaluable contributions to your well-being. Due to abusive toilet training and other traumas, one woman used to have enormous difficulty going to the bathroom. Every alter seemed to have yet another reason for this being traumatic, and delaying relieving herself would plunge her into crippling pain. Her last alter to surface was formed at the age of six. As is usual for anyone with Dissociative Identity Disorder, the woman was unhappy about discovering yet another alter. She had already had to endure the flashbacks and pain of twenty-eight other alters. After a while, however, she discovered that this alter could use the bathroom painlessly. The other alters then learnt to rely on this alter when needing to relieve themselves, thus freeing them from pain and embarrassing accidents that had plagued them all their life. For a surprising array of reasons, you have cause to welcome the surfacing of alters, no matter how much discomfort they initially bring.   *  You cannot heal alone. You need people. Do all you can, however, not to put all your dependence upon just one human. Try your hardest to spread this among several people and keep working towards your highest attachment – and that of your alters – being with God, and that the host and other alters are seen as the primary human providers of comfort, wisdom and support.   Final Remarks   In this article I have drawn almost solely upon my personal experience in helping survivors of child abuse. There are sure to be people better than me in understanding and treating Dissociative Identity Disorder. The one infallible expert, however, is the Lord Jesus Christ, before whom I gladly trash any claim to qualifications or experience. Put no trust in me, but you can truly trust him.

Susan has a Secret     A Christian Children’s Story Especially Helpful for Sexually Abused Children     Powerful Christian Help for Child Alters Of Dissociative Identity Disorder Sufferers   Note:  Adults Find this Helpful, Too   Susan has a secret. It makes her feel very, very bad and dirty. Something happened that makes her think she is the naughtiest girl in the whole world. She is too scared to let anyone know. It makes her so sad and so very lonely.   Susan would like to be an octopus. Then she would have eight arms with which to hug. Mommy’s hugs make her feel safe and warm and special. She needs so many but gets so few. Too often she feels cold and lonely and unsafe.   Octopuses can do something amazing. When they want to hide from someone they squirt black ink into the water as they swim. Then no one can find them. There is someone Susan wishes she could hide from. And that person does things to her because she had a human body. Susan wishes God had made her an octopus because octopuses don’t have those body parts.   Susan is pretty. Even the angels in heaven know it, but no one has ever told Susan. In fact, people have said things that make her think she isn’t pretty. She has not yet discovered that God himself thinks she is beautiful.   Susan would love to have God as a friend. He would keep her secret and he would believe her and be kind to her. They could play together and be best friends. But Susan thinks God only likes good kids and she is so bad.   One day Susan went to church and heard something amazing. The preacher opened the Bible and spoke of a man with a funny name – Zacchaeus. Let’s call him Zak, for short. Everybody hated Zak. He always cheated people and took their money. Even the worst people in town were sure they were better than Zak. No one wanted him as a friend.   One day Jesus came to town. Everyone was excited and wanted desperately to see him. Even though many of them had not yet seen him, they had all heard about him. The whole country was talking about how good Jesus is. No one had ever known anyone so good as him and God always answered his prayers. He was sad whenever he saw anyone sick or hurting. He would pray for them and they would get well, even if they had been so sick that they were dying. He liked children and protected them whenever people said unkind things about them. And he told wonderful stories about God.   So everyone lined the streets hoping for a glimpse of this special man. Of course, Zak wanted to see Jesus, too, but even though he was a grownup, everyone laughed at him because he was no taller than a child. There were just too many people, and tiny Zak couldn’t see over their heads. He kept running from place to place hoping to find a gap in the crowd where he might be able to peek at Jesus, but even when he stood on tip toes and jumped, he was just too short. Then he had an idea. He ran ahead of Jesus and climbed a tree. He felt safe up there, hiding behind the leaves. No one would know he was there, so no one would laugh at him, and as he peered through the leaves he would get a good look at this wonderful man that everyone was talking about. Jesus came closer and closer and suddenly he looked up at Zak. Zak’s heart beat fast. Jesus called him by name.   “How does Jesus know my name?” he wondered, “Jesus is truly an amazing man.”   “Come down from the tree, Zak,” said Jesus tenderly, “I want to have dinner with you.”   Everyone was angry. Some of those who had lots of friends and thought they were good, had hoped Jesus might have chosen to have dinner with them, but instead Jesus chose the worst man in town – the one everyone hated.   “Look at who Jesus has chosen as a friend!” they complained, “Zak does bad things to people. He’s a cheat and a liar and a thief. What right does he have to be friends with Jesus?”   Zak was sad. He knew they were right. But Jesus insisted on having dinner with him. Zak had never been so excited in all his life and all the people looked on in amazement (Luke 19:1-10).   Jesus was always choosing as his friends people who were dirty or sick or bad or who were hated and had no friends. One day he was invited to a party and a woman came in who felt so very dirty. Everyone knew that she did bad things to men. She had not been invited to come. No one would ever have asked her. She felt so bad that she fell at Jesus’ feet and cried and cried and cried, making Jesus’ feet wet with her tears. Everyone expected Jesus to push her away but he not only let her stay, he praised her and told everyone that God had forgiven her of every bad thing she had ever done. In fact, he said that loving God is the most important thing and that those who love God the most are those who realize that God has forgiven them for the worst sins (Luke 7:36-50).   Another time, Jesus met a woman who was shaking in fear. She was so bad that everyone thought she should die because of the bad things she had done. In fact, they were going to kill her right then.   “Let whoever has never done anything bad be the first to hurt her,” said Jesus.   Everyone was shocked. They all thought they were much better than her, but Jesus’ words forced them to remember that they, too, had done wrong. One by one, they bowed their heads in shame and left. Finally, Jesus alone remained with the woman.   “Where are all those who accuse you of being bad?” he asked.   “They’ve all gone,” she replied.   “And I don’t find fault with you, either. Go in peace, and put an end to wrongdoing” (John 8:1-11).   Do you know what forgiveness means? It means that although you know someone has been bad, you treat that person as if he or she were good. You are as nice to that person as if he or she had never done anything wrong.   Jesus told a story about a man who had done lots and lots of good things. He was so proud of all the good things he had done that even though no one is perfect, he couldn’t think of anything bad that he should be sorry for and ask God to forgive. There was another man, said Jesus, who was so bad that he could find not one good thing to boast about. All he could do was beg God for forgiveness. Jesus said that it was the bad man who made God happy, not the good man. The bad man was good in God’s eyes because he was sorry and asked God for forgiveness. The man everyone had thought was good, however, remained unforgiven because he never thought he needed to ask God’s forgiveness. The little wrong things he had done stopped him from being perfect, but because the bad man had asked for God’s forgiveness, the man who had once been bad was perfect in God’s eyes (Luke 18:10-14). Jesus told this story so that we would understand that what makes us good in God’s sight is not what we have done in the past, but whether we have told God we are sorry and asked him to forgive us.   The preacher said Jesus is so special because he is the only person in the world who has never done one wrong thing. Not only is Jesus perfect, he had lived as king forever in heaven and then chose to come to earth as a little baby and grow up to teach people about God. No one knows God like he does. He left his riches and throne in heaven and came to earth because he loves bad people so much that he wants to be punished for the bad things they have done instead of them being punished.   Because only Jesus is perfect, every one of us deserves to be punished. Wonderful Jesus cares so much for each of us that he let himself be punished for us all. He let men blindfold him, spit on him and beat him and whip him and laugh at him and swear at him and say nasty things about him. They took off all his clothes in front of everyone, then forced nails into his body and hung him up for everyone to see and laugh as he cried in pain and slowly died. He took upon himself our punishment so that he could swap his goodness for our badness. He did it to make bad people good.   Just three days later, Jesus rose from the dead. By coming back to life, like no one else ever has, Jesus proved that he is a winner and that by suffering and dying in our place he really does make completely good and clean the dirtiest sinner who believes in him.   And guess who was the first person Jesus showed himself to in order to prove to the world that nothing, not even death, is as strong as him. He didn’t choose a king to show himself to. He didn’t choose someone rich or important, or even one of his disciples to be the first. He chose a woman who even today people think of as bad – a woman who had had seven dirty demons living inside her (Mark 16:9-11; John 20:1-18). She was once ugly and dirty inside but Jesus made her heart beautiful and as pure and clean as the whitest snow. As always, Jesus was choosing bad people as his special friends and making them good.   “Jesus has already taken all your punishment,” said the preacher. “Do you want Jesus to make you good?”   Susan was excited. Did she ever want to be made good!   The preacher continued, “If you want God to make you clean inside, you just have to pray this prayer and mean it: “Dear Jesus, thank you so much for being punished in my place and dying so that you could take my sin and give me your goodness. I am sorry for all the bad things I have done. I want you to make me as perfect in God’s eyes as you are. I give you all the bad I have ever done and I receive from you all the good that you have done. Thank you that this makes me so good that I can now be God’s child and he will look after me.”   Susan joyfully prayed that prayer and knew that even though she didn’t feel any different, and even if other people didn’t believe her, Jesus had truly made her good in God’s eyes. All day long she sang to herself, “I am good. Jesus makes me good. I am good. Jesus makes me good.”   God treated Susan as if she had never done a wrong thing in her whole life, and that’s just how God will treat you when you pray to Jesus like Susan did.   Susan desperately wanted a  good  parent – one who would be kind and gentle and thoughtful and never hurt her or do bad things to her. And yet she wasn’t too sure about God being a father. Men scared her. She needed someone strong, but someone gentle. She tried to trust God and she found to her joy that he was not like the men that she had known. God always treated her well. He was that kind person she had always hoped for, as well as her best friend, and her protector.   One day, a gentle voice spoke in Susan’s heart. She thought that maybe it was her own thoughts or perhaps her imagination, but it was God himself. “I am King of all of heaven and earth,” he said. “I can only live inside good people but because you trust Jesus and believe that he suffered and died for you, I have made you so good that I live inside of you. Like everyone who believes in me, I have made you my very own child so that I can show you great kindness and look after you. If I am the greatest of kings and you are my daughter, what does that make you?”   Susan thought hard. “God is a king and I am his daughter. What does that make me?” Suddenly she thought she knew the answer, but it seemed too good to be true. “It means I’m a princess?” she asked.   “Yes,” said God, “you are a princess – and better than even the greatest princess in the world. You are princess to me, the greatest king in heaven and earth.”   “Wow!” said Susan, stunned.   Susan often used to have a nightmare in which a tree would turn into a witch and tell Susan, “You are bad, you are bad, you are bad!” Now she knew that if ever that witch appeared, she could stamp her foot and say, “No! You are a liar! Jesus has made me good! I am God’s princess, so go away, you nasty witch!” And the witch would fill with shame and have to leave.   One day, Susan saw in her mind the man who had done bad things to her. It was like a dream only she was awake. This often used to happen to her. Although the man wasn’t really there, everything seemed so real. He wanted to hurt her and make her feel dirty just like he had so many times before. This time she stamped her foot and said, “No! I’m a princess! God lives inside of me. You can never do that to me again. You must leave right now or I’ll tell the police and they will put you in jail, you naughty man.” The man stared at her, stunned. He looked as big and as mean as ever, and Susan was as little as she had always been, but she stood firm. The man turned and left. Susan grinned from ear to ear, then jumped for joy. “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you for making me a princess!”   Susan was no longer sad that she was not an octopus. She no longer needed to make an ink cloud. She no longer needed to hide. She had no need to wish that parts of her body were not human. In fact, Susan discovered that God was very glad that she was a child and not an octopus. God loves animals. He loves plants and mountains and sunsets, too, but none of them can talk with God and share their hearts with him like children can. It is because Susan is a child that she can be God’s daughter, the King of kings’ princess. God likes her body just the way it is. He is proud of the way he had made her and he knows she is beautiful. And God thinks of you just like he thinks of Susan.   One day, a fierce monster of a demon appeared to Susan. He was so scary that even most grownups would shake in fear if they saw him. Suddenly Susan remembered who she was. “Go away!” she said, “I’m only four years old but I’m God’s princess. Jesus is with me, so you have to leave.” The demon didn’t like that at all. He turned the meanest and sounded the nastiest that he possibly could, but Susan was unmoved. He growled and spoke terrible lies about Susan, saying that she was bad and that she belonged to him and that no one could ever make him leave. Still he failed to fool Susan into thinking he was stronger than her. “Jesus has made me good and you must leave,” she said. He was ever so angry and looked as if he would kill her but even though he pretended not to show it, he knew Susan was God’s princess and when a princess speaks, everyone must obey. The demon had no choice. He left.   The above is based on the real experiences of the child alter of a child abuse survivor.