Since the publication of my memoir, A Brilliant Adaptation: How Dissociative Identity Disorder & the Power of the Therapeutic Bond Saved Me, many people have warmly and kindly reached out to let me know the many different ways it resonates. Many express how brave I was, speaking carefully and gently as if the little girl in those pages is still somehow fully present and fragile. Needing care. I understand it completely — and am grateful for their caution and kindness.
I want to share something here…
I didn’t write A Brilliant Adaptation from a place of pain. I wrote it from a place of freedom. I share it because sometimes it might be helpful to have a living example, not only a clinical description.
My childhood was horrific. That’s simply true. But here’s what’s also true – I know my story now – all of it – and it no longer lives in my body the way it used to. The terror, the shame, the silence. I remember I felt those things. And the journey to get here was long, painful, confusing, difficult…and never simple.
What made my journey possible was a particular kind of therapeutic relationship, one informed by the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). IPNB isn’t a form of therapy – rather, it informs therapy. My therapist, Dr. Dan Siegel, never imposed a roadmap on my healing, never arrived with predetermined strategies for how my story should unfold. He simply met me where I was. With knowledge…curiosity and openness…steadiness…and profound attunement to whatever emerged – however it emerged…whenever it emerged. My therapeutic work unfolded organically, at its own pace, honoring the wisdom of my nervous system every step of the way.
As a result, something remarkable happened.
Something central to my work was implicit memory – how the body can hold the past as pure feeling, memory, perspective, and thoughts… as if danger is ever present…still happening…right now. Nightmares, hypervigilance, flashbacks, shame all arriving with no context or explanation. For a long time I lived with these awarenesses as if they were simply a fixed part of who I was. Eventually I came to know they didn’t need to be.
The self-states of my mind that emerged to help me survive – verbs, not nouns – were constantly adapting brilliantly in response to what was unbearable. Protecting. Hiding. Raging. Enduring. Silencing. Performing mental gymnastics for survival. Hoping and waiting for…safety…attunement…to be seen…to be known, honored, and released – not forever to be maintained…managed…negotiated.
Through therapy informed by IPNB, my implicit memories became explicit. The raw feeling found its story, its timeline, its meaning. My nervous system learned what safety feels like. And when integration happened…there was a shift…I could know what happened without being haunted by it. I could know my whole story with clarity and truth rather than dread and fear. My self-states quieted – because their work was done.
This is what I hope to convey with my story. My journey taught me that I wasn’t destined to be a prisoner of my past. With all that is known about neuroplasticity, relational healing, the embodied mind, and so much more – this kind of healing was possible. As an interpersonal neurobiologist myself – having experienced healing from the inside out – this is not just theory…this is lived experience. My lived experience.