If its possible to live a stable, “normal” life as a multiple, is it really fair to refer to multiple personality as a disorder?
This is another area of controversy. Those multiples who do manage to live stable, successful lives naturally object to being stigmatized as abnormal or mentally ill, and they aren’t just being politically correct: there are serious practical consequences to being regarded as crazy. In writing the book, I tried to be sensitive to this without making a big deal out of it. Andrew only uses the phrase “multiple personality disorder” once—when he’s talking about therapy—and he never refers to himself as suffering from MPD, since, to him, it’s not an affliction. However, not all multiples are like Andrew. Even Andrew wasn’t always like Andrew. If uncontrolled switching is disrupting someone’s life to the point where they aren’t even sure what time zone they’re in, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use the D-word—although there’s still room to argue whether the true disorder is multiplicity itself or the failure to manage it properly. I’m interested in this book, but I’m concerned that it
