© Masaki Kumagai, 1998 From: Aoyama Gakuin University Class: Academic Writing Type of Paper: Research Essay A Split Personality Existence In this world today, there are a lot of unbelievable diseases. One of them is the disease of human's mind, and a split personality is counted as one of the disease. Not many of people around the world believe if this disease really exists or not, or they rather think that the person is acting. Therefore, in this essay, I would like to write my opinion that I have some reasons to believe this disease exists with some of the real examples of the patient. First I would like to write about what split personality is and how it happens, then the real example of patient, then the thoughts of the other people who does not believe in it, and my opinion against it, and at last, my personal opinion about this disease. First of all, I would like to explain what split personality is. A split personality is one kind of disease of human's mind that you act like as if you are some other person. For example, if you are a person named Mike, and you are walking along the street, suddenly you feel dizzy and lose consciousness and Mike will not remember what he has done after it while the other mind changes into the mind like if you put the switch on. Therefore, you will be like two or more person's mind in one person's body. Sometimes each of them know about each other and sometimes they do not even know about their existence, but most of the time, the main personality, which the person is born to be at the first place will not know about the other personalities born after. According to Daniel Keyes, this particular disease is often caused by a large mental shock. For example, see the moment of murder, or accident, or been beat up half way to death or any other kind of hard shocks, especially when the person was a child. When the person experiences these kind of mental shocks, their weak minds try to escape from the pain of their mind watching it or feeling it and suffering. And when this pain gets too tough for the person's mind, the mind will try to escape by sacrificing something, and as the shock is too hard and if the mind could not find any solution, the mind will try to make other mind to let the pain into it. Therefore the secondly born mind is often the pain killer for the main mind. When the person's main mind wakes up, they often find themselves in the middle of nowhere, and they will never know about what the other mind had done, and will not know about the other personality unless psychologist sees him. Another type is the person's opposite mind. Which is, in such a heavily pressured circumstance, one must be very patient about what the person must not do, and if those mental pressure gets too deep, one would follow the footsteps to a breakdown. These kinds of examples are often been seen in the prison, where people must feel these kinds of pressure for their sins. Their life in one small room and strict rules would sometimes be too much to overcome, and though it is illegal, sometimes there are some kind of bullying to the prisoners. In order to protect themselves, the person with calm personality would have to be much more aggressive, and that is how the other personality will be born. In other words, this new personality assists of the main mind. However, if this secondly born mind could be stronger than the main and could eat up the true mind, in that case, the person would never have the memory of the past and the unusual circumstance would give the person much more pressure without warning and the mind would be split again, or in the worst case, the person will be mentally dead.These kinds of examples will be shown in the real examples of patients coming after. As a reminder, of course, this does not happen all the time. Most of human's minds are tough enough to protect themselves, but in very few cases, these kinds of patterns occurs. Second, I would like to show you the real example of this split personality patient. The first patient is a man named William S. Milligan, he was caught by the charge of rape in Ohio at 1977. As police and the psychologists examined him, they found the unbelievable fact that he had several personalities. Here are the first ten personalities they found. In The Minds Of Billy Milligan.1, the first personality is the main personality, Billy, twenty seven years old, blue eyes, brown hair(19). The second personality is Arthur, twenty-two years old, British. This personality and the next one are the keeper of the "Spot", where they can have the control of the body, or become themselves open to the outer world through the body of Billy. The third personality is Leigen, twenty-three years old, Yugoslav, who knows how to fight and can use gun and other dangerous stuff, controls the hate. Fourth personality is Allen, eighteen years old, talkative, only one who smoke and right handed. Fifth personality is Tommy, sixteen years old, knows how to unlock chains or handcuffs, and the specialist of the electricity(20). Sixth personality is Danny, fourteen years old, always scared to something especially man, blond hair, blue eyes. Seventh personality is David, eight years old, controls pain, red-brown hair blue eyes. Eighth personality is Christine, three years old, cannot talk, blond hair, female. Ninth personality is Christopher, thirteen years old, brother of Christine. For the last tenth personality, Adarana, nineteen years old, quiet, lesbian, female(21). They are the main ten personalities of the William S. Milligan. As if you wonder how they know their outlooks, William Milligan, Billy has a hobby of painting, or some of the personalities do. Therefore, they draw each other on the painting and that is how they get to know their outlooks. In the paragraph above, I have wrote only ten of his personalities but he has thirteen more personalities in his body who has a bad behavior and has been stuck in the body, controlled by Arthur and Leigen. They are called, "Unliked". The first one is Fillipe, twenty years old, a poor criminal. Second one is Kevin, also twenty years old, another poor criminal who has done simple crime once. Third one is Wolter, twenty-two years old, Australian, with a good sense of hunting. Fourth is April, nineteen years old, female, has a wish to kill Billy's father. Fifth is Samuel, eighteen years old, Jew, black hair, only one who believes god(22). Sixth is Mark, sixteen years old, does not think anything but just keep working like a puppet. Seventh is Steve, twenty one years old, always try to fool around, never serious. Eighth personality is Lee, who always try to make a stupid joke and does not care about other things, twenty years old. Ninth personality is Jason, thirteen years old, who controls the stress and always hysterical. Tenth is Robert, seventeen yeas old, daydreamer but never make an action(23). Eleventh, Shane, four years old, cannot hear well, disabled personality, always making a sound of a bee. The twelfth personality is Martin, nineteen years old, never make an effort to do anything. Thirteenth personality is Timothy, fifteen years old, has been normal, but once called by homosexual, put him deep under cover(24). However, after cure of the psychologist, he have created the last personality called Teacher. This personality holds the all memories of all other personalities including the "Unliked". As a matter of fact, this man William S. Milligan, has a total of twenty four personalities in his mind. So far, I have written about the numbers and the kinds of the personalities, and now I would like to show how these personality work. Each personalities has their own needs in order to come out and live in the outer word. For example, when some dangerous situation comes up and there would be a needs for the protection, Leigen comes out on the "Spot" and do his duty. In The Minds Of Billy Milligan.2, as Tommy was riding a motor bicycle, he finds that one part of the machine was hanging down from it's body, and there was a chance of getting into accident because of it, Leigen comes out and throw himself on the ground(32). Another example is just before he got arrested, as he was spending some days, Arthur spent reading a medical book, on Sunday and on Monday, Allen went to find another job(171). These personalities have their own good points and specialties to live on, and most of the time when Billy is in a peaceful situation, Arthur took charge and made decision who is going to do what. For most of the time, this worked out and there suppose to be a no problem. As I wrote in the beginning, the people with this kind of mental disease are not so strong at the pressure which comes from daily life. Now, I would like to write how the story went wrong in his life. As a man with a twenty four personalities, Billy, when he is in any kind of situation with strong pressure, especially after finding himself in the middle of nowhere without knowing how he got there because someone else was in the "Spot", loses his control and sometimes brings up an unexpected personality. Or otherwise, the one came out after would have to figure out what he was doing before and what he was trying to do. These twenty-four personalities does not share their own memories, and that makes his life, or their lives uneasy. Only, Arthur can see what other personality from going to wrong way, but even this does not work when Billy is in a mentally hard situation. This is clearly appeared in the early time after he was caught. Almost every time he was to see the psychologist, different personality was in the "Spot". Even when he is in the daily life, this personality problem brings up trouble at the place he works at, and that is why he could not spend much time at one place, and as a fact, that is why he has so much different abilities in each different personalities. As an example of this kind of confusing situation, it is easy to see in The Milligan War.1, that in the first day at Raima Psychological Hospital, the first personality he had when he got there was Danny, in order to solve pain or sadness. However, as he finish all the entering activity, he closes his eye and Tommy wakes up in the room, he tries to figure out how the situation is and see an accident of other patient losing one's eye, he run back to the room and Kevin wakes up in order to solve pain or sadness(44-46). It is very scary to think each time you wake up, you do not even know what you where doing and you have to figure out by yourself each time. As I wrote above, Billy was always in the pressure of daily life, and that was the trigger of his crime. According to The Minds Of Billy Milligan.2, Billy had only a little money to live on, and Leigen decided to steal money from someone. However, Billy's body was in a middle of pressure, and he was not calm. While Leigen was proceeding his will, the "Spot" flipped and Allen came out. He thought that the woman, who was with him and Leigen was trying to steal from, was some kind of a girl friend, and they even went to McDonald's to eat supper. While that, Allen realized that something was wrong and that is when Adarana came out and had raped the women as she was a lesbian(164-193). Same thing happened three times, and that was why he was arrested not knowing why for himself. After all he was not called for guilt as he, or the main personality Billy, did not even know what happened and only few of the personalities knew about the crime. He was the first man to be called not as a criminal but as a patient after doing heavy crime, and was sent for psychological hospital. In this hospital, he was cured by the doctors and finally made himself one, the final personality, Teacher. However, after the cure, he was sent to worse environmental hospital Raima, and his personalities split again. This is shown in The Milligan War.1,"while the trial has been going, Arthur did not come out either. In this kind of place, it would be better for someone with talkative personality or with physical strength. Logic is not needed. Kids were away from 'Spot' with their own will, so the ones who took control were Tommy, Allen, and Kevin."(27) As you can see there is nothing written about the Teacher. So far, I have written about my first example of split personality, William S. Milligan. And I would like you to know that though his mind was weak and could not help himself by other usual way like we all take, it is not always his true will wanting to be dead. None the less, he was always trying to live in the mentally hard circumstance. If it was not for him to be a bit weaker than normal and if it was not for him to be shocked in the early days. In The Minds Of Billy Milligan.1, he was raped by his stepfather when he was eight or nine years old. It was during April, one Sunday, Billy realized that his stepfather has been staring at him all the day in strange way, and he found himself unable to sleep that night. Next morning just as Billy was, his stepfather got up for breakfast, and said that he and Billy are to go to the barn for some work. And so it happened, not only once, but several time as his stepfather took Billy to the barn with him. And that is when his personality split into twenty four different minds(261). If you were in this kind of situation in his age, what would you do? You are not strong enough to prevent it happening, you are not smart enough to go to police, you are not paid enough attention by the people around you and you have to solve it with your own? I think I would prefer dying. It was only the way he could have choose in the circumstance he was in. Unfortunately, the main mind, Billy has been in too much pain and also he never knew about other personalities, he was often confused by the situation he find himself standing in. And at last, as he was too confused and disappointed, he tries to kill himself whenever he is in the "Spot", and that is why not until 'Teacher' was born, he was kept out of the "Spot" unless he is in a hard situation and nobody could of take control of the "Spot". This cannot be thought in our daily life, living with a possibility of killing oneself even though you are not the one who is willing to die. The way of living itself can be a one big pressure you are getting from your life. Imagine that you are in a middle of nowhere and each time you wake up, your body is getting some kind of hurts, or wounds, but you never know why or when it got on you. Sometimes you do not know why you were crying, or why people are laughing at you or bully you. Do you think you can stand it for more than twenty years? Come to think of it, the pressure he is getting from his special style of life, is much deeper than any of us. So far, I have written about the real example of the split personality, and from now on, I would like to show you another example of the mentally ill person. This one, however, is not quite same to the split personality but it is a real example of what happens to the person who gets the strong shock to their minds, enough to make a breakdown. The woman's name is Claudia Ellen Yascow. She was arrested by the charge of killing four people which they found later that she was not the suspect. However, it was not unnecessary for the police to think that she was the suspect, because she had an information of the scene that cannot be known unless the person has been there. Even though the information was confusing and messy because of her mental disease, police believed her and thought that she was the suspect, for she knew even where the pot and other little detail was at when the crime occurred. She was caught once but let go after few month with the check of psychologist that she has a incubation type of split minds, and the lie detector found her answer to the question that she was not at the scene when the crime happened showed what she said is true, "No, I did not."(Unveiling Claudia.1 94) Her trouble is brought up mainly because of her mental disease, incubation type of split mind. This case is a little bit different from Billy's case. In Billy's case, he could not control himself as a Billy, but all other personalities were to take their rolls. However, Claudia is different, as she can always be herself even she is in a great pressure, but she will be losing a collect criterion to judge what kind of situation she is in. For example, when she was caught in jail, she truly thought that she was in a middle of movie taking and she was playing her rolls of main heroine. "Suddenly she put the smile on her face and said 'I never thought that I could have a great chance like this,' She leaned her head on the wall. 'I've always thought of having a chance to do a big act like a big actress. I do have some experience of acting in few films as a supporting player, but if I play this murderess act, maybe I can be very famous.' Dye stared at her and asked, 'You think we are making a film right now?' She slapped his hand softly, smiling, 'Oh Dye, you have seen all those cameras at the corridor and those of TV's. I hope I can have a deal with a lot of money coming in, you know it is kind of hard to act.'(Unveiling Claudia.1 82) As you can see above, by the shock she got from been captured by police, her mind had made an escape way from pain by believing that all the stuff going is an act and not a real deal. This is very close to what Billy has done to himself, only the difference is that fortunately, Claudia was not getting shocked when she was before teenager, but after she became an adult. I think that this is the reason why she was quite right in condition even though she had some mental problems since she was fourteen and had been looked after by a psychologist. Her case is still, with a great trouble, that in such a hard circumstance like in the police office, she would be nervous and will not be able to say what she really want to. As she says in Unveiling Claudia.1, "If I am lying to you right now, that is anything but my will."(72) She is telling the truth here that her mind is trying to protect herself by not telling the truth about the matter, and she cannot help it. It is rather an act of her instinct, to let the shock coming above her because of telling and remembering the truth softer in order to not breakdown for it. This has been appearing in the way of making the book. As she was making the confession about the murder, she always kept telling a one big story with half lie and half truth. As you will find later that the truth was such a hard one that it was too much for her to remember it and telling it to the person who you met one or two years ago. This can be seen in Unveiling Claudia.2, " 'Claudia, I don't know what I should believe in you.' She put her hand on my shoulder and looked into my eye. 'I'm sorry Dan. I do trust you more than before. But not enough.'"(184) This conversation was held more than two years past after they have met, and as you can see that she is very careful about telling the truth and that is why she kept telling lie, or something that she believed it was a truth and unfortunately it was not. Although she is always careful about telling the truth, she is always an easy person to make believe. If someone tells her that she has a superstitious power, she believes it and so on. This has prevented her from stopping the murder, because she had known that the real suspects of the case had planned to proceed the crime week before the murder. However, she was busy and also her weak mind was scared with the pressure what if she tell it to the victim and the what if the suspects would know about it and come after her? In the way of her mind escaping from the reality, she started to believe that it was an oracle, and she could not stop the crime. This story was one of the reason she was arrested once by the story told by her friend that she knew that the crime is going the happen a week before, and the truth was different. The shocking truth was told on the end, and it was shocking enough for her mind to look for some escape way. On the night when crime has occurred, she was forced to go to the place with a gay, right after the murder had happened. The man was gay but he had a gun in his hand and she could not refuse to go there with him. Their car came in front of the house just in time when two suspects where killing the victim, and after they had gone away, they went to the house's garage where there was a one dead body of a man and one body of woman laying on the floor. Claudia was forced to put her hand into the dead woman's genitals and find a bag of drugs. Now, this is a real hard and sick experience for the twenty-six years old woman, or any other person in the world. She was shocked and her mind could not stand it and she has lost her memories in order to prevent the breakdown. After few days she find herself knowing about that crime and could not find out why she know about it so much, she told the story to the police and they misjudged her as a criminal and put her in jail. These are the two examples of the split personality, or mentally split disease. I hope you got the idea of what it is and how it effects your life as a trouble. However, not everyone believes in this disease's existence. Some people really think that the person who is thought to be a split personality is just acting in order to get attention or sympathy. Those people think just like Dr. Lindner as he named it fake-split personality syndrome(The Milligan Wars.2,88). There is no formal name such as this but this is the word he even used in the trial, so I will use it too. He thinks that the person who is said to be a split personality, in this case like Billy, are acting in order to make their charges for the crime smaller than the usual. He even says to Billy, when they first met that he does not believe in such disease as split personality(The Milligan Wars.1,48) He thinks that human's mind can face anything, or else, the person will be handicapped as a fact and there is no such thing as escaping from the reality by making other personality. Now, this kind of theory has it's good points, such as he really believes in the strength of human's mind and one thing that supports this theory is that there were not so many cases about split personality found in the past. And also, especially in the cases I showed you above, he has a thought to prevent other criminals from using an act to let the people think the person is mentally ill and not suppose to be charged for crime and be sent not to jail but to the hospital. Unfortunately, there has been such case in the past and this theory has a strong persuasion. The most famous criminal who was once almost set free because of the mental illness was the man who killed J.F.K, however, he was not set free. This man, Dr. Lindner, is chief of Assens Mental Hospital, and he has knowledge of human's mental disease. Therefore, his theory was strong enough to make the trial understood. Which also means that his theory was right. However, is it really right? I think it is wrong. I think that human were not made so perfect and it is possible that we human can make our own escape way for our mental health. We do not know all the possibilities human have inside our brains. Or if it is a fake, in Billy's case, is it possible for a person who was willing to live no matter where or what circumstances he is in and the next second trying to kill himself by banging his head on the wall? Or writing each of the name with different handwriting and each of them is same all the time? Is it possible that for each personality, each brain waves are different from others? It is impossible for human to control their brain waves. And as a fact of Billy's case, at the end, trial has admitted the existence of split personality, and it cannot be banned. It is the truth. Another thing, especially in the Billy's case, Dr. Lindner did not believed in the split personality, however, this means that whoever goes to his hospital with a problem of split personality, would see the nightmare of not doing any right cure for the disease but just doing the worthless thing and even given the wrong medicine. This should not be happen. If it is not for the doctors to believe the weak points of the human's mind, who is going to help the mentally ill people? It is their duty to believe in their patients and do their best to help them. So far in this essay, I wrote about the split personality. In the first paragraph, I have written an introduction to this essay with little of my own opinion. In the second and third paragraph, I have shown you what the split personality is, and from third paragraph, I have shown the real example of split personality, William S. Milligan and his twenty four personalities. From the second paragraph of page four, I wrote about how these personalities work, and from the third paragraph of the page five, I wrote what kind of troubles he has been in, or the world though his eyes. Beginning from the end of page six, I wrote about the another mentally ill person, Claudia Ellen Yascow, and the trouble of her case until the first paragraph of the page nine. In order not to make this essay a one way story, I wrote the opposite opinion about split personality of Dr. Lindner from the second paragraph of page nine through ten. In the first paragraph of page ten, I wrote my counter opinion against Dr. Lindner with some of the reasons I can trust on. Finally, from the next paragraph, I would like to write about my personal opinion about split personality's existence. As I wrote in the beginning, I do believe in the split personality's existence. I do be in a lot of pressure in my life, and I sometimes cannot believe myself standing it. I sometimes look for something to escape from the pain of living and I think I can understand the Billy's or Claudia's mind or other people with split personality or mental diseases had to break their minds up in order to live on. As my personal experience, the year before my entrance to this Aoyama Gakuin University was like a hell. The more I study, the less points I get in the pre-exam. I got the heaviest pressure I ever felt and I remember that I was acting kind of strange in order not to feel too much stress from it. I really thank to my parents for keeping me in shape all through my life. If it were not for my parents, I would have broken down. Since our house had not much money to let me in to the college next year, it was my last chance to go to college. Fortunately, I succeeded to come to this college, however, if I could not come here, I do not know what would happen to me. As I am a pessimistic person, I may have killed myself. Another reason why I believed in this disease was that I think this kind of disease is one kind of hint for our future developing techniques of our brain. We still do not know all the works and the possibility our brain has. If we could figure out these unknown possibilities, we human would have more chance to develop as living things, and it could also meaning the develop of our nature. I also think that denying this split personality is denying the possibilities in our brain, which gives us a brighter future. As we have been developing as a most developed life form on earth, we must have wide point of view to think about anything. I believe that thinking about this disease is one of the chances to find unknown abilities of our central function, brain. As a matter of fact, that is why I strongly believe that human can make some kinds of escape way inside their minds. We human are not so perfectly made, we do have some fault points and I think we human will be much more developed through admitting our weak points and trying to help each other and overcome it together. If you could understand through this essay, the hard life Billy and Claudia and other mentally ill people are having, why not giving your interests and the heart of care for them? Works Cited Daniel, Keyes. The Minds Of Billy Milligan.1.Japan:Hayakawa,1982. Daniel, Keyes. The Minds Of Billy Milligan.2.Japan:Hayakawa,1982. Daniel, Keyes. The Milligan War.1.Japan:Hayakawa,1984. Daniel, Keyes. The Milligan War.2.Japan:Hayakawa,1984. Daniel, Keyes. Unveiling Claudia.1.Japan:Hayakawa,1995. Daniel, Keyes. Unveiling Claudia.2.Japan:Hayakawa,1995. Note: Some letters/words were lostchanged when converting from Japanese operating system to English. 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