The Dissociative Initiative

Hello friends of the DI,

It’s been a busy and productive couple of months, and we have some really exciting news!

Multiplicity Documentary

We have been very fortunate and will be having our first major contact with the media this year! Not just any media, but media which is friendly to our cause and informed about our experiences. Earlier this year we asked for calls for interest in helping us to create a documentary about Multiplicity and people were really keen. Well, the amazing has happened – Suzanne’s documentary about Multiplicity won one of only 12 places in the highly competetive annual Community Broadcasting Association series! It will be aired nationally around Australia and made available as a Podcast for everyone. We’re over the moon! See these links for more information, and read a call for contacts in Suzanne’s own words below:

• Community Broadcasting Association of Australia 2015 National Features & Documentary Series: Successful Participants Announced
• Suzanne’s synopsis

My name is Suzanne Reece, and I’m Sarah’s mum. I work in community radio and have just been granted a place in this year’s Community Broadcasting Association in their Australia’s National Features and Documentary Series. This is where twelve radio producers across Australia are trained and mentored to produce a documentary for national broadcast. I want to make a documentary about Multiplicity – from the inside. I’m not officially DID, as there are certain things within the official criteria that don’t apply to me. However I very much self-identify as Multiple and have functioned as a ‘collection of selves’ from as far back as I can remember. It always felt normal to me. This is an opportunity for Multiples to tell their stories in their own words, and have those storied treated with understanding, sensitivity and respect. This is a place to say that Multiplicity does not always have to be paired with ‘disorder’. This is an opportunity for the Multiple community to speak about what’s important to them, rather than be explained and defined by other people. I’m hoping that many of you would like to add your voices, your experiences and some of your selves to this documentary. I’m able to disguise voices if that’s important to any of you to protect your anonymity. I’m also able to take your words and have them read by a voice actor if that’s important to any of you.

Please email me at suzm33@gmail.com if you’d like to be part of this amazing opportunity.

DI Board and Structure

We have been meeting with interested people about the future of the DI, and drawing inspiration from a number of books and models of small scale social entrepreneurship. We have made links to existing networks such as Community Health Onkaparinga. No incorporation has happened as we are still finding solutions to the problems of a board of keen but very busy people with many existing commitments in their work. Please do not be concerned about this – if we cannot bring together the support to start a board, we will instead continue for now as a part of Sarah’s business. In that case we’ll be unable to seek grant money and will need to raise funds through other means, but the ‘freeze’ on projects will be lifted either way very soon and people can get involved with supporting the existing resources and helping develop more. 🙂

New Resources

Our members are a creative bunch and often find their own ways to reach out and fill some of the gaps in the resources for and about multiplicity. Jade is one who has recently published 2 books. She is also a volunteer admin for our Online Discussion Group! Here’s a little more about her:

Jade Miller is a blogger, artist, SRA survivor, and member of a poly- fragmented DID system. She desires to bring education and awareness about the reality of SRA/DID to the public and increase the number and availability of resources to survivors for healing. Jade has experienced a very diverse life, from living on an agriculturally oriented farm to an inner city apartment to brief homelessness in her more turbulent younger years. She has been in various hospitals and treatment centers for a wide variety of mental health diagnoses since the age of 12 and is now, as an adult, living from a place of continually increasing health and joy. She wishes to use her experiences to help other people who struggle. She wrote Dear Little Ones to help young alters understand Dissociative Identity Disorder, and she wrote Pieces of Me as a more personal look into her healing journey.

• Dear Little Ones
• Pieces of Me

Events

Sarah will be offering a free talk Psychosis without Destruction at Mifsa, Wayville on May 27th.

The busy people at the UniSA Department of Rural Health in partnership with the PIR program are putting together a conference called Walk the Talk of service integration. It will be on the 25 & 26 June, in Pt Lincoln SA. Contact Sarah or watch this space for more details.

UniSA Department of Rural Health is also running a set of workshops about voice hearing called Hearing Voices that are Distressing – a simulated training program. It will be on the 23-24 and the 29-30 June at UniSA Whyalla Campus. There are a few subsidized places available for people with lived experience or peer workers on low incomes.

Sarah will be at all of these events and would love to touch base and catch up with any DI friends there! 🙂

Finish with a Quote

I believe in the power of laughter and tears as an antidote to hatred and terror – Charles Chaplin

Take care all,
Sarah
sarah@di.org.au