2011/08/10

Multiple personalities

photo by Tan Ming/Secret China
Here is a real story of a patient of mine with multiple personalities.
Western medicine approaches the case of multiple personalities differently to Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine believes that a case of multiple personalities occurs when a person abandons his main consciousness and his mind is thus disturbed or manipulated by a malevolent energy. In other words, Chinese medicine considers multiple personalities as symptoms of being ghost-ridden or demon-ridden. Clinical symptoms for this malady can be defined as lack of clear conscience, coupled with irrational behavior.
Carolyn came to my clinic for treatment of her diabetes. One week later, her diabetes symptoms mysteriously disappeared. Then she returned for treatment of symptoms of hepatitis. But that too soon disappeared. After that, every once in a while, Carolyn would appear to be inflicted with a new disease that is quite serious and she would truly suffer from all the typical symptoms of that disease. The test reports, CT scan result and doctors' diagnoses reports all confirmed that she actually suffered from those diseases. Different diseases kept plaguing Carolyn. By now I am sure you will understand how perplexed both she and her doctors were, especially since she was so young.
She also had a strange fashion sense. From the American Indians' native costumers, to African style long skirts, to French baroque dresses of the 18th century, to Japanese kimonos, to jeans, to cotton-wadded Chinese robes, Carolyn's constant variations of style bedazzled me. Even more surprising was her posture, voice and demeanour matching her outfits perfectly.
I always tried my best to treat her, but I often was puzzled by the way she dressed. I thought to myself, "This is a hospital clinic, not a stage or a fashion runway. What does she think she is doing?" Since Carolyn came with a different disease and a different style or outfit each time, I began to ask myself if there could be any correlation between the two.
Finally, to find a clue to her behavior, I asked Carolyn about her family history. From that, I understood the root cause of her strange behavior. This is the story she told me.
"I just moved here from another city. I have a mother and three siblings. My father was a well-known attorney, an extremely healthy and energetic man who worked diligently and really took care of his health. We used to be a very happy family until one night when happiness suddenly vanished like a dream. Here is what happened:
I received news that my father had died of a sudden heart attack while exercising in a health club. I was so shocked that my whole body became numb. But what happened next was even more shocking. Before my father's funeral service was about to begin, a black woman who seemed to be well-educated and enjoy a certain social status came to the memorial service with three grown children, and began to sob uncontrollably. I thought that they must have come for a different memorial service, so I approached them politely saying, 'I think you may be in the wrong place.' They produced a family portrait showing five people, my father being one of them. Good God! My father had another family! Another wife and three children! My father had been carrying on a double life for more than 20 years. I almost fainted and thought I was living a nightmare.
Right then my mother and grandmother came into the room. Apparently, Mother did not know about the other family either. I asked the other family to go to another room and hold a private memorial service on their own. But they firmly refused. The two families ended up standing at each side of the coffin and bid farewell in rage, with lots of questions unanswered from this well-known attorney who would never be able to answer them.
I almost convinced myself that my father had the ability to be at two places at the same time, because in my memory he had always been with us when I grew up. He had never missed our birthday parties, and he always made arrangements for all the major holidays. The only thing that stood out was that my father frequently visited my grandmother. When I asked my half brother from the other family about our father, he told me the same thing: Father was always with them, including Christmas Eves, Thanksgivings, birthdays and so on. He celebrated all of the holidays together with them too. The only thing that he knew was that Father would often make business trips. Because father was an attorney, it was normal and understandable to them.
Our grandmother knew about all of this. When she met my father's mistress at the memorial service, she said only one thing, "The game is over." We learned afterwards that my grandmother's home was the place for my father to change "make-up and costumes" between scenes of his two roles in this play. Everyone had thought that my father was a filial son and visited grandmother all the time."
Having finished the story Carolyn started to cry, saying, "I miss him. I do not blame him because he must have agonized and been exhausted. He never had a real rest until his heart stopped beating. To me, he had always been a good father."
I asked Carolyn why she constantly changed her fashion style, "Could you be following in your father's footsteps by playing different roles with your fashion costume?"
She was stupefied at first, and then she told me that sometimes she did not really know who she was. One thing she knew for certain was that all the disease symptoms were real, and that the feelings of sickness were real, although she did not understand why her diseases disappeared as suddenly and quickly as they had come.
Based on her descriptions I decided that the root cause of her diseases was the lack of a clear main consciousness. Whenever a person's righteous spirit is weak, the evil spirits invade a person's body and/or mind.
According to traditional Chinese medicine, there are thirteen "ghost apertures" in a human body, which are the body's communication channels to the outside world. Specifically, the thirteen ghost acupuncture points are the "Ghost Palace (or philtrum), Ghost Message (or Shaoshang), Ghost Heart (or the two main mausoleums, Ghost Rampart, and Ghost Road), Ghost Pillow, Ghost Bed, Ghost City, Ghost Hole, Ghost Hall, Ghost Hide, Ghost Feudal Official and Ghost Seal."
In order to protect Carolyn from the invasion of demon spirits, I closed all thirteen "ghost apertures" with two acupuncture techniques known as "Blue Dragon Twirl" and "White Tiger Spin."
After the treatment, Carolyn became sober-minded and gradually returned to her normal self. She no longer spoke in a varying voice and started to talk in a normal voice. The symptoms of multiple personalities vanished. In other words, the malevolent ghost spirits had been expelled from her body.
Carolyn's case proves that a human body could be compared to a piece of clothes. Whoever dons it controls the human body. When the ghost apertures are open and a person's main consciousness is not strong enough, demon spirits can invade and control the body. After the ghost apertures were closed, malevolent spirits no longer interfered with Carolyn. The symptom of multiple personalities thus vanished.
I wrote a poem to record Carolyn's medical case:
Multiple Personalities -
Results of invasion from hundreds of demon spirits;
Closing the ghost apertures blocks all invasions.
My teacher's marvellous medical education
Makes the rampant demons disappear without a trace.

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