Oprah Meets a Husband With 24 Personalities | The Oprah Winfrey Show | Oprah Winfrey Network

it was a difficult period because it in many ways he was so healthy and took care of himself and yet he was just constantly ill and we didn't know why I was ill because my mind was unable to cope with what had happened to me what had happened they say is that cam was beginning to remember horrible abuse he'd suffered as a child abuse that had been completely suppressed he woke up in the middle of the night and started hearing this voice in his head saying safe not safe safe not safe safe not safe and fed he felt compelled to get up and start writing that I had no idea what was going on with me I thought that my mind had exploded and people who lived in my body were talking about things that I had no memory of cam went into therapy and was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder or di D what was previously known as multiple personality disorder I was terrified I wanted to run screaming into the night at times but I always thought that I wanted to save my family so can you imagine can you imagine this if your husband was diagnosed with this well Ricci and cam tried to understand just what it means when you when the doctor tells you that your husband has a dissociative identity disorder take a look I got my hands on every book on di D that I could possibly read I had read Sybil I had seen the movie I had seen the three faces of Eve I didn't know that much about it over the course of his treatment for di D 24 distinct personalities emerged there's a core now of about eight or nine who are accessible and come out often there's pear who sort of the father figure a very serene and and gentle and there's Bart who's very light light hearted and light spirited some of the younger ones are clay who's 9 and Wyatt who was 9 and switch who's 10 Anna and Trudi who are 4 Mozart and dusty and Gail were 12 from the start I felt unusually comfortable with the altars I just talked to them like they were whoever they were whether it was a four year old child or an eight year old boy or a twelve year old girl [Music] dusty likes to cook so I taught her how to make tamales and Gail is now her buddy so she takes turns they take turns all aboard don't read a story to some of the young alters one will come out and the others will sort of gather clothes if you can kind of imagine that and I'll read them a story after Kyle's gone to bed who's that that's to better understand his condition cam went to graduate school and got his PhD in psychology he also documented his story in this book first-person plural what I wrote about me was painful what I wrote about you well is because I love you and you did a good thing for me and you did a good thing for Kyle and I thank you for that this is an amazing story welcome Ricky and cam to the show when you first realized that something was happening to you what did you think that something was you described it a bit in the tape where you say it felt like your mind was exploding I had no idea what was happening it just I was I was driving down the road and somebody's voice came out of my mouth and started reading road signs and mispronouncing them mm-hmm I knew something was really wrong and I had you been sick this is when you'd had the sinus I've been recovering from from the sinus illness now it's just starting to feel better for the first time in jeez 10 years maybe really yeah I thought everything was okay we thought we were doing okay and how long ago was this when was this five years five years ago yeah okay so there I am driving up the highway and I hear the voices that I had always heard in my head but I just thought that was normal I had no experience with anything else I just knew what it was like to be me mm-hmm all of a sudden those voices were coming out of my my face reading the signs and mispronouncing them I said oh no there's something really wrong with me and I pulled off the road actually I saw a psychiatric hospital just it was just circumstantial and I tried to get in there but because I was so confused I couldn't actually pull into their parking lot now at the time were you you were working obviously businessman yes I had a business I had your own business yeah and doing well in the business everything was going fine although I'd been really sick so I was just trying to and you all have had a child Kyle we had Kyle he was six at the time so you pulled over and couldn't get into the psychiatric ward but when you finally I you on page I think it's 89 let me find it here I thought it was you described it pretty well this is when you're sitting in front of I think it's your psychiatrists are Lee Harley Marilla charlie okay and our Lee says I believe Kim has dissociative identity disorder Ricky's eyebrows raised our Lee said it used to be called multiple personality disorder Ricky gasped and recoiled here it is our Lee said so follow me here hitching up the sleeves of his sweater everybody dissociates you're driving down the highway and you space out for a while has this happened to you and suddenly you realize you're at your exit what's happened everybody right you say I get home that's normal disassociation all people do that to some extent aha says you okay D ID he says as disassociation taken to the extreme picture this a child is sexually abused by his mother for the first time that's the same mother who feeds him clothes him read some bedtime stories the child has no capacity to understand or accept this behavior which is horrifying and even painful of course but also sexually stimulating that's where the confusion lies how does the child deal with this his conscious mind essentially removes itself from the present while another part of his mind comes forward to hold the memory of the pain or the feelings about the abuse and that way he isn't crushed under the weight of what happened to him and can actually go about his life go to school go out to play when the abuse is repeated our Lee continued the disassociative defense is used again either the same part comes out or a new one is created over time these parts develop characteristics that are unique to them and separate from the child's and they all become alter personalities Ricky's eyes were fixed rigidly on our Lee and says wait a minute do you mean like Sybil accept is that where you're thinking at the time that was my experience that was my only experience with it was the three faces of Eve and simple and I thought you know how good I thought it was incredibly rare how could this be happening to us how could this be happening to can but you had seen it had you seen it seen the different personalities show themselves not not really to a great extent at that point the first thing that I saw and the most shocking thing that I saw was cam got up one morning and it was after we found out after having had a horrible dream a memory of abuse and he got up that morning and he walked downstairs and he walked into our son Kyle's closet his playroom closet turned the light on grabbed a sketch pad and some crayons and sat down and I found him in the closet sitting there well it wasn't cam at all it was Davie it was his first alter that actually came out and had memories of abuse and experienced abuse and Davy was writing some making some drawings that depicted that abuse and but I came in and found my husband sitting in in the the closet writing these strange pictures and it was a shock it was it was incredible that is amazing to a lot of us but does this happen to you often do they come out often every day every day they come out yeah yeah we made an agreement with Kyle early on we knew hell is your style as our son yes and he is now 11 and a half we made an agreement that he was number one our number one priority was to make sure that even though our family was just torn apart by what was happening to me mm-hmm that somehow we had to keep a solid foundation and raise him the best we could and I relied on Ricky because I was it for me it was like being in the dragged along the train tracks behind some speeding locomotive mm-hmm I was just barely hanging on and we we knew that we needed to have as much of a normal life for Kyle as we could and clay like to play with Kyle clay wanted to play with Kyle and that was a problem actually because we decided early on not to have Kyle experience too much of the alters it was scary to him he was uncomfortable with it he didn't understand it and so we we made an agreement actually kind of a contract with particularly the young alters that they could come out at night and talk to me and I would read them a story or when Kyle wasn't around I would go shopping with dusty as it's frightening for a child to see his father see yeah sure yes he used to call that going out you say dad goes out so he'd say cam come back and I would come back right away but there was that discomfort and children are so sensitive they they know what's happening they're incredibly intuitive he would just know it he'd he'd see it coming he'd say dad don't go out and I would struggle at first hi youtubers I'm excited to give you an update about our own YouTube channel now you can find new videos every day they're the kind of videos it'll make you look at life differently they may even make you laugh a little bit subscribe to the own Channel today and we'll see you on YouTube

Channel: OWN

Views: 854,530

Rating: 4.8126721 out of 5

Keywords: Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Network YouTube, Oprah Where Are They Now, full episodes, Super Soul Sunday, Oprah Winfrey Show, Have and Have Nots, If Loving You Is Wrong, Iyanla Vanzant, Livin Lozada, Oprah Life Class, #oprahwinfreyshow, The Oprah Winfrey Show, oprah interview, maya angelou, Cameron, Rikki West, multiple personality disorder, Cameron's treatment, 24 distinct personalities, unforgettable interview, astounding story, dissociative, 24 Personalities

Id: u8vZiJW7lzs

Length: 11min 36sec (696 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 23 2019