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The personalities of Billy Milligan
April 20, 2014
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Interest in the personality, or personalities, of Billy Milligan has not subsided for 40 years.
Billy is probably the most famous person today with a diagnosis of "multiple personality" (or split personality, dissociative identity disorder).
Video about Billy Milligan
The beginning of Billy's story
The story of Billy Milligan is amazing not only because there were not even 2, but as many as 24 personalities in his mind, but also by how violently events unfolded around this man when he was accused of robberies and rapes.
From that moment on, the events of Billy Milligan's life resembled a Hollywood movie, the script for which was written by a man with a very violent imagination.
This exciting and at the same time sad story began at the moment when Billy Milligan was in prison on charges of rape.
At first, in the eyes of the employees, he was no different from those criminals who wanted to avoid punishment for insanity.
Probably, Billy's story would have ended in prison or a mental hospital, if not for the attentiveness of one of the employees, who noticed that every time she seemed to communicate with different people, talking to Billy.
He must be a very good actor if he can not only change his voice, but also his facial expressions, habits, accent, and demeanor.
Soon more and more people begin to be interested in Billy's case, and many doctors are inclined to believe that this is not an acting game at all: different personalities who have settled in the head of this 23 year old guy really communicate with them.
Some of the personalities behave arrogantly, some cry and are afraid of everything and everyone in the world, someone is very rude and has superhuman strength.
24 personalities of Billy Milligan
After a long work of psychologists, it is possible to find out that there are as many as 24 personalities living in Billy's head, but only 10 of them are the main ones.
Another 13 were deprived of the right to control consciousness for undesirable behavior (that is, committing crimes or other bad things that could harm everyone else).
It is interesting that all complex issues were solved together by only two main personalities: Arthur, a refined, witty and arrogant Englishman, and Ragen Vadaskovich, a Yugoslav communist with a Slavic accent, who is irreplaceable in dangerous situations with great physical strength.
Among the other main personalities, there were everyone: a child who possessed consciousness when Billy was experiencing fear or pain, and teenagers interested in mechanics, and a lesbian (who, as it turned out later, committed the same rapes of women), and Billy himself, who was not allowed to control consciousness for many years, because every time he found himself in new places, he was sure that he had done something terrible (which happened more than once) and tried to commit suicide.
The unifying personality for all 24 was the Teacher, who, according to the others, taught them everything they needed.
Psychiatric clinic
It was obvious that Billy would not be able to stand trial in his "fragmented" state, and it was decided to try to cure him in a specialized institution under the supervision of the best specialists.
Gradually, the work began to bring results.
At first, doctors managed to "glue" the most similar personalities into one, thereby reducing their number.
Someone did not want to leave or let others in with the consciousness, but by agreeing among themselves and communicating with doctors, individuals gradually allowed doctors to move towards creating an "integrated personality".
Unfortunately, everything was not so simple, and at the slightest threat or excitement, many personalities fell apart again, and the work had to start all over again.
It is curious that almost every personality had its own specialization and its own talents: when Billy was hurt, a little boy felt the pain, and the other personalities remained calm, when it was necessary to get out of a difficult situation, Ragen or Tommy was involved in the case, who could deftly slip out of the handcuffs, and right before another suicide, Billy was literally pushed out of consciousness by another person, saving his life — he himself was sure that he took that very step from the roof of the house and died.
It is curious that almost every personality had its own specialization and its own talents: when Billy was hurt, a little boy felt the pain, and the other personalities remained calm, when it was necessary to get out of a difficult situation, Ragen or Tommy was involved in the case, who could deftly slip out of the handcuffs, and right before another suicide, Billy was literally pushed out of consciousness by another person, saving his life — he himself was sure that he took that very step from the roof of the house and died.
It is curious that the integrated personalities created by doctors by combining similar ones no longer had the talents of each of the personalities in full: the ability to do mathematics was not so obvious, the drawings were not so amazing: the specialization was beginning to go away.
Finally, the doctors managed to create a more or less stable integrated personality — Billy, and it was then that he said that for the first time in his life he was experiencing something similar to mixed feelings: before that, each of their feelings was peculiar in its pure form to one of the personalities and not at all peculiar to others.
Now, after years of litigation and treatment, Billy could stand trial.
Trial and acquittal
In the course of working with Billy and his personalities, it turned out that the rapes were committed by a lesbian Adalana, who thus tried to find love and affection that she did not receive in childhood, and the robberies were committed by another undesirable person who took possession of consciousness "illegally" while other personalities were "sleeping" immediately after the rape of the woman.
Billy was acquitted.
The cause of the disease
But why did Billie's personality break up one day?
Doctors who studied his history believed that, although the first signs of a split personality began to manifest in Billy from the age of 5, the main catalyst for the disintegration was the cruelty and pedophilia of his stepfather: in order to somehow cope with stress and not experience the full horror of what is happening, Billy's brain created special personalities responsible for the experiences, and then the personalities necessary for other purposes.
How did it all end
After his release, Billy began to live a normal life, and even founded a small film studio, but soon lost contact with his friends, and his current location remains unknown.
The article is based on the book by Daniel Keyes "The Multiple Minds of Billy Milligan", which was written at the request of Billy himself and from his words during the investigation and treatment.
See also:
Chimerism in humans
Heterochromia: eyes of different colors in humans
The Nazis: how to make biomass out of personalities
10 unusual syndromes in humans
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