Sunday, July 07, 2002

A mind in pieces

For decades, Sharon Simmons has struggled to keep her multiple personalities from taking control of her life.

By KIMBERLY O'BRIEN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   Sharon Simmons gathers stones.

    Big stones, little stones, smooth stones. She puts them in a pile. Methodically, carefully, deliberately.

    The task calms her. Safe in her yard, crouched near a creek, she focuses on the stones and tries to forget her demons.

    Her demons are many. And they're inside her head. At least 18 of them, each a distinct personality.

    Simmons has dissociative identity disorder, which means she has multiple personalities. The longtime Southeast Roanoke resident was diagnosed 20 years ago, but she's lived with it all her life.

    She has coped with the disorder more effectively at some times than others during her 53 years. But her memory is spotty. She doesn't remember her childhood. She can't recall the first of her four marriages.

    Since her diagnosis in 1982, she's drifted in and out of therapists' offices. She's had to deal with a skeptical sister, friends who haven't stuck around during the bad times and news that a former doctor was accused of implanting false memories in patients.

    After being fairly stable for about five years, her disorder took a turn last year when she began "switching" personalities more often. Then, last September, she was arrested on a charge of drunken driving.

    She says she wasn't driving - one of her other personalities was.

***

    Simmons was born Sharon Leigh Hayes on July 12, 1948, and grew up in Northwest Roanoke's Washington Heights neighborhood. She remembers little of her childhood except what she's seen in her grandmother's scrapbooks and learned from relatives. But there are glimpses of the demons - her 1964 yearbook from Monroe Junior High School is inscribed "Sherry Hayes."

    Sherry is one of her "alters."

    When she was 15, her mother died in a car wreck, killed by a drunk en driver who was fleeing police. She remembers her mother taking her to bars and says she thinks some of her alters might have emerged then - like Sherry, one of the flirty ones.

    She married her high school boyfriend in 1967, a year after graduating. The marriage lasted more than two years. he has photographs of him in an album, but she can't remember the marriage and doesn't know why it ended.

    She married her second husband in 1970. That marriage didn't last long either.

    It was 1977 when her blackouts got so out of control that she finally saw a therapist.

    "I woke up one morning, and I realized I had lost a whole evening," she says. "I thought I was going crazy. I

   was losing time, days, weeks, months. That's when it exploded."

    Simmons succeeded only in baffling her doctors. She married twice more, in 1979 and 1981. Neither marriage lasted long. (Inability to sustain relationships is a characteristic of the disorder.) She lost jobs for reasons she didn't always know.

    She'd visit the Vinton Moose Lodge, and people would call her by different names.

    In 1982, a therapist suspected Simmons had multiple personalities and referred her to Dr. Bennett Braun, a renowned expert on the disorder. She went to see him in Chicago and emerged with the diagnosis: multiple personality disorder. During Simmons' month-long stay in Chicago, Braun identified 10 personalities or fragments of personalities but noted she could have as many as 20.

    There was Sharon, age 2. Jeane, named after her mother. One who was angry and one called Fear. A clinging child. One who wanted to die and one who was seductive. Another Sharon, age 3 or 4.

    Braun later identified more: Chocolate and Carolyn. In one session, Simmons identified herself as "Gloria" when asked her name. Some personalities were right-handed, some left. There were both sexes and different races.

    "She's getting a flood of memories," Braun wrote in his notes.

    Returning home after the study, Simmons appeared in an article in The Roanoke Times.

    "My life isn't my own," she told the reporter, "because I don't have any control over it. I can't walk out of my house by myself without being afraid of what might happen or what kind of situation I might wind up in."

    In 1987, Simmons went to the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md., to take part in a week-long study of dissociative disorders and epilepsy. Doctors reaffirmed the diagnosis.

    In 1991, an essay by Simmons appeared in the book "Multiple Personality Disorder From the Inside Out." She wrote about her life being affected by her disorder, especially her social life. Her other personalities would try to seduce her friends' husbands and boyfriends. She was ashamed of situations she ended up in.

    People began to avoid her.

    "My personal life is in ruins now," she wrote. "I can't go out at night for fear of ending up with a stranger in my bed. ... The hurt, pain, depression, and loneliness is almost unbearable at times and it just gets worse."

    With therapy, Simmons' condition did stabilize. She held one job for 12 years, although she doesn't remember it all. She's been told she used to throw things, curse, slam doors - things she doesn't remember doing. She's held more than 20 jobs in the past few decades.

    In 2000, about the time her father went into a nursing home and she began having problems with her sister as well as people in her neighborhood, she says she "started losing time real bad."

***

    Multiple personality disorder, renamed dissociative identity disorder (DID) in 1994, is thought to be an effect of trauma in early childhood, possibly from extreme and repeated physical, sexual and emotional abuse. To cope with such trauma, one might "disassociate" himself or herself.

    Braun suspected that Simmons might have been emotionally and sexually abused as a child. Her father has said he didn't know of any abuse. Her sister denies there was any. Simmons believes she was abused but has no recollection of it.

    One of her doctors, Salem psychiatrist Conrad Daum, says he "tentatively" believes something in Simmons' childhood contributed to her disorder.

    Simmons' father, a former police officer who she says has schizophrenia and dementia, went into a nursing home with Simmons' stepmother in 2000. Simmons doesn't talk with them much. She has a strained relationship with her sister.

    "She's so cold to me," Simmons says. "Hopefully one of these days she'll come around to understand me."

    Simmons' sister agreed to be interviewed for this story on the condition her name not be used. Although she says she thinks Simmons has a mental illness, she says she doesn't think she has multiple personalities. She describes Simmons, younger by 11 months, as a difficult person who is nice when she wants something, mean at other times.

    Her sister says she's never seen Simmons demonstrate other personalities and has never seen Simmons "be anyone but herself. ... She uses all the medical lingo they've given her to justify her anger, her temperament."

    "If I had truly seen it, I would definitely believe she had it," her sister said.

    But a friend of Simmons ' says she has seen evidence of the disorder. She says it happens especially when Simmons is around men.

    "When she switches, she's a different person," said Kathy, who didn't want her last name used for this story. "She talks different. Sometimes she'll tell me who she is, sometimes not. She's a completely different person with the same face."

***

    On Sept. 16, 2001, Simmons had gone to both morning services at Riverdale Baptist Church. Later, she began painting her back steps, listening to a country radio station and drinking a beer while she worked.

    "The children were out and playing," she says.

    The children, meaning some of her alters. She says they often "come out" when she's relaxed and happy. Alcohol also tends to cause switching, and her doctors have told her to be careful with drinking.

    Simmons said she was feeling pretty good when her neighbor, John Watson, walked down the alley next to her house and asked her to go with him to get pizza. Simmons says she told him she wasn't getting in her car, but she ended up going.

    The memories from there on are hazy, she says. She remembers a woman handing them a pizza. She remembers being on the Elm Avenue exit ramp from Interstate 581, then at a gas station after she had been in a wreck.

    Simmons was charged with driving under the influence, refusing to take a breath test and failure to maintain control of her car.

    She says she became herself again that night in a jail cell. The next morning, she took a bus home.

    The next day, when Watson showed up at her door, Simmons called police. A few days later, she went to a magistrate and got a warrant against him for trespassing.

    Watson, Simmons says, has been a problem since last summer. She wrote letters to Watson and his brother last July, telling them she'd have them arrested for stalking and mental harassment if they didn't leave her alone.

    A "no trespassing" sign was already posted on her front porch, but on Oct. 11, Simmons taped a yellow piece of paper onto her door that read: "LEAVE ME ALONE and that means you. Go away!"

    Watson, 37, was convicted of trespassing in Roanoke General District Court on Oct. 16. Judge William Broadhurst fined Watson $100 and ordered him not to have contact with Simmons, even at her invitation. "She can't give you permission," he said.

    Watson said he doesn't think he did anything wrong. He said it was Simmons who invited him to get something to eat, not the other way around.

    "Something's wrong with her," he said. "Talk to her one minute, she's fine. Next, you don't know who you're talking to."

    Simmons appeared in court to face her DUI charge Oct. 17. She pleaded guilty on her lawyer's advice. It was that or plead not guilty by reason of insanity, and she says she's not insane.

    "All my other personalities are very intelligent people, just like I am," she says. "I'm not schizophrenic. I'm not delusional."

    Daum, who has been one of Simmons' therapists for more than a decade, said it's not unusual for people with dissociative disorders to get in trouble with the law. He calls it the "nature of the beast" and says pleading insanity isn't the answer. "Criminal responsibility is criminal responsibility."

***

    Over the years, Simmons has had a string of doctors.

    Aside from Braun in Chicago, none has had much experience with DID. linical psychologist Sam Rogers of Lewis-Gale Clinic, whom Simmons began seeing last year, said he was suspicious of DID as a general diagnosis until he had a DID patient about three years ago. He believes it now.

    "The situation she's describing is real," he said. "She's not making it up. It's not an excuse."

    Simmons discloses her disorder to people she trusts. She admits to her doctors that she needs validation, that she wants people to accept the disorder - especially her sister.

    Her sister said she became even more suspicious of Braun's diagnosis after learning he was sued by patients who questioned his techniques in the 1990s. He settled with some of them and had his medical license suspended for two years. He never admitted blame, and some cases are still pending.

    One woman claimed that Braun, once the director of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center's dissociative disorders unit in Chicago, used medication and hypnosis to convince her she had hundreds of personalities.

    Simmons points out that her diagnosis was suspected by doctors before she saw Braun and has been backed up by doctors since. Medical records confirm this.

    "He saved my life," she says of Braun, whom she calls a "fallen angel."

    Rogers said he's never had a reason to question her.

***

    The DUI had a dramatic effect on Simmons, emotionally and financially.

    She didn't receive jail time but was ordered to attend a two-month alcohol - safety program that cost $350.

    Court costs were $172. There was another $105 to reinstate her driver's permit as a restricted license.

    Her car insurance went from $42 a month to $135. And there's still the phone, cable and electricity bills.

    On disability because of her disorder and neuropathy in her legs, she lives on a limited budget with income from Social Security and her part-time job. She's filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy three times, most recently in May, and makes monthly payments on her debts.

    In late fall, she found herself resorting to the food bank for canned goods. Her church helped out, too. Her mobility was limited with the restricted license, and she didn't know how she'd find a job. She had lost a part-time job in September - probably because of her disorder, she says.

    She began to feel like she was back at square one.

    "I'm starting to switch like I haven't in five years," Simmons told Rogers during a therapy session in November.

    During times of extreme stress, Simmons has panic attacks, a common symptom of DID. For a while, she wasn't taking her medications for anxiety and depression because she didn't want to lose her driver's license.

    The combination of drugs she takes, which includes an anti-epileptic medication for her neuropathy, can help prevent switching, Daum said. Yet in times of stress, Simmons says, the alters come out, medication or not.

    That includes one named Rage, who wanted to die until he - she describes the alter as a big, black man - agreed to a "no-suicide" pact with Braun.

    But twice, she says, Rage has come out and tried to kill her while she was in her car. The most recent attempt was in August, when she steered her 1995 green Nissan Altima toward a telephone pole but managed to veer off and hit the curb instead. Her car was damaged; her seat belt left a bruise across her chest.

    Simmons said she'd like to see that personality "shut down."

    There are drugs to treat DID symptoms such as anxiety and depression, but Daum said there is no drug to treat the disorder itself. Past therapies have included hypnosis and the use of truth serum, but neither Daum nor Rogers believes in those. According to the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, therapists should instead use psychotherapy to bring about "an increased sense of connectedness or relatedness among the different alternate personalities."

    Daum said he doesn't encourage the alters to come out, but he does encourage integration, or letting the host be aware of the alters without allowing them to come out. The trend in psychology, Rogers said, is to help the patient cope with crises "and then move on with their lives."

    Even while on disability, Simmons says she always felt a need to work, so she's had part-time jobs whenever she could. In late fall, she began working for a Roanoke health services agency as a caregiver for the elderly and was given her first client.

    After a frenetic few months that caused many anxiety attacks, assisting 80-year-old Frank Griffin helped to center Simmons. Three days a week, she visited Griffin, who suffers from ailments that include vertigo and bronchial problems. Simmons vacuumed, cleaned, washed dishes and adopted Griffin's family as her own.

    She spent Christmas with Griffin, his girlfriend and daughter. She bought him socks.

    "She's so good with her work," Griffin said during one visit in January. "I've had so many nurses come in here. Some scared the heck out of me."

    Simmons told Griffin about her disorder. It didn't matter a lick.

    "Yeah, she's got problems, but she doesn't talk about them all the time," he said. "She says I've helped her all the same. ... I don't feel sorry for her for one reason: She's got nerves."

    Then, his eyes twinkling, he added: "I told her if she starts acting like a kid around me, I'll spank her."

***

    More alters have emerged since Simmons' diagnosis 20 years ago. Simmons now counts 18, although not all have names. Some come out more often than others.

    Sherry is a teenager who likes to dance, flirt and date boys. Carol likes to shop and will argue with Simmons in clothing stores about her choices. Jamie is a 12-year-old boy with blond hair who runs fast. Jeane, patterned after her mother, hates men and has physically hurt them during sexual episodes.

    There's Ms. Practical. One called Tearless who never cries. Another who won't speak.

    Shay is an adult protector of the child alters.

    The children seem dear to Simmons. She keeps stuffed animals for them in her bedroom and in her car. A few months ago, she got a subscription to Ranger Rick, a magazine of the National Wildlife Federation.

    "The children wanted this one," she explains, showing off an issue with a photograph of baby kangaroos on the cover.

    She suspects the alters come out every day. Sometimes she's not sure; other times she is, because she hears their voices.

    Because she fears she'll lose things when she switches, she is meticulous about record-keeping. She spreads her medical records, bills and other paperwork around her living room, and she keeps everything - from doctors' appointments to notes about her feelings - logged on a wall calender or scribbled in spiral notebooks.

    Simmons talks to her alters, trying to calm them when they're upset, but she wants a therapist who understands DID and could integrate her personalities.

    She tries to be optimistic, despite moments of panic and times of stress that bring her to tears and cause her to chain-smoke.

    In January, she began attending group sessions at Family Service of Roanoke Valley for people with dissociative disorders. She says the group has helped. Members understand and believe her. And she recently learned of other therapists who might be able to treat her.

    She is happy that she has found people who care about her - especially Griffin, his family and her weekly Bible study group.

    She has plans that include writing a book, getting laws changed so that people with mental disorders can more easily get legal help and appearing on Montel Williams' daytime talk show (she wrote him a letter and was told producers would consider her story).

    But the demons still come out.

    She gets upset when she sees John Watson walking through the alley. A few weeks ago, she had his brother, Shannon, charged with trespassing when he knocked on her door. She says she got scared at the reaction from her alters, one in particular who seemed happy to see him.

    She worries she'll never find a therapist who can help her. She frets about her finances and visits the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services office in Roanoke every week to sort through her bills.

    She wonders whether she'll lose her job once people find out about her disorder.

    And she still tends to isolate herself because she says she's vulnerable to people taking advantage of her.

    "I want treatment, but that's the problem," Simmons says. "I don't have treatment. I don't have the money for treatment. But I don't want to be this way. I don't want to continue like this for the rest of my life."

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