I'll tell you a funny story. When I went out to Dallas to try to get to Dr. Colin Ross, I put myself in the Charter Hospital in Plano, Texas. Dr. Ross's staff told me he was setting up a pilot program for dissociative disorders there. I thought he would be involved in the therapy. Bad mistake.

But one day I was in group therapy with women who had a positive dissociative diagnosis. One of the women started crying because her insurance was running out and she would have to go back home. I asked her what the problem was with that. She said that her father and husband did not see anything wrong. She was afraid that she would forget about her alters. She was crying and it made me cry because I understand the loneliness and isolation. The women fell in love with me because of my male weakness.

A couple of days later they invited me up to the second floor where they lived to go to a birthday party for one of the women. She was my age and had five college degrees. She only remembered getting two of them!

So I went to the birthday party. They had crape paper and balloons taped around the walls. They had every candy that you could name along with soda pops. I got to talk to the ladies about their experiences with DID. I enjoyed it extremely. This was the first birthday that this personality was out for this woman. She would always switch into a child personality at most birthday parties.

The next day we were in group therapy in the same room. They had not taken down the crape paper or the balloons. One of the women came into the room in a child personality. She could not sit still. The therapist asked her who she was. Then the therapist said: "The child's name and said we are in a serious discussion now so-and-so, you need to sit down and try to pay attention." The woman who was older reached above her head and started playfully knocking the balloon over her head back and forth.

Two of the women were seriously DID. The therapist ask these women to share their experiences. It was horrible stories of the abuses that they went though as toddlers and then later wives who married abusive husbands. It was heart wrenching.

Meanwhile the other woman in the child personality kept playing with the balloon. During the intense emotional stuff going on with the therapy the balloon popped. I leapt out of my chair. The two seriously DID women went catatonic. All the other women were crying. It was the best proof of the validity of DID that I have ever seen.