Podcast: Multiple Personality: “We are not a remnant”

Some realities are far from what we can imagine, and yet they are part of our reality and our society. The author Hannah C. Rosenblatt lives a life as many, as a multiple personality. People with different personalities, desires and experiences come together to make up the person Hannah C. Rosenblatt. The person who determines their thoughts and actions changes. Many “I’s” lie in their “We”. Only one person comes to light at a time.

Hannah C. Rosenblatt has been doing educational work on dissociative identity disorder (DID) for a long time. Rosenblatt began blogging at the beginning of 2000, and since 2012 she has been promoting the self-advocacy of many people and their issues in podcasts; Since 2019, she has been offering the self-help format “What Could Help,” in which she discusses exercises, thoughts and concepts that have proven to be helpful. She also gives workshops on the topic of violence and inclusion of disabled people. Your podcast “Many Lives” is another piece in the puzzle of the DIS world. Like her novel “written down,” the podcast “Many Lives” is not just a side entertainment.

»There’s nothing weird or broken about us. We are people with many lives, and that allows us to be visible.«

Hannah C. Rosenblatt

The individual episodes are far too complex, and are also challenging due to the multi-person narratives (often one person speaks of a “we”, but means the “I” in the “we”). But if you get involved with it, new worlds open up. First of all, there is an introductory episode, the so-called “zero number,” to introduce the podcast. Some with DID call themselves “survivors” because they have experienced extreme violence and are still experiencing the consequences of their trauma.

Instead of looking from the outside, the author prefers reporting from the inside. With Rosenblatt, no one has to explain their multipleness, as she makes clear in the introductory episode: “There’s nothing weird or broken about us. We are not a remnant. We are people with many lives, and with that we can be visible.«

Rosenblatt’s approach is not psychological; rather, she presents multiple personalities in their different lives. Rosenblatt responds sensitively to her interview partners. Little by little you learn which aspects shape your many life and how being many influences your life. Each episode has a different focus: a late coming out, public relations work on organized, sexual and ritualized violence, pregnancy and starting a family.

The first episode is already a leap into new waters. Because Johanna, who blogs about her dissociative identity structure under “some_of_many,” has her very own family model. She shares her three children with her partner and another couple. Rosenblatt asks specifically about self-determination during pregnancy and difficulties caused by being many, about internal conflicts and the birth itself, experiences of violence and trigger moments.

Johanna speaks openly about trauma and therapy and how she deals with gaps in her memory. Rosenblatt wants to know what equal parenting means for Johanna. The concept of co-parenting does not fade into the background, but rather completes the picture of a rather unusual model that Johanna has found for herself in order to master her life as a mother.

After Johanna, the graphic designer Felix Meer talks about her late diagnosis and tells how she came out as many via the webcomic “Püppi & Tante” more than 20 years after her love coming out. At the same time, you learn a lot about graphic design and alienation through abstraction.

You notice how much work goes into “Many Lives.” The podcast, financed by donations, is a project of the Phoenix Initiative, the federal network for appropriate psychotherapy. So far, three episodes and one special episode about life with DID have been published, which show that the image that exists in society of these people should be thought of in a much more diverse and free manner than it is communicated.

»Many Lives«, available on all common podcast platforms.