About Holly Gray, Author of Dissociative Living Blog
My name is Holly Gray. I live in the Pacific Northwest United States with my 11-year-old son and a cat named Alex P. Keaton. My life has been a search for identity and a series of 180 degree turns that baffled and frightened me. I have been in and out of therapy since I was 14 and up until five years ago, found very few answers in the therapeutic process. I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder in early 2005. I wrestled with the diagnosis for several years before finally coming to terms with it. In doing so, I learned and unlearned a great deal about dissociation and DID.
Popular understanding of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is heavily laden with mythology that gives way to misconceptions and sensationalistic stereotypes. And while there are grains of truth in those stereotypes, distilling fact from fiction can be a monumental chore. I am convinced that it wouldn’t have been nearly the struggle it was for me if there had been more accuracy and less drama in both the mental health community and the general public's awareness of DID.
Today, I am a writer and DID awareness advocate. The focus of my work is humanizing and demystifying DID. I publish Don’t Call Me Sybil, a blog I created to address what I believe are myths about DID, and to share some of my own hard-won clarity around the more confusing aspects of it.
I am very pleased to join the blogging community here at HealthyPlace. I hope to provide a fresh perspective that challenges some of the assumptions about DID and offers compelling alternatives to existing erroneous impressions about dissociative living.
Dissociative Living Blog Welcome Video
Want to know more about Holly Gray? Watch this video on Dissociative Identity Disorder; what it was like for Holly to discover she has DID.
You can connect with Holly Gray on Google+, Twitter and Facebook.
APA Reference
Gray, H.
(2010, July 22). About Holly Gray, Author of Dissociative Living Blog, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, May 1 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/dissociativeliving/2010/07/about-holly-gray
Author: Holly Gray
I think you are one very 'together' lady - i realize that's kinda oxymoronic, but it's true. i found your videos on YouTube just looking around at mental disorder vids. they are very well done and you are so calm and assertive and you could give a lecture at a college. so your book is on-line now. i do hope you get published, (cause then you'll get some of that money stuff :)
I think you are doing a great thing by making those videos and writing your blog. And you answer everyone's questions. It's a very secure feeling reading or listening to you. I don't have DID, but i'm a bit bipolar, have depression, and generalized anxiety (which is not as mild as it sounds). It's something I've had to deal with my whole adult life (and now I'm my older 60's).
(I know of a psych publishing company, but I have to go look it up. They are located in San Fransisco and are well known in the field.)
Hi Holly are you still out there in the blogoshpere? I see the last date is a couple years old. You have put together the finest body of work concerning DID in my opinion. You are able to really see it from the inside. I appreciate your great work! Thank you so much it has been extremely helpful to me and so much of what you say really hits home. I have DID as well, I've read many books and researched videos, I have a great therapist but nothing rings as true as your blog
I agree with Victor. I really like that it is written in plain English and easy-to-understand. The diagnosis itself it confusing enough as it is, and then the ways therapists describe stuff makes little sense sometimes. You present a clear picture of what it's like to live with DID. I'm grateful to find this blog, keep up the excellent work.
Hi Holly Gray,
I recently lost a friend to mental illness and this has inspired me and a couple friends to start a awareness and fundraising project. Our aim is to raise awareness and money for mental illness, for it needs so much more recognition in today's society.
Check out our website: inmindofviolet.co.uk
and our fb page www.facebook.com/inmindofviolet
Any promotion would be much appreciated. We are going to do a variety of creative projects to help our cause.
Many thanks.
Hi holly , i was wondering if there was any way to contact you via private message , i connect with you on so many level , have been recently told i have DID and am nervous to post personal info for others to see. Thank you for all you do , im so stuck and lost.
Kay, Holly no longer writes this blog. I am not sure if she still reads it, but if there is anything you need and I can help with, feel free to reach out to me.
OK. I am going to take a chance and not think of myself as crazy for doing this, no offense to any one. A year ago I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder (Recurrent Episodes: Moderate), and ADHD : Predominantly Inattentive. I am now 32 years old. Been taking meds as directed by my psychiatrist. In April I got out of the shower and look at the mirror, and could not recognize myself. Like I was looking at a stranger. Then I snapped back. Then days after that it happened again. I'd say a total of 6 times it's happened. Now I have been having trouble remembering conversations I had with my wife. Or she would say don't you remember saying that? I literally have no clue what she is talking about, which results in a fight. My moods have been swinging more often. I get headaches off and on despite taking a motrin. And despite being medicated, I feel the anxiety again! What is going on?! I don't hear voices, am I supposed to hear voices? Then I guess you can say this was the icing on the cake. A coworker accidentally hit me in the eye with a rubber band, and I just completely flipped out! Cussed him out! I had to take a walk. But when I came back to work it's like I never got mad, but yet I feel this anger inside toward this person. I thought I got over it? I see my psychiatrist June 1st. I am going to be completely honest, I have no idea what or how to bring this up, because for the past year everything has been great. All input is welcome please.
Hello Holly,
I have OSDD but sometimes I wonder if I'm faking it or if my alters aren't separate personalities at all, which is a troubling thought. Because I only really discovered my system in my teenage years, I wonder if it was present before that. I know I have one very distinct memory of severe physical trauma when I was around 6-8 years old (which is what my brain returns when I ask myself "how did we form?") but my alters were not really active until around age 14.
So I want to know if you think my system is real or if I really am just making it up somehow.