Okay, so thereâs a relevant quote from Slatestar Codex here. (The link is to the source; attribution is a Thing.)
Basically, this one obsessive compulsive woman would drive to work every morning and worry she had left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house. So sheâd drive back home to check that the hair dryer was off, then drive back to work, then worry that maybe she hadnât really checked well enough, then drive back, and so on ten or twenty times a day.
Itâs a pretty typical case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but it was really interfering with her life. She worked some high-powered job â I think a lawyer â and she was constantly late to everything because of this driving back and forth, to the point where her career was in a downspin and she thought she would have to quit and go on disability. She wasnât able to go out with friends, she wasnât even able to go to restaurants because she would keep fretting she left the hair dryer on at home and have to rush back. Sheâd seen countless psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors, sheâd done all sorts of therapy, sheâd taken every medication in the book, and none of them had helped.
So she came to my hospital and was seen by a colleague of mine, who told her âHey, have you thought about just bringing the hair dryer with you?â
She would be driving to work in the morning, and sheâd start worrying sheâd left the hair dryer on and it was going to burn down her house, and so sheâd look at the seat next to her, and there would be the hair dryer, right there. And she only had the one hair dryer, which was now accounted for. So she would let out a sigh of relief and keep driving to work.
And approximately half the psychiatrists at my hospital thought this was absolutely scandalous, and This Is Not How One Treats Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and what if it got out to the broader psychiatric community that instead of giving all of these high-tech medications and sophisticated therapies we were just telling people to put their hair dryers on the front seat of their car?
I, on the other hand, thought it was the best fricking story I had ever heard and the guy deserved a medal. Hereâs someone who was totally untreatable by the normal methods, with a debilitating condition, and a drop-dead simple intervention that nobody else had thought of gave her her life back.
It is not a therapistâs job to make you normal. It is a therapistâs job to give you your life back, on whatever terms are acceptable to you. And if your therapist canât do that, you need to find a new therapist.
For some people, having headmates and/or alters is a debilitating condition. Theyâre losing large amounts of time, having trouble going to work and/or school, or hurting themselves or other people. In that case, they probably do need help, but I think most people who are getting fucked up by their headmates that badly are willing to seek out help on their own anyway.
Other people who have headmates and/or alters find it to be a neutral thing, or even a positive thing.Â
Have you ever been in a roommate situation where different people do different chores, because, (say) Kate loves to do the dishes, but canât stand to vaccuum, and Tobyâs the exact opposite? If Kate and Toby are headmates, they can wind up doing the same kind of thing. Headmates can also comfort you when youâre sad, remind you that your depressive or intrusive thoughts are not true, or help you deal with difficult people.Â
So, if youâre in that kind of situation, where your headmates are helping you to be more functional than youâd otherwise be? A good therapist is going to treat it like the hair dryer on the front seat of your car.Â
Sure, it is a Weird Thing. It makes you look a bit eccentric, and itâs not normal. But if having headmates keeps you from having repeated nervous breakdowns, helps you hold down your job, or makes it so that you can deal with your abusers? Then itâs a win, and a good therapist wonât try to âfixâ that.Â