Pandæmonium - Anatomy of the Sickness

Disclaimer

Before you start reading I would like to clarify that this story is a representation of inner states and personality parts in the sense of the Internal Family System or Schema therapy, all of which can be attributed to one unitary identity. This story is about PTSD, but it does NOT represent an interpretation of Dissociative Identity Disorder. By making this clarification, I want to ensure that my story does not contribute to the distorted and sensationalized portrayal of this condition.

Lyrics by Cradle of Filth and Jack Off Jill

About this story

This story is a partly autobiographical attempt to portray concepts of destruction and healing. In the process of treating my post-traumatic stress disorder, I worked with the concept of inner parts. By now, everyone is probably familiar with the so-called “inner child.” - this therapeutic approach is essentially a continuation of that concept and attempts to grasp individual parts of the self and their motivations in order to deal with them in a healthy way.

During therapy, it helped me to draw the parts I had identified in an exaggerated way; this is how the fragments of Pandæmonium came into being.

Putting this story on paper is first and foremost an artistic process that helps me sort out the things that have happened to me, and secondly it is an endeavor born out of a wish for my story to resonate with people who have had similar experiences.

Lyrics by Jack Off Jill and Blue Stahli

The autobiographical nature of it presented me with a seemingly insurmountable hurdle for a long time. I was still too entangled in the events that I can now incorporate into the story.

The idea for the Pandæmonium story is old, very old, but I couldn't grasp it and translate it into narrative form for a literal decade. The fact that I am now able to do so is thanks to intensive therapeutic treatment, which today enables me to view my experiences with the necessary distance and express them artistically.

Nevertheless, Pandæmonium is an idiosyncratic, metaphorical story with multiple narrative stages. One of my biggest challenges in the creative process is to present these different elements in such a way that someone who doesn't live in my head can understand them... And that sure isn't an easy task for someone who's lived in this head for their whole life...