A doctor with dissociative identity disorder said she spent years struggling with the voices in her head before she found help

• Dr. Shelley Kolton said she was sexually abused as a child by members of a cult.
• She told Insider she dissociated from the pain by adopting more than 30 identities known as "alters."

Days after Dr. Shelley Kolton excitedly shared the news that her future wife, Susan Shaffer, was expecting the first of their kids in 2001, Shaffer lost the baby.

Instead of comforting her distraught girlfriend, the doctor said she was despicably cruel. Shaffer would later tell Kolton that her face transformed into one of a stranger that night.

"What, do you think you're the first person in history to miscarry?" the physician, who has no recollection of the gibe, told Shaffer at the time.

"Get over it," she added.

She didn't know it then, but her violent mood swings were caused by dissociative identity disorder (DID.) The condition, formerly categorized as multiple personality disorder, affects 1.5 per cent of people worldwide. Experts believe that the syndrome, with symptoms such as memory loss, stem from early childhood trauma.

"It was mostly Susie who got the brunt of my stuff," Kolton told Insider, referring to her own "Jekyll and Hyde" behavior towards her spouse.

Now, after 13 years of psychotherapy, Kolton has written a memoir, "Brainstorm: A Life in Pieces." The book describes how she – and her family – dealt with the illness.

Kolton learned that she had suppressed traumatic memories from her childhood

Kolton, who is now 72-years-old, said that her mind was hijacked by more than 30 identities, known as "alters," who took control in middle age.

"It began with the feeling of noise in my head," said Kolton.

People with DID experience fractured parts of their identity that develop to protect their minds from trauma, Insider previously reported.

According to Kolton, she would "space out" when she was with Shaffer and their twin girls, who were born in 2003, two years after Shaffer's miscarriage. "I was disconnected," said Kolton.

It wasn't until 2007 that Kolton realized that she'd suppressed her early memories, including being sexually abused as a child. She said her parents, who routinely went on weekend trips, would leave her in the care of a family friend. She said he was the leader of a satanic cult who ritually abused her and other children in the basement of his house.

By the time she reached her early to mid-50s, her mind constantly "switched" between alters representing the victims of the abuse. She said she suffered from their emotional pain and gave them names such as "Little Girl," aged seven, and "Tommy," a 14-year-old boy.

Some of Kolton's alters were disturbing characters.

She called them Raven, Hate and Fuckface. "I'm not quite sure what distinguished them, but Fuckface was the verbal one who said the worst things to Susie," Kolton recalled.

Throughout her adulthood, the doctor said she was unaware she frequently adopted the voices and mannerisms of her alters, but said that, years later, Shaffer told her that she'd observed the habit from the start of their relationship.

Shaffer stayed with her spouse in spite of the insults. "I think she felt certain that there was another person inside of me that was going to heal," she said.

The OBGYN somehow managed to function at work - despite the turmoil inside her head

Kolton said she was able to hold down her job delivering babies and treating women because the doctor part of her identity was quite "functional and intact."

Fortunately, after consulting a number of experts, she said she was thrown a lifeline. Yael Sank, a licensed psychotherapist, diagnosed her with DID 15 years ago.

In therapy, Kolton learned she had dealt with her childhood trauma by disassociating from it. Then, during middle age, she'd subconsciously taken on altered states to "protect" her psyche.

A psychotherapist used a radical form of therapy called abreaction as a way to help Kolton heal

Kolton said she underwent a therapeutic process called abreaction to treat her DID. During the sessions – which, Kolton said, were "harrowing" – Sank helped her recover as she "switched" between her identities and relived the horrors of the past.

Kolton said Sank affirmed her by saying her past torture was real. "She kept telling me, again and again, that it wasn't my fault," she said.

With professional help, a person with DID can learn how to unite their fractured identities to function as one, Anthony Smith, a licensed mental health counselor, previously told Insider.

The treatment ended in 2020 when Kolton believes she was "purged" of the emotions she'd suppressed since the early 1950s.

Kolton said her wife and children were supportive as she successfully battled her demons. They told her they were relieved that her various identities had disappeared.

"They said: 'we love you, you'll get through it,'" Kolton said, noting that the patients and partners at her OBGYN practice backed her as well. She concluded, "I'm very fortunate to have a lot of good people in my life."