Leading Character Experience a Form of Amnesia or Gaps of Time

36 personality which are not described, but all personality has its own life background also vary.

4.1.4 Leading Character Experience a Form of Amnesia or Gaps of Time

One of the characteristic of multiple personality disorder is experience amnesia or gaps of time. Richard P. Halgin and Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2009: 193-194 said that people with multiple personality disorder experience a form of amnesia, in which they have gaps in their memory about some aspects of their personal history. Some individuals have gaps that span years, or even a decade or more. Sometimes only when other people tell them about events do they become aware of something they have done or said. Memory in everyone’s mind is different. But, as a normal human being, we can still remember the events that already happened one or two days earlier even is a month. However, Billy is not able to remember the event, at the beginning how he could be in jail. This is an unnatural thing, because bad event is usually hard to be forgotten. However, Billy does not know about it. Billy Milligan has the characteristic of multiple personality, which are time gaps or amnesia. “Tell me Billy, why did you smash you head into the wall the other day?” “I thought I was dead,” he said, “and then I woke up and found myself in jail.” “What was the last thing you remember before that?” “Going up to the school roof. I didn’t want to see any more doctors. Dr. Brown at the Lancaster Mental Health Center couldn’t cure me. I thought I jumped off. Why ain’t I dead? Who are all of you? Why you lookin’ at me like that?” Keyes, 1981: 54 Billy looked up, startled. 37 What was he doing in class? How had he gotten here? He remembered getting up in the morning, but not getting dressed or coming to school. He had no idea what had happened between waking up at home and now. Keyes: 1981: 163 From the quotations above, we can conclude that Billy has amnesia, unable to remember things he had done. This is one of the characteristics and description of a multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. Amnesia is a form of memory loss, you cant remember what happened to you in the past. Barlow and Durand 2012: 197 said that people who are unable to remember anything, including who they are, are said to suffer from amnesia. Generalized amnesia may be lifelong or may extend from a period in the more recent past, such as 6 months or a year previously. A failure to recall specific events, usually traumatic, that occur during a specific period. Billy is not the only one who experience amnesia or gaps of time. Another personality experience the same way. Billy as David also, sometimes has gaps of time. Here’s the quotation below: “I’ll tell ya. I don’t know everything. Only Arthur does. Like you said, I’m scared, because a lot of times I don’t know what’s going on.” Keyes, 1981: 25 David, he can’t remember not even know what events that has happening, unless he is at the spot. This is a multiple personality disorder characteristics, experience gaps of time. David, a boy aged 8 years who has dark reddish brown hair, blue eyes, and a smallish. He is the taste of pain, it was he who felt all the pain the people that are lives in Billy Milligan. Even all the personalities that live in Billy, experience gaps of time. 38 Danny found himself outside, wondering what he was doing walking on the freezing street in a torn shirt and without his shoes or gloves. He turned around and went back into the house, shocked to see Jim in the doorway staring at him as if he were crazy. Keyes, 1981: 261 When Allen woke up the next morning, he had no idea what had happened. He saw the money in the drawer and it worried him, but he couldn’t reach Tommy or Ragen or Arthur or anyone else for an explanation. Keyes, 1981: 229 “What do you mean by ‘loses time’?” Judy asked. “It happens to all of us. You’re someplace doing something. Then suddenly you’re someplace else, and you can tell that time has passed, but you don’t know what happened.” Judy shook her head. “That must be awful.” “You never get used to it,” Allen said. Keyes, 1981: 33 Milligan as the leading character has all the characteristics of multiple personality disorder. Such as amnesia, has at least two or more distinct personalities, and on each personality has its unique history, behavior, age, and gender. Kluft 1987: 48 explain a precipitating factor is one that can be identified as being antecedent to the initiation of a set of intrapsychic processes and structures that lead to the formation of a new personality. The diagnosis of multiple personality disorder is usually made long after the personalities become separate.

4.2 The Causes of Multiple Personality Portrayed in the Novel The Minds of