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One year after the launch of the newsletter First Person Plural had 59 subscribers. The steering group of four had already begun discussing plans to produce plain English information booklets on dissociative disorders. These plans were a long long time in gestation but finally came to fruition in 2002 with the publication by Mind of a booklet written by myself in consultation with members of FPP. More about this on page 3.
During our second year, responding to a demand from some of our readers, we introduced membership (as opposed to simple subscription to the newsletter). Members, who had to have personal experience of dissociative distress, were offered optional additional benefits for a small membership fee paid in addition to their newsletter subscription. One of these benefits was a Contact List, which we started in response to requests from readers. The List was an opt-in benefit but even so the decision to publish a Contact List was not taken lightly. Not unaware of the potential for misuse of the Contact List and very much aware of the great risks such misuse could bring to survivors who experience dissociative distress we gave very careful thought to balancing the benefits against risks and individual’s responsibilities and rights to take risks against our collective responsibility. We produced guidelines which outlined the risks and ways of reducing these risks because we wanted people opting in to make an informed choice. We gave the option for entries in the List to be completely anonymous using pseudonyms and the FPP address as a mailing address. In the spirit of encouraging informed choice we published in the newsletter letters expressing concerns and again highlighting the potential risks of the Contact List and gave people a last minute chance to withdraw their details before the List was published. No-body did. Those opting in to the Contact List have been comparatively few but four years after it was introduced we still receive feedback about how much it is valued and the benefits people have had from contacting other people who experience dissociative distress. We have had no reports of misuse of the List. In the current edition only three entrants have chosen to use pseudonyms and/or use the FPP address as a mailing address.
Also during our second year (the length of an FPP year, by the way, is in keeping with a dissociative perception of time – it can be anything from 10 to 18 months) we had our first brush with the media. Unfortunately, this was not a positive experience for us and has left us wary of involving our members in media work although we continue to be approached from time to time. Researchers for the Horizon programme contacted us in late 1998. Myself and a few other members spoke on the phone and in person about our experiences of living with DID. These individual conversations had been well managed and generally positive although one member had been left with the impression that she was not ‘entertaining’ enough. Naturally these interviews had not been easy for any of us. However, the programme makers opted not to use any material from British survivors and filmed entirely in the USA. The final programme broadcast in November 1999 made it obvious that they’d never had any intention of dealing with the subject in a balanced way and the fallout for some of our readers – both those who had spoken with the researchers and those who had not – was devastating.
Throughout our first years the First Person Plural newsletter has been the constant and the primary focus of our energies and time. This remains true today. The newsletter, which was recently renamed “Rainbow’s End”, is at our core and is the only way that the majority of our members and subscribers are involved in our work. However, as has been seen our activities have not been restricted to publishing the newsletter.
Into the 21st Century
By June 2000 our membership stood at 100 and has increased steadily since. In September 2000 we held our first ever members-only meeting. It was in Birmingham and attendance was gratifying with those who did attend reporting a moving, enjoyable and valued time spent together. For some it was the first time they had met anyone else who shared their dissociative experiences. For First Person Plural it marked a new step in our development as for the first time we had ideas for activities being proposed and discussed by members other than the steering group.
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