What You'll Get
The Issue: Life with a Dissociative Disorder
People with dissociative identity disorder often have two or more distinct personalities in control of them at different times, each playing a different role in their lives. The identities can exhibit strikingly different physical and personal behaviors, including speech, mannerisms, allergies, and even the need for prescription lenses. Those with dissociative disorders can have amnesia for life events and often hide their other personalities due to the fear of stigma. However, expressive therapies can help them learn to work with and reveal their true selves to the world.
The Campaign: Sponsoring Equine Therapy
If 50 people donate $10 to this Grassroots campaign, then An Infinite Mind can sponsor four people with trauma-based dissociation in an equine-therapy program. Donations up to $500 will be matched by an anonymous donor. An Infinite Mind partners with Stable Foundations—whose founder and CEO is an internationally certified equine-assisted psychotherapist—to provide a five-hour equine-therapy program for 8-10 people healing from posttraumatic stress caused by traumas such as sexual or domestic violence or military experience. Each additional $175 raised will sponsor another person in the program.
When people work with horses, they have to spend time getting to know the animals, grooming them, and communicating with them. This extensive bonding allows the animal and participant to bond, learning to trust each other. The reflection and calm afforded by that relationship can help people with dissociative disorders cope with their past trauma and learn to live harmoniously with their day-to-day symptoms. The program also focuses on life skills and coping strategies.
The Fine Print
100% of donations go directly to An Infinite Mind. Donations up to $500 will be matched by an anonymous donor. Donations are automatically applied. Must provide full name at checkout. See Grassroots FAQs that apply to this campaign. Merchant is solely responsible to purchasers for the care and quality of the advertised goods and services.
About An Infinite Mind
Jamie spent her entire life volunteering, working with preschool students who had special needs, terminally ill children, and survivors of sexual abuse. Then in 2005, she was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). After fruitless searches for support resources, she shifted her focus and humanitarian mindset toward helping people like herself, founding a peer-led support group for DID.
That initial group evolved into An Infinite Mind, an organization dedicated to educating people about dissociative disorders and dispelling the stigmas attached to them. Advocates at An Infinite Mind write articles for journals, work with trauma organizations and public institutions to unearth the realities of living with a dissociative disorder, and speak as both survivors and trained trauma therapists to raise awareness across the country. As part of its expanding efforts to work with trauma survivors on the ground, An Infinite Mind also plans to connect people with therapists and help them find ways to cover the costs of treatment.
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