I’m not a religious person, but reading about the strange, sad end to the life of an actor Anne Heche has reminded me to pause for a moment to reflect on my own good fortune. As detailed in my upcoming book Daddy, I’m a trauma survivor who went through years of instability as a result of PTSD, depression, and addiction issues. Through a combination of luck, effective treatment, and perseverance, I’ve been able to successfully maintain a stable and fulfilling life for many years now.
While I don’t pretend to know exactly what caused Heche to crash her car, I was aware that she’d been open in the past about her mental health issues and other personal struggles.it was in the wake of her terrible car crash and death that I learned the details of her traumatic childhood and off-balanced adulthood.
During the 1990s, Heche’s career was on an upward trajectory, her celebrity culminating in a high-profile relationship—and break-up—with a newly out-of-the-closet Ellen DeGeneres. In the intervening years she worked regularly, but not in big-budget movies with A-list actors. Though not completely forgotten, for most she inhabited a sphere that might be described as oddball has-been.
In 2001, she published a memoir in which she discusses her ultra-religious and highly unstable family. In an interview with Barbara Walters to promote her book, Heche shared graphic details about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father: ”He raped me… he fondled me, he put me on all fours, and had sex with me.” She maintains her father even gave her herpes—a fact that her mother tried to shrug off as diaper rash. Her father later died of AIDS while her mother became a Christian therapist specializing in “conversion” therapy for gay people.
In response to her sexual abuse, Heche describes a fragmentation of her identity—transforming into another person who lived in a “fouth dimension.” "I had a fantasy world that I escaped to. I called my other personality Celestia… I believed I was from that world. I believed I was from another planet.” Heche says Celestia was a reincarnation of God who “spoke a different language and had special powers,” including the ability to speak to the dead.
"You name it, I could do it. I could see into the future. I could heal people… I don't know where it came from. I was, in my mind, learning it from God." To further escape her traumatic childhood Heche reveals, "I drank. I smoked. I did drugs. I had sex with people. I did anything I could to get the shame out of my life."
Even by today’s standards, Heche’s candidness is at once remarkable and troubling. Often, trauma survivors are met with mockery, disbelief, or a discounting of their experiences when they are completely open with others. Heche’s disclosures were brought to light in the context of a highly publicized incident in which she was found—the day after her breakup with DeGeneres—deeply confused and wandering from door-to-door in Fresno, California. After a stranger took her in, she made herself at home by taking a shower and getting comfortable on the couch. "I was told to go to a place where I would meet a spaceship. I was told in order to get on the spaceship that I would have to take a hit of Ecstasy… Fresno was the culmination of a journey and a world that I thought I needed to escape to in order to find love." According to Heche, she regained her sanity that day and began to put the fragmented pieces of her life in place. She tells Walters—a bit desperately— "I could not be more elated with my life.”
Unfortunately for Heche, this was not the end of the story. How could it be? Trauma of this magnitude doesn’t just disappear as a result of a crisis. While I’m not in a position to offer a diagnosis based on a single interview with a person I never met, the symptoms Heche described sound sadly familiar.
Childhood sexual abuse of an incestual nature can sometimes lead to dissociative identity disorder—or what used to be referred to as multiple personality disorder. Under the normal processes of PTSD a victim vacates their normal flow of consciousness to mentally escape to another place as the abuse occurs. When memories of the abuse are triggered, this mental escape process can occur over and over. In extreme situations, a person can split off into multiple personalities— referred to as alters—with their own distinct storyline and reality.
Heche states emphatically in her interview that “I’m not crazy.” Unfortunately, this is exactly what many people think when they learn about some of the strange effects of trauma response. This is not helped by the fact that during periods of dissociation a person’s normal capacities for memory are disrupted. Heche tells Walters, "I think it's always hard for children to talk about abuse because it is only memory. I didn't carry around a tape recorder … I didn't chisel anything in stone … Anybody can look and say, 'Well how do you know for sure?' And that's one of the most painful things about it. You don't."
This uncertainty leaves others questioning the validity of the stories of abuse. Many are accused of making everything up for personal gain. At the time of the interview, Heche's sister, Abigail, wrote: "It is my opinion that my sister Anne truly believes, at this moment, what she has asserted about our father's past behavior; however, at the same time, I would like to point out that Anne, in the past, has expressed doubts herself about the accuracy of such memories. Based on my experience and her own expressed doubts, I believe that her memories regarding our father are untrue.”
The range of reactions to Heche’s death mirrors how people respond when a trauma survivor's symptoms lead to self-harm or other tragic consequences. For some there is a sense of shock and feelings of sympathy. For others, there is incredulity: they may be reminded of their own experience with a traumatized person who can’t get their life together; some may be triggered by a person of privilege “throwing” their life away; others focus on the dangerous selfishness of someone driving 90 miles per hour through a residential area and into an occupied house.
Amazingly, Heche purchased a wig right before she crashed her car. In an interview, the owner of the boutique describes their encounter as generally unremarkable. He is clearly in awe of his celebrity customer and gushes over Heche’s warmth and interest in his business. His sense of shock that she would be completely out of control thirty minutes later is palpable. There have been reports about the possible role of drugs in so quickly transforming Heche from boutique customer to sad headline on the evening news, but if true, they are simply the culmination of a long list of byproducts of a horrific childhood that simply could not be overcome.