Multiplicity can be a choice

First, I want to say that there is so much I have to talk about, that I collectively have experienced over the past week. I have come to an amazing place in my healing process where I feel absolutely confident that I will never again feel as bad as I did in the past--I will feel bad at times, because that is part of the human condition. But the horrible, hopeless despair is gone, and that degree of pain is unlikely to return. The joy and relief are incredible, and I want to share them with everyone I know. But right now, I'll just share the thing that made everything click for me. Maybe later, I'll write more about how it feels to be where I am.

So. Multiplicity as a choice.

I had inklings of this from the beginning, but I never realized it. Once I realized I was multiple, I knew it was important for me to accept it without shame. I knew that would be a vital part of my healing process, because shame is simply not an emotion that leads to healing. Shame helps to cement unhealthy patterns, and no matter how many healing skills we learn, the shame will undermine them every time. (But be aware that you have to go ahead and learn the healing skills, or else you won't be able to get past the shame. And try not to feel ashamed of being ashamed.)

If multiplicity is something that was imposed on me by abuse, it would make sense to say "well, then, my healing won't be complete until the things caused by the abuse have been healed." It would make sense to focus on "healing" my multiplicity.

That never seemed to work for me. Parts of me were very resistant to the idea of being healed until they couldn't be fully and discretely themselves. They never liked the idea other people described, of integration meaning that all of who the parts were got blended into one single person. Their experience is one of being individuals, having thoughts and feelings that are fully their own.

And when there was a focus on healing the multiplicity, it really got in the way of internal communication. Parts who felt they were more healed--the ones who had more access to healing skills--often felt invested in being the ones who led the rest of us. They did have a point, because everyone did need to heal. They were right about that. But they thought they knew the right way to do it, and on that, they were wrong.

So, awkwardly and uncomfortably, we did our best to accept our multiplicity. There was always some doubt, about whether this was really a path that would lead us to healing. Maybe we were wrong, a lot of us worried. Maybe we were slowing the healing process by defining each part concretely. Maybe we were so warped by our childhood, or so invested in some kind of, I don't know, exhibitionist need to be multiple that we were making the problem worse.

But at the same time, we were also sufficiently self-aware to keep checking on a simple thing: whenever we started to act as though we were all individuals in here, people who share a body and absolutely have to compromise, communicate, and cooperate on our mutual life... things would start to get better. The headaches would go away, we could get more done, there were fewer panic attacks and less lost time. When we started to act as though we were a singleton, we lost cooperation. There was more depression, more fear, we were less able to live the life we want to have.

There was still shame and doubt, though. We kept on ignoring the comments from the little kids inside, who insist that lots of people around us are pretty similar to us. We bought into the idea that multiplicity is caused by abuse, and that that it's fairly uncommon. Our shame led us to think that our sense that lots of people are multiple was simply a desire to feel like we had less to be ashamed about.

Then we realized something: what do we have to be ashamed about, anyways? We didn't cause the abuse. We didn't ask for it. We didn't seek it out. For the entire span of our life that we've had control over, there has been no abuse. When we have had a choice, we have chosen healthy relationships. So if multiplicity is anything, it's a lucky development. Our mind, for whatever reasons, gave us tools that allowed us not only to live through the abuse, but to achieve our goals, and live a healthy adult life.

Honestly, we suspect we were going to be multiple regardless of what happened, in one way or another. We might never have chosen to have our own names, and we certainly wouldn't have had to spend years in therapy to cope with being multiple. The problem isn't the multiplicity, and we've realized that more strongly than ever. What has caused problems in our system is that the parts have spent their lives coping with being abused. Healing has taken so long, because we're going through a bunch of different "people's" healing process, and we didn't understand that for most of the time we were working at this.

I started listening when parts kept saying "trying to become ex-multiple, for us, is like trying to become ex-gay." And we have strong opinions on that one, for ourselves. We *are* queer. We accepted that from the outset. We chose to be who we are, without shame or guilt. We didn't listen to the people saying we were only a lesbian for reasons outside of our control. We chose to embrace it. Even though we believe it was true for us from the beginning, we also actively chose to be who we are.

So why not choose to be multiple? It's gonna be there whether or not you choose it. It doesn't matter where it came from, it's there. And there are so many advantages to just going ahead and treating ourselves as a multiple.

When we accepted that we are different people sharing a body, we're holding opposites in our hands: we are one person, living in a single body; we have to learn to cooperate because what one of us does affects everyone here. But at the same time, we are individuals. We each have our own experiences, memories, opinions, and things we want out of life. We can become more fulfilled as individuals when everyone inside is able to understand that they are not the only one here.

The best example is from those times when things are fairly settled for our system. No one is having anxiety, no one is afraid or upset. And then whoever is at the front, if they haven't learned to accept that they are multiple, feels that they are the only one there, or (if they somewhat accept our multiplicity) they think they are the only one in front. So when deciding what to do, they will assume that their opinion is the most important one. "Do I want to check email or play a game?" they will ask themselves when they are getting on the computer. "Well, I want to check email, but I want to play the game more." So they play the game, not realizing that "check email" was a request put in by another part. It can lead to chronic frustration and lack of satisfaction for parts who are less strong-willed, and less able to claim the front. We've been realizing that this is happening recently, and it was a breakthrough in communication. It's really hard to communicate with yourselves if you don't believe there's more than one of you. It's difficult to communicate with people when you assume you know what they want or believe without asking them.

Somehow, this process led us to the notion that by embracing multiplicity, we were embracing something really joyous. It is as though by working to define each part, and accepting that we are each individuals, we were able to click together and accomplish integration of each of our individual selves. We could find all of the parts of ourselves we had assumed belonged to someone else inside.

And that can lead to an amazing realization. It did for us, anyways. We have a part who has been more suicidal than most of us, and who never lost that desperate sense of needing the pain to end. She would say--and we all often thought it was other parts saying this, but now we know differently--she would say "I need the pain to end; I feel like my choices are to continue in pain, to be dead, or to stop the pain." And her first choice was to stop the pain, but she didn't know how. We have finally realized, for us, that acting to stop the pain is all it takes to ease it. Going to therapy, sure, but also, we realized that we have the right to tell people to stop doing things that hurt us. And we have the right to act for ourselves, to reach out, to be honest and imperfect, and not always in control. We realized that there is more safety in taking risks than in constantly being braced for abuse that is no longer happening.

Growing up, we had no choice. We just lived through it, closed ourselves off to the pain, and did our best to survive. As adults, that pattern was ingrained. We would act to avoid things that were painful, and we would stop obvious hurts. But the hurts of isolation, the hurts of being around people who we care about who are hurting... those, we didn't know what to do about, or we were afraid to act.

I can't quite say which came first, deciding to embrace multiplicity willingly and without shame, or realizing that we can choose that third path: the path that leads to changing the rules so that we can be happy and fulfilled. Honestly, it probably happened simultaneously, along with a lot of other things. When we are able to listen to other parts, they will tell us some very healing things.

Whatever the cause, realizing that multiplicity is a choice, and making the choice to be multiple, somehow caused us to experience what has got to be integration for us. We are still each our individual selves, and we feel fairly confident that we've collected all the lost bits and pieces of who we were. It's been delightful to realize that a part who seemed to do nothing but provoke problems is also the one who finds nothing more satisfying than to fix things. Messing stuff up is part of fixing things, and Petra is dedicated to doing both of those things. Most freeing of all is how Why transformed into Tertia--she has always pushed us, in ways that felt terrifying to everyone involved, to find that third path, the one that requires neither living through abuse nor being dead. Her desire to end the pain was strong, and her desire to live a life without pain motivated the rest of us to keep up with the healing process.

Why do I call it integration, if we have not turned into a single person? Because we've realized that integration doesn't have to be--perhaps should not be--about everyone becoming the same. It's about finding a place for every part, and giving them an equal voice in the running of the system. It means that we take each part's needs into account, and work to make a life where all of us can be happy. We are one system, and we've never doubted that. But we are also a collection of individuals, and choosing to accept that has given us access to more strength and joy than we imagined would ever be possible.

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Dreams, part one: The Third Way

Usually, my dreams are random bits and pieces, the clutter of my subconscious. But every so often, I have a dream that is really coherent, and that seems likely to stick with me for life. They don't require a lot of analysis to understand them, because the meaning of them is really pretty clear.

This is one of those dreams. I had it when I was eight or nine years old.



Background:

We had been studying the book of Revelation in Sunday school. I remember sitting in the class, in the basement of the church. The teacher was describing all of the horrible things that would happen, and explaining how Godly Christians would suffer along with everyone else. She talked for a while about the Mark of the Beast, and how people wouldn't be able to buy anything or get anything without having it, but that having it meant going along with Satan, and thus, being sent to hell.

I asked whether God would really send people to hell simply because of getting the Mark of the Beast. My example was someone who was willing to sacrifice their own chance at salvation so they could take care of their children. The teacher sternly informed me that it didn't matter what your reasons, if you got the mark, you were damned, end of story. This simply didn't make sense to me, in the context of my believe that God is loving. The teacher said I was being disrespectful and too argumentative, and should accept that she knew what would happen.

So, a week or two later, while all of this was still stewing in my head, I had this dream:

The tribulation was happening. Horrible things were going on all over the world. Christians were suffering even more, because they couldn't pay for anything and didn't have anywhere safe to live, and no way of getting food. People were running around in terror.

Then I noticed there was a space ship. I started telling people, "You don't have to follow either the Antichrist or old Christian rules. God sent this space ship, and if you get on it, you can go to a new world. You just have to make the choice.

Everyone from my church denounced me as a tool of the Antichrist. The people who were following the Antichrist thought I was being silly and said what they were doing was too important. Only a very few people went with me on the spaceship.


Obviously, there is more to the dream than the immediate context. It's emblematic of the way that I do usually try to see a third option when I'm presented with an either/or kind of choice. It's always seemed to me that there is more to the world than binary divisions. Of course, this isn't how I interpreted it at the time, at least not in these words. But I couldn't help but believe that the loving God I believed in would provide an option that didn't require quite so much suffering and despair as my Sunday School teachers predicted. In the context of that church, I did worry that there was something wrong with me, that perhaps my soul was tainted in some way so that I would rather go into space than suffer on Earth. But I wasn't willing to give up my belief in the third option, the one where people were accepted based on whether or not they chose to be saved, instead of whether they followed some rules that had been written down.

I could swear I've posted about how fairy tales and fantasy novels saved my life, but I can't find the post, so I won't put a link to it. Anyhow, I think they did help immensely in allowing me to continue to see myself as Christian, without having to force myself to believe the things that the church we attended insisted were required beliefs. I am so grateful that I was able to maintain the faith that I think I really was blessed to receive, rather than having it tarnished by the warped beliefs of my childhood religious training.

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Memory: early signs of DID

I've been thinking about this subject a lot, and I guess it counts as a memory.

It begins when I was fourteen. There was an incident that I don't feel like writing about right now, but it really triggered me badly (although I didn't know what a trigger was, I did know that it made me upset in ways that weren't wholly related to what had happened). I headed out of the apartment about half an hour earlier than I had planned to, and I remember thinking quite clearly, and in a mental voice that I hadn't heard before, "You're really going to need to get therapy as soon as you turn 18 and leave home." I think that's the birth of the part currently known as the Analyst.

Given how few options I had, I just went ahead and went on with my life. But the Analyst began to be there in the background, keeping track of things, figuring out why the adults in my life behaved as they did, figuring out strategies to make my own life different.

A few months later, we'd moved, and I pretty much hated the new school. The classes weren't challenging, and I didn't have a group of close friends to make things more lively. At this point, I discovered that I could make places inside my head to alleviate boredom. I had a place where, as I thought of it, "the part of me who would rather be asleep can curl up and go to sleep." As the next year or so passed, I also made places inside where my essential person-hood, in all its forms, could be safer. Looking back, knowing I have DID, it makes a lot more sense that there were quite a few different "safe places," because different parts wanted different things in a hiding space. And it helped various parts to be able to consciously remove themselves from situations that might not be triggering, but where they would not be the best part to be present.

Around the same time, I was also getting frustrated with the fact that I seemed to be forgetting things all the time, and losing track of conversations I was having. So, being the Star Trek fan that I was, I decided to make a "computer" in my brain to keep track of things I needed to know. This is where I kept information about my schedule, when assignments and such were due, all of the various bits and pieces of information that make up daily life. I also used it to get a 30-second replay, so that when I had spaced out in a conversation, I could repeat the last 30 seconds or so of what had been said. I used this "computer" to store information I learned, random facts I wanted to be able to retrieve easily, pretty much anything that was information, with very little (or no) emotional content.

By the next year, when I was fifteen, I had also discovered a lot of little "tricks" I could do by concentrating. I paid attention, and realized that I could think several distinct things at the same time. It's hard to describe what I mean; basically, I'd noticed that there's thinking that is articulated into words, and then just thinking that is the bit before that. I noticed I could do thinking-in-words about multiple things at the same time (such as memorizing my locker combination, running through a list of French verbs, and holding a conversation). And, in the nerdy way I had, I put this trick to good use by also realizing that I could write two different things at the same time (one with each hand).

I've been interrupted too many times while trying to write this, and totally lost my train of thought, so I'll leave it at this for now.

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Coping with memories

Writing the memories on the blog has helped. I've been getting fewer flashbacks, and the parts who hold memories are able to just let them out during the time I'm writing, rather than filling the edges between my thoughts with everything they're holding on to.

At the same time, though, writing things down is bringing up a lot of fears. Yesterday's post, in particular, triggered a whole lot of terror. In therapy today, I mentioned that. But I also realized the terror was about the act of writing, and not that it was bringing up too many memories.

Why should writing things down be so terrifying? I know it's something I cope with, and I've been working for a while at getting myself to the point where I can write things down. I do believe at this stage that I'll never be able to write my dissertation unless I can write down my own history first; or, at least, I won't be able to write concretely about anything specific, without having the writing be so indirect as to evade my points completely, unless I allow myself to write down the things that keep me from being clear. (I'm sure that I'm now so confusing as to be completely incomprehensible. Oh well.)

So, the fear. I know why I am afraid of writing. My... family would look through anything someone had written down. They would read it, use it as a way of getting to know a person's weak spots. I think, but I don't know for certain, but given how triggered I get with it, that there were also threats about things being written that might be... incriminating. So I learned early on how to write down what I felt in a way that other people couldn't really understand. And I learned to obscure my points, so that I could deny anything someone might say about what I'd been writing about.

The terror remains. I get the same fears about speaking, and have been working through those as well. It used to be, when I got too close to something, my voice went away entirely. The words simply would not come out, my mind would go away, there was nothing there. I was terrified.

What is the fear? Rationally, I know that the absolute worst that would happen if someone in my family found out I am writing this is that they would get angry, they might not speak to me. Emotionally? I am terrified. I sense people beating me, hurting me desperately badly. There is a maelstrom of violence swirling in my mind, parts of me are certain they will be killed and end up spending eternity in hell.

Sometimes, parts wonder if it's because I/we/they are telling lies. But then, the fears get more intense when I begin to talk about things I know for certain are true. And, rationally, who fears violent retribution for being found out to be a liar? Who can manufacture nightmares and flashbacks and all of the symptoms of being an abuse survivor without going through it? If I don't even watch movies that have violent content because they are too upsetting, then where do I get these constant images of violence, if not from my own experience? I don't even watch the news because it's too violent, I skim over newspaper articles, I do what I can to shield myself from the violence in the world.

I would say it came from working at the shelter, but I had these fears before I started doing that. The terror came before I went into therapy. So, rationally, I know that the place all of the fear is most likely to have come from is my own experience. It's just very hard to accept that it's true.



I tend to look at my life symbolically. It's easier to cope with, if I think about my life as a piece of literature to be analyzed. So here's a memory:

When I was eight or so, a friend of the family gave me a Baby Alive doll. I remember feeling weird, uncomfortable about it, because the doll was black. I was embarrassed to have a doll that wasn't white, to have tangible evidence of my difference. At the same time, I really liked that doll. It was brand new, and it was a good doll, not the cheap, easily breakable kinds of dolls we could usually afford.

One day, when I was at school, my brothers went into my room, found the powdered food that went with the doll, and poured it into her mouth. Then they put in water. They were just playing, but it ruined the doll (and used up all of the food, which I had been carefully hoarding so that I could extend the fun of feeding the doll). She was filled with hard lumps of food, filling up her mouth, clogging up her insides.

This was upsetting on basic principle, having my things ruined by younger kids. But there was more to it. It was also upsetting in its symbolism. That doll, more than any other I had ever had, represented me. And when I was about two, I experienced something very like what the doll went through. Even though the memory of what happened to me was only an occasional nightmare at that point, I am sure it contributed to how upset I was over the doll.

The "nightmare" I had was of floating up near the ceiling. I could see the edge of the stair railing, and a table. At the table were my mother, my stepfather, my two older sisters, and a child in a high chair. I couldn't really see the child in the high chair, just hear it crying and gagging. What I could see was my stepfather's back, as he leaned over the child, forcing more and more food into her mouth.

I was a teenager when I discovered that this nightmare was actually a memory. My mother was planning meals, and I said something about how much I despised meatloaf, but I didn't know why. One of my sisters was there, and brought up the time my stepfather forced so much food into me that I threw up, a solid lump of meatloaf sitting there on my high chair tray, looking almost exactly how it had before it was put into my mouth.

What is particularly telling about this is that it wasn't the force-feeding that seemed memorable. That was common, with my stepfather. It was the way that particular incident ended. The things my family acknowledges and talks about are the incidents where something out of the ordinary happened. And the more I look at why particular memories stand out, the more I am able to accept that what happened day-to-day was, in fact, traumatic.

I feel the need to add somewhat of a disclaimer. I have parts who are upset by the fact that what I am writing down is just the bad things that happened. And they are right--good things happened, too. I don't write these things to say that my family were all horrible people who never loved me and who are evil. I suppose a benefit of DID is that I am able to simultaneously hold on to the knowledge that members of my family did their best, and did love me as well as they could, and also to know that horrible things happened pretty much every day. I am grateful to that ability to exist in separate parts, because I do love my family, and I don't know how well I could sustain a relationship with them if I were not so able to forget all of the things that happened when I am with them in the present.

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Lessons I need to unlearn.

First lesson: I could shield myself from the horrors of what went on, on a daily basis, by believing they were not actually that bad. I was constantly taught this simple thing: "You are not strong; if you can survive something, it isn't bad." I survived, so it wasn't bad.

Second lesson: We still hear, so often, that abuse is done by "Abusers," capital A. They are evil, or sick, or somehow different from you or me. So if there are good aspects to the people who treated me badly, if they did things for their own reasons, then it wasn't Abusive, it was just, I don't know, "hard." The things were done by people I loved, and who loved me. So it wasn't abuse.

Third lesson: If someone else survived with different, apparently more "functional" coping skills, and if other people survived things that were "worse," then I should be able to make myself be more functional, or not feel so badly about the things that happened to me. If someone else lived through something worse, I am exaggerating if I speak honestly about how my experience affected me.

Fourth lesson: If something is done with good intentions, then any negative effects I carry from that action are due to my own "over-sensitivity." The same thing goes for statements that are called "jokes," or any other form of emotional abuse. It is "over-sensitive" to object to racist, homophobic, or otherwise oppressive comments made to me, if the person making them is smiling as they speak.


I learned these lessons, among others, quite well. And I struggle constantly to acknowledge that, yes, what happened was more than just "a hard childhood." More than that, I really, really struggle to accept that I had a childhood that was "bad enough" to result in DID.

Nearly all of the things I have read about DID that make sense to me overall, also say that it's the result of "overwhelming" or "traumatic" childhood abuse. How could my childhood be "traumatic" if I lived through it? How could I forget something "traumatic"?

There is only so much trauma one mind can hold. Everything else has to go somewhere. People are lucky when they are able to process trauma as it occurs, able to speak of what happened to a listening ear. More often, and especially with children, no one is willing to hear. And so the trauma gets buried, until it can be dealt with. But the habit of burying emotions and experiences becomes ingrained, and continues long past the point where it is necessary.

I am no longer beaten for crying, but it is difficult to cry.

I am no longer beaten for asking for help, but the habit of self-sufficiency remains.

No one comes into my room at night any more, but I still sleep on guard.

These lessons were vital to my survival. If I had not learned them, I would not be here, writing. My family are not, and were not, evil, but they were not able to face their own demons. Should something extreme have happened to me, it would have been a tragedy, they would have been sorry, but it would have happened.

I have been in therapy pretty constantly since I reached adulthood. My adult parts are, on the whole, pretty healthy, normal people. They are the face I show to most of the world. But the lessons they learned, in adulthood, have a hard time passing through the barriers between parts.

I have been learning to accept that my younger parts really are whole people, separate from me. The fact that we live in the same body makes it very confusing, as much to me as to anyone else. And yet, it explains so much. It explains how the differences between parts are not just about mood states--each part feels the full range of emotion; each part has their own goals in life, which don't always correlate with my own (Mandy was saying just the other day that she wants to be a garbage man when she grows up, to ride on the back of the truck. Um, yeah. Sorry, kid. You're out of luck!)

It is difficult for me to accept that my "quirkiness" has an explanation that points to something more difficult than just being "moody." But the more I acknowledge it, the more I tell people who have known me for years what is happening, the more we all understand things that otherwise made no sense.

But it's a process, and while I started down this road more than ten years ago, I'm really only taking the first real steps now.

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You're driving me crazy (I love you so much)

I had a very vivid dream right before I woke up. I won't describe the whole thing, because dreams rarely translate well. But there is a part from late in the dream that is really sticking with me.

After many dream adventures, W. and I were at a dinner (or something) at the home of a family who are our friends. The teenaged daughter was having some kind of argument with her mother, about teenage-type struggles. At one point, they hugged. Her mother was looking over her head, and had the most poignant look on her face--simultaneous aggravation, frustration, and such a deep love and worry for her kid. The phrase that came into my mind, seeing it, was "You're driving me CRAZY (I love you so much)."

Analyzing things, as I often do, I can't just take this as a random dream. That it was this particular mother and daughter makes sense. The rest of the family is white, the teenager was adopted, and is black. It's not hard to see that, given certain similarities, the daughter represents me--I was also the only member of my family who was black (my family's approach to race was, shall we say, complex; they still insist that I'm not "really" black, despite the evidence of my skin).

I think her mother represents two things simultaneously--my wishes for connection with my own mother, and the need for my adult parts to approach the teen parts with that simultaneous love and frustration.

My mother was never simultaneously furious and loving. If we did something that upset her, anger was the only emotion present. I am realizing that my own discomfort with anger stems from never having seen it expressed appropriately in intimate relationships. I hold my anger in, because I am afraid that simply being angry means doing devastating harm to the people around me. I'm working on learning that it's not the anger that caused the abuse, but rather, how that anger was expressed. And I am working on methods of owning my anger, and learning how to let it out in ways that won't hurt anyone.

I am also learning that I need to love my teen parts, perhaps even more fiercely than I love my child parts. It's a struggle, but it's necessary.

It's early, this post makes no sense, and I have things to do, so that's all.

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Who have you met?

Yeah, two long posts, within minutes of each other. Sometimes that happens. Heck, it even happens when the same part is operating.

Lately, as I've come out to more people about having DID, they've been asking, "So, who are you?" or "Who have I met?" As the post I just wrote shows, this is a complicated question to answer. Much of the time, we're not quite certain ourselves.

So, if you know me, who are you likely to have met?

Well, first, the younger kids rarely come out by themselves around other people. It's hard to pretend you're an adult when you behave and talk like a little kid. They do show up in flashes, but they are not the ones fully in control. But Mandy (who is five or six) and Michelle (who is eight) and Amanda (who is eleven) have spent time around many of my friends, kind of in the background. Mandy is more likely, because Michelle and Amanda are a lot more shy.

The Teller (who is seven) doesn't tend to come out around people other than W. or my therapist, because she was created pretty much to tell someone about what had gone on to cause the DID in the first place. So a combination of long-time habit and general reticence keeps her hidden. More of the younger parts simply don't come out at all unless they're alone or with W. They're the ones who hold more of the direct experience that got me to the point of having DID, and given a choice, they hide pretty much all the time.

You may have seen the Story Girl, but she doesn't really talk much. She reads books and makes up stories of her own. Either her age varies, or there's more than one of her. Sometimes, rarely, she might talk about a book she's read, but she's really shy. Strangely, she's not the only one who reads. However, she is the one who, given a choice, would spend all of her time reading, to the exclusion of anything else. So if you've been around me at a time when I pretty much ignore you to read a book, that's probably her.

Of the teenagers, most of you have had the delight (hrm.) of seeing Jamie's effects on W. Mostly, you haven't met her personally, because as much as possible, we other parts try to keep her from ruining our relationships with other people. If you've been around me pretty recently, since the kids made the decision to "lock up" the grown-ups, you've possibly met Rynn. She's 17, and had previously been known as "the oldest runaway." It's been interesting getting to know her, and watching her make the decision to come out and participate in life. You've probably also met "Somebody," who is fifteen or sixteen, but takes over when there isn't an adult in the system who is capable of coping with something we have to do. She's also not an especially pleasant person, since her primary experience of the world is coping with things that are beyond her abilitities and doing things she'd rather not have to do. She's good at it, that's why she exists, but she's not nice about it.

You're most likely to have spent time interacting with the adults.

If you knew me in college, or in an academic setting, you've spent time with "the smart one." Basically, what she does is show up for discussions about intellectual things. As her name says, she's smart. That's what she does. She's actually pretty outgoing, so long as the topics of conversation are either intellectual or related to being in a classroom. If the discussion moves to something else, she's likely to stop being the one in front, because she doesn't have the information to deal with other parts of life.

You've probably also met the Hip Chyck. She's the outgoing, activist one. People who knew me in my early 20s spent a lot more time with her. She's very political, and spends most of her energy thinking of ways to change the world through social activism. Unlike the smart one, she is more impressed with knowledge for the sake of change than knowledge for its own sake. Plus, she likes to have fun while doing it.

You're perhaps even more likely to have met Cleo. She chose her name as a nod to what the system had been calling her before she was willing to accept that a system existed. That was, "Cleopatra, queen of denial." She chose the name because, in a certain sense, denial isn't always a bad thing, or at least, her role was not always bad. She is the adult who can behave as though everything is all right and under control. She has been learning that it can help to improve my/our situation situation to admit everything is not okay. However, there are times when it's handy to be able to act normally. Life is easier to get through when, sometimes, you function as though everything is fine, even though it isn't. It's sometimes okay to not be holding the knowledge of the abuse, simply because it's far easier to do something else when all of that isn't right there. So another of Cleo's tasks lately has been to figure out how to balance her initial role (denial at all costs) with her new role (holding things together, accepting what's going on, but also living regular life). It's kind of like she abdicated as queen of denial, and is now, I don't know, prime minister of denial. (Okay, I'm vague on the specific political terms, but you know what I mean.)

You're a little less likely to have met the Analyst (that's me), but if you read this blog, many of the posts are mine. My job? I analyze things, obviously. Specifically, I figure out why I or other people do things the way they do, and decide on a course of action that will give the best possible outcome. I try to figure out what does and doesn't work for me, and how to make myself get to the point of being mentally healthy. I tend to intellectualize things, so that I can understand them without feeling the emotional pain that goes along with the knowledge. I'm the one who started therapy, and who generally tended to go to therapy until last fall. This caused a certain amount of confusion, since I'm not exactly good at conveying emotions, and many therapists don't quite grasp that someone who can calmly say, "This thing is going on, and I'm upset about it," really means that they are upset, even if their body language says otherwise. In a lot of ways, I think I'm the grown up version of the Teller. And, like the Teller, mostly what I do is talk (endlessly) about the things I'm observing and trying to understand. It helps all of us that the internal censor has been increasingly less effective, so that we can actually talk about things a little more.

Another of the main adult parts is the Mama. She's pretty much like her name (although not as effective as one might expect in parenting my own internal parts). She does a lot of the nurturing, crafty kinds of things. She's the one who actually gets a lot of pleasure out of doing grocery shopping, housework, and crafty things. She is really good and patient with kids. She's the most pagan of us, and the one who enjoys keeping up with spiritual rituals. She's really grounded and calm. She tends to be a little introverted, but she does come out with people she/we know.

I guess how I will conclude this post is to say this. You may be wondering, "Which one is the real or original J.?" And, so far as I (or any of us) can tell, it's best to think of "J" as a collective term. We are all the real and original J. We'll all answer to that name, and it is still sometimes rather frightening to know for certain 1, who we are in the moment, 2, that other people know who we are, and 3, that someone might call us by a name other than the pre-approved collective name. It's a process. Stay tuned for further updates.

And don't worry. We're not going to get (much) stranger than the person you already know.

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Self-Analysis

Perhaps you would think that, having recognized that I have DID, and that I have different parts, I could then go on to solve the problem, and everything would be okay. All right, if you are me, you might think that way.

One thing I've been grappling with recently is this reality: my various parts really are separate. More than that, my younger parts really are younger. Jamie, for instance. Despite living in my body, we are talking about a fourteen year old. She has all of the reasoning skills and logic that are apparently normal for fourteen year olds. And when she is strongly present, my own adult logic and analysis of what will happen as a consequence of behavior just isn't going to carry over.

In theory, I was aware of this. I have known for some time that the reason I have such a hard time, despite knowing perfectly well what is causing me problems and how to cope with it, is that this information has not carried over to my various parts.

Pretty much, if only my adult parts were around, we'd be doing all right. Aside from all of us being rather type A and perfectionist, we're pretty mentally healthy. We are capable of trust, we understand how our actions impact our life (lives?). We are able to cope with our feelings, and to move on from mistakes (well, okay, that's an area that even some of the adult parts could use some help with).

But. The younger parts are not there. They are developmentally their own ages. And a normal fourteen year old just isn't going to use the same logic that an adult will. More than that, she cannot be held to the same standards as an adult, or expected to be able to have the same reasoning capacity as an adult. The same, obviously, holds true for the younger parts as well.

Part of why this is difficult for me to grasp is that, due to having these parts separated from me while I was growing up, when I was their age, I was far more adult. I constantly analyzed what was going on, and calmly and rationally made my decisions based on what would have the outcome I wanted. I was good at predicting the appropriate action for each situation. This had a whole lot of benefits. I fought less with my family, I rarely got in trouble, I did quite well in school, and I got to go to well and truly escape the frustrations and pitfalls of being a teenager, particularly of being a teenager in my specific family.

Last week has really brought home a huge part of what it means to have DID. Each part is pretty much like a separate person (not exactly, but, well, I can't put it into words). And each of us really does respond to the world in different ways.

More than that, I've been realizing that it's real. Yeah, this comes up a lot for me, but I guess that's just how I am. And this part of realizing it's real comes with realizing how important it is to get to know each of my parts, and for us to understand both ourselves and each other. It seems simple, but it's harder than you might think.

For one thing, for 32 years, we trained ourselves not to admit to anyone (including ourselves) that we were separate from each other. We never allowed even the merest thought of having different names to enter in, because if we had different names, it would be harder to deny that something had happened. If we were to recognize that there were different parts, we might start poking around inside the brain, and asking questions that were going to cause problems.

For the system to do its job, most of us had to be largely unaware of the full extent of what had happened. And if we knew about each other, we might start to talk. And things slip out when people talk to each other, particularly when they're trying to find out why other people are sharing their brain.

And if we were allowed to behave differently from each other, we might do something that would call attention to the massive secrets we were all carrying. Outsideople might notice that there were different people inside, and start wondering why. So even in matters of clothing and style, pretty much, we decided on one that no one inside had any huge objections to, and stuck with that. Whether or not every part especially likes the clothes, since we spend so much time unaware of our body even when we are in it, clothes we just don't think about were an easier solution. Plus, it saved a great deal of time when getting dressed, because otherwise, different parts would be arguing about what to wear or how to present ourselves to others.

We are only just beginning to accept how just because something happens with our body, it doesn't mean that a particular part was the one who was in charge. And, a lesson that's harder to understand is, it's actually a little important for us to recognize who we are.

I'm not sure why this is difficult. It's harder for the parts whose names are descriptions, rather than names. Like for me. I often don't realize who I am. It would be far easier if we had separate bodies, but we don't. And it would probably be easier if we hadn't spent so long trying to convince the world and ourselves that we are the same person. We're not good liars, so the only way to convincingly tell that particular lie was to believe it ourselves.

So one of our jobs at this point is to start recognizing ourselves and each other. Rationally, I know we'll be much steadier, calmer, happier once this happens. The people who are close to us will be able to recognize who we are, and we'll get to do more of the things we (as individual parts) enjoy. More than that, it will help the less assertive parts to sometimes get some of their needs met, if we're paying attention to who is getting things and who is not.

And it will help to keep parts from behaving unilaterally. Rather than getting to behave like they are the only one, and can make decisions for everyone without consultation, we'll have to accept that we're only part of the system, and can't decide some things without consensus. On the flip side, if we acknowledge to ourselves that we're separate, we can have the opportunity to make choices of our own, and express our own, individual preferences. When asked to make a choice or share our opinions, we won't be too paralyzed with conflicting information to give an answer, and we won't have to stick with the standard system answers, either.

And it will make relationships with outside people less confusing. Mainly, I'm thinking about my/our relationship with W. Within my system, we're not always good at passing on information, so W might have a conversation with a part, who doesn't realize it's important enough to pass on to the others. More often, I think, because we don't identify ourselves individually, if the parts are of a similar age, it can be hard for us to notice when we've switched, and if we don't notice, then there's a tendency for information to get lost. And, sometimes, a part will come in forcefully and disruptively, which will also hinder communication about things the last part present had discussed.

So it's a goal. We're working on it, and I, myself, am working on accepting that just understanding things intellectually doesn't mean I'm magically able to make something true. There is work that has to go on in the space between knowing the answer and making it work for me. Or something like that.

--the Analyst

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