Pillar of Salt

Sometimes, I don't know how my husband puts up with me. I've struggled lately to connect to him or anyone else, so much so that he started to think that I no longer loved him.

We talked and I told him that I felt frozen, frozen like a pillar of salt, like in the story of Lot and his wife, which by the way, I really, really hate that story because I don't think that God would have ever had one of his daughters have sex with their father. This is a scripture that can become quite twisted by people who justify sexually abusing their children. In fact, I'm sure my own father probably used this scripture for his own evil purposes. It should be stricken from the bible.

End of mini-rant and back to my story. We talked and we've both been trying harder to connect with each other, which once again proves to me that I married the right man. He is a saint in how he is willing to be patient, kind, and gentle with his bent wife. I really would not want to be married to me, yet he hangs in there and treats me with love and respect and helps me to continue the healing process.

I am thankful for this man.

no-one to the rescue

I know that most of my posts since this summer have been sad because I've been sad - really sad. It has been a hard six months, but I've noticed over the last few days that my energy level is coming back up, and I've stopped crying on my way to work every day.

Is my depression lifting? I asked myself, "Are you sad?" Answer, "I don't know."

"Are you happy?" Answer, "I don't know."

I don't feel happy or sad or love or anything - except when I am in my classroom because that is the only time lately that no-one isn't out. I'm glad she recognizes that she isn't needed in class.

no-one is my alter who doesn't feel - she did feel once - but it quickly passed. no-one usually isn't out for extended periods, but with all the madness going on in our life and the world, no-one had to step in. The suicide this summer of my niece, the suicide attempts of a loved one since, the near-death experiences of two other family members, the suicide of a family friend two weeks ago, and then the horror in CT was too much for my system. It was time for an emotion shut-down. I was too depressed and tired to get anything done.

I wonder if this is what it feels like to be medicated for some mental illnesses or disorders. I really don't feel anything; I am completely numb. However, I can see that after a while I wouldn't like not feeling. This also helps me understand why those with bi-polar disorder go off their meds. I am an emotional flat-line right now - no highs or lows.

For now I am okay with this. The depression, worry, and anxiety were getting way too bad, almost to the point I thought I'd have to quit my job and stay home all the time because I was so afraid something bad would happen while I was at work, and I wouldn't be available to whoever needed help.

Thank you, no-one. Stick around for a bit while the inside heals. Alters really are created to keep the system alive and functional.

Who Chose This?

While reflecting on life choices - manly men I dated - I wondered which alters picked which men. This started while thinking about my ex-husband and feeling sorry for him for the confusion he must have felt while being married to me.

When I married him, I was young and still undiagnosed with DID. He must have been so mixed up at times. My current husband has commented that being married to me is harder than he thought it would be. He still feels it is worth it though. I am a lot more stable now than during my first marriage. My alters communicate with one another, which helps a lot, but still, all of my men choices were made before I knew about my alters.

As I went through the list, I realized that the shortest relationships were those when only one or two alters chose the man. I have had a lot of internal dialogue asking, "Who chose him?"

"I did."

"Well, you would."

"He was awful."

"No, he was fun." and so forth.

One man asked me out for a year before I said yes. He only appealed to the teacher alter. He made me think, and he was smart. He was also emotionally unstable and very loud which annoyed the hell out of several other alters. We dated for about six months, which surprises me now, but I did learn a lot from him.

Certain alters chose dates based physical characteristics, and that seldom lasted long. Others chose based on what they needed at the time. It is a miracle I ever chose anyone to marry.

Imagine the poor guy who was liked by one alter but hated by a different alter. He is feeling the love, but the next time he sees me, a new alter can't tolerate him and dumps him.

My current husband was chosen by 9 of my 13 alters, which is, I think, a pretty high number of alters agreeing on one person. If I had known about my alters before choosing him, would have chosen anyone at all to be with? I have two alters who have no interest in him, and one alter who likes him because he buys good food, but other than that ignores his presence and rolls her eyes at him if she is out. Nine of the alters like him a lot - for many different reasons. On the whole, he is good for my system and helps everyone feel safe.

Now I find myself questioning my life choices and asking myself, "Who chose this, and is this choice really in the best interest of the system." I can't think about just one alter. All of us need to feel like we are a part the whole in order for the system to function well. I know most working mothers feel like they perform a balancing act in order to do it all. I also feel that work hard to give my others balance. I may need another alter just to balance alters (joking – sort of) :) Maybe this is true cloning - we look the same (on the outside) but we all have different responsibilities.

I guess DID is the real way to be more than one person. I knew DID was a superpower; however, I think my poor husband who has to put up with 13 different personalites is the real superhero.

Annie

Little One

Alone she hides in the cold white dark

shivering

until the silent scream starts and others come to shush her

trying to keep her and them safe from strangers who hurt and mar

stuffing the scream back inside before it can be heard

 – never heard outside,

choking her with bitter fear and darkness

inside a white ghost of a girl.

"Better off Dead"

Listening to Adults talk:

“Such a shame.”

“A horrible crime.”

“Ruined.”

“Better off Dead.”

If she’d remembered then, would she have felt virginity is valued above all?

Even more so than self?

Even more than an eight-year-old's joy of trees and flowers?

Even virginity ripped away in violence instead of gifted in love or passion?

Worth more than life?

Ruined?

Am I Ruined?

Did the littles remember and hide even deeper, so they would not be, “Better off Dead?”

Or

Did she think, “If someone did that to my sister, I’d still love her, still want her here with me instead of just Dead and Still in the grave, hymen torn or missing, wasting and rotting in a ruined body.”

Isn’t the girl worth more than the act?

The strength of soul and spirit can overcome the battle, but can it overcome knowing that those who gave her life lumped her in the “Better off Dead” category without knowing she is one of who they speak?

Every fiber of her being stretches toward the Light of Life and Love.

Isn’t she worth more by coming through the Refiner’s fire, weakness burned away and replaced by compassion and hate, caring and distrust, strength and vulnerability, joy and sorrow, purity and soil, more and less, different yet the same, but mostly better off still being here?

Glitter

She sits in the wreckage of her dreams,
Hopelessly trying to fit the shards together,
But the pieces don’t fit anymore,
So she stuffs them in her pockets and her heart,
And continues on, forgetting, until the shards bleed to be known.

In fear, she struggles to cast them away.
They hurt, but the cast clings to her – owning her,
And she owning them.
She understands that where she was one,
Now she is one of many.
Not what she once was, or what she once could have been,
But what she is now.

And the pieces glitter where there is no light.

Sonar

Last night, I went in to check on my little boy before I went to bed. I do this every night because I am paranoid like that. I never turn a light on because I can maneuver in the dark quite well. I always check to make sure he is breathing and not wheezing, he is covered, and if he is covered, I check to make sure he is not too hot. You too can do this by touching your child’s neck. If they are sweating, they are too hot. 

After I was assured that he was indeed breathing and comfortable, I turned and walked straight into the wall. I hit so hard that my head nearly made contact with the wall. As it was, I was able to stop the forward momentum of my head just an instant before it would have cracked against the wall. My chest and shoulder hurt, and my neck really hurt from the jarring of keeping my large head uninjured.

My child awoke with a start because when an adult slams into the wall, it is noisy. He said, “Mom, what are you doing?”

“Just checking on you,” I said as I walked back over to give him another kiss goodnight.

Normally, I do really well in the dark. I like the dark. It doesn’t scare me, but I do have alters that cannot walk around in the dark. When they are out, I am really careful, so that I don’t run into walls or fall down stairs, but this time the switch must have been as soon as I turned away from my child.

It reminded me of another time I literally bit it when walking in the dark. Many years ago – before I even I knew I had others, I turned off the lights and tried to head up the stairs to bed. Imagine my surprise when my face met the corner of the wall with my body going full speed ahead. I hit my teeth so hard they hurt, and worse, I had a piece of something that felt like a broken front tooth in my mouth. I hurried into the bathroom to check out the damage and had to laugh when I realized the “tooth” was really a piece plaster that I had eaten. The next day the dentist took an x-ray to make sure I hadn’t damaged the roots, and I walked around with a fat lip for week, but all was well – except for the corner of the wall.

Last night after slamming into the wall, I refused to turn on any lights even when I went in to wash my face and brush my teeth. I had to prove to myself that I could indeed maneuver in the dark. I did fine, no bumps, no bruises, and no using Desitin instead of toothpaste (I’ve done that in the daylight before – it is really yucky).  I still have sonar abilities – at least parts of me do.

The Color of Paint

Paint Colors

Ask me what my favorite color is and the answer will depend on who is out at the time. I usually answer that I like all colors. I say that it would be like choosing a favorite child or a favorite book. When pressed, I will say green or red – again it depends on who is out.

My husband and I struggle to agree on paint colors. He would like the entire house to be the same color throughout. I, on the other hand, would like to decorate each room to please the alter who is present most often in that room.

He doesn’t understand this. He thinks having each room a different color makes the house look cheap. I said, “Remember, you are dealing with someone who is not always the same person.” He still doesn’t get it, but I love him anyway.

I painted the guest room a couple of years ago – a lovely gold color. He didn’t like it at first but it grew on him. When we moved the office into the bedroom next door to the guest room, he painted the office the same color only one shade lighter. While I like the color in the guest room because it looks rich, I hate in the office because Laura – the writer – the alter who is out when I am in the office doesn’t like it. She would like this room to be a lovely shade of robin egg blue. I know he is not going to go for that. I may have to paint it when he is out of town and ask for forgiveness when he gets back.

I love the paint in the toy room. It is called pecan. It is tan with a hint of red. I think it is warm and cozy, and it makes me feel safe. My husband hates it – with a passion. He wants to paint over it. I am holding out because it appeals to Cat – her safe place is a house in a tree with all the colors of nature. My 3D children also love the color, so for now it will stay.

Our 3D child who still lives at home has his room painted his favorite color. I let him choose because I think that is the right thing to do. My husband said, “Every room is a different color; we can’t keep doing this.” So we picked a color we can agree on for the rest of the house. I went to the paint store and found several lighter colors (he likes light colors) that I could live with. He chose the one that is the same color as the toy room only about four or five shades lighter. I don’t like it as much as the toy room, but I can live with it, he can live with it, and it matches the toy room, so we may not have to paint over it.

However, I still want to repaint the office robin egg blue. I also want my scrap room to be peach – the color of a peach that is bright and warm from the sun and drips juice when you bite into it. I want the accents in the room to be a deep blue. My husband may strangle me for making the house look cheap. Certainly if he accepts the fact that he married a person with alters, he can accept the fact that each alter has her own favorite color - or not.

Names of Alters/Parts

I recently had a friend ask me how I knew the names of my parts. Generally, they tell me who they are and what their purpose is.


The first part I became aware of was Cat. I didn’t like her name at all, but she insisted that Cat is her name, so her name stands.

I went through a time when most of my parts were pretty quiet, so I took an internal roll call. I found everyone and said, “I think that is everyone.”

Cat and Laura said, “Don’t forget Little One.”

They let me know that there was another part. They have done this twice: first when they introduced me to Joy, and second when they told me about Little One. When Little One became brave enough, she told me that her name is really Annie, but the other parts call her Little One.

I have only named one part. She was given horrible names by the people who abused our system. I could not let her keep names that were detrimental to her and to us. She had to agree on the name we chose. I called her Angel for a while, but she hated that name. She said it made her feel dead and that she was no angel. She had a sarcastic comment about every name I offered her. The name we agreed on was Glory. It really fits her.

I know that each person with DID has a system unique to them. Another person’s process of discovering their parts/alters may be completely different than my experience. Feel free to share your experience with discovering your alternate names with us in the comments section.

The Scream

A reader (Cynthia) asked me how many alters I have. I have ten alters that I know of, so counting me (the host), there are eleven of us.


Today, when I went to pick up dinner (because Trina can’t cook her way out of a paper bag), Annie surfaced. Annie is a child of about four years old. She is slight with thin blond hair. She surfaces at times when I am in a car headed north. I’m not sure why that brings her out.

I know when she is near because she comes with the feeling of a tear tightened throat and the burn of tears right behind my eyes. The scream she contains lodges in my chest and feels that it will nearly choke me. Sometimes I wonder if I were to let go of that scream if she would start to heal. I’ve tried to let go of her scream, but I can’t bring myself to scream with the intensity that I feel is there – it comes out as a choke and a whimper. I worry that the neighbors would call the police because they would think someone was killing me. :) So the scream stays inside with Annie.

Annie never surfaces all the way. She doesn’t even have a safe place that is separate from me. She dwells inside – close to my heart - where she feels protected. Her scream today reminded me of a time when I did let out the scream to end all screams.

I was fourteen at the time and walking to the Mall. My hometown was still pretty small and quiet. As I went by a house, the moron lady who dwelt inside let a large black dog outside. Because of her exceptional smartness, she of course turned right around, went back inside her house, and left the dog outside with me. First of all, I am afraid of dogs. Secondly, I believe dogs can smell fear – they are like middle school students sensing the fear of the substitute teacher and then turning that fear against them.

The dog ran for me.

I froze.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t think.

The dog began to leap.

I watched in slow motion as he/she (Hey, I was scared – I wasn’t checking out dog genitalia) began to leap for my face, and my life flashed before my eyes.

The ultimate scream tore from my lungs.

The big black dog seemed to stop in midair; it turned, and ran all the way back to its porch.

I stood there for a minute wondering if that horrible sound had really emanated from my body. I was shaking. I quickly looked around to see if I had embarrassed myself in front of any people, but I was still all alone except for the dog. I was surprised the woman hadn’t come back out, but then again maybe she really hated people and hoped I was one less person in the world. The dog crouched on the porch. I slowly walked away from the house – I wasn’t taking a chance by moving too quickly. When I got to the mall, and tried to talk to a clerk, I found that I had no voice. I had screamed myself hoarse – with only one scream.

I wonder if I screamed another ultimate scream again – as Annie – if she would feel safe enough to leave the inside.

A Teaching Job

I have officially been hired to teach school this fall. This is a good thing, yet I worry about how this job will affect my system. I had hoped to find a part time teaching job because the alter that is in charge of being a teacher has a tendency to take over the system when she is out for long periods of time. I thought that a part time position would give her the time she needed and still allow the rest of my system time to shine. Because this is a full time position and my first year teaching this curriculum, I will need to spend many hours outside of the classroom developing lesson plans, which means that Trina will need to be out – a lot.

I hope when my 3D children and family call me, they will be understanding towards me and not take it personally if they reach Trina instead of me. When she is lesson planning she prefers not to be disturbed and can be a bit abrupt. I hope that when I run into people from school when Trina is not out that I will somehow remember who they are. This has been a problem in the past. And finally, I hope that when Trina is out, I will recognize people who are important to me.

I know that these are probably not the “normal” worries that most first year teachers have, but this is my normal. I know Trina is a capable teacher – above average. She loves the children she teaches and loves her content area. She is excited to be in the classroom helping students gain a love for knowledge. She has good classroom management skills, and her procedures are firmly in place. Although we will work harder than we ever have before, this will be a good year - if we can somehow figure out how to balance our system.

It feels strange posting about a job. Although most of you don't know who I am, I worry that people will think, 'I hope my kid isn't in her class.' I understand the stigma of mental illness, but I reassure you that my students will be safe, loved, and well taught. Trina is really good at what she does.

Father's Day

We had a nice Father’s day today. My 3D child  made a card for his daddy. My child wrote to his dad, “You are crowned king of this day, and I will do whatever you say – today.” My little buddy is one independent child. He really doesn’t like being obedient – at home. At school he is always well behaved and does just what the teacher asks. It cracked me up how he added “today” at the end of that sentence. He didn’t want his daddy to think he would be obedient always.


We attended church and then went to visit my amazing in-laws. I have been truly blessed in the husband and in-law department. I love these people. My husband is adorable with our child. He is an involved parent. He attends everything that our child does. Parent Teacher Conferences, ball games, music recitals – if my child has something – his daddy is there. Seeing their relationship has been very healing for me. I would have loved to have a daddy like him.

Father’s day used to be a tough day for me. When I still had a relationship with my dad, this day was awkward. Hallmark does not create a card that expresses the proper sentiment for a completely dysfunctional relationship. During the many years that I haven't had a relationship with my father, this day was sad. At church the talks were based on honoring our fathers and hearing about the glorious vanilla ice cream relationships that other people had with their ideal fathers. The children sing songs about running to greet daddy when he comes homes, yet my memories were of hiding when my dad came home. It all hurt – a lot. Sometimes the hurt was so big that I had to feign needing to use the restroom. Then I would stay out of the chapel until the speeches and songs that glorified fatherhood ended.

However, now that I have positive examples of wonderful fathers in my life, Father’s day is much better. I think of the relationship my child has with my husband and how he runs to greet his daddy each day, and I can hear the songs and smile. I can relate the talks to my husband and sweet father- in-law and smile thinking of these two great men that bless my life.

Yes, I still think of my father. I wonder how he is. Yes, it would be nice if he were someone he isn’t, but the reality of our situation is that I have a father who is still abusive. Because I love my Heavenly Father and I know how much he loves me, I can not in good conscience allow my earthly father to hurt me anymore, so I stay away from him.

I forgave my father several years ago. I still remember the day that forgiveness for him came. I was sitting in a college class when the feeling of forgiveness swept over me. I wondered what my responsibility to my father was now that I had forgiven him. Did I need to call or write? If he got sick was I morally bound to care for him? When I got home that evening from college, I asked my husband, “What do I do with this knowledge? What is my responsibility to him?”

My husband answered, “You don’t have a responsibility to him. You do nothing. You enjoy the feeling of peace that forgiveness brings, but you do not allow him to hurt you again. You need to stay safe.”

I felt comfortable with what my husband said. He has been a trouper throughout my healing process. I know that his life is better when my life is stable. He has never met my father and has no desire to ever meet him. If I chose to go see my father, my husband would not understand why, but he would support me in what ever I decided to do. I understand his desire to keep me safe and mentally sound – as mentally sound as a person with ten alters can be. I love and appreciate his willingness to allow this to be my journey. He trusts and allows the process to happen as it needs to. He doesn’t try to push the process along. He doesn’t get scared when I am struggling. He backs off from me when I need my space, but he is there when I need his closeness. He is exactly the man I asked God to send into my life.

This Father’s day, I am thankful to have him in my life. He is the best.

DID, PTSD, or Both

Sometimes I am not sure if what I experience is from DID or PTSD – or if my experience is both disorders blending together. Today started out well. My 3D child wanted to go get his very first set of new scriptures. He has hand me downs, but he wanted a set with his name on them. He was so excited. It was fun to watch him shop for scriptures. He chose scriptures that are black leather bound with gold edged pages, and we had his name embossed on the front in gold script. We even got a little carrying case to keep them protected. He could hardly wait the fifteen minutes it took to emboss them. He has carried them everywhere today.


Because we were in the area, I wanted to stop at an outlet store that is near the scripture store – big mistake. I hadn’t been to this outlet store for years. I had a little trouble finding it in the industrial area – one metal building with chain link fence looks pretty much like the next, but we found it, parked, and went inside. I was immediately nervous about being there. I’m not sure what set me off, but I was anxious as all get out. The building was old, and crowded with product, and in need of repair, and it smelled like I don’t know what – a combination of sour moisture, cement, dust, and darkness. I couldn’t get the darkness out of my head. In one area the smell was pervasive, and I couldn’t bring myself to touch anything for fear of getting the smell on me.

I looked around – were other people smelling or feeling what I was feeling. The other customers looked okay browsing the overwhelming selection of product. I could feel myself starting to shut down. I was beginning to block out the sights – trying not to look at what was around me – trying to shut out the smells and sounds of the place. Everything seemed so dark and crowded and lacking air. My chest felt heavy and I could feel pressure and weight on my neck. I reached up, but of course nothing was there restricting me. I could feel one of my littles, Annie, struggling to stay calm. I could sense Cat and Laura trying to hush her. I could feel her panic rising into terror.

People who shop at this store usually come out of there with a full cartload, but I had to get out of there. I only had a few things in my cart and that was only because my 3D child had put things in it. I continually told my 3D child, “Don’t touch anything. Please don’t touch the counter. Everything is dirty. You are going to get sick.” I felt like my skin was crawling. I quickly paid my thirteen dollar total and left the store.

I knew I needed to be careful when I backed out of the parking lot. I was in complete a hyper-alert state. Every car seemed too close. People seemed too close. I struggled to get my bearings. It took me a minute to even remember how to turn my radio on. My 3D child was hungry and wanted to stop at McDonalds – which was fine – but I couldn’t remember where the McDonald’s was in that area, so I drove to one close to our house. I had been sweating in the outlet store, but now the McDonalds felt freezing cold. We didn’t stay long because I was exhausted and felt like crying and breaking things – but one has to keep it together to appear normal to the 3D child who doesn’t yet know that mommy has DID and PTSD. At times like this my throat hurts from the pressure of unshed anguish.

When we got home, I fell asleep on the couch next to my child while he played a video game. I am still feeling high strung, hyper-alert, and near tears twelve hours later. I do feel more of a sense of Annie – what she looks like and who she is. She is one that I am just getting to know. I used to call her Little One. It took her a long time to even dare reveal her name. She is slight, and blond, and has pale skin, and pale green eyes. The terror she feels is nearly too much to bear. I wonder if she could ever feel safe enough to share what she has been through – if so maybe she could find healing and peace. Or maybe what she knows and has seen is too black to ever share. Maybe if Cat and Laura would stop shushing her . . . but maybe their shushing protects the system. Maybe what Annie knows would destroy us all.

It is one o'clock in the morning. I need to try to sleep. I think I will take a page from my child and try to find peace in my scriptures.

Glory

“So Sunshine,” you ask, “What about sex. How does a person who has been sexually abused as a child deal with sex?” If you didn't ask, close your eyes, plug your ears, and chant, "La, la, la; I can't hear you," because  I'm going to tell you anyway.

Before I began having flashbacks of the sexual abuse, I loved sex. Like many survivors of childhood sexual abuse, I was a pregnant teenager, and had my first child when I was sixteen years old. Having sex made me feel powerful – like I was in control. I got to choose who I had sex with.

After I started having flashbacks, the thought of sex was completely repulsive to me. I was scared of sex. At the time, I was single, so there wasn’t anyone else to consider. Shortly after the remembering began, I met a man, fell in love with him, and apprehensively awaited my wedding night. I was a mother with children who was scared to have sex with my new husband. The only thing that got me through it was the fact that my sweet husband, on the way to the hotel said, “You know, you don’t have to have sex.” I felt that he was completely non-threatening. I decided then that no matter what my father and his friends had done to me, they were not going to take this part of my life away.

Because I felt safe with my husband, I was able to have a satisfying sex life with him. He has never triggered a flashback. However, sex was not the same as it was before the remembering.

After I went into counseling because I knew I had alters, I began to get to know my alters. At first there was me (the host), Cat, Laura, and Dot. I thought it was just us four. One day I could feel another part. She was depressed and self destructive. She wanted the system to die so that she could die. She was full of self hatred. I asked, “Who are you?” Her answer was a string of horrible names that Dad and his friends had given her. Because I couldn’t call her those names, I started calling her Angel – a name she also hated because she didn’t feel she was at all angelic. She was the part of my mind created to deal with sex. As a child, I must have felt that a teenager was old enough to do the things that were being done to me.

This is what she wrote in our journal over a year ago:
“I wanted to be dead for a long time. I hate what I have done in my life. I hate what has been done to me. I am angry that Dad and others made me think that sex was a way to control people. I have been silent for over ten years – ever since we learned the truth. I am fourteen years old. I have long straight dark hair and brown eyes. I am really thin. I hate how our body looks now. The host eats too much – probably because Cat and Laura are hungry all the time. I don’t get hungry.

I feel depressed almost all the time because I feel betrayed, used, and abused. My names before were slut, whore, stupid b****, f******  b****, c***, and dumb. I just wanted to die. I felt dead. Because I felt dead, the host named me Angel. She said that angels are dead people or spirits that help us. She said I was created to help her back when she was a little girl. I feel like I just tricked her into thinking that sex was okay, but I didn’t know until we remembered. Even though I was the one it happened to, Cat had all the fear, and until she spilled that fear, I thought sex was the only reason for living. Now I feel confused and tricked. I want to try to get better so that I don’t feel so awful all the time.”

After several weeks of talking with Angel, we agreed on the name Glory for her. She didn’t like Angel – she felt it was too wimpy of a name. As Glory healed she started to feel less mean towards herself and the other alters. She also refused to ever have sex again. She said, “I am only fourteen. I shouldn’t be having sex.” I was proud of her for setting healthy boundaries. She was impatient with our child alters, but has since healed and grown enough to tolerate and appreciate them now. She is even fond of them.

Because we hadn’t had access to Glory for so many years and like I said before, sex was not the same without her. A new alter – Grown up – stepped forward so that we can maintain an intimate relationship with our husband. Children should not have sex, but it is perfectly okay for grown ups to have sex. I’m glad to have a grown up in my system. :)

Partners of people with DID need to make sure to never initiate sex when a child alter is out; to do so causes the system to be re-abused. Likewise, a person with DID should never have sex when a child alter is out. We can’t always rely on our partners knowing when they are dealing with a child. Set and maintain healthy boundaries. Having safe places for our children alters is important because when a grown up needs to out, the children need to be sent to their own spaces. That is why I talked about creating safe places last time.

Because of my abuse, I need my husband to be clean shaven at all times. Beards are triggering for me. He is a sweetheart and shaves every single day. It is helpful that he in no way resembles any of the men who abused me. I am thankful for my wonderful husband. He truly is a treasure among men. He doesn’t take it personally if I am unable to be intimate. He is willing to love me – all of me – even when I am having an off day.

Creating Safe Places

Early on after being diagnosed with DID, I learned on a wonderful message board that it was important to create internal safe places for each of my alters. After discussing this with my therapist, I worked together with my alters to create homes for them. Creating safe places is important for several reasons. When an alter is not upfront, they need a place to be. If an alter gets stressed or needs a break, they need a safe place to go. When the host is doing things that are not age appropriate for a child (yes, like having sex), they need to be in their safe place.

Now when I need to talk to an alter, I can see them in their space and we can talk. I can see if they are asleep or awake. If they are not needed upfront, being in their safe place reduces the mental noise of too many opinions.

There is no right or wrong way to do this. A safe place can be whatever the alter feels is safe. They will let you know what they need. For those of you without DID this exercise probably sounds really crazy, but for those of us with DID, it is an important step in organizing our system. Think about it, if you have a place for everything and everything is in its place, doesn’t your home run more smoothly? It is the same concept. I don’t want any of my parts to be lost because each of them serves a valuable function.

The safe places for each of my alters are vastly different although many share a love of books and have included bookshelves full of books in their safe places.

Cat lives in a tree house. Her tree house is not an ordinary tree house. It is a small home in the trees. It is warm and homey with a sod roof and a lot of books. The paint in her house is done in warm jewel tones.

Laura lives in a stone cottage in a walled garden. Her house is bright and sunny. She loves all plants and flowers. Again, I wish I was an artist because I would draw all the safe places.

Joy lives in a sun filled nursery with her caretaker Dot. Her nursery opens up to a yard with a generous amount of green grass,  a swing set, sprinklers, and a sandbox.

Shadow lives in my chest, close to my heart, where she feels the safest.

No one doesn’t need a safe place because she can simply disappear when she needs to feel safe.

I have other alters with other safe places but they don’t want me to share them with you today.

If you have DID and you haven’t yet created safe places for your alters, talk to your therapist about it. I hope it helps your system as much as it has helped mine.

Confusion

I always knew that my dad was not a good person. I knew he drank, did drugs, had anger management problems, was a womanizer, and was sexually inappropriate with people, but until I was 35 years old, I didn’t remember much of the abuse I suffered at his hands. I know that so far on this blog I have painted my dad with only one color on the brush – the color bad, but that isn’t the entire picture.

I think the mind of a child paints people as either good or bad – they can’t be both. As adults we realize that people have both good and bad inside of them. We base friendships on the balance of those qualities. When I started having flashbacks after Dad beat Grandma, I felt really confused. He had often told me that I was his favorite, so it made sense to me that I remembered the abuse he heaped on my sisters but not the abuse he heaped on me. When I did start remembering, I felt like my entire foundation was broken. I felt that I had loved him even when he didn’t deserve my love. I felt betrayed.

My mind could not reconcile the good I remembered in him with the horror that I was remembering now. I couldn’t understand that the man who could sit down with a six year old child and patiently teach her how to play chess could be the same man who exchanged her for money. It couldn’t be right – I must be crazy. I wanted to be crazy. The alternative was just too awful.

I remembered Dad playing in the community pool with me. He could be so much fun. He did everything large: laughed large, talked large, loved large, and had large anger. He loved to take us to the mountains. He taught us how to build a campfire by gathering pine needles and small branches to use as kindling and then putting larger pieces of wood on the fire. He always brought a watermelon and placed in the creek so that it would be cold, crisp, and ready to eat after we finished roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. On the days he came home singing, he was a bucket of fun. Granted – many of his songs were completely inappropriate for little girls’ ears, but none the less, he was fun. I loved those days of being safely on his lap with him calling me his little Bambino. One day I even faked being asleep in the car just so he would carry me inside and tenderly tuck me into bed.

I wasn’t sure what to do with the flashbacks of abuse that terrorized my life. Usually, I thought about them for a week or so before calling my older sister and saying, “You are going to think I’m crazy, but do you remember Dad ever French kissing us (or which ever other memory had surfaced)?”

“Oh, I hated it when he did that,” she replied.

"Damn, I was hoping I was just crazy. I didn’t want that to be true.”

When pregnant with my third child, I suffered complications and was on bed rest for six weeks. During that time Dad was clean and sober. He came to my house. He brought crab legs and watermelon for me to eat because one: he remembered that watermelon was my favorite food when I was little, and two: he felt like crab legs would be really good for a baby in jeopardy. I couldn’t reconcile this man with the father who didn’t care that we were starving as children, or with the man who did all the other things I have posted about on this blog.

As humans we try to classify things. We sort – we make patterns. My dad doesn’t fit a category. He is both good and bad. He is charming and anti-social. He is mean and kind. He is compassionate and narcissistic. He is generous and selfish. He defies all that I know about people. When I studied British Literature, I found characters and authors who embodied him. In my dad I see Shakespeare’s Iago—a man who orchestrates those around him to cause hurt, and then sits back, smiling with a deep dimple in his cheek, chuckling at his own cleverness. I see Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein—a man who gives life but then abuses and abandons the very lives he helped create. I see Lord Byron’s Byronic hero—a soul that is selflessly selfish. When good, he would give his last dollar, but when bad, his cutting words flay his victim’s heart, and then his hatred burns anything good that is left.

Every child (at least this one) longs for a father. My father was the man who did all those good, kind things, and I am thankful for those memories. My father was also the man who did all those horrible things, and I feel sorrow for what he did. Because of the horrible things, the good things are tainted and make me feel confused. Yes, I understand that people are not perfect. We all fall at times, but the extremes in his behavior confuse my mind and thoughts. I am both thankful and ungrateful for the good things because it would be easier if I could say, “He is a horrible person; there is no good in him.” But there is good in him. At least there was good in him at one time. I don’t feel there is enough good left in him for anyone to be subjected to the man he is now.

I hope that when my life is done, the good I leave behind will far outshine anything I have done that has hurt others. I know that we are asked to not judge, but I am a proponent for healthy boundaries, and there is not any possible way to have a relationship with a rabid human. I know that God does not expect me to subject myself to more abuse.

In future posts I want to talk about forgiveness because forgiveness is possible – even in cases like mine.

Everything Affects Everything

I recently read the novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher. The main reason I read it is because Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite authors, gave it a good review. The story is about a teen girl who commits suicide. She records the reasons she decided to kill herself and then mails the tapes to the people she felt were connected to her decision. My experience with suicide was different than how this novel describes it. When I stood on the edge of the edge of the cliff that day, I didn’t think about all the people who had wronged me. I thought about going home to God. I thought about ending the intense emotional pain I felt, but I didn’t create a laundry list of those in my life who were mean or hurtful. My decision was not about them – it was about me wanting to end my pain.


Even though my thought process was different than what is portrayed in this novel, I love how thought provoking and compelling the story is. This story shows the impact we have on others, and I do believe that we affect the lives of those around us in ways we may not even realize. Students have written me notes telling me how I have changed their lives when I had not even realized that what I said made a difference to them. Hopefully when I’ve been in the classroom, I haven’t made any students feel badly about themselves. If I have it was not my intent, but this novel shows how even when we don’t intend to hurt someone we often still do hurt them.

Asher writes, (this is the dead girl speaking) “Yes, there are some major gaps in my story. Some parts I just couldn’t figure out how to tell. Or couldn’t bring myself to say out loud. Events I haven’t come to grips with . . . that I’ll never come to grips with. And if I never have to say them out loud, then I never have to think them all the way through” (page 201).

As a person with DID, I feel this way so much of the time. I can’t really tell my story in chronological order because my mind doesn’t work that way. I also sense parts (alters) who are still struggling with their knowledge and memories. I can feel that silent scream that is caught in my chest, and I feel other alters trying to silence that scream because they too are afraid of that knowledge.

Asher continues, “You don’t know what went on in the rest of my life. At home. Even at school. You don’t know what goes on in anyone’s life but your own. And when you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you can’t be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a person’s life, you’re messing with their entire life. Everything . . . affects everything” (pages 201-202).

It is easy to make a snap judgment of anther person without knowing their whole story. I am guilty of this at times. This quote makes me want to be a better person; to seek first for understanding, show kindness, and to try to bring goodness into the lives of others instead of dealing with them in frustration. I tell my students that it doesn’t cost anything to be kind. Yes, I understand that we need to set boundaries and keep unsafe and toxic people out of our lives, or at times we have to be assertive in order to keep from being hurt, but we don’t have to be unnecessarily unkind when we do so.

Jay Asher's quotes were used with his permission. (Thank you!) He very kindly answered my e-mail the same day I sent it to him and said many people miss the first quote but often quote the second one. The first quote really speaks to my heart. He must have been channeling a multiple or an adult survivor of childhood abuse when he wrote that. :)

Tomorrow, if I am able, I will try to share the story of the chocolate cake and show you just how much one event can impact the lives of those who witness it. Everything affects everything.

Names, Planes, and Remote Controls

I tried to write the letters small and neat like mom, but my little hands lacked the needed motor skills to form the letters precisely. The permanent maker bled through the back of my dress where I had tried so carefully to claim my belongings with my name. It was ruined. Once, when we lived in our old house, I’d written my name inside of a cupboard. At least in that cupboard one couldn’t see the misshapen slanted downward letters unless they looked inside and underneath. Would I ever get it right? Would my writing ever be nice and neat? Or would I be forever doomed to see my mark – ugly, large, and always going downhill? I practiced writing on the back of my dresser, but although the first letter started out nice, I couldn’t keep them lined up and by the time I came to the last letter it was several inches lower than the first.

Even before the advent of the internet and blogs I longed to leave my mark – to have something show that I existed even if it was just my name written on something that belonged to me. I mattered and I wanted to prove that by showing my name written nice and neat by me. I think all children like seeing their name. The severely disabled students I work with can’t read the word cat, but they can recognize their own name and that of every other student in the class. There is something about seeing our names in print that tells us we are someone.

While I practiced writing my name in big black letters that bled through my clothing, my dad built airplanes. He decided to build an airplane for each of his daughters and put our names on them. I was so excited to have him build an airplane with my name on it. These airplanes were going to have motors and remote controls. He said we would go fly them when he finished. As he finished each plane, he set in the freezer room. He had two of them done. I loved going in the freezer room just to look at them. I was careful not to touch or bump them. When my plane was finished and placed alongside those of my sisters’, I carefully ran my finger along the letters of my name on the beautiful yellow plane. My name would go up in the sky with the plane. I was so excited to go fly it.

When we went to fly the planes we didn’t take all of them at once. I was so happy that mine was chosen by Dad to go that day. Dad operated the remote control (which were not nearly as sophisticated as they are now days). My plane was up – I squealed with excitement to see it in the sky. It was fun to watch it soar through the air, and I ran around trying to follow it. Dad said, “Be careful; don’t let it crash.” But it did fall from the sky and landed with a crash of splintering balsa and torn tissue. “G** D*****, you let your plane crash.” His tirade lasted for several minutes. I felt awful. My beautiful yellow plane with my name on it was broken and torn. “S***, it’s ruined. I can’t trust you with anything.” I felt confused. He had been the one operating the remote, but he blamed me for the crash because it was my plane. I was sad but I didn’t cry. I didn’t want him to really give me something to cry about.

The day was no longer bright or exciting. It wasn’t fun to have my name on a plane. He fixed the plane, but each time we went to fly them, I hoped mine would be left at home. On the days mine was in the air, I held my breath hoping it wouldn’t crash and praying that when it did crash (because Dad always crashed them) that it wouldn’t be too damaged. The more damage the plane sustained, the meaner the words were that flew from Dad’s mouth. I didn’t like seeing my name on things anymore. Having my name on things just got me into trouble. If my name was on it, I couldn’t be invisible, and when you live with an abusive person, being invisible is important.

Several years ago, my baby sister asked me why dad had let her operate the remote control when she was a toddler. I looked at her with a confused look. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

She said, “I remember the planes crashing and him being really mad at me and yelling because I crashed the plane. I can’t understand why he would have handed the remote to a baby.”

“He didn’t let you fly the planes. He flew them and if he crashed your plane – the one with your name on it -  then you were the one in trouble.”

Her baby mind had assumed that she was the one flying the plane because he made us feel so responsible for the crashes. He operated the controller – always – but his actions and harsh words made us feel shame and guilt for something we had no control over. This is one of the reasons it is hard for me to display the Lancer that I wrote about before. The planes evoke conflicting emotions in me – not as badly as they used to, but those twinges of shame and guilt still pop up now and then.

On to brighter things.
Although these tulips come up every year, I'm always surprised by how big they get. The stems are over two feet tall and the flowers are over six inches tall. They are lovely. they grow near the bird's nest, and the momma bird was not happy to have me working so close to her eggs. She was yelling at me pretty good today. At one point she swooped down near my head - gave me visions of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

 I better go get my plants into the garden. Happy Spring!

Grandma

I took the kids to see Grandma frequently. After she had been away from dad for about three weeks, she started to gain clarity of thought and be more wakeful which made us wonder if he had been drugging her. When she was with dad she would often fall asleep in the middle of a conversation, but now it was like we had turned back the hands of time and she was getting younger. She missed dad and she missed her old apartment. My aunt arranged to have Meals on Wheels come each day just so Grandma would have a lunch time visitor. Grandma hated the food, but she would drink the milk and eat the roll they brought each day. I asked, “So what is wrong with the food?”

“They bring casserole all the time. I don't like things that are all mixed together. If they bring vegetables they are overcooked and mushy. I like fresh vegetables.”

One evening the kids and I took her out to dinner. The only thing she would order was a fresh tomato. I had to go back and ask the waiter if the cook could find a tomato that was not too ripe and slice it for her. She was so happy with her plate of tomatoes. Taking her out to dinner was time consuming because she had to stop and talk to every child she saw. She was a life long teacher. We loved seeing how well she related with children.

She enjoyed playing bingo with the other residents and was adjusting to her new life. One morning as she was getting ready for a funeral, she felt a terrific pain in her hip, her leg gave out, and she fell to the floor. Thankfully, she was in a place where the staff checked up on the residents and was soon found. She was transported to the hospital and diagnosed with a broken hip.

She had surgery to repair her hip. The doctors informed us that she had an aortic aneurysm. They felt she was too old to survive the surgery to repair it. They said that eventually it would rupture and she would die quickly. We worried about this, but since there was nothing that could be done to repair it, it fell into the category of “help us accept the things we can not change.”

One night after I’d returned home late from the hospital, I went up to check on my youngest daughter. The teenagers had gotten the little ones to bed. My eight year old daughter had kicked off her covers. The moonlight through the window spilled over her golden hair, her slender legs, feet, arms, and delicate hands; the sight brought out a feeling of intense protectiveness for this child I so adored. She was eight years old – older than I had been when I was sexually abused and beaten. I looked at her tiny limbs and wondered how anyone could look at the body of a small child and see anything but a dear sweet child. How could anyone look at what I was seeing and feel sexual arousal? I couldn’t understand it. I carefully tucked her covers around her and said a silent prayer of thanks that she was unscathed by the evil of sexual abuse. I talked to my kids on a regular basis about good touch/bad touch. I felt confident that they could and would come to me if anyone touched them inappropriately.

Mentally, I was still dealing with the trauma of my own abuse, but still lacked time to get into counseling. Grandma was soon moved back to the assisted care center where her apartment was located. One side of the complex was a hospital – which was where she was moved. I called her one day to ask what they had brought her for dinner. She said, I don’t know what it is, but it looks like cooked grass.”

“Do you want me to bring you a chicken breast with steamed vegetables and a sliced tomato?”

“Oh would you? I’d love that.”

When I got there, I asked, “What do you eat on the nights I don’t bring dinner?”

“I just ask them for another can of ensure.”

“Grandma, you look so pretty today.” She was in a lovely pink nightgown and had just had her hair done.

“Mary was up earlier; she took me to get my hair done. Did you know they have a salon in the hospital?”

“I didn’t know that. I’m glad she took you. I know how much you love to get your hair done.”

I helped Grandma into a wheelchair and we (my two youngest 3D childen and I) took her for a walk. She wanted to go see her neighbors. We walked over to that wing of the building and joined her neighbors in the great room and watched the news. There was a story that the schools were facing a substitute teacher shortage. Grandma who taught school until she was 86 years old said, “I am going to get out of here and go sign up.” I chuckled because I didn’t doubt that she would do it. Her mind seemed as sharp as ever now that she was a way from dad. “What do you think your dad is doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied, “He got so mean, and what he said to Rose was so awful that I can’t go see him again. You know he was violent to us when we were kids. I guess he just got mean again.”

“I want to see him,” she said.

“I know you do, but he said he doesn’t want to see any of us.”

“I guess you are right. Did you know that I am going home tomorrow?” she asked.

“No, you are going home on Sunday. Tomorrow is Saturday.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, “because I think I am going home tomorrow.”

“Sunday, Grandma; I promise.”

“Well, okay.”

We wheeled her back to her room. I helped her into bed, gave her a kiss goodnight, and said, “I love you Grandma. I’ll be back up on Sunday to see you.”

“I love you too. Thanks for coming up.”

The next morning my cousin called me, “Grandma died early this morning.”

“No! I was just up there. She looked so good. She can't be gone.”

She had awoken with a terrific pain in her chest. She called out to her room mate. Help arrived quickly, but the aneurism had ruptured. They gave her morphine, called my uncle to come quickly, and she died within fifteen minutes.

She was right when she said she was going home tomorrow. She died only a few days before what would have been her 65th wedding anniversary. I know she was old. I know her body had issues, but her mind was sharp and I wanted her to stay. I missed her so badly. I couldn’t believe the beautiful, bright grandmother I had put my arms around only hours before was gone. She was the most important adult in my life. She helped me be a better mother and a better person. She was the best role model, and I was thankful I got to have her for as many years as I did. She had said she was going to get out of there and go sign up to teach. I hope there are children for her to teach in heaven.

I still miss her everyday. So often, I long to pick up the phone and say, "Grandma." I send her messages in thoughts and prayers every day. I hope she gets them.

Taking Control of the Nightmares

During the time I suffered from intense PTSD, I found it nearly impossible to sleep at night. I avoided sleep because it was usually interrupted by horrible nightmares or by me jolting awake because of being hyper alert even in sleep. I was afraid of sleep. I found some comfort in the scriptures. I read each night before I went to sleep, but still the nightmares came. One night, I happened upon Proverbs 3. I found a lot of wonderful things written there, but the parts the helped me the most were verses 23 to 26.

Proverbs 23 – 26: Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble. When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet. Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

I probably read this twenty times before I went to sleep. When I awakened in the night, my heart pounding, I thought of these verses and went back to sleep. My dreams started to change. Instead of waking up with no memory of the dreams, I started to remember them. I started to take control of situations in my dreams. If Dad was in a dream causing problems, I was strong enough to tell him to get away from me. If he wouldn’t, I was strong enough to pick him up and throw him away from me. In one dream I held him by the throat up against a wall and said, “Don’t call me, and don’t come see me; you have no concept of boundaries, and I can’t deal with you anymore.” I dropped him to the floor and walked away from him.

I felt like God put these verses in the Bible just for me. Did people centuries ago suffer from nightmares too? Perhaps they did and God knew that those of us who needed these verses would either find them on our own or have them pointed out to us. I am thankful for these four verses. They saved me during a very difficult time. I still had a long way to go to find forgiveness, but at least I could sleep. Yes, once in a while a bad dream would get me, but not at the level they did before.

My garden is full of surprises this year. I love tulips. With the help of the bees, my tulips are beginning to create offspring that is unique to my garden. Here are some examples of the beauty they are creating.

I often have plants come up in my garden that I didn't plant. I think they want to come join our flower party. I welcome them. I do have a boundary issue - so they have to behave and not try to choke out any other plants - if they are good, I let them stay.