An Old Journal Entry

I've tried to write about Dad today, but I just can't do it. I was going through some old files to see if I could find something I'd written about him before and clean it up a bit for you when I found an old journal entry from nearly eleven years ago - ten years before my diagnosis. Keep in mind that at this time, I was dealing with an acute case of PTSD - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is the first time I've read this journal entry since I wrote it and although I had no idea that I had DID at the time, with the knowledge I have now, I can clearly see that I was struggling to make sense of a brain in parts even then.

July 20, 1999:
I feel really alone tonight. I am overwhelmed again. I am so tired of being the mom and the provider and trying to keep things running smoothly here while I'm somewhere else. I don't care about dating anymore, but I get asked out often. I feel that I have to keep trying; sometimes I'm not sure why. It seems so pointless. I feel incapable of falling in love with anyone.

I was thinking today that I don't really know who I am. I put on an act for everyone around me. I act brave, quiet, sarcastic, tough, gentle, or interested in order to function. I am so good at playacting that unless you really knew me you would never know I wasn't being real. Who am I????

I've had to be so many things in order to survive that I don't know if I can get in touch with me.

But, what am I. I don't know when I am being real and when I am acting. It comes so natural that even I can't tell - unless I really think about it. I lived in a land inside my head for so many years when I was a girl. Reality was so far from me, yet glaringly in my face. It isn't normal to tune out like that. I catch myself doing it so often. I can't help it and it is hard to stay in the now.

I love my kids so much and I want to be here with them, but I am so homesick. I want to go home so badly sometimes. I'll wait though. I hope the Lord will let me stay until my children are grown. They need me so much right now. I am the only parent they have right now who can act normal. If only they knew how crazy I really am. I exist in a place that isn't here and isn't there. I am caught in between two worlds.

Maybe if I could accept the little girl and incorporate her as a part of me I'd start to get well. Sometimes I don't think I was ever her and sometimes I am so her I can't separate from the past.

I went to a fireside and the speaker (Bless his heart) said something that really hurt. He said that we could start to comprehend how much our Heavenly Father loves us because of how loved we are by our parents. I almost lost it right there. I struggle to believe that God loved me because he sent me to such a horrible childhood. My mother was loving, but neglectful. My father was Satan's spawn. I thought for years that God must hate me and that I somehow had to try to do better and be more. More what I don't know. I felt I must not be worth much because of the mess I was born into. It has taken a lot of tears and heartache to realize that my Heavenly Father does love me, and that I am okay - at least to him (I think anyway). To the rest of the world I am broken beyond repair.

I am probably the only one who understands why I can't get married. I can't drag another human being into my personal hell. It is all consuming at times. It wraps around me tightly and is very frightening. There is no man on earth who is man enough to be my man. No one will ever be able to handle what I may put them through. I am so incredibly tired. It would be nice to have another to lean on and help me through this. But I know he would leave - he wouldn't be willing to put up with this. I have a hard time dealing with it; no way would anyone stick around if they understood the extent of this garbage.

I know that I am doing better than I was last winter. But I know I have a long, long way to go before I will be anywhere close to being someone anyone else would want. I belong in the land of the misfit toys. I don't fit and I don't think I ever will fit.

I am not me. I don't know who I am. I am broken.