Me and My Selfs, Unedited.

Well normally here you would get all sorts of cryptic Buffy verse, but lately I have come to a place of freedom and self-acceptance that has made hiding no longer necessary. I have always been so worried about what other people would think of me, what my family would think if I allowed myself to be brutally honest, but now I realize that there is only One whose opinion of me really matters, and I have been fully accepted by Him so I no longer feel the need to hide. Also along with this is the thought that maybe my frankness and my open discussion may help another broken soul find help, peace, and at the very least the knowledge that they are not alone.

It has taken more than a decade to come to a place where love has outwitted shame, a place where I realize that I am truly a survivor and even more than that that I have done nothing wrong. Guilt has been my blanket, my cave of refuge and denial for so long and finally I am able to let that go and realize how useless of an emotion it really is and how unfounded it has truly been.

The long and the short of it is that 12 years ago I was diagnosed with a disorder that shattered me and my husband's worlds. We always knew I had issues but the diagnosis seemed at the time like a death sentence. We tried to fix the situation, I tried to will it away, but God had other ideas, plans and remedies that I have finally come to accept and understand. I have since come to see that what seemed like a curse that would forever shadow us and any future happiness we might find as a family I now realize is a gift, a gift given to me by my Lord and Saviour to protect me and my family. A gift that has been my answer in a long road of questions.

Well should I start with the questions or the answers. The questions were many, things forgotten so easily, large blocks of time unaccounted for, being so very very moody yet at the same time never really feeling moody, running into people I didn't know that felt they knew me, and then later talking to people I did know who didn't understand why I didn't respond when they tried to talk to me. Odd objects appearing and dissapearing, odd writings that were my hand-writing but I didn't remember writing them, and even odder, writings appearing in my private journals that were not in my hand-writing. These strange strange happenings dogged my life and I felt that I was living in blips of time with no context, never a beginning or and end to the chapters. Just a series of events strung together like mismatching beads on a necklace a child make make.

The answer, the diagnosis seemed to be more of a curse at first, it seemed a scary out there kind of diagnosis. I wasn't sure I even believed it and so at first I ran as far and as fast away from it as I could. D.I.D., or for you layman out there, Dissociative Identity Disorder. Most people who are familiar with this diagnosis know that this is a new, clearer way of saying MPD, or Multiple Personality Disorder. They changed the name in the main diagnosis manuals because it is misleading. You don't actually have different personalities, you just have different states of being that are so distinct and different it appears like different personalities. Really it is just different moods to the extreme, that in a state of pain that no child should face, became distinct to where I created names and identities for these "mood swings".

As I face this reality, my reality, I realize that these are like the layerings of an onion that we are now slowly pulling back to find the initial me. The me before the pain and darkness crept into my existence and marred me. The amazing part of this diagnosis is that you have to be incredibly smart and creative to even be able to do this in the first place. Most people facing such adversity are crushed by it, but a few people are able to survive and this is the coping mechanism they use to do it. So the first step is finding all the pieces and then assembling them again to make a whole picture instead of an assortment of bits and bites. Like a puzzle, the picture is me, but there are many pieces that go into the making of me and these pieces right now are scattered inside and apart from the other pieces.

The worst part of this is the amnesia that it creates and the first step in healing is to erase this amnesia, more distinctly erase the need for it so that I am aware of all my comings and goings. It is so disturbing to have chunks of time missing, to have conversations with Gil or the kids that I can't recall at all. Once a piece of me watched an entire episode of the amazing race with Gil, commented on it, enjoyed it and when we sat down the following week to watch the next episode I couldn't remember the previous one. I didn't know who had been eliminated and had missed a huge twist in the race and Gil hadn't even known I wasn't aware.

Of course it is disconcerting for him too. The times he has to replay events and things to catch me up on my own life. Now he is learning to recognize the parts and the names that go along with them, he can usually tell who is who, but some like to fool him. It is hard too because habits, preferences for certain foods, certain colors, taste in music, certain styles of dress or make-up are radically different. Some parts of me have a high tolerance for alcohol, some have no tolerance at all, some smoke some do not. Some love everything to be in pink, and some prefer a more punk style. So imagine being one of my children who face this constant changing and rearranging and you can imagine how confusing it must be for them.

Jessica once expressed her frusteration by exclaiming, "Who are you and what have you done with my mother!" She was half joking but at the same time I know the reality and the confusing truth she must face daily. I long to give her as normal a life as possible with Gil and I being her parents, but instead of normal I have learned that I will have to settle for a childhood that will create children that are creative, smart, tolerant and know how to laugh and flow with the difficulties and challenges of life. When I saw this as a handicap it was harder to accept this for my children but when you see it as a gift then it is easier to cope because you realize you are giving your children a gift as well even if they don't realize it.