I want this web site to be about the healing journey. In telling my story I'm hoping other people diagnosed with DID might feel less alone.
I don't believe it is necessary to go into the details of the abuse I suffered. I hope you can accept that it was extensive and went on for a long time. Most people diagnosed with DID have suffered greatly.
I want to tell you how I coped with life living with my insiders. I want to tell you how it affected me and how it still affects me today.
I want people to understand that abusing children is a crime that is life changing. Children's whole lives change direction, their personalities are crushed. Most of these children will never reach the potential that was their right. It's taken away by adults that are only seeking to fill their own twisted needs, regardless of the child's suffering.
I want to tell you about my fight to regain my life. They took enough from me, I'll not waste space on here talking about them.
I spent years talking in therapy about what happened, and I do think that therapy is the place to leave it.
The first time I became aware that something wasn't quite right was when I was about 8 years old. I attended the local primary school and one day I suddenly 'woke up' in a different class. I looked around and everybody looked a bit different and I had another teacher. I felt confused and my confusion grew when I didn't recognise the clothes I had on. I also didn't understand how to do the sums that were chalked up on the black board. My class mates seemed to be very busy writing in their exercise books. As usual I didn't dare ask any questions, I did my best to carry on so no-one would notice my distress.
In time I forgot that day and put it down to my stupidity, after all I was constantly told I was stupid,selfish and bad, so drawing attention to my confusion was not an option. It was certainly not the last time I would experience this strange feeling of waking up in someone elses life.
Memories of my childhood are very sparse. I remember a few things, but mostly I have to be reminded by someone else. I can then retrieve a small part of it, but it's always as if I'm looking in from the outside, I don't feel connected to it.
I know I was unhappy and very solitary. I played with my dolls all the time and they were like real babies to me.
As I grew up I lost interest in school work. My grades had always been really good (except in maths, at which I totally flunked). I was not a popular child and I knew that to join the 'gang' I would have to stop being the class 'swot'. I know now that at this point 'Jools' took over. Jools was, and is, a rebel, dare her to do anything and she will do it even if it means putting her life at risk! Boys liked Jools, she can be both their pal and sexy all at the same time. I lost a lot of time to Jools over the next few years.
When Jools wasn't out, I was dating a boy that was older than me. I was 13 and he was 19. That was a big age gap at that age. I was a school girl and he was a working man. We got married when I was 16. I wanted to leave home, and there was no other way to leave. It was 1971 and at that time a girl from a working class background didn't have a lot of options.
I suffered terribly from these awful depressions that would come over me and almost immobilise me. I was having suicidal thoughts but I had no idea why. I thought getting married and having a family would 'fix' everything.
A few months into the marriage I had a breakdown. I tried to kill myself with asprin. I was very naive about what would kill me. I thought a few asprin would do it! I was referred to a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with depression and had to attend weekly group therapy sessions at the hospital. I was given a lot of psychological tests but the psychologist told me she had no idea what was going on in my head!
I had been trying to get pregnant since I got married. After about a year I suffered an early miscarriage. I was devastated as I thought having a baby would solve all my problems. A year later I got my wish. I stopped going to see the psychiatrist and discharged myself.
I was still losing time and getting these awful depressions, but I was going to be a mother! Surely now everything would be fine?
I am trying hard to write more here and continue my story. It is difficult to remember as it causes upset in the system.
I will finish this even if it takes awhile.
I had my baby, a beautiful girl. I loved her so much. For a while I was wrapped up in being a mother.
My marriage was in trouble. I was fighting the depression but I was losing. The baby rarely slept and I was worn out.
At age 21 I was divorced and a single mum.
I don't remember much of the next few years. I know I lost a lot of weight and started going out and dating. I always felt so disconnected from it all.
I was drinking a lot, life got out of hand. I was taking sleeping pills, appetite suppressents,tranquillisers, all prescribed by my doctor. It was 1977, doctors freely prescribed stuff like that then.
Even though I had met the man who was to become my second husband, I was out of control. Looking back I can see that Jools my party alter was taking over more and more. I didn't understand that then, and I thought the lost time and unusual clothes I found in my wardrobe was something I'd just forgotton about. I was also dating about three different men, which I had no idea about. Talking to my alters now in the present, they tell me that when it became clear to them that I was going to marry 'T', they gave up their dating and allowed me to make the life choice.
I got married for the second time. I was happy, but I also had developed a very bad drinking problem.I was getting drunk everyday. My daughter was now at school. I'd drop her off and then come home and get drunk. I tried hard to be sober by the time school broke up for the day. 'T' my husband was aware of my drinking and he did everything he could to stop me. I felt confused, I didn't understand why I was pressing the self destruct button,putting my new marriage at risk. It didn't stop until I discovered I was pregnant. I was so happy, I loved being pregnant and I stopped drinking and pill popping. I did everything I could to make sure my baby would be born healthy.
The next eight years were the happiest I've ever had in my life. I had another daughter and then a son followed three years later. I started my own little business. I was busy and fulfilled. Of course it wasn't all good all the time. I still had unexplained time loss, and depressions that would render me almost immobile for days at a time, my marriage had a few problems, but we loved each other, we were very happy.
I became interested in religion. It was totally out of character. I felt propelled and driven to go to church. People told me it was God talking to me, and I had always had voices in my head. I had always thought everyone 'thought' in audible voices as I did. I thought that maybe the old womans voice I heard talking about being saved and redemption was actually the voice of God calling me to his service.
As with everything I did, I threw myself wholeheartedly into it. Before long I was running the sunday school, the youth group, the young wives group and much more. Sometimes, especially in the youth group, I would sit back and watch from a distance as this religious zeal overtook me and I talked and talked and converted many young people and eventually even some of their parents. I was confused because in my deepest thoughts I didn't even believe in God. I felt a fraud, but the zeal overtook me time and time again and other born again christians told me it was God using me and the bad thoughts was the Devil tempting me. I believed them. So began over eight years of church going, praying and being delivered of 'demons'. Born again christians warned me that I would go to hell if I let the Devil tempt me, so I ignored the other voices in my head, the voices telling me it was wrong, that I wasn't possessed with devils. I was so afraid that God would send me to Hell if I wavered in my belief and faith.
I was worn out. I was out everynight of the week, running my business and doing the Lord's work. The depressions got worse and began to last longer and longer. I couldn't get out of the chair. I fell asleep everytime I sat down. The doctor put me on anti depressants. They didn't help. I was sent to see a community psychiatrc nurse. I saw her every week for a year, it didn't help. The voices in my head, what I thought of as my thoughts, got more and more chaotic. I was scared because none of it was making sense to me. The doctor sent me to see a psychiatrist.
I felt an almost instant affinity with the young psychiatric registrar stood in front of me. He seemed to actually want to understand me and not just write another prescription.
So began my long relationship with the psychiatrist that would become my therapist - the man that would save my life over and over again.
This is going to be very hard to write about.
Therapy was the most painful thing I have ever gone through (as an adult). It threw the whole system into disarray.
Before it could begin we had to trust our therapist and that was a huge undertaking. We have never trusted another person before (or since). It took nearly two years for our therapist to begin to gain our trust. He sat there patiently waiting for us to be ready to talk about the real issues.
To be continued.......
