When I started this blog I needed a name for it. I was certain that it needed to be anonymous. I did not want my birth family stumbling across it or my ex. And especially, for now, my boys. But I wanted to write. I wanted to tell my story. And so I called it Fliss-one of a kind. Before people knew that Fliss wasn’t just a made up name or pseudonym. She’s part of the whole of us. She’s just, one of us.
Fliss, Felicity, is our main writer. But others write too. Others. Yes, I have others. I have… multiple personalities. Well. Not technically. That’s not what it is called anymore, because it’s not an accurate representation. Dissociative identities? Does that make any more sense? I don’t know really know how to describe it best. But, I do have different parts. They do have different names. Ages. Likes and dislikes. Attitudes. Memories. People. Sometimes I’m one. Sometimes I’m another. Mostly I am a mix. Most people wouldn’t even know.
But it’s my reality. It always has been – I thought it was normal for everyone to have different parts of yourself in your head to talk to. [It’s really important to understand that this is not like hearing voices. I’ve been asked that enough in my mental illness history. Nope, I don’t hear voices. I think them. They are different thoughts but all mine.]
And sometimes we talk in my head. Sometimes other parts commentate, narrate or give opinions in my head. It’s all day, everyday for me. Normal. Sometimes we do it out loud without realising. Ask a question, and then answer it. Blurt something irrelevant out. We are quite accomplished at hiding it. That’s the whole point, really.
We don’t experience a lot of amnesia anymore. But there are big gaps in our memory – not just around our abuse, but other times too. It’s tricky.
I do a lot of things to help manage the daily dissociation. Which, in basic terms, is when we can switch from one part to another and then lose some time, memory, or just take longer to work out what is happening. So we kinda have rules about parking in the same spot, when we take meds, putting everything into our phone calendar, staying extra focused at work, while driving, when the kids are around.
It’s still tricky. And hard to come to terms with. Harder still to embrace and accept.
For so long I felt like a freak. Like I was crazy. Abused, neglected, rejected AND crazy. Shitty place to be.
Lately, I’ve been embracing it more.
Ha!
Someone else in my head (it’s Aya she’s 18) just said ‘that’s bullshit we’ve been all over the place since (our therapist) went away’
Okay, that is the truth – we’ve been trying to embrace it.
We definitely don’t deny it anymore. But I guess Aya is right – I don’t really embrace it.
Because it’s so fucking hard.
Especially with young parts. I can be 5 years old. Reliving trauma. And stuck there. Desperately trying to force her back. To be 43 again. To be me, Fliss or another adult. Someone, anyone, who’s not in this immense amount of pain. And my brain works like a 5 year old’s. My heart hurts like I’m 5. It’s scary and dangerous. It can be very hard for me to get out of that space.
Yet – I have to embrace her – Mary – sexually abused and emotionally neglected, I have to embrace her. Hold her. Accept her.
The reason I am multiple is because I was too young. I was abused too much, for too long, too badly. So the separate parts of my personality never came together (for normal development this takes place around 6 years of age) I had to have these cutoff parts of my brain to survive. Separate parts grew, went to school, experienced the abuse and did not start to come together until I was 22.
It feels a lot safer for us not to embrace her, or the other abused ones.
They’re cut off for a reason, right.
I have to though.
For us to heal.
So she doesn’t need to take over and send us into terror.
So she can heal.
So. Yeah.
Aya is right – we are not there, yet.
But we are on our way.
Fliss - one of a kind 