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Johnny-Jack's Musings and Some Alter Stories
Hi, all! I finally figured out a few years ago that I am multiple, having suffered yet to some degree succeeded in life with dissociative identity disorder. Like many with DID, there had been areas of and moments in my life that were confusing and dysfunctional but I could never figure out why.

I had periodic depressions and my memory was often poor. But I didn't experience the hallmarks of DID like losing chunks of time. In my search for answers I spent a fortune on books, seminars, and therapists. I considered the possibility of having DID many times, but the clues I had gave me no certainty and no therapist helped me focus on the potential root cause of my problems. Blocked awareness and inaccessible memories are how DID works. A blessing in childhood, problematic later.

Several years ago, trauma memories started coming to me in images and flashbacks, and alters "woke up" and communicated with me. It was easy to admit then that I had DID. I had always felt a bit like a counterfeit. But it was impossible to fathom how the "good" parents I remembered were randomly monstrous abusers of me as a child, psychologically, physically and sexually.

I will never, ever, ever understand how a person, let alone a parent, can hurt a small, innocent, utterly defenseless child, not once but hundreds of time. It is contrary to the most basic human instinct to nurture and protect one's offspring. But it happened. Though it wasn't necessary, I sought and discovered external proof it happened. Now I work in therapy and in life to reverse the damage these warped people caused.

In 2011 I began communicating with a teen with DID and, when it looked like he would become homeless, I hired him from across the country -- knowing it would be a challenge -- as a live-in personal assistant to cook, drive and run errands. We soon began to rely on and support each other the way healthy families do, so I adopted him. Really, I adopted them, dozens of sons and daughters.

Over the years we've learned how to attach to another person, safely and in a family context. I sometimes feel rage when I think about his parents or mine. Still, both of us are prospering. Living well is the best revenge.
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Johnny-Jack
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How a new alter arrives: #18

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:00 am

Tonight we met Luke. We've had a nauseous feeling a few times this week, which felt like a signal of something to come. Not true nausea, a queasiness with a wanting to be able to vomit to get rid of something. Tonight IMing with a friend, it came up further. We wondered before about one of our uncles, whom we knew was bad. The friend used the word uncle in the IM and it felt uncomfortable. I avoided this uncle starting after the father's death when we were 12. The feeling was dislike, mistrust and an unidentifiable antipathy toward him. It may have been based in part on my parents' comments about him being self-centered, stingy, immature. But now we know something else about him. He did something to us. I'm not entirely sure what it was. It doesn't seem quite as bad as some of the other abuse and Sphinx confirms this, if I can trust him. But it was enough to create Luke.

The intense rising and then surfacing of negative emotions which have no identifiable source tips me off that there's someone new, a new alter. I know I need to stay open and pay attention, lest I hurt them or not meet them. I spent too many years ignoring what I sensed and squashing all otherness that scared me and made me fear I was crazy. I'm not falling into that senseless pit anymore. It cost me too many years of my life.

Tonight Dan took over walking home and was doing a good job of it. At some point though, the feelings started coming and we chose to let them. They were real and raw. The body froze at some point and became flooded with fearful, hurt emotions in a public location close to work. This never happens because our system is careful about the job so we knew something was really off. A bit further, someone else was clearly in control of the body, a younger guy but not extremely young like so many others here. I had already had the name Luke float up into consciousness earlier but it seemed to be 'selected' somehow, as if other names were around. But once a name like this floats up, we can almost count on there being someone new. And I had a sense of farm-ness, an affinity for farms, images of specific farms we used to visit.

Before I left work, when I felt something coming and it felt associated to the uncle, I asked Sphinx if the uncle had done anything to us. I got conflicting stuff, as if telephone signals were crossed and I was getting interference that garbled the words. It was hard to stay focused and I nearly blanked out.

Once Luke was in the body, he began hyperventilating from fear. He looked around, had no idea where he was, he was very upset, scared. He took the body off the main sidewalk into a fairly dark area and stood there crying, wimpering and holding on to a tree for quite a while. The tree he understood but I could feel his unfamiliarity with tall buildings that I have seen and walked by a thousand times. We tried talking to him but he just got scared and confused. After a while, he addressed us as the voice. He had heard one before obviously, that of Sphinx. So we stopped trying to explain what was happening, it was too much for him. We kept the comments very simple the way Sphinx did in childhood. "You're safe, it's okay." "We can lead you home." And other reassuring things.

He carries the body differently from everyone else, kind of loping, lanky and off kilter. We asked his age and he said eight. When he arrived home, he wouldn't go up on the porch. He didn't believe he lived in this strange building he'd never seen before. I could feel the foreignness of our familiar house. We told him he had keys in his pocket. If they worked, it was proof he lived here. He did all this very slowly but of course the keys worked. We had to keep coaxing him to enter, "it's your home, it's okay." "You grew up and you live here." I think he started feeling something was familiar but he kept worrying that whoever lived here would find him in their house. "Somebody lives here," he said. He insisted on calling out "hello?" many times as he moved down the hall. He noticed his voice was wrong and spoke more lightly, higher. We wanted him to stick around tonight a while so we could get a good feel for him and so he could calm down. We told him to eat a salad even though he kept saying he wasn't hungry. He left us just before I began writing this and he doesn't feel far away. I'll invite him back in so he can climb in bed and drop off to sleep. We're very glad he's here with us. He seems like a sweet kid and he's truly safe now. We're tearing up as we write this.

Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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Re: How a new alter arrives: #18

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Thu Mar 14, 2013 3:31 am

Luke seems to have come back fairly suddenly compared to others so everything is very shocking to him. He cried on and on when he heard that both parents were dead. He doesn't seem to dislike either parent, he needs them. Not so surprising given he came because of an uncle, not because of either parent. He says he wants to go to sleep and wake up and it will be a bad dream. He doesn't like this house and wants to go home desperately.
Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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Johnny-Jack
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Re: How a new alter arrives: #18

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Sun Dec 25, 2016 12:07 am

Luke has been a part of us for a few years now. He likes physical activity, like walking long distances. He has a distinct gate, a sort of lanky loping along, almost as if one leg were a bit longer than the other. Who knows, maybe that was true when we were growing at his age.

Luke was host-like and claimed one of our remembered friends, Bill L., as his own. We have snippets of his memory of playing at Bill's home after school. Luke's a good kid and likes rural things. He's a farmboy at heart, even though we grew up in a small town of about 6000. We feel like we can recall several really normal childhood memories through him.
Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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Johnny-Jack
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Posts: 3290
Joined: Sun May 29, 2011 3:07 pm
Blog: View Blog (45)

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