What I journaled a couple years ago from automatic typing. What's strange is that it's me talking, me the host alter, but age 4. Apparently I didn't know about all the alters, and several hadn't arrived yet, but I knew about the group of four of us who worked together to deal with the father's new increased sexual abuse: me, the twins Hansel and Johann, and poor Quato. It makes me sad to think of this little confused child. This should never happen.

I hate my daddy he makes me do bad things. I can’t tell anybody because he will hurt me bad. He said so. He is a big man and i am little. I can’t say anything. Why does he hurt me? Daddies aren’t supposed to hurt their little boys. I want to go away. I want to take a trip but not with him. Myabe I can hide at aunt sallys but she will tell, i know her. [cousin] ann will tell. If mommy catching me crying she’ll hit me. I can’t tel her why I’m crying. She’ll call be a big baby and then she’ll hit me. [big sister] kate doesn’t believe me. She calls me a liar. why does everybody hate me. I try to be good. I help my little baby sister. They’re all so big. I can’t do anything. i have to go place like the basement to hide so i can cry. If she hears me, i’ll hurt. but my head hurts and I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to do. I have to figure it out. There’s a magic door or something. Maybe a ship or a train or a plane can take me away. I can’t tell my friends because they think I’m strange with my extra people. You’re only supposed to have one, not three. I like them better than I like my friends because they’re nice to me. They help me. Why can’t anyone else help me? Where is grandma and other nice people? Where did they go? I want to go live with a stranger. Somebody nice and I’ll take [infant sister] beth with me. I don’t think we can run fast enough to get away from them. I don’t think we can hide. We’ll get cold and we’ll be hungry. If they find us I can tell them we have a different name. I can give them a different address. It would take too long to walk and we’re too slow. Beth is slow, very slow. I can run but she can’t or she’ll fall down. I want someone to put me in a box and put me in the ground. But I have to be dead first so I don’t need to breathe or I’ll be sick or something.

I wrote this three years ago and it still describes me to the core better than anything else I could otherwise put into words.

I am strong
I am a man
I protect and provide
I nurture and I love
yet I have lost my way
from lack of skills
to become what I am

The purpose of my life
has always been
a wife, a child
my soul cries out
to tell its tale
and I burn within
this is nothing
I learned at home
for we in my youth
were never taught this

The body calls
screaming its truth
it is not a thing
I can redesign
nor wish to change
it is who I am
larger in scope than
the many I became
from most cruel
and damaged parents
I am man
original to the self
core to what
this entity I call me is

Family, my own family
the simple truth I know
the only essence
of me that exists
having babies
family, wife, these are
what should have been
from the beginning
the journey has been long
but dangerous battles
with more powerful foes
injured and confused me
and made me lose my way

How can one not be
ruled by who one is
how do I endure
a life where I am
not who I am
I have waited, waited
waited for me to show up
in order to become me
the fire has not gone out
but would a new me
put true me aside
and extinguish the flame
I can be a thousand mes
on the surface
but the real one
the singularity within
independent of time
or place of birth
or circumstance
is husband
family man
abundant lover
provider and protector

No separate roles these
facets of the same gem
I am a father
one without issue
yet all that entails
not my father but
quintessential father
I am he who begets
and loves and protects
my offspring and
her alongside me
how shall this happen
when it seems
it cannot happen
whereas it must

I find myself in the midst
of a war that is my life
from so many skirmishes
many scars I carry
who awaits me, anyone?
peace at hand, I wish
to travel the road home
to my own wife
so that I may love
and cherish her
doing little things
that remind her every day
how unique a jewel she is
how beautiful in my eyes
and how I could never
desire another
because she fulfills me
my embers burn within
I am wired for her
and her alone
though we have never met
I love her complete
because she is imperfect
just like me

The combat long past
my trek takes me
along muddy back roads
to my children as well
so that I may love
and teach them
cradle and clothe them
carry them laughingly
on broad shoulders
soothe their wounds
and grant them a life
filled with security
and daily bliss so true
it need never be spoken
because it simply is

They do not exist
in the here and now
perhaps they never will
how can I live a life
without my bride
my beloved family
who never were
where can they be
how shall I find them

I am rugged
I laugh heartily, abundantly
my hair falls onto
a face that is open
and pleasing
my jaw and body strong
younger than my years
but no longer young
decorated, wise and
battle-tested am I
scarred, yet I heal
from the flames within
I am a man
who cannot imagine
life without his loves
I miss them
so very much
and I have never
met them

I have always dreamt
and dream still
of making them happy
each waking day
in a world of ways
I crave so deeply
the taking care of them
I would work my fingers
to the very bone
laboring for hours
in harsh, cold rain
under lash of whip
and gladly
to feed and clothe
and warmly shelter
my wife, my children

I yearn for them
I ache to touch them
to kiss them each
a thousand times
and hold them in my arms
where are they
will I ever find them?
I am strong
I am a man
and my fire burns within
for I am nothing
without them

If my colleagues knew that I have dissociative identity disorder, that I am multiple, what would they think? I've actually told a couple who had serious depression or anxiety issues and they kind of get it but don't want to talk about it. They won't pick up on any little jokes I tell to let them know I'm not super sensitive about it. They still all want me to be just me. I doubt I would be okay if someone else came out, that would be really hard, a huge step. Not around work colleagues. It's inappropriate anyway probably. But it would be nice if others knew and would say, hey, I did some reading, or, my cousin's spouse has that, if anyone else wants to hang out with me, I'd be fine, I'd feel honored. Even if they only half meant it.

If other people knew, how many would think or even verbalize that they know it's a made-up disorder because they read that somewhere? How many would suddenly cease to respect me or would be uncomfortable or even scared to be around me? How many would talk to me once, then just avoid ever letting it come into the conversation again? How many would be kind and ask me about it, with real concern and interest? Could any sustain that? Which ones would surprise me by feeling really awkward around me from then on? Who would offer "helpful" advice like, friend, you just need to put it all behind you and move on? Would I have the courage to say, wait, put all what behind which one of us?

It's exhausting not to be genuine, not to share your true self (selves) with others. It's demoralizing and depressing.

Things are dark for me. I cry often, and I can tell this is mostly a six-year-old part of us, though he and I are close, despite his age. Occasionally now, I feel that in his greatest pain, he can speak for us as one --- almost. I despair. I wonder if there is a part unknown who wants us to die. I wish that were true so we could work with that part. But we're fairly sure that we're all in despair because of the reality of our life. We've been broken and alone for decades and we don't see any shining city on a hill for us. We want the darkness, the oblivion. I want it.

I am currently in slightly more communication with key, older alters who have either not or barely been participating for over a year now: Jonathan, Quato, Dan, Aaron, and to a great degree Marc. This is every non-child alter and for a system with dissociative identify disorder, non-communication, especially among major parts, is a disastrous situation. In addition, Jack, our second largest and most independent part, has been asleep, losing time all the while, except twice when triggered awake for a brief couple hours. Luke's whereabouts are unknown. One by one, it appears we're giving up.

The teens and adults have very serious disagreements with me, about the choices I have made and continue to make the past year or more. They know that I make up in ways 90% or more of our system, that I've been the one out for decades with little input from any of them. Most alters were in hibernation so I was left to make choices myself, unaware of the DID, and my choices have been disastrous for achieving a fulfilling life. I don't blame me and none of the rest of us do, I simply didn't know any better. I just knew I was confused, often depressed, had suicidal thoughts daily, but had no consistent sense of what underlay everything. And I had a long parade of sub-par therapists. Plus I probably didn't have the ability to trust the decent ones anyway. DID is built to shield other parts, particularly the host -- me -- from knowledge of abuse. I was kept in the dark by automatic responses and the single, overriding goal was to keep the body alive. This, unfortunately, was at the cost of building a life worth living.

Now I am left with a life-like existence that I don't want and my oldest alters don't either. They all want it to end but none so far has stepped forward to say they will take the final action. I doubt they could do it anyway, I'm too powerful still in my system. It's all very sad, I can see that if I were to comment on someone else in my shoes. I didn't do anything to put myself in this situation, but here I am. My parents and some other relatives were sometimes decent but often monstrous. It is what it is. A lot of other people receive undeserved woes. But at least we have choices as to whether to go on. I am thankful for having further choices.

The sadness is simply overwhelming and much of it is a six-year-old's. I ruminate on suicide for many hours each week: what I need to do to prepare, how I must wrap up legalities and financial issues, if I'm to escape in at least a partly ethical way. If I force myself to change what I'm thinking about, to get out of the darkness for the moment, I find I've drifted back later. It seems I have nowhere else to go. I'm spending $175 twice a week for a very experienced therapist, maybe half reimbursed by insurance. I'm trying, I show up and I listen. There's some movement, but not much in a positive, "we can do this" direction. The adults mostly want out . And so do many of the littles, the only alters who've been out. And half of the time they go back inside crying in great pain for various reasons, mostly of an awareness that they're not small children, somehow they aged considerably and there's nothing left for them.

Ultimately, we're just one person. But dissociative walls keeps in place the experience of being many of us. Rather, no one has the experience of being more than one. We're all simply here, individuals...

[ Continued ]

My memory is exceedingly poor for thing .i should recall. Even as good as I am at covering for no knowledge of something, I've had to tell my colleagues and now my boss I have a condition that makes my memory occasionally very poor. It becomes hard to focus and follow through. I know exactly what the right actions to take in my job, after all I've done a somewhat reduced version of it for years and have a good work reputation. As complex as my work is, I do know what to do. It's the remembering and the energy and the act of doing that is a challenge.

But I have to be honest and look at alternatives, because my memory may be getting worse. Today I had a bout of depersonalization at work. In therapy and with a friend. I openly question who I am. No question about my dissociative disorder, but am I the host alter I've considered myself to besince I accepted that I have DID? Beforethat, I just figured I was just me, confused, broken somehow, but me. But now I keep feeling it's someone else, another part of us, an alter, who is successfull in the socializing. Which would mean I am not and we always switch to him. Okay, but what do I do abouto the worsening performance at work. And I've just gotten some praise so am really getting worse? How would I know?

Do I find a new job that is simpler, easier to manage especially as I go through this expensive, intensive therapy? Do I ask my workplace to accommodate me with a 4-day per week schedule (granting me use of my many sick days?) For how long, a few months? What if it doesn't help at all? What if it does but isn't enough? Should I look at short-term disability or even long-term? What would I be capable of if I returned? What if my pay were slashed below what I could live on? I keep knowing what I really want is to be able to die. But not every moment of every day, it comes in waves. So is this the influence of an alter? If so, why, after over three years of knowing about this haven't I been able to distinguish him. Is he (or she) right here? If I didn't care about hurting a handful of people, if I didn't equate suicide for someone who is as aware of my self-destructive urges as temporary as cowardice, I would probably have done it already.

And I'm sick of my complaining about all this. Why don't we have an alter who will just shut up and do what's needed to be done? I actually think we might but it takes being engaged in the here and now with someone.