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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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Matt, age 7. Alter #35

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Wed Apr 01, 2015 2:22 am

We met sweet little Matt in the most unexpected way last week. We had a repeated flash of an unbearable imagined stabbing of our mother's face with an ice pick. I both couldn't understand what was the big deal, it was just an angry thought, but also could not deal with the extreme desire actually to do this. It was clear I had imagined this quite graphically as a child and the memory of the image replayed in front of me as if it had actually happened.

What led up to this was we were trying to figure out in therapy how, at work mostly but also elsewhere, a very bad pattern we've had is we will just not do something we need to do, no matter the cost. So we're supposed to get something done at work, it's part of our job, people are counting on me, and I just can't and won't do it. Or I procrastinate until the 59th minute of the 11th hour, then rush to do it and cover my procrastinating tracks, if I can. Always asking myself why, why do I foolishly put myself through this absurd, painful, purposeless unnecessary avoidance/delay again and again.

There might be a momentary flash of awareness that quickly fades, an inkling that this stubborn refusal to act might have be associated with a person connected to what needed to be done. They might have assigned it to us, handed it off to us, mentioned that they'd already gotten theirs done, made a snide comment about the usefulness of the task, whatever. But it just wasn't clear and anyway how could some mild annoyance generate such dangerous, stupid, costly, anxiety-producing, potentially humiliating behavior. What was wrong with me.

I didn't realize it was connected with what Godwin went through with the mother. His being physically punished for others' outside the family of origin praising me for something I did or was. What I saw was the many cruel or petty or deliberately hurtful things my mother would say. Mostly it was her face, that smug snear, the haughty dismissal, the wild rage, the arrogant looking through me to let me know I meant nothing to her. The neverending mid games when her nastiest alter was out, for my mother had DID too, And some of her did evil.

I feel that Matt held this inexpressible but necessary rage toward the mother and he played out in the imagination how we could get back at her. But why did that not twist him into rage himself? He knows she is long dead. But I'm not sure he ever felt the rage himself. He's just seems to be the kid we were who allowed himself to feel the rage and imagine responding. I was shocked at how unacceptible the images were to me in the present, though the rejection felt anachronistic. Of course, my mother was horrible to us so of course I would feel that rage and imagine revenge. But I'm thinking with an adult mind. It wasn't okay to me/us as a child. It was terrifying and wrong to want to kill your own mother with an ice pick. He didn't but he imaginedit, seemingly from age 5 to 7 and somehow escaped becoming the rage.

He ambled along homeward today just like any 7-year-old. A jet flew low overhead and he stopped dead on the sidewalk, his head gawking skyward, unable to take his eyes off it until it disappeared into the clouds and he said "cool." He's a good kid, a normal boy, with a wild imagination that he never let consume us.

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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