A glimmer of reality in a lifetime of confusion!

I feel like I am finally starting to "get" how my system has worked and how my amnesia has historically worked. I will use an example from something confusing that happened to me with a high school boyfriend. Unfortunately, the event could be triggering even though it is not a trauma. It refers to an intimate situation I will not describe in detail. Still, TRIGGER WARNING for reference to intimacy. This is a simple story of high school romance complicated by DID.

When I was a teen, I was friends with a group of people who were hassling me to know who I might have a crush on. I am not prone to crushes and don't reach out for romance. So, I thought I picked a totally unattainable target to say I had a crush on because many other people liked this boy, too, and there was nothing special about me. However, when I said I had a crush on him, apparently I was actually speaking for some parts of me with no awareness of this fact. And somehow I ended up as this boy's girlfriend.

Many young parts of me loved this boy for his comforting physical affection. He was the first person to identify alters, though he didn't call them that and I didn't know that's what they were. Meanwhile, Alison, a sarcastic and take no BS part, found him intolerably clueless and argued with him. Hetero girl parts of me found him very appealing. I was mostly confused that I had this boyfriend, but I went along with it.

One day, the young parts of me were cuddling with this boy and he started to go towards something more. I was aware of this and wanted to stop it, but I was stuck behind these young parts who were afraid and confused but didn't want to disappoint him. Suddenly, Terry, my angry teen alter, came and kicked/attacked my boyfriend, who was confused because there had been no prior objection from us. Terry expected an apology from him and decorated him with a rain of expletives as well as the physical violence.

Then another teen part, a kind of tragic loner figure, emerged, believing that she had experienced assault, and was utterly affected by the experience. I remember her walking home and vowing to be strong, and then going home and looking in the mirror and seeing this wizened tough girl. I remember witnessing that girl and thinking, "that's not me. What's happening? Where/who am I?"

The next time we saw our boyfriend, the young parts of me were very confused that he was upset because they had no awareness of what had happened, and felt betrayed and terrified by his anger. They just wanted to be enveloped in his comforting being. I was stuck behind them and their drama and tears. The wizened teen part was enraged by his evil behavior. I was just sort of wondering what would happen but not involved in it. And the boyfriend was very angry and wanted an explanation for why we had attacked him. This was not an explanation anyone could give because no one knew what had happened!

Only in the past couple of weeks have I begun to understand this event, and other events, realizing my whole life has been lived in these disconnected bits of narrative, not really knowing what is going on with myself and having little contact or awareness between points of view. As I begin to understand that my whole life is lived this way, with multiple POVs for every experience, I have brief moments where reality seems to take on a more "real" sensation, as though I have been seeing in black and white monovision and now I'm seeing in 3-D color.

Before, I would never have said I didn't fully remember it; I'd just have said it was an occasion when I'd acted strangely and not known why. I knew that the boyfriend had been attacked and that it had to have been me, and that it had something to do with prior events, but I didn't understand how it worked. I also knew I had sometimes described those events to other people in ways that didn't seem truthful to me. it is a really appealing thought that some day I might have more communication between parts so that this sense of multidimensional dazzling reality could come to be more of an every day experience.

I only have time for a short reply but wanted to say wow! It was fantastic reading that. I'm glad for you. Congrats! Thanks for sharing.

Wow, Nondescript, what you put together here is powerful. It's so clear, very well written, and such a powerful insight.

Sea

Exactly. Such relationship chaos is a typical result of someone with DID having a revolving door crisis in the middle of a crucial interaction with another person. And this is why my system is determined to integrate. Then yes, we will be able to solve relationship equations far more rapidly and taking into account far more data.

Even with my first fusion I have seen the result, and it has been outstanding. Some internal conflicts now are resolved in seconds rather than weeks or months. And I am navigating relationships far more smoothly than ever before.

Great story, Nondescript. These "aha" moments, when pieces finally fall into place and insight follows, are moments that we strive for.

Mary, Allegra, and others