I left my house today. I really thought this was a
sleep-and-eat-all-day-in-my-jammies kind of day, but I had really, really,
really real and extended flashbacks from some of the violence I experienced
when I was little. It really shook me up.
I have been having increasingly intrusive and graphic images
in my head for about the past month, so when I found myself with three hours at
home with no one else there, I slipped into the remembering.
I didn't do it on purpose, but once I was aware of the
opportunity I had to experience things in a safe place with absolutely no one
else around, I started to let the images hang around my consciousness instead
of immediately filing them in their box to save for later.
I feel kind of stunted writing right now, but I really
wanted to write about what happened today. It sucked.
One of the things I haven't talked about on this blog is
that my dad did things to other people. Really bad things. A lot of times he
would have me along to participate and/or watch. It was very important to him
that I be exposed to these types of things, I guess as part of his
"training" of me. Shit like that really reinforced the notion that
the two of us were isolated demigods living among fools.
The time I was remembering today happened when I was 8. On my
birthday, actually. My dad brought me with him to participate in this very bad
thing he did to someone as my birthday present. That's what he told me when I was
not enthusiastic about participating, so that I would feel guilty that he went
through all of this trouble to give me this opportunity to participate in the
very bad things, and I wouldn't even make any effort to do it.
I have been told that the things I did under orders from my
dad are not my fault. Sometimes I believe that.
When I see an eight year old little girl, I couldn't imagine
blaming her if she did the things I did when I was eight years old. But I remember
it so well, and it felt like I was deciding to do it before I did it, so how
could I not believe it was my fault?
I saw a tv crime procedural the other day, and the subject
of this particular episode had dissociative identity disorder, and several of
her alters were shown throughout the show. I've seen "The Three Faces of
Eve," and I've seen "Sybil," but this depiction I saw the other
day of someone with D.I.D. was much more personal to me.
When the character in the show transitioned among her
alters, no one made any hype about it. There wasn't any super-dramatic background
music, or artfully composed camera shots. At least I didn't notice them.
I saw the movie with Edward Norton where he pretends to have
d.i.d. in order to back an insanity plea in a murder case. I saw it years ago,
but I have never forgotten the moment when the camera catches Norton's
expression at the moment it is revealed that he was faking it. It made me
nauseous. He is a really creepy guy, which is not relevant here, but I still
had to say it.
Anyway, the procedural I was watching the other day did not
seem nearly as hyped and dramatic as the Ed Norton movie (I would tell you the
name of it, but I don't really have a very good memory for that type of
information). It just felt like this is what this girl is experiencing, and it
is accepted immediately by the main players, and there is no debate about
whether d.i.d. is even real, and they just worked with her d.i.d.
I saw the way the girl's face changed when she transitioned
between alters (alters are the separate "personalities" within one
person, just in case you didn't know), and I knew how that felt. I could just
feel what it feels like to transition alters.
But I don't have d.i.d.
I only have one me, but there are different faces I put on
for different situations. Not like smiling or frowning, but feeling my entire
body and mind and heart slip into this callous and cold person that I remember
being a lot when I experienced the violence against other people.
I also experienced it a lot when I lived in my car, and when
I was doing meth and all that, too.
I don't stay like that anymore. For most of my life, the
change into the girl with no feelings and no expression and no empathy and no
sense of self-preservation was very common, and really actually constant for
long periods of time (like days or weeks - maybe even months). I haven't been
back into that face since I went to the hospital over four years ago.
But having these very vivid and drawn-out flash backs
(lasting about 3-5 minutes instead of the usual 1-3 seconds) today has reminded
me what it felt like to slip into that mode.
I was capable of anything in that mode. I have done very bad
things to people. It was always at the great persuasion of my dad, but he was
good at provoking me into that mode so that I was removed enough in my mind
from what was actually happening to actually do very bad things to people.
But I remember it so well.
I think I have been very much deflecting the guilt and shame
I feel about what happened to those people; about what my dad did, and what I did.
I have gotten to a point where I can have a settled notion that none of it was
my fault.
But the guilt and shame haven't gone away. I just hide them
better now, I guess.
Today though, I let them come out for a bit, and I was
having these long flashbacks about things I vividly remember doing, and vividly
remember slipping into that distanced mode and staying there while I did the
very bad things, and not coming out of that mode for days.
But that's not what I was feeling when I was remembering today.
I was feeling shock and horror (that song, "shock, shock, horror,
horror" started to play in my head) and revulsion and something between
choking and throwing up. I was reacting to what happened like someone who
didn't have the distanced mode would react. I was horrified.
My face was twitching and contorting, and my arms and legs
and hands and feet were having twitching things, too, and every now and then I would
stop and think about what I must look like and feel stupid, and try to stop all
of the twitching, but it would keep coming back without me even realizing it
again. This is actually why I won't do any remembering in front of anyone else
- I can't handle the idea that someone would see me being all twitchy.
When I called the time-out on the remembering - when I told
myself that it was enough, and that I don't have to stay there (in the memory) anymore
- I was lying down on my bed. I realized I had tears on my face. It was so
weird - I didn't even know I had been crying. But feeling them on my face was
comforting, because I hurt so badly when I was remembering things.
The pain of remembering doing very bad things to people was
sincere, and I was relieved that I was crying because I did not cry when the
very bad things actually happened. I didn't feel so much guilt and shame today
either, but I felt so, so sad for the little girl I was and the people who were
being hurt.
I don't know - I think the way they handled that girl's
multiple identities on that show made me realize that, deep down, I have been
broken in so many ways, and I wasn't the one who did the breaking. The shattered
pieces of who I always believed I am are evidence that I am not that cold and
callous bitch who can hurt people and not even feel bad about it. I figure that
if I was truly was that bad person, there wouldn’t be shattered fragments -
there would just be one single blob of pulsating hate driving me.
Before today, I had not been able to remember what I did
without getting the perspective of my age at that time straightened out. I may
have been eight when this particular thing happened, but I'm 35 now and
remembering it like it just happened a few seconds ago - it's hard to get that
age thing in context. But I am glad I was able to do that, even though it was
only just a little bit.
I keep expecting the remembering to push me back into the
guilt and shame, but so far that has been stopped by the knowledge that I am
someone who cries real tears when someone else is hurting, even if I am the one
doing the hurting. My dad couldn't do that. He was not someone who could do
that.
I'm starting to realize more and more that my mom is not
someone who could do that, either.
I'm proud of myself recognizing that I spent enough time
remembering, and that it would help a lot if I left the house for a little bit;
got out into the air and breathed it in and out, and saw other human beings. It
did take me about an hour to get out the door, because I really felt like I needed
to be wearing a hat, but every hat I found made me look like a crazy person, so
I eventually went without a hat.
I'm exhausted - I'm going to go eat some of my Christmas chocolate
and watch inconsequential television shows.
A
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