Recognizing the boy in me

     Before I knew I was multiple, when I was in therapy for regular people, I wrote this. Without my realizing it at the time, it ended up sounding just like my dad.

Written 1975

Steve or Jay? (or Jess?)

 

                                       


Today was Steve's turn. He's pretty straightforward and easy-going, has lots of interests, some of which surprised me because I didn't see them as interests of mine. For example, his favorite color is brown, any shade of brown. (Brown!) 
     He likes horses and horse-riding and he likes cowboys, including their clothes, boots, leather saddlebags, lassos, barbecues, campfires, the whole shooting match, with the exception of spurs and aspects of the macho image--all the sorts of things I associate with discomfort, dust, heat and dry, barren hills. He likes brown hills, chaparral, sage, manzanita--and sunsets from those brown hills. He doesn't mind dust, sweat, or mess. He's all about getting the job done, having a mission or assignment and, preferably with other men, accomplishing it.
     The mission can be a round-up--or saving a damsel in distress from imprisonment in a castle. Therefore he also likes:
     --medieval times, pennants, jousting, castles, crenelations, turrets, parapets, knights, drawbridges, King Arthur, and chivalry.
     --war documentaries, knives, muskets. He liked the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and Johnny Tremain--but he also likes Ferdinand the Bull.
     --photography, especially on safari or as a war correspondent.
     He likes architecture (great halls with tall windows, lily ponds) and gardens (English or stylized).
     Steve is looking forward to the trip to Ireland, both because of the C.S. Lewis element and the fact that we will be on a tall ship. He likes boats, various kinds of wood, and he loved Dad (Skipper)'s "tree house" in the redwoods.
     I asked him if he had been created by trauma. He says he thinks he was less created than conformed and not by trauma but by expectations: "Dad treated me like a boy. That's who he wanted me to be. ___ was a rebel and ____  (my brothers) was too passive. I was his 'right-hand man.'"
     Does he have any homosexual leanings? "No, I'm only interested in men as buddies, partners, comrades. I could do a mission by myself, say, run a lighthouse but I prefer being with the other guys, sitting on rocks or the ground, eating beans around a campfire."
     How does he feel about Dad's treatment of his "sisters" (other alters). "I feel bad for them."
     He's all about loyalty and good-over-evil.

Written July 24, 2007

Started counseling today

     Today I (we) started counseling with a specialist in Dissociative Identity Disorder at Freedom and Healing in Christ, Inc. (He doesn't call us multiple. He calls us a divided self.) He had us state our goals so here they are:

--We want to learn how to be in touch with each other and work together as a whole, with no one jerking others ahead, no one being left behind, no one being trampled on.
--We want to understand us: how our various parts (primary, alters) are related and (I thought of this afterward) fill in the gaps in our memory.

He added two more for me:

--Uncover the lies which keep dissociation in place; when truth replaces the lies I have believed which caused me to split, thus resolving my deepest conflicts, I won't need dissociation any more and I will integrate (be whole).
--Increase my capacity for joy. Joy is the only thing that gives us strength to "go behind the curtain" and face what we don't know. (Joy? I'll have to think about that one. Wouldn't it be courage or faith or self-confidence?)    

Jenny

     Jenny's color is white. She likes brownies with walnuts and ice cream, picnic food, and collecting things: pictures of movie stars, little glass animals, stamps, coins.
     She is tentative, not exactly sure who she is. She is sensitive, contemplative, even brooding, likes to stay in the background, take things slow, have time to process and reflect. She likes to read. She doesn't like noise, crowds, rushing. Even though she feels lonely and sad, she prefers to be alone. But she also loves to pray for people, do kind, helpful things for them.

Safe daddies

     This morning I was talking to my daughter, now grown. It has been nine years since her father died.
     "I don't think I've totally worked that through," she told me. "I think I still need to grieve that loss. You know how when you're little, your daddy keeps you safe. And when he dies, there's no one to keep you safe anymore."
     I'm so grateful she felt her daddy kept her safe. But >You know how when you're little, your daddy keeps you safe. And when he dies, there's no one to keep you safe anymore.< I couldn't identify with that statement at all. Maybe my daddy kept me safe from other dangers and predators but no one kept me safe from him. So his death years later made no difference at all.
   

How the little ones came to be

     As soon as I knew about Jessica I started speaking to her out loud or in my spirit and seemed to get a response that was not my imagination. I thought she might not be the only one. Once I addressed "Jessica and anyone else who may be there--" and when I did I saw a large space with seven or eight objects, maybe even twelve, distributed randomly around it as if on shelves at varying levels. At the sound of my voice, every object--for they were alive--raised its head. They were just white shapes, like the shmoos (actually "shmoon") from the old comic strip Li'l Abner, with a sphere for a head connected to a bigger sphere for the body. It was just a flash of vision, a milli-second.
     Another time I said, "I want all of you to know you are safe and loved." Again, at my voice, every head lifted suddenly and silently--but I felt the beginnings of hope in their postures.
     So, I thought, we may be as many as a dozen.

     On another occasion, when I was praying to understand the relationships between my little ones, I saw this in my mind's eye as if it were happening at that moment:
     I was very small, maybe one or two years old. I was in bed between Mommy and Daddy. Then Mommy left (I now believe she went downstairs to fix breakfast or take my brothers to church and that this was a pattern) and Daddy kept me in bed and did things to me.
     That's when Melissa came into existence. She split off from the original me. In my mind's eye, I saw the infant me still lying with Daddy--or lying where he had been--but from that me appeared a new self, a few years older, whom I now saw in the foreground sitting at the end of the bed, doubled over with shame. Almost immediately, from this second one, two others split off simultaneously and in opposite directions. Jenny shot off to the left and became a nun so she could be pure, undefiled, and untouchable. Jess flew off to the right and became a boy, because Daddy was only attracted to little girls. So both of them found a way to be safe.
     Melissa ran into the closet and hid among the shoes.
     There were five parts of me in that vision. I don't know how I knew who each one was. I knew them but I don't know me. I don't know who the "I" is who watched this from across the bedroom and is reporting about it now. Am I an alter, too? A "primary presenter"? Do I have a name? I don't know where I came from or when. I feel as if I must have pre-existed the others. As far as I know, I'm part of the system but just as an objective observer.

The second alter

     As soon as I knew about Jessica, I started spending time with her. I wrote in my journal:

     I find myself still picturing her as two or three when I read to her or put my arms around her but I know she's seven, so this morning I asked her if she is still pretending to be littler than she is, with younger interests, because she wants to please me. I felt she said yes.
     I assured her again I love her whatever age she is and there seemed to be a relaxing inside. My imagination now pictured a longer, lankier child on my lap. I widened my arms to accommodate her.
     "You like horses, don't you?" I remembered. "That makes sense. Two-year olds aren't into horses--but seven-year olds are! I bet you like--let's see--" The titles of several horse books rushed into my mind, as if she were showing them to me all at once. "Black Beauty? Misty of Chincoteague? And I bet you like Anne of Green Gables." I felt her pleasure and agreement.
     A day or two later, Gail called. She wanted to know if I was all right with her "slip of the lip" the other day. I told her yes, that it was good to know for sure that I'm multiple, that I had suspected the possibility, wasn't afraid of it and had been spending time every day getting to know Jessica.
     She was relieved. "I saw two, actually," she admitted.
     "Two?"
     "Two little girls. They're both in the upper part of an A-framed cabin, like an attic. One is talking to herself. She's on one side, jabbering away. She's frustrated, more animated.
     "There's another one, facing away. Almost asleep, like, 'Don't bother me. Let me sleep!" I'm not getting a name. She's artistic but very much alone. 'Just keep things quiet, under control, and maybe nobody will see me.'"
     Now I'm getting that her name might be Melissa.
     I think there may also be a Jenny.

From my journal, June 22, 2007

Question

     Has anyone out there tried to post a comment? I'm having trouble using my lil.shaver@verizon.net account. You can contact me c/o JessicaRenshaw@verizon.net if you want to post something and I'll see if I can post it for you.

Learning from Jessica

     Turns out Jessica is a key player. When I guessed that she was Little Jessica she had one correction to make. I could call myself Big Jessica if I wanted to but she was JESSICA. Period.
     Here she is with her doll Cynthia and my brother Ted. When I think of "my" little ones, there are three younger and at least three older who could qualify as young (13 and under) but she is a fully-developed personality, not a fragment, with a decided world view and influence on the system as a whole.
     She explained it to me one day, drawing two pie charts. "Here's how you see us. You think you're the main one." She drew the percentage of my share of the pie as about 5/6 of the whole with the rest of the inside people crowding into the remaining sixth.
     Then she said, "This is how it really is" and drew a pie with herself occupying about 3/5. My slice of consciousness and influence was about 1/8.

   
     Then she listed our differing perspectives. I see her (she claimed) as always depressed and crying, feeling inadequate and unworthy, et cetera, et cetera. She sees me as self-confident to the point of cockiness, too busy, over-committing--"and then when the deadline comes, you leave us to do the things you promised to do." I'm impatient with the rest of us, riding roughshod over them, irked by their non-cooperation.
     In short, she said, "You are Walks-on-Water. I am All-About-Survival."
     Wow. That was sobering--for awhile. I tried to make more time for them, pay attention to their needs, spend time doing things with them that they enjoy. We watched hummingbirds, took pictures of them, made an album. We read Winnie-the-Pooh pop-up books and Little Red Hen and Little House on the Prairie. For awhile. But periodically I take the bit in my teeth and I'm off running again, saving the world and forgetting all about them, getting out of earshot. Like a carriage drawn by six horses, one shooting out front, others standing still or digging in their hooves, we end up in a tangle of fallen bodies, the whites of terrified eyes, twisted legs, reins, sweat, and saliva. Somebody always gets hurt.
     "Stay close to me," I say. "Let me know what you want. Stop me if I'm getting too far ahead."
     "You scare us. And you don't listen. What's the use of trying to get your attention? You'll do what you want anyway."
     The trouble is, they're right. I have to pull way back and take them into consideration.
     Though broken, we're really one person. We have to move ahead (or not) as a team.  

Jessica

     My little ones call me Mommy--at least one of them does. They knew about me long before I knew about them. I'd wondered whether I could possibly be multiple myself--but didn't seriously consider it until four years ago.
     I had met many multiples by then, met and ministered to their little ones. I knew all fractured parts are good, all have broken off for a purpose that helps the whole system survive and function. I knew some seem almost whole and others are splinters of the self, knowing only one event of abuse in the middle of the life story and perhaps holding the terror, rage, shame, or helplessness of that event, keeping it out of the consciousness of the parts that had to carry on daily life. Some know several of the others, some feel all alone.
     I was a professional writer and speaker at the time--or at least I had been. But I had felt blocked in my writing for months. Now I was trying to prepare a 30-minute talk on abortion for a meeting that very evening and my mind was completely blank. I'd spoken publicly many times and this time I was to speak on a subject I knew well. I was bewildered as I fought for ideas to organize into words and found--nothing.
     With time running out, I called Gail, a discerning friend who ministered on a prayer team with me. "It's one of your alters," she said. "I see a scared little girl, cowering, crying in a corner, 'I can't do this! I can't do this!' She's afraid of your doing these things. She's thinking, 'If I say the wrong thing, I'm going to get smacked! Every move I make is wrong!' She's terrified. This is the one--because she didn't perform, she goes back in her corner and cowers--"
     Too stunned by Gail's opening words to interrupt the flow until now, I finally asked tentatively, "So--I'm multiple?"
     "Yes, we believe so."
     "Who's we? The team?"
     "Yes. We've suspected it."
     "That confirms what I've suspected, too. I thought there might be a two- or three-year old."
     "This one's six or seven."

     After we hung up I went upstairs to my safe place, propped up against the head of the bed, and asked aloud in wonder, "So there's someone else inside? Do you have a name? Do you want to tell me what it is?"

     All I got was an impression: Donald. But it didn't feel true.

     "Donald? You're a boy?" Gail had spoken of a little girl and my impression was of a girl. The name Donald had no associations for me. I didn't even like it. Wouldn't part of me choose a name we liked? I felt she was testing me with sarcasm.

     "I don't like the name Donald! I think you're--little Jessica!" As soon as I said it, the name felt right. She even seemed pleased that I'd seen through her facade to her real identity.

     "Are you the one keeping me from writing--not God?"

     "Yes." (Not as strong as a voice, just an agreement in my spirit.)

     "So I have a little saboteur inside!"

     No response--but no offense.

     "Why?" A lot of impressions came at once: it was scary, having words out there where people could read or hear them and be hurt or disagree with them. I'd taken a lot of flak for writing my opinions on moral issues and apparently my stand had terrified her. She was the one within me saying, "I can't! I can't!" She had shut me down. Now I was about to go speak to a group about abortion--

     "But they're pro-life!" I assured her. "We're on the same side." She wasn't convinced.

     "How old are you?" I asked.

     "Seven."

     "I had no idea you were there!Why didn't you tell me?" Trying not to accuse.

     "Because you always say your favorite age is two- to three-year olds." (That's true.)

     "Now that I know you're there, I'll love you whatever age you are." Then I said, 'I am so sorry for what you went through! I am so sorry no one knew about it and protected you! If you're seven, I guess you were in Japan with us; I was seven when that disgusting old man French-kissed us. You were innocent! You should never have had to experience that!"

     I put my arms around her for a long time and stroked her small back. I felt the terror. I felt her whole body shaking with fear. It was a curious sensation. It wasn't my fear. I wasn't shaking. But it was inside me and it was very real.

     "I want to be a good mommy to you," I told little Jessica. "I want to help you know you are safe and loved. I want to be a safe person you can talk to, if you want to. I want to get to know you and know what you like, so we can do fun things together."

     She was shivering hard, but she listened.

     When I got up to speak at His Nesting Place that evening, words came to me, the right ones, for the right length of time. It was such a relief.

When you have a friend with multiple personalities--

     My first experience with little ones wasn't with my own. I had no idea I had any.
     I had a friend, K., who was sometimes confident, competent, creative, and happy, sometimes withdrawn and depressed, with episodes of self-cutting, sometimes so shy that when I opened the door at her soft knock she would be standing with her head tucked down, her shoulders hugging themselves, her arms twisting together.
     Now all those "roles" are familiar to me because I know myself better, but then I just knew that my heart went out to my friend. When the shy one came to visit, I would let her in and we--grown-ups ourselves--would go upstairs and put a sign on the guest room door: "NO GROWN-UPS ALLOWED" and we would be children together and feel safe. We'd sit on the floor and read stories or draw or I would comb her beautiful long hair.
     Sometimes she would invite me to come with her to her counseling sessions. I would watch as she re-lived painful abuse, feeling it again in her body, and listen with her to the quiet wisdom of her counselor, like a comforting brook. There was a part of her she called the Mean One that carried out the self-mutilation. I remember when a sudden switch brought the Mean One to the fore for the first time. From several feet away I felt the breath knocked out of me, felt some kind of powerful magnetic force emanating from her that nearly forced me off the couch.
     But at the same time I was amazed at this newly revealed part of K. Reacting with wonder, I exclaimed, "Why, you're not bad!"

     Now I know why I feel comfortable with multiples--I often say, "When you have a friend with multiple personalities, you have a lot of friends!"--why I don't fear them and have an instinctive empathy with them.
     We are one.