oh despondency, how you nag at me.

that strange moment when you look in the mirror and it's your brother staring back at you. That overly sentimental " i know what you're going through" phrase turned staggeringly appropriate.
That even stranger moment when the mirror reflects your face, only it's different, more aggressive, the eyes give it away. I lost time for the first time in months last night, and honestly, it felt good.

rated W for whiney

warning: using this post to indulge myself in complaining and venting. Expletives are abundant. As my hands are too swollen to hold a pen to write in my journal.

Pregnancy sucks. All three trimesters. The "honeymoon" phase? What idiot came up with that load of bs? I really, truly do not understand women who can do this more than once. Or the ones who can gracefully walk through the grocery store, hair perfect, full makeup, reapplying and reapplying their lipgloss. fuck them. Also all the nymphy, "natural moms" that are on book covers and up at 6 am to go to the farmers market, not gaining a pound the whole time due to their oh so healthy diets, hair just messy enough so you know they don't put any chemicals or products anywhere NEAR their baby. One hand on the glowing belly so everyone knows it's the most wonderful thing in the world, like it's not totally throwing your body off balance and making you clumsier then you were in the 3rd grade.

As a soon mommy to be in this 2011 era of parenting, there is definitely a certain pressure to appear completely satisfied by your own bodys betrayal of you. Ask me how i'm doing? I'll smile, probably say i'm miserable. Probably make a joke i think is witty but just comes out as bitchy.  But what I really want to say is

I CAN NOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE! IM FIGURATIVELY AND SOMETIMES LITERALLY PULLING MY HAIR OUT! I HAVE TO TAKE BREAKS FROM TYPING THIS BLOG BECAUSE MY FINGERS ARE NUMB, MY EARS HAVE BEEN RINGING FOR TWO WEEKS STRAIGHT , THIS IS CRAZINESS! I WANT IT TO STOP I WANT IT TO STOP I WANT IT TO STOP!!!!

But that's not so nice now is it? It's not that i don't love my baby, believe me, after all this by the time he's borne we'll have memories together that go waaay back. I desperately want to love and hold and take care of my son, but i'd like to do it outside my body now please.I want to be able to fall asleep blissfully with my boyfriend when we have a snugglenight and it's the moon and the stars and the lovegod shining down on us, but my arms swell up and ache so bad i have to, just have to get out of bed. Even this christmas lover is now starting to warm up to scrooge and declare "bah humbug."

don't sweat it. hang loose.

a little word of wisdom from david schonhoff

no witty title necessary

Being sick last week has really thrown my sleeping schedule off.I know, i know, i know. "Just wait til you have your baby, you'll forget what a regular sleeping pattern even is. " I am aware. I'd also like to fall asleep before 5 am while i'm still sans baby.
It's been a strange couple of weeks. I won't go into details out of respect for someone very near and dear to my heart, but I'd be lying if this whole thing wasn't throwing me for a loop. On top of raging hormones, I still have disasociative identity disorder. It is there, and it will be there no matter what's currently happening in my life and this is a fact i've come to terms with. And lately it's been flaring up like a bad case of gout. They call it mental illness for a reason you know. My most troublesome alter,vampire, is having a very hard time coping with alot of things. From a psychoanalytical standpoint it makes perfect sense. We've been made painfully aware of things that are just plain disgusting, right at the advent of the beautiful child that's coming soon. (!) So it makes sense that the angry, protective personality is having a hard time dealing. Which means I occasionally have "bugs in my hair and crawling on me", and upon awakening from a nap i didn't know i was taking I'm usually overcome with this incredible fury. Usually directed at my boyfriend, which sucks because we are actually in a very good place right now. I never wake up with any particular reason to be overcome with such hatred for him, other than his genitalia. Men are a threat. Men are bad. They must be elimenated. I pick fights and say cold, callous, downright cruel things in such a condescending tone I almost can't believe it's coming out of my mouth, the occasional snarl escapes as well. I'm not just being "bitchy". I'm starting to get the gist of what's really going on. Peeling back the layers of the onion that stings so good. A good session with Dr. a would really help this along i believe, but especially this time of year, and a belly so big I literally cannot drive myself, making our schedules match has become a bit of a challenge.
Forest comes back on the 20th. I can't wait. I always feel like i'm at my best when my brother's around. I am so very excited for the baby boy that's coming. But i'd like to devote this next section to the baby boy's already here. My nephews.

River and I have finally come to a bonding place. I'd say it's perfect timing. you gotta give love to get it with riv, and I know a large part of his life, I just wasn't that much a part of hislife. Now he's graciously letting me in bit by bit and I love all his eccentricities. Medical difficulties and all. In fact I feel that we have a special bond there as well.

Now Liam and I go way back. I actually lived with him for a large part of his baby years (sorry dorothy for all the trouble i was). But something about Liam always brings me back to where I need to be. Very few people can ground me the way he can. Someday I'll get to tell him that by 3 years old he'd already saved my life multiple times. Before i became pregnant myself, I seriously doubted my ability to have children, also doubted that the love for my nephews could possibly even come close to being topped by another child. I am so excited for everett to meet his cousins, and for me to meet the most likely spitfire personality he will have.

I guess the moral of the story is, no matter how irritating 5 am bedtimes can be, it is one night closer to meeting my baby.

to sum it all up

The effectiveness of my ambien is starting to wean off again. This is not a good time to not be able to sleep.
I am now 35 weeks pregnant.That's roughly 35 more days until my baby gets here. Maybe I'll be lucky and he'll come a.s.a.h.p. (as soon as health permits. i just made it up.) I know to some extent I'm only kidding myself when i assume that things will be so much easier after giving birth, and this awful thing called pregnancy is over. ( go hug your mom. she had to do it for you.) I know there will be many many more nights of no sleep, that a rock attached to my abdomen turning into a real live baby with incessant needs is not going to be any less of an inconvenience. But I'd like to think it would be easier for me to handle. It somehow seems so much more logical that the burden of someone else's problems is way less of a burden.
I am so over my own shit. I want to wash my hands of it. Over the migraines, the backaches, the hormonal rages that make my bipolar diagnosis laughable. Over my childhood, my depression, my repression, my illnesses.

Here universe. You can take it all. I am done with it.

However it's nowhere near over. The little gnats and mosquitoes gnaw at my brain and the big things smack me in the face. I cannot stand the noise of electronics plugged in and not being used that make a sound, they remind me of left on amplifiers and guitar equipment.
I wouldn't wish this on anyone. and it is. and i am very very very angry.

sacrifice

as i sit alone in a crowded room of other moms and moms to be i wonder:
how many men would do the same?
backs aching in ugly red plastic
hardly
accomodating a swollen pregnant behind.
doing their best to make small talk through screaming toddlers and language barriers. not one face is scowling,
no complaints, only exasperated laughter.
show me a man who would happily do this alone for
one?, two?, three?
hours without
"bitching like a woman"
go ahead.
i dare you.

"Quis hic locus? Quae regio? Quae mundis plaga?

What world is this? What kingdom? What shores of what worlds?

I am entering new territory. A world I have never been before, one where I am left to deal with the ups and downs, the infuriating and the confusing, all with only my thoughts in my head. Never before have I considered how lonely and isolating it must be to be normal. To not have other people inside you who can just take over when the going gets tough. I am learning all too quickly. To be honest, I do not like it. I do not like having all 24 hours in my day. I do not like making decisions without an agreement, protest, or rebuttal from somewhere deep inside my being. The only break i've gotten in the past three weeks is when I got a birthday card in the mail from my dad. I watched from the balcony as it was burnt to a crisp in my kitchen sink, eminem blasting so loudly on the stereo that my ears hurt when i "came to". But that is all.....What shall we do tomorrow? what shall we ever do?... It began with the false supposition that my therapist was getting married, they went silent. I was deserted. Even now, after finding out it wasn't true, I still feel deserted and abandoned. It doesn't help that my boyfriend is sometimes wonderful and engaging, sometimes distant, but the greatest distance of all is the one between my best friend and I. The one I'm constantly, painfully aware of. She is there, and I am here, and as much as i want to, i cannot will the distance together. My loneliness, or "aloneness" is somewhat thrilling, albeit daunting. An adventure of sorts. I will undergo this one, holding my own hand, just as i always have, and just as i always will.

losing time, a d.i.d malady turned positive?

    There's been alot of alter activity lately for me. However, it's starting to shift from a sinking feeling afterwards to a calm and tranquil one, much like the ocean i miss so much.
      It started a little over a couple weeks ago, my most volatile personality, vampire, came out because she was extremely angry at my boyfriend for reasons i don't even remember now. For the past few months she's been slowly but surely letting me in a little bit when she's out. Meaning I get to sort of view what's going on from the balcony, she's in control, but it's not blocked from my memory completely. She was yelling at him, giving him a piece of her mind. By now my boyfriend is very good at recognizing not only when I'm switched,but who is out. He sat down with her, and calmly let her be angry at him. "it's alright," he said. "If you want to call me names, go ahead, I want to know what you think about me. Your opinions are very important to me. I love you and you're special." This stopped her in her tracks, like the angry wind had just gotten knocked out of her. When she is out, it's almost as if I can see my body with her face on it, and i saw her face soften. A very strange concept I know, but this is what it's like for me.
         A week or so later, teenage linda was out. While she's possibly the most dominant personality, she's usually pretty good at letting me "watch from the balcony". Not this time. A couple hours later, when I was confused at my puffy, obviously been crying very hard face, Justin explained to me that teenaged linda and he had a very long talk, she was depressed, felt like she wasn't useful anymore, and was confiding in him.
        I always have a profound sense of pulling, of disconnectedness in my chest, almost a physical feeling of it. It's not gone, but the past couple weeks it has started to settle. Maybe it's the xanax working a little better than normal, maybe it's the rapture i feel every time my baby boy starts kicking away. But I believe it has a lot more to do with the increased sense of validation that I, and all my other personalities have been feeling.
 Oprah Winfrey so poignantly says every person asks the same universal question.

"Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I'm saying matter to you?" 

What I'm trying to say, linda, is that there is nothing in your body that lies

Arcade Fire sings

            "my body is a cage, that keeps me dancing from the one i love, but my mind holds the key."

I love this song, and whenever I hear it, I get a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Music can be like a flashlight, illuminating truths you knew all along but never formed into a complete thought. I've always longed for someone, a physical closeness I can't ever quite achieve.The media tells me it's a man, psychology tells me it's my mother, Love is a many splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE! 




but who? who do i love? Who is my body keeping me from dancing with?
Myselves. I will never truly see them face to face, hug them, hit them. They are me, and I am them. The only thing that seperates us is that I have a paper trail. I feel this is sad and unfair, I want my son to know and understand them as seperate entities, yet one whole complete mother. I want to hold the little ones. I want to stand alone, apart from them, be able to say I AM ME and mean it, without them in the back of my head.Identity is such a strange thing to begin with. Who are we really? What seperates us from each other? Is it as simple as a body?

http://youtu.be/HmNUGBRNhf8

bun in the oven

"The more you try to erase me, the more that I appear. The more I try to erase you the more, the more, the more that you appear."

I'm having a baby boy!  We've tentatively decided on the name Garland.(My modified due date is Christmas Eve.) I was extremely excited to find out the sex, and even way more excited to find out my son is perfectly healthy. So to all of you who berated me for taking possibly harmful medication, when I was just trying to ensure we BOTH stay alive. Suck it!... Had to get that out of the way...
   Since the great news, I have been thinking about what it will mean to raise a man. Even though one of my alters, David, is male, he's more of a computer than an actual alter. He rarely ever comes out, and when he does, it's purely functional, mostly he's in charge of regulating who gets air time, and how much, etc. I do not consider myself a "girly girl". Never have. However, I do consider myself very womanly.I've been told by many different guy friends that I'm not a man,but I'm a dude.
    Even though I am sometimes conflicted on what a real man is, and our media and world around us is definitely conflicted and contradictory about it. I have a very good notion of what a man is not. Probably the only positive thing my father taught me. I know a man is not someone who has to rely on physical and verbal aggression to feel self assured and safe. I know a man is not someone who has to rely on name-calling and insults to make himself feel superior. I know a man is not someone who is worried about being superior. I know a man is someone who loves and respects women, children, the elderly, and anyone of a weaker physical makeup, who would never even consider laying hands on a woman or a child. I know a man is not harsh,  but strong. I know a real man is not someone you fear physical and emotional harm from, but rather, fear disappointing them.
   The more I think about it, and analyze it, I realize even more than teaching specific gender issues, what's more important is teaching the universal value of a PERSON. Something that every single one of us are, no matter our race, gender, sexual orientation, or physical, mental, and environmental handicapps. Boy or girl regardless, I am having a life.

I've been putting this one off

   For the past year or so I've been thinking that my "child" alters for the most part were integrated. A fancy word which here means, melted, if you will, back into the core self. i.e. me. The one with the name on the birth certificate. But for the past couple weeks or so i've been living with something I've been taking for granted not having, PAIN. Physical pain. The kind that you feel all the time, a burning sensation in my side that just won't go away. Not when I'm sleeping, not in the shower, not when I've spent all day taking it easy on the couch. It's just there. Like the annoying kid in fifth grade who thinks his constant antics are funny but really they're just annoying as hell. Because of all this physical pain I've been dealing with, it's bringing out alter activity that hasn't been active in a long time. In a world to where losing an hour to a drug addict who manically scrubs the floor and makes a soup, simultaneously checking her veins for ripeness, is, "normal",waking up to sucking your thumb is still pretty bizarre. This is all exasperated by the fact that I can't get in to see my doctor until I pay them money I just don't have right now, errgo I have no meds except my lithium. Great for keeping the icky hallucinations and voices at bay, not so great when i'm so anxcious i can barely keep applesauce down. The 18th is creeping up on me, and the reality that I won't be in san diego for it is settling in. However, at the same time, next monday I have my ultrasound, I'll most likely be finding out the sex of my baby. I'm hoping it's a girl, mainly because I've gotten into the habit of referring to it as "she" and having to switch that automatic pronounciation might be a little tricky. I start work tomorrow, my bf started working this week, things in general are looking pretty good for us. But most of all I'm bringing life into this world and nothing is more exciting than that

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

A year ago if I was told I have hepatitis C, a disease that could potentially kill me, I would be relieved. Correction, I would be elated. A chance to die soon of natural causes? Sign me up! A complete escape from all this without the guilt towards my family and loved ones for taking my own life? Sounds like a gift from heaven. (apparently i'm feeling religous today) However indeed, having a baby changes everything.
       Today I had to go to the doctor due to the intense pain in my liver i've been having the past week, when i called the dr, they had me come in right away. I've been terrified of many things in my life, but never, ever before have i been afraid to die. And I am terrified. I don't want to just live through my pregnancy to have a safe delivery, I want to live to see my child grow up, their first day of school, maybe even have kids of their own. It's not just me either, all of my personalities feel the same way. Yes, vampire still wants to self harm, and yes, my wild child self still dreams of needles and straws, but there's a general consensus that a baby trumps any possible desire for harmful behaviour. Truthfully, I'm beginning to envy them. Vampires anger, the way she can harness it into doing whatever she wants, or making others do her bidding. Her ability to detach emotion from necessary tasks, and even though my scars up and down my arms and all over my body are from her, I wouldn't be alive today if she wasn't here to protect me. And teenage linda? sometimes I feel like she's more mature than i am. Her ability to deflate a tense situation with a joke, a "whatever dude", her ability to assert herself and communicate exactly what is wrong is an ability i definitely do not possess myself. And even though she uses the wrong channels ( drugs and alcohol) she did what she knew how, to alleviate my pain. Yes, their existence makes me a weirdo, an outcast, a lunie, whatever you wanna call it but without them I would not be here. And I am so grateful for that                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Who would've thought?

It's ironic really.That it takes making a life to value my own. Never have I felt so powerful, so useful, so valuable. Everything that is needed to create life ( minus the sperm donation) is inside my body. I feel like god, and to quote modest mouse " well i am my own damn god! hahahahahahahaha!" Yes, I am weepy, irritable, maddening I'm sure. I spend countless hours watching stupid tv shows that make me cry. However, I feel like xena the warrior princess, an amazonian goddess. I am the lizard king. And I can do anything.

sweet thames run softly til you hear my song, sweet thames run softly for i speak not loud or long...

"you don't seem as crazy as you used to"

This is what my boyfriend tells me a couple days ago. While it's true that I have been less symptomatic than I was when things were very bad, it does not mean my disorder is something I can put on the backburner until it's "crunch time" again. I am always just a frog in a pot of boiling water. I will always be the frog, this is unavoidable, since it all started at an age where I had no choice, it's not going to disappear now that I'm old enough to make my own. The key is to monitor the water temperature.Keep it from boiling too quickly. There are many things going through my mind, different dilemmas, different opinions on how to deal with them. Default is to keep my head down, don't cause trouble, don't ask questions. It works fine until one of them gets fed up with my submissiveness. Finding out I have a chronic lifelong illness that I possibly contracted from my abuser is a very hard piece of information to cope with. Finding out your having a baby with someone who has a very hard time getting their shit together too,also hard to deal with.
           I do not want to be the frog. I am tired of being the frog. But the truth is, even if I made all the right decisions, if I didn't have a substance abuse problem, if I could be assertive when it counts, if I could be happy with my body at all times, if I could just see my  best friend, even from a distance, it would not change the past. I see myself playing the victim and I hate myself for it. They hate me for it. ( They being the other five folks who share my body) My nephews drove crosscountry and I have to physically stop myself from this incredibly strong instinct to go protect them there. 
        Somehow I have to mesh the past and future into a present I can deal with, and dare I say it? Be happy with.

when my brain fails to make comprehensive sentences

sometimes it's better to just let thom yorke do all the talking


"Idioteque"




Who's in bunker, who's in bunker?

Women and children first

Women and children first

Women and children

I'll laugh until my head comes off

I swallow till I burst

Until I burst

Until I..



Who's in bunker, who's in bunker

I've seen too much


I haven't seen enough


You haven't seen enough


I'll laugh until my head comes off

Women and children first

And children first

And children..



Here I'm allowed, everything all of the time


Here I'm allowed, everything all of the time



Ice age coming, ice age coming

Let me hear both sides

Let me hear both sides

Let me hear both..



Ice age coming, ice age coming

Throw me in the fire


Throw me in the fire


Throw me in the..





We're not scaremongering


This is really happening, happening


We're not scaremongering


This is really happening, happening





Mobiles working

Mobiles chirping

Take the money and run

Take the money and run

Take the money..



Here I'm allowed, everything all of the time

Background:

The first of the children

the buzz at the back of my head

You're in the middle of a circle of people and they're all talking about you, negatively, and loudly, what do you do?

This happens often. Except they're not real tangible people that I could slap across the face, pull their hair, call them names, any way of defending myself is only damaging myself. And now there's a baby in me.I was in the car today, there they were. All five of them. Mouse, little linda, teenage linda, vampire, and David. Conversing about me as if I weren't even there, didn't matter. HELLLOOOOOOOOOO I wanted to scream. I can hear you!!!! Talking about what I should do, who i should love, pulling me in five different directions, it's a physical feeling, my cranium literally being pulled. Internally I am shouting at them, but i'm being ignored. Like a child tugging on a preoccupied mother's skirt. Eventually it dies down to whispers, then just a subconscious feeling, that slight pull. Maybe it's the hormones. Maybe it's life and all of it's dreadful implications. Maybe this is just a symptom of a disease that I'm going to have to learn to live well with. Either way. I'm not making it all up.

and now for something so big it changes everything

I just finished yet another mental hospital stint, missing my "two week goal" by a few days. However it really helped, gave perspective on my reality to both me and the one i share my life with. There in Vista's Doctor's office I was informed of some very alarming news. One word. Pregnant. How can I possibly get through a pregnancy when I couldn't even get through a normal day of taking care of just me? ( and five of my buddies who tag along) All these things were racing through my mind, I wasn't given any medication the first full day there and was not present for any of it. It wasn't until i signed a form stating I was planning on terminating a pregnancy was I given my meds and started the process of recovery. again.
            I'm not going to lie, I was going to have an abortion. I thought that I couldn't handle a pregnancy, and while i'm only ten weeks along, i find I'm handling it much better, now that i know the support I will need I will get. A tremendous outpouring from my family, friends, and my other half has left me almost dumbfounded with the almost overwhelming amount of positive attention that I've never really gotten before.
And what will I do about my peculiar situation of sharing my body with not only a baby but five seperate people? I will take it one day at a time. Accept the help I'm offered. Focus completely on me and what it means to be healthy. A desperate situation could very easily turn into a life changing positive one.

anna is a sentimental little girl today

I sit outside and gaze at a spectacular tree in the front yard of my oldest friend's former house. It is a grand sight, an enormous old thing with great, expansive branches. I sit and I watch cascading beams of sunlight fall through its many leaves. I sit and I think back to when I would climb the long branches, sometimes spending an entire day held in its arms. There I would pass the time with my friend, feeling like I belonged, feeling happy.

I sit and I think back to when my imagination was not used for the sinister purpose of blocking memories from my mind, but to make everything magical. And when magical thinking meant innocent fantasies and dreams instead of desperate scenes of do-overs that I wantwantwant! with all my heart. I sit and I remember when everything I felt was genuine and nothing I did needed a purpose and the only thing that mattered was having fun. And it was so easy to be me because there was only me.

I sit and remember, and also I realize that I will never climb that tree again. I will never sit, supported by the aged branches, talking or not talking to my friend and feeling so complete. While I am not strictly okay with that, I accept it for what it is. Probably I have forgotten how to, anyway. Things will never be as easy as they were.

will you level with me? lovelovelove, anna

"Tra la! It's May!

The lusty month of May

That lovely month when ev'ryone goes

blissfully astray."

It happens. I live my life everyday going through the motions, doing the things I normally do, and then suddenly I realize how dysfunctional I have become. Sometimes I will have thought I was doing so well;  I do not notice when this happens until things reach a desperate level, usually. Like, say, when the entire month of May is lost to me. Maybe I just need a little more attention to detail.

Sometimes it is funny. I will find that "I've" done or said things that, while wildly uncharacteristic of the self I identify with, are simply fantastic. Other times I will find evidence recounting horrific or embarrassing occurrences. I suppose that as long as I don't wind up in a 5150 things are okay.   

Multiples aside, I am just like the average absent-minded schmuck. Or maybe a blackout drunk. But really though, we all lose things, and everyone dissociates to some degree sometimes (day dreaming, for instance, is a mild form). The truth is that anyone can relate to my symptoms. I, along with anyone else with DID, just take things to an alarming extreme. 

Really, the problem lies in the time loss. It isn't exactly safe to dissociate while behind the wheel, now, is it? Although, does anyone honestly remember every moment of his or her morning commute? Things that are so routinely familiar, so simplistic and trivial are often faded out of our minds, replaced by more pleasant thoughts, or maybe anxieties about approaching events, or maybe just blankness. This is normal. Losing an afternoon to an alternate with self-harm tendencies is not.

I will bypass the heavier issues for now. The thing is, each time I dissociate, I lose a little bit of my life. And if I am not living my life, what is the point? Every day I get a little stronger, I learn something.

Anna: where was i, again?

This past week I have heard dissociative identity disorder (referred to, of course, as 'multiple personalities') being explained as everything from symptoms of schizophrenia to demon possession to a flat out make-believe condition. Apart from providing me with a much needed laugh, these misconceptions of the disorder I struggle with on an everyday basis reminded me of how important it is for the people who are affected by this condition to share our stories, to show our perspectives. The stigma of mental illness only grows stronger as these blindly misinformed, ignorant speculations circulate without correction. At least hear my side.

I was not born like this. No one is born with DID. I was, however, born with a propensity to dissociate, being both an avoider and a highly creative individual. DID, unlike conditions such as schizophrenia or depression, which can be linked to genetics or chemical imbalances and treated with various medications, is most often trauma-induced, a direct reaction to an incident or incidents, and is primarily a method of coping with unwanted memories. No, I was not born like this, but from as early as I can remember dissociation has been the answer to many issues in my life.

I do not believe that anyone who personally knows someone with DID can endorse the idea that it is a fake condition. Alters, apart from leaving their mark via journaling, purchases, speeding tickets, scars, and a slew of tangible evidence, also have somatic proof of existence. From varying gaits, facial expressions, hand gestures, voice intonation, even blood pressures, scientific research has proven that it is indeed possible to share one's body. I personally have an alter with better eyesight than I possess, as far-fetched (and unfair) as it seems. When I call Linda I can tell in approximately four seconds if I am talking to her or an alter based solely on her voice inflection. Once it is properly addressed, dissociative identity disorder is much easier to pick up on.

The thing to remember is that the condition really changes nothing. I am still me, and chances are, as long as you have known me, I have been affected. I choose now to come forward and confront this in the hope that others will do the same, and together we can help to efface the much outdated view of what it means to live with DID. We can all be of tremendous support for one another; no longer should we have to feel isolated by our struggles. I do, indeed, get by with a little help from my friends.

'anna' spelled backwards is still 'anna'

look.

It isn't really my memory, but it is mostly reminiscent of deja vu. It's just something I know, somehow. The feeling is completely foreign and at the same time so very eerily familiar. It is an ephemeral glimpse, a chance to see into the life and mind of someone else, rather than myself. And for that moment we have a connection stronger than the obvious, purely physical tie. 

This altered deja vu can be very disconcerting. When it happens it becomes hard for me to tell the difference between myself and them, or to remember who I am, even. Sometimes it is necessary for me to say my name aloud until it makes sense.

closer.

Jamais vu is referred to as the opposite of deja vu. Essentially, past occurrences and present perceptions have no connection and things become unfamiliar or unrecognizable. Common in seizure disorders as well as dissociative disorders, jamais vu can give the feeling of living in a dream where reality is utterly nonexistent. Most embarrassingly it will occur for me mid-conversation, and I cannot recognize whomever I have been talking to. Often in these circumstances I have to fight the urge to simply walk away.

This happens to me quite frequently, and every time it feels literally as if I am stepping out of my mind and am on my way into someone else's. There is no recovery from it; when I cannot relate to anything around me it is a sure sign that I am about to dissociate.

this. is. not. me.

I'm not gonna do it.
     That's what I told myself, when I woke up this morning. I'm not taking that medicine again, i'm just not. Day after day, take all these pills, and along with being a drug addict, i feel it's all i ever see. Pills pills pills pills pills pills. I gave in and took my lithium when i was scratching the carpet frantically, sure I was going to find the nest of the sparkly fairies I had been seeing fly around all morning. It doesn't matter what day it is, I wouldn't be able to put it into context anyway. The last week being a mess of fifteen minutes at work here, a movie at home, an argument, a sandwich. Tiny little tidbits of the life someone else is living for me. Trying to piece them together like a puzzle that's so old the pieces don't conjoin anymore, even if they were meant to.
        If it was at will, I would have the best mental illness in the entire world, anything i didn't want to go through i could just switch, and come back when all is well. Like Adam Sandler in click. Even Mr. Deeds gets in over his head, it is not at will, I get very little choice in it at all. I find pictures I didn't draw, I give instructions I never gave, poems I never wrote. There's all these things around me but where am I in them? With all this loss of time, it's hard to tell who's the alternate personality? Me or them?

anna, on integration

It is a sad thing, to lose a friend.

I am the kind of person who just absolutely hates when things come to an end. Finishing a book can throw me into a depression. The finale of a television series I've enjoyed for its duration can destroy my world. Even the last drag of a cigarette incites an almost unbearable discomfort (ok, this one probably has more to do with my addiction than the loss). The end of something can provoke in me indignation to rival a two year old's tantrum. 

If I am to be honest with myself, I fear integration- the point in which all of the multiples join together with the host to form one whole, fully decompartmentalized person. This, in part, is due to an apprehension to say goodbye to the people who have been more closely involved in my life than anyone else ever could. Such a concept, additionally, implies a level of stability I have never known. 

The more I learn about my personalities, and about myself, I can see that at some point we will have nothing further to say to each other. Survival is becoming less difficult for me now than it was in the past, and it will, eventually, be time to fully accept and embrace the different aspects of myself. Dissociation is for me, in many ways, very convenient. I am by nature an avoider, and a spectacular one at that. Integration includes changing deeply ingrained behaviors and cognitions. It means feeling things I perhaps have never fully felt, accepting a higher level of responsibility and control of my life, being accountable for every single thing I do and say. This is scary stuff.

The ultimate goal of integration is, truthfully, still far off; after all, I am still discovering fragments of myself. One day everything will be different. My relationship to myself, to the world, to people around me, these things will be more real, more fulfilling when I am no longer just half-formed people having half-formed thoughts.

rose tints my world

The clock reads 7:45. My eyes snap open and I jump out of bed with a sharp gasp. Sometimes it can be difficult to remember that the monsters in my dreams cannot follow me into the waking world. Panic. I try to take deep, calming  breaths. I blink. The clock now says it is past noon. I think, that can't be right. I blink. The clock still says it is past noon. I think, which is broken, me or the clock?

I have lost my morning to the autonomonster. She refuses to distinguish herself from me; ask her to tell you her name, and you will be berated for inquiring at all, before she spits out an irate "Anna". She lives by a set of self-governed rules, independent of societal norms and morals. She conducts herself with the air of a defiant teen, and has no regard for consequences. With a proclivity for visceral experiences, the autonomonster is a spectacular liability, and her excursions into my mind almost always have calamitous results.

Today the autonomonster spent my morning destroying possessions of mine. Journals dating from years back, letters from old friends, various paintings and sketches lay scattered across the floor, torn and destroyed. As I stare at the detritus at my feet, the sad remains of my deepest secrets and thoughts and emotions, I wonder why. At first I curse her for this roguery, as tears of dejection well up in my eyes and my throat constricts. As I begin to sift through the relics with a slouching resignation, however, I have to wonder about the value I hold in these items, these raw glimpses of particular moments in my history. How much does my identity depend on them? And with an epiphanic jolt I realize that she has freed me from the erroneous belief that I am not anyone except who I am in this moment.


I pop on my rose tinted glasses and accept that spring cleaning has, apparently, begun.

We are not the same I am a martian

O Mary, open your eyelides.
I am in the domain of silence,
the kingdom of the crazy and the sleeper.
There is blood here
and I have eaten it.
O mother of the womb,
did I come for blood alone?
O little mother,
I am in my own mind.
I am locked in the wrong house.

To belong, fit in, have a person, place, or thing you can point to and say "that's me". That's what we all want, is it not? I feel I will never belong anywhere, a definitive emotion i've had since I can remember. One of the very few childhood memories I actually have is of walking outside my house at dusk, picking the flowers, they were dying. I would get so upset over these withering petals I would sob uncontrollably, so sad over the plants leaving this world. They didn't deserve it, so precious, so fragile.
       Now, an odd fifteen years later this memory makes so much more sense. Of course the death of the innocent flowers made me so despairing. I saw myself in them. Powerless against the all-powerful man, the sun. The thing the whole world revolved around.Nothing was safe.
        Today is Easter, I spend time with my family, I go to church, even though church sometimes can induce extreme nausea in me. I look at these people, and I see the things that tie me to them. When you remove the monster, the castle is a much more welcoming place. Feelings of helplessness, anger, resentments, they rise up, mostly out of habit, however I am learning to recognize those feelings for what they are, and when they are from. Now, things are different. Now, the house that I come home to is not a decrepit, termite eaten piece of shit with dogshit and old bathtubs in the backyard. It is a warm place, that always smell of something freshly baked. Now my mother is not the police, she is what she is supposed to be, my mama. Now my siblings look my way and see ME, how i perceive things greatly impacts the way the world around me looks. Familys are such complicated units, everyones is, mine especially. But family is essential, they share your blood, they've been in your life the whole time you've had one, and that means alot. How many people did you know ten years ago that still call you? My nephews give me hope. Small glimmers of  a life not riddled with despair, they have a chance. They are not doomed. Maybe, just maybe, i'm not either.

On a lighter Note

It's days like today which salvage my life entirely. Days where I'm not plagued with overwhelming sadness, days i can remember what I had for breakfast and lunch, days where the hallucinations are only mild, and there's no other voice in my head than the one on the radio. If I did not have these days, I don't think I could keep it together. There is no reason to. The funny thing about this "personality business" is that sometimes, if i can just completely ignore it, there's the illusion that it's not a problem. I carry on this way until such an obvious catastrophe takes place it's instantly visible, and the involvement (or lack thereof) in my life becomes clear. However, it's all I have. Illusions of grandeur. I can never quite get to the center of my tootsie pop.
           Today, the child within me grabbed a leaf from a tree, tore it up in little pieces, felt the sticky texture in her fingers, she held a hand, unromantically, palm to palm, and felt safe. I try to give her as many indulgences in these simple pleasures as I can. She is the only one I have nothing but love and compassion for. She causes no problems, such a small child for childhood to be ended that way. Often when I cry, I cry for her.
           Even in these times of "well being" there's still the forboding sensation that it will all end soon. Just like Anna said, constantly terrorized, the breaks in between switches almost being more exruciating than being gone itself. ....... I grow old. I grow old. I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled....

more humbling than a bummed cigarette

Sometimes I feel as if I'm forever waiting until the next time I won't be myself. Projections of fear, anxiety, frustration litter my head, the way my matchsticks litter the ground around me. I'm waiting for my cigarette to end so I can light up another one. Another drag, what a drag. With the cigarette on my lips, I think: this is the most action I'll get all day.

But also...

Right now I can feel Her thoughts, I can hear Her voice, softer than mine, more apprehensive. My vision changes; I see the surrounding environment the way She sees it. It's happening in flashes. Right now gently, almost lovingly, she is sidling into my mind. She is helping me forget, She is pushing me away, and I'm ok with that. Right now I feel the tensing of my muscles, the quickening of my heart beat, secretions from the sudoriferous glands on my hands.  These are Her preparations for the distress She will endure for me. 

I try to formulate the last complete thoughts I will have as myself, as Anna, but it might be too late. At this point it's just a matter of time before I disengage entirely. Right now She has a strong hold on me.

She doesn't know much about anything really real. She looks through a snow globe, through plastic. And god, She hates plastic. But it's everywhere, and She's enclosed in it. I'm engrossed in Her little world because we share it, and I've grown somewhat fond of the little thing.

Two different clocks tick at two different seconds- ticktick ticktick titick titick ttick

what it all is

Whenever I tell someone that I have multiple personalities, the response is usually, "Am I talking to Anna?"

Yes. You are.

It was the apparent memory loss. The time lapses. Evidence of mysterious self harm. The overly-friendly encounters with 'strangers' (wait, you say we've met how many times?).The eerie sensation of leaving myself, the feeling of a different consciousness telling me to just let go, that everything will be ok.  It was the panic of suddenly finding myself somewhere, with no idea how I came to be there- in the passenger seat of a maroon SUV driven by a girl  I've never met... on the sunken green couch in the living room of a house I've no memory of entering... or perhaps on the plastic covered mattress in a dimly lit hospital room, with those little blue grip socks and a cotton ball taped over a venipuncture site.

It was dozens of encounters of being called a strange name. Hundreds of scars covering my body. Thousands of varying journal entries. It was a lifetime of trying desperately to explain myself in vain before I was diagnosed with DID.

"The Bad One"

Allow me to introduce myselves,
      There are six of us, including me, the birthed one. Inconvenient as it is to have these "multiples", It would be far less of a challenge if it wasn't for the one who causes the most problems, the most disagreeable, vampire. ( A name she christened herself, by the way) Rightly suited, as well, she thrives off violence. Blood, and gore, all those things that make me cringe when watching a horror movie on t.v. Most of all, she craves my blood, spilt all the way down to the floor, spilled as far as it would go. That is her mission. When I feel her presence like I have since I woke up, rage envelops my body so powerfully it is a physical feeling. My blood boils, the same way it did whenever I would get angry at my mother for finding out whatever mischief I had gotten myself into. A cup of coffee later, and she's really started going at it. I can hear her voice, picture her face, while she berates me for being weak, stupid, willfully powerless. A voice so loud I clamp my hands over my ears but it does nothing to stop the namecalling, mixed with the peer-pressure like convincing me to do it. Just get up and do it. Stop being a coward.
      By this time my arms hurt so badly I feel like if I don't, if I don't just let some of it out, I will explode. So i do, I give her her wish. Just a test drive. It does not do the trick. She's less vocal now that it's the afternoon, David, the one who "manages" us, controls who goes in and who stays out, decided to give me a break I suppose. Still there is a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction, and an undeniable rage. Towards my abuser? No. Towards myself. Unbridled anger at the five year old girl for not doing more to ease her own suffering. It is ludicrous, and it is an opinion of myself that as long as I have her, I know I will not be able to escape from.
             

They Call me 'Ms. Creativity' Or, An Introduction to Anna

My name is Anna. I am twenty one years old, and I share my body, my life, with other people.  Some people talk to hear their own voice; I talk to find out whose voice I hear. I have dissociative identity disorder, one of the most misunderstood conditions in the field of mental health. In the hopes of raising awareness, of lessening the sense of isolation, I will share my experience with anyone willing to know more.

My life is full of confusion, uncertainty. Time lapses and contradictions and the occasional fit. Very few people are willing to understand and accept all facets of ME, and those who do are inexpressibly special to me. While not everyone will or should be subjected to the nastier parts of my selves, I think it's time to come forward with the basics.

DID is portrayed as a very black-and-white condition, a Jekyll and Hyde (or Tyler Durden and Jack, for that matter) case of good versus evil fighting in one body. In reality, dissociation is complex, a truly remarkable means of coping, or perhaps more accurately, avoidance. They call me 'Ms. Creativity', presumably to credit the highly imaginative degree of elusion I have crafted. My alters are each unique and voluminous, and have comprehensive personalities complete with a full range of emotions and individual needs and desires.

I am still struggling to better understand all the aspects of living with dissociative identity disorder, and refuse to do so in solitude. DID is very real, and it's more common than one would assume. I hope that this collaborative endeavor will help to bring truth to what it really means to be affected by DID.

Let's Get this straight.

      Allow me to introduce my selves
One of the most disagreeable symptoms to the sufferer of disasociative identity disorder is keeping things in a clear, chronological order. An obvious example of this being my stack of journals i've kept since i was an angsty teenager. The current one being a blue clothbound journal with beautiful black beadwork on the side. ( Irrelevant  I know but I try to really focus on life's simple pleasures) The entries themselves will vary in size, handwriting, even diction style. While at first glance they might not seem so inconsistent, read through a few pages, soon it will be more than apparent. I hate my life, i love my life, i'm so sad, i'm gonna kill that bitch, all sorts of nonsense skirts the once pristine white paper. However, I am lucky enough to by now  know each of the individuals that dwell within me to know who's saying what. It boggles my mind to think about how i acquired this inconvenience and also the complexity, and development of it! Such unique individuals they are! Fascinating, gruesome, one of them scares the shit out of me for crying out loud. Sometimes I can feel their overwhelming desire, like a rabbit in a cage, scratching, scratching, let me out. out.out.out. I want to tell my secrets.

and so it begins

allow me to introduce my selves.
   Yes, selves, there are six of us, including me, Linda, sharing this  5'1 122 lb body. Not much room for six people to live, no? Perhaps that's why there's clashes. Maybe if i gained a hundred pounds it would be simpler. We've all heard of sybil, or trudi chase on oprah. Dramatic, Hollywood renditions of what a person with mpd should and could look like. This is not the case. Yes, I have mutliple personalities, but they are highly intelligent, even "classy" and they don't take much joy in acting outlandishly. I seldom inform my friends and acquaintances of my condition. Fear that i'll be judged, Fear that i'll be treated differently, as one who is different, "leprous". The fact of the matter is, I am not the only one suffering from this strange malady. We are everywhere. ( are you scared yet?)  we're on the bus, serving you coffee, our nametag might say one thing while we introduce ourselves by a different name altogether. Why is the concept of a split person so taboo? Maybe because of the peculiaraty, the strangeness of it.
        Imagine if you will, going to work, and finishing your shift in what seems to be only an hour. Not that I don't remember working, I am aware of what went on, I just didn't necessarily complete any of it myself. And now, imagine if you can, on the busride home a man gets on who has a peculiar smell, I don't find it all that disagreeable, but since one of my alters do, my heart starts beating a million miles a minute, my throat closes up, the man gets off, and I am fine. Am I stepping across the weirdo boundaries yet? Imagine going through everyday, knowing that you yourself did not go through everyday. Imagine not remembering high school, or junior high, and the only memory of elementary being your first grade teacher, Mrs. Klink.

Now I am growing a bit weary of keeping quiet, of not having anyone to relate to with ( except my dearest best friend) when i know that we are all over this country. There is the feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the save the whales movement, my question is when will I be recognized? When will we be recognized as the result of a problem much bigger than ourselves. We only want to live peacefully, all of us, together.