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Jan. 31st, 2005 11:29 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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multiplicity_archivesI'm tentative to post. I was once, a long time ago a member of the dark personalities mailing list. Aw, I remember the days. It feels like a different world though. I had a website too... strange how I almost don't remember. We called ourselves "Shadows Troops" and DP was a beautiful thing.
I have to introduce myself much differently than I did 5 or so years ago.
First of all, I am only one now. Whether I was then or wasn't then seems like it will remain a mystery forever. I take meds now that strangely block out the "voices". It's bizarre how I ended up viewing them. Sometimes I feel guilty and I worry. Perhaps I've merely succumb to societies standards. Maybe I've forgotten what we were.
Anyway, I'm afraid I may go on for awhile, but please do read... maybe. This will be the first time I've really spoken about this in years and years.
To start to introduce myself is difficult. What I was in the past and what I am now seem completely different. Foreign worlds.
Once upon a time I heard voices. I was eating disordered and regularly told that voices were normal and that everyone had an "ed voice". Eventually it came to the point where I began to know and identify these "voices" . There was Hope and there was Dark. They never left... even when I pretend they never existed.
It was easy to believe they were eating disorder voices. Hope was a perfectionist and an anorexic. Perhaps like the opposite of me, this impulsive chaotic bulimic. Dark constantly reminded me that I was a bad person. He kept me in my place. I was bad, evil and not a soul could care about me.
Eventually I decided to "come out" about these voices. I decided to research what it could be... I guess I decided to find answers.
In a way I wish I'd never done that.
What I landed upon was this idea of MPD/DID. And my, how it fit me. I began to explore the idea. Read more about it.
While I struggled with the idea of it and its accuracy I began to talk to people about it at a message board that I went to at the time.
For awhile things were okay. There was one thing that was a little off. The people around me insisted that it was a disorder that only came about because of abuse... and I had not been abused.
What I started to hear was that if I really had MPD/DID then I most certainly had to have been abused.
It's crushing to me what happened next. Embarrassing. Unintentional. I always just want to kneel down and swear that it was not intentional.
I began to have 'memories' of abuse. I would have nightmares and images would come out of nowhere and haunt me. The voices grew... there were more of them now. I began to remember horrible things.
At the same time I inwardly fought with myself. It just doesn't make sense. I couldn't have been abused. It has no basis in fact. Is it real?
Well, again I would be reminded that if the voices and the DID were real then yes, the abuse must be real.
And I began to believe it.
I began to live it.
I still don't understand where the memories came from. What they were - how they came to me. And I still shudder at some of my nightmares... some of the images I saw.
It confuses me to have been so effected by something that has no basis in reality. I am scarred from an idea. That hardly makes sense. That's laughable.
And so I lived in a plural world for awhile.
A few years passed and I dared venture into that land of question. Of just where this abuse did lie. And what I was confronted with was the fact that I truly was impossible. My memories could easily be refuted. None of it was real.
I had to face that.
And so with the idea of DID and abuse being so attached I confessed to all who knew that no, I did not have DID, and no, I was never abused.
And I ran from it for a couple more years. The thought of it. All the literature. The forums. The website. Even the friends I made.
I ran.
I felt so humiliated. Like the biggest liar in the universe. How could I make up such a story? Why would anyone believe I didn't mean to? That doesn't make any sense. What was it about? Why did it happen? Why did 'I' somehow do it? Why?
I had betrayed all of those who have real memories. I've betrayed all of those who do have DID.
The facts are though... and what I've only really been willing to face this past year is that I did not make up those voices. I did not ever lie about my activities and the way I lived. How could I be so split but be so okay? How did any of it happen? None of it makes any sense.
I feel I constantly need to say that I swear I am not a bad person. I'm really not.
Sometimes I think perhaps my mind all did it. I was quite ill with bulimia at the time. I weighed just above 80 pounds. I wasn't exactly of sound mind. I was highly suggestible. I felt crazy and I was looking for answers.
These voices. These darling people that I had slowly gotten to know... I stopped listening. I stopped all of it. I screamed for it to vanish, but it already had.
What kind of imagination did I have? What was all of this?
Today I still have no answers. A med I take silences the voices. Sometimes I miss them. Even when they disappeared they were still there... so for the first time they really are gone. And I guess it has caused me to think about it more.
What was all of that?
What were these "voices" - what was any of it?
I feel of course horribly alone in this situation. I don't know another soul who has had an experience like mine... which is perhaps why I'm writing here... in the hopes that someone knows something.
I've never dared speak of it in therapy. I've erased it from my life. I'm only slowly, now, beginning to look back and it hurts and leaves me only with confusion.
I just can't seem to understand what any of it was. Or why it came about.
I have to introduce myself much differently than I did 5 or so years ago.
First of all, I am only one now. Whether I was then or wasn't then seems like it will remain a mystery forever. I take meds now that strangely block out the "voices". It's bizarre how I ended up viewing them. Sometimes I feel guilty and I worry. Perhaps I've merely succumb to societies standards. Maybe I've forgotten what we were.
Anyway, I'm afraid I may go on for awhile, but please do read... maybe. This will be the first time I've really spoken about this in years and years.
To start to introduce myself is difficult. What I was in the past and what I am now seem completely different. Foreign worlds.
Once upon a time I heard voices. I was eating disordered and regularly told that voices were normal and that everyone had an "ed voice". Eventually it came to the point where I began to know and identify these "voices" . There was Hope and there was Dark. They never left... even when I pretend they never existed.
It was easy to believe they were eating disorder voices. Hope was a perfectionist and an anorexic. Perhaps like the opposite of me, this impulsive chaotic bulimic. Dark constantly reminded me that I was a bad person. He kept me in my place. I was bad, evil and not a soul could care about me.
Eventually I decided to "come out" about these voices. I decided to research what it could be... I guess I decided to find answers.
In a way I wish I'd never done that.
What I landed upon was this idea of MPD/DID. And my, how it fit me. I began to explore the idea. Read more about it.
While I struggled with the idea of it and its accuracy I began to talk to people about it at a message board that I went to at the time.
For awhile things were okay. There was one thing that was a little off. The people around me insisted that it was a disorder that only came about because of abuse... and I had not been abused.
What I started to hear was that if I really had MPD/DID then I most certainly had to have been abused.
It's crushing to me what happened next. Embarrassing. Unintentional. I always just want to kneel down and swear that it was not intentional.
I began to have 'memories' of abuse. I would have nightmares and images would come out of nowhere and haunt me. The voices grew... there were more of them now. I began to remember horrible things.
At the same time I inwardly fought with myself. It just doesn't make sense. I couldn't have been abused. It has no basis in fact. Is it real?
Well, again I would be reminded that if the voices and the DID were real then yes, the abuse must be real.
And I began to believe it.
I began to live it.
I still don't understand where the memories came from. What they were - how they came to me. And I still shudder at some of my nightmares... some of the images I saw.
It confuses me to have been so effected by something that has no basis in reality. I am scarred from an idea. That hardly makes sense. That's laughable.
And so I lived in a plural world for awhile.
A few years passed and I dared venture into that land of question. Of just where this abuse did lie. And what I was confronted with was the fact that I truly was impossible. My memories could easily be refuted. None of it was real.
I had to face that.
And so with the idea of DID and abuse being so attached I confessed to all who knew that no, I did not have DID, and no, I was never abused.
And I ran from it for a couple more years. The thought of it. All the literature. The forums. The website. Even the friends I made.
I ran.
I felt so humiliated. Like the biggest liar in the universe. How could I make up such a story? Why would anyone believe I didn't mean to? That doesn't make any sense. What was it about? Why did it happen? Why did 'I' somehow do it? Why?
I had betrayed all of those who have real memories. I've betrayed all of those who do have DID.
The facts are though... and what I've only really been willing to face this past year is that I did not make up those voices. I did not ever lie about my activities and the way I lived. How could I be so split but be so okay? How did any of it happen? None of it makes any sense.
I feel I constantly need to say that I swear I am not a bad person. I'm really not.
Sometimes I think perhaps my mind all did it. I was quite ill with bulimia at the time. I weighed just above 80 pounds. I wasn't exactly of sound mind. I was highly suggestible. I felt crazy and I was looking for answers.
These voices. These darling people that I had slowly gotten to know... I stopped listening. I stopped all of it. I screamed for it to vanish, but it already had.
What kind of imagination did I have? What was all of this?
Today I still have no answers. A med I take silences the voices. Sometimes I miss them. Even when they disappeared they were still there... so for the first time they really are gone. And I guess it has caused me to think about it more.
What was all of that?
What were these "voices" - what was any of it?
I feel of course horribly alone in this situation. I don't know another soul who has had an experience like mine... which is perhaps why I'm writing here... in the hopes that someone knows something.
I've never dared speak of it in therapy. I've erased it from my life. I'm only slowly, now, beginning to look back and it hurts and leaves me only with confusion.
I just can't seem to understand what any of it was. Or why it came about.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 11:23 am (UTC)Remember it was often stated on DP that one can be multiple and not have MPD/DID; one can be multiple and be okay, as you say; and that being multiple doesn't always come about because of abuse.
If it's any comfort to you, you should have seen some of the things we thought about ourselves when we first self-recognized as multiple. A lot of people try to make themselves fit into the standard mould.
What medicine are you on? Would you feel better if you were in touch with the voices again?
no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 03:43 pm (UTC)Take your time. Hope you'll feel better and find some answers as a result of being here.
xx
no subject
Date: 2005-02-02 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-02 02:55 am (UTC)We didn't have exactly the same experience as you, but...
About seven or eight years ago, we were in touch with a friend who subscribed heavily to the idea of reincarnation (not that none of us believe in it, but we're inclined to doubt some of the claims she was making), and alleged that she remembered us from her past lifetimes. What was more, this person would have her past incarnations (or who she claimed were past incarnations) come up front and talk through her body in attempts to 'get us to remember.'
For a while, we really fell for it. We had been hearing 'voices' all our life, and we had very clear images of some of them as individuals; we just believed it couldn't be multiplicity because we didn't fit all the diagnostic MPD criteria. According to her theories, all of these were past lives who had just chosen to represent themselves as voices; if we wanted to find out who they 'really' were, the memories of our past lives would be there-- we just had to 'look for them.'
And so we started 'looking.' Eventually, we started getting images, and memories, and 'remembering' having known her. A lot of things were fueled by her convincing us that problems we had in this life were results of trauma in past ones, and as time went on, the 'memories' we were recovering of these past lives became more and more unpleasant. It got to be upsetting to the point where we didn't want any more contact with this woman, who seemed to constantly need to be surrounded by melodrama-- but for a long time, we couldn't bring ourselves to admit that the 'past lives' probably hadn't ever happened at all, even if reincarnation has a basis in fact. When we finally did, we were upset, humiliated, pissed off, kicking ourselves for falling for it-- we just wanted to go back in time and erase everything.
It confuses me to have been so effected by something that has no basis in reality. I am scarred from an idea. That hardly makes sense. That's laughable.
It's not 'laughable'-- the same thing happened to us, just in a different context. Trying to accept that such things really happened to you, whether in this lifetime or another, can be genuinely upsetting. After you've spent all the time and energy trying to recover what you thought was real and trying to break down your defense barriers against believing-- well, after investing so much in it, suffering because of it, basing your whole self-concept around it, who wants to believe it was all smoke and mirrors? We certainly didn't. We were looking for answers too. One of the reasons we fell for it was because the idea of thinking of the 'voices' as real people felt so powerfully right.
There's a reason so many science fiction stories have been based around the idea of stealing or implanting memories-- what we remember forms so much of the core of who we are. To have that tampered with can be profoundly upsetting. I think there are a lot of people who've had such experiences and just aren't talking about it-- like you said, it's humiliating, it makes you feel awful.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-02 03:39 pm (UTC)I want to say more, but I'm not sure what just now. But thank you.
sorta the same thing....
Date: 2005-02-02 07:25 pm (UTC)~shawna sky
no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 04:12 am (UTC)As I see it, identity is self-confirming. I believe I have property X because I have the experience of property X. I have the experience of property X because I actively construct my self-narrative in terms of property X. I do this because I believe I have property X. I believe I have property X because I have the experience of property X...
So concepts are powerful. Suppose someone believes they have reason to believe they are or might be multiple, but the evidence if looked at objectively is pretty flimsy. They'll start using the concept, multiplicity-suggesting events will seem more salient, more frequent... And a new internal experience is slowly being constructed. It will probably seem a poor copy at first, and some people probably come to the conclusion at this stage that they're "making it up", and reject the entire experience. For me, just because an experience is constructed does not mean it is not "real" and thus should be rejected. It's probably wise to keep quiet about it at this stage, though.
So the echo of a thought led to a smile which led to a breath which led to her thoughts and feelings alongside mine, to her point of view, to her unique relation to herself, me, and the world, and to her own precious subjectivity... At one point I thought things had gone too far and I tried to reject it, but I found I could not since there were now her concepts in play as well as mine. Even though I resolved to hold it perfectly still, the arm that was once mine alone still moved.
(As your own experience and the experiences of other commenters show, this means you have to be really cautious about what you and your system accept as possible for yourselves...)
just because an experience is constructed does not mean it is not "real"...
Date: 2005-02-03 12:53 pm (UTC)Thank you, thank you, thank you.
...
/over-excitment
no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 07:03 am (UTC)I feel speechless. Just these words are doing a wonder on how I feel.
I am considering actually, going off of these meds to come back in contact... if for no other reason than to listen to them again. Perhaps I should take into consideration what they want.
[Saying that begins to freak me out. I'm afraid of being regarded in... an abnormal manner. I learned once before that it didn't matter. I've fallen deep into my issues and lost a lot of me...]
aw, complicated stuff but what you are sharing is remarkably wonderful.
there's something so comforting about it. and something so opening.
i know i've closed my mind. I fear opening it again. Daring to peek... but thank you for this.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-04 05:35 am (UTC)That might be a good idea. A lot of multiples report that meds mess up their in-system communication. We didn't even notice that they affected ours until we stopped taking them. It couldn't hurt to just try to get back in touch with the others.
Actually, I think it's very brave of you to even be willing to come back to the idea of multiplicity again after you had been so hurt by the idea that you had to find memories. I don't see any of that as meaning you're a bad person, no more than we were for going through the thing with the past life memories-- a lot of people have been told that they probably had abuse memories. It sounds like you really just took it at face value and went looking for them with the intention of wanting to help yourself/yourselves.
no subject
Date: 2005-02-12 06:59 am (UTC)Whether you recognize this from my other journal or not (suspected: You will) I asked for a way to get in touch with you and then didn't follow through. Wasn't my intention... I'm just finding myself going through a whole lot of my own sh.t right now....
Hope you're doing alright (or, better, better than alright) and I will email you when things look a bit less blech for me.
Hang in there :),
-that girl who replied to this post in another place.