Splitting

[Redhead Erin]

Oh (((Twoapenny))) You get it! That is right about it being so hard to integrate the parts in to a comfortable whole. I just bought a book about a MPD woman who had 17 identities . A therapist helped her make them one whole. It sounds too good to be true but hopefully it is true.
 

Ami,

Are you concerned that you might be multiple?  If so, you can PM me if you want.  I was multiple until I integrated at age 28 or 29. 

Know that it is possible and even very common to integrate into one whole person.  Also. know that even people who are not multiple can feel fragmented and split form time to time.  Also, Many non-multiples have one face they use for work, one for their kids, one for their spouse, etc.  That is really very normal and healthy.

[Ami]

Oh Erin. I never thought of that. Do you feel comfortable talking about it on the Board or would you rather PM. I can talk on the Board cuz I have been  as open a book as you can get on this Board, probably too open for many tastes but I have been trying to save my life so What the Hey?
 I may or may not be a multiple. I don't have classic signs like time lost. I feel fragmented. I have a tough ,strong part that I feel guilty about--Blackie. I can bring it out when I need to fight, as I do on the Board and in real life. I just named it Blackie for my thread. Whitie is the usual me who is wimply , TOOOOO nice, TOOOO giving, TOOOO sweet etc.
 Then, I have the terrified part, Little Ami, who is scared to death of everything and feels she will split apart in to atoms .
 I have other parts , too.
  Do you feel comfortable talking about your journey on the Board. I would love to hear about it. You sound centered, too so you must have been through quite a journey to get to your present level of self awareness.     xxxoo  Ami

[Ami]

Dear Erin
  I want to tell you what happened to me at 14. Maybe, this is part of being a multiple. I don't know but give me your opinion. I was somewhat of a normal person before 14. I was not normal in the sense that I had panic attacks and was phobic but I was normal in that I had a group of friends in which I was the leader. I did activities and had a regular kid life.
 I struggled with fears but had a sense of a discrete self with boundaries. I could feel my feelings and accept my thoughts. I  developed a social personality where I could interact with others and generally liked myself.
 At 14, my F whom I trusted told me that my abusive, sadistic M was OK. He was really saying that MY reality was not true. At that moment, I became numb and have never gotten out of it until perhaps now.
       Ami

[Ami]

Ami,

Those feelings of shame around the NM's introjections, that were built into you through years of conforming to her level of expectations in order to meet her needs, such as the ideas that you are bad wanting, needing, feelings, thinking etc., take time to heal.

Last night, I watch the ending of Shawshank Redemption, I was reminded of the tunnels of shame that I have had to pass through in order to get more free. Recall how Andy has to climb through a tunnel of toxic waste to freedom?

Alice Miller would tell you to stay with your pain, even your shame for so much of it was buried, if you stay with the yucky feelings and pain (even anger), the darkness (it will pass) you will come out the other side a changed person and with more insight. I have had to go into myself, my heart,, feel the shame, the voices and negative messages-lies-that created that shame. At times the best that I can do is curl up in a little ball and wait the pain out until the dark clouds lift and a new feeling of lightness comes over me.

Looking back, I have had these dark tunnels of shame and pain for so long now, but what I realize that each one is different, each one tells a different story of abuse and lack of love in my life. The more I press on with the cross, staying with the pain, the more time seems to come in between the feelings of being captive, still, by my NM. The more I stay with the pain the more I see that I am not recycling so much even though my childhood was a recycle, day in and day out, of negative messages of shame that seemed to be encoded into my belief system. The way out is through, even I forget this, as I have had to wade, swim, climb, sleep, and claw my way through at times. I wonder, will it ever be finished.

You have made much progress, your insights and honesty are strong.

Just a thought...The idea of good and bad are judgements.  We children from dysfunctional families grew up thinking in all or nothing, black and white terms. Life is not black and white. The bad in me was something that through time I have been able to see good come out of.

Lise

Thank you Lise. This really , really helps!                                        Ami

[Redhead Erin]

Ami,

Yes, I am perfectly fine with talking about it here on the board.  My reality is what it is, and damn the torpedoes.

Since you don't seem to have any of the usual signs of being multiple, you likely are not.  MPD is one end of a spectrum of dissociative disorders.  Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD or Shell Shock, depending on your generation) is a similar disorder.  Fugue states, when you sometimes hear about a person completely forgetting who he is and starting his life over, are another form of extreme dissociation.

Dissociation is psycho-lingo for that state in which you are not completely in touch with the world outside your own head.  It is a normal phenomenon on one end of the spectrum.  For example, if you are so involved in a book that you do not hear someone calling your name, that is a normal state of dissociation. It is related to the ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others.

In between the extreme ends of the spectrum, are states like you describe.  I am sure they have a name, but I don't know what it is.   When I went to Incest Survivors Anonymous, I met a lot of people who felt as you do, very fragmented.  I think this is a way we survive the horror-houses of our childhoods.  As little children, we need our parents.  We need to believe that they are wonderful people who will always care for us.  We need to believe in their innate goodness, so we can feel safe. So in our child minds, when they act badly to us, we believe we are the cause of it.  After all, if they are the perfectly good people we need to believe in, the only reason they would be bad to us is that we are bad.  This kind of black-and-white thinking is normal in a certain phase of childhood, and if we do not have an opportunity to grow past it and learn to see the world in shades of gray, then it sticks. Abusers like to encourage this, for obvious reasons. 

 It seems to me like you learned one set of survival skills that helped you get along by being really nice to everyone and getting approval (Whitie) and another set of skills that you could pull out when you needed to be more assertive or just had had enough of being a doormat. (Blackie) Of course abusers don't like it when you stand up for yourself, so Blackie got labeled BAD by them, and as a kid you accepted that.

I forgot what I was trying to say.  I am about to go to bed now and the computer is trying to restart itself, so I will post this much for now and add to it later. 

[Ami]

I love you, Erin. Thank you so much for being here. I felt a hope and a sense that I could find freedom  when I read your words !!!                            xxoo  Ami

[getnbtr]

Dear Erin
  I want to tell you what happened to me at 14. Maybe, this is part of being a multiple. I don't know but give me your opinion. I was somewhat of a normal person before 14. I was not normal in the sense that I had panic attacks and was phobic but I was normal in that I had a group of friends in which I was the leader. I did activities and had a regular kid life.
 I struggled with fears but had a sense of a discrete self with boundaries. I could feel my feelings and accept my thoughts. I  developed a social personality where I could interact with others and generally liked myself.
 At 14, my F whom I trusted told me that my abusive, sadistic M was OK. He was really saying that MY reality was not true. At that moment, I became numb and have never gotten out of it until perhaps now.
       Ami

My F told me the same thing around the same age after I confronted him about what NM had been doing to me and I wondered what was wrong with her because I went to other kids houses and thier moms were not like that at all. I think that's when I started acting out and thinking that there was something wrong with me.
How sad for us all here to have our reality twisted up so badly...I'm still having trouble staying in the gray areas.

[Ami]

Dear Erin
  I want to tell you what happened to me at 14. Maybe, this is part of being a multiple. I don't know but give me your opinion. I was somewhat of a normal person before 14. I was not normal in the sense that I had panic attacks and was phobic but I was normal in that I had a group of friends in which I was the leader. I did activities and had a regular kid life.
 I struggled with fears but had a sense of a discrete self with boundaries. I could feel my feelings and accept my thoughts. I  developed a social personality where I could interact with others and generally liked myself.
 At 14, my F whom I trusted told me that my abusive, sadistic M was OK. He was really saying that MY reality was not true. At that moment, I became numb and have never gotten out of it until perhaps now.
       Ami

My F told me the same thing around the same age after I confronted him about what NM had been doing to me and I wondered what was wrong with her because I went to other kids houses and thier moms were not like that at all. I think that's when I started acting out and thinking that there was something wrong with me.
How sad for us all here to have our reality twisted up so badly...I'm still having trouble staying in the gray areas.

Thank you so much, Friend, for your encouraging and understanding words.                        xxxoo Ami