May 30, 2009 11:55
Well, I did it. I told the priest who's marrying us (in an e mail) about my alters-he e'd back, asking, 'what are alters' so I wrote him this description, which some of you might be interested in reading, if you're not, just consider it TMI and skip over it. He asked me, 'what are alters'? And this is what I wrote back:
"Multiple personalities.I did have 4, through therapy have narrowed it down to 2, Sarah, who's three, and Jordan, who's 17. DID--Dissasociative identity disorder, and if you're wondering, "Does Anne just think she has this?" I thought that too, in the beginning, when I would lose time, and drive places and not remember how I got there, and feel like I was watching myself act totally unlike how I would usually act. It's part of my diagnosis. My therapist is sure of it. Why I have it is well....we've kind of narrowed it down to my hugely inconsitent, borderline traumatic childhood, the extreme emotional/from time to time physical abuse(from my mom) my abandonment issues from being adopted, the sexual abuse from my uncle(which mostly a lot of inappropriate touching on his part, but still made me feel gross), the fact that I was almost raped about 20 years ago--this is pre-Mark. In short, I have so much baggage that Samsonite and American Tourister want me to be their poster girl.
Aren't you glad you asked? And yes, I do have a sense of humor about it all. I HAVE to. If not, I'd be residing in a lovely rubber suite overlooking the Hudson. Now, I hope by telling you all this, you will not run away in abject terror, but if you're wondering if I am going to integrate the other two, we will talk about it. It's r eally complicated, as you can probably imagine. Mark should be cannonized for dealing with it as well as he does."
Now, I've known Fr. O for years, but I've done so much reading on DID that I KNOW one of the things that used to be thought was that the person who had this was possessed. I'm seeing him today, and there's this little niggling fear in the back of my head that he's going to meet me at the door of the church with a bottle of Holy Water, yelling"The power of Christ compells you!" I honestly am pretty sure this WILL NOT happen, but I worry. I may even say that to him, as a joke. He's got enough of a dry sense of humour that he should appreciate it.
On another subject entirely, I had to buy another library card. The head librarian--who looks like a cross between a stick figure and a dried up apple woman was there, and kept glaring at me saying, "You HAVE TO PICK UP ALL YOUR HOLDS TODAY!'. Jordan, my 17 year old alter came out, and said, "Don't have an anyeurism." :). Hey, it comes in handy sometimes...
Anyway, lastly a few days ago, I'm at the library and there's this little boy(I guess he's a little more than two) sitting on the floor looking at a picture book. All of a sudden he starts announcing (as only 2 year olds can) letters, 'A!' (pause while pages rustle) 'H!'
I figure it was an alphabet book. This went on for a few minutes, until the mom took the book from him to check it out. "No," he complained, "I weading dat!"
I love kids.
Have a good weekend, all!
mental illness,
libraries