More Stage Two of My "Real" Therapy

My "Real" Therapy

While my therapist and her boss did believe me, I'm sure they had no idea what to think about the memories I was abreacting. As each week went by with yet another new disclosure, I'm pretty sure my therapist was getting overwhelmed by the massive brutality and sheer horror.

The intensity of the experiences didn't even slow me down. My healthy personalities had an agenda. They were on a mission to heal. They were determined not to be bogged down by denial or caught up in shame or guilt. While the personalities who held the memories were devastated and laden with shame and guilt, my healthy personalities immersed themselves in nurturing those inner wounded children.

There was very little internal conflict during this process. As each new child emerged with her story, she was encouraged to share, accepted and comforted by the healthy part of my system. Even though a personality from one week was not totally healed, by the next week's session a new memory and new personalities came forth.

My system was so fragmented that each memory seemed to have sometimes several personalities to deal with it. There was a personality that held all of the emotion and one that was totally in her head who knew all the details, kind of a historian. Then there might be a defender, a sexual creature or whatever other talent might be needed in a given situation.

The historian never had any direct contact with the outside world. She observed from a distance and had no emotion whatsoever. The child that held the feelings was also an internal child. Because emotion was considered a sign of weakness, she kept her feelings to herself. Internally she never shared her secret or her feelings either. It was the child that had the job to do externally who was out for the word to see but looking through her eyes was the feeling child and sometimes others. When a new incident occurred, the system moved on, added personalities as needed, while the child or children from the previous situation were sealed off, each in her separate room.

It might be that a historian would have several different personalities for which she passed information making sure that no child was ever without vital information needed to survive. Because of this no one on the outside ever saw us not know what had happened.

The only exception was when we weren't supposed to know. That meant when I was at home, I knew nothing about the cult activity or ritualistic abuse. When at the cult, I remembered little if anything of home. Historians were replaced as their loads became too big to bear and a new personality took her place and the old one was walled off in a separate wing exclusive to historians. That way information was easily accessible. After all in my chaotic world, I never knew when information from one of the earlier historians would be required.

This may all sound pretty complicated. It sure was figuring it all out. The violence directed at me was so intense such splintering had been the only way my psyche could survive. The end result was upwards of 400 personalities and that is really the place where we quit counting. It does not reflect the true number of fragmented children I have tucked away.

With each new child that came forward with her memories, the healthy part of our system became stronger and stronger. Each child held a piece of the puzzle of my self loathing. As the children told their stories, my system accepted them knowing that the adults were the responsible parties. With that growing acceptance the self loathing got less and less. Sometimes I think the therapist was just along for the ride, my system was so intent of healing.

But even at that, the therapist was helpful when we needed balance and order. She helped us put our feet back on the ground and see there was more to our life than therapy. She also helped us to sort through the behavior of many of the offenders in our past. Their behavior was so unbelievable, we required some understanding. Because my therapist also treated offenders, she had insights into their manipulations and their motivations that were most helpful.

multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did
therapy