What Not to Tell on a First Date - My Mom's a Multiple

My youngest son was visiting recently and we were talking about how his life is going. He's been like many young men his age struggling some to figure out his direction. He moved away from here very angry and thinking it was all my fault that his world wasn't what he wanted it to be, kind of the typical teenage stuff.

He's come a long way since then. Finally learning to take responsibility for his life and his choices. Actually a really big step was him finally realizing that he did have choices at all. He stumbles some, but don't we all, but on the whole I think he really is on the right track. I'm pretty proud of him.

He's long since gotten over being mad at me. One of the things that he's still struggling with is relationships. He's made a couple of pretty scary choices in the past with the women that he's trusted. Both of his major relationships turned out to be with very needy women. Let's just leave it at that.

But he has figured out that he's been hiding from relationships because of fear of going down that road again. He's done a lot of work on himself and is thinking maybe he's ready to take a risk and begin dating again. With all of the work he's done he now thinks he knows what he is looking for in a woman.

So the conversation we were having was about a couple different women that he has met. How they are different than "those other women" and other important things like that.

It all sounded pretty good to me but I know better than to get excited thinking he's figured "IT" all out. I know that learning comes in layers and is really a gradual process. He's going to make mistakes, that's just how it goes.

Then he begins to tell me about this first date he'd been on. One of the things he told this young woman is that his mother is a multiple. He laughed and said he figured if that didn't scare her off, she might be worth a second date.

I wasn't really sure how to take that revelation. I have to wonder what kind of effect my MPD had on my kids. Then he told me that he'd felt like we'd protected him from the "details" of my multiplicity. Although he'd been a small child at the time of my treatment, he really didn't feel that he'd noticed any "disturbances" or so to speak.

Actually, I was quite surprised to hear that he felt sheltered from my problems. I sure didn't feel like I had protected my children nearly enough. So I asked him if he remembered me flipping the six foot sleeper sofa across the living room with one hand. Yes, you read that right, I was at my limits and getting pushed well beyond them. I reached down and with my left hand (I am right handed BTW) and jerked up the sofa by the front corner and flipped it across the room. It rolled a** over tea kettle before it landed.

Both of my small children were in the room when this happened. Neither of them were hurt but everyone in the entire house was stunned. None of them as stunned as me. That was my wake-up call that I really needed to do some intensive rage work. I think I began my sculpting not long after that.

But now, as I asked my son this question, his eyes got big, his eyebrows raised but he smiled as he responded with a big inflection, "Oh.......Ya...........I remember!" Then he laughed.

I guess if that's the only reaction he has to what was a mortifying experience for me, I probably did a better job of protecting him from my craziness than I thought. I know I wasn't really crazy, but I really felt crazy and it's hard to believe that they didn't experience it the same way that I did. I am relieved to know that he did not.

I believe that multiples who are raising children may be as concerned about how their system is affecting their children, just as I was. So I thought this little story might add some needed perspective. I have to say, it sure has for me.

multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did