nanowrimo madness

We were hospitalized by choice a decade ago. Looking back I can see how our experiences paralleled those of people who first discover they’re sharing their bodies with a number of alters. We discovered there were more than the original four of us as terrible secrets cascaded out of hidden places. Some memories we relived as flashbacks. Other events we just remembered. Still more were brought back to us by alters long hidden outside our comfortable system of four.
The shock of these kinds of discovery is sometimes insurmountable. Multiples have a high suicide rate. But so do most childhood abuse survivors.
As our system guardian and defender before this time of change I alone remembered why we hate being held down, why we freak out when a shirt gets stuck as we pull it off over our head. I understood why we kicked a hole through a solid wooden door locked as a joke by a friend. I grasped the significance of Lillie putting both hands crossed at the wrists above her head when making love, a gesture of helpless bondage.
I held the key to our secrets and our rage. Suddenly my key was useless. I sensed we would soon know the worst thing there was to know. Knowledge pursued me in my dreams until I couldn’t sleep. I was a failure. We finally acknowledged our existence was not a natural occurrence on bell curve of human condition. Like other multiples we were born of pain and violence.
Under the pressure of flashbacks and emerging memories Lillie’s marital problems worsened. We used it as an excuse to start therapy. We were desperate to find someone we could trust to guide us through this minefield.
By our third session we knew we couldn’t afford to wait. I leaned forward assessing Dr. Dwon one last time before disclosing. He would have much to do with whether we survived the next few days. But a lifetime of hiding was too strong. I couldn’t speak the words.
“el take ops, I can’t do this,” I said.
el moved restlessly, settling into the body, the place, the need.
“Dr. Dwon, I have something I need to tell you,” he said.
He smiled encouragingly. “All right, go ahead.”
“ummm,” el paused, hoping for help from me or Lillie. “I’m MPD,” he blurted out.
Running a hand over his face as if clearing away cobwebs Dr. Dwon leaned forward. “Who told you that? Who diagnosed you?”
“Uhh, I did. I was in therapy 20 years ago but they didn’t get it back then. We read a lot. We’re MPD, no doubt,” el said.
Still rattled, Dr. Dwon blinked, thought deeply. He began asking cautious questions. We all listened. I don’t remember the questions but I do remember his concern and I remember the moment he believed us.
“I have no experience with MPD,” he said. “But I can refer you.”
I wrested ops back from el and started for the door.
“No. We’re not starting over, it’s too late! If we walk out now we’ll keep going. We can’t go through this again, trusting someone else,” I said.
Dr. Dwon sighed.
“All right, but I’ll need to get support. I need to be able to talk to colleagues about this.”
“No!” I shouted. “I only trust you.”
el wrested ops from me, walked back across the room and sat down calmly.
“Sure,” he said. “Talk to whomever you need. But we’re not starting over. We don’t have time.”
Dr. Dwon looked at us closely.
“Who am I talking to?” he asked. He spoke quietly as if afraid we might bolt for cover. He would ask the same question again and again in the ensuing months. Eventually he learned subtle clues to help identify each of us, but our need to hide was so ingrained he was often reduced to asking who had ops.
el considered his question. Although he used his name as a nickname on IRC, he’d never spoken it aloud to another human being. You can't hide if people know your name.
“el,” he whispered. “My name is el.” Dr. Rising was as fascinated as el was frightened.
“Hello el,” he said softly. Leaning forward he asked, “Who else is there?”
“Shel, Lillie and Baby,” el said. “You’ve already met Shel.” He was trembling all over. Tears threatened to further erode his dignity.
el and I switched frequently as we revealed our inner world and current crisis. I admitted I was suicidal but not that el was too. He'd just taken a frightening leap revealing his existence. It felt wrong to speak for him. We both just wanted to feel peaceful, preferably far from Lillie’s spouse, someplace where flashbacks couldn’t reach us. Death at least sounded peaceful. But we knew firsthand the legacy of pain a parent’s suicide left. None of us wanted to do that to our own kids. We loved them far too much.
“What do you do to stop when you feel suicidal?” Dr. Dwon asked.
“We go online,” I said. In those days mostly geeks and techies frequented chatrooms so I explained about IRC. “We’re safer there than anywhere else.”
el grabbed ops. “A few days ago an IRC friend of ours who lives in Sweden talked Shel out of cutting,” he said.
“I think we should consider hospitalization,” Dr. Dwon said.
“No,” I was up and on my way out the door again.
el took ops from me again. It was really starting to piss me off.
"I promise I’ll call you if it gets bad,” el said. He was hedging, buying time.
“Can I ask Lillie a question?” Dr. Dwon asked.
el nodded and handed ops to Lillie.
“Lillie does your husband know you’re MPD?” Dr. Dwon asked.
I grabbed ops and stood up. “No! And we don’t want him to know,” I snarled.
Dr. Dwon tried reasoning. “But he could be a real asset in your therapy.”
“More like a real ass,” I snapped.
Dr. Dwon couldn’t help smiling.
The next time we saw Dr. Dwon he had us take a test to determine how depressed we were. We all participated answering questions. When we were done he totaled our score and sighed.
I sensed where this was going. I knew he could legally hospitalize us without our consent if he thought we were in danger of harming ourselves.
“I think you would be safer in the hospital,” he said.
“No,” I said. I was gripped by an overwhelming sense of doom.
el took ops. “How long would we be there?” he asked. We all knew it would be better if we went voluntarily.
“It depends. Some people are there just a few days,” Dr. Dwon said.
“It didn’t help last time,” I said grabbing ops back.
“You were hospitalized before?” Dr. Dwon asked.
“A couple of times... it didn’t help”. I felt trapped. We had to face our demons or die. I still thought death might be preferable to knowing our darkest secrets.
“I’m not comfortable with what I’m seeing here. It would just be until you’re safe,” Dr. Dwon said.
“No.”
“Who am I talking to?”
“el,” I lied. (This was during my sixteen-year-old days.)
“Well el, will you call me if things get worse?” He handed us his home number.
Glaring el took ops back from me. “OK,” el agreed. Inside he said, “He really cares what happens to us Shel. It’s a rarity in therapists.”
“NO, NO, NO,” I screamed back at him.
In the end I agreed being in the hospital to work this through was safer than being at home where either Lillie’s husband was going to snap and kill us or push me to do it for him.
Dr. Dwon had no idea just how badly that relationship had deteriorated. In true dissociative fashion we hadn’t talked about that aspect of our life. Nor had we disclosed to Lillie’s husband we were MPD. He only knew we were being hospitalized because we were suicidal. As always he was tenderly concerned.
“This is because of something that happened before you met me right?” he demanded.
“Yes,” Lillie said. Inside she said to el and I, “We should tell him. Dr. Dwon’s right, he should know. It might make things better.”
I’m not telling him anything! I said.
“Maybe Lillie’s right. I think it’s time he knew,” el said.
Outside Lillie’s husband was still talking. “At least it’s not something scary like that movie 'Three Faces of Eve'!” he said.
We kept silent. What was there to say?