Main » The Bad Days

February 23, 2005

Dissociation out of control

Some times, I believe that I have all this under my control (yah, face it, I'm delusional sometimes *sigh* ) Sometimes I think that I must be making everyone up. I want to pretend they're not there. That they're not real. Or that yes, I dissociate, but really, its not so much a problem.
But too often it just gets out of control. Even when I try to keep it under control, it still gets the better of me. I try hard to stay "here", stay present and at the front of my mind, but then one of the others inside takes control, and I only can stand back from the inside and watch, helpless, as they take over my body and my mind.
I think it has been like that ever since I was in kindergarten or 1st grade. The 1st time I can remember for sure is at age 6, when I got upset, but withdrew inside. But at the same time, I must have gotten a red crayon and scribbled all over the walls in anger. I dont remember doing it... although I've not mentioned this part to my therapist or to anyone else... I've always taken responsibility for it. I just remember SEEING it, the red marks everywhere and it being too late to fix it. But I was the one punished for it. At the same time, I was beginning to slip inside more often at school too.
I'm trying so hard to figure out why all this started happening... why I started to allow myself to slip down this tunnel to where I am now. I want to get my mind under my own control.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:30 PM | Comments (3)

February 8, 2005

mixed messages:you're good, you're bad, you're fat, you're thin,you're hopeless,you're the best?

Growing up I was surrounded by mixed messages all the time. I never knew what to expect in my house, my family, my friends, or extended family from one second to the next. Anyone and anything could turn on me without a moment's notice. It felt like there was never any foundation to hold on to... nothing that was ever stable. I was good and i was bad. They were proud of me and humiliated by me. I was worthy and I was worthless. I was smart if I got an A and stupid if I got a B+. I was a pretty little girl who looked just like my mom and I was ugly because I made a face dad didn't like. Everyone had a right to show their feelings... except me, except us in our house. Dad was allowed to be angry and do whatever he wanted, but if I even frowned, I got sent to my room until I could come back out with a smile on my face. I was just right and I was a fat little pig who ate too much. I was supposed to finish everything on my plate but if I did I was greedy and selfish. I was such a generous little girl but if I dared to ever ask for anything I was selfish, self-centered, and only thought of myself.
It went on, and on, and on. Every day.
I never knew who I was supposed to be.
Was I good or bad or fat or thin or right or wrong or worthy or worthless or wonderful or stupid or smart or allowed to talk or was I to be seen and not heard or not seen at all or....?
I think that developing other people inside was one way to organize all those mixed messages. I am sure I didn't do it consciously. But through all of the chaos that I lived in, maybe my mind made up a way to say: Fine. You say I'm all those different things, but I can't fit all that inside. So OK: Someone will be this and this; someone else will be this; We'll make Missy be bossy, outgoing, worthy, and loud. We'll make Nobody be invisible, never heard, unworthy, selfless. We'll make the Bully the bad guy-- he can take it when you yell and say all those mean things, you can't hurt him. C**** will be the one who's smart, intuitive, beautiful.
Between all the things that were happening to me, inside of me, around me, having no way to rescue myself from the situation because I was just a child, my mind went its own way: here is an escape.
You can't run away, you can't scream, you can't get out of there... but you can go inside your mind and do it.

Posted by pilgrim at 3:28 PM | Comments (4)

January 26, 2005

do I have the courage to talk about the flashbacks?

i am having such horrible flashbacks tonight... started with what i wrote earlier. in the shower tonight i just got flooded with memories. i turned off the water and just stood there frozen, seeing everything happening around me again. then more came. stuff that happened at other times with him. all real like its happening right now. i wish so much i could talk to my therapist. i dont see her til tomorrow afternoon and that is a long way off. my body hurts, it remembers what was done to it. then more memories hit. again.
its just too much. i have to work up the courage to talk about it with my therapist tomorrow but she's probably heard it from me before (another part of me). but i havent talked about it before ever. i wouldnt dare. i've never talked about specifics. i cant talk about the memories. i cant talk about what really happened.
going to go before i hit erase.
i am so fat i can barely stand myself.

nobody

Posted by pilgrim at 7:06 PM | Comments (2)

one tried to make a friend

i remember trying to make a friend once. she was in 11th grade with me. her boyfriend and our boyfriend were best friends.
"David", our boyfriend... he was a nightmare. Possessive, mean, abusive, scary.
One night Pilgrim decided that she was going to stand her ground with him. He didn't want her to do anything without him. He stalked her all the time, always finding her wherever she was. But she insisted this one time-- her and this friend were going to go out. To the mall, on a Friday night, like a normal girl, the boyfriends were staying home, that was that.
I remember being incredibley scared.
I can remember one part of being out that night with this girl. I am sure they walked around the mall and talked or something, probably did some shopping, but i wasn't there for any of that.
I do remember being at Subway... being anorexic I was super stressed out. I remember staring at the table, at the napkins, at the sandwich I was supposed to be eating, and trying to talk. It felt like I was down a long tunnel, things were echoing and hard to understand. I tried to make eye contact but couldn't.
But I remember wanting to, so much, because I wanted a friend so much. I'd spend so many years at night saying my prayers, begging God for "just one friend, just ONE, that is all I need, just ONE, PLEASE. please." Just wanted a friend to laugh and play with and hang out with and talk to and do normal things with. But didn't have one yet.
still dont.
I guess Pilgrim, and especially Missy, had fun that night, out at the mall with their girl friend.
What I remember though is seeing "David's" truck in the driveway when I got home.
He was waiting for me.
He wasn't in his truck-- he was actually in this framed-out house next door, where the cement slab had been poured and the outside walls had been put up.
i was. so.scared.
I found him waiting there for me in the dark, sittng against a wall.
He was so, so angry.
I learned that night that it wasn't worth it to try to go against him anymore. I never tried again to "disobey" him. When he said he didn't want me going somewhere without him.... i was weak and didn't.
It was at that point pretty much that Pilgrim lost all her friends. And I've never gotten over that night... and i just am so ... lonely.

i shouldnt have written this. i'm sorry.

Posted by pilgrim at 4:34 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2005

early explanations- reincarnation, past lives

No self-injury today so far. This is the 1st day in almost 3 weeks. Want to make it through the whole day. I distracted myself by wandering around acouple bookstores and a toystore.
SHUT UP YOUR WORDS DON’T MATTER FAT GIRL!!
God Missy’s on a rampage today every time I try to write she starts to yell. Theres 2 things I keep trying to write to you about this week and she wont let me.
Sorry sorry sorry my words are a waste of time.

This is nobody.
What she wanted to say was that in 7th grade she had this theory to try to explain why she felt so weird. Sometime around age 12 (why by then Missy was there, I was there, Tuck was there, SadGirl was there,etc)… she came up with the idea that she must have had a bunch of past lives, that’s why she felt like she was so many different people. She must have read something, or heard stories about, reincarnation. And when she was 12 that was Pilgrim’s reasoning to explain why she felt like so many people--- it was just remembering all the people she’d acted like during her past lives.

Posted by pilgrim at 9:26 PM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2005

Flashbacks started in kindergarten and 1st grade

This is so strange. I have been thinking about it a while, i just havent written it down or taked about it.
I remember being in 1st and 2nd grade, and having flashbacks,especially in school.
A certain smell of food would set me off in the school cafeteria-- I can't remember what it was, but it was food.
I would have flashes of bad stuff happening in kindergarten. But I would shut down.
I remember shaking my head and closing my eyes and trying to shake it off-- like i do now. I can remember my heart would start racing, and I'd go away. Like I do now.
I wonder if already back then, C**** and SadGirl were taking over for me...

(edited to add) I remember having flashbacks in 4th grade also. Whenever we'd go into the auditorium to watch filmstrips or movies. It'd be dark in there. I can see myself sitting there, watching Lollipop Dragon filmstrips. It was supposed to be fun. And I would be sitting there talking to my friends... and all of a sudden have flashes of memories that I didn't understand. And get dizzy and shakey.

I am so lonely still. My heart is hurting. I am still trying to keep busy today. I just want so badly for a friend to come spend time with me. I miss my best friend so much that I just keep curling up in a ball on the floor and concentrate on not letting myself fall apart.

Posted by pilgrim at 1:20 PM | Comments (1)

January 3, 2005

look-a-likes

I look just like her. My mom. Which is a good thing, in most ways. My mom is one of the most beautiful people you’ll ever meet. We both have really long hair and light colored eyes, and she’s lost some weight recently and I’ve gained some [um… due to my “eating disorder recovery” efforts…so this is supposed to be a good thing, or so I hear]. We are about the same size now. Herein lies the problem.
Over the holidays, and today back at work when I was showing off pictures, I heard a lot of this: “You look just like your mom!” Again, good thing, right? She’s beautiful, so this is a compliment.
However.
She lost weight. I’ve gained some. We’re about the same size.

I will not, not, NOT, in no way ever ever, be happy about being the same size as my mom, I don’t care HOW beautiful she is.
Every time someone says I look just like my mom, I freeze up inside.
They mean well. They also have no idea what they’re saying.

When I was a teenager, both my mom and I were the same size, only much much heavier.
My dad made it a big joke about how much we looked alike. Same hair, same eyes, same…body.

He would come up behind me around the corner, bumping into me a little too close. “Oops, thought you were your mother.”
“Geez I’d better be careful whose boobs I pinch around here now.”
He would joke with his male friends, “P looks so much like her mom, I might accidently have sex with her and not know it.”
And on, and on, and on.

If I look like her again, I’m terrified that the same comments and actions will start up again. I CANNOT let this happen again. I may have been a young teenager then and not known what to do, but I DO know what to do now. I refuse to let my body look anything like my mom’s. I don’t want to go through all that again, what I had to before. Everyone's comments bring back so many bad memories of things my dad said and did.

I feel like I have a layer of blubber all over my body. I have been afraid to look in the mirror for weeks now. I’m too afraid of all the fat that I’m going to see. Now that I’m back home and the holidays are over I can work out more seriously and take off just a little more weight. People say that I’m already thin and that I eat like a bird but I just don’t understand it. They are obviously seeing things in a really mixed up way, I hide my weight well or something. I wish I could afford liposuction. And a personal trainer. I have to do something about my weight. If I can just get it back down to 100 pounds then that would be really good.

*sigh* i dont know what to do.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:05 PM | Comments (1)

October 16, 2004

separate lives

Separate Lives
When I was little,there were 2 separate girls. The daytime Pilgrim was a happy girl. Popular and outgoing, a show off, a little girl who always got staight A’s in school, and was the teacher’s Pet. The daytime Pilgrim had no problems with her mom and dad. She was fine with the fact that even though they were always busy, and didn’t pay her much attention, that they at least gave her presents at Christmastime and on her birthday, and that sometimes they sang funny songs together. The daytime Pilgrim was a healthy kid. The nighttime Pilgrim was just the opposite. Withdrawn and silent, never wanting to draw any attention to herself, she hid in closets and was too afraid to talk to anyone. Talking might mean someone would find out her secrets, and she knew she’d get in trouble if anyone found out what she was hiding. She felt like she didn’t have any family, always being left behind and forgotten about. There was no one for her. Her life was about survival.
The thing that I have to figure out how to handle is, that both of those girls were me.
Now that I’ve learned a little more (with a great deal of help fromCarol, who seems to have a lot more insight than I do), the daytime Pilgrim was actually made up of Carol, Missy, Blue, Claire, and Tuck. A group of kids who were able to cope with just about anything. The nightime Pilgrim consisted of SadGirl, Nobody, fat girl, and who knows who else may have been hiding in there. Where was I in all this? I still haven’t figured that out. Sometimes I wonder if all I have been is a collection of all the others, a compilation of a bunch of other people who make up the global “me”.

Posted by pilgrim at 10:21 AM | Comments (1)

October 10, 2004

Touch

i wish i had someone to do things with. yesterday i went to a movie by myself , a drama called Woman Thou Art Loosed, and it was hard to watch, hard to not cry at the end. I felt even more alone.

Today in church I saw parents who were putting their arms around their kids, playing with their kids' hair, even hugging them. Why is that? is that because we were in church? are those kids getting tricked? do they get screamed at at home? There was a little 6 year old girl with her grampa. she had a dress on. I was scared to pieces for her. That just isn't safe, to let a little girl be alone with a man. What was he going to do to her after church? Why do some parents like their kids? And how come my parents never even got close enough to touch me?

I remember when I was 14, my aunt "K" married into the family. She was not much older than me, and I liked her SO much. She was friendly and outgoing and a nice southern girl, so different from the rest of my aunts up north. One day as she was leaving my house, she turned to give me a hug.
It startled the hell out of me. %-/
I had not been hugged since i was about 5 years old, and even that I wasn't sure about. I thought, there was like this family rule, about NO TOUCHING PILGRIM. Because I was bad, and dirty, and tainted, and grey.

I hadn't had a hug in so long that I didn't know what it felt like. But that afternoon, my new aunt K gave me a hug. It startled me so much that it sucked the air out of my lungs, and felt like burning on my arms. It repulsed and captivated me at the same time. I shook so hard afterwards and wandered around in a daze after she left.

Obviously, she hadn't been informed yet, about the family rule, about dont touch Pilgrim. Obviously she didn't know me well enough yet to know that I was Fat and Dirty and Gross and Bad and now Bad Things Were Going to Happen To Her because she touched me.

When I was little, i had been desperate for a few years, for contact. It wasn't until I was in 4th grade or so that I gave up and got the attitude of "no one better touch me because I dont want it anyway." Up until then, I felt so needy and so clingy, but never dared to try to reach out to my parents or relatives. I knew they were a no-go.

But teachers.... teachers were the objects of my affection. I was always in love with my teachers. And I wanted them to love me too. I would be so good in school, the perfect student, try to make myself so special and indispensible and smart. Then I would try to get near them. I remember 3rd grade in particular, I had a wonderful male teacher, and in 3rd grade I was for some reason even more desperate for human contact. I devised a trick of tying my shoelaces in double and triple knots, really tight ones, that I told him I needed help getting out. He was such a nice older man, he'd bend down and untie my shoes for me. Sometimes his hand would brush up against my ankle. Or he would pat my knee when he'd say "You owe me a quarter for untying your shoe again!" .

I would be so relieved. Touch. I'd felt the heat off of someone's hand, there was a re-assurance that I was still alive, that I was still real, that I was still touchable, even if it was just for 10 seconds while my teacher untied my shoes.

What do those kids I saw in church today have that I never did? How come they are deserving and I never was?

Posted by pilgrim at 7:23 PM | Comments (2)

September 14, 2004

Maybe it was brain damage ;)

My sister and I were just chatting about odd things that have happened to us, and discovered something else we both have in common.
We probably ended up with brain damage.
Don't worry--- we did it to our own selves.
Maybe we have some of our problems due to self-induced brain damage.
We both licked batteries in science class after being told to never, ever do that.
Then my sister got a huge electric shock on a refridgerator in our basement.

when we were building the house
. it was rainy one night and we didn't have the walls finished. so the rain came in. and the next day i stood in a puddle to unplug a lamp.

I remember it was a sunday morning because gramma and grampa were there for breakfast.
I stood in a little puddle of water that was around the light that i could reach around, and unpluggd it.
and OW!! the electricity went in through my right hand at my pinkie.
it burned down my arm, all through my body to my toes, around my body, through my heart, and back out my pinkie
it left 2 black dots on the side of my finger that stayed there for ages.
I was shaking SOOOO freaking hard and my heart was beating funny.
i went and sat down
i couldn't think for a minute
i didn't tell anyone because i was afraid i'd get in trouble.
i was so sure that i was going to die of a heart attack.
i didn't dare tell my parents. I knew that instead of being worried about what happened to me, all they'd do was make fun of me for being so stupid to stand in a puddle and unplug a lamp, and get mad at me.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:37 PM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2004

Searching for answers

I have been, for the past week, searching through all my old journals. I started keeping them in 7th grade; unfortunately, the one from that year was given to my "best friend" when I moved away and I never saw it again. I'd do just about anything to have it back. So I have only some sketchy writings from 8th grade to begin with, then my journalling habits really took off when I was 16 and in my sophomore year of high school.
They fill boxes.
The journals, which mainly start with chronicling my journey through anorexia, are in my opinion, very twisted. By the time I was writing them, there was something REALLY WRONG. It makes me almost sad to read them, especially when I was 16. I was already filled with so much self-hate, loneliness, and loathing; what a way to be a teenager.
All through my teenage years I complained of headaches, voices inside. There are lines in my journal where I call myself different names, write things in the 3rd person, scream at myself.
But it wasn't until 1993 that things really started to go wrong, extremely wrong (and I was still 7 years away from even entertaining the thought of finding a therapist.)
In 1990, one of my best childhood friends died. In 1992, some more deaths occurred-- in my family and with friends. Other things happened, as well as the ongoing abuse from my boyfriend.
It just looked like, in my journals, that in 1993, I had had enough.
By 1993, you can see the handwriting changes. You can read about the spacing out, the missing chunks of time. I can remember more vividly finding evidence of dissociation. I remember that was about the time I started hearing "Mommy? Mommy?" and "Go away!" in my head all the time (man, I hated that.) The journals really started to get strange, then. The self-hate, isolation, and fears grew even more, until I was hiding out in my bedroom all the time, afraid of being found out. I was aching for someone to help me,but terrified to reach out.
It took another 7 years, and quite a few miracles later, to find my therapist, S. Worth the wait, but what a long journey to make it there.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:06 PM | Comments (2)

August 29, 2004

how insiders came to be

I'd love to hear more about how you find out others have been created, or that they have been there, you've just not seen (heard?) them.

Someone asked this a while ago and I've been working on finding a way to explain...its difficult. Just very complicated. Some things come to mind...

I can remember being around 12 years old and in my bedroom. I spent hours alone as a child, in my room. But I would talk all the time. I had what others considered to be imaginary playmates. But the other night I remembered how my "imaginary" playmates... were ...really there. They talked back... and I did what they said. I can remember having conversations with Missy, in my room. I can remember "seeing" her, sensing she was there beside me. I know that Missy was created when I was around 12, although I'm not positive why, but I do know that she easily handles my dad and his sarcasm and his... "ways"...so she was probably made specifically to handle him. And it was around 12 when things with my dad got much more difficult to handle. I would imagine that I created Missy out of a need for someone to help me deal with him.

Carol has come up with a reasonable explaination for the existence of Claire, which I would have never figured out myself. Claire is a little girl with long braids, who lives in out in a field of flowers, among horses and kittens and rabbits and there is always sunshine. She doesn't talk, and hasn't got any desire to. She does some sign language. But she doesn't worry about interracting with people. Her world is only animals, and with animals, you don't need to talk out loud, all you have to do is talk with your heart. Claire seems to be more fluent in caterpillar, kitten, fawn, and horse, and with them you dont need words. And interestingly enough, Claire looks very very similiar to how my little sister did when she was around 8 years old. Claire is also 8. My sister was very quiet. Claire is very quiet. My sister is wonderful with animals. Claire is also. My sister always had her hair in long ponytails or braids. So does Claire. Carol reasons that because I saw, when I was little, my sister as the one who didn't get hurt, who wasn't the target of dad's hurt (she was, I just didn't know it at the time)...that I created Claire in an effort to model my sister.

Posted by pilgrim at 10:22 AM | Comments (2)

August 20, 2004

Hearing voices

i remember one of the 1st times i heard someone else's voice come out of my mouth. i was around 12 years old. My aunt and grampa were visiting and staying at our house. I can remember getting out of bed one morning, and carrying my doll and baby blanket with me out to the kitchen. This was at 12, when I was trying to be "cool".
its like... I got out of bed, and I was there, but someone was walking in front of me that i kept...tripping over. i remember thnking something like "i feel so strange".
But there I was that morning, doll and baby blanket in hand. I remember standing in front of the refridgerator looking for something to eat. I wondered if everyone could tell that I looked different... I felt smaller.My mom said something to me and my reply was "But I want a Pepsi"...in a child's voice. A little child's voice. I remember now how it struck me as kind of odd, because it didn't sound like me. Yet it had come out anyway, this disembodied child's voice.and i was sort of back behind this other person, thinking, that didn't sound like me, i wonder if they notice i sound funny, and i remember feeling embarassed and afraid of being found out. and then i remember feeling silly because i had my doll and blanket and there was 12 years old and figuring they would make fun of me.
Over the years, of course, I heard plenty of voices in my head. I figured everyone was just that way, hearing voices. In 6th grade my teacher read a book called My Side of the Mountain, about a boy that lived alone on a mountainside for a very long time, and to keep hiMissylf entertained he learned to have conversations going on in his head, different voices at the same time. I remember thinking it was a little strange that he had to learn that skill, since i thought it was something that everyone just sort of knew. I was used to other people taking over and speaking through me. but it wasn't until about a year and a half ago that I heard one of their voices for REAL. and that shocked the hell out of me. Some time ago, my (no longer) best friend called me, and the answering machine went on before I picked up the phone. Unfortunately she called at a time when the 5 year old was out and having a hard time. So it was the 5 year old's voice on the answering machine, caught on tape. Later, when I was back, I saw that a message had been recorded...and was I ever in for a shock. When I heard the tape I heard the 5 year old, carefully answering the phone with a small "Hello?" "its Mae." Thats when it hit me: it was her voice I'd heard that morning when i was 12.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:45 PM | Comments (1)

August 5, 2004

Found a story i wrote.

Last night I was going through an old box of writing. Found something I never saw before,I found some old stories I wrote, from about age 15...that i have no memory of writing.they were about characters with other names, but... they were actually things that happened at my house.even conversations i wrote down word for word i had completely forgotten ,it talked about abuse...things he said and did....word for word.moment by moment. i have no memory of writing it.never saw those stories beforebuti know they happenedi do not remember recording them .all i did was change "Pilgrim" to "Shana" in the "story" i cannot face this. Wait--- change that. I do not WANT to face this.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)

July 27, 2004

Was I a normal kid?

Last night I told my husband about the secret chant from childhood. I'm not sure why I told him. But for some reason, it made me feel better. I guess I just wanted him to have more information. I even asked him to tell me what normal kids do... I'm trying, I guess, to find out if I was normal or not (why? dont know)... I dont know why I ask such silly questions...
do normal kids stick pins in their fingers?
do normal kids cut?
do normal kids make up secret names for theMissylves so they can be someone else?
do normal kids hide in closets because they're scared?
do normal kids disappear inside theMissylves?

sometimes my husband doesnt know what to do with me and my questions, i think.

Posted by pilgrim at 11:23 AM | Comments (0)

July 9, 2004

Trying to face my past again.

Its been a few days since I last wrote anything.
Its because I am at my family home, keeping busy, till all hours of the night.
I find myself at a loss for words. Find myself mostly contemplating. Most things are going very well. Some things really Mae me think about old stuff from the past. Some of the past is hard to face.
I just don't know what to say about it.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:22 PM | Comments (0)

June 6, 2004

"That's just Pilgrim"

I had survived high school (barely). Still in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend that I didn't know how to escape, still being raped on a regular basis, still hurt, still trying to deny everything from my past, and doing everything I could to run away from ...everything. I'd always had tricks to deal with the things that happened. My favorite was "disappearing"-- going into a secret space inside my head where I couldn't be hurt. I would leave my body, and I'd imagine myself disappearing up into the stars in the sky, far away from whoever was yelling at me, hurting me, scaring me. Sometimes it got out of hand-- I'd forget to come back for a while. Or I'd "wake up" from my secret space and be somewhere different, or in different clothes, or... it'd be Wednesday afternoon, when I could swear it had just been Monday night a few minutes ago. I would put myself into trances by closing my eyes and telling myself "not me, not me, not me" over and over in my head for however long it took for some traumatic event to be over with, for however long it took for me to be gone, for however long it took for some other part of me to take over.
Sometimes I heard voices.
It was inside my head-- I knew it wasn't from outside, but it sounded so real--it could have been outside my head, but I knew no one was around.
I tried to shrug it off.
I kept hearing it. I wondered if I was schizophrenic, and did some research on schizophrenia, just to make sure. Nope, the voices weren't telling me what to do, weren't coming from outside my head,no hallucinations, thank goodness.
I'd hear things like, "No!" and "Go away!" and once in a while a child crying "Mommy?!" Especially when I got stressed out, or when my boyfriend was hurting me.
I still didn't have a clue what it all was. I just figured I was crazy, because I knew something was wrong with me and always had been. I had a reputation in my family as being weird, a little too creative, a little too smart, a little too everything. "Thats just Pilgrim; thats just how she acts; don't take her seriously, she's just weird."

Posted by pilgrim at 7:17 PM | Comments (0)

Something was wrong.

I always knew that something was wrong with me. Always. I didn't know what it was, but I realized that something-was-not-quite-right. Even as a little girl, I was extremely intelligent, extremely creative. I was often accused of "thinking too much." I was too sensitive. I always had a sense that I was too much for the world, and the world was too much for me.
Little things shook my psyche enormously. Things that probably would haven't affected other kids so much--- made my mind split. Into piece after piece. Parts of me went away, into hiding. Someone else would come out, and then split again. I led a double life, even as a little girl: there was a daytime me and a nighttime me, and its almost as though one didn't know about the other. One part of me got perfect grades, was very popular, was smart, outgoing, brilliant, loved, loveable. One part of me was sullen, withdrawn, isolated, with no contact with others, hidden away.
Every time something traumatic would happen... more and more parts would be created to handle it. And more parts would disappear inside for protection.
Something always was not quite right. I knew that much. But I didn't know what to do with it, didn't understand it, and lived with the best I could, coping by developing an eating disorder, cutting myself, and throwing myself into schoolwork.
Then , things got much worse.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:05 PM | Comments (0)