During that repeatedly misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated, simply because clinicians fail to recognize the symptoms. If this book reaches some people whose experiences resonate with mine and gives them a sense that they aren't alone, that there is hope, then I will have achieved one of my goals.Ī sad fact is that people with DID spend an average of almost seven years in the mental health system before being properly diagnosed and receiving the specific help they need. “Having DID is, for many people, a very lonely thing. Even someone with an idyllic childhood who is only trying to remember the lovely things which happened to them will scratch their head and wonder who gave them that doll and was it for Christmas or their third birthday? Did they have a party when they were four or five? When did they go on a plane for the first time? You see, even happy memories are hard to piece together - so imagine how hard it is to collate all of the trauma, to pull together all of the things I've been trying to push away for so many years.” When we try to put together our pasts, the triggers are many and varied, the memories are disjointed - and why wouldn't they be? We were children. This is the case for most survivors, I believe. I'll remember a smell which reminds me of a man which reminds me of a place which reminds me of another man who I think was with a woman who had a certain smell - and I'm back to square one. My memory has so many different sections and, like all survivors, there are so many compartments with so many triggers. Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind I held my breath and watched my father pushing up and down inside Shirley’s skinny body.” He just looked at her with black hypnotic eyes and she lay back with her legs apart thinking about nothing at all.Īnd where was I? I stood to one side, or hovered overhead just below the ceiling, or rode on a magic carpet. He didn’t beat her, he didn’t threaten her. She didn’t want this man in her room doing the things he did, but she didn’t know how to stop it. I remembered watching her, a skinny little thing with no breasts and a dark resentful expression. The thing is, it wasn’t me in my bed, it was Shirley who lay the wondering if that man was going to come to her room, pull back the cover and push his penis into her waiting mouth it was Shirley. It was like the answer to a terrible secret. Something that had been plaguing me for years now made sense. “Why did I allow the abuse to continue? Even as a teenager?
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