Ouch...

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Today was a tough, tough day.

I even considered voluntary hospitalization today because I was so afraid and because I literally felt as if I was losing my mind. For those who know me, this would tell them I was in a really bad place today. Hospitalization is an abhorrence of mine. I have been traumatized via hospitalization too many times to count. To consider it voluntarily, is like moving the Lincoln Monument.

Today, I came up here - to my writing room - and I cried. I came up here so nobody would hear me and because there was nowhere else to go. I felt ashamed. Today I came up here and I cried a deep, aching cry. I needed Michelle. I dialed her number several times and hung up. Finally, up here, I dialed it one last time and I heard her voice - her voicemail - and I left a message.

Although I felt such shame for such a heart-wrenching cry, I calmed a little after hearing her voice, even if only a recording.

Yesterday's session left me rattled and shaken. Today, I watched Law and Order, Special Victims Unit, Season 9, Episode 15.

That was it.

I have never, ever had a problem watching violence and rape in movies. I mean, there are some things that are too grotesque for me to watch, but violence and rape, I have always been able to handle. It's never made me emotional.

But this episode, well...it was chock full of triggers.

rape
child of the system
arrested for drugs without actually being involved
abuse of authority
lock up
orange jumpsuits
big, thick, brass keys
woods
machete's
the showers

I can't even describe how many things were there...how true this episode is to the experience.

However, that said, I watched the whole episode untouched, unmoved.

Disconnected.

Until the end. The very end.

The victim - an SVU detective - is asked, directly, "Did he rape you?"

and my soul felt like it was shot out of a canon into and through moments in time...dozens or hundreds of times when I couldn't answer that question.

The assault scene was difficult, but I managed it.

It wasn't until that question was asked: "Did he rape you?" that I was hurled into a blackened, charred history of uncertainty, childishness and terror.

And I felt it.

For the first time in my life, I felt these bizarre feelings. These intense emotions and I was bombarded with the question of "Why?"

Why? Why? Why?

I think about others and I think about children and child abuse and I am astonished by what is done to them but never have I been able to look at myself and feel, "Wow, that hurt. Ouch."

I wish I had written earlier but my mind was shattered. I wish I could have seen Michelle earlier. I wish I could have talked to her. I was riddled with emotions that were pulling me so deep, so deep. Deep into something I have never felt and it frightened me.

Bill and I talked the other night about how frightening out-of-body-experiences (OBE's) are, and it was like that today. Exactly like that. I felt like I was losing myself. Drowning. I couldn't see. I couldn't think. Every bump made me jolt in my seat. I was terrified. I fantasized about going to my neighbor, going anywhere...but then it felt like my body was tied down to an anchor and I couldn't move. I was crushed and crushing...I was immobile and absolutely confused and terrified.

I ran through my mind so many different times in my past. Was that rape? Was this rape? Was it rape if I didn't say no? I didn't say "no" because I knew I couldn't say no, but does that mean yes? Is that rape? If he didn't penetrate me, is that rape? Did I ever fight back that hard?

I bent my brain desperately reaching for memories, trying to recall moments when I fought. There are times when I know I did. Times I remember.

The man who nearly strangled me to death. I remember I must have fought because he wouldn't have strangled me if I hadn't fought, right? I don't remember how I came to be at the place where we were. Was it a motel? An apartment? I don't remember a kitchen. I remember the television and the nightstand and the rotary phone. I am confused. I thought - because I was street smart - that he was one of those that was full of piss and wind and he wouldn't kill me. I could mock and intimidate him. I could beat him at his game and he wouldn't hurt me.

I thought...

But he almost killed me.

In the end, he didn't (obviously) and in the end, I was right: he was malleable. I remember laying there - I was around 13 - and he was limp, flacid. Pre-semen hung like sinew from the head of his dark penis and I knew he was infected. I made fun of him and told him he couldn't rape me because he couldn't even get it up because he was diseased. I knew, somehow, this would work.

And it did.

I remember I tricked him. I convinced him that I cared about him and that I would come back when he had healed himself of his disease. Probably syphilis or gonorrhea. These were rampant in those days.

And...I remember that I fought the men off who attacked me when I slept.

Did I scream? I don't remember.

I know as one sat on my chest, his testicles against my neck and he kept  trying to shove his penis in my mouth, the rest were ripping off my clothes and I was kicking and fighting and I didn't mean to but I kicked on in the nuts and he said to me, "Don't ever kick my nuts you white bitch!" and he slammed me in the mouth with his fist. They threw me out into the snow and I was wearing very little. I was frozen. I was 12 or 13.

I must've fought, right?

There must've been sometime in the past when I fought....

I said "no" to Daddy twice...twice...

The first time, he hurt me sexually. The second time, he smothered and choked me.

Did I learn to not say no?

I am so confused and hurt and bewildered.

The feelings I felt as I sobbed, briefly, today...I should say "allowed myself to sob" today...

These feelings were too much. Too hard.

Too much.

I wished Michelle were here. I wished she could see it so she could tell me what was happening.

I wished I could just do it all right then in that moment. I thought, god please let this be all I need to feel, to heal.

But I knew - and I know - that wasn't it.

There is more.

I shut it down. I am good at that.

This pain...this is worse than anything I have ever known, yet it is the track on which my train travels and I cannot move forward, without the track.

I won't get off track. I may stop or stall, but I will not get off.

It kills me - some part of me felt stolen today - but I will stay on track.

I will do this. God help me, I will.

Where Did the Time Go?

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

It's been a really tough few weeks. It's actually been a rough two months but the last couple weeks have been particularly hard, despite some help I have received and am grateful for.

Still, I cannot control how my (using the word "my" loosely) mind will respond to these things. At least, so it seems.

Session today. I know I saw Michelle last week.

I couldn't tell you when, if I didn't know our sessions are regularly on Mondays and Thursdays. I don't remember the last time I saw her. Today was an anomaly because of a scheduling conflict she had which happens sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

I almost cancelled today's appointment because I am completely disconnected from everything which means, nothing is wrong. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned in the opening of this entry, but the thing is I have shut down and nothing is emotionally affecting me so I need no therapy. I told her I almost cancelled because I didn't want to waste her time. I literally had nothing to complain or talk about.

I mean, I had updates and told her things I've done because I needed to see them get done, but Michelle even admittedly had a hard time navigating this session. She didn't know "who" she was talking to. She was trying to determine what was going on and I was at a loss, until she started telling me things.

Apparently last week I had a very emotional session wherein I told Michelle I didn't know if I could continue therapy and dealing with these emotions.

I don't remember this. I only vaguely remember a little bit about a very intense session not long ago, but I don't know when it was. When she said "well, last week we had a pretty tough session," I stared up at the ceiling, stared out the window, very disconnected, tried so hard to remember, and that's when I realized I didn't remember anything. This is truly an earth-rattling thing. So I really wracked my brain, trying...trying... Oh God I can't remember...what happened last week? What do I remember about last week?

This led me to the realization that it wasn't just the sessions last week that I don't recall, but the entire week last week. I don't remember anything. Thinking back, the first thing I remember is Saturday and pieces since then but nothing last week. Not one single moment.

This is where my DID diagnosis makes me angry, makes me hurt. Because I hate it and I deny it because I judge it and I don't want it yet it's there slapping me, laughing at me, daring me to challenge it.

It wasn't observably troubling today as we discussed it in session, really. Not until the end, when I realized I was feeling alarmed because I didn't remember last week.

As the session came to a close, Michelle told me the emotion part of healing is going  to be very difficult for me because of my experiences with emotions. I know this to be true. It makes logical sense. It is cognitive; measurable. I can make logical sense of it so I can intellectually accept it.

Even if I feel nothing.

Which is what I did today, until a tiny little bolt of lightning struck me and I began to feel that fiery sense of alarm. That remembrance that - no matter how much I hold myself or pull myself together - I am still in need of healing, and a lot of it, and I cannot pretend my way through it. I cannot ignore it and make it disappear.

As I was leaving, Michelle suggested to me that I try meditating and mindfulness - both of which I am very familiar with and have studied and/or practiced at length. I talked with her very matter-of-factly about it, told her I was familiar with it, etc. I felt a bit shaken, but very much in control.

But then I watched her drive away and stood waiting for my cab and things started to pile on. My brain went into overdrive. I started thinking, "I don't understand this. How can I not remember? This is crazy. You are crazy!" and then I was thinking about emotions and I was thinking I need to write...

And that led me to thinking, as I stood there staring at a bitterly cold outside through a six-pane window, that I was going to write about emotions. No. No I am going to write about what I think about emotions.

Then I thought, no maybe I should write about what I feel about thinking.

This made sense to me. Logical sense. Intellectual sense. Perhaps, by writing about how I feel about thinking, I can touch emotions somehow.

So...

How do I feel about thinking?

I feel safe, thinking. I feel in control, thinking. I feel secure, thinking. I feel confident, thinking.

Because nobody can mess with my thinking.

This is quite ambiguous, isn't it?

Here's what I suppose I mean:

My intellect and street smarts are hard-earned and concrete. If I do not know it, I can and will learn it (if I need to). I watch everything and everyone closely. I seldom miss much because of what is called "hypervigilance," a label I consider to sound negative but which I embrace as "normal" and even a gift.

I don't know that I would still be breathing if not for my "hypervigilance."

There is control and, thus, security and safety in thinking. There is control in having no emotions. How's that for an oxymoron? Or, do control, security and safety count as emotions?

I am over-thinking, aren't I?

And I, myself - whoever "I, myself" happen to be today - am messing with my thinking and this is not a good thing.

There is nothing concrete or stable in having my thinking disrupted by something as alarming as DID and the analysis of such.

I am going to have a beer.

Get Over It

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Some things I have enjoyed my entire life. I can think of two, really: music and writing.

I mean, I have enjoyed doing other things and going places but, as far as things I've always loved consistently, I can think only of these two things.

There are feelings I have enjoyed. I love the feeling of helping someone.

I have an affinity towards minorities and have been known to randomly hug strangers because I felt compelled to do so and, I admit, I actually feel better when I help an Arab or African-American than I do when I help a white person. I don't know why, really. I guess I always seem to go for the underdog. Maybe I'm just a self-righteous narcissist. Who knows?

But I know the feeling of having the opportunity to take advantage of someone, and, instead, making sure the situation is right. I like that feeling. I like the feeling of helping. Of knowing I have done something helpful for someone.

But music and writing have always been there. Always.

I suppose they're similar: Both express, for me, what I can or could never say. My son - my oldest - is the same way, as far as music.

I enjoyed those things and those feelings. I still do.

Why would I choose to be so afraid so much so often of so many things?

Too many people say "get over it" or "stop living in the past" or any manner of such things.

As if I am choosing to be this terrified bundle of nerves every day. As if I enjoy being terrified of being too loud when I open the silverware drawer in my kitchen, or stand in front of a window. As if I prefer or somehow choose to tremble before I even step out my door.

I know what it is to live in my head. To be in in denial. I know what it is to say "Fuck all you crazy psycho-babble idiots. My past doesn't affect me and I don't NEED your fucking help," as I carry on every day as if nothing ever happened. As if I had the perfect cheerios childhood.

Sometimes it feels like you're being admonished for yielding to the agony that complex trauma causes. It hurts. It hurts and it confuses to hear these messages.

You think you're doing the right thing by seeking help - and it is so fucking scary, let me tell you - yet people say things like, "Aren't you allowing yourself to be trapped by your past?"

Well...yes. Yes, and no.

But if I don't get help, I will forever be trapped by my past because my existence will be nothing but a lie. My being will be a fraud. I will never know who I am nor what I can do... I will never know those things that I truly enjoy besides music and writing. I will never know my voice. I will never know a man's good touch. I will never know authentic love. I will never understand what it is to have someone do for you, just for the sake of doing for you. I will never know what it is like to not go a minute without thinking I owe someone sex (or sexual favors) in return for their gifts (whatever they may be).

So, am I stuck in my past?

Yes. I am trying so hard to dig out of this crater that fate handed me.

Please don't judge or chastise me. It is so bloody hard to do. It hurts more than anything I have ever known and opening up, trusting, being vulnerable is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

I am just now learning...crawling... reaching and trying.

Get over it?

Dear God I am trying.

Dark as it may be, there is no dark enough place. There is no hole deep or cold enough. Keep waiting for the earth to crumble over me but it doesn't; just leaves me here in this hole. My fingers bloody from trying to crawl out. My knees raw. My feet, freezing. There is good in this life. Thankfully. There are loving, compassionate, understanding and helpful people. Cindy, Hannah, Natasha, Rubi... Most of whom I never imagined would give me a second glance. But they did. Still I am in this hole and I've swallowed my pride ten times over. I have begged for help. There is no light in this hole; just the promise of it above, where I cannot reach. I am surrounded by dichotomies and catch-22's and I am confused, lost and God I am terrified.

Good bye... I hope

My name is Cristina D. Kuptzin-Johnson. When I was pre-verbal, I was sexually, emotionally and mentally abused. When I was 5 and 6 years old, I was sexually and physically abused, and was also forced to perform sexual acts on my younger brother - 13 months younger. During this time I was also beaten and neglected. I received the message - somehow, though I don't know how - to shut up, get over it, and say nothing. But I did. Told my grandmother when I was in 4th grade. After which time she sent me back to my abuser (my father) who subjected me to porn, marijuana, alcohol and sex. He suffocated, strangled and brainwashed me.I was taken away and sent back to a place where I was - at age 11 - kidnapped, raped and beaten at age 11. From then on - age 11 to 15 - I was on the streets and repeatedly gang-raped, assaulted, beaten and sold (blue-eyed blondes are worth a lot of money in North St. Louis). For years, I conformed to societal norms: shut up. Move on. Get over it. Stop living in the past. I have been: a waitress shelf installer (for Blockbuster. It was illegal; I was 17) journalist graphics designer writer editor pest control technician Factory worker Seamstress Upholsterer Property manager Administrative Assistant Marketing Assistant Web Development Assistant Customer Assistant Telemarketer Licensed CNA Phlebotomist and...above all, a writer and mother. I am NOT SUPID. DID and PTSD does not incriminate one's mental capacity. In fact, it is known among the psychological community (at least those who care to research it) that those who develop DID are brilliant children with active imaginations. I cannot begin to describe the escape techniques I used to numb or escape the pain of being sodomized, raped, beaten, humiliated and tormented by my father and others. I can only say that the United States has failed me and millions of others who suffer these same afflictions and repercussions. Unfortunately - if tonight is a success - I will just be another statistic that didn't make it. For those who are interested, my father's name is Daniel John Baugh. His DOB is August 8th. He was 18 when I was born in 1970. My step-father's name is Richard Sargent and although all he did was give me 5 dollars for a hand-job, it was enough. My uncle's name is Daniel Percival. I awoke with him laying on top of me at age 7 or 8. I can still smell his breath. Last I knew he lived in Latham, MO. I abscond my brother for his transgression. He was young and, with some friends, begged me to let him perform oral sex on me when I was 16, O told him absolutely not. However, I awoke naked, in the same room where my baby - Tony - lay sleeping in his crib. I do not know hat happened, but I do know I didn't go to bed naked. But given my brother's abusive past, I forgive him. Fat Cat raped me by gun point. Pulled the pistol out from under his mattress. He later did the same thing when he caught me in the bathroom of a mutual acquaintance. Pulled the pistol out, stuck it in my mouth, first. Told me to open up. I did. Then he put the pistol to my temple and told me to suck it until he came, told me if I didn't swallow he would blow my head off. His big chocolate gut hit my forehead as I did what he ordered. I will never forget how small that bathroom was. Chester took me to the river in MO and literally grabbed my pant legs, pulled them off, raped me and told me it was love-making. He left me there. Robert Lewis - age 32 (I believe, at the time) - kidnapped and took me to an abandoned building in north St. Louis where he repeatedly raped, beat and cut me. I was 11. It was in the paper. He confessed to all of it. The headline was "She makes me hot says bobby" There are countless other incidents. Too many to list. Knives to my throat. Swallow or die. Stabbed in the the head. Molested by Mr. Buck at the Juvenile Detention Center. Kicked into the muddy curb because I fought back in the back seat of an Impala. Too many. Too many. Daddy also thought it was fun to sell me off to his friends. Pose me as a five-year-old. Make me go down on my four-year-old brother. Think it's too much? Oh there's so much more. But so many can't handle it. Neither can I. So............ I cannot finish this blog without mentioning names that have been instrumental in some ways - whether past or present - in no particular order, with the exception of my children; the first three names. Antonio (Tony) Baugh Meagan A. Johnson Trevor C Johnson William (Bill)Goodall Cindy Kuptzin Hannah Shaffer Ron Kuptzin Natasha Lee Michelle Kenefick Gary, Terry Johnnson Anne Kuptzin Samantha (Sammy jo) Natasha Antonio: I treated you poorly. I tried, though. I was so young and stupid but you really picked up the slack. Never hit a woman. Always be honest. Go with your gut. Respect the elderly. Stand up for what is right. You hurt me many times, but I always have seen your beauty. Exploit that. Use it. Make a difference. Meagan: Oh honey. Oh honey. You are so like me, except in this context. You will never give up and you will succeed. Never EVER depend on a man. Go to school Earn your way. Dont "need" anyone in that way. Don't get into any relationships because you need the support. Rather, be your own person. Be smart. Be better than me. Trevor: Oh honey. You've kept me going. If I didn't have you I didn't know what I would have done, so many times. I wanted to keep you safe, secure. I know what it is to feel like an outcast but honey, Autism doesn't make you an outcast; it makes you gifted. You just have to find what your gift is. I love you so much. Bill: Thank you for being there. For trying. Thank you for sleeping on my bloody pillow after a night of wrist-slashing. "it's a part of you," you said. Stand up for yourself. Stop letting people beat you down. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don't be rash; think about it a bit. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Let me get back to you on that." Be true to you. Be true to what matters most to you. Thank you for loving me. Cindy: You are the best mother a person could ever have. Kind, loving, considerate, consistent, understanding, loving. You are a magnificent person, when you are who you are. I am so lucky that I had your love in my life. Hannah: Oh God, honey this may be the hardest of all: Don't give up. Give people like me, hope. Give us hope and peace and understanding and compassion. You can do this because you are learning how to do it, and in the right way. Please don't give up. You can and will make a difference. You told me you would be my voice. BE MY VOICE. Be the voice of all survivors who are afraid to speak. Please,....please... I love you. Ron: I know how hard you try and I am thankful. Sometimes trying too hard, can cause more harm than good. You are an intelligent man. Don't let that override your emotions. Connect. Feel. Understand. You are a good man. Talk less, listen more. Ask questions, understand. I am grateful to you for all you've tried to do. Gary: I love you so much. I never lied. I always loved you. I still do. I miss you. I needed you. I was so hurt by you that it cannot be measured. I'm sure you were confused. The complex trauma I went through (and hid from you) probably threw you for a loop but I trusted you and I needed you. Oh I needed you. I needed to feel safe and I needed you to trust me. Ultimately, you proved me right: "them" cannot be trusted. But I still love and miss you and wish you happiness. Terry: My first love. I am sorry. We were both young and stupid. Please take care of Trevor. Don't force him the way you did Meagan and Tony. Let him pave the way. He is very intelligent. Trust him. Anne: you're the best grandmother ever!!! Thank you for welcoming and loving me. Sam: There's so much you don't know. I promised I would never tell but I suspect you already know. I am so proud of you for the work you are doing. Please advocate. Please help people. I am so proud of you. Natasha: When I thought there was nowhere else to go, and nobody to ask for help, you were there. I trembled and you held me. You listened. You helped more than anyone. People say things and I learned - because of your actions - that what people say is not true. You are a saint. I am so grateful to you. Oh, and Carolyn: stop counting on others (including your sons) for your happiness. Get some help and start being real instead of depending on, oh, I dont know, GARY, to buy you VODKA. Couple more things: Sue Rasie (Racie? Racey?) of East Lyme Pyschological Associates is a quack who pushed me absolutely over the edge. My mother - Cindy (cynthia) Greenman-Kuptzin was there and witnessed the unethical and absolutely unprofessional behavior of this APRN. Additionally, the state of Connecticut would not provide me with anyone who would provide me with medication management for extreme anxiety and HUSKY (which I have) was completely outdated and unhelpful. There is nowhere for me to go. I have nowhere to go. I will NOT have my son sent to foster care. You people - if you have JUST HELPED ME - everything would have been okay. NO HELP. CONNECTICUT WANTS TO LOCK YOU UP JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE ANXIETY OR THEY WANT TO PAY EXORBITANT HEALTH CARE COSTS BECAUSE PEOPLE LIKE ME ARE FORCED TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM EVERY TWO WEEKS FOR ANXIETY MEDICATIONS!!! I can't stand in front of the window of my home because I am so afraid, without anti-anxiety medications. I have a therapist - Michelle Kenefick - who has been fantastic but because there is no medication management available unless you are under the umbrella of a psychiatric conglomerate, you have two choices: See a psychiatrist and LSCW/MSW/CSW under the same umbrella, or do without meds. FIX IT BEFORE OTHERS DO WHAT I DO. One thing about it Ms. Sue Rasie (Racey? Rasey? Whatever) You won't have to worry about me ROCKING anymore because I have ENORMOUS anxiety. Sorry I made you uncomfortable you psycho!! I can't live all this down. I can't work. I am afraid of everyone and everything - except my therapist. I can't work and there are so many people in this country who point angry fingers and say, "YOU JUST WANT A GOVERNMENT HAND-OUT!" I don't want a government hand-out. I want to HEAL. In fact, I want to heal to the point that I can help OTHERS heel. Have YOU ever been sodomized? Have YOU ever been forced to swallow syphilis-infected semen? Have YOU ever had a Pelvic Inflammatory Disease to the point where not only could you not walk, but your entire reproductive system was compromised because there is nowhere for a teenage rape-victim runaway to go? NO probably now, I do. I know these things. I wanted to help. I DESPERATELY wanted to help but you know I am a firm believer that you cannot help anyone, any more than you have helped/healed yourself. Those aren't great odds for me at this point in time. So while I TRY to get help so I can HELP OTHERS, I am constantly shut down by the bureaucracies of our decrepit health and mental health system. So thanks to those who've tried to help. Thank you even more to those who will continue to help and make a difference. Just remember this: Just because he/she has a pretty face and a good dialogue and dresses great, doesn't mean she's not a victim of sexual trauma. The statistics are staggering; http://www.rainn.org/statistics PAY ATTENTION!

Stress

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

Cut again tonight. Nothing major, comparatively speaking. Enough that I felt the perverse satisfaction of knowing I am alive.

Paradoxical, yyou wish just this little bit were it. You wish this was all it took.

The paper towels didn't hold enough blood to personify the pain.

Oh God.

Oh God.

Please.

Please.

I can't take it anymore. I keep trying. I keep trying.

I feel so alone.

General update

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Feeling a bit melancholy tonight but the Winter Storm Nemo isn't helping.

I did have some help the past week, specifically from a friend who I didn't really know was a friend. She helped me more than she could know and I am grateful.

Also help from my adoptive mother who has been incredibly patient and there for me.

Have had a lot happen the past couple weeks and have a lot to think about.

I am reticent to share too much here because - as they'd say in the police department - the investigation is still ongoing. Who knows what the outcome will be.

I am shut down.

But my demons cling to me, pulling at my nerves, daring me to pay attention to them. Still, I can't. I have to focus...focus...focus...

Crises always push me to my height; struggles be damned.

The bitch is I am wound like a violin string. So tight. I could snap anytime.

I miss so much. I truly miss so much.

And I am not lonely, but I feel alone.

Which is okay, if sometimes overwhelming because my thoughts flood me.

I feel like it'd be really nice to have just two weeks straight of a break. Just two weeks without whammies that knock us back. We just want to be caught up.

I just want to feel safe.

Had an appointment with a psychiatric APRN Tuesday. She was horrible. She was a 74-year-old, stuck-in-her-ways whacko.

OMG I have never experienced anything so horrible with a pdoc. She was wrong on so many levels and I knew more about my diagnoses and treatment than she did. Gotta go see her again next week. No idea why. Dreading it. But she's the only person that accepts my insurance so I have no choice.

Just depressed tonight.

Love all my friends and family.

Stay warm and safe.

Memories, flashbacks, dissociations and therapy

My name is Cristina D. Johnson. This entry may trigger.

In north St. Louis during the late 70's and early 80's, I was on the streets most of the time and, particularly, between ages 11 and 15. Intermittently, I would hitchike to various places. I was raped often, beaten just as often, especially when I was in St. Louis. Or, "home," as I thought of it.

After my kidnapping, I felt....  I don't know.... as if I belonged there, on the streets. I'm sure it began before that - I mean, I remember not feeling at home with Grandma and Pop because of the things Daddy did - but being on the streets became predominant after the kidnapping. I was 11.

After that, I was deemed "incorrigible" and made a ward of the state. I was no saint. I stole from my grandparents. I also shoplifted from Sears and Ben Franklin. Clothes, mostly. If not for Sears and the occassional clothesline with jeans my size clipped to it, I would never have had clean clothes.

I didn't steal with malice, although I know it could have been seen that way. Especially in Grandma and Pop's case. I even stole from my great grandmother, who was loved by all. She had a little green cup that sat on the mantle in the dining room, behind the column at the end. It was a coffee cup that was only one half the size of a normal cup. In gold letters on the green surface, it read: "Well you asked for a half cup of coffee."

I remember this is where she kept her cash. There wasn't a lot, but there was a lot for a teenage, incorrigible ward of the state. Pop kept his cash in the top left desk drawer. Grandma kept hers in her purse. She also kept her watch in a little box that sat on the counter behind her, where she also kept her address book and other things.

I stole the watch once.

Stole the car two or three times - don't remember.

Sam, the dog, knew me and I wasn't scared of him.

Most of the time, the money I took was to keep people from hurting me. To recruit allies, I suppose. It didn't really work. They would never be "friends" - they were ghetto opportunists.

One of the ways these men took advantage of women was to get them high. I never (fortunately) was into drugs as a kid. I had access and I did them because you couldn't not do them. Not doing them, was as good as wearing a badge and saying, "Hey I'm a narc," and was sure to get you beaten, if not killed.

It was always a no-win situation. You knew if you did the drugs, you'd be raped/beaten, but if you didn't, you'd possibly get worse so you just rolled the dice, hoped for the best.

The most dangerous drug I ran into was "whack." Back then crack was really becoming popular and I did it but didn't like it. Also did weed and coke but "whack" (aka PCP/Angeldust) was used to dominate.

Last night a friend of mine contacted me. She shared a harrowing experience she'd just had. I didn't think about it at the time, but as I laid down to go to sleep, I realized the experience she related to me was identical to a number of my experiences with "whack." I asked her this morning some basic questions and I firmly believe she was given it, without her knowing.

This brought me back to a memory of a cabby who took me to a motel. I don't remember the situation or circumstances; just that I'd smoked whack (which I HATED) and somehow ended up in a motel room. I was raped by the cabby. I recall watching him take my clothes off as I lay helplessly on the bed. I recall seeing him as if he were hundreds of yards away. I recall trying to talk, but not knowing if I was talking.

Whack didn't always affect me this way, but this wasn't my only experience like it.

Talking to my friend, I could taste it. Smell it. Came back to me as if I'd just smoked it. When I say I hated it, I cannot articulate how much. The smell, the taste never leaves you. To this day, sometimes I smell it at random places and it always makes me sick. I absolutely hated it.

I also recall being raped and beaten by a group that I'd been sold to. One of the perpetrators that I recall very vividly was Lafayette. I recall him vividly because he beat me horribly - worse than anyone else - and he had the largest penis. He caused me great physical pain and more than one bloody face. If I cried, as he raped me, he would punch me wherever was convenient - typically, on my face or head.

During the first incident (I ran into Lafayette and his gang multiple times. Lafayette was not the 'leader' but he was very violent and dominant), I smoked whack, but I remember Lafayette very clearly. He raped me multiple times - both with the gang, and alone - throughout my time on the street.

 None of this is really new to me. Although I remember some of it or, at least half of it, I am completely disconnected from it, too.

So this morning, when I thought about "whack," and I talked to my friend and surmised that she'd been given PCP, I became angry..... angry for her, sad for her, scared for her....

And it took me back to that motel room.

Strange thing is, I feel nothing for myself. If not for my friend (who is in college), I would feel nothing but because she's so young and because of my own experiences, I felt it vicariously. Felt the anger vicariously. Felt the violation vicariously. Couldn't shake it.

Went to therapy.

Talked with Michelle about a few things, then finally told her about the cabby, my friend, whack and Lafayette.... some details.

When I finished telling her, she informed me I'd told her about the cabby before.

I was stunned.

I began to cry.

I had never told anyone about the cabby. Not to my knowledge, except my friend and that was just this morning.

I shook my head. Told her, "no."

"Yes," she said gently. "It was Friday."

I shook my head. Cried, disbelieving.

"I thought...I thought Friday.... I thought we talked about rent Friday," I sobbed.

"It could've been Monday," she said calmly, "But it was definitely last week."

Tears fell fast. I was embarassed. "I've never told anyone except [my friend] about the cabby," I told her.

"You didn't get into as much detail as you did today, but you told me about it."

I was floored.

"Funny thing is," she went on, "You used almost exactly the same words, although you didn't give as much detail and you haven't ever mentioned Lafayette."

I cried. I was mortified.

Quickly pulled myself together. Apologized.

She said, "This is that double-edged sword. You want to remember, but when you remember, it hurts."

I nodded in ascent.

"I think things are just starting to come up for you. These memories are coming back."

It sucks to not remember, remembering. I hate not remembering.

I told her that.

I wonder what else I've told her.

Lost in moments

My skin is on fire, just as surely as if lava ran through every capillary beneath it. Everything is loud; ten times…no, a hundred times more than normal. My stomach is in my throat, upside down. I want to vomit. I can’t stop shaking…this bizarre shaking… my hands tremble but it feels as if every cell trembles, every muscle and bone, everything inside.

And it’s so simple, really. Just a compilation of things.

Today I played games online - games from my childhood: Pacman; Donky Kong; Donkey Kong Jr.;  Frogger; Space Invaders... so many... I was keen to note the dates they were released. I was trying to find some place in  time in history. Some kind of validation or verification of times and ages and dates that are lost in my mind. This need is always there. This need to know, where was I when this happened? Where was I when that happened? What age was I?

Seemed harmless at the time.

But then things started to happen and, one by one, they began to build until the weight crushed my stature.

Memories. Unable to separate past from present, even though my mind consciously knows the difference.

Still, I was swept away to points in time when living was unsafe, unkind...

The kitchen was tiny. So small. No bigger than a prison cell. 

In it was a stove and a small two-top table, wedged beneath a window (I think), and next to the stove, something I can't recall. A spice rack, maybe? A tiny little group of shelves? A little bitty pantry? A small microwave stand? I don't recall.

The story is more complex but tonight, I was standing at that stove, my back to the little two-top. I was wiping down what I'd already cleaned, desperately avoiding looking at my step mother who had come to sit at the table behind me.

"I don't know what to do," she said.

I said nothing. I was in fourth grade. For most of my life, I'd believed myself to be 12 at the time but I know now that I was in fourth grade - Bethany school in Summerfield, N.C., so I must've been nine or so. Ricky McGeehee was the most popular boy in school. Tracy was the most popular girl. It must have been around 1979.

I was terrified. I just nodded at the stove, kept wiping.

"He [my little brother] says your father molests him," she said, with her gentle Bostonian accent.

I felt my body freeze, my head spin, my tongue couldn't move. I stopped so briefly ...didn't want her to notice, so I quickly continued wiping. There was nothing to wipe clean.

"I don't know what to do," she said again. 

She must have pondered the truth of my brother's statement out loud because I remember looking down at the stove and quietly saying, "He's telling the truth."

I heard her ask, "What?"

I turned, looked at the floor and repeated. "He's telling the truth."

Later that night, Daddy tried to get to me after he punched several holes in the walls. He screamed at me: "Tell her the truth! Tell her you're lying!" and she got between us; saved me from him.

Tonight, I went there - to that moment in time. I thought I could handle it. I shoved it away. Pushed it back.

Went back to cooking.

Began cleaning. Cleaning.... cleaning...

Heard banging, felt the energy shift. The irritation. The frustration. Felt it as if I caused it. Believe I caused it. Felt responsible. Frantically searched for anything I could clean.... Gotta clean.... gotta do something.

My hand burned and I was six.... again....

I was six and I couldn't move my hand because it was so badly burnt but I tried to hide it. I was terrified when they said they were  going to call my parents because I couldn't write. It was my left hand - my dominant hand - and I couldn't write in school. I pleaded, "Please, please I'll use my right hand! Please don't call them!"

They assured me it was okay and I wasn't in trouble, but that they needed to call my parents.

They didn't understand.

I was beaten for that.

For a moment, I was there again..... in the classroom, people were looking at me, looking at my hand. I didn't want them to look. I wanted them to leave me alone, to let me try to do my work with my right hand. Please don't call Daddy....

For a moment, I was with Gary again.... he was yelling....he was slamming things, kicking things, throwing things, cursing at the dog, the kids, anyone....

And, in that, for a moment I was with Daddy again; he was kicking things, breaking things, yelling, angry. Then he was kind, benevolent. Then he was angry again.

That's when everything  got really loud.

I tried to escape.

I couldn't.

And now I am here

My skin on fire. My stomach in my throat, upside down, choking on memories I am trying to swallow, trying to put into their rightful place.

But my hand - as I burnt it, washing things in the hot water - was no longer my hand. It was the hand of a six-year-old girl. The counter was no longer the one in my apartment. It was the stove I cleaned with my back to a loving and courageous step-mother. The restlessness, irritation, irritability was no longer my friend; it was Gary. And that was ultimately Daddy, yelling in a rampage.

Unpredictable, frightening. So frightening.

So goddamn frightening.

Unable to talk, accused of sulking......

Unable to talk.

What is today?

The time is close.

Regret

It's chilly up here - but it's clean. There are no cigarette ashes everywhere. It smells of the hazelnut candle I lit an hour ago, and the opium incense - my personal favorite - that I lit about thirty minutes ago. The windows are pathetically "covered" - that is, the plastic I attempted to cover them with for the winter, is now hanging down, loose from the top. The blue painter's tape I used in an effort to save the paint on the window frames, didn't do the job. But it's dark - the lights are off - and I cannot see this eyesore.

It's solitary here. I have the door closed and I hear nothing but my edited version of ATB's "Trinity" on repeat. I made it repeat the woeful center part over a dozen times. I was proud of this, actually. I'm good at editing videos and music and photos. I'm actually better than your average person.

The song suits me right now. I am sad.

Not sad. Sorrowful.

I think there's a difference. At least, it feels like there is. Sad is, I suppose, something you feel when something happens. Sorrowful, for me, is this feeling inside that aches so deeply and causes these tears that aren't blatantly sad. They just  fall, each one as if it has a story to tell and - if the story isn't told - then perhaps the next one that falls, will tell it. They keep coming and, with them, flashes of regret, pangs of pain, dulled only by my own self-criticism.

So the tears stop - just for a moment - until the ache pushes them up and out again.

I think....

I think about how afraid I am to go out.

and why

Why?

Why.... because maybe someone will see me. Maybe someone will see me. Maybe they'll see this horrible ugly I hear and see every day.

I've learned over the past few months that I - in my life - have had two choices: I could pretend this horrible ugly didn't exist and I could fight (in any way possible or necessary) anyone who called me out on it (ie "classless cunt" as my ex referred to me [yeah, pretty classy, huh?] or "white trash" or "trailer park trash" or other derogatory comments) or I could hide behind a mask. Either way, I was in denial of these self-loathing whispers, constant in my ear. Constant in my mind. Constant in the mirror.

Thinking...

I can't please anyone.

Nobody.

I don't know how.

I thought I did......

I thought I knew how but now, that's stripped from me in so many ways.

Now I know that sex doesn't get you love, even if my mind tricks me into believing it again and again and again. Being a good cook, doesn't get me love.

But my mind tricks me over and over and over.

Laundry and being a good mom. Cleaning.

Being quiet. Subdued. Unspoken, really.

But not enough to let on, that you really are unspoken and silent.

Just enough.... just enough...

But nobody will ever be ..........what I've always looked for.

I am 42 years old.

What a sad joke that my life is right now. I feel old and tired. Exhausted, really. Too tired to lift anything. Too tired to go anywhere. Too afraid to talk about it. Who do I call? Who do I talk to? Who do I tell all this to?

These secrets.... they're mine.

I know I'm not alone. I know others have exactly these same secrets. Secrets about themselves, about men and relationships, sex, love.... love....

Shame....

Thinly veiled....

I wish.... so much.

wish he knew..... wish he knew.... wish he knew..... and him and her and him and them...

Wish they knew.....

Oh how I wish....

Another tear.

It's full of regret. Full of shame. It hits my stained white t-shirt, that I wear only when I know nobody's coming around and I'm going nowhere. Usually when I clean.

It hits a half inch from where the last one fell. And the one before.

I am afraid to be thankful, so I stand back and stare in awe, without touching. Without tainting. I want it to stay perfect, so I don't go near.

I hide.

Like a coward, I hide. Unlike the tough girl I've always been.

I hide.

But I feel and I've felt.

So deeply that it feels like gouges in my soul, filled only with confusion and disorientation and uncertainty.

Regret.

It feeds that voice that says, "It's your fault. It's all your fault. Nobody can love you."

I did everything wrong. Always. I always do. I push them away. I hurt people.

Yet..... I cannot fathom hurting anyone.

Never. God.....

I never want or wanted to hurt anyone.

And yet, I feel like a monster.

So I cannot be seen. I don't want to be seen.

Let the tears come here - in the attic, amid the scents of hazelnut and opium, behind fallen plastic and haggard painter's tape. Here, up high, where nobody can see.

Tomorrow I will be fine.

Tomorrow I won't cry.

Tomorrow, I won't wear a stained white t-shirt.

Lonely sad

When no one else can hear them
I can.
Like small boulders
rolling down a grassy hill
they fall
they roll to a drip
and they fall on my breast
echoing a pain
I cannot voice
nor make sense of
but I hear it.
I feel it.
On my breast
in my heart.

Salty Flashback (WARNING: Graphic)

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

Today Michelle and I talked about an article I read about DID. I had sent it to her, to get her opinion. See, I am pretty pissed off about this whole DID thing and for the past two days, have fought the notion. Fuck that. I don't have DID. No way.

But then I read the article... searching, I suppose. Just wanting answers. Something. Anything. I don't know. Some kind of answer or answers for the weird, crazy shit my mind goes through and the stuff that just doesn't make sense.

I asked her what she thought about the article, "besides the typos," I said...

"There were typos?"

"Yeah. Several," I said.

"I didn't notice."

"I did. I didn't like it," I told her.

And, like any good therapist, I suppose, she shot my own question back at me. "What did you think about it?"

I shrugged. I didn't have an answer.

We talked about the reasons why I might have sent it to her, what I was looking for. She asked me what the DID means for me, what's wrong with it?

I  told her I am among the victims of The Seven Faces of Eve and Sybil - those who see DID as some malady where you change personalities so overtly that people think you're crazy.

"I don't want to be crazy."

"Do you think you're crazy?"

"Sometimes I want to go crazy."

"Do you?"

"Sometimes."

It felt like I needed to fit too much into the session. Like always, I suppose. In a hurry. I want this over with. I want all these stupid fucking "parts" or "fragments" or what the hell ever it is to go away so I can know who the hell I am because that is what I fear the most and I don't want to fear anything.

Still, my "core self" (whoever that is) lies dormant and hidden.

I felt a surge...a need to tell her what happened last night, despite this feeling I had not to say anything. But this urge took over, this bizzare disconnection happened and there I was, saying it.

"Tell me something," I said to her. "Last night, when I went to bed, I had a flashback," I continued, not waiting for her to speak. She sat quietly and I talked.

"I don't know how old I was. I was on the streets. There was a car - the door was open - and a big black man and he had a gun to my head. He had me on my knees. He made me perform oral sex on him right there, and he held the gun at my temple and said, 'Swallow it or I'll blow your fucking brains out.' So I swallowed it. I remember this very vividly, even though I couldn't tell you how I got there, where we were [except that we were in St. Louis] or anything.

"But then the flashback went from that to Bill and it stopped with Gary. I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, envisioning Gary." My father - my first predator - didn't even come to mind, despite my vivid memory of asking him as a child, "Daddy what is that white stuff?" and his response: "I don't know, honey," as he handed me a towel to wipe it off.

I was emotionless. The black man, the gun, the swallowing - how it burned - those things were far removed from me, aside from the visual (and the burning sensation which I can call upon if I choose, but I choose not to). Instead, I was overwhelmed with disgust over the taste of semen.

"I tasted semen. I felt it was flooding my mouth," I told her, speaking of last night. "This has never happened before."

I was laying in bed. Bill was asleep. I hadn't watched or read anything that might have prompted it, but there it was - suddenly - and I was heaving, panting, sitting upright, reminding myself who I was, where I was, that I was safe. And there was an argument in my head and I was trying to ....I don't know, calm it down.

So strange.

"What the hell is that?" I asked her. "I mean, if someone ever did something like that to my daughter, I would consider it traumatic. But me? Who cares?"

She said this centers around this enormous shame I have. I trust her. I believe this, even if I don't understand it.

She said (paraphrasing), "While you think it'd be better if you didn't exist, you have people standing on the other side of the [chasm] saying, 'Come over here. You deserve to be here. You deserve to be safe, loved.'"

"I don't think I'm really doing anyone any favors by existing," I argued, adding: "Except for Trevor."

"I would argue that," she said calmly.

She did tell me one thing:

She told me she's seen me switch and described some of the ways it appears when I do. My posture changes, my countenance changes, my voice changes, my body language changes.

We discussed other things I've experienced that I've never told anyone and am not yet ready to now.

For now, at least.

I'm very confused and I feel lost. But part of me figures, you can't really be found, until you're lost first.

So Confused

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Obviously Dorothy Validus is a pseudonym. I was previously published under the pseudonym Paige C. Storme. I stopped using it,  because it became something used against me.

I want you to know that I - Cristina Dyan Kuptzin-Johnson - am a real person struggling with the journey through DID and PTSD. Struggling through painful realizations, memories, flashbacks, challenges, reprogramming...

Learning curves that nearly topple me, and sometimes do.

I should apologize to those I've pushed away (and to those who I keep at arm's length). It's always out of fear. Always.

To protect you from the ugly I see myself as.

Right now, particularly, I am chewing on a jagged pill. It was through a cumulative association between the movies Trust and Voices Within (based on When Rabbit Howls) and my own live blog, "Is This Where It Starts?" - that I was struck like lightning with the notion that possibly I was never safe.

Now, up to this time - up until yesterday - I scoffed at this idea. Bullshit. I put myself in positions to be raped or beaten. I conceded to my father, my step-father... I agreed and it was, therefore my fault, regardless if I was 2 or 20 or anywhere in between.

Today, in therapy, I tried explaining this to my therapist who is a beautiful, wonderful soul - a fantastic ally and wonderful therapist but who has no experience with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

She - like me - is winging this.

So I told her about my revelation.

This painful idea that I was never safe. Ever. Anywhere. This may seem trivial or small or like a "duh" kind of thing or even self-pitying but the truth is, it never occurred to me. And what happens is, you uncover this little gold nugget of truth - of reality - and it leads to another and another and another to the point where cognitive dissonance takes over and the only thing you know to do is to stomp the gold nuggets back into the dirty, mushy muck where they've been laying, dormant, my entire life because I can't handle all that truth right now. Not emotionally, anyway. Mentally, oh I get it. I know.

Intellectually, sure, it all makes sense but.......

To FEEL it... to believe it or even entertain believing it, well... that is a harrowing experience.

She suggested it was, perhaps, unhealthy to be saturated. She suggested - with all good intentions - that perhaps I was saturating myself by watching these movies.

"But we also watched Thor," I argued. But I was thinking,  "Oh God....I fucked up. Now she hates me."

It wasn't quite that extreme but when you need acceptance as badly as I do and always have, to be even remotely admonished for something that you've always known (for me, that would be learning intellectually and putting together the pieces), well, that's a failure and a let-down. I'm a failure and a let-down. I fucked up. I'm doing it wrong.

I let her down.



Truth is, I was completely lost. I thought I'd done something right; uncovered something important. Revealed something to myself that, though painful, was a step at least towards healing.

"So what do I do?" I asked. So desperate. So fucking desperate. I am in this apartment. I have no transportation and even if I did, I have nowhere to go. I don't want to be seen. I don't want anyone to notice me. So what do I do? I can't sit around every day, all day, waiting for my next therapy appointment. Waiting for my therapist to solve my problems. I'm far too strong-headed; far too intellectual for that. I refuse to be controlled by any means - even if those means are of my own making, unbeknownst to me.

Oh I play games. I play Cafeland on FB and words with friends and scramble with friends. I am active online, even though I tend to be tempered because I'm easily shut down so I try not to offend anyone. I consider this both considerate and cowardly. Whatever.

My session today was hard. I couldn't speak. The words were wrong.

I tried talking, but it felt as if my tongue was three times it's normal size and it seemed everything that came out was jarbled and it seemed the words that were said, weren't mine. I didn't want to say this. I didn't want to say that.

But you can't say "I didn't want to say this or that"

You just have sit there and let it be what it is and let your therapist do their job.

Which isn't really doing my therapist any favors.

Right now, I am very confused. For two days, I have been so confused, but today even more. Goddammit. I thought I did something right. I fucked up.

I don't know what I am supposed to do and I feel like I am surrounded so the only thing to do is sink within myself.

Alone.

Where it's safe.

She said to me words I've heard before.

They [your parents] were sick, twisted individuals.

I told her I can accept this about my mother and I know it about my father.

My father was - and is - a very sick man.

The thing is, if I gave into him what does that make me?

And if neither of them loved me, who can?

How can I love me?

And if I can't love me, then nobody can.

So how do you do that?

How do you love yourself when you hate everything that makes up who you believe you are?

I'm trying so hard...

It's so hard.

This pain is more than I ever imagined.

Yet I know it's necessary.

I know I won't heal until I walk through the pain and separate the fact from the fiction.

I also know, I have to be real.

And that is what I am being.

No make up. No dresses or scarfs. No hiding. No more fake shit. Just jeans and a t-shirt. Socks. Shoes from Marshall's.

This is me.

This is your neighbor.

This is your cousin, your student, your sister or brother.

This is your daughter, your neice or nephew.

No matter their age.

This is incest. This is rape.

Every. Single. Day.

This is the suffering that comes from putting the shattered pieces of yourself back together again.

What do I do?



Side note:
To Bill, Hannah, Cindy, Ron and my children

The weight you carry is so heavy. I'm so sorry. I never, ever, ever imagined being ...this.

I've always been strong.

I've always been the naysayer.

I've always said, "Fuck that. I can take it!"

Now................ now...........

now i am afraid.

And for this I am sorry.

Bill......... oh Bill

If I were truly your friend, I would ask you what the hell you're doing. I would tell you to walk away. I would tell you to stop, let go, she's broken.

And yet the dichotomy is that I can't imagine my life without you in it. I can't imagine Trevor's life, without you in it.

I'm sorry to you all. I'm trying so hard. I'm trying. I promise.

Never Safe

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

From somewhere deep inside, tonight, I came to a realization: nowhere is or has been ever safe. In my "live blog," Is This Where It Starts?, I sometimes get stuck. I get stuck in my head - where I've spent most of my life, away from the reality of yesterdays and days before yesterdays, in denial of (or absolute unawareness of), sicknesses that riddled my life, my toddlerhood, my childhood; sexual perversions that twisted, tormented and distorted every sense of everything a normal child would have.

Yeah, yeah I get it. This has always been my mantra.

"But me. Well, I'm okay. I don't need fucking therapy," I'm known to say. "You're the one with the fucking problem," I often chastised and argued. "I'll send you back to your psych professor with your highfalutin' tail between your legs," I would challenge.

No...I have no problems. Never have.

Right?

No.....

Not to my knowledge. Or, should I say, not to my awareness. I simply was, who I was and at times in my life - here and there - I was good with that. Comfortable with that. Other times....well....

Mood swings.

I remember talking with Bill when I was living with Gary - the man I loved and intended to spend the rest of my life with. Still, we had our problems and I would lament to my best friend: Bill. He was always kind, considerate, understanding and - most importantly - honest.

He once said to me (paraphrasing), "Well your mood swings definitely kept me on my toes." (Bill and I were together either as friends, roommates, loves and partners or all or one over a period of about five years prior to my relationship with Gary).

Anyway, I'm veering off track here...............

There's an ache in me tonight. I can't vocalize it. Just like last night. We watched the film, Trust and I cried multiple times. Cried over the 'blame the victim' attitude of the unwitting father.

Cried over what I never had.... Cried over never mattering enough. Cried over never being able to say, "I love you daddy," with confidence and without fear. (incidentally, I also cried at the end of The Little Mermaid when she said, "Thank you, Daddy," for the same reason. I never got to say that nor did I ever have any reason to).


Tonight, we watched "Voices Within" which is based on the true story of Truddi Chase and the Troops - after the book, "When Rabbit Howls." This book I've read and if you can get past the first three or four chapters which can be a bit confusing, it's a profoundly informational and insightful book on the life (and inner life) of someone with DID (formerly known as MPD, or Multiple Personality Disorder). This is a must-read for anyone with the diagnosis or anyone who wants to know and understand better, the inner workings of the disorder.

Anyway, watching "Trust" and "Voices Within" last night and tonight, respectively, with each violent/sexual assault scene, Bill would ask, "Do you want to watch something else?" or "are you okay?" and to him I would say, "Oh yes. These are the easiest parts to watch."

This is true.

Rape, violence.... oh those things are just.... things to me. I'm so disconnected from these things that I feel nothing watching them. This sounds brutal and callous, I know, but it's really just another brilliant part of my defense mechanisms, built over a lifetime of abuse, abandonment and dissociation.

So I watch these scenes and it never occurs to me that I'm not feeling anything. I said this to Bill last night, watching Trust.

"Are you okay watching this?" he asks, as the scene goes to a motel room where a 14-year-old girl is being manipulated and sexually assaulted by an online predator who is at least 35 years old.

"Oh yeah," I tell him. "It's the parts after this that will get me."

And they did. The outrage of her parents. The support. The openness she had to counseling. The support. The SUPPORT she had. It literally tore me apart inside.

I watched while one of my favorite male actors - Clive Owen - portraying the father, made mistake after mistake through the eyes of a survivor. No, no no I wanted to scream (and even once said). Blame the victim. Big mistake. Oh God....

Yet that's what I do to myself. What I've always done. What society seems to demand.

Why put myself in the position to be gang raped by 4, 6, 8, 10 men? Why not go home? Why run away? Why did I stay on the streets? I was asking for it, right? So I shouldn't be mad. Right? I shouldn't be hurt or angry or scared or upset. I brought it upon myself. Rather I should just own my mistakes (those of an 11-, 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old CHILD.

A CHILD

Tonight, I listened to a (poorly done but okay enough, I suppose) movie - Voices Within - and I was struck by a couple of things that were said but most striking, to me, was when she talked about how "the stepfather" came out of the darkness and if it wasn't dark, he made it dark.

Somewhere, deep, deep inside, far away, hidden, buried, a part of me felt exposed.

"It didn't matter where I was, he would find me," she said.

And in that instant, I realized - for the first time in my life - that I was never safe. Not inside, not outside, not in St. Louis, Pensacola, North Carolina, Louisiana.... nowhere. Not even with my mother whose husband - my stepfather - saw fit to molest me, too.

Rape and incest and molestation and beatings.... oh  those are norms.

I am so accustomed to it (whether emotional, mental, physical or sexual) that I disconnect and feel nothing.

That is my grooming.

And truly, nowhere is safe.

This is spoken from a far away place. Untapped, young, afraid, easily hidden like the way a turtle jolts into its shell the slightest tap on the head or perception of threat.

These parts of me that feel just disappear and I am left with an ache and a curiosity and a need to know, a desire to heal. A desperation. An internal cry, "Please please come out. Please, please talk to me. Please, please tell me what I don't remember. Please, please....please...."

I don't want to be crazy but the world thinks me so.

I am not.

Yet I cannot show my face, nor go into public, nor literally speak my truth until people know - we are not crazy.

We are survivors, trying so hard to fit in.

Trying so hard to give meaning to atrocities many never see and still others see and never speak of.

Oh my voice.........

Give me my voice.

I want to be safe. I don't want a gun or any weapons. I don't want some man to be responsible for making me feel safe. I want to shed this lifetime skin of constant vigilance; this pervasive awareness of the ugly in the world; this unwitting knowledge of the perversions that exist in reality that so many  choose to be ignorant of.

I want to be safe. I want to be free.

Writing

My name is Cristina Johnson.

I haven't even looked at my blog since last Friday. Last Friday was bad. Really bad.

Started off waking from a nightmare about Gary. These nightmares became every-night things and it was to the point where I couldn't even sleep (although it got worse as the week progressed).

Friday, I was already "off" and I could feel it. On top of it, I had an immovable earworm that wouldn't go away no matter how hard I tried. The song - Me and a Gun by Tori Amos - had been stuck in my head for days and I couldn't stop it. It's a very haunting tune, very chilling.

So I was weighted down just by these two things alone, never mind other regular life issues that were causing me stress. Plus I hadn't been able to see my therapist as I had been - twice a week - because of the holidays and because of transportation. This creates a powerful need to 'hold it together' and not talk too much about what I'm going through because unlike my therapist, the people in my life don't really always know what to say or do when I'm going through my shit.

So Friday - which I don't remember, for the most part - started with the nightmare. I don't even remember typing the words, but I know I did. I got on Facebook and made my status the chorus of the song, posted like this: "...me and a gun and a man on my back. But I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this."

I was asked almost immediately by a FB friend if I was okay and I told her yes, that they are lyrics and that I would probably not be posting on FB if there was a man with a gun on my back.

This spurred a huge affront - in private messages. I'd upset her. I was immediately a child again, immediately terrified. My first instinct was to apologize - which I did, repeatedly. I was then told something to the affect of, "You need to keep in mind that what you post affects people" and I argued, "I don't write to not affect people. I want to affect people. What's the point of writing if you're not going to affect people?"

Still, the damage was done and I went into all out panic. I am petrified of saying/doing the wrong thing and I obsess over people "liking" me. I've never had a 'voice' so to speak so when I was confronted about posting the lyrics and, later, other things, I was flabbergasted and hurt and scared and all the components of panic that cause me to completely shut down. The rest of the day I didn't remember.

I was scared to do anything - especially write - and I didn't get on Facebook at all for days. I felt like I'd been told to shut up - this is all I heard (even though the words weren't actually spoken, this is what I heard):

Shut up. Why do you post/write the shit you do? Get over it. Nobody wants to hear it.

That night, I deliberately got drunk - that I remembered. The next day, Bill helped me a little and we talked about Friday - what'd happened. Did I cook dinner? What did I do? Oh yeah, Bill had scared me - another thing on top of my already panic - when he came up the stairs without his shoes on. I didn't hear him and he scared me to death.

Friday - last Friday - is a lost day.

As the days progressed through the weekend and into this past week, the nightmares continued until finally, Wednesday, I lost it. I sat up in my office, staring at my computer afraid to write or speak or do anything and feeling as if everything was crumbling- I was crumbling. Why couldn't I stop these nightmares? God I'm so f'n tired. I just want to sleep peacefully. I don't want these dreams. God....just one night....please...

I was feeling so desperate that I nearly called a suicide hotline (which I have never done) but I was also carrying this heavy burden of needing to hide my desperation from Bill and, obviously, Trevor, so I just isolated. From them, from everyone. I truly felt like I was losing my mind. I emailed my therapist. Then I emailed her again, asking for her to disregard the previous email (which was just a panicked note the equivelant of chicken scratch).

Fortunately, I was able to get a late appointment with her Thursday evening.

Not "being able" to write was like being in a prison - my own prison - with poisonous gas. I was choking, suffocating on my thoughts. Self-criticizing. Slowly being eaten away inside. It was torture for me since writing is my greatest outlet, whether anyone reads it or not.

When I told Michelle about last Friday and the FB incident, she said it was "crap" that  the other person was admonishing me for what I post on FB.  She put things in perspective for me and agreed with me when I admitted to being obsessive over being 'liked'.

"Yes, I know," she said. "But for someone like you who's been unable to express yourself for your whole life, being told those things is traumatic."

I nearly cried. I was validated.

We also talked about the dreams, about Gary, about the break-up.

She told me to remove the stop watch. To stop expecting myself to be over it.

"That was a big break-up," she said. "It hurt you really bad. It's going to take time - however much time it takes - to get over it."

"I don't want to be a wet blanket," I told her, almost in tears.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want the people in my life to be subject to me being heartbroken all the time."

"See? There's the stop watch again," she said. "There's no set time. You don't have to be 'over it' within any certain period of time."

I told her about how he (Gary) served as a catalyst in some ways but how I can't uncross the wires. She said she thought it was amazing that I was able to understand how that works.

"Yeah but understanding it, isn't helping me remedy it."

"You will," she said. "But for now, you're still in pain and grieving."

She is right.

I texted "Dee" the other night ....I couldn't help it. I wasn't going to but I heard a few songs from a band that made me think of her son and how brilliant he is with his guitar (he has autism and is phenomenal on the guitar). The first time I heard Gov't Mule I knew this was the kind of music he'd love. I texted her. She later texted me back, in kind. I didn't respond.

Last night I dreamt of her. Dreamt she was going to see Gov't Mule at the place where I was recently attacked by a mob of uninformed, angry people.

Don't know what it means.

The night before, dreamt of the "boater friends" and a wedding.... it makes me choke up as I write this. Seems harmless, but.... the things he did hurt so deeply. The wedding....I was supposed to go and he lied and....just all kinds of stuff. It hurt so bad, like I was sliced down the middle.

All of our boater friends went to the wedding.....

Except me.

A "friend" - who was talking with Gary about me behind my back and never once called to check on me - went in my stead. I only know this because I found out by snooping in his Facebook account. I found out who - among my "friends" - were really friends and was devastated to learn none of them were. Not one.

But they were all happy to be friends with Gary's new girlfriend.

I hadn't even moved out yet. It'd only been a couple weeks.

Anyway......

I'm going to keep writing.

I have to for my own sake, if nothing else.

Unraveling

Bruising the walls of my dreams
the moon whispers your name

Release the loose thread
before I completely unravel

I cannot see
this road I must travel

blocked by the fire of your cigarette
the scorch of your memory

chained by the darkness
of such disbelief

I crumble here in these tears
with shadows and fears

remnants and shards so sharp and shiny
please get out, go away

Stop coming at night
when I cannot  fight

awaken with panic on my tongue
that coffee cannot wash away

please, please go away
you're not welcome here.

Please release the thread.

Dear God I am begging

Release the loose thread.

Frayed Khaki's

Rupture the silence with a knock on the jamb
Tell me once more, how beautiful I am
"It doesn't matter," he said, "about your past,"
Falsities spoken through a clever mask
So wait, it's a lie. And it's not what I want
Taunted, misled by his beautiful front
Those perfect khakis, frayed at the ends
But he stood around proudly, just fitting in
Pointing and laughing, telling stories, calling names
I saw your facade but stayed, just the same
Could the tenderness of a child's truth
Reach to the hardened core of you?
No, the snow's dirty. The ground, grassless.
The sky, starless; and me, classless.
The "classless cunt," you said, I recall
I protected you from it, you took no fall
God forbid your true colors be shown to your friends
God forbid they see your khakis, frayed at the ends.

-Cristina Johnson

Inside Out and Backwards

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Another nightmare... about Gary.

Times like these I wish there were some way to convey how deeply he hurt me, to him. I know - or I have to believe - that he's not an all-out monster. I want to believe that it would somehow matter, that he would somehow "get it" and.... I don't know.

Easier, I suppose, would be convincing a rock or talking to the cat who would undoubtedly turn abruptly away and shove her backside towards me in an urgent call for massage.

No, he'd never get it and I don't suppose he would ever want to. I suppose if he ever really wanted to "get it," he would have when we were together.

I know a lot of this is transference. He happens to be the poor sap who simulated my father so well in so many ways that my brain has these wires crossed now, and I can't figure out how to uncross them.

Mixed messages. He gave me horribly painful mixed messages and that is why these nightmares won't go away. That, and he verified a truth for me that hurt, even though I know it to be true and always have: there is an "us versus them" in this world. And it's immensely painful.

With the typical interaction, I am safe behind my wall, viewing very cautiously with an Eagle eye, watching every single move, motion, word, action, reaction, expression.... everything. I seek inconsistencies. I look for reasons not to let people in. I do not do this with malice; just self-preservation, like a deer who runs into the woods, so as not to be seen or a bobcat who peers every direction before coming into the open.

I spot inconsistencies like a hungry wolf spots a rabbit and this keeps me safe. It works in two ways:

One, it tells me with pinpoint accuracy who to trust and not trust.

Two, it makes the blows of that person(s) anticipated and, so, they don't hurt as much. I can - for the most part - let their angry, judgmental, uninformed, unkind words/actions roll off my back like water on a duck.

But then there are the less-than-a-handful of people who I allowed "in" and when I say less than a handful, I am not exaggerating. I can think of only four who were so close to me, they were beneath my skin, running in my blood. I saw no wrong in them. I trusted them with my entire being.

The first was my father. Naturally.

Also my ex-husband and my oldest son (long story) and, finally, Gary.

These people managed to come behind the curtain. I embraced them and trusted them.

My father's transgressions were many but my love for him never died. My adoration and need for him survived the pain he caused. Today, there is still a sickening need for his love.

My ex-husband did a number of hurtful things to me. He was (and still is) a very cocky, arrogant man; the kind of man who is unkind to waitresses and poor people. A stereotypical southern man's man. Years of infidelity, abuse, and a host of other toxic elements of our relationship did not sever my love for him. It was not until - just like Gary and my father - I realized he was deliberately hurting me, just to get a reaction, that something inside of me broke. I could almost feel it physically - like the snap of a rubberband that's been stretched too far. Just snapped shut. He knew, that day, it had happened. He knew me so well, that just by the look on my face, my cold countenance and the way I looked at him and said, "You deliberately hurt me," that it was over. Our marriage was over.

My son... as a child bride, I had a painfully inaccurate and askew view of him. He was a protector, rather than my son. I would be remiss if I did not say I know this is wrong and inappropriate and in my conscious mind, he was my child - someone to take care of and teach and guide. But subconsciously, unbeknownst to me, I had developed a dependency on him and through years of turmoil (his and mine), he never failed to be loyal. When he grew to be a young man, things changed and he began to make mistakes that - at least once - garnered my rage at the many pimps, gangsters and rapists I grew up with. This was transference, again. Wreaking havoc in my life. But like the son he always was, he took my heated words and let them scorch him, without saying a word back. When the day came that his loyalty was tested and he left, I was devastated beyond words. This was the same betrayal I felt from my father.

And finally, Gary.

I didn't let him in right  away. It wasn't for years, actually. And, in truth, I questioned whether the relationship was viable in the beginning. But my determination won out and I stayed, telling myself - and him - that my past did not affect me any longer.

At the time, it was true.

In the end, when he urged me to seek help through therapy, I was leery, but I was also weary and I agreed. I went to see his therapist. Mistake number one, I suppose.

Ultimately, after months of swearing he loved me and would never leave me, it happened. I was in utter disbelief. But that's not what causes the nightmares.

The nightmares come from the correlation between the way Daddy hurt me, then loved me and the way Gary hurt me, then loved me. I begged him - Gary - not to do these mixed messages. If our relationship was over, fine but please....no mixed messages, no deliberate hurt. Please.

I may as well been begging the sun not to rise.

I can't know what his reasons were but for whatever reason(s), he needed to be in charge, needed the power to hurt me, and needed to use it. I don't know what he gleaned from it except to save his own skin. It went like this:

He would come home, be nice to me, then suddenly kick me (figuratively speaking), walk away and leave me there crying over what'd just happened, then go out and tell others that he didn't know why I was acting the way I was acting.

Over and over again, day in, day out, night after night, this happened until the mere sound of his footsteps caused me so much anxiety that I would gag (which eventually turned into vomiting). I felt like a prisoner. But then he would do something kind - and make sure everyone knew he'd done it - only to turn around and kick me again.

Mixed messages. For someone with PTSD and DID this is horrendous. But for someone with PTSD and DID who dared to let you in and trusted you, this is beyond horrific pain. It's astonishingly unbearable. It was very much like being raped over and over again. Like being locked in that basement when I had nowhere else to go and tormented. How much this resonates with my childhood abuse cannot be overstated.

I tried explaining, but he didn't care.

I didn't understand and I am still in such guttural pain over it that nightmares pervade my sleep.

Disbelief and pain; anger and fear.

Some might ask: What about Bill?

I've never let him in, because of the phenomenal person he is. Paradoxical, I know, but true. Why let someone as wonderful and beautiful as he, in my ugly world of muddy water, gutter snow, biting cold and darkest dark? Why subject him to it?

He's been the best friend I've ever had. Why risk losing him? Why risk showing him?

Everything is backwards. Everything is inside out.

My tears fall inside. Tears over Gary and what he did to me. This wound he ripped open even further and now it hemorrhages and I can't stop the bleeding, no matter how hard I try.

I am not angry at him, though I am angry at myself.

With him, I am hurt and confused. Shocked.

Scared.

When will these nightmares go away or, at least, move aside so the true shadows, ghosts and demons can be released?

Routine update (plus a little)

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

Haven't seen Michelle for awhile - it's been several days. I don't have transportation to see her unless it's a late afternoon appointment. This is really wearing on me. I am struggling a bit.

Woke up this morning with a sense of dread and a "who do you think you are?" complex and that now all-too-familiar feeling of being in trouble. I hate that feeling. I started feeling it when I lived with Gary. It's somatic and .....emotional(?). I feel it across my backside, sometimes down my legs, as if anticipating a beating. I hate the feeling.

But because I've been sick the past couple days, NyQuil has been my friend so I took some of that, fell back asleep and at least that feeling left me.

Then I awoke the second time and I felt indescribably stupid for writing the blog I wrote yesterday. I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure that's where the "who do you think you are?" came from. Who do I think I am?

Hell if I know - haha.

At least for now I'm okay with that, though at times it's a bit unnerving.

"Hi, what's your name?"

"Uh...Cristina?.....I think?" (c'mon...ya gotta see the humor in it).

Anytime I've switched or begun to dissociate and Bill asks me "Who am I talking to?" I snap out of it.

Actually, not every time; just every time that I remember.

(Also see: Multiple Personality Disorder: Switching Between the Alters - a little less clinical).

How bizarre....how strange and peculiar. How difficult to wrap one's head around.

Anyway, today I was sick - I dreamed of Bill. It wasn't a bad dream; wasn't a good dream. Pretty neutral, really.... at least I thought at first.

But I do believe our dreams are (in short) reflections of (or awarenesses of) our subconscious minds, telling us things. In my case, also could be alters reaching out (such as the two dreams I recently had about a little black boy being abused who wouldn't show his face, but that's a different story).

In this dream, the message seems so clear: I'm repeating an old pattern. I say this with absolute fondness and adoration and devotion to Bill, but the truth is, I am dependent and I am also veering away from my path - another reason I need to see Michelle again.

I'm falling back into an old pattern of trying to be a 'good wife' or a 'good woman' and do all the right things. Mixed in there, somewhere, is the "me" that Bill knew and loved over 10 years ago. The "me" that would go out and party and come home to find him plopped in front of his T.V. at 2 a.m. in his apartment as I returned to mine. The "me" that was somewhat flamboyant and extremely opinionated, inside and outside the relative safety of my own apartment.

And....the "me" that drank too much.

In my defense, I don't drink like I did back then. I couldn't. I'm getting too old for it (haha) but I know, now, that certain things that I drink will cause me to shift, as well as where I drink them.

For this reason, I try to keep it to just beer, but I do have an occasional dip into a favorite flavored vodka which, most often is harmless - a couple nips, here and there. But sometimes it gets bad and I recall nothing.

On a typical day, however, I have anywhere from two to six beers - depending on how late we stay up. Sometimes we will go through a whole twelve pack, plus Vodka, such as was the case over the holidays, which isn't to say we get inebriated - because we don't - but we do drink (of course, there are also days when we don't drink any alcohol at all).

I know that I will stop. There have been times in the past when I've stopped of my own accord and I don't have the same feelings about it now, that I used to (back in 04 and the beginning of 05, I would panic if I got down to a six-pack. Today, if I run out, oh well. I ran out).

Today, it's a lot different and I know the power of control it can have over you.

So to me, based on today's dream in which Bill said to me, "We need more nights like that [where we don't drink] so we can have more party nights," it was both sobering (no pun intended) and enlightening. It was a bit difficult to swallow (again, no pun intended) but truth is true.

Truth is True.

And I want my reality and my Truth and my journey to be real to anyone who reads it because it is real and it hurts sometimes and it's so scary other times but of all the good and/or bad things it is and will be, it is real and I am a real person, sitting here, living vicariously through my keyboard and hoping someone else reads this not with judgment but, rather, a sense of relief that they are not alone.

You are not alone.

On Honesty...

My name is Cristina Johnson.

I've also been known by other names, some fictitious; some the result of marriage; some variations of my real name; and one because of my legal adult adoption (which always gets me double-takes. Yes, I was adopted at age 36. This is a story in and of itself, so I will save it for later).

Through the past six months (give or take), I have endured excruciating pain and heartache; disappointment and betrayal; upheaval and uncertainty; shattering revelations and painful truths. I've also experienced the.... no, "agony" isn't the right word.... let's just say intensity of reliving things my consciousness has cleverly (and intelligently) hidden from me for most of my life. I use the word  "intensity" because no other word seems to fit. Intensity such as these things brought me to my knees; rattled me to my bones; made me a completely different person with completely different views - sometimes for the better, despite the pain. At times, suicidal. Other times, like a child. And still, other times, angry enough to be motivated. It has shown me a world I never knew existed - a world within myself - yet is also shared by others, even if in secret shame.

The author, Sue William Silverman wrote two books about her horrific experiences as a victim of incest and rape and her resulting struggles: Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You and Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction.

To me, she and other authors who have revisited their terror, nightmares, sensory flashbacks, suppressed memories, self-injury, confusion, struggles and countless other repercussions of incest and rape (of all forms, including SRA [or satanic ritual abuse] and other ritual abuse), in an effort to not only heal  themselves, but also to expose this silently destructive taboo, are the epitome of courage. (Sue went on to write Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir). Incidentally, I own all of these and more by other authors.

I spent a long time learning the intellectual aspects of my past. The neurological, psychological aspects. I understood the cerebral parts - the black-and-white aspects. Further studying led me to the spiritual and physiological sides of it, which were equally mind-bending.

But it wasn't until I experienced the most painful break-up I have ever experienced, that I was hurled helplessly into the emotional aspects, unwillingly, unwittingly, and completely unprepared. Nobody told me it would be like this. Nobody.

And the truth is, nobody could have. I wouldn't have believed them. Wouldn't have accepted it.

When told - for the second time - that I had D.I.D. (Dissociative Identity Disorder), I became angry. I said to the therapist - a specialist in complex trauma - "No way." I stared in disbelief, each time she brought it up. I would gape and get angry. "There's no way I'm that fucked up!"

But inevitably, as the symptoms worsened, I had to yield to the pain that was glaring at me, daring me to deny it. Daring me to pretend. Daring me to challenge it.

There it was. And I got worse.

Foremost in my mind - perhaps as a clever way to avoid my own struggling - was the disbelief I was experiencing over my break-up. The sheer magnitude of betrayal I was feeling is indescribable. I literally could not - and still cannot - describe the level of betrayal and humiliation I felt over it.

But then some time passed and some things began to change.

It might have started as a way of defending myself against the things that were being said to and about me, behind my back.

But it opened a door: Honesty.

My bitter rage, aimed at my former partner, began to transform slowly and I used the tools I know to use: my intellect; my training; my experience; my insight; my intuition; my history and, ultimately, my friends to rearrange a lot of pieces and put them in their proper places.

The door was cracked when I posted my first blog of Honesty entitled Coming Out. I was terrified and yet, there was a tinge of (or perhaps a lot of) control to it. I took my story and my experience and put my name - my real name - to it and put it on my Facebook page for all to see. I left little - in terms of the basics of my past - hidden. I needed so badly to say all the truth of my experiences, to all those that "he" had went and shared, without considering the painful repercussions and the heavy panic and alienation that happened from what was once a large circle of friends.

Slowly, I chipped away at my public friend's list and yet even more slowly, I began to focus more on my feeling, than defending myself. It was an uphill battle to try to change my focus on my rage and disbelief and pain, to focusing more on the things I was learning and the reality I was facing.

I maintained a few friends. Actually just a couple.

Actually, just one.

Then, slowly, new friends emerged. And old friends emerged. And there was a sort of richness to these new, budding relationships. At least, for me. I held everyone (and still do) at arm's lengths. Trust comes very difficult for me, naturally, even if my mistrust is unwarranted. The greatest of my new (and oldest) friends have encouraged me to take that part slow - to allow myself that freedom, that time to learn to love and trust.

I learned - without the torment and destruction I endured, especially through the middle of 2012 - that it wasn't as cut-and-dry as I'd seen it and I am now reaching deeper, deeper... seeking, exploring and some parts of me are looking at his betrayals (and those of others) not as deliberate and/or hurtful, so much as the result of ignorance and not knowing and, thus, feeling desperate and helpless.

Dr. Brene' Brown so eloquently spoke about vulnerability and shame and strength but I know - just like Sue William Silverman and so many other courageous authors, speakers, advocates and healers - that we survivors are breaking a barrier and when I wrote "Coming Out" in August, the power behind that post was liberating, powerful and meaningful, even if the reasons for writing it, at the time, were different.

Today, I recall the three days I couldn't bear to open my Facebook page. I couldn't bear the thought of the criticism and backlash. I couldn't bear the thought of being seen for who I truly was - an incest survivor; a rape victim; a hood rat.

A survivor.

So for days, I allowed myself to drown in my writing, my thoughts and my fear.

After three days, I was astonished to find support and compassion, despite a number of folks who chose to "un-friend" me on Facebook. I received a number of private messages from others who'd experienced the same thing, and others who commended me for my bravery and courage in telling what I was telling.

It was, indeed, the most liberating moment of my entire life.

It was the most honest thing I'd ever written, up to that point, in my life.

It was the most terrifying and debilitating thing I had ever written, up to that point.

I hope someone reads this - even if it's just one person - and takes that jump, dares to take that leap, dares to remove that mask and be vulnerable (strong), be honest (brave), be authentic (help).

I am no longer Paige C. Storme. Or Dorothy Validus. Or Crystal, Crissy, Christie, Tina, Cris, T, TT or any other name. My last name is not Baugh or Santiago.

I am Cristina Dyan Kuptzin-Johnson.

I am a survivor. I will survive this.


Recommended reading:
When Rabbit Howls by The Troops for Trudy Chase
The Sum of My Parts by Olga Trujillo
Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities by Richard Baer
Stranger in the Mirror by Marlene Steinberg and Maxine Schnall
Healing the Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw
The Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook: A Guide to Healing, Recovery, and Growth by Glenn Schiraldi

There are a number of stories written by heroic survivors, who dared to share despite the nature of our society. Please share, educate and grow.