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.
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