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.