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.

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.

The Elephant

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

My blood runs cold tonight.

I was abandoned last night. Probably not literally, but in the end, at least for me, it was abandonment because once you say those words, they're spoken, and they reach down into a place that says, "See? You're a burden! You're trouble! Nothing but trouble!" which consequently pulls up that part of me that says, "Okay...seeya buddy. Never want to hear from you again."

I am irrational. I know. I am paranoid to go anywhere in my car smoking, afraid my landlady will happen by and see it (I told her I don't smoke). My basement door was unlocked this morning....FROM THE INSIDE.

So someone was in "my home" this morning, while I was asleep in bed. Fuck it.

The elephant in the room crushes me... I know what it is, and I know how it feels, but I cannot articulate it. I am not stupid. I am not useless. I am trustworthy.

Tiny images - like from little shards of a broken mirror - flash in my mind. Myself, giving me memories, little specks of time that I have consciously forgotten but I cannot see them, they flash so quickly.

That is what it is like. DID.

In the middle of a phone conversation and all the sudden, a flash....a flash of a shirt or something you can't quite identify but feel to the marrow of your bone, as if you're there - wherever "there" is - experiencing whatever that shard of pain is connected to.

And it's gone. Like a snap of the finger. So quickly, that if you don't interrupt the conversation and say, "Wait! I just saw something in my mind!" it disappears.

The emotional pain is overwhelming but it's so fleeting that it mercifully leaves in an instant. Same for the physical sensations that come with them.

Tiny little windows....into who I was, when I couldn't be there. When I couldn't withstand whatever was happening. That's what many children do. Escape into their minds. Out of their bodies so they don't feel the physical and emotional and mental torment of their experience. That's what creates "parts" or "alters" or "fragments".

These "parts" and "fragments" (there's a bit of a difference. Parts hold whole experiences, while fragments may hold only the emotion or the environment or the physical pain, et cetera) later come along in life and, as your psyche strengthens, these things are given to you as tormented gifts. Shadowy missing parts that you've blocked out.

Rage comes out for me a lot but because rage is an uncomfortable feeling, I swallow it back down, most of the time. Tonight, it's just suicide. This desire to not be alive. This deep-down belief that I don't deserve to be here...I don't belong here... The tears that would stain this page, were it made of paper, are filled with despair, yet I feel nothing for myself. As I said, my blood runs cold. I am bitterly angry at myself, disgusted with myself. What is wrong with you?

Feeling there is nobody to talk to... especially about the elephant in the room.

Feelings

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

The past couple of days have been hard - dissociated the other night, got overwhelmed by thoughts and memories of "him" and today....just started uncontrollably crying - again, thoughts of "him" and berating myself for feeling.

Sitting in the parking lot at Stop and Shop bawling, hitting my steering wheel and inside, screaming at myself, "Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!"

I don't want to feel anything. I don't want to feel this pain and this confusion. I'm confused about what I feel. What do I feel? I am rather new to this. I've never really been allowed to have feelings - mostly because I didn't trust my feelings. Didn't trust anything about myself so I just go with the crowd, run with the traffic, do, act and be whatever everyone else is...because I don't have a fucking clue who I am.

Now I have these fucking feelings that I can't help but feel and it is killing me. It's confusing me. I don't know what to feel or if what I'm feeling is right or wrong.

I feel so deeply betrayed and hurt and dear God so wounded....so wounded. Part of me that was once bitterly angry, is now just bleeding pain inside. I was never anything - I never mattered and oh God how that hurts. God how that hurts. I was nothing. I was dispensable. I was unimportant. Nothing I wanted, ever mattered. Ever.

Oh God that hurts.

And there won't ever be closure. There won't ever be amends. How desperately I wish he could see my pain. How desperately I wish he could know how much more damaged I am now, learning through our break up that I was just...nothing.

Ever.

Damaged where I was already beaten and battered, and I dared to let him in and once he was in there - in the end - he ripped it to shreds and left it that way, gaping, shredded to hell.

It makes every relationship complicated. Every relationship terrifying. Even my relationship with myself.

I loved you so much.... I gave you so much more than I ever gave anyone...told you more than I've ever told anyone....trusted you more than I ever trusted anyone....invested in US because I believed in us. In the end, when I needed you most, you took what I gave you and used it to hurt me so deeply. I didn't know what to do, except fight back and I did until my fight was gone. And now there's just this huge, immobilizing pain and I am beyond confused.

You said to move forward. That you found something better. You carried on with your partying as if I never existed. As if we never existed.

I've got something better too but because of you and because of all this pain, I don't trust any of it and that hurts. That hurts everyone....everyone and it makes me feel like a horrible human being because of people who are trying to help me and I can't even trust  them. What kind of person am I?

What's wrong with me? Why can't I just do what you did? Why can't I just "move forward" like you did? What's wrong with me?

What's wrong with me, that I don't know what to do about feelings? I don't know anything about it.... I don't know what to do with them and I can't help how I feel. I can't stop it. It hurts so much, that I was nothing.