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.

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.