Look out, world. We no longer need to stay concealed.
When I was very young, my body and mind were severely traumatized.
The trauma was from all around me – literally everywhere! So many unfortunate events made me feel lost, alone, ashamed, afraid, and confused. I couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening to me. It was too much for my mind to process and organize.
You see, I was an extremely precocious child and the most intelligent child my town had ever known. I had a photographic memory and was highly creative, talented, and athletic. The trauma was overwhelming my brain’s ability to cope with all the trauma, however.
My brain just couldn’t organize all the horrific things going on in my world, so I had to learn to compartmentalize, dissociate, and make up ways to live in the hell called my life, and not give up entirely and decide to end it all. I guess that was my first goal: to survive all the trauma.
Guess what? I am now 53 and writing this story! I have reached one of my most essential goals in life!
The longer the trauma kept up, the more fragmented my sense of self became. You see, nearly every time I had to dissociate, I was creating a new sense of self in an attempt to try to forget all the feelings and emotions experienced during a particular trauma. As time passed, the various Ages of Me, as I called them, became more extensive and more prominent in number. By 18, I likely had more than 12 parts of me – brainmates – as I often call them. I didn’t name them, though. I identified with them by age when they came into being and, sometimes, by the emotions associated with their creation.
Few people understand dissociative identity disorder. Growing up, I was often subjected to judgments about the state of my mental well-being, and I was even admitted to more than one psychiatric hospital, where more trauma would occur. Why was this child, so tormented and abused, the one who was locked up? The people causing all the chaos in my young body and mind were left to run free. Inconceivable! This added to my insecurities! I had to learn to conceal all my brain mates, keep them my internal secret, and not be subjected to the crazy people in my life.
The traumas continued into my young adulthood, and by my middle twenties, I had more than 20 different self-states. No one could ever find out about them, lest I be locked up for the rest of my life! I could only dream that they could all be free to live out in the open one day.
I was married and started having children in my early 30s, which I had been told would never happen. The traumas I had sustained throughout my entire childhood left me with wounds and scars that would seem to make motherhood an impossibility. Not only did it seem I could not bear children physically, but it was believed I would never be able to be emotionally present for kids, nor be able to provide for their needs of safety, security, and love, nor be able to protect them from my mental instability. Three children later, I realize I have fulfilled a second dream: I was able to carry, birth, and raise 3 of the most caring, compassionate, intelligent, and God-fearing children anyone could ever hope to parent.
During the next 10 to 15 years, I would seek therapy to heal from all my hurts. I found several excellent practitioners who did incredible trauma work with me. Still, I remained too scared to tell any of them about all of my self-states, who numbered nearly 40 by that time. I knew during all my therapy sessions that all my brain mates were in the room with me because I understood we were all part of the same person. My brain had just fragmented and learned how to cope with all the chaos. The parts of me never felt any of my therapists quite capable of dealing with all of us, nor trustworthy enough to feel safe to make all of the Ages of Me known.
Well, after several more years of severe pain and suffering, my 10-year-old self could no longer stay hidden. The therapist made us feel safe, and she would have made such a wonderful mother to us. My 10-year-old self wanted to tell the therapist she wished she could be our mother. Out of the blue, my selves came forward, and my therapist started meeting them all. She was frightened at first but learned to understand us all. The third dream has come true: The Ages of Me are now free!