Pieces Of Superman

Damnit. I get all in the mood to write of psychosis and get stumped at the opening. So I guess I should just jump right in. I should mention that this will seem clunky and disjointed. Nature of the beast, I guess.

My head has been very loose lately. For the uninformed, that means switching and even less consistency than I usually manage.

I live with Dissociative Identity Disorder. It used to be called Multiple Personalities. It was changed many moons ago because of folk like me, I guess. My life has never been so interesting or tragic as Trudi Chase or Sybil. Not by half. Annoying. Tiring. But never truly tragic.

And before you ask, I have no idea about who lives inside or what their names are. Well. Mostly, I don't. The goal of therapy for me was to manage near sanity in my day to day and to increase internal communication so that could happen. I walked into therapy a twitching, morbidly depressed, nearly psychotic with the unknown mess of a woman. Ten some-odd years ago. I'd been really sick since 18-ish and have no memory before twelve.

My final Dx, D.I.D, would be my sixth Dx. As much as it scared me, it fit.

So that basically brings us to now, right? I've been healthy sorta for several years. But my head has been loose again. Full. Chatty. And I think I am ready for the next step. But what is the next step?

For me, I think it is time to meet them. I don't want the dreaded integration. I just want to know who's who, I guess. I don't recall therapy at all and my T had to have proof. I want what she knows. What she saw on a weekly basis to warrant bringing in an intern to observe. Most times I don't doubt it, this Dx. Hell, the proof is everywhere on a daily basis.

Two big things bring this up, I think.

1) One of my Grannys died in June. I have always thought that side of the family held the secrets. My mom and her side perpetuated them, yes. But that side holds the key. That Granny's daughter, my aunt, wrote me not long after. As I have no shame about this, I had mentioned my battles with madness to her because she suffers sever bipolar. A bit of the camaraderie. In her letter, she mentioned that she could answer the questions she was certain that I had but she didn't want to cause problems in the family. What the fuck?? I have been so terrified of the possible damage this could do to my health that I have not yet taken her up on it. But part of me really wants to.

2) My mother is flying in to drive to Chicago with me and help me settle in. She knows the barest of information about my madness. I worked my ass off to not ever let her really see it. But she has noticed it a lot of late. (The wrong "me" keeps answering the phone and being shitty to her.) I have decided to tell her all I know on the way to Chicago. I even told her today that I would so now there is no backing out. She knows it's D.I.D and what it used to be called. She's looked it up. She has never, not once, denied the possibility. As if that isn't odd enough, being that this is a "creative child's response to trauma", she went so far as to say that it made sense. Again, what the fuck??? In the past, when I have asked about the childhood I don't remember, she has said that I was "a very brave and courageous child." Say it with me, folks: What. The. Fuck??? If you had one sentence in which to encapsulate your child's childhood, what parent says "You were a very brave and courageous child"????

So dear old mom is gonna get the skinny. I made her promise to not go all woe is me on me. To not complain of feeling terrible guilt and blaming her self. I don't feel all that any more. I don't blame her. Besides, this isn't any longer, if ever, about her. This thing is mine. It is me. It has nothing to do with her. I am not telling her to find that little nugget of information that I searched for a whole decade to find. I am telling her so that she might know me better.

And I guess I am telling you so that you understand that crazy don't always look crazy or act crazy. I'm totally not pc. I own this thing now. I am not always its master, but I do own it. I can laugh about it. Sometimes, it beats me down and smothers me with the sweet, cloying scent of madness.

But I always get up again. Bruised, battered, so very tired, weak. But I do get up, Superman always gets up. And for people I will never meet, I have always agreed to answer any question about it.

Enough for now. More later as this thought process and the shifting continues.