of my diagnoses was dissociative identity disorder, where I have a number (thirteen if you’re curious) of ‘alters’ who, depending on the situation, take turns to run the show. In effect that means I have thirteen people available as and when required, to do the job of one. It is like a military operation, and partially explains the memory problems, because the alters don’t always communicate with one another effectively, if at all. Some are good, some are cold; all share one common goal – to survive no matter what.
There doesn’t seem to be a cure, as such, for DID but it can be managed. The alters can be identified, acknowledged, talked to and made friends with. The less useful ones can be told to keep quiet, the more helpful ones encouraged to assimilate with the whole. That was a fun few days with the doctor.
And when it has got too much and I’ve had to walk away from a friend/relationship/colleague, when I’ve screwed things up because it all just got too complicated, it doesn’t really matter because I can just start again with someone else, but it’s frustrating to lose. Annoying to drop the ball and fail. Must try harder. It becomes almost a kind of game. And in a way it’s sad because most of my friends and family genuinely love me. They believe they know the real me, and even if they’ve got doubts about some aspects of my behaviour or personality, they naively, if charmingly, believe that those doubts simply make them smart and empathic because they can see my many layers and still love me and understand me. But there is a complexity to things that people who weren’t fucked as a kid just cannot understand.
Example – a girlfriend asks me a question. An easy one.
‘What shall we eat for dinner?’
A Normal will answer, ‘Chicken.’
Perhaps, ‘Whatever you’d like, sweetheart, I’m easy.’
Or, if we’re generous, ‘Pick a restaurant, darling, and I’ll take us there with pleasure.’
A survivor (especially one with PTSD or similar) needs to run through the following questions silently and in a split second before giving his answer:
Why is she asking?
What does she expect me to say?
How will she react if I do say that?
What does she want to eat?
Does she want me to suggest what I know she’ll like?
Does she want me to suggest taking her out?
Why?
Have I done anything wrong?
Do I need to make up for anything?
What is the answer I want to give?
Why?
What will happen if I say that?
Is it a trick question?
Is it an anniversary?
What did we eat yesterday?
What are we eating tomorrow?
What do we have in the fridge?
Will she think I’m criticising her shopping skills?
What does she want me to answer?
What would her perfect guy answer?
What would a guy in the movies answer?
What would a normal person answer?
Who do I want/need to be when I answer this?
What would he answer?
Is that answer acceptable?
Is that answer in line with the ‘me’ she believes she knows?
Am I happy with this answer?
What is the probability she will be happy with this answer?
Is that an acceptable percentage?
If it fails, what is my get-out strategy?
Can I backtrack without causing too much damage?
What tone should I use?
Should it be phrased as a question?
A statement?
An order?
And on and on. In the blink of an eye. Kids at school who are being abused will take too much time to answer direct questions and appear evasive and startled. And they will be labelled ‘difficult’, ‘stupid’, ‘ADHD’, ‘rebellious’. They’re not. They’re in some way being fucked. Look into it.
As you get older it becomes even more ingrained, like breathing. Sometimes, occasionally, it’ll take us unawares. Especially first thing in the morning or when we’re overtired. And so in case we’re not quite bringing our A game when we’re asked a question, we perfect the whole distraction routine: ‘God you’re looking beautiful’, ‘Fuck, my back just twinged’, ‘I love you so much’, ‘I was just thinking about when . . . (insert romantic memory here)’, or more commonly, we stare into space pretending to be lost in thought and not hearing the question when in fact our brains are already racing to come up with a suitable answer. Anything to buy enough time to figure out the goddamn suitable answer.
We are multi-tasking, quick-thinking, hyper-aware, in-tune bastards. And it is a thankless, ceaseless, never-ending deluge of threat upon threat, fire after fire that has to be put out instantly. And because the body/brain cannot figure out the difference between real and imagined terror, they react as if we really are in the middle of a genuine war.
War is the best word to describe the daily life of a rape survivor. There are threats everywhere, you cannot relax ever, you take whatever you can get whenever you can get it because you are so scared of it not being there tomorrow – food, sex, attention, money, drugs. And you keep going on a mixture of adrenaline and terror. Morals go out of the window, the rulebook doesn’t exist any more, you will survive at all costs no matter what. And living like that has certain knock-on effects. I cannot begin to tell you how fucked up the physical symptoms of abuse are. I spent years, decades even, almost chained to a toilet. As a kid at boarding school I was in there pretty much every night, usually around 3 a.m., in agony. Sweating and nauseous from the pain, feeling like there was a knife being twisted into my guts. Shitting what felt like water, too scared to leave the loo for at least two hours. Same again in the morning. I swear I got through childhood on around three to four hours’ sleep a night. It’s great for maintaining weight loss, not so good for socialising.
I know I’m going on about this quite a lot. But honestly, there’s a lot to go on about. It is so easy to assume the abuse stops once the abuser is no longer in the picture and so hard to hear that that is only the beginning of it for those taking the abuse.
