Tag Archives: Dissociative identity disorder

therapist casting call

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12

The need for a new therapist leads to the inevitable therapist auditions. You start out with the false notion that you’re Broadway, and you can snag an Idina Menzel or Sutton Foster. It does not take long for reality to reveal itself to you. You are, indeed, not the Great White Way. Heck, you are not even a LORT theatre on the regional theatre circuit. You’re more akin to a summer stock theatre in the backwoods of northern Vermont, far from any amenities that A list or even B list actors are accustomed to having.

Such is the quest for a therapist when one has dissociative identity disorder (DID). You need an Idina Menzel or a Sutton Foster, but you’re summer stock in the far reaches of Vermont, and you are not going to find such a person. You look at your options, and think, shit, I should move. But let’s be real. You’re ensconced where you live with your career, apartment, gym, tea shop, etc. Plus, you know you’re not up for a geographical move. It’s not an option. Instead, your therapist options are limited.

Like all good theatre directors that make the most of their meager options, you choose the one with the most positive energy. That’s the only distinguishing factor since all 3 are equally credentialed. If this was Broadway, off-Broadway or even a LORT theatre she wouldn’t get a call back. But these are the dregs of summer stock, so you make the most of it, and she gets the part of Therapist. She’s thrilled, and you’re shamefully resigned.

It’s clear to you that you’re the jerk in this situation. No doubt. And the saddest part is that you don’t care. You’ve run out of patience with therapists that you have to manage. You should not have to be the one with the consistent wise mind time and time again.

But then you see that all out effort she’s putting forth, and you know she’s trying her best, and putting her best foot forward. But it is what it is, and a best fit it is not. You have to make the most of the situation. You’ve seen the gamut of DID therapists out there. This is the best of the lot. You are not going to find Idina or Sutton. This is it, so make the most of it.

Ex-husband, I cannot reply

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5

Two years ago we reconnected when your father passed away. I happened to find his obituary on the internet a mere month after his passing. That led me to search for an email address for you. When I sent you a message of condolences I wasn’t even sure if the email would reach you. Much to my surprise, it was, indeed, your email address. Even more surprising, you replied. I still recall the first line from that first reply after 20 years, “My, my … isn’t that a pretty name I haven’t seen in a long time.” 

Suddenly, twenty years after our divorce we found ourselves communicating on a daily basis much like the way we got to know each other through marathon phone calls when we were in high school.  All the familiar laughter and banter easily came back between the two of us. You will always make the best cat voices in the universe. Your signature cat voice conjures up a vision of a handsome debonair Latino alley cat, which is a bit odd since you’re most definitely not Latino, but you can play one on the radio. Now that I think about it, this particular cat voice of yours is a holdover from our college days in the 90’s when you would take on the voice of Ren (from Ren & Stimpy) for sport. You would even refer to me as Stimpy. I strangely did not mind. Not then, and not two years ago.

Two years ago you were on the heels of losing your dad, the one parent that was always on your side, always had your back. You also declared that your marriage had long been over, and you were waiting for your daughter to reach a certain age before you made your move to split, though I can’t recall now what magical age you waiting for. And talking to you brought such a treasure trove of memories that are still out of the reach of my own brain because of my own DID. Though it was sad to not recall some of what you were relaying to me, it was still fun to listen to you. You were just as shocked as I was that I did not recall imploring you to go dumpster diving for my coupons when you accidentally threw them out. You were only a Private in the Army and I was in college. We did not have a lot of money, and I took coupon clipping very seriously.

It was comforting talking to someone who knew me as a kid, knew my family mess, knew my past and current struggles, yet accepted me as I was and as I am.

We both fell hard for each other. I was over the moon, goofy, happy like a teenage girl. I told the universe that I was getting back together with my ex-husband. No matter that you had a family, and a life several states away. Why should reason and logic factor in when you fall in love again? I naively believed you when you said you would move and uproot yourself to be with me.

Sometime after you told your wife your plans there was a meltdown of some sort on your end. The details are still sketchy to me, but this sums it up: your wife admitted she also wanted out of the marriage, and told you to do what you needed to do, but then changed her mind and begged you stay; a series of days ensued where you said you were still coming, suddenly communication became very sporadic with an eventual short apology email ending things followed up with an epic drunken letter that will go down in history as the greatest combination of crazy love ever jumbled into correspondence. I was simultaneously heartened and disturbed by that letter, and I’m still haunted by this line, “I’ll carry you in my heart for the rest of my days, every day without you is a wasted day.”

This next part is hard, very hard. But it must be said.

You proposed to me when we were riding in the trunk of your friend’s car my senior year of high school. I said no, and continued to say no to you. Then one day you said to me (as best as I can recall), “Let me do this for you. Let me get you away from your crazy parents. I know you love me, and I love you. And I know you wish you were going to college like all the rest of your friends. Marry me. You can go to college if we’re married. Your stupid stepfather’s salary will no longer count against you, and I love you. Let me do this for you.” 

I couldn’t go away to any college because of my stepfather’s salary, and he and my mother made it clear that they weren’t going to help me go away to college. They wanted me to live at home. I wasn’t kidding when I said to people that my choices after graduation were my own place, a homeless shelter or death. There was no way I was staying in my childhood home after graduation. I had to make daily commitments to myself not to run away while I lived there. If it hadn’t been for you I likely would have run away while in high school.

As happy as I was to marry you, we both know that would not have happened if I had the opportunity to go away to college like the rest of our peers.

We did not choose each other out of any mutuality. We found each other out of a desire for a connection. We needed each other for the sake of being needed and needing someone.

And here’s the hardest thing of all to say: We were and are not soul mates.

We are two people who were there for each other as kids, and were there for each other 20 years later. But our connection is a love addiction, at least it is for me. I love the way you love me. You love me intensely, wholly and completely. It’s a crazy burning love that is hard to walk away from. It’s a drug I want more than you know, but I know it’s the feeling I want. I thirst for the intensity of your feelings for me. Hell, in that drunken letter you sent me you were quoting lines from Adele songs and Christopher Cross’ song The Best That You Can Do, all the while telling me that you measure all women against me.

But we are not sustainable on a long term basis. We both yearned for an intense love, and that is why we wound up together in high school.

I do love you, but it’s out of gratitude for everything you did for me when we were kids. It’s not love that can sustain us as a couple.

I got your email last night. Yes, I want to reply to it, but I cannot for all the reasons stated above.

just hold on

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3

You’ve come to realize the depths of your self-loathing today. You subscribe to “dissociative identity disorder” google news alerts, and today you received such an alert. The news alert featured a story with a video of someone describing their experience with DID, and in the video the person briefly spoke using the voices of all of their alters. You find yourself wincing as you watch this, and you ask yourself Why? Why would I wince at this? You wince because you see how it looks to others. There’s no question it looks strange. You look strange enough in life (with your thick glasses and nondescript face, for starters), and to have another piece of strangeness (DID) juxtaposed upon your original strangeness sometimes feels like a strangle hold, an infinite prison of madness and weirdness.

As much as you have grown to love Letty, your younger alter, you hate having DID. You wish you could somehow give it back, return it, exchange it, anything but have it. But, that is not how this works. It’s not how it works with any mental illness. It’s here, ensconced in your being, and you have to learn how to cope with whatever ails you.

DID is the great division between you and the rest of the world. It’s the big secret that you have to constantly weigh when and if to disclose it to people. You know, you’ve heard it all …

“DID is what saved you, kept you from going insane, made it possible to survive your childhood.”

Lately, you truly wonder what the worth was in being saved. Saved to function in some half-assed way with the DID albatross? Yes, because that’s a full life, getting all triggery, and freaky from time to time with PTSD, DID or a lovely hybrid of both. And, you argue that DID helped you go insane. It most certainly did not protect you from mental illness.

If only DID was like a rock you could throw back into the ocean. Alas, no. DID is something you have to work around, like a part of the road that tends to flood. You either avoid that road when it rains, or you do the hard work to fix it.

DID is full body robbery. It robs your mind, your body and your voice, all at the same time. The professionals call it protection. Let’s dispense with the euphemisms. It’s robbery. You see people with similar talents to you, and you are keenly aware that they are going to surpass you. You are further aware that they are going to surpass you because they are not held back by mental illness. You can plot all your career setbacks, and they are all attributed to your DID or PTSD. Either you let promotions pass you by because you know you should minimize your stress, or you’ve had situations with people because you are so sensitive. It’s been abundantly clear to you that the best loves and friends you’ve lost can be connected back to these two issues. You despise that you are this way. You desperately want to NOT be DID, but you might as well throw a penny into a wishing well because that’s how likely your desire to NOT be DID will come true.

You find yourself again thinking of the news article that brought a spotlight to your self-loathing, and you realize your own hypocrisy in that you want people to accept you, DID and all, but you wince at the mere sight of someone telling their DID story on the news. Ok, so you’re a hypocrite, but now what? What is one to do with this information?

Right now, in this moment, all you can do is tell yourself that in another time, and another place, heck, maybe tomorrow, you will feel differently about yourself. You’ll be kinder and nicer, and you’ll be glad you’re here. Until then, all you can do is hold on, and try not freak any more people out along the way.