Day: October 25, 2015

 

Dissociative Identity Disorder means that I have a multiplicity of reactions to every possibility of every moment of my life.

My task is to find solutions that do the least harm to myself and the people I love.

Monday October 19th was full WTF moments.

There was waking up to find myself knocked out of A Star is Born.

Even when you know that a competition isn’t about your worth as a person or your talent as an artist there is that little kid inside that wants to be the best.

The kid goes off and pouts while my reasoning brain tries to sound gracious and my rage seethes with questions about rumors that there was a conspiracy afoot.

Yes, these are The Days of the Lives of My Brain and what I’ve described was one moment.

I am fragile but not needy.

I am aware that my psychological health is tenuous but I have a strong intellect and I use my natural tendency to compartmentalize to compensate for distorted perceptions and unstable emotions.

Just as a chronic pain patient has break through pain; so I have moments of instability that break through the intellectual dam that I construct to prevent myself from feeling overwhelmed and losing control.

I often think of these episodes as lapses in manners and not moments of illness; our culture’s dismissal of  mental illness as a ‘behavioral’ choice, is my internalized first reaction to my symptoms.

My first questions are always, what have I done? Who have I hurt? To whom should I apologize?

I never think to ask the more obvious questions, such as, “Why did you let such a destructive bitch into your life? WTF is up with that?”

***

My WTF moments are always so fraught with the toxic forces that shaped my DID that I’m often left speechless.

My WTF moments are moments when the only smart thing to do is shut-up and think.

This is why I’ve been on a break from blogging.

My therapist and I discussed the comment that prompted me to write: “I’m the person you don’t know…”

My therapist thought that the comment I referenced in this post was from the woman in my real life, the narcissist on the third floor.

My therapist and the Narcissist on the Third Floor are in correspondence because the narcissist on the third floor believes that if she writes enough horrible things about me my therapist will see that she, the narcissist, has a life of blameless purity and that any sincere soul can make the mistake of blatantly and consciously lying to a man’s doctor to sabotage his treatment and health.

She says she honestly believed I had imagined the filth and rodent infestation that I had seen in her apartment even though it was so filthy and infested with mice, that when she finally had her apartment cleaned, it took a hazmat team to do it.

How unreasonable of me to expect an apology for an innocent mistake based on her innocent refusal to see reality.

My therapist said that in essence, all narcissists follow the same pattern of projection and denial.

They are all a lethal two year-old with an adult intellect and an absolute belief in their divine right to do as they please.

No one can say no to them.

Not even if it’s reasonable.

The word no and setting a personal boundary invites slander in physical reality and on the internet it invites a smear campaign conducted by a chorus of bullying sock puppets.

I really don’t know what kind of person uses Second Life.

There was a time when I thought the entire membership consisted of unethical gamers, sex addicts and pathological narcissists.

Now I realize that this isn’t true.

I only know the members that I know and they are screened by a system of filters of which I was completely unaware until recently.

Despite these filters I know some nice people in SL.

But, I did not understand how badly damaged my judgment was until I joined Second Life and other social networks.

This is what I mean when I say that the process of becoming aware of the psychological damage caused by child abuse is gradual, time-consuming, and a much more complicated process than simply changing one’s thoughts.

In my case, thinking that the solution is as simple as repeating a mantra is part of the problem.

I don’t have my thoughts.

I have my Mother’s thoughts.

***

One thing I’ve learned about the internet is that what we don’t know about each other is almost everything.

I don’t really know you, even though my eyes might light up when I see your name on a post or I smile with pleasure as you tell a wonderful old joke in a completely new way.

I assess your integrity on what do you do, how you treat people; do you walk your talk or do you just talk?

I want people to take everything I say with skepticism because if they do they might be tempted to prove me wrong and to prove me wrong they will have to learn about Dissociative Identity Disorder and when they learn about it they’ll realize that I’m not lying.

This is a crucial insight for me as I check the changes in my life wrought by five years of therapy, and a year as a working artist with a blog.

I’ve not earned a dime but what I’ve learned is invaluable; and many of the people I’ve met have confirmed my best suspicions about humanity: that at our best we are deeply flawed, but with humility, we are more like angels than demons.

In this sense “behaviorism” is correct.

We can question our worst impulses and curb our savage need to take more than we need at the cost of other people; or we can cave to instincts best suited to the wild and make life Hell for ourselves and everyone else.

The question is not if we will choose to end our misery by making different and better choices; but when.

(c) RG 2015