Elliot

My strength.  My balance.

"I hate you! Both of you!" I scream at my father and mother. Watching him break a chair over her back has pushed me beyond my childish reasoning. Her screaming. His rage. Broken pieces and broken children.  They didn't even know I was standing there.

With the sound of my voice, she fell quiet. He turned and fixed his eyes on me. His blackened stare makes my pajama pants warm with urine. He notices and his feet are swift. I am backing up until I feel the wall. I press my back into the wall praying to anything or anyone that I will blend in and he will lose his sight of me.

He snatches me up by my shirt and slight shoulders.  My head meets the wall but I do not disappear into its violent cracks as I had prayed.  I see the stars that my favorite cartoons show and those stars are no longer funny to me.

"Focus.  Focus on me.  Look here at my eyes."  My friend is here now.  His name is Elliot.  E-l-l-i-o-t with only one "t".

A hand cracks against my face.  Once.  Twice... his fists rain down on me.  My face... my stomach... my back.  I cannot find my Elliot.  My face is dripping hot but I am not crying.  That familiar and sickening bloody metallic taste is in my mouth.  My mouth fills with excess saliva and I know that I am about to puke.

His meaty hands snatch up my hair and I am traveling another direction.  I forget about the puking.  I frantically search for my friend and I see him running after us.  My teary eyes beg him to hurry.  I am not crying, it's just that everyones eyes water when their hair gets pulled.  I don't cry.

Down the endless hallway we go; it always feels like forever when my small feet are trying to keep up with my hair's big steps.  He opens the spare bedroom door and pushes me into a corner.  He growls at me not to move.  I don't.  I know better.

In a teary blink, he is gone.  My head throbs with pain and fear.  My life hurts me so.  I feel my friend's strong and steady fingers lace through my own trembling fingers.  I am suddenly sleepy but then I hear his heavy footsteps and then the last board in front of the door creak under his angry feet.

He has an old and wobbly stool in one hateful hand and rope in his other sadistic hand.

"Look at me.  Find my eyes.  Stay with me." my friend says.  He holds my hand as he steadies me on that wobbly stool.  I hold his hand tighter as I see my father sink into a chair to admire his handiwork.

I am shaking with fear as I feel the rope around my neck while perched perilously on that stool.  My father growls at me something about standing straight or I'll choke my lovely neck.  I step down into the corner as I watch my friend through my puffy eyes, strong and steady, balance for me. 

He winks at me as if he's telling me that we are going to be OK.  I try to wink back but my eye is winking closed all by itself.  I lay my heavy head on the floor as I shape my bloody lips into a tiny smile because I am safe when my friend is near.

Hours later for Elliot, I jolt awake as I am crashing to the floor.  That stupid old stool was just too wobbly.  The rope is still around my neck and my father is roaring with laughter.  I am a stupid little kid.  I fell for his joke he says.  My face is hot with shame as I realize that his rope was never tied to anything... but my neck.

Elliot says that my father tells bad jokes.  He's right.  If no one laughs at your joke but you then it's not funny.

Mother

My response to a past comment  "... my mother. I cannot fathom the shoes she filled and how those shoes seemed nailed to the floor for so many years. Many, many times I have found myself more upset with her than with him."

As a mother myself, I consistently feel more anger towards my mother than anyone else.  I see my daughter grow and at her age of nearly six, I see my own timeline unfold in everything she does.  It is then that I realize that I was years into my abusive childhood by the time I was her age now.  I simply cannot understand how my mother allowed such monstrous things in our home.

My mother was a sad and tormented person.  She had a very difficult upbringing from what I gather.  My grandmother, my mother's mother, is still living and I maintain next to no relationship with her because she is just so hateful.  I am sure that my mother drew my father to her; he preyed on the weak even as a young man.  My mother married him to escape the hell of her own home.  I married my ex-husband for those very same reasons but her footsteps that I follow stop there; I will not raise a child the way she raised and allowed me to be raised.

My father terrorized my mother.  He fine-tuned his gaslighting skills with her and was a master by the time he got to me.  I can still hear my mother's voice and it is shrill and loud.  She was always screaming and ranting about something.  She fell in lockstep with his abusive ways; I know betrayal from the deepest depths because of her.  Looking back, I secretly wonder if she was relieved when I was born and my father began his games with me.

I was her way out.  She would never leave him.  But she could leave me... with him.

James

One of my first recollections of someone near; someone who loved me was in a closet.

It's hot outside. It is summer and I have no school. My mother said that I went on vacation. I didn't.

It is musty and stuffy; a single coat hanger is my toy. It is dark except for the crack at the bottom of the door. That crack is my lifeline. It tells me when I am alone; it tells me when it is night; it tells me when someone is coming; when feet darken that crack, it's not a good thing.

I trace the texture on the wall with my small, dirty fingers. In the beginning, the texture is just that; texture. After three dark cracks of night the texture begins to come alive. I find an elephant, a giraffe, a balloon, a heart. I close my eyes and they dance beneath my eyelids.

The crack is darkened by two feet. Am I getting out? Is there food? The door flings open and my eyes throb in the light. It is nighttime but the night is still brighter than the dark. It is him. He scoops me up in his arms; my skin tingles with his touch.

He lays me down on the bed. He sweeps my hair out of my face so he can see my "pretty eyes". He begins to rub my legs and it feels good after sitting cramped for three dark cracks of night. But then he is pushing his weight upon me. I squirm and twist but nothing stops. He is no longer touching me with care; he is rushed and selfish. He tells me I am a dirty girl; that I smell. I can feel my tears in the corners of my eyes but I blink them away quickly.

I close my eyes and find my elephant. I trace it in my mind over and over. He is heavier and heavier... elephant, please don't go... I can't see you... I need to see you. It hurts. A drop of his sweat lands on my lip and burns my chapped and cracked lip. It hurts but he hurts me more.

I am now on my stomach and I can't see him but he is still heavy. I escape to the corner of the room and watch my small child self with him. I find my texture balloon and float away with it. He doesn't stop but he doesn't stop me from drifting away. He doesn't know I am gone and he doesn't miss me.

I am warm and safe as I rest in his arms. He dries my missing tears. His eyes are kind but tired underneath his small glasses. He has graying hair and a gentle frown. He is sad and he tells me how sorry he is; how sorry that I need him. He holds my heart and sings me to sleep. His name is James and he rescues me from him. He takes my place when I float away with my balloon to look for my elephant.

James is not real but he is love to me.

Better

I am a little better today. It seems that simply allowing the possibility for "others" to talk has released a little internal pressure. The collective "I" keeps a lot of secrets. I was raised to keep my secrets and my family's secrets. I have done a superior job.

Tell nobody. That was beaten into me. So I told Nobody.

In my child mind, I told Nobody. She kept my secrets and she kept the secrets of the others too. She is crass, bitchy, abrupt, and one of my best friends which probably sounds weird to those on the outside looking in. I would imagine that her traits are due to the enormous weight and burdens that she bears.

I don't know how it happened exactly but after Nobody, I told Somebody.

And then I told Anybody.

And eventually I told Everybody.

I internalized my secrets and I believe it is a big reason that I survived. I wanted to scream from the rooftops what was happening to me but I knew better. So I was creative.

When you look at it, DID (dissociative identity disorder) is quite creative. It's a coping mechanism of a small child typically. Before the age of 5, our personality is developing, changing and blending into one. I didn't have the safe environment to do this. So angry got a name, sad got a name, scared got a name, rage got a name... you probably get the point. And then situations got a name, types of abuse got a name, daily activities got a name...

James, Elliot, Sara, Sam, Nobody, Anybody, Somebody, Everybody, and many others became "me". And they protected me from more than I could handle. It worked well as a child but now these broken pieces make life difficult, interesting, odd, and sometimes even funny.

So today is a better day. I have come to the realization that I have already survived the worst. Honesty sure does go a long way.

Honest

It's time. At the risk of sounding crazy, I will tell you that I am crazy. I have written here and have managed to string together thoughts that are mostly cohesive. In this black and white, it looks fairly believable and even easy.

In color, it is not.

Color is my real life, played out and carefully hidden from most who know me. I thought I could write here and portray my version of black and white; the sterilized version.

But it is not the real me.

"Me" has hundreds of facets. And the more I try to hide those facets, the more I struggle. I am on the brink of checking myself into a hospital. I don't write that to sound alarming because it's not. Not in the traditional sense that is...

My head is loud, even screaming at times. My husband doesn't really understand it. I don't know that many do and it's no ones fault either. But it is loud and I have nearly reached the point of talking myself into getting inpatient help. I am not suicidal; I know how hurtful that is firsthand. But I am in a great deal of pain. Mentally, emotionally, and even physically.

I originally began writing here for me; a place to collect my thoughts and assemble my feelings. But in this black and white, I have shut out the rest of me and that was wrong. I was able to purge here and then click that little "X" in the corner and close the window of my feelings. It was easy to do because I am only one facet.

I have an official diagnosis; one that I would be horrified if most around me knew. Here, I am somewhat anonymous which is good and bad. Bad because I can filter what I write; good because I can actually be honest.

So here is honest: I have dissociative identity disorder combined with major depressive disorder. I'm not Hollywood-like, I am not "Sybil" or "Eve", and no, my head doesn't spin or my face contort. Like my blog name, I am shattered. We are all born like a fine china plate. Most parents love and protect their fine gifts of children. All plates eventually have chips and dings while others are fractured.

Then there are others who are shattered.

My china plate was dirtied by abuse; think dried, stuck-on, or greasy food. It's hard enough to clean a dirty plate that has been neglected and sitting in the sink for a few days. It's even harder to clean a dirty plate that has been broken into many pieces. Most of us would throw away such a dirty and broken plate.

I have worked very hard for nearly 4 years to clean and glue my pieces back together. It's a hell of a process. Broken pieces are sharp; they cut the hands of those who handle, love, and care for me. In times of crisis, I even cut my own hands in my frantic efforts to gather and sweep my pieces away... to make myself "look" better. My hands are cut, figuratively, right now.

I will stop for now but I did want to take a moment to be broken and honest.