Hidden

I thought that being dead, he would no longer haunt me.  Tucked away in the corner of my mind are found over fifty hidden children.  Nameless, with faces containing nothing but a mouth, they are dirty, bruised, and broken. 

He now simple ashes, they are limping... crawling... carrying one another forward.  In groups of two they are crossing into my conscious stream.  In the light of my mind's eye I am horrified by what I see.   A pupil widens and then is fixed with pain.  Unresponsive, I do nothing but squeeze a single blink of disbelief. 

A razor sharp child slices as I extend a forced, yet hopeful hand.  As drops of blood pool, I become the injured helping the walking wounded and I am filled with doubt.  I do not know how I will be able to continue this.  How does a sick and injured doctor care for an even more ill and disfigured patient?

One single child reaches my feet and as she does she brushes her dirty hair aside and I see one possibility of an eye behind the matted hair.  Behind a squint in the light, I see an unmistakable muddied crystal blue eye. 

Mine. 

Hidden from light for many years.  But not from his terror.  Hidden from love.  Hidden from care.  As I look into this eye I am freshly exposed to his ravages.  I am no longer hidden but face to face, and I am flooded with his unmistakable memories.

They won't stop.

Husband

I have a good husband.  I was very fortunate this time around.  Husband # 1 was a first class nightmare who also found himself enmeshed with my family from a young age. 

We were doomed before we even thought about dating.

My second time around I knew better what I was looking for and I found someone reasonably healthy.  No, my husband isn't perfect but I am sure that everyone here also knows that I am far from perfect as well.  I wish I could say that I have been an open book with him but I cannot.  He knows I have a past.  He knows I had a ruthless childhood.  He also knows I have D.I.D and he has done enough reading to know what kind of abuse causes such a disorder.  Prolonged and severe; he knows these things about me.  He "knows" my alters.  Some of them like him, some of them don't have much to do with him.  Others spend a great deal of energy trying to make him leave us. 

Except he doesn't leave.  Thank God.

When we were engaged we met with my therapist together and he got the short version of D.I.D, what living with me would look like, things to avoid, and things to do.  I was able to tell him that I was abused and that there are things in my past that I do not want to talk about with him.  All this he was fine with.  And he has remained fine; frustrated at times but still fine.

I used to journal on paper a lot.  And then he found one of my journals, read it, and all hell broke loose.  So I stopped writing until I began writing on this blog.  This has been a lifesaver for me to write here.  I have shared excerpts of my writings here with him but I have not freely shared the link.  It would not be the end of the world if he found this blog but I like it better knowing that I can write without censoring and having to answer questions about the day's blog post over dinner.  Talk about indigestion...

But now I am at a crossroads; my family is gone and with them died a lot of secrets.  My husband believes that I do not have a relationship with my father or mother and that my sister passed away... many years ago.  Knowing what he knows about D.I.D he has always been fine with us having no contact with them.  Now however, why am I still holding on to many of these secrets?

Anger is one reason.  My husband will be angry over much of what was done to me.  That anger will make me vastly uncomfortable.  And further, I have yet to justify causing someone to be angry for no profitable reason.  So why make him angry?

I fear what he will think of me; this is another reason.  What if he believes that I am a whore?  What if he realizes how fucked up I really am?  It boils down to my fear that he will believe what I already believe about myself.  And if we both believe the worst about me does that then mean that we will be doomed too?

That is my greatest fear.