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The Hard Journey to Being Whole
Where should I begin? Where indeed. When I was a child, from birth, I was the victim of severe child abuse and neglect. I know you’ve seen those words before and that anyone can deduce just what that abuse and neglect entailed so I will not bother you with the specifics. Such drama is not necessary. Let us agree together that it was very traumatic. In fact, it was so traumatic that my personality splintered and I became a conglomeration of “alters” afflicted with the condition known as Dissociative Identity Disorder. The abuse continued until I was fifteen years old and my father died. I had been protecting him from the horrible truth that was my life, so when he died I no longer felt it necessary to keep the secrets I had held my entire childhood and I spilled the beans on my abuser.
For many years, I ran from the realities of my past life and tried very hard to hide from the knowledge that I continually lost time and felt like “someone else” until the winter of my thirtieth year. I had changed jobs and was under a lot of new stress. I went to bed one night and as soon as I turned off the light to go to sleep I relived a horrible memory of the rape. I immediately turned the lights back on and lay shivering in my bed waiting for daylight. It was then that knew I had to get help.
I had been seeing a drug and alcohol counselor as a co-dependent of an alcoholic, but…
