Read This First

We have moved to a different blog: We Choose Harmony

To see why, read this post: From Internal to External.

But feel free to read this blog for background information.

In October of 2010 Erin was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. This blog is to record what is going inside Erin's mind. We don't know what all that will entail... But we are hoping that keeping a record of it will help in some manner. We also hope that maybe, just maybe, that we'll heal from whatever issues that we have and come out victorious.

All personalities or identities within Erin are invited to write here; each entry will be marked with who is writing.

If you are a survivor yourself, there are no trigger warnings on the entries... Please be careful as you navigate this blog. If you are a significant other of someone with DID/MPD, our hope is that this blog may be of some use to you, but please remember that every person with DID is very unique and must be considered as their own case.

Thank you for visiting!

Thursday, December 30, 2010

About Morrigan -- Yomi

I believe an explanation of each of the personalities is in order… The side panel, while useful, is very brief and does not do any of us justice.

The first person I will start with is Morrigan Portalis, mostly because she has already written a post and also because I know the most about her personally. However, before I begin to write about Morrigan, I must explain the world in which she grew up.

In middle school, I had a small group of friends who were artistic and we hung out we would draw and write about characters that we would make up. Many of these characters were Anthropomorphic (or Anthro). The following picture is an example from my own art of what an Anthro is like. Basically, Anthros are animals given human qualities, such as anatomy.

As I developed the back stories of my characters, I realized I needed to make a world for them all to co-exist within, and so I made the world of Alter.

The name Alter is short for "Alternate Reality," which isn't overly creative, but I couldn't find a name that suited it very well and so this name stuck. In the world of Alter, Anthros have existed as long as Humans and they have co-existed through all history. However, Anthros have been treated very poorly by Humans because of the large differences between Anthros and Humans. Anthros were more often than not treated worse than African slaves.

Today, Anthros are having a civil rights movement in the United States much like the civil rights movement in the 50-60's for Blacks. It's a very unstable and prejudiced time period for United State Anthros. I located all my characters in the United States because I knew the most about the United States and I wanted to keep my character's lives as realistic as possible. Since I did not know much about life outside the United States I did not place many of my characters outside the US.

Everything outside the fact that Anthros exist in Alter is the same there as it is here in True Reality. Places, histories, events, major people; it all exists in Alter.

-------------

With that brief overview of Alter, I can now begin to introduce you, reader, to Morrigan Portalis.

I first met Morrigan when we were in middle school. I was angry at my dad, which wasn't an unusual thing back then, and I saw her in my mind's eye leaning against the corner of a wall desperately trying to reign in her own anger. When I saw it, I quickly sketched it down and I made a digital picture of it a day or so later. Shortly after meeting Morrigan, I began to find out about her story which is entangled with her twin, Jihan's, story.

Morrigan and Jihan's mother was an Israeli immigrant to England who met a American Navy man. Their mother became pregnant with Morrigan and Jihan, so the Navy married their mother and, when the twins were three years old, they moved them to Maine, USA. They were not living there long when the Navy man disappeared without a trace.

Two years later, their father reappeared only to kidnap the twins. They were found a week and a half later in the woods of southern Maine barely alive. Morrigan could not remember what happened between being kidnapped and being found; Jihan refused to say. A few weeks later, Jihan used his father's gun to shoot and kill his mother as his father had instructed him. Though the authorities considered it an accident, Morrigan knew it was done intentionally.

Morrigan and Jihan bounced around in foster care for years afterward. Jihan's whole point to life seemed to be tormenting and terrorizing his sister. Well, that and getting her into large amounts of trouble. He was an expert at doing something and framing his sister. It was getting to the point that no one ever believed what Morrigan said because of "how much trouble" she seemed to cause. One of his favorite things to do would be to injure Morrigan and then tell the foster parents that Morrigan had gotten into another fight.

However, when they were sixteen, Morrigan met MacKenzie, a human in her grade that once caught Jihan at his shenanigans and then believed Morrigan at her word. From that moment, Morrigan and MacKenzie became great friends, though many disapproved. Needless to say, Jihan hated MacKenzie because he stole Morrigan. So Jihan waited for MacKenzie to slip up, to show himself to be an "unhealthy" friend for Morrigan.

Morrigan was heading over to MacKenzie's house on the way to ninjitsu practice, when she heard a gunshot from the direction she was going. She immediately knew that MacKenzie was in trouble and she ran full out.

Arriving at the house, Morrigan threw open the door to find Jihan standing over MacKenzie's body; a gun held loosely in his hand. Looking up, Jihan spotted his twin, "It's your fault, you know. If hadn't become his friend, this would never have happened… You should be punished." Reaching behind him, he pulled out his homemade cat-o-nine-tails and whipped Morrigan's back until the police arrested him. Jihan was charged with Murder in the First Degree and Battery. As Jihan was seventeen, he was tried and convicted as an adult and was sent to prison without parole.

Because of Morrigan's past offenses, she was considered a "lost cause" and authorities of the foster care were going to dismiss her from the program. However, the person who took on foster care cases that no one else wanted, Sierra Lime, heard of Morrigan's case and agreed to take Morrigan in.

Sierra Lime, also one of Erin's Alters, is a Feline shape-shifting Anthro that has devoted her life to helping out those that everyone has given up on. She developed a program to help teenagers receive their GED and learn to successfully live on their own. Morrigan began this program shortly after Jihan's trial was over. Morrigan decided that she wanted to learn to be a chef, so Sierra helped her find a job as a cook at a local restaurant. At eighteen, Morrigan received her GED and, after a year of working, she applied and began attending the Art Institute of Chicago for their culinary program.

Since middle school, Morrigan and I would keep in loose contact, catching up sometimes after a year or more. Her and I were not good friends; in fact, Morrigan hated me. It hasn't been until the past six months or so that she stopped hating me and, in the past three months she's learned to tolerate me. When it was confirmed that I had Multiple Personality Disorder, I told her that I thought she was an Alter, but she wouldn't have any of it. She insisted that both realities were real, or that my reality was false and hers was real. It took a while, but even she began to notice the difference between her reality and this Reality… How this Reality didn't have fuzzed out faces and sounds, how everything here is clear and distinct and very real feeling. And after speaking with Sierra, she became convinced that this Reality is the true one.

So, she stopped attending the Art Institute and began watching this Reality, trying to get used to it. I know that she mentions why she watches in her entry, "Maybe."

-------------

This is a summery of Morrigan's history. This does not sum up who she is, but it is the beginning of understanding where she came from. If you understand her history, you can understand why she thinks the way she does.

As for her purpose as Erin's Alter, she catches the overflow of Yomi's negative emotions. Morrigan once described it as a bowl placed under a cup. The cup has water being poured into it, but, eventually, the cup is full, but the water is still being poured. So the bowl under the cup catches the overflow. She catches and keeps the overflow of my anger, hatred, disappointment, grief, depression, and any other negative emotion possible.

According to Jihan, Morrigan is my distrust and suspicion of people in order that I might trust and believe the people I meet every day. He also says that Morrigan is a secret-keeper. This has shown to be true recently, though it is less discovering secrets as it is revealing information about the Black Room.

Honestly, of all the personalities, Morrigan is one that I thoroughly enjoy talking and interacting with the most. She might be a bit rough and, more often than not, she's a complete jerk but for the most part we get along alright; I enjoy her company as she watches and comments on my life.

--Yomi

-------------

Morrigan Marking Chart

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Maybe -- Morrigan

It's like a tearing loss, when you find out that someone you trusted implicitly is actually a figment of someone else's imagination. To think that someone so good and so true as Logan is just a phantom, a wish, a hope. I guess that's what happens when you begin to face reality. Not the reality that you think you know, but the true reality. The one that is more real than you thought could exist…

I keep demanding to enter that reality, but, in all honesty, it frightens me. The reality I am used to is only a shadow, so how can I anticipate what to expect? Granted, I've been observing, watching, waiting… But still, how can I anticipate how that reality will affect me? I have been preparing myself for that day, but, in the end, how can I know what to expect?

Will I be cold since I won't have fur? How strange will it be to walk among humans instead of Anthros? What will it be like to look in a mirror and not see a familiar face? Will I recognize myself? Will I be able to see me, Morrigan, in the face of a human? A face that is not my own?

What will it be like to be a inch or so taller? Will I have to adjust to a different equilibrium? Is Yomi's body in as good of shape as I am used to my own body being? Will I be able to run, jump, and fight like I am used to?

If I am honest with myself, I don't know what to think about it.

Then again, if I am honest with myself… There are much more important matters to be concerned about. This thing called Anguish… Why is it so overwhelming? Surely it is not just the loss of Logan that causes this. I know that Yomi spoke to me about the Anguish a while back, before I knew the truth about Logan. Surely there is something that was lost to all of us; to Erin. If I only knew what it was, maybe then I could do something about it. Maybe then I wouldn't sit and cry, helpless.

Maybe one day I will master these fears. Maybe one day I can stand on my own. Maybe one day I can face this thing called Reality and come out the victor. Maybe…






-- A note from Nickie, who is posting this on behalf of Yomi and Morrigan --

Morrigan manifested for the 2nd time Yomi (and I) know of at 11:42pm yesterday, December 14th. She stuck around until about 12:30 or so when she got tired and said that Yomi wanted to come back. We talked for a little bit off and on, but her reason for manifesting she said was to write this. When Yomi came back, she said that originally Morrigan had been dictating to her what Morrigan wanted to say, but then somewhere in there Morrigan slipped through the White Door and took over.

-- Nickie

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Fear -- Yomi

I think what I fear more than anything… Is that I'll wake up one day, and realize that I've been making all this up. That I've been doing it for the attention. That I don't really have MPD. That my alters were really were just imaginary friends. That I pretended to be ten different people… because I wanted the attention… That I wanted to be different.

What also scares me, is the idea that maybe I'll go to sleep one night and not wake up for days, weeks, months at a time. That one of the alters will take over, decide they don’t want to go back to their room, and stick around. That if that happens, I'll go somewhere in my mind where I can't hear my friends try to talk to me. That I'll go into the Cleaning Room and never come out. That I'll venture to Jihan's Room and never come out. That I'll go into one of those rooms and find things that would be best left unfound…

Nickie is so excited about all this "progress" that I've made. It scares the living daylights out of me. Morrigan wanting to come here and experiencing reality? She hates humans… How is she going to react to a place where there are no Anthros… Where you are surrounded by humans day in and day out. What if Guilt manifests? What kind of shenanigans will she get into? What if Morrigan or Jihan get scared and decide to run? What if… What if… What if… They bounce around my head… And I don't have answers for any of them.

I wish so badly I knew more about this thing called MPD… But I know that it's probably better that I don’t, so that I don't accidentally mess something up. I just wish I knew what "normal" for someone like me was. Is it normal to let an alter take over because you really just don’t want to deal with life right now and they are happy to "help"? Is it normal to allow younger you take over when they get bored; when I'm bored? When I need to see the joy of life again?

What about a job? Will I ever be able to keep one? I never had a real job back when I was oblivious of my alters. Now that they are manifesting, will I be able to hold a job? What if I told my boss that I had MPD, would I be fired? Would they understand? Would they allow me to not come to work when "I'm not myself today"? Will my alters be respectful of this life I have built?

I'm just frightened by all these what ifs that don't seem to have answers; least not yet. Am I strong enough to last through this?

And then there's the flashbacks… How much terror can I handle? My mind broke into pieces for a reason, what makes me think that I'm any better equipped this time around? What if it just breaks me again? Am I ready to know what happened in my childhood? Little Erin has been helping me remember the good things that happened like spelling bees, times with friends, and field trips. But what will I do when she starts going through the bad memories? What is my own mind hiding from me? What lies in store? How can I know that I need or want to know what I cannot remember?

How can a person with ten different, distinct people in their body live a life that works?

--Yomi

Discovering Multiple Personality Disorder

I discovered that I had Multiple Personality Disorder in August of 2010. I had been going to a free counselor that my school sponsored and I thought it would be a good idea to look through an old journal to help remember some things we had been talking about. This is when I found two journal entries that I did not remember making.

The entries claimed to be from "Thanatos" (Greek for "death.") He made a few claims. First, that he had taken over because Erin was overwhelmed with schoolwork. Second, that he did not intend to let Erin come back until her work was straightened out. Last, that his name came from the Bible, Romans 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death..." A few entries later, Erin wrote again saying that she was back but she didn't know for how long. This was the one of the only mentions of Thanatos in my entire journal.

Before I found these journal entries, I had some suspicions about some "characters" I had created back in middle and high school. The fun thing to do back then among my tiny social group was to create characters to draw and make stories about. I thought nothing of these "characters" that I created until I noticed that they held more symbolic significance for me than other people's characters held.

When I talked with my close college friends (many of whom had counseling or psychology backgrounds)their suspicious were raised, but they thought they were just symbolic characters I had made in order to express myself more fully.

After I found the journal entries, I began having panic attacks in which these "characters" would show up and prey on my fears and failures: friends and family abandoning me, bad grades, slacking at responsibilities, hypocrisy, and the list can go on.

My college room mate, Nickie, was adamant about me telling my counselor about this... I procrastinated... until Tuesday, September 28. The voices of my "characters" were so loud that it felt like I was going to be lost among them and lose my own identity.

October 6, 2010, I began counseling with Roberta. I had gathered as much information I could about all my "characters" and presented it all to her... Poor woman, I'm sure it must have been information overload... She took it all in and we have begun to work on figuring it all out.

The point of this blog, what I hope to gain from it, is for me to have a place to vent out fears, struggles, and hopes while I go through this process. I hope that those reading can relate, if only a small amount, to these struggles. If you are like me, I hope this blog will be a bit of encouragement; you are not alone.

--Yomi