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