About Myself -- Guilt

To the above picture, just add freckles and it's an approximate idea of what I truly look like. I am pale, mildly exotic. I am confident, proud, bold. I am not an easy catch; I do not play hard to get because I truly am hard to get. Yomi says I'm promiscuous, and I supposed, compared to her monogamous relationship and her sheltered ideals, I am. I do not do one night stands; I do prefer open relationships. I have a needs, I cannot be expected to be satisfied with just one person. If this makes me promiscuous, then so be it.

Yomi has been writing about our histories, our personal back-stories. Mine is simple enough, or the bits of my story I actually tell is simple enough.

I grew up in one of the southern states; it doesn't truly matter which one. I left "home" as soon as I could, which was when I was about 16 years old. I managed to live by finding men or women who wanted me around, and, when they no longer wanted me, I would find another. This lasted until I met Brian; he was a computer hacker in the truest sense of the word. It was Brian who gave me my "hacker" name: Guilt. His relationship with me apparently caused him much shame. But he did teach me just enough about hacking for me to no longer directly rely on others for my livelihood. After that, I would steal identities, using rich people's unused wealth. I was good at it and I did it for years without being caught.

I made my way to Chicago, eventually, because bigger cities were easier to find "benefactors." This is where I met Sierra for the first time. She was the only other vibrantly alive person I had ever met; everyone else had a very vague feel about them, as though they were only half persons. But Sierra was different, she was substantial and real, just as I was. I suddenly understood why the half-people were drawn to my aliveness because I was drawn to Sierra for that very reason.

Sierra had a flickering appearance as though she were many people all at once. I later found out it was because she could change her appearance at will. She approached me and began to ask a series of questions that I now understand to be things that all we alters have in common. She asked questions such as "Does this reality seem real to you?" "Have you ever had gaps in your memories?" "Do you remember ever trying to be someone else for different periods of time?" "Do you feel whole?" At first I was too astounded to find another real person that I did not register her questions. But as I thought about them, I realized that this reality never seemed to be truly real, I do have large gaps in my memories which usually coincide with memories of being someone else, and I always felt like I was searching for my larger context. I swear, I felt like I was in the movie "The Matrix."

Then Sierra Lime began to explain what she herself had only recently come to find... We are parts of a larger whole. We have Multiple Personality Disorder and we are not the original personalities...

That sincerely pissed me off. What does this mean? Does this make me less real? Does this mean that I matter less? What about my memories, are they real? I refused to believe this strangely alive person, and I buried the memory of our meeting for some time.

But it ate at me. What if she's right? What if there are others like me? What if this vague reality isn't the truest reality? Hell, if that was the case, I'd want to live where I knew everyone was alive, real. It was when I began to accept Sierra's findings that I began to remember other things, the things I had been keeping a secret, even from myself, my whole life...

Yes, there was the abuse from my own past, but there was also abuse to a little child that wasn't me. Abuse done by the child to another. Abuse from the child's playground friends. Vague memories about a man named Jeremy with whom I know I had some role in screwing over the grown-up child who wasn't me. And with all these memories, guilt pervaded everything. Any time I brushed on a memory, shame and guilt and mortification would take hold of me. This pissed me off because they were not my memories and I wanted nothing to do with the person who gave them to me.

So I introduced myself to the grown-up child who wasn't me, whose name is Yomi. I blamed her for the shame that I felt; I hated her for it. I still hate her for it. I lashed out at her, at first, with name calling and guilt-tripping. At the beginning, she fell for my words and it made me happy, glad that she finally felt as rotten and guilt-driven as I did. I made her despise me, and I felt I deserved it.

Since introducing myself to Yomi I have been working to rid myself of all her memories because, frankly, I hate "taking care of them" for her. It's annoying, painful, and not my responsibility. I have had to make and follow through on threats, assign "homework", and anything else in my power to make her take on her own responsibility.

Having taken care of most of the memories and having realized that she's working on other seemingly important things right now, I've decided my goal is to just have fun in this new reality that is so very substantial and not vague. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of this place is so very intense compared to the flimsy reality that is Alter. Yomi and Nickie went to a bar a few weeks ago and Yomi let me dance... though I do not think she knew it was me dancing at the time. For now, Yomi's life is so boring that I have been trying to convince her to spice it up a bit. She has been ignoring me, so it may be high time to go onto more drastic measures.

Guilt signing out.