Stone Temples

Seems like I am obsessed with temples – ancient stone temples, huge Medieval churches, my body….and the holiness of these temples and the mystery and the stories untold and the sacredness. I want to sit in quiet, still temples deep inside myself and deep inside them. I want to touch that holy place where man should not go.

And I wonder what is the mystery there. And why it is covered in stone.

But I know, I know the secrets just like everyone knows the secrets. Some can put words to the mystery, some cover up the words with symbols and rituals and liturgy, some sing the mystery or paint it or dance it. Some are hardly aware it exists. But everyone knows the secrets, they just manifest in various forms.

So I sleep deeply and waken in a coldness that feels like dead bones in the winter woods. I try to warm myself the only way I know how, and suddenly my fantasy turns too real. I am overcome with physical release and the door to the locked part of the temple opens and out pours the mystery in the form of feelings, with images attached that I cannot understand. It aches and it aches like the temple in my soul has suddenly been abandoned by all that is good and loving and safe. I cry and cry and cry and run to Larry’s bedroom to be held. He’s there and he holds me. I tell Prowler to shut the door for me, I cannot reach the handle and I cannot push it shut against the waves of emotion. And it needs to shut or I will drown. Prowler is there and he shuts the door.

But like all epiphanies, this one fades (thank god) but does not disappear. Like all sacred temples the walls are now etched with new words and pictures that tell the mystery. But I cannot speak them, or dance them, or sing them. I cannot paint them or even hold them. I can only make them ghosts in this world.

And so I run to the holy places, the churches and the temples, the woods and the sauna, my bed. I sit quietly and still, listening, and the words are empty of the real thing, the real mystery that aches. The real mystery is that no holy place inside me can be touched by the hands or swords of men. The real secret is that though It hurts and destroys and changes and desecrates, It is not as real as the temple’s holiest of holies where no man should go. The greatest mystery is that the sacredness remains, untouched, because not only should no man go there, no man can.

I am so lonely.

Question for you....

Everything I experience internally seems "normal" to me, like everyone must experience the same inner life. I'm wondering how my "parts" seem like your alters, roles, different faces, etc and how they seem different. Anyone want to share?

I Take It With Me

Sitting with my therapist, crying (of course - it gets so cliche in there) I just wanted him to tell me it was safe. So I told him that. Pretty much verbatim "I just want to know that it's safe." But he didn't answer me directly. I don't even remember what he said because it was his expert method of dancing around something he either didn't want to discuss or didn't know how to address. So we talked a little bit more and it was almost time to go. He asked if there was anything any one of us would like to say before time was up. I said "yeah. you didn't tell me it was safe." He asked if I was talking about my arm, but I wasn't. I was talking about the world - out there - everything outside myself. We took out a collage I made and I showed him how on one side all was serene and protected and on the other side was chaos and pain and fear and violence. I just wanted to know if that other side - the bad side - was still bad or if it was safe. He explained that when I emerge from that protected place inside, I emerge with all that violence that is on the other side, I BRING it with me, so NO- IT'S NOT SAFE. I didn't expect that. But I understand it. I do not live in a violent world. No one is hurting me anymore. Yet when I try to interact with the world I still have all these violent, rageful, intense emotions and once I step beyond my walls that is what I bring with me. I am my own enemy and I am a danger to myself. He told me that it could be safe. That as we work on things slowly and carefully, I can emerge safely into this world. This is an astounding revelation.

Integration

I don't know how I feel about today. In the back of my mind since finishing "Switching Time" I've been thinking about what INTEGRATION means to me.... does it mean all of us becoming ONE???? I sat in the car and thought about the collage I made, with all of us by the waterfall (except Rae - she was off in the darkness drowning.) I really focused on that collage, and there was Sarah, thinking about the collage as "I" was thinking about the collage. And then I looked out the window at the trees and the grass and the homes we were passing, and there was Sarah looking at the trees and the grass and the homes. We've had what I believe is co-consciousness before, but this time it was really intense. It was really "co." So I think about "integration" and how that maybe is taking co-consciousness a step farther, where there is not a "co" but rather the lines between the parts are erased and there is only a consciousness, and instead of two there is one. I know that sounds simple and anyone could understand those words, hell, I understand those words. Logically. Emotionally and in a very real sense it baffles me. I understand, but I don't "know." That's the essence of this whole DID thing, I guess. There are many many things I understand. Logically. But the emotional "knowing" is kept separate and so I don't have that full knowledge of things. That's why I feel like I don't really LIVE sometimes, like my life is only a shadow on this planet. I wonder if INTEGRATION would make me feel alive????

Where the Wild Things Are

Just can't get enough of that movie. I imagine everyone identifies with the little Max, and at some level connects with the way Max talks to the Wild Things. But I love the movie because it's so like my inner life - I really really DO have others inside that I talk to and that fight with each other and with me and form alliances. At the end of the movie, right when he says "I wish you guys had a mom" and then announces he is leaving them, I break down and sob. I sob with great heaving sobs that crush my chest. I don't understand why I have that reaction. Anyone with any insight - please share!

Violence

Spent hours yesterday on the floor, cutting and pasting. You'd think I was 12 and not 43....oh wait! I AM 12 sometimes! (DID humor.)

I was making a collage. It was emotionally exhausting, and I don't like how it looks, but the message is a clearer message than I expected. One side is chaos and violent, the other side is a serene room with a window looking out on a waterfall. That's my room inside. I cut out words that say "Which side would you rather be on?" And then there's a little note to Craig off to the side, written on notebook paper with a gold frame around it. The note says "If I create the violence, I control the violence." Makes me think of how my mind goes so naturally to cutting off my arm. Somehow that statement is connected to that particular violent act. It's about control and it's about cutting off the violence that I perceive in the rest of the world. I've heard before from people close to me that "It's not happening anymore," and I know intellectually that it's not, that I'm pretty safe in the world today. But it doesn't FEEL like it....it still feels like the world is a raging dangerous place. And my job is to keep us "cut off" from that violence. If I create the violence, I control the violence.

Shutting the door on rage

As Craig tonight expressed his belief that cutting my arm off or doing any serious self harm like that would not provide the "escape" or whatever outcome I'm seeking, I could literally see a door close in front of me. I began to rage inside, and R. smirked. Craig was saying something about how he believed I had important things to say and that we should focus on what cutting my arm off MEANS, and that I can SAY what I have to SAY in a safe way. All I wanted to do was scream "FUCK YOU" at him, tell him to stop patronizing me, but R. held my lips closed. So I screamed and kicked at the door. I am reminded of when I used to hold my suicide plans near and dear to my heart - they are what got me through the day. I no longer perseverate on suicide, but I still hold arm removal near and dear to my heart...gets me through the day. Shutting the door on that makes me ANGRY.