I've never had a blog before, so bare with me please.
My name is Erica. I live in South Florida.
I also have many other names.
I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder. This is caused by severe repetitive abuse before the ages of about 5-7. I encourage everyone to look up info on DID, even Wikipedia is okay as a basic source. There is some controversy over DID's existence, and my guess is that is caused by people faking it for sympathy or their own reasons. I've seen people obviously faking it in my own group therapy, so it does happen. I guess it sounds like a kind of cool condition. It's not. It's scary, painful and full of disappointments. I have missed so much of my life because it's scattered based on who was there for the event. And while I can remember things that happened when I wasn't 'present', after the fact, there is certainly a lot still missing. Also it's scary, I've self harmed many times while being out to lunch (so to speak), and probably come close to killing myself. I've come to in all sorts of places, including hours away from my home, having no idea where I was or why I was going wherever I was going (or even where I was going). People who recognize me in supermarkets or whatever, generally know me by either Paige or Jessica... I just go with it usually. I don't state my name, I avoid it, and if they state it as Paige or whomever, I just go with it. Also sometimes it triggers me to switch right then and there, if Paige or whoever sees someone she knows, often I will get that split second knowledge and then bam, I'm out for minutes or hours or in extreme cases, days. It all depends.
I have problems making decisions because, well, imagine having 40 people on a bus and having them all agree on one place to go - it's hard to do. At least while I'm depressed, most of them just want to stay home and we can chill. I don't think it will be as easy as I (hopefully) start to feel better.
I am encouraging my whole system to post on here, if they feel like it. I have asked them to identify themselves at the start of a post if they do post, that doesn't mean they will do it, but I have asked them to. They range in age from pre-verbal to 21, as far as I know. They may or may not post, I don't know. They are me, I am them, we are all equal - I am certainly not the 'original' Erica, you put us all together and that's the real Erica... as it is, that will never happen, and I'm the outside world representative, and I respond to Erica mainly. Most of my alters know to respond to it if they are out, at least I think they do, but most of them have their own names. Some of them go by Erica, or don't really have a name. Some of them don't talk to other people and some of them don't talk to me, they are either pre-verbal or non-verbal. And just a note, just because they are a certain age, does not mean I was that age when they were created.
I will list the main ones now, there are many others I only know a little about, and as far as I know they don't tend to come out into public. I will also give some of their attributes, if I know them. This list is just the ones that tend to come out, by age:
Wendy, 3 - likes to play, generally feels content
Sarah, 5 - scared, abused (took most of the abuse from parents, even when I was much older than 5), clingy to mom
Ashley, 6 - arts and crafts, likes making stuff
Tyler, 6 - I call him "Dad's replacement boy", does sports, always tries to make dad happy, does not know about the abuse at all
Brian, 8 - school, deals with teachers, bullies etc
Cindy, 10 - scared, clingy to mom, but friendly to others when they give her attention
Jesse, 11 - musical
Samantha, 12 - abused by teacher in middle school, so generally terrified
William, 13 - passive aggressive, self harmer, cynical
Angelo, 13 - despises parents (actually confronted them about abuse earlier this year), rebellious, tells it like it is
Johnny, 14 - runs away. ran away to Louisiana, and then ran away to come back to FL. basically does the flight in fight or flight
Paige, 15 - very sad and probably the most like me as I am today, knows everyone in the system, knows all of the abuse (I think), is usually co-conscious with me and therefor knows what's going on in the 'real world'
Jennifer, 16 - self harmer, hates drugs, so usually the self harm happens when I'm doing drugs...
(Erica), 17 - another self harmer, but won't talk to me at all, I don't think this one is verbal, but I'm not sure
Jessica, 19 - drug addict
Timothy, 20 - another self harmer, but not physically, only mentally - does a lot of berating and putting me down, in my head of course, things like I could have left anytime if I wanted to (not true), I'm pathetic, worthless, etc... basically a clone of the guy who kidnapped me, but doesn't physically do anything, just repeats all the shit the guy would say to me. He doesn't come out a lot, but I am co-conscious with him a lot, along with Paige.
Stephanie, 21 - workaholic
The ones in bold tend to come out the most. Paige serves as a timekeeper, kinda, and knows everyone, as far as I know. She almost always is co-conscious with me, and with the other alters, too. So she knows most of all what's going on, even more than I do. Yeah, it's complicated... most of them know they are alters, and know me ("Erica"), but they don't all know each other. Some of them only know other alters and don't know "Erica" at all. I don't think these alters even realize that there's a 'real world' out there - they are purely in my head and have no interaction whatsoever with anyone else.
So, that's me. More to come soon. Feel free to ask any questions, I will answer to the best of my ability.
