My mother purposely spaced my brother and myself apart by almost eight years because she knew she could not handle having more than one young child at a time. Even so, I received the message that I am too much over and over again while growing up. I was too sensitive. I was too needy. I was too clingy. I was too . . .everything!
This theme continued to show up as I grew and impacted so many of my relationships. Trauma responses and flashbacks were in full force, even though I didn’t understand that my experiences were flashbacks or trauma responses. I also didn’t understand that I was a We and that we had dissociative identity disorder.
This core belief is still haunting for all of us today. We’re terrified of losing relationships, of being abandoned, or creating conflict that is detrimental to our relationships. We just want everything to be perfect, so therefore we must not be too much. We must swallow our words, our emotions, and freeze our behaviors to ensure our own safety.
We thought we were getting so much better about dealing with the belief, and we are. We also had it come crashing down on us again recently. All it took was one of our selves being out in the front too long without the support from our other selves. The spiral of negative thoughts was steep and fast.
Our gatekeeper, yes, four-year old Jenny, took over and locked us in the dark closet for HOURS. She took away our voice and ability to speak because she feared what this other self might say out loud. It took nearly 24 hours before we were able to switch into someone that Jenny trusted enough to communicate what was going on for us. We’ve come a long way in many ways, and even through this, because there were times we never would have been able to communicate what had happened. There were times where it might have been weeks or days. So, it is better. And also, still hard.
We had hours of suffering and fear that we were about to lose everything because of our trauma responses. This is the reality of having dissociative identity disorder. This is just one small peek at some of the darker, messier sides of living with this. We have come a long way in that the people we have in our life now are able to recognize a trauma response when it is happening. They are able to hold space for us in the tougher moments.
We’re not mad at Jenny. While it is frustrating sometimes to have a four year old Gatekeeper, we are grateful for her. She reminds us of who we all want to be and she wasn’t wrong for shutting everything down. It’s what we actually needed. Sometimes we need our off button pushed. And that’s okay.
Add comment
Comments