dissociative identity disorder

The return home, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Last Friday, I took a train back to the  city I fled 11 months ago.

I didn’t have much of a choice. The graduate schools I am applying to require the GRE for admission – I had never taken it before because it wasn’t required for my first graduate school. The application deadlines are fast approaching (and in one case, very much past) and I needed to take the exam as soon as possible. I tried registering online, only to find out that almost every test location was either closed down, or did not have any available test dates for the next three months. The only option left just happened to be the farthest from my current location, and the closest to my home of origin.

Scrambling, I tried to figure out a way I could even get there. I asked an old friend, out of desperation, if he could take me. He agreed. Because of timing (the test appointment was at 8:00 AM Saturday morning) and distance (an additional 30+ minutes of travel), I had to take the train the day before and stay overnight. It definitely caused some panic.

I was worried about my arrival, because I would be stopping in the center of the city, where all of the buses pass through. Many of my former coworkers travel by bus, and a few of them live in the area. I was worried about someone seeing me and alerting  my mother. But during my therapy session last Monday, my therapist reassured me that the likelihood that someone would recognize me was low. My hair was completely different, and I had lost a significant amount of weight. She encouraged me to work out a plan so I would be out in the open as little as possible. I felt a little better, and less panicked.

And then my week went to shit. Tuesday, I withdrew from graduate school and essentially lost my dream of being a counselor. I was denied for a personal loan, one that I needed in order to get through the summer until I started a new graduate school in the Fall. I had a realization that the people I thought I could depend on were not dependable at all; actually, they ended up hurting me more. I wanted just to go to sleep to avoid the pain, but even that ended up impossible because I was startled awake by nonsense going on close by.

So I spent Tuesday night into Wednesday morning crying. I felt my life crumbling around me. At that point, I decided I should just go home for good. I’m losing everything in the life I was building here, so what else could I do? I decided. Friday, we were going home, and we weren’t coming back.

I walked to work early and sat outside, crying. I felt lost. I was also exhausted, and crying only magnified that exhaustion. I couldn’t deal with the emotional pain combined with the physical pain I am still in, and I ended up leaving work early. Then, cue my emotional break and dissociative chaos I wrote about here.

Somehow I managed to get myself to therapy on Thursday, though I will admit I am not even sure if it was all me. I was a mess. I tried (and failed) to hold it together.

My therapist and I went over what happened in the days leading up to session. I told her how I ended up the closet, which is something that has happened quite a few times before. I reluctantly told her about my plan to return home. I knew it could go one of two ways. My mother would take me in and help me, and I’d have a home and family again. Or she would kill me. That’s what I really wanted. I wanted to go home so my mother would kill me, and I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it myself.

I reached the point of dire hopelessness. There was nothing else left to lose.

Welcome to the closet

~ KJ ~ 17 Comments

I woke up early this morning and found myself snuggled away in the closet, with blankets and a pillow.

I don’t remember a lot of yesterday night. I spent most of Tuesday night crying, which carried into Wednesday morning crying. That was followed by work and intermittent crying, followed by leaving work early and more crying.

Then I found myself wandering the streets crying in the rain. Rain is good for hiding crying, because everyone just assumes it’s the rain on your face. I mean, you can’t really tell tears from raindrops. So I just let it out and no one noticed a thing.

And then I found my way home, feeling completely broken. Took a shower to get rid of the chill in my bones, and ended up holding myself up against the wall of the shower, crying.

I managed to eat, despite feeling like absolute shit. And then I retreated to my room, where my thoughts were going to horrible places. 

I thought about going home. My place of origin home. I didn’t think things could get any worse, anyway. I didn’t see any options left. I wanted to go home because I secretly wished that my mother would kill me. It would be much easier that way. I wouldn’t have to do it myself. What else do I have left? Nothing.

Later on, I heard knocking at the door. I started to panic. I locked my bedroom door and pushed my punching bag over in back of it, barricading myself in. The fear that my mother had found me was overtaking me. Then I started to lose it. And then the next thing I know, I’m laying in the closet.

The closet is not a comfortable space for a 30 year-old. But my other parts aren’t 30 years old, so they don’t know that. They just believe it’s safe in there, or safer I should say. I don’t believe they or I will ever feel completely safe anywhere we go.

Now I’m dealing with absolute chaos on the inside. Fear and panic have set in. Parts are scared that we’re going to see our mother. It’s absolute fucking chaos.

I’m running damage control and trying to convince everyone that we are safe, which is hard for me to do because I’m not even sure that we are. And even though I’m present, I’m still struggling with having a foot in the past. Any little noise or startle and I start to lose it again.

I’m exhausted.

Withdraw

~ KJ ~ 17 Comments

At 6 o’clock this morning, I submitted my official withdrawal from university.

I knew it was the right thing to do, but I still cried. And I cried again when I got the e-mail at 8 AM that my withdrawal was accepted.

It has been over a month and I still haven’t received an answer, and I just can’t wait around for a committee of people who don’t even know me to judge me based on a diagnosis and a few sentences out of my blog.

You know what? I’m hurt. I’m angry. I feel betrayed. I feel judged.

This wasn’t done out of concern for me. With the exception of one person (who I know did not write any anonymous reports), no one approached me about any concerns. Shit, no one even asked me if I was okay. A person who is genuinely concerned about someone will ASK that person, or at least make some attempt to talk to her. Genuinely concerned people don’t create fake e-mail addresses and send anonymous reports to the school, with links to my blog posts. That is not genuine concern. That, in simplest terms, is being an asshole.

You write extensively about your diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Your blog documents serious struggles with mental health issues that have raised significant concerns…

Yes. I have DID. And? I don’t have it written on my forehead. You wouldn’t know I had it from looking at me. I have chosen to be open about it because of the shame and stigma attached to the diagnosis, shame and stigma that I have been trying to fight against. And yes, I  struggle with mental health issues. Any person who has been through similar experiences has them, too. But I manage them as best I can. I work just to pay for therapy.

In the blog you write that you are “consistently suicidal”, and that you are “in school for something that I’m not even sure I can handle.”

Gosh, a person with DID who struggles with suicidal thoughts. Considering that more than 70% of people with DID have attempted suicide, this should not be a huge surprise. As I have explained in this post, there is a difference between feeling suicidal and being suicidal. No matter how I was feeling, I continued to go to work, I went to class, and I did what needed to be done because I knew they were just feelings.

And what student hasn’t had doubts? My whole life, I’ve excelled academically. I’ve never really failed at anything. But I would be lying if I said I never doubted my abilities. I am sure some level of self-doubt is completely normal. I would be more concerned about someone who had absolutely no self-doubt.

Due to the severity of this situation and the perceived threat to yourself and others, I am making a referral…to evaluate whether or not your circumstances impair your ability to safely continue in the program…

Perceived threat to yourself and others.  Wow. Okay. I am not a threat to myself. If I wanted to kill myself, I would have either stayed in home prison or I would have jumped in front of a train by now. I wouldn’t have gotten a job, enrolled in graduate school, started an organization, and I wouldn’t be going to therapy a few times a week to make myself better.

A threat to others? In what way? Because I have DID? A diagnosis does not make me a violent lunatic. What have I ever done to show that I have ever been a threat to others? I don’t hurt other people. I didn’t even hurt my abusers. I avoided all conflict and confrontation and ran away. I let them get away with everything, when other people would have hurt them for what they did. If I didn’t hurt the very people who caused me so much pain, who the hell would I hurt? Who am I a threat to? No one. The answer is no one.

So, despite getting As, having a 4.0 GPA, scoring higher than average on the CPCE before I even started the program, giving an outstanding presentation on the psychological effects of continued child abuse, and handing in consistently professional, high-quality work, I have had to drop out of graduate school.

I’d like to think this wasn’t because of fear, viciousness, or misunderstanding, but my heart tells me that it was.

To whoever reported me, I hope you are never put in a situation where your life is scrutinized.

I haven’t done anything wrong. I will continue to write. I will continue to fight. I should not have to prove my worth any more than I already do.

Layers of Protection

~ KJ ~ 19 Comments

No one ever asked why I wore a bathing suit under my clothes. It was quite visible through the white polo of my private school uniform. I wasn’t going swimming in the middle of winter. But for years, I would wear a bathing suit over my underwear and under my clothes, and no one ever questioned it.

Why? Because it helped me feel protected. In my child mind, I foolishly thought these extra barriers, these layers of protection, would prevent me from being abused.

So I stuffed myself with wads of toilet paper. That toilet paper was going to protect me. She can’t put anything inside me then. She’s not going to be able to hurt me.

And then I’d wear two pairs of underwear, sometimes three. Then, my bathing suit. Then my pants. Then two or three shirts. I needed all of that to feel protected. I needed to be covered. I never wanted to be without my protection.

But those layers didn’t work. She still hurt me. It just took a little more effort.

I never gave up trying, though, even to this day. I always wear two pairs of underwear. I always wear at least three shirts, no matter if it’s the heat of summer.

And when I am feeling vulnerable and afraid, I go right back to my childhood methods of protection.

Since I’ve been struggling with this memory, I’ve found myself reverting back to childhood a bit. I’m teetering in a place between being a free, 30 year-old adult and being a scared child. As weird as it is, I feel like both at the same time.

I know I am an adult, but I am also living in fear of my mother. I check my bedroom door ten times to make sure it is locked before I go to bed. Why? Because I don’t want my mother coming in and hurting me. Adult me knows my mother isn’t even here, but the fear is still playing out actively in my head.

And as I’ve gotten ready for bed each night, I have created a protective cocoon of clothing: extra clothing under my pajamas, a sweatshirt with the hood over my head and closed tightly. Throw blankets wrapped around me like I am human burrito.Why? Because I need to protect myself from my mother. My mother, who is nowhere near me anymore. My  mother, who doesn’t even know where I am. But that knowledge doesn’t matter because I am living in a state of confusion, a mixed state of past and present that has become my reality.

I’m not sure what is worse: living in fear and not knowing why, or living in fear, totally aware of the irrationality of it all, but not being able to control it.

Who are you?

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

Who are you?

A simple question. Just three words. Nine letters total. Yet, it is the hardest question I’ve ever had to answer.

I’ve been working on my graduate school applications. The hardest part has been the personal statement. Nearly every graduate school requires one, and the two I am applying to are no exception. It should be easy, right? I’m a good writer. I’m intelligent. This should be a piece of cake.

Except it’s not. Because they want to know who I am. And I don’t know who I am.

In the first 29 years of my life, I never had the opportunity to be me. Everything I was, was based on what my mother wanted for and of me. She decided where I went to school. She decided where I worked. She had control over the food. She had control over everything.

That is why I have so much trouble, even today, making any kind of decision. I’ve had to have other people order food for me because I couldn’t decide on what I should eat. I nearly had a breakdown at Dunkin Donuts yesterday. The woman asked if I wanted the doughnut with or without sprinkles, and I froze. She asked again, and I struggled to find words. I wanted to cry. Over sprinkles.

Even the most basic facets of a person’s identity are complicated for me. The only thing I can say for sure, 100% of the time, is that I am a human being. Everything else? Complicated. Am I a woman? Yes, I have the anatomy, I guess. But I can’t tell you how many times I have stood in front of the restrooms in a public place and had to remind myself which gender I was, because there are times when I’m not really sure what I am.

For many, family shapes who they are. I don’t have that. I have no connection to my parents, no connection to my brother. I have no knowledge of my mother’s side of the family at all. Half of my genetic contribution, and I know nothing about it. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Shit, I’m still holding out hope that I was adopted. The very little I knew about my birth was a lie; I found out when I applied for a social security card last year that my place of birth was not what my mother told me. Was anything the truth?

Maybe I wasn’t even born. Maybe I don’t exist at all. I don’t even know anymore. Did I ever know?

Most times I don’t feel myself, if I even knew what being myself would feel like. Is this me, or is it a part of me? I don’t know how to tell the difference. What is my name today? I don’t know that, either. I guess I’ll just answer to anything.

I’ve had an identity that was always based on other people. I was never me, I was always Lori’s daughter. I am feeling angry, this means I am my father. I am a woman, this means I am my mother. I have never been me.

In many ways, my identity was stolen from me. I was never allowed autonomy as a child. I was never allowed to make choices for myself. Every aspect of my life was chosen for me; everything was controlled by my mother. How am I supposed to know who I am now if I never had the chance to be anybody?

Flee, Part 4

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

As I was walking home after my therapy session, I put my ear buds in and turned my music up as loud as I could. Music is my method of release. And I needed to release.

The first song that came on  was Lie to Me (Denial) by Red. It’s a Christian rock band. Even though I’m nowhere near Christian, I like the music and tend to relate to a lot of the lyrics. This was no exception.

Although it was a song I heard many times before, one part of the song stuck out at me:

All your secrets crawl inside
You keep them safe, you let them hide
You feel them drinking in your pain to kill the memories
So close your eyes and let it hurt
The voice inside begins to stir
Are you reminded of all you used to be

All the pain you fed
Starts to grow inside
It lives again and you can’t let it die

Well, then. If the timing of that song wasn’t on point with what I just went through in therapy.

Hiding secrets. My whole life was spent hiding secrets, and here I was, still hiding secrets. And my parts are hiding secrets, too. They’re holding their own memories, safeguarding them from me and from the world. Until the time they come to the surface. Why is this memory now coming to the surface? Why am I being reminded of a past I don’t want to remember?

I think there’s still a part of me that believes if I just ignore it, it will go away. I made a similar mistake when I first started managing life with DID. I ignored my parts, hoping they would just go away. But ignoring them only makes it worse. They get louder. They get out of control, and then life gets chaotic.

If I ignore these memories, they won’t go away. They won’t die. They will only keep causing more and more pain. And I don’t need any more pain. I’ve had enough.

Then I started to wonder if it was fair to my parts to keep us from processing the trauma. I have to think I am experiencing these memories for a reason. The reason why, I don’t quite know, but I’m sure there has to be a reason. I’m not even sure the reason really matters.

It’s weird. In a way, dissociation itself is your mind’s way of fleeing from reality. You can’t physically escape the danger, so you mentally escape it. My parts took over for me to protect me. Maybe I don’t need so much protection anymore. Maybe they need to be protected now. I don’t know.

I wish I wasn’t still running from the truth. Why can’t I find my voice? Why can’t I say out loud what happened to me? Why is it so hard? And why does it hurt so much? I know why it hurts so much. Because speaking the truth out loud makes it real. And I don’t want it to be real.

I want my father to be a real father. I’ve always rationalized his physical and emotional abuse, normalizing it as something fathers just do. He was better because he wasn’t abusing me like my mother was. Maybe he just didn’t know. Maybe he didn’t understand what was going on. All of these years, I held on to that belief that he was just oblivious. He would’ve helped me if he knew.

I can’t hold on to that hope anymore.

Because as my mother was abusing me, I turned to him, crying, and he turned away. He turned away. He knew what was happening.

How do you turn away from someone in pain? How could you turn away from your own child?

My heart is still hurting. I still don’t want to admit it out loud. I don’t want to admit rejection. That is what hurts more than what my mother was doing to me. And I don’t know how to get over that.

I don’t want to be stuck anymore.

Flee, Part 3

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

“I think we’ve reached an impasse.”

Those are the words no client ever wants to hear. It’s a fancy way of saying therapy isn’t working. Inside, I’m thinking that’s it, she’s giving up on me. I’m so damaged that not even she can fix me. No one can fix me.

The educated counselor in me understood what she was talking about. I knew exactly how I was stuck. I’ve been in therapy ever since I escaped just shy of 11 months ago. I go multiple times per week; I’ve never been your standard once-a-week client. But the people who go to therapy as much as me, they are working through and processing really intense trauma.

I’m still struggling through the basics of safety and stabilization. We can’t work through any trauma until I have a grasp on the basics. Any time we try to work through something, I shut down. I can’t get through it.

And every time a trauma emerges, my safety and stabilization goes to shit. I don’t eat right. I don’t sleep. I become self-destructive. I need to work on the trauma in order to move past it, but I can’t work on the trauma because I’m neglecting the very basic necessities of my physical and emotional health. It’s a seemingly endless, fucked up cycle of making no progress.

Something has to change. My therapist brought up changing our sessions, going less than I am now (especially since I am in a financial bind until I am back in school again). That possibility was terrifying to me.  “No, I can’t handle that. I don’t even feel like this is enough. I feel like I need therapy every day.”

And I just proved her point. I’m still struggling with everyday things. My therapist can’t be there for me every day. It’s why she suggested inpatient some time ago. I could sense her going in that direction again. But I can’t do inpatient. Financially, I can’t be out of work. I’m also in the midst of an educational transition that has to be done within the next month if I want to start by the Fall. I have a lot going on. I can’t just put my life on pause to spend weeks in a hospital. A hospital is not real life. How will it help me with real life?

I’m not perfect, but I’m also not completely dysfunctional. I wake myself up every day and go to work. I’ve been going to the doctor. I’ve been getting my schooling back on track. I’ve been functioning like any other person. Yea, I’m crying in the bathroom, and on the bus, and over the phone. But I’m still getting shit done. Isn’t that enough?

“You need to decide if we still need to work on this (safety/stabilization) in therapy, or can we work on the more intensive stuff and you can work on this outside of therapy.”

I want to work on the trauma. I need to. But I don’t know how to not shut down. I told her, “You’ve already told me all you could about this stuff. I already know it. I think either something is wrong with me or I’m stubborn, but I should be able to handle this on my own.”

My therapist told me nothing was wrong with me. She did agree that I was stubborn. But she also said that stubbornness helped get me where I am today. That stubbornness protected me from my mother. That stubbornness kept me alive, because I refused to believe my mother’s lies. That stubbornness helped me flee from prison.

Flee, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

“Are you protecting them or are you protecting you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t need to protect them anymore.”

I know that; intellectually I know that. But I was still so afraid to say out loud what happened. We were trained not to tell anyone anything. She told us they wouldn’t understand. So I kept quiet. I never told. And even though she’s not here now, I’m still not telling. I’m still living in fear of a threat that is no longer valid.

I think I am protecting her. I am still protecting both of them. I can still hear her voice inside my head sometimes. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.

“Look around. You are safe here. They are not here. No one can hurt you here.”

I knew where I was. But I was somewhere else in my mind. I was existing within two worlds at the same time: the world of now and the world of my childhood. It was as if I were standing on an invisible line, with one foot on either side: the past to my left, and the present to my right. I can see both worlds, but I can’t pick a side. So I stand there, existing in limbo.

“What was your mother doing?”

The pressure built up inside my head again. I could feel my insides shaking and I started to panic. Why is it so hard for me to tell? I want so badly just to let it out and I can’t. I can’t do it.

“Do we need to take a break?”

I wanted so badly to say no. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to fight through the chaos inside. But I knew in that moment that I couldn’t go on. I wanted to flee from my own body. I wanted to escape right then and there. But why? I was in a safe place. I was with a safe person. So why do I still want to run away?

I want to run away from the truth. I want everything to be okay. But it’s too late for that.

I told her yes. I didn’t acknowledge in that moment how powerful it was for me to admit that I needed a break. I never did that before.

My therapist asked what I had for breakfast. Nothing. She asked what I had for lunch. Nothing. She asked about coffee. I always have coffee before therapy, even if I don’t eat anything. I used to drink it black, but now I get it with cream and sugar for the added calories. It all tastes the same to me.

I’m in therapy now, talking about coffee. I was slowly crossing over the invisible line into the present, no longer teetering into the past. We talked about my school situation. We talked about the GRE, and how I cried over the phone because the person registering me could not understand me. But I wasn’t crying about the misunderstanding or about the GRE; I was crying because I couldn’t handle everything that was going on in my mind.

We talked about TV. I bought a TV back in February and have watched it twice since then. I don’t know why. She asked what kinds of television shows I like to watch. She mentioned reality shows. “I can’t watch them, my father watches them.” She mentioned another type. “I can’t watch them, either. He liked them, too.”

I have disconnected myself from anything that reminds me of my abusers. I told my therapist about the Poptart incident from the week before. I told her how I can’t wear headbands because my mother wore them, how I can’t eat certain candies because my mother ate them. I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be like my father, either.

“That doesn’t make you anything like them. You need to reclaim those things. You can eat a chocolate Poptart because you like to eat them. It doesn’t make you your mother.”

“It’s alright, I switched to peanut butter. My mother hates peanut butter.“ But I knew that wasn’t my therapist’s point. I’m still avoiding. I’m still restricting myself from things that I could enjoy just because those other people enjoyed them, too. It’s not fair.

By the time the coffee and Poptart conversation was done, we were nearing the end of session. It didn’t feel like all that time had passed. I was sitting there, still very much unresolved. I knew the memories were going to come back. I knew I failed again.

I want to stay here. I don’t want to flee anymore. Help me get through this. Help me stop this.

Flee, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 17 Comments

I sat in the waiting room of my therapist’s office this afternoon, fighting the urge to get up and leave. I looked at the door, then looked at the clock, debating if I could dash out without running into her. I can’t leave. She’ll worry. I have to leave. I can’t do this today. I spent so much time debating with myself, that before I knew it, my therapist came out of her office and my option to flee was gone.

I was scared. I wanted to run away because I was scared of what was going to happen. I knew my therapist would know something was wrong. It doesn’t matter how many times I say “I’m okay.” My face always tells the truth, and today my face was telling the world that something was wrong.

Sure enough, my therapist knew I was not okay. She asked when it all started. I told her. I told her how I couldn’t stop crying. I told her I couldn’t sleep. I told her about the memories that were (are) not stopping. I told her I didn’t want to remember anymore. I couldn’t take anymore heartbreak.

My therapist talked about memories and what memory loops mean, and all the things I already knew. Therapy was a safe place to talk about it. I knew that. But I was still scared. I tried to process it anyway. I knew that hiding it and avoiding it was not working; that was obvious to me given how I’ve been the last few days.

He knew. He was there. I started crying. Uncontrollably. I felt the pain in my heart come back. My head was hurting in a weird sort of way, like a pressure was building up inside with no way to release it. And I just kept crying. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted that little bit of hope I had been holding on to that my father was just the tiniest bit of a decent person. But that is shattered now. That hope is lost.

It was too much for me to accept. I started doubting everything. Maybe these memories aren’t real. Maybe I’ve just made this all up in my head. I knew in part that these memories were real, but I didn’t want to accept them. I wanted my hope back. I wanted my innocence back. I wanted my father back.

I’ve had memories before where he is there, but not really there. This was different. It was clear what was going on. There is no doubt in my mind. He knew. And he didn’t protect me. He didn’t help me. He helped her.

Why? I don’t understand. My therapist says not to focus on the why, not to stress myself out trying to understand people who cannot be understood. But I can’t help it. I don’t like it when I don’t understand something. I don’t understand my life. I don’t understand the people who raised me, although I’m not sure saying “raised” is really accurate at all.

I struggled to stay connected to the present. The difficulty of working through flashbacks and memories is realizing that you are in the here and now, and not back when the trauma happened. Sometimes I am afraid of reliving it, so I push it down and try to forget about it. For the record, that never works.

My therapist has to constantly remind me that I am safe there, that no one is going to hurt me. So why is it so hard for me still? I want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe for once in my life.

Please, no

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

I’ve spent the last hour laying in bed crying, trying to block out the flood of memories that have been bombarding me off and on since this morning.

It all started in therapy. My therapist and I were going over the stages of treatment worksheet I had done last week. We got to the section on medical care, which tends to be an issue for me, but I’ve been working on it decently the last couple of months. Primary doctor. Check. Dentist. Need that. Gynecologist. Initiate panic.

I started feeling sick. My stomach was queasy, my head was spinning, and I felt my chest getting heavy. I didn’t want to talk about it. Please, no, don’t make me go. The panic got worse, and then the memories started flashing before me. I tried to make them stop but they wouldn’t. I remember crying and then I drifted away.

I knew what triggered the memories. It’s the same reasons I’ve avoided going to that kind of doctor. I connect it with what my mother did to me. She said I was sick there, and she needed to help. But she didn’t help at all. She hurt me. Over and over. And it never got better.

The thought of someone being in that position with me is mortifying. I can’t deal with it. Fuck, I can’t even handle it in therapy. Imagine if I was at an appointment, what would have happened. I can’t. It’s not going to happen.

My therapist wants to work on it together a little bit at a time. But I’m scared. I’m so damaged. It’s not even going on anymore but the damage is done. I can’t erase the memories, I can’t forget how it felt.

And if that wasn’t enough, the memories have kept coming, even hours after my therapy session. Don’t tell anyone, they won’t understand. I’m just trying to make you better. I didn’t tell anyone. I was a good girl. So why did it keep happening? Why didn’t I get better?

Daddy is standing there. He’s holding my hand. But it still hurts. Why is he letting her hurt me? Does he know I’m sick there, too? I don’t understand. What did I do? I keep saying please, no but no one is listening. My voice is gone. I close my eyes but I still feel everything.

I don’t want to remember anymore. My heart hurts.