1. I love my wife (even though we are separated and in couples therapy) I love her and always will. Angela does not believe I love her, and for me this is difficult. Like the rest of the world; we just don’t seem to understand each other. She feels lost. I feel lost. It feels like the story of the Tower of Babel has happened to us. Once we spoke the same language, now we don’t understand each other at all. And I love her. I love her, always.
2. I love my children. They are some of the best human beings on the earth. I am proud to be their father and part of their lives.
3. I hold up a good front for everyone… even though I may be going crazy inside.
4. I think about killing myself, often. But I know that I won’t. I have done too many suicide funerals. It hurts those left behind too much!!! It is a selfish act…
5. I feel like the end of the world is coming… I will die soon… But I also recognize this as a PTSD trait.
6. I love everyone I have ever met even my abusers. I hate them at the same time. I love Ms. Bloom, but I want to kill her… Hurt her…(even though she is long dead now.) How confusing is that!!!
7. I read constantly.
8. I can’t remember a thing sometimes. My mind just doesn’t seem to work right. I am smart, but I feel so damn dumb!
9. I love to preach! But sometimes an alter will come forward and look around. I will stop. Hopefully I look like I am thinking… in contemplation.
10. I feel very alone. I wish I knew other people who have D.I.D.
11. I loved my time in the trauma ward in the psych. hospital in New Orleans because everyone was dissociated or had dissociative identity disorder. I learned. I was understood. I was accepted.
12. I have cut. Several times an introject alter will cut me saying “You deserve this, John!”
13. I feel lonely. But at the same time I need to be alone. The longer I am around people the less I feel safe. I need to be by myself to recuperate from being around people. I feel safest by myself-alone. I am trying to be more social; trying to find a friend.
14. I struggle with what to teach my children. I feel like they are going to experience hell in the years to come… The world is going to fall down around them… There is such a continuing widening gap between those who have and those who don’t. I think we are about to be hit hard here in the U.S. But I also realize this could be a PTSD sympton!!! Still, what to teach them? how to phrase it? how to be prepared for the worse.
15. I hold my children tight, sometimes, when I leave the house for my place. I feel it will be for the last time.
16. I have alters… Laura, 3 Jonathans, Dear One, The Far Away People, Jonathan Older, and those who could be described as introjects–the crazy cleaning lady, the knife wielding man, the mask. I also have other alters that come forward… I don’t know who they are though. They feel pretty full-bodied.
17. I struggle with derealization disorder as well as depersonalization disorder.
18. I float, often.
19. I can’t stand mirrors. Sometimes I look in them and it is not me looking back. I was tortured in front of a mirror.
20. I am so hurt at how people treat other people. God, why do people have to be mean or evil. Why do we hurt each other so often. It hurts my heart.
21. So often I feel so strange living in this world. I don’t fit. I am too serious. I am too intense. I feel like I know those who come from “the pit”… that is, those who have been abused, tortured, and left in the ditch. We look at each other and there is recognition.
22. I am learning a lot about myself as I write this blog.
23. Believe it or not… I love to laugh! I have a dry sense of humor.
24. I have tomato plants that are 6 foot high! Wow.
Hi Jonathan,
Here via a common tag. I also have DID. It is very interesting to read about you. I also feel I’m going to die soon, and also think this is a PTSD trait. I am not a christian, so I can’t relate to that. However, I do understand what it’s like to doubt your faith (though for me it’s faith in a secular sense). It is probably also something to do with PTSD.
Hi Astrid,
It is such a strange way to live… that sense that death is just around the corner. When I think about my death; I sometimes experience sadness at not being able to be with my children longer. Then there is sorrow. But you know… there are times when I can turn this sense of a foreshortened existence into a positive thing. For instance, if I have that thought of impending death… then I will live each day with intensity and vitalility. I used to tell my congregations, “don’t blink! because if you do life will pass you by.” The thought of impending death, on my good days!, will help me to drink it all up, celebrate! and even cry.
But there is that other side of the coin that I can’t stand… that is that PTSD feeling of impending doom. Maybe that is another story. Maybe not. Maybe we lift up our heads, look around at the world, and say,
“doom or death, I will live today! I will live well! today.”
Astrid, thanks for reading and commenting! I hope you will do so again. Nice to meet you! Take care of yourself and be safe. John
Hi Johnathan, we follow each other on Twitter. I am touched by your words and your bravery. I work in a mental health setting and and am familiar with DID.
I have to tell you that sometimes I feel like I don’t fit in either. I am an intense person too and feel things a lot more than most. I’m glad we connected. I look foward to reading more
Michelle @WritingGirlie
Hi Michelle, thanks for your kind words. I hope you will return and look around! Sometimes it is difficult to feel like we don’t fit in… passion and intensity can set us apart… we are not always the life of the party! hehehee Hell no!
I wish you the best with your blog. It is a beautiful look at human sexuality… passionate and intense… wow. You take care and be safe! Blessings to You! Jonathan
The dying thing. Lets see: was sure at 13, 14, 24, 26, 30, 35, 42, 55 (not there yet) – 65 most definitely, if the world doesn’t come to an end (grinning) . . . gee, we are there.
Loved the list. We were ‘experimented on’ by our dad; he ‘taught’ us psychology by having us learn his degree(s) with him (sociology was one.) One lab rat gets the training; the other does not. This ties into #22 on your list: we knew instinctively to write as a form of therapy when we ‘turned 21′ (meaning an alter … sorry, not fond of that term: means sacrifices and things – prefer the one “souls” – us believing God often creates new souls by making DID beings – parts of ourself ‘fly off’ after death to begin a new life of their own. Some of them. Others go on to be angels; others to greater things. Just a ‘philosophy’ of life and religion we came up with while in PR. (a wild adventure).
Went ahead and put a follow (based on #10, 13, & 21). And we have a religious dad. We won’t go into him.
Until later – was just curious; clicked, saw, saw more – and liked it.
Ya’ll stay safe (you will), be good, good to one another (including on the inside – no fighting please! <- we're laughing cuz' we used to do a lot of that) – and will read some more.
Thank you, sir. (snappy salute from the Marine – we are in a good mood today)
~ et all
Hi Holly,I only recently came acrsos your blog, and I just wanted to say thanks for writing! I have and now blog about a dissociative disorder myself, and I’ve found your blog very interesting and thought provoking. I think it helps so much to have people like us share and humanize conditions like these which are so often sensationalised and misunderstood. It really sounds like wrapping up the blog for now is absolutely the right thing for you to be doing, please try not to look at it as if you’ve failed anything. If you’d written a book instead of a blog you’d have to stop writing and send it in to print sometime! It’ll still exist for people like me to find in the meantime, and you can restart again later if that’s what you want down the track. You’ve done a great job and thanks again for sharing.All the best, Sarah