Why Children Fracture

I agree with William Wadsworth who said in his poem that “trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home.” Children may be born into circumstances in this life that challenge their innate divine innocence. Sometimes the trauma and/or overwhelmming confusion that they are subjected to is just too difficult for their psyche or mind to absorb. I believe that the creation of an alter ego is actually an innate defense that allows children to cope with the uncopeable.

Why am I Multiple?

Essentially all children who experience Satanic Ritualistic Abuse (SRA) become DID. DID is also common in those who experienced severe, ongoing sexual abuse as young children. I have read the stories of a number of fellow DID people and am amazed at what they survived.

I also have DID. How could I have experienced something so severe in my reportedly “perfect” childhood home as to cause me to create the alter egos (multiple personalities) that I did? My diagnosis was particularly hard for me to accept. But in one therapy session some poignant feeling and pictures came flooding from my subconscious mind that I was not consciously aware of.

I know that these feelings and images did not come from my therapist’s suggestion because he didn’t say anything concerning it. I was in an alpha-theta state (as you would expect with EMDR therapy). What I “saw in my mind’s eye” was definitely coming from within me It was experienced intensely and it was hard for me to put words on the visual images flashing through my mind. —The blood, the fear, the guilt, the sense of death that I thought was my fault, the inability to find any comfort or make sense of my world— I was only two years old in an overwhelming world. It was intense and baffling to me. I only knew the facts I had been told by my parents about the incident. . .

Facts meet Subconscious Memories

Prior to this experience in therapy all I could consciously remember from when I was two was sitting on a patch-work quilt in the sunlight and feeling comforted as I was hugged by its warmth. Our living room had many windows because our apartment complex was a converted army hospital. It was student housing. My father was going to Stanford University working on a Master’s Degree. I frequently heard the story about my mother almost dying and losing twins while we were in Stanford.

As the actual history came together with my psyche’s experience in therapy, mysteries began to fall into place. The story I was told was that one evening my mother said that she was in a lot of pain. She was pregnant and having children was her greatest desire in life. My father gave her a special prayer and she believed that God would make everything alright. She didn’t go to the hospital until the next morning when she could hardly breathe. I was quickly dropped off at a neighbor’s place with fears that my mother might die.

I had seen death as we had a neighbor who killed the ground hogs in the yard with his javelin. Seeing the small playful animals become still with glazed-over eyes was haunting to the young me.

My mother had a tubal pregnancy and had lost a lot of blood. After emergency surgery she was told that she was still pregnant because there was another embryo developing in her uterus.

Splitting in Two

With my Dad in school and my older brother usually playing at a neighbor’s house, I was often home alone with Mom. She said that I needed to be a good little girl and help her have this miracle baby. She was on complete bedrest in a hospital bed in that sunny living room of our apartment.

Mostly I played on a multi-fabric quilt on the floor near a large dark desk. I was to be “mom’s legs” by getting things she needed when asked. I also remember being told that mom started to get blisters all over her skin. At first the doctor thought it may have been a reaction to her blood transfusions, but changed his mind when my brother and I got chickenpox. So it must have been weeks that this situation carried on.

One day mom miscarried the baby she so hoped would live. I saw the blood and experienced her intense fear and grief at the baby’s death. Had I not taken good enough care of her, I thought, is my mother going to die? My dad came home and took her to the doctor. For weeks thereafter my mother expressed her anger at God while my father’s loud urgent “train voice” tried to rebut her lack of faith. I suspect that no one gave me much notice.

As an adult I asked my dad how I responded to these things in Stanford when I was two. He replied, “You were too young to have feelings” (an old-fashioned idea). Throughout my life my dad’s loud voice always scared me. As an adult he once told me that I seemed like a “fragile child.” He never had to discipline me except for “the sleeping medicine” (spanking) when I was little and wouldn’t go to bed. After age three, he only had to raise his voice and I would quickly comply.

I have always had a significant fear of trains that I didn’t understand. In a discussion with my brother as an adult, I learned that there was a train that ran near our apartment in Stanford. It scared my brother so much that he hid under his bed whenever it passed by.

In addition, my brother told me that in Stanford, Dad frequently spanked me for not going to bed when asked, and I frequently cried myself to sleep. My brother said that he learned quickly to pretend he was asleep to avoid such punishment.

The combination of the trauma and punishment during these events in Stanford, and having no attachment support as a two-year old, was sufficiently traumatizing for me to split psychologically and to create an alter ego that I later called “Anna”. More on her later……