In this blog I will describe my second DID split. I was four-year-old and my mind was overwhelmmed, confused, and terrified. My therapist said that this was emotional abuse and can create a situation where the nervous system must either split or die.
As I continued to make sense of my life, I never felt that my traumas were worthy of DID. My experiences were not as outward and graphic as what I have read from others with DID. However, they must have been inwardly sufficient for my young mind to have to split again in order to cope. My first blog on ths websiter describes the two-year-old trauma that created my first alter ego, Anna. It gives information that will explain why my sister’s birth when I was four triggered unresolved trauma from the past and was added upon. At four I suffered the lack of attention, support, experienced another significant attachment abruption, and abandonment.
Before telling my four-year-old story, I would like to relate three-year-old experience that found its way into my trauma brain. I have a vivid memory of this experience. My parents and I were traveling from California to Utah after the death of my mother’s father. We were camping for the night at Lake Tahoe. The setting sun fell upon the canvas of our brownish yellow-orange tent. Dark shadows began to transform trees and logs into ominous shapes. My parents were outside the tent talkibg, and told me that I had to go bed in the tent. When I protested, they laughed and said, “Do you need your sleeping medicine?” I just said I was scared and wanted Mom to come with me. I was spanked for being disobedient and put into my sleeping bag. As I cried myself to sleep alone. I remember feeling so defeated as a person, so trapped in my fear with no solution, no compassion.
For my whole life there was a color that made me feel nauseous-sick, and I could never figure out why. Then more recently I was looking at an old picture of a family campout with our tent in the background. The tent was an exact match to this color! I didn’t split at this time, but it figured into my subconscious trauma connections.
About a year later my mom became pregnant with my sister. Because of previous C-sections, there was a fear of uterine rupture. My mom and I had to stay with a friend so that she could be taken to medical care quickly if needed. That scared me. Was mom in danger of dying like the last time she was pregnant?
After I heard that Mom was OK, my sister was born, and they were coming home from the hospital, I was relieved. I went with the neighbors to make sure that the house was ready for their return. Our car came up the driveway and my mother stepped out. She wore her black and white flowered dress and held a little bundle wrapped in a yellow blanket in her arms. My little sister was placed in the bassinett and I found a spot at the foot, got up on my tippy toes, and gazed at the little face. Everyone was so excited, I don’t think I was even noticed.
When they all left, I so wanted a hug from Mom that I tried to get into bed with her. I was quickly made to leave, being told that I was hurting mom by trying to get into bed with her after her “major surgery.” I didn’t undertand all that. I just wanted a hug and to know that I still existed as an important part of my family and Mom still loved me. Instead I was sent away to stay at the neighbor’s house during the day for two weeks.
I sat quietly on their green leather couch in the living room, blankly staring at cartoon characters on the black and white TV, hour after hour. Their maid even laughed at me for being so quiet, or maybe was trying to cheer me up, but I didn’t respond. I was too frozen to do anything but try to figure out why I had been exiled. I felt guilty and abandoned, and I didn’t know what for. Had I hurt mom and didn’t deserve her love anymore? I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I was so sad, scared, and alone. I can recall very strange mental images and imaginations. Terrifying scenes of blood and death and guilt. Alone and guilty, I didn’t know what would happen to me next or how long I would be outcast. Even alter ego,Anna, couldn’t figure out what was going on or how to handle it. Nothing made sense.
In therapy I went back through the tunnel of time and discovered that there was another voice that developed in my head during my frozen days. It was Dianna and she said that she would make sure that Mom and Dad never got mad at me again. She would do everything they said to keep them happy so that I didn’t have to feel so scared. She would take on the oppressive guilt and look happy anyway. Her whole focus was to please parental figures, have no needs or desires, and be able to dissociated from me completely when performance was required.
After about a week I felt enough energy to go into the neighbor’s back yard and sit on the patio in a sun spot. I felt better. After a couple of weeks I was back home all the time. However, mom was very busy with the new baby and I spent a lot of time playing alone in my room. I loved the south exposure of my windows and the sun spots in my room. They hugged me. At night, I was afraid to go to sleep alone. My brother had his own room now. Soon I was locked out of my parents’ room and had to figure our how to get through those scary, scary nights under threat of “sleeping medicine” (spankings) if I complained or cried too loud. Strange times/scary times, but I survived. Dianna, as the presenting self, while I hid, helped alot at home during the day and at Church being “Miss proper.” However, when I was by myself, I was me with Anna sometimes trying to figure things out and make sure I was safe.