When I was four, PTSD flashbacks, present trauma, lack of attachment support, and a young mind’s negative self-perception caused another psychic split. So as I turned 4 years-old, I became 3 personalities. Once a child has split, they are more likely to split again since this was a psychological defense for trauma that worked before. Trauma in adulthood does not produce personality splits unless there were previous childhood traumas and splitting.
Continuing with my story: After the original trauma when I was two, I suspect that there was a time when I gained a sense of security with Mom. I remember that when she held me or let me fall asleep in her lap, I felt calm, accepted, and safe. As an adult looking back on my childhood, however, it was apparent that hugs were on her terms, not mine.
Personal Care?
There were times when she was stoically insensitive, which was really confusing to me. In my preschool years, I remember that personal cares like washing or combing my hair were not fun. When I told her that I hurt or had soap in my eyes, it was like she didn’t hear me. When I was sick and the doctor said that she had to check a rectal temperature, she resisted my protest to something uncomfortable. She said that she was just doing what the doctor said and my resistance was being naughty. I began to sense that having my own feelings and my own body was not something that I deserved.
Once I was very sick with strep throat and a high fever. My parents took me to the doctor and when he came in with a big glass syringe of penicillin, I was determined to fight the pending pain and personal violation. Although sick and small, I put up a pretty good fight. It took my parents and the nurse to hold me down. Pushing that thick serum into a tense muscle really ached. I felt hurt, helpless, and violated.
Wiping Out My Identity?
I loved getting into my mothers carbon paper (used to make multiple copies on a typewriter). The carbon on one side allowed you to lay it on a piece of paper and may magic pictures with your finger. My mom got upset at me for doing this.
One morning she told me about a dream that she had had the night before. She said that she dreamed that she took a piece of carbon paper and rubbed it all over my face. I was too young to discern reality from fantasy. I felt sick inside that she would “wipe out” my identitiy if I didn’t obey her. This haunting image kept coming to my mind. Was I just supposed to just be some kind of extention of my mother’s desires. I began to feel confused and fragile.
Is Mommy Going to Die this Time?
In the midst of this already anxious/disorganized attachment, my mother became pregnant with her last child. In the 50’s for a woman to have more than three or four Caesarian Operations was medically dangerous. My mother was told that the her surgery for the ectopic pregnancy limited her to having only one more child. I was four years old when my mother became pregnant.
For weeks prior to my mothers last Ceaserean operation, we had to stay during the day at someone house because they were afraid that her uterus might rupture. My mother would repeat the story to others and I over heard this. Was Mommy going to die this time? Scary images from the last traumatic split flashed in my mind. When Mom went to the hospital, I stayed with the neighbor across the street. Finally I learned that Mom had her baby, a little girl, and they were both doing OK. I was so relieved and excited for them to come home.
Where Do I Fit In, Or Do I?
The day that they were to come home arrived. I helped the neighbors clean up the house and anxiously waited. At last I saw our car drive up and my mother stepped out wearing her black-and -white flowered dress. She held a yellow blanket in her arms. The blanket contained something wonderful–a living baby, my little sister.
All attention of course was on the new baby. I stood up on my tippy toes to look over the white bassinet with a basket weave. I could almost see her little face. It was a real person!
After the neighbors left, I so badly needed a hug from my mom. This had all be hard for me too. I so needed a hug from mom and to feel safe again for a while. But the hug never came. Perhaps she didn’t see me. I tried to crawl up onto the bed to get into her arms, but my dad plucked me away. “Mom has had surgery and that hurts her,” he said. But, I was hurting too!
Years later I found an old letter. Mom writes that “Cherie was always bouncing on the bed and wanted to stay in bed with me. I just couldn’t stand it.
From my point of view I needed a hug and to feel safe again in mom’s arms for a while. Where was my hug? Was I not important to her anymore? Didn’t I deserve Mom’s love and safety? I didn’t want to hurt mommy, I just needed so badly to lay in her arms for a while and fall asleep safely.
Banished
Soon I found myself banished to the neighbors house during they day and Dad kept me away from mom at night. At the neighbors home I sat very still on thee green leather couch and pretended to watch cartoons all day long. I felt guilty, outcast, and frozen. Why was I so bad that I had to be exiled? My heart ached so badly I thought it would break–in fact it did.
I was old enough to remember how I felt this time. My mind kept saying, Don’t Mommy and Daddy see me anymore? Do I still exist? Do I deserve to exist? Do they still want me? Why am I so bad because I need a hug? Don’t they know that their little four-year-old is dying? The PTSD flashbacks, present trauma, terror, guilt, and confusion initiated another personality split. I was not watching cartoons at all.
Taken singularly, the events described may not have created such a confusing, frightening, and impossible perceptions of the world. However, the lack of empathy and support from an attachment figure coupled with past and present traumas had a cumulative effect.
Dianna, the New Personality
My first alter ego, Anna, and I had to create a self that would please Mom and Dad at all times. In therapy we called this new part Diana. Dianna wanted to be the princess that would one day find true love, just like Cinderella. But now, Dianna had to be a “plastic” self that just pleased and feared all parental figures. Her job was to be conforming and performing even when the body was terrified or depressed.
As time went on, each personality developed a role and purpose. Dianna’s role is described above, Anna was the protector and “mind” of the system. She could function intellectually while being totally dissociated from her feelings. She learned that getting lost in any kind of need or feeling was dangerous. The core personality was now more cautious about when to be present. She did not exist at church or at home. She mostly existed at school or when playing with friends in the neighborhood. If she felt accepted by others, she could be herself. She loved to learn and was driven to make sense of things, but Anna had to take over when confusion or fear set in.
In spite of a pretty functional arrangement, during the next few years I recall having feelings that I would now classify as clinical depression.