FINDING A ROUTE TO “SELF”

ã Jennifer Giandalone, April 19, 2002

 

Persons with multiple personalities find "autonomy" a particular challenge.  Fragmented pieces all want their own identity and purpose.  So they try to stand apart for heralding.  But, without a solid foundation to support them, they must rely on fragments to fill in gaps to keep the flag of identity flying.  The result is shifting of...  

“sand-like substances that sift through fingers.”  “Self” becomes “Shadow.” 

          And everything in between.

I guess the only “true” route to self is the same for everybody.  One foot in front of the other.  Get out of bed each day.

          Oh!  But I am so tired…

          Great things happened yesterday, and I’m exhausted as a result.  It’s hard to describe.  I was sorting through my inordinate amount of laundry and actually REMEMBERING when I’d worn something, why, and knew whether I could put it away or throw it in the laundry basket.  This is a big deal for me!  HUGE! 

          I felt a melding of sorts.  Welding?  I don’t feel too strong.  Just tired.  But more solid.  Something’s up. 

          I remembered more about Lloyd and how he’d really beat me up when it came to housecleaning.  He’d come home from school and scream and yell and push my face onto the coffee table because it wasn’t polished.  He was going to Boston University at the time and got home around 5.  My mother never got home much before 7:30 or 8:00.  He belittled everything I did or tried to do or dreamt of doing.  It seemed, at times, as if his only purpose was to squash my being.  My essence. 

          He almost succeeded.

          The really SCARY thing about it is, I don’t think he was aware of what he was doing.  I don’t think he set out to injure me, I think he was on auto-pilot.  Somewhere he’d learned this was the way to treat a person.  At least that’s my hope, because it’s been awfully hard for me to come to terms with the idea that any of the things that were done to me were done deliberately with forethought and planning.  Who would do that?  Monsters.  And monsters live under little kids’ beds and they get dispatched by caring parents.

          Nothing I know anything about.

          I’m trying really hard not to get bogged down with feelings of self-pity.  That’s not what I’m doing.  But I am sitting with the reality of what happened, and trying to…

          Sift through the grains of sand-like substance, so “self” will not remain a shadow.


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