Talked to my self yesterday * * * TRIGGER * * *

Sat across from a young man yesterday and had the interesting experience of hearing my own story spoken by another.

A new version of a life that was a current echo of my long ago lived one.

It was like talking to a younger version of me. The loneliness around him tangible.

A life not tempered by time and space. A soul raw with fresh wounds on it.

I want to write about living in that time.

But in order to do that I have to introduce you to some ones.

(Yes that is correct some ones, not someone.)

This was the last picture of them I drew in therapy.

That is a small collection of  The Children of Starr. Or as they are more commonly known: TCOS. They are ...for lack of a better term to get the point across...my alters.

When I tell you I have the ability to dissociate. I'm not kidding. I was diagnosed with a Dissociative identity disorder in my 20's. I am not a true "multiple"....as in I do not meet the criteria for multiple personality disorder...(though dang close). It's more like my psyche fragmented out into parts that I used to hide in. None strong enough to stand alone and take over the whole.

Except this one.

I was 7 or 8 when he first surfaced in my mind. Without him I would have died. He is the reason I survived my childhood. My mind instinctively reach out and found a way to deal with the world I was in. I simply slipped out me and into him. No one would be looking for a blond boy. Boys were stronger, boys were able to take care of themselves.

His name has been shorted down over the years, and he is simple known as Ste now.

While I draw him beside me, he is inside of me, he is a part of me.

We look happy don't we?

It was not always so in the early years. These pictures are on the tail end of therapy. After much healing and growth.

Sadly the earlier years looked more like this....

I worked very hard to rescue that part of me.

It was a long journey. More complex then you could imaging. That is Alex with the knife above, he is yet another layer of fragment's with in Ste.

Before I could heal me, I had to heal Ste.

But he didn't want to heal.

...and we battled for a long time before there was peace.

The goal of therapy was never "integration". I was happy living as a fragmented person. Me and Richard accidently triggered spontaneous integration and once that door was opened the smaller parts fused to others and then as time went on those no longer needed fused to the core too. There are only a handful that I still feel rolling around with in me. Remnants of a ancient life that seems very distant now. Levels of my consciousness that enrich me as a whole. Dissociation/fracturing out a skill I can still call upon even today.

But if needed its a rich parachute that deploys and helps me cope and stay alive.

I don't make a habit of announcing that I have wanna-be-D.I.D. People have known me for years and met various parts of me and never known.  I hear occasionally "P is off to night." or "P must be tired she seems like someone else tonight." heh, more so then they might have guessed.

There is one childhood friend who never met me. She only knows Ste.

I needed to introduce you, because the next posted blog is one Ste wrote years ago. There is a reader among us who needs to hear it.