My Story

I was born with KFS in a small town in Canada. My mother brought me to the world prematurely. She had some complications during her pregnancy with me that caused the way that I am. According to records and stories from my family, I spent the first six months of my life in a hospital where they told my parents that I would become a vegetable in laymen's terms. They didn't know what was happening with me. I did not breathe on my own; was hooked in all types of machines because they didn't know if I was going to survive this ordeal. After they figured out that I was to survive they didn't know if I could speak, walk or live a normal life. And during the twelve years of my life they did a variety of experiments on me which was very painful, to say the least. Meanwhile ... life continued at home.

My father had a hard time accepting not only who he was but also his daughter's disability. Stories that I was told by my family say that my father had a lot of mental problems. He couldn't deal with his family or his own life. My father hated me because of my disability ...he didn't know how to handle me. I think my first trauma was when my father tried to spoon feed me when I was toddler, and I was choking. He got so mad at me, that he threw me across the kitchen and hit the wall. He would do that repeatedly until my mom figured out what was going on. After age 5, he committed suicide. My therapist thinks that my first split was when I was born but there is some controversy about how multiple personalities begin. At age two, the twins, Mary and Mirium were born.

I grew up in a single parent family. My mother had an addiction problem. She not only needed alcohol but also felt the need for men in her life. From what I understand, my mother, along with her ten brothers and sisters, were raised in a strict Catholic background. Mom was the youngest and the unwanted child so she had to put up with her parents not wanting to raise her. She was basically raised by eight of her brothers and sisters. From what I can understand, she was also abused physically and mentally by both her parents and her brothers and sisters. I don't know if she was sexually abused.

My mother (and many of her boyfriends) and my brother were the main perpetrators in my life. We have lost count of how many boyfriends mom had but they all shared a same common denominator: there was sexual violence, physical violence and spiritual violence.

I also grew up as an unwanted child. I was left alone most of the time, though my brother was supposed to baby-sit me. It seemed he was never around, but when he was around, there were always physical fights with me, because I was a weakly one. He said that I was a very bad person. Before he left the house, my brother would hit me and hurt me and tell me that I'd better be good or else he would hurt me more. And he would come home shortly before mom came home and beat me up more. More splits occurred. And even more splits occurred when I was a early teenager. At age 12, the family moved to a small city in Canada and more problems occurred.

As you noticed, I have skipped a lot of memories that I have. It is mostly because the memories come through writing, through pictures that my littles draw and through flashbacks and nightmares and body memories. I am having a hard time accepting a lot of my memories. Those of you who never been abused may not understand how hard it is to believe I have been so badly abused. Is it hard to believe that I was buried alive in the ground for awhile? Is it hard to believe that one of mom's boyfriends did some cutting on my body to make it bleed? Is it hard to believe that my brother and his friends decided to hurt me by putting all types of tools inside of me and bring on severe pain? Is it hard to believe that I was tied up on the bed and be burned, and belted severely for long periods of time? Is it hard to believe that I had to eat vomit by licking up the vomit on a dirty floor? Is it hard to believe that another one of mom's boyfriends stripped naked in front of me waving his gun to make me have sex with the dog, and then shot the dog and the cat and the kittens in front of me? As my memory unfolds the truth as to what happened to me when I was young, I am having to deal with it as best as I can. I am still healing from the traumas and the hurts in my life.

I am very fortunate to have a few supportive people in my life. Another source of support is my church - The Salvation Army. When I was growing up, going to Sunday School and church was my freedom and that is how I managed to to have faith in God. Though, my concept of God is confused greatly, I know that God is there for me and He is the one who held me together through all the traumas and abuse in my life.

Someone recently mentioned to me that having a dissociative disorder is a protective function that God has given special people to cope with extreme and continual pain, both physical and mental. I believe that because when I was growing up I had others to deal with the pain and/or suffering that was happening. When I left home almost fifteen years ago, I went through a series of hospitalizations. I also had a bandaid solution of psychotherapies with a diagnosis of clinical depression and bipolar disorder. I also had no memories from birth to age 15, shortly after Social Services took my brother out of the family and put him in foster care. It wasn't until two years ago, when I found out that I had dissociative disorder, that everything made sense. I was blacking out and waking up in unsafe places, missing money, overusing credit cards, smashing dishes, and injuring people that I loved and cared about. When I received the diagnosis, I had troubles accepting it and the first thing I did was research the topic. There was no information in my local library except through several medical/psychiatric dictionaries. But I needed more information. I ended searching through the internet and I found supports, reading materials and emailing lists. Since I had no real life therapist at that time who can help me, I relied on IRC and emailing for help and support. This has helped me tremendously and, for that, I am grateful.

I didn't leave home until I was of legal age. I was still in high school and I had to get out of the situation at home. The doctor at the time sort of figured out what was going on, and I couldn't leave the hospital until I found a place to live on my own. I had two years of high school left and I wanted to graduate from high school. I wanted to prove to my mom and to my brother that I could do it. Basically, I was trying to prove to the whole world that I could succeed even with my disability. I did graduate from high school, but I was having major breakdowns. Medications for depression and bipolar weren't helping me at all. The medications locked all the noises inside of me and I couldn't hear anything. They were my friends and they were gone.

When I started working at the famous McDonald's, I thought that this would be the turning point in my life but I was missing the voices in my head and I couldn't cope with it. I worked in McDonald's for four years but the last two years, I was constantly sick on a monthly basis. I then turned to illegal drugs to help me cope with work because there was nothing inside of me to hold onto. As the addiction got worse, I almost succeeded in suicide but I woke up from a coma a week later.

Still, problems arose. I went to college a year later and I took part-time courses to eventually get my diploma. My first semester was great .. I managed to get straight A's without studying. My second semester got worse as my marks went down to B's and C's. Then my blackouts came and it was constant. I was losing time constantly and my marks showed it. I had to fight for my marks and I barely passed. I started seeing a counselor at the college who was a great help for me. During the four years, she struggled with me constantly with my academics and with the medical profession because she knew what was going on and yet she couldn't say anything to me. My littles kept popping out and did things that I was embarrassed to see. My littles were doing my homework, my quizzes and my tests. How I managed to pass the courses is beyond me. During that four years, I ended up changing doctors and this particular doctor believed me when I told him what was going on. First he did a variety of tests to rule out medical stuff that is related to blackouts and then he spent two hours a week with me talking for about six months or so. He did look at my records but found inconsistencies in recordkeeping while I was a patient in a Psych Ward. He finally told me the news ..first it was Psychogenic Fugue and then several months later, it was Dissociative Identity Disorder. It was finally confirmed by a psychiatrist who specializes in DID in my province during that year. Once DID was diagnosed, there were hard times ahead of me.

Now, the year is 2001, and its been three years since I have updated my story. A lot has happened and I am about to tell you a bit more of my story as I continue to share this information to you.

My story doesn't end here, it is a beginning - a struggle, a journey and a hard road to walk on - but it is a road to recovery.