Sin by Silence

I found a fascinating website today about abused women convicted for killing their husbands.  Introduces challenging questions and a look into the justice system.
http://www.sinbysilence.com/getinvolved

Supernova 3 "Born Bad"

     In the process of discovering I am a survivor of incest, severe abuse, and that I have multiple personalities, I looked around at any other people in similar situations and thought "I must be a poor choice for someone to live this life".  Other people seemed so calm and decided in the choices they made.  I was surprised to hear of abuse and incest survivors deciding to stay with people who were obviously still hurting them.  I was equally surprised to hear of people who seemed to have no conflicting emotions about the people who were hurting them, the ones who simply walked away.  In the face of all that had been done to me I could not help but feel seething hate, which I feel no compulsion to hide or condemn, certainly not to smother in an attempt to make what I lived through any less horrific than what it was.  To me hatred is pain that has yet to heal, and in this case the pain went so deep I could not imagine it ever healing.  I wanted that hate, or possibly indifference, so I could walk away and move on too.  But I couldn't move on, because at the same time I loved.  I loved too much.  It seemed an impediment, to love too much and see too much, so I could never drop it and move on.
     I have alters that have been trained to withstand torture and trained to give it, experts in breaking a persons' will and molding them for a specific purpose, alters who turn off or are separated from all feeling, and are ruthlessly hard.  While I have never killed anyone I have the suspicion that these alters have been physically, emotionally, and mentally prepared to do so.  Conversely I have alters who are so gentle and fragile they could cry after witnessing a fly being smashed against a wall.
     The process of healing and being able to see at the same time these radically different personalities, which are all part of me,  demonstrates the complexity of the human psyche, the human heart.  People can be many things at once but I know with every fiber of my being that pain, which can turn into hate, or be mistaken for 'evil' is never the end of the story for anyone.  Or the start.  I trust that instinct because I have learned to trust myself, but for others who may not I think science and psychology are starting to back up my theory.  That is, for those who care to honestly and objectively pay attention. 
     I was once shown a drop of my blood under a microscope by someone who studies blood for a living who described the white blood cells as the protector cells.  They patrol the bloodstream destroying, or "eating" any substance that may be harmful to the red blood cells.  When a white blood cell comes across a substance too dangerous even for it, it sacrifices itself by eating the substance anyway, letting itself be killed along with the foreign matter.  When this happens, other white blood cells come along and surround the dying white blood cell, touching it on all sides and staying with it as it dies  Compassion is inherent down to our very cells.
     On every level humans are astounding.  Not only under a microscope but to the naked eye in everyday observation -because of the intricate functioning of matter and spirit but more so because of how incredibly poignant and loving every vulnerable human is.  To think of someone as an evil monster associated with great crimes makes one question where they fit into humanity, unless we decide to make it a simple matter by rejecting the idea that they are really human or the belief that love is inherent to all humans.  But I do not think it is a simple matter. 
     Concerning child molesters, nearly all those interviewed who have molested children admitted to also being molested themselves as children.  Every aspect of the crimes they carried out were reflective of the crimes that had been done to them.  Science has shown that sexual assault in childhood wires the brain to connect sexuality with violence.  Science has also shown that exposure to violence in early childhood maps that exact form of violence as a subconscious reflex, unless the issue is consciously addressed whether by talking about it with a helping adult during childhood or during therapy as an adult.  Therapy is one proven way to change the 'mapping' of the brain, but few people choose to face childhood sexual abuse and attend therapy unless they are forced through circumstance, this includes victims of childhood sexual abuse that have grown into adult perpetrators.
     By themselves these are a statistics, facts, and figures but what do they show?  Certainly that no one was 'born' with a predisposition towards committing violence, or sexual assault.  To ignore the severe injury done to the bodies and minds of children and the correlating similarities to crimes committed by them as adults is a grievous error, even more so to accuse the now-adult of being "born bad", "born evil", or "born angry".  As if accusing an infant of malicious intent would put the responsibility of evil on the infant and not on the grown-up suggesting such things.  Skipping a lifetime of choices, actions, cause and effect - skipping to the conclusion of evil - makes it simple to think that a criminal is not human just like us.  That they had no mother who wiped away their tears, that they had no school crush, that they had no heroes or let-downs or heartbreaks.  That they were never vulnerable, or beautiful - or lovable.
     To be honest and admit that they have and are all those things that we are, makes them not so different from us.  So what is the difference?  They were not born evil, or with a 'bad gene'.  They likely were victims themselves, but many people are victims without becoming perpetrators.  Is it a simple choice?  What is the difference between victims who choose to fight crime and those who choose to repeat it?  Should that even make a difference to their victims?

The Emperor's New Clothes

Coming from an abusive family and trying to set yourself right is akin to being the child in The Emperor's New Clothes.  Everyone can see it, but you may be the only person who points it out.

http://deoxy.org/emperors.htm

Integration: Gaining and Losing

     When I first heard of integration, I was quite against it, as were my alters that I heard from.  How could we possibly fit into 'one' person without losing vital parts of the rest of us?  If Jack* is tall with red hair and hates green beans, but Lucy* is short and round and loves all vegetables, how are they supposed to become one person without one of them losing who they are?  Everyone was so diverse, so different, and so very important all on their own that none of us wanted to lose another or be lost.  My therapist told me that integration is sometimes a natural by product of healing, but was not something we needed to focus on as a goal, much to our relief. 

     Since I was focused on healing, some integration has indeed started happening on its own, and as we had feared, some loss is inevitable.  Whereas different alters can become aware of the existence of others with different pasts memories and beliefs, and respect that, if there is a merge there would be the problem of some of them losing their past, their beliefs, their identity to who they are.  I think some of us put off any possible merging until we could accept that.  Because they are right, they are going to lose that.  We have always tried to honor each others extreme varying views as they come.  With merging, there is less of a dramatic 'switch' now, less headache and extreme loss of memory.  Like first looking into a pair of binoculars when two individual circles of vision start to merge into one.

  One of my alters with the good memories panicked.  They were being lost as that grip on reality merged with one completely opposite.  We wanted to make a collage of her 'good dad' to honor all the good memories she had and let her hang on to that.  We knew she had whole reserves of good memories tucked away.  But when we went to get ideas, all we could remember was 'my dad makes really great chocolate chip cookies'.  The rest was a total blank, we could not remember much of our previous life from her perspective.  So we got out a picture book to find pictures with him and us doing happy things; Disney land, vacations, etc. always smiling for the camera.  They were from her memories all right.  But now we saw them differently.  Now we remembered those events from a different point of view, the shut out parts that she hadn't remembered, the not so good ones.  Every picture brought back new/shut out memories, every picture saw him smirking, hiding his secret.  Now her belief of this separate perfect world is gone.  Her world, her past, her life is gone.  Now 'she' is more connected to 'I' and we can't switch out to her world to take a break from that hard life.  This is our life.  I believe she made that choice to accept this, bravely let go of her perception of the 'perfect world' the 'perfect dad', and instead honor all of us as a human being with the truth.  It is incredibly painful, but it is healing.

Integration and Relationships

http://faithallen.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/life-after-dissociative-identity-disorder-did-integration-effect-on-relationships/

Honestly: a day in the life

     I filled out government forms applying for assistance this week, and again had to push myself to be honest.  To tell the truth about things that I had so carefully hidden my whole life, about what life with DID is like.  It's important for myself to speak out about it because silence has been such a destructive rule my entire life.  Hiding that secret was taking the burden of that on myself, and it was not something I should have ever felt the need to stay silent on, then or now.  My form questions went something like this;

     Describe your day  I know that I wake late, eat and care for myself, spend time on the computer emailing, researching, watching shows.  I know that I spend time each day cooking and usually exercising.  However I can never remember one day all the way through.  At the end of the day I can remember snippets, but I am never sure exactly what I did, so I can't tell you, because I don't really know.

     Do you have any trouble grooming, washing, feeding, bathing, using the bathroom?  I try to be dressed and groomed each day.  Usually other alters come out in the morning so it is often 2-3 hours before I can get around to that.  Showering is considered a waste of time to alters struggling to get some much sought "out" time, so between 38 alters showering usually happens every 2, or often 3 days, and even then reluctantly.  I am sometimes not in control of my body when another alter is "in front" so to speak, and many times cannot feel my body.  At these times it is difficult to have the awareness and control to do things like eat and use the toilet in a timely manner, or put a jacket on when cold, etc.

     How does your illness/condition affect your ability to sleep?  The more tired I am, the harder it is to keep control of my body.  Different alters come out at night and are unaware or don't care how tired the body is.  I often only get any sleep after the body has collapsed from exhaustion.  PTSD makes it difficult to sleep at night.  No matter how tired I am I have been unable to fall asleep before 2a.m. for the last year.  Because some alters have been conditioned not to be around other people, I have trouble feeling safe enough to sleep soundly if there is anyone else home.  I often sleep early in the day when no one is home, it is the only time I can sleep soundly.  One alter keeps me unconscious after I try and wake if there is someone else in the house.  This always lasts 2-3 hours no matter how I fight it.  Switching sometimes causes headaches and sleepiness, making it difficult to feel fully awake throughout the day, regardless of how much or how little sleep I have gotten the night before.

     Does your illness/condition limit your ability to drive?  Because of constant switching with alters that do not know how to drive, including child alters, it is unsafe for me to drive.

     How does your illness/condition affect your ability to work?  I cannot drive to work.  I cannot predict how much I will be capable of at any given day or time.  I cannot reliably remember information or scheduling for work.  I have trouble focusing or understanding verbal instructions.  I cannot prepare and bring food to work to take care of my food allergies with constant switching.  Because of some alters' conditioning, I have severe difficulty being near or interacting with other people.

     List any hobbies or interests you have.  I have 38 alternate personalities of all ages and genders, they all have their own interests and hobbies, ranging from martial arts, yoga, coloring books, guitar, cello, violin, penny whistle, harmonica, drawing, crafts, fashion, painting, boxing, watching shows (all kinds), reading (all kinds), studying french (other various languages), rollerblading, belly dancing, running, herbology, emergency medicine, alternative medicine, playing dress up, lunastix/fire dancing, photography, throwing knives/throwing stars/archery.

     How well or often do you do these interests or hobbies?  Sporadically.  Alters are rarely out frequently enough to spend much time on their hobbies unless it is shared by others, so few are at an advanced level.

     How does your illness/condition affect (speaking, talking, movement, memory)?  When another alter is "in front" I am often unable to speak, talk, move, sometimes see, to varying degrees.  Sometimes I can do these things as monitored by them by what they allow, ex: able to speak but not about a certain subject.  Often when someone else is speaking to me I find myself inert and unable to respond.  DID appears to make me very forgetful, not because I am or any of my alters are, but because they each have their own individual memory, and information is not always shared between alters.

     How well do you handle stress?  Considering that I live with quite a bit of stress in my day to day I suppose I handle it quite well.  I do have PTSD and panic attacks, and things that would seem normal to others, such as going out in public, can be quite frightening to me.  However I  am making good progress and expect to continue to do so.

Supernova 2, Is Anyone Worth Giving Up On?

     I have heard people say that all child molesters should be shot, that they can't change and so should be taken out of the picture.  The general sentiment seems to follow this.  No one knows how to "fix" child molesters and most people acknowledge the severity of the crime with seething hate towards those who commit it.  Maybe because of this so few accept how prevalent this crime is.  I don't think people wishing death on child molesters realize they are talking about a significant percent of the grown human population, or that they are talking about some of the most well respected and prestigious people in their life.  It is hard to find solid statistics on a crime so infrequently reported.  Speaker Angela Shelton calls the hidden prevalence of sexual abuse in America an "epidemic".  According to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, child molestation is one of the most under reported crimes, with 1-10% cases reported.  They also state that "In almost half the child molestation cases, the child was the convicted sex offender's son, daughter, or relative".  In her article "Does Incest Hurt Worse Than Grief?", Cendra Lynn reported that in her work as a clinical psychologist an estimate of 50% of men as child abusers is low.  RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network states in its statistics that 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police, that 15 out of 16 rapists will never spend a day in jail, and that 2/3 of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim.

     We like to think that rapists and child molesters are unfathomable monsters and distance ourselves from them as much as possible.  Few people can accept knowing that someone they love has committed such a crime because we call those people monsters.  And yet an overwhelming percent of our population are child abusers, child molesters, and rapists.  Of these, a significant amount, at least 25%, of perpetrators are trusted family members and friends.  Any sexual harassment, molestation or assault between family members is by definition incest.   1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, 1 in 6 men.  The high rate of victims is no less stunning than the high rate of perpetrators.  Where does this come from?  Is the human race made up primarily of heartless monsters committing unthinkable crimes?  Is the desire to rape and harm innate?  Was well over a fourth of our population "born bad", or "monstrous", or "without a conscience"?