So, in therapy today...
(I had thought that I only created alters due to abuses. I didn't realize that the extended severe pain of my congenital deformity and subsequent correction had caused me to create people as well.)
I was doing energy work on myself, twas the other day. It involved nothing more than wrapping my hands around my ankle and just holding them there. After about ten minutes, a brief flashback filled my visual field. I was very small, around or under 2 years of age. My father was holding me by first under my arms and then by both hands. My mother was sprawled on a blanket in the grass a few feet in front of me.
I looked down at my left foot and it had disappeared into the grass. The place where my leg appeared to end, my ankle, felt as if there was a sharp, large knife sticking straight into it. I was overwhelmed with pain. I cried.
To no avail. My mother smiled encouragingly. My father continued to try and make me walk. I continued to vehemently oppose this painful process. I had no choice. The pain was too much. I blacked out or, as we in the Dissociative Community call it, I switched.
Recounting this memory in therapy visually, I found myself talking about how I was born without the means to walk. My feet and legs were considerably crooked. My first two years, at least, were filled with doctor visits, hard steel feet/ leg braces, an exercise regiment and, yeah, incredible pain that burned from my hips to the tips of my feet. As I start talking, I switch into a much younger personality.
It is like I take a step backward into myself. The conversation from here on out fades in and out of my consciousness. I do know that tears prolifically started streaming from my eyes.
This young person, alter, of 2 years of age, talks about the leg and feet pain. 2 says that there were 5 alters sitting in a semicircle on the bed. They would rapidly switch between them. The appearance of our legs would disappear from foot to hip in one alter as the pain and "legs" appeared and was felt on the alter directly to her right, like a circuit. As soon as that alter with the "legs" couldn't bear the pain anymore, her legs disappeared and were passed to the next alter on her right. This all happened very quickly with each alter having possession of the "legs" for seconds or less. By rapidly switching alter "bodies" the pain was kept "manageable" and somewhat at bay. It was like a game of Hot Potato except with the lower half of our body.
2 also talked about how her incessant crying in pain was a source of anger and frustration for the parents. She sometimes was slapped across the face. Sigh. Sometimes she welcomed the slap because it temporarily mitigated the leg pain. She/ they (the five alters 2 years old) would also resort to head banging for the same somewhat sedative and distracting effect. There is no concept of time as to how long the pain would last. It was just something that we were desperately trying to "run" and escape from.
We hated our legs, our feet for the tremendous amount of pain they caused. We tried to distance ourselves, make the legs disappear, cut off mentally, anything to try and stop the big bad hurt.
When other adults touched us, whoever had the legs at that moment was stuck with the pain, with feeling them and being in the body. God, it was so cruel...being alive, being trapped in these vices.
2 compared the pain to being run over with a steam roller. For some reason, probably due to congenital physical anatomy dysfunction, our left ankle always had that very sharp knife pain as opposed to the steam roller pain.
It's truly fascinating that this memory was housed in our left ankle. The event, the alters, the people, the pain, all of it was encased in an...hmmm, emotional cyst maybe? within the area of our left ankle.
Sigh.
I switched back near the end of therapy. My face totally soaking wet with someone else's old tears.
As I walked to my car and to my home, I noticed a heavy limp in my left leg. It hurt. Typical, as when memories buried are retrieved that the remnants, the components of that ruptured emotional cyst are physically felt. This is what we call "body memories". It hurt for awhile. I'm glad it wasn't too long (not sure if it will continue to hurt off and on as the memory pain is discharged) because standard over-the-counter painkillers don't touch that type of pain. At times I really wish that I could press a button and get myself a big, ol pain pill because shit like that, well, if it hurt so bad it made us split and switch, was bad enough the first time. Feeling it Again....damn.
Yeah, I think therapy went really well.
It's funny because going in to the office today, the only thing I was aware of was the brief flashback. I had no idea about the 5 2's or anything that was talked about. That seems to be our MO, a brief FB, go to therapy and watch it explode out.
Yeah, the life of Multiple Me
