Fragmented

Most days I never get to see just how fragmented my mind is. Some days though, I happen to land in the right spot in order to get a 360 degree view of the devastation within my brain. In those moments I get a rare look at the "my three selves" which inhabit my head. Today was one such a day.

In some minor ways I suppose you could compare it to having multiple personalities, but for the most part, it doesn't even come close to anything quite that severe. There is actually a fourth self in there, but that is the scared, frightened little girl hiding in the corner and since she has no voice, she's mostly irrelevant when it comes to the day to day struggles.

As I sat in my therapist's office, I was acutely aware that each self was vying for attention. All of them struggling against the others to gain control over my mind in order to be the one to speak. Each longing to be the one to reveal the secrets the other two hold. I tried to remain quiet out of fear that I never knew who would be in control at what moment and what information would be divulged.

I could hear them in there, responding as she spoke to me. The evil, suicidal, raging lunatic self turning everything she said into something negative and trying to convince me to walk out, that the woman is telling me she can't help me and I should just kill myself now. The overtly irrationally logical self arguing with her that the information she's presenting doesn't make sense in the irrationally logical terms that only that self understands. Then there is the "me" self, desperately trying to block out the other two, trying to cry out that I understand what she's saying and wanting to beg her not to give up on me, but unable to get the words out because the other voices are louder, more powerful.

Whether she picked up on my three selves or not, I don't know. I know she noticed the logical self arguing with her because she made mention of that. The me self was the one that started to let some tears flow towards the end of our session. The lunatic self was showing signs of disgust and anxiousness to get the hell out of there. I felt the lunatic self smirk at some of the things she said to me, but I don't know if the smirk actually appeared on my face or not.

Most times when I take my seat in her office, I don't know which self will make its appearance. At least 60% of the time, only one shows up, so I don't even remember that there are still two other selves in there. 35% of the time I go in with one self in command, but another one decides to jump in on the conversation. That 5%, when all three are wanting to be in control, I just want to take a power drill to my head to shut them all up.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "me" self managed to copy and paste this post into an email and send it to my therapist immediately after I posted it to my blog, before the other selves could object. They are now berating me, saying I shouldn't have been so weak as to send her something so personal and revealing about myself. That she won't believe this really goes on, but instead think that I'm just making it all up as an excuse to remain, in her words, "willful". They're telling me that I've made a huge mistake that I'm going to regret. The sad part is....I'm already starting to believe them.