DID Detectives: Tips to Finding Missing Persons

When you are MPD* or BPD* (both disorders are lumped under DID), or DIDNOS, chances are there is ‘someone’ or ‘something’ missing.  You might not know who or what it is.  It might be a memory, or a set of memories regarding a specific type of event.  For instance, it took me a long time to realize I didn’t remember moving.  I have no recall of ever having moved as a child – no memory of packing, boxes, moving trucks and men (the Army always moved us – for the most part.)  Not one time.  And yet I know for a fact we moved well over twenty times during my childhood (1-14).  You would think something would be there.  But . . . nada.  Just one dim memory from right before we left “the Hood” – my mom showing me how to pack glasses.  Then a faint snapshot from what I think was our last move at fourteen – moving into the last house we lived in as a family.

And then there is/are missing emotions – or emotions that don’t belong.  Like when you are happy and sad both at the same time – but you can’t identify the reason for one of the emotions.  Someone or something is feeling that – even if you just want to label it your subconscious – but there’s a reason.  And to be true to yourself you must track it down.

‘We’ are missing a few emotions.  Jealousy is one.  Rage, unfortunately is not.  A hard time not forgiving.  But what else is missing?  How can I know if I don’t feel it?  I assume I have most of my emotions intact, but that one – it’s obviously ‘missing’ or just not there.  Why?  “Who” has it?  Or why/how has it been burnt out of me?

Panic.  There’s another one.  I can have ‘near panic’ – more of an anxiety attack over something stupid (like losing a tool) – but I never ‘lose my mind’ due to fear.  I never throw up my hands and scream.  I ‘think’ my way out of or through disasters.  Panic got burnt out of me as a very young child (I remember that moment fairly well.)  But . . . if I know human beings, that ‘panic’ (or ‘screaming gibbering monkey’) goes somewhere – way deep inside, buried in somewhere.  Or in ‘someone’.  It might be my “Toddler”.  That would explain some of the things I feel about ‘him’ and his ways.  And it might be ‘that moment’ gave birth to “Little Michael”.  More on that later.

Another thing I’ve learned is to ‘watch’ and pay attention to memories.  For instance, as a young child we were not allowed to sleep or go into the parent’s room.  Not even as a very young child.  Very bad things would happen if we did.  I suspect one of my parents stepped on me and I got kicked.  Maybe even beaten and dragged back into my dark bedroom.  I do know they were very insistent about this.  And at about three I have a memory of getting scared and creeping out like children do to go lay down in my parent’s room.  However, by this time I had learned: you don’t go there.  So I creep myself down the hall and lay beside the bedroom door, out of the way so they won’t kick me coming out.

The thing is – in this memory I ‘see’ myself laying next to the door.  I am observing myself.   Why don’t I remember this as happening “to ME”? Instead I see someone else – some ‘other kid’ – laying there – and yet I know that it’s me.  And it struck me: why am ‘I’ seeing ‘me‘ from outside myself?  ‘Who’ else is there?  Who is ‘staring at him’ – and who was laying in the hallway?

This divergence of memories: seeing one’s self from outside – I’m thinking it’s a clue as to ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘when’.  Like: Who, exactly, IS laying on the floor?  WHO, exactly, is ‘watching’ him?  Is it the “Toddler” -and what was he? Was ‘he’ a part of the original  personality – a straight line descendent of the baby?  Or is ‘he’ something else?  A creation?  Something ‘put forth’ by the infant and/or baby’?

And ‘who’ was watching him?  ‘Little Michael’ is the ‘one’ who comes to mind – but was ‘he’ around that early?  If so . . . I find I am surprised.  I didn’t think ‘he’ was ‘around’ at that time.  Perhaps it is just the ‘germ’ of him?  Watching that toddler sleeping on the floor – knowing he’s gonna get in trouble doing it, but doing it anyway – and separating out this ‘being’ to take the punishment when/if he got caught doing it?

I’ve been thinking this aids in identification of who came when.  “Little Michael” was around earlier than I had thought.   “He” apparently was using the “Toddler” as a shield of some kind – or the Toddler was using him.  ‘Using’ him to take the punishment.  And of course there’s some resentment built up between the two . . . Little Mikie (the Toddler) went down that hall; frightened and afraid of something (probably some dream we were having; we had nightmares ALL the time!).  And “Little Michael” (the boy he was becoming) ‘let him’ – and then separated himself from the inevitable punishment ‘he’ saw coming.  In short, one boy stole the body while the other watched -  and the one who watched ‘knew better’ and separated himself (somewhat) from that one on the floor – the one who was going to be ‘punished’ . . . and ‘watched’, curious (no doubt) as to what would happen . . .

It gives me some clues as to my background; where this “DID” thing ‘came from”; when and ‘how’ it appeared – the symptoms that are apparent during my own childhood as best I can identify them . . . hoping that they lead onto something else, something better . . .

It’s hard to put a puzzle together with a few of the pieces gone.  Better yet: having no true idea what the entire picture is.  Tracing one out like an electrical lead; a computer ‘circuit’ or program . . . ‘feeling’ it branch out . . .

It’s hard to do but if I’m gonna be true to ‘me’ and them – I gotta find out.  Reassemble, recapture – hold, care for, and hang onto – the pieces to myself that got lost so long in the past.

*MPD: Multiple Personality Diagnosis/Disorder
*BPD: Borderline Personality Diagnosis/Disorder