My Personal Story - Barltik2065

Hello everyone,

Today, we have the honour to hear about the personal story of the Dissociative Disorder Writing Team member @Barltik2065. Please leave your thoughts on the story and appreciation for Barltik in the comments.

Trigger warning: Barltik's story includes questions about identity, dissociation, mobbing, illness and death, and mental and sexual abuse. Please only read the story if you feel well enough.

My Personal Story - Barltik2065

Who Am I?

Identity, what is an Identity? From time to time I struggle with who am “I”.

I as in singularity, when we are many? There are so many dimensions, layers, and complexities as to ME. I am a Step-Parent to two. I am a Step GrandParent of three. I am a Spouse. I am a Lover. Disciplinary, comforter, and so on.

A person who introduces themselves to you, you generally respond with “Hello, I am <insert Name>, I am <Occupation>”. I am a highly learned (multiple degrees) with multiple certifications in multiple areas and disciplines. Is that to be “Who I am”? Absolutely NOT.

I am them all.

But the best me is “A loved Spouse who is a Dog Lover and Owner”

Between my Spouse and my Dog, Lord only knows if I didn’t have them. And a question to self is “Who would I have been if they were not?”

I am also a part of the LGBTQ+ community.

Not alone do I struggle with “Who am I” I also struggled with “That”. Every time I have and will speak with someone, I have to stop and run through a checklist:
Where am I? What is the atmosphere? Who is near me? Who am I speaking to?

And sometimes briefly, “Who am I?” That is speaking.

Based on the responses, it will define my identity and response.

Even today with my employer, I am required to create someone who I am not. I spent years developing a mannerism, idealism, and persona that is “Safe” so that I am able to survive. This Identity is constantly being reinforced, taken off, and then reapplied 5 days a week until I retire. And then again maybe even then a new identity will be needed.

This is also me.

I have not been diagnosed with DID, but I wonder. Do I need to have someone tell me? I don’t think so.

When did this start?

Unsure. Much of my childhood is blurry and fragmented. Maybe by choice? Still a work in progress for I have spent the last two decades in therapy to have learned that there has been some serious trauma and abuse. There are those people who see school as a big playground filled with their friends. Not here, school was anything but fun. I hated every day, person, teacher, the principals and all of my peers. Teachers would tell me that I was not smart enough to <fill blank>. Going through school I had a reputation (a very poor one) that followed me from grade through high school. So I was labelled. Skipped school frequently.

As I am writing this it is almost like it was\is detachment. Then there is a memory of an identity of someone who was a child of a Great King’s Champion whom had a secret love affair with a great sorcerer. They had an offspring. This child was a keen observer with almost perfect retention. The child was hidden and forgotten frequently for it was forbidden by society and the King. But who wouldn’t want a child, a lover, or to have a co-worker, or even a friend that is an offspring of honour and duty. A parent that lived by a code. Who was virtuous, dependable, and respectful. Even though this offspring was weak to the eyes. This person was powerful! Strong in mind and didn’t need anyone. Was self supportive. Keen to its environment. Understanding of the ways of the world. This was me.

Through the years, I wrapped myself like a cocoon or shroud in this virtuous identity. A shield and armor to protect the innocent, abandoned, sometimes forgotten child. Life experiences continued to pass by while I watched from afar.

In the timeline, we are in my adulthood. I completed some college, went back to college again, dropped out, searching for “Who am I?” Moved around the US a little. Looking to see where I can fit in or belong. I thought maybe I had a chance ( 1700+ miles from home) to find I was betrayed by my neice. I had no place to go. They blew up the engine in my car. And the only place to go was back with my parents (again). A month or so passed by, moved in with a “safe” person.

As an adult I really disliked living with my parents. This arrangement was a convenience to me and a relationship with someone “safe”. It wasn’t something I wanted long term but it was “safe” for the here and now. It was one of those relationships where nothing bad would happen because nothing was going to happen at all. It was a relationship that wasn’t going to amount to anything. I hated where I was (physically, socially, mentally, and emotionally). It was a town and area where everyone knows everyone. The people whom abused me, made fun of me, beat on me, were all around me.

Mother diagnosed with COPD and emphysema (death sentence). Guilt. Bouncing between work, tending to my mothers needs like shopping and getting her hair done, etc. Then Dad.

Oh ya almost forgot about that man, whom well… Not much to say. Have little memories of him and what I did wasn't anything worth writing about. Mom had been dealing with his dementia, potentially Alzheimer's. If you dealt with dementia like that, you know it isn’t for the faint hearted. Life was on a merry go round and no one knows when it will stop.

Then at work I met someone. Spoiler alert, this person was not good. But at the time this person was, WOW!! Everything my “safe” relationship wasn’t. It was exciting, fun, adventurous and wild. It was everything I wanted. With this new person I found myself doing things I normally wouldn’t do. It felt like I was living for the first time. After a couple months, moved out of “safe” and into what I had thought was going to be a good future. Mother had been pushing for me to go away “Sprout wings and leave the nest.” Meaning move out of the area. I held the apron strings, a Mama's boy. In hindsight, I think Mom knew she was dying and wanted me to move away.

The BS had started shortly after I moved. We decided to move 300 miles south. Start a new, everything within my home town was chaotic, undesirable, and held nothing positive (minus my mother), or of value. An idea was that maybe I wouldn’t need to be so concerned about identity and false fronts. Maybe I could stop being a lie. A faux.

We moved in with my sibling in the new area. Decided on the whim to go back to school so I could get a higher wage career. Months passed and we got a small apartment at a reasonable price for low waged people that were. Working full-time, going to school full time, and doing an internship. From the time we decided to move south to this point in the story, there had been mental abuse. Lie after lie. Stories would change. Phone calls from companies where we left. People whom I had associated with from the north would call me telling me things. I had learned that there were postings by this liar looking for <fill blank>.

It has been about a year and half since we left the north. Close to two years into a relationship that is filled with lies from every direction. In our apartment I had come across evidence of adult oriented activity(ies). I was working in a horrible environment filled with sexism, phobia, racism, etc. My time in the apartment was spent sleeping. Even today, I can feel the rage inside and the strong emotions it brings. Ok back into the story, school (college) was the only thing\place where I could escape and be safe. I excelled in this discipline, the teachers respected me. Few people could keep up or challenge my skills. I had felt like I had control of SOMETHING in my life.

Then the shoe fell. School finished like normal but I didn’t have my internship that day. So I came home to find the Sheriff on my front door step of the apartment. I have now been served papers of an eviction. Today was Friday and I had until Wednesday (in hindsight, that was illegal. You have like 30 or 60 days to move out). So here I am AGAIN! This person had NOT been paying the rent. Where has the money gone? I trusted this person to pay the rent and I have been paying my half each month. So WTF! Contacted my sibling (the one we lived with when moving down) and was given three days to find a place. Wait what? Three days, so I had until Thursday to find a place to live. I was grateful enough for the three days, but nothing you can do in three days. I won't even get a paycheck within that time frame.

And I had a thought that maybe it would be better here. I was wrong.

The now EX wants to know what “we” are going to do. WE? There is no WE! The abuse continues, the EX took my home away, family again failed to help, trust is questionable, dependency is not existing. People are not understanding what or who and so on. Then the church we had been going to, they put the EX up for two weeks in a Prime location hotel. The freaking church my siblings family is the treasurer of paid for the hotel. HELLO!! So the people whom are blood cast me off like trash. The person who caused EVERYTHING is going to be put up by YOU! And YOU are going to abandon me AGAIN. I was now homeless and alone, again. Secretly I wanted to go see the EX.

Pause in the story line. So my identity of who I was had been destroyed. Trust had been destroyed.

Since moving to this area. I had met some people (very few). I didn’t have much of a social life with all that had been going on. A particular person I had kept in contact through email and chats (100% plutonic) had offered me their sofa. This friend was alone since their Significant Other was away working for months on end. At least I will be dry and warm and not on the streets like I thought I would be. While the EX sleeps in a hotel in a prime location for free! And secretly I still want to go.

I think it had been a week or more since occupying this sofa. Structure has entered life again (more than had been for a little while). Deep breath. In the past I had come across a chat room. That room I had used for the bases of my paper for school. Within the room I had met several people. Now here I am months and months and months later sitting on the sofa of a friend, I am entering this chat room again. Low and behold was someone I had talked to before. Before it was a plutonic and mildly esoteric conversation. My focus was on the paper and nothing else. After several conversations we decided on a date Spoiler Alert, this person is now my spouse, two decades later.

During that whole time from being evicted to meeting my now spouse, it was a time to reflect upon myself. Now during this time of me living on someone’s sofa, I internally desired (and gave in a few times) to go back to the EX. Kind of like conjugal visits. Additionally, I need to point out that between the meeting of my now spouse to accepting that relationship as a relationship was over a year's time span. Maybe a year and a half. During that time it was purely and solely to meet my needs when it was convenient if not I would have found someone else. Shortly after moving into the sofa is when I first started seeing a therapist.

Why did I want to see a Therapist?

The major clue was my constant desire to go back to my EX. The feeling of a need to be with my EX. It is illogical. The person who destroyed everything, financial, credit, self worth, trust, stole things, I think also sold some of my stuff. But why?

Therapist referred to the EX as a S. Predator.

This is also coupled with anxiety and anger.

Which then made me ask for the first time “Who am I”.

With all the trauma going on and all the lies, cheating, my identity was being attacked.

I didn’t understand how to deal with all the emotion and anger and abandonment. So put up a concrete reinforced steel casted, forged barrier protection. I even think I bought a piece of that childhood child of the knight and sorcerer identity as a form of protecting me.

One could ask “is there a connection between my childhood and the relationship with my EX?” Internally would say, absolutely. But I don’t know. It is definitely a good question that needs pandering. It is perceived as a yes, there is a relation. As a very young teenager, I became a victim (per Therapist) of another S. Predator. The Chicken Man and the Ex were both S. Predators. Which I had forgotten until now about the Chicken Man. How strange. I am now wondering what this means. Why would I be interested in seeking an abuser out. This is illogical.

Therapy today has been not on having coping mechanisms but on having a “Healthy” coping mechanism with people and anxiety. Through my relationship with my Spouse, trust issues have resided to a healthy level. But the anxiety and being super annoyed (which brings anger) with people, is in need of more work. And dealing with the potential loss of my spouse. Mortality. You would think after all these people (family, friends, loved ones) who have passed. I would be equipped. After the recent incident with my spouse, I learned I am not equipped. I also perceived I am scared. Not sure of the core of the fear.

Why did I share all this? Maybe it will bring something to someone. It has also brought clarity to me. For much of who I am has been lost for one reason or another. Sometimes it is a curse to have retention.