School Daze

I've been asked how it is that I was able to get through high school/college and maintain a 4.0 GPA as long as I did with a memory as spotty as mine as well as the dissociative episodes I've had since childhood.  It was not easy, that's what I'm supposed to say.  But, well, actually, it was at first... I believe I've already blogged about how I was such a perfectionist and so I had to be a straight-A student.  I had to win all the awards, get my picture in the paper, have a closet full of trophies and plaques. Everything I did had to be PERFECT.  Well, believe it or not,  from 1st through 12th grade, my memory was extraordinary-photographic even. (But it was only when pertaining to books and school work; I've never remembered  much about my earlier years or ballet classes or soccer practice, etc)  I never studied for a test, I simply read the material in the morning, before that class, and I was able to recall all the information later when taking the test.  I think I became Smart K on the way to school and she stayed in control of my body and mind for the school day.  I'm not kidding.  Some part of me was always whispering answers in my ear and plus I could remember things in a way that suggests a camera taking a snapshot. 

 I could literally see the pages of my textbook in my mind and read what was written on them.  It was simultaneously bizarre and cool. Sometimes, it even seemed I knew the answers before the questions were asked, as though I were psychic or something; I always explained this as my spirit leaving my body and peeking at the answers, then willing me the knowledge. Weird, yes, but I know now that I was dissociating at those moments. But I took advantage of this special ability,  up until the day came when I simply could no longer do it.  Perhaps due to my taking psych meds ages 16-19, I'm not sure. I lost my photographic memory shortly after I'd transferred from business school back to art school.  I don't remember when or how or even why it happened.  (You can't blame it on smoking pot-I never tried that until my mid-20's) I just remember being unable to recall phone numbers and apartment numbers, little things at first, hardly noticeable. Then my grades began to slip-I remember my first "imperfect" grade; I physically wanted to die. I was studying like a maniac, at all hours of the day and night. At some point in time, my memory began to seriously slip, and it rapidly got worse, until I had/have the memory of a senile old lady. As my memory worsened, my dissociation seemed to increase in severity and duration. But remember- at that time, not only was I living "all natural" (meaning without psych meds) but I didn't realize that anything was really wrong with me when it came to these "out of body experiences".  Yes, I'd been to see countless therapists and doctors and taken all sorts of medications for different mental illnesses, so I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea that my losing time and memories and talking to the voices in my head was abnormal.  I just thought I was different.  People always talk about that "little voice inside your head". I thought I was special and had more than one. 

Go back to my first year of college, when the pressure was first building....I had always been a good student and now suddenly I was having to work hard to maintain my grade point average.  I couldn't concentrate anymore, I was unable to focus my attention on my studies.  I became so stressed out that I overdosed on sleeping pills and my friend had to take me to the hospital to get my stomach pumped.  I don't remember that; I think it happened to "someone else" and I just heard about it from my friends.  Another time, that same year (Freshman year) I overdosed on No-Doze.  I told myself I had to stay awake to study, so I swallowed the whole box.  At the ER, the doctor told me I had enough caffeine in me to kill an elephant; I told him he just didn't understand-I had a very important philosophy paper to write.  I never realized until then that you could OD and/or die on caffeine.  After that I was careful about what kinds and how many pills we kept in the house. It was pretty obvious that someone inside me was a threat to my own self.

As my memory continued to slip away, so did my social life.  I was no longer eager to attend all the parties and social functions that we once had enjoyed so much (Note only some of the K's are very sociable).  Memory problems lead to embarrassment (like when you forget your teacher's name in class) and humiliation (like when a guy asked for my phone number and I couldn't remember it).  Classes got harder and harder as the years passed.  I went from being on the President's Honors List and taking extra-load classes in order to graduate early, to dropping courses and taking only a few art classes which I could barely concentrate on.  I was getting further and further behind in my school work.  I was an artist but found it harder and harder to pick up my paintbrush.  Somewhere during this time period, about age 23, I went back on psych meds, and that did wonders for my mood but squelched my creativity.  I could no longer think.  After 6 years, I had changed my major 4 times, switched schools 3 times, and finally just had to give up and drop out. (I was also having some health problems) It was supposed to be a temporary break-a vacation of sorts, to help me get my life back together and relax for awhile and become more stable.  But months turned into years and instead of going back to school, I went back to the psych hospital.  Sigh. 

So much potential, wasted.  I don't think I'll ever get over the guilt I feel for not finishing school.  My parents were so proud of me at one point-I was the first in the immediate family to go to college.  Then I became a subject "we just don't talk about".  My sister, who is 20 years my senior, was never told of my mental illness back then, and so she hated me for squandering my education and opportunities.  She thought I was a selfish, lazy bitch who just wanted to have fun and not take life seriously.  How ironic it is that now, I take life TOO seriously.  Oh yes, and my sister knows now about my mental illness, but she doesn't understand at all.  At least she doesn't hate me anymore, but it'd be nice to be able to talk to her about my problems.  Oh well, I guess that's what my psychiatrist is for.  And who knows?  Maybe one day I WILL go back to school.  I'll have to win the lottery first, since from what I understand, my being deemed mentally disabled means I'm unable to attend school without losing my benefits i.e. my health insurance. So until the day comes when I can afford insurance (or can move to some country with free healthcare) I'll have to remain a college drop-out.  I should've had a master's degree by now.  Damn.  Still, I can dream...Stranger things have happened to me/us!

Groundbreaking Ceremony For Our World

We've been thinking a lot lately (that should come as no surprise-our brain NEVER shuts itself off) and have decided to make a list (yes, the ever-popular list-making, a hallmark of K's OCD) of topics which would be good to write about in this blog.  I'm still learning how to blog, and I've been obsessing for a few hours now over the look and feel of this one.  I'm not satisfied.  I KNOW we can do better, and I'm angry that it's not perfect.  That particular K (or K's-or is it ME?!), the perfectionist, is having a fit about all of this, and is really nagging us to edit the blog or redesign it or just DO SOMETHING that will give it a more polished and professional appearance.  I, on the other hand, just want to write.  I don't care about particulars really, I just wanted to use the blog as an outlet for our usually-overflowing mind.  It was the other K's who got all obsessive about the blog and began focusing on every minute detail, down to the little things which NO ONE would ever notice (well, no one but K).  So I left them to fantasize about the "new & improved" blog, while I chose to come over here and write.  Just write.  I've been hungry to write since...well, hell, I can't remember (damn those pills!) but it seems to me to be a very long time.  I feel like I've been hibernating all Winter and have just come out of my cave to find Spring has sprung and there is new life all around me.  This makes me happy, this newborn feeling we now have.  Clean and fresh.  Renewed.  Yes, good things are happening here.  I believe that for the first time in her life, K is actually traveling down the correct path, the road to recovery; that's the dream, it's always been the dream-to NOT be sick anymore.  I just want to be "normal", even though I don't really have a grasp on what "normal" means, (compared to other people) seeing that I've never been what is generally considered "normal".

K was always different, there was just something about her that didn't match up with the other kids around her, and she felt like an outsider, even way back then.  We can remember being in kindergarten (I was about 4 or 5) and we were all sitting around, coloring.  I remember looking at my picture, and comparing it to the other kids' pictures, and one couldn't help but notice that my picture was painfully perfect, with not an inkling of crayon outside the lines of the drawing.  The other kids had pictures with crayon scribbles all over them or else were just a mish-mash of colors smeared onto paper.  I recall listening to those other kids, laughing and being silly and talking nonsense, and I thought to myself, or rather, someone inside me said, "These kids are SO immature!" and it was then that I first recall my feeling like I didn't belong, like I was in the wrong place or the wrong time or something.  It was a weird feeling, but since I was just a little kid I was able to let the feelings and thoughts wash over me like a river and I could continue on with my life inside what eventually became my own little world.  By the time I was 6, this "world" had news correspondents, and sports broadcasters, and celebrity interviewers, all following K around and asking her questions and filming her and narrating the story of her life.  It's very similar to the reality television programs which are currently so popular, except this show wasn't always glamorous-K often looked like crap in fact-and it "aired" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which means there were plenty of "boring episodes" of this TV show.  K didn't realize this was abnormal, since these "people" had always been with her,  and besides that her parents found it amusing that K had so many imaginary friends. Other children outgrow imaginary friends; K did not, but she never told anyone.  It was her biggest secret and after she got to be old enough to realize that this probably wasn't "normal"  (after college),  she was too afraid to tell anyone, for fear of being locked away in some psych ward.  Besides, she was pretty used to it by that time; she couldn't imagine being any other way. 

To be honest, K stuck out like a sore thumb back then when she was young, and always has actually, because of her being so very "different" from others.  (DISCLAIMER: The following information is in no way intended to sound arrogant or conceited; we're just stating the facts as we observed them)  When she was a baby and a toddler, she stuck out because she was not only "the pretty one", a title which I believe stemmed from her long, thick blonde curls  and big blue eyes, (a title which K still hears only not nearly as often) but also "the smart one".  The "smart" title was easy enough to trace back, as K was reading bedtime stories to her parents by the age of three, (according to our mother) as well as writing and drawing and, by age 6, keeping a diary.  These monikers-"pretty" and "smart" were something K would carry with her for years.  As far as physical appearances go, adults were forever calling her "pretty" and "beautiful" and she garnered a lot of attention wherever her parents took her, simply because of how she looked. I believe this could be the reason that one (or more) of our "alters" is narcissistic.  (K continued to play that "pretty" role until the end of 3rd grade, when her mother cut her long hair quite short, like a boy's; this was very traumatic to K and she mourns the loss of her hair to this very day)  Being "the smart one" was a title which would follow K around until after college, when she finally realized that boys simply don't date "smart" girls and so she came up with this persona who was pretty and charming but not that smart.  K would slip into this personality whenever she was in a social situation with guys, except for the intellectual types, whom she loved so much.  (K was into geeks before it was chic.)  But I'm getting off the subject.  She had it in her head by that time (it was learned through experience) that for the most part, guys don't want to be with a girl who is smarter than they are.  So this new K was born, this pretty and funny and sweet K, a girl of average (read: normal) intelligence, who was certainly no threat to the men around her.  I'm jumping ahead in the story, let's go back a bit.

The "smart" K excelled in pretty much every area of her life.  She made straight A's without even trying (note that she had a "photographic" memory back then), and whenever she entered a contest, such as an essay contest or an art contest, she almost always won, or at the very least placed in the top three.  By the time she reached middle school, she had a closet filled with trophies and plaques and awards for everything from science to photography.  She was always the first person in class to finish a test, or a math problem, or an English assignment; people grew to expect such behavior from K, and for a long time K was able to handle it without problems (after all, she had people inside her as well as around her who could help with homework and learning) and continually pushed herself to be even better. I don't know what caused her to push herself this way. It was definitely NOT her parents; they were so afraid that K would grow up to be conceited that they NEVER praised her for good grades or a new trophy or any other accomplishment. In fact, I believe that K tried so hard to get her parents' attention that she developed certain psychological problems, e.g. low self-esteem.  I can't recall whether or not someone else (the other K's? Switch Kellie? ME?) was encouraging her or promoting this "must-be-the-best" behavior, I only know that K was stressed out at a very early age and so new K's came into being.  These "others" would be K's saving grace, the only reason she was able to survive and move on with her life, the only way she could continue to "make her 'movie'" and thus fulfill what was at that time her life's goal.

I'm not sure which one of us is responsible for this information, but the Smart Kellie went into hiding after K dropped out of college, and only made appearances whenever she was needed.  For example, when K was in the presence of intellectuals, older adults, friends of her parents, or whenever it was necessary for K to sound intelligent or well-read or somehow special, such as at a job interview or on a first date. We were in college, majoring in studio arts, when we had our first "breakdown" (even though this one would later seem much smaller, at the time it was huge).  Kellie's World crumbled down around her and she went someplace dark and empty and stayed there for years, although you'd never guess it from looking at her because she was being taken care of by someone else, possibly me...(I just can't remember anymore-too much time has passed.)  It took a lot of people, namely a lot of K's, to re-establish Kellie World and make it feel safe again. We had to rebuild everything pretty much, and it was an enormous task, but K never left that world;  instead she changed the way she existed within it.  This is all terribly difficult to explain, and I'm only succeeding in making myself sound foolish, so I'm going to stop now.  I think I've filled an encyclopedia with these ramblings; I wonder if anyone (including K!) will have the patience needed to drudge through this post?  DAMN-at this point, I can no longer remember what the hell we were talking about anyway...

The Lost Blog Post

I was editing our blog-we are still trying to figure out how to do this-and I came across this draft.  I have some memory of someone writing it...Not sure who or when...Anyhoo, I thought perhaps I'd share it with you, as I myself found it rather insightful.  Or something. It goes like this:


Hello and good day there! It's about time that someone, anyone, step up to the plate and tell the (non-)Real World who, and perhaps more importantaly, WHAT we are!  I apparently need to get off my ever-increasing ass and do something about this situation! So while it may be true that according to phone records and internet timestamps, we've only been asleep for say, 3 hours, and during that 3 hours let's say that I took some Seroquel and every one of us knows how much that frightens K, and that technically she should still be sleeping due to it's sedating qualities...i.e. This shit usually knocks us on our face and we sleep for at least 12 hours, so therefore WTF am I doing awake this damn early?!? Sigh. Things just can't seem to go as planned these days...


We're only a few entries (unless it's changed since I woke up; not saying it hasn't--) into this New Blog, and I've said this to someone before, perhaps you, that I'm dissatisfied with the look and feel of it.  I am looking at this and reading this and this just WILL NOT DO at all!  This blog seems rushed and NOT put-together-right and our OCD simply will NOT stand by and let this go on any further! It should be perfect.  It should be entertaining, and interesting, and maybe even a bit controversial as well, since K so enjoys that feeling of risk-taking, and after having read this so-called Blog, we have decided that K is NOT up to the task and someone else positively MUST take over the reins for awhile.  And that someone appears to be me today.


Who the hell am I? you may be asking yourselves, and I will be happy to answer that question.  We are K, not to be confused with The Kellie, (who is fabulous but rarely comes around anymore from what we can tell), we are the conglomeration of all the things and people and ideas and whatnot which belong to K but which she currently cannot express because K suffers from "mild"(?!) Schizophrenia and Major Depressive Disorder and perhaps even Dissociative Identity Disorder (we were just making strides in that area when our therapist dropped us; damn the luck!) even though she thinks (HAHA) that she's currently OK, she truly is very seriously depressed and/or mentally ill and just unable to talk about it.  For a number of reasons which shall become (at least somewhat) clear by the end of this post.  Hmm.  I wonder how long this post will be??  (cue dramatic music, then cut sharply, and zoom in to the center) We shall see, Oh yes, we shall see indeed.


The story starts as many stories do, only ours doesn't necessarily start at the beginning...rather, it starts somewhere in the middle and then jumps back and forth from past to future, never really lingering long enough in the NOW to have a "normal" life, whatever that may be. In our mind, "normal life" means literally "the life that most normal people lead" and it entails a job and a spouse and some kids and probably a dog and a mortgage and plans for some sort of future in which the star of the show has grandchildren and memories of a long and fulfilling life, with the usual ups and downs along the way but which ultimately has a happy ending.  The "...and they lived happily ever after" part of the movie. But NO, not us, not now, not EVER, that's just not the hand that was dealt us in life, and we must face the facts. K is still (after all these years) in denial, and probably always will be.  It's just in her nature to be negative, only she considers this "realistic" and gets pissy if someone calls her a pessimist for she very clearly is a realist.  But I'm jumping ahead again. Damn.  I forget sometimes that this is NEW, that you don't know us, that you are NOT my doctor or my therapist or my partner or even my friend yet, and that some explaining needs to be done.  How could anyone possibly jump into the middle of this madness and be able to successfully navigate their way through  these troubled waters? Not even I can do that, and at the moment, I am the captain of the damn boat! ("Ship" I hear Daddy whisper in my ear "A boat fits on a ship, a ship cannot fit on a boat!") K's father was in the Navy and loved all things ship-related. So let's dive right in, shall we say, and start swimming.  I'll be nearby with a life preserver for you in case of sharks or piranha or whatnot.  You will be safe, I (cannot) promise. Just keep swimming.

We are known collectively as K, and we were first diagnosed with a "mental disorder" and given a diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder (although at the time it was called "Manic-Depressive Disorder"; I suppose this dates me EEK!) when we were 16. Now granted, just because this is when the illness was brought to the attention of us and (some of) our family, it does NOT mean this is when we first got sick. No, we've been hearing voices and/or having hallucinations since roughly the age of 4.  For as long as we can remember, in other words. It just didn't really become a problem for us until I was a teenager. Actually, K had no idea that anything was wrong with her at all, because this way was the ONLY way she'd ever known. She assumed everyone else also had a sports broadcaster in their reality, commentating on their "game" of life.  Throughout her childhood, she heard people refer to "that little voice inside your head", so she thought it was perfectly normal to have someone in your ear telling you to do things.  The fact that she had more than one voice didn't make her ill, it just made her special, and so we lived with these voices and were not afraid at that time.  They were nice to her back then, perhaps because she was innocent. The visual hallucinations were her "imaginary friends" that a lot of children have.  K's secret is that she never outgrew them as other children do. (They are no longer my imaginary "friends" however; more like enemies)


Now we come to the childhood trauma which every therapist seems to think mental illness comes from, although I'm not sure mine was all that traumatic for me until I began seeing a certain therapist in my mid-20's,  which seems a long time ago now, (but how would I know? I have no concept of time. And K has issues with her age-she doesn't believe she's as old as she is-but that is definitely another tale for another time) and she told us that I was displaying all the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse. (Yes, I do exhibit the classic signs. I'm not going to list them here; you can easily find out for yourself online what exactly those signs/symptoms are) Now we've tried to revert back to our childhood and remember who exactly did what and when...Yes, it happened. Yes, it was a family member.  Two actually (but NOT our beloved parents!) But in the end we  only succeeded in making ourselves feel more uncomfortable than ever in our own skin and brought about feelings of guilt, as though she had done something to deserve it and it was her own fault that she got molested. No, K was unable to handle that reality and therefore she dissociated and created her own reality and we can't really remember those super-traumatic things anymore. K isn't allowed to think about that stuff.  It's best we not go down that path again, I assure you. It's a slippery slope and we always fall and it takes literally years for us to get back up again.  So we will NOT be talking about the molestation OR the rape(s). Another time, another place. Maybe.


Jump ahead now, and K is a teenager, and puberty kicks in and the hormones start to take over and this starts to compete with the Mental Illness (which of course is going untreated at this time) and what happens is  she becomes a suicidal mess and gets sent away to the loony bin for what seemed years but which we now know was only 3 months.  And in those 3 months, K's parents did all they could to hide K's illness from the rest of the family; they were ashamed that something like this could happen to them and they thought they'd be judged, and let's face it folks, there IS a stigma, and back then it was much worse even than it is today.  We certainly never had famous actors going on national television and announcing they were Bipolar or Bulimic or anything like that; it was something we didn't talk about, something to be ashamed of and embarrassed by, something that happens to other families, not ours. So K's sister, her very own sister, was never even told that K had been hospitalized for attempting to commit suicide (the wrist slashing we can't remember-it was too traumatic; we just have the scars and nightmares now) not once but several times, using different methods, which we obsessed about and which we were constantly in our head planning out for K's future. She intended to be dead by age 25 anyway.       


That's the end of the draft.  As I've stated earlier, we're not sure which one of us wrote that.  But it seems important to share it with someone, anyone, and that someone turned out to be you.