Peeling Off An Old Label

Yesterday, (I'm pretty sure that was yesterday...) our husband took us back to see the psychiatrist again.  A different K went this time than had gone last time; I think that's because our doctor specifically requested that K come, instead of Switch Kellie, and somehow our mind just unconsciously pushes a button of some sort and we are another K, with different thoughts and emotions.  (I didn't realize this was abnormal until I was about 30 years old.)  Now, sitting here drinking my coffee,  and wishing that I had a cigarette, even though I no longer smoke, I wonder if I'm the K that went to see the shrink or if that was someone else.  I'm not sure because when I think back to the appointment, I can recall parts of it, large chunks actually, but it's all a bit blurry, like I've smeared Vaseline onto the camera lens. Did that happen to me or what is someone else, someone whose consciousness I sometimes share?  I remember one part very well, and this is important too--the psychiatrist told K that she doesn't believe she's schizophrenic.  This is HUGE. 

K was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 27, and every doctor since then has just agreed with the diagnosis (and usually tacked on a new label to go along with it, labels such as BDD and GAD) rather than trying to dig a little deeper and see if perhaps she didn't have something DIFFERENT.  So. This is life-altering news.  Everything that K believes herself to be is false.  All these years, she's been living with the stigma, and with the shame, and with the despair which stemmed from this diagnosis, and now we find out that the diagnosis is (most likely) WRONG.  K is simultaneously thrilled and terrified.  Thrilled to find out that she probably does NOT have schizophrenia, yet terrified of what she really DOES have, and also afraid that one of the K's IS schizophrenic.  More labels... Take one off and put another one on in its place.  Sigh.  K didn't mention to her mother what the doctor had said about doubting the presence of schizophrenia, and I can't remember if she told her husband or not....that information is no longer with us.  I hope that she told him, he needs to know what the current status of his wife is.  Plus, it'd just be nice to know once and for all what the hell is really wrong with K!  We've been drug through the mud and given the run-around so many times over the decades....  K no longer has any faith in doctors.  This "new" doctor-who, it turns out, has been treating us for 2 years!-seems very willing to help K, and she makes K feel comfortable and perhaps even safe.  That's what the shrink told us yesterday; that her office is a safe haven for K, and that when she's there, she doesn't have to be afraid.

The shrink, Dr. H, talked with us for a while about different ways we can go about treating K.  I asked her if she'd had any experience with mapping therapy (wherein the different personalities are charted) and she admitted that she had never done such therapy.  She did NOT say that she was opposed to it. She also didn't say that she believed integration was the best route to take, and I feel that's important.  (Integration is organization of different aspects of the personality into a hierarchical system of functions, or one, unified personality)  We, the K's, are afraid of integration.  The Smart One is all for it-she just wants to be "normal" and be able to live a productive life and perhaps have a successful career in the arts.  The Good Daughter would like very much to feel more connected with her environment, with her mother, with her husband.  She's in favor of integrating all the different aspects of K into one being, assuming that being would be a positive addition to the world around her.  Some of the K's (like The Little Girl) are dead-set against integration, for this state of feeling split apart, of feeling shattered, this is all we've ever known and while it may not always be pleasant or convenient or logical, we're used to it-it is who and what we are.  (I think...)

The best part of the therapy session was when Dr H told us that she'd like to use the old diaries that we found, that she believed we could learn a lot about K and her different personalities from these books. (See Blog Post "The Discovered Diaries" from January 9)  K was elated that the doctor recognized the importance of the diaries.  They could change my life as we know it.  I just knew it, I knew when I found those diaries and read them, I KNEW they were important to K's recovery.  This could change everything.  We're all on the edge of our seats.  What's going to happen to us?  What will become of the K's?  Who will come out to meet the doctor, and who will stay hidden?  Who will we ultimately become?!?  (panic attack coming on-I have to go take a pill now)

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...