Who is who within our family
Preverbal children - kai, brat, thing, fearful, mute, babe, scaredy 1 , scaredy 2 (S1 & S2)
The littles aged 3 to 8 lily aged 3, sibi aged 3, sam aged 4, silent one (s.o) aged 4, j aged 5, jo aged 5, libbi aged 5, meri aged 5, tearful aged 6,squealer aged 6, boy aged 6, bela aged 6, raya aged 7, jade aged 7, fera aged 7, niesha aged 8, keera aged 8, hope aged 8,orfan aged 8
The middles aged 9 to 12 tash aged 9, jake aged 9, kyal aged 9, josh aged 9, jez aged 9, jema aged 10, cheri aged 10, ruth aged 10, orfan 2 aged 10, shaylea jade and shaylea (twins) aged 10 years and 9 months, leah aged 11, christs' child (cc) aged 11, shanta aged 12, elysha aged 12.
The teens charly aged 13,alana aged 13, ferita aged 13, cali aged 14, ella aged 15,abby aged 15, nicki aged 16, tara aged 17, kate aged 18
The Bigs caitlin, verity, desi, kayleigh, kris, "me", nia, vonya, nyri.
There are others within who have no names, they simply exist. They emerged to deal with a specific incident and have never ventured out again.
How does one explain the working of a system? I suppose the only way to explain is simply stating the facts and hoping that people will understand. Many of those named above are fragments of the stronger personalities within. For example jake, kyal and josh are the "tomboyish" fragments of tash,. I suppose in laymans terms they are alternate personalities of an alternate personality.
I shall in due course draw up a "family tree" which will better represent how our system is built up, who is who etc.
Kind Regards
Verity
The littles aged 3 to 8 lily aged 3, sibi aged 3, sam aged 4, silent one (s.o) aged 4, j aged 5, jo aged 5, libbi aged 5, meri aged 5, tearful aged 6,squealer aged 6, boy aged 6, bela aged 6, raya aged 7, jade aged 7, fera aged 7, niesha aged 8, keera aged 8, hope aged 8,orfan aged 8
The middles aged 9 to 12 tash aged 9, jake aged 9, kyal aged 9, josh aged 9, jez aged 9, jema aged 10, cheri aged 10, ruth aged 10, orfan 2 aged 10, shaylea jade and shaylea (twins) aged 10 years and 9 months, leah aged 11, christs' child (cc) aged 11, shanta aged 12, elysha aged 12.
The teens charly aged 13,alana aged 13, ferita aged 13, cali aged 14, ella aged 15,abby aged 15, nicki aged 16, tara aged 17, kate aged 18
The Bigs caitlin, verity, desi, kayleigh, kris, "me", nia, vonya, nyri.
There are others within who have no names, they simply exist. They emerged to deal with a specific incident and have never ventured out again.
How does one explain the working of a system? I suppose the only way to explain is simply stating the facts and hoping that people will understand. Many of those named above are fragments of the stronger personalities within. For example jake, kyal and josh are the "tomboyish" fragments of tash,. I suppose in laymans terms they are alternate personalities of an alternate personality.
I shall in due course draw up a "family tree" which will better represent how our system is built up, who is who etc.
Kind Regards
Verity
The "out" crowd ~ stronger personalities who "present" to outsiders
Within
our "family" there are the stronger personalities who face outside
people, others who simply watch and listen , whilst others simply exist
quietly in the shadows. Some are unaware of the many existences
within.
Until recently i was one of the "unknown",One of the watchers and listeners. The others did not know of my existence simply because they didn't need to know.
The self whom people know as S, she is not the first born child. The first born is amongst us, hidden away from harm. She retreated from the outside world before the age of 12 months. So for all of you who know of the self, she is not and has never been the true self.
Our counsellor is aware of quite a few of our inside family, yet the ones she has met and communicated with are only a select few namely the stronger "out" personalities. There are many more within who will never see the light of day. Many of them were simply "created" to deal with a single incident.
The stronger "out" personalities deal with day to day living. Kayleigh for example is the "doer" or the "analyser", she is the one who deals with the mundane tasks such as running the house, paying bills. Like me, Kayleigh does not possess the ability to show or feel emotions, She was described by a good friend of ours as "Mary Poppins" because she is all sweetness and light. Kayleigh never gets angry although she does tend to talk a bit too much for our liking. Rather than getting angry she prefers to give lengthy lectures especially to the younger ones on the downside of making a mess in the house.
We are all individuals despite being a part of the whole. Amongst us we have an artist ( shaylee jade), a bilinguist (nicki), and a poet/writer (ella).We each have our own set of likes/dislikes,favorite colors, favorite foods,etc, This can cause immense problems from time to time especially with the younger ones. For example the twins cannot eat chocolate because it makes them ill (memories of a time and place, way back when) yet keera loves it. Unfortunately whenever keera manages to eat some chocolate the result is that the twins become ill.
Some of us are left handed, some are right handed. Some can spell remarkably well whilst others have limited spelling abilities.
Sadly none of us are unscathed, we all have problems to some degree or other. Even those of us who do not experience emotions would probably be classed as damaged to a certain extent. Not being able to feel emotions is a major handicap for those like us who have so many hidden memories from past abuse. I suppose being unable to process emotions does have it's benefits though, simply because myself and caitlin are able to relate what we saw without being affected by it. The younger ones who were present during the atrocities find it extremely difficult to talk without becoming extremely fraught.
Amongst us are several who are bulimic, several are self harmers, whilst others are alcoholics. Some of us smoke, some cannot bear the smell or taste of nicotine. Some are affected by alcohol intake, others are not.
Over the years we have had many diagnosis' of various ailments. The body suffers with joint problems and we all suffer to some degree. Tests that have been done remain inconclusive because depending on who is actually present during the blood tests etc the results vary. We had have diagnosis' of Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia to name a few, however as one test shows positive for these ailments another test will show negative.
It is very complex living with DID but we enjoy keeping the specialists guessing!
On the following pages the stronger "out" personalities will relate their stories, how they came to be, what their likes/ dislikes are, how they "fit in" to our family. We will share with you everything we possibly can.
The "out" crowd
J She is 5 years old. Cries a lot, is terrified of grown ups (big people hurt you), likes to scribble pictures but will only use black or dark blue crayons. Her pictures are never happy ones ~ they always portray events that happened to her when the body was small. Her prized possession is her "blanki" which is actually a piece of blanket from way back that survived the many house/home moves. J is just beginning to learn how to write words with the help of shaylee jade.
fera and jade Fera and jade are angry 7 year old twins, they are seldom allowed out because they both have a tendency towards destructive behaviour. They do enjoy to color and draw pictures.
Keera She is 8 years old. She also cries a great deal and can only be comforted with "huggles". She likes to draw pictures of cats and other animals. Like J, Keera will only use dark coloured crayons/pencils. She loves to watch the dvd of Bambi which a good friend kindly sent to her as a gift. Keera was the first one who ventured out during a counselling session. Keera can write with both hands but favors the right.
Niesha She is also 8 years old. She doesn't come out very often as she fears the outside and especially fears people. Niesha struggles with her writing and we believe that she is dyslexic. She will not tolerate anybody touching her. She does occasionally like to draw pictures but has a tendency to become destructive and usually end up scribbling so hard that the pictures get destroyed. Niesha is right handed.
Hope She is also 8 years old. Her favourite color is pink and she is very much into loving God and Jesus. Her prized possession is a small cross and chain which she insists on hiding away, " so that it is safe". Hope is extremely well versed in the writing department and can come across as being a great deal older. She is ever hopeful that life will become easier. Hope was one of the limited few who were unharmed and she refuses to see badness in anyone. Hope is left handed
Tash She is 9 years old. Her favourite colour is orange, favourite movie is Finding Nemo. Tash is a very angry young child and is a self harmer. She can be destructive at times and teases the twins dreadfully. She is the one who would always present during the "beatings" because as tash says " she taught herself not to feel physical pain", this ability to switch off pain has been passed along to many of the others who emerged after tash. She had one prized possession which unfortunately got destroyed by leah. This was an orange Ty peace bear. Tash never cries. She is right handed.
shaylee jade and shaylea 10 years and 9 month old twins. shaylee jade is our artist and draws amazingly lifelike portraits although if you were to talk to her she would convince you that she absolutely detests drawing! shaylee jade "arrived" first then because of everything she was forced to tolerate, shaylea arrived to lessen the intensity of the events. They both insist that they are bad and stupid, rarely get angry because they fear this emotion and have only recently learned what "safe" hugs feel like. Their favorite color is red yet they fear blood,Their favorite movie Little Red riding hood. Their most prized possessions are their coloring pencils and art books. Both the twins are left handed.
leah She is 11 years old. A very angry young girl who caused many problems over the years. Leah fears possessions of any kind and has a tendency to destroy others possessions because she feels that IF anything is given by anybody there surely much be payment required. It is taking a long time to make leah realise that people do give gifts and do NOT expect anything in return. She is very straight forward, says what she means, will argue back if given half a chance and has an extreme intolerance to people touching her. As she describes it "the hands burn the skin". leah is a self harmer and she is right handed.
shanta She is 12 years old and is the "peacemaker". This can cause problems because no matter what the dispute shanta will step in and agree to whatever is being insisted upon. Often it is not something that is beneficial to us as a whole and that is the main reason we try to prevent shanta from making an appearance. She is extremely calm mannered, polite and eager to keep the peace.
christs child ( c.c) She is 11 years old and extremely religious. Over the past x number of years cc has rarely made an appearance other that to check on her precious silver cross and chain. She did however present a great deal during the host childs' 12th to 14th years when the "parents" insisted on weekly attendance at the local church. cc like hope escaped all of the abuse at the hands of the parents.
charly She is 13 years old. charly is anorexic/bulimic and cannot tolerate food inside the body. She loathes reading and writing but enjoys listening to music. Her favorite color is green and she is left handed. charly was nicknamed by a friend of ours as "chatty charly" because when she starts to talk or write to someone she gets extremely carried away and will talk about anything and everything. She also has a wonderful sense of humor despite everything that she went through. Her biggest wish is to simply fade away hence the need to deny the body food. charly is the one who deals with anything medical, blood tests, injections or examinations.
alana is 13 years old. She is constantly angry, hates the parents with a vengeance and insists that she wants them to rot in hell. Due to the levels of anger that alana holds inside, we try to regulate her time out. We fear that her anger would overspill and inadvertently be aimed at those who do not deserve it. alana enjoys reading and is left handed. She is a self harmer and also bulimic.
cali She is 14 years old . cali trusts nobody and will do and say anything to prevent others within our system from trusting people. She can be extremely polite and often comes across as much older than her 14 years. She can and does lose patience easily and is very quick to let of steam if something is annoying her, unfortunately her language can often be quite colorful . cali is a self harmer but not to the same extent as some of the others. she is right handed.
ella She is 15 years old. ella is extremely quiet, morose, often suicidal and carries extreme levels of shame and guilt. She loathes living and cannot see any way forward. ella is the studious one, she writes verses/poems and reads absolutely anything. She is very distrustful of people and will not accept physical contact from anybody. Her ambition IF we survive is to get our story published. She is an extreme self harmer. ella's favorite color is grey and she is ambidextrous.
abby She is 15 years old and a very angry girl. She fears her anger because she has yet to learn safe ways of releasing it. Instead she turns the anger in towards herself and self harms (she burns the skin) and she is also bulimic. abby is very quietly spoken and hates raised voices. She cannot tolerate physical contact from anybody.
nicki She is 16 years old, extremely street wise, loud, angry, Hates men, swears for England and says exactly what she means. Despite her tough, robust demeanour nicki can be extremely sensitive as is shown in our journal entries. nicki either likes you or hates you, there is no in between. She views everyone as a potential enemy until such time they prove themselves to be trustworthy. nicki lives in black,everything is black, black and more black. She is an alcoholic, a smoker,a self harmer and has also taken numerous overdoses. nicki is able to communicate in both French and Italian. She is ambidextrous but favors the left hand.
tara and kate Aged 17 and 18. These two are nicki's "partners in crime". tara is the " bad guy" and tries to influence nicki into doing risque deeds, she is the one who flirts with danger, entices the opposite sex, and lures nicki into drinking. kate on the other hand is the "good guy", she will bring calmness back whenever nicki and tara have gone too far. Neither kate not tara communicate a great deal these days but they were strong personalities when nicki held the reins.
caitlin She claims to be 26 but in truth is older than the self. caitlin is mean, angry,extremely distrustful, says exactly what she thinks without consideration for anybodies feelings. She is bulimic,a self harmer, alcoholic and a smoker. caitlin is extremely negative about everybody and everything. She continually causes upset amongst the younger ones by telling them that they cannot trust anyone. She has a nasty habit of using the younger ones memories against them. Some of us feel that caitlin has many characteristics of the "parents". She is the only one other than myself who know everything that ever happened to the body without the emotional attachment. caitlin is right handed and her favorite color is dark blue.
Kayleigh As our friend nicknamed her "Mary Poppins" ~ practically perfect in every way. Kayleigh does not profess to being any particular age although she is several years younger than the self. She is well mannered, polite, intelligent and calm.Never gets into a "flap" over anything, ensures that the house runs smoothly, that bills are paid and generally makes sure that everyday stuff is accomplished. Kayleigh is "the lady of the house".She does not however possess the ability to process emotions. Kayleigh was not present during any of the abuse suffered.
Kris He is the same age as Kayleigh ( whatever age that may be). Kris does the heavy work, decorating etc. Pretty much the general "handyman". Kris does a lot of the driving if we have to travel any distance and he is responsible for fuelling the car, checking oil, tyres etc. Kris never speaks to anybody and rarely communicates. He's more the strong, silent type.
Vonya and nia are of indeterminate age. Both are considerably older than the self and although they never communicate with outsiders they do spend time "out" but only inside the house. It is usually one or both of them who deal with the house cleaning, dish washing etc. They both emerged when the self was in her early teens specifically to do the household chores. Nobody else could be trusted following a spate of "accidental" breakages of the mothers pottery/ ornaments etc.
This completes the list of the stronger personalities. There are others who make occasional appearances but they never communicate with outside people, whilst others never venture out. They simply stay hidden .
Verity
Until recently i was one of the "unknown",One of the watchers and listeners. The others did not know of my existence simply because they didn't need to know.
The self whom people know as S, she is not the first born child. The first born is amongst us, hidden away from harm. She retreated from the outside world before the age of 12 months. So for all of you who know of the self, she is not and has never been the true self.
Our counsellor is aware of quite a few of our inside family, yet the ones she has met and communicated with are only a select few namely the stronger "out" personalities. There are many more within who will never see the light of day. Many of them were simply "created" to deal with a single incident.
The stronger "out" personalities deal with day to day living. Kayleigh for example is the "doer" or the "analyser", she is the one who deals with the mundane tasks such as running the house, paying bills. Like me, Kayleigh does not possess the ability to show or feel emotions, She was described by a good friend of ours as "Mary Poppins" because she is all sweetness and light. Kayleigh never gets angry although she does tend to talk a bit too much for our liking. Rather than getting angry she prefers to give lengthy lectures especially to the younger ones on the downside of making a mess in the house.
We are all individuals despite being a part of the whole. Amongst us we have an artist ( shaylee jade), a bilinguist (nicki), and a poet/writer (ella).We each have our own set of likes/dislikes,favorite colors, favorite foods,etc, This can cause immense problems from time to time especially with the younger ones. For example the twins cannot eat chocolate because it makes them ill (memories of a time and place, way back when) yet keera loves it. Unfortunately whenever keera manages to eat some chocolate the result is that the twins become ill.
Some of us are left handed, some are right handed. Some can spell remarkably well whilst others have limited spelling abilities.
Sadly none of us are unscathed, we all have problems to some degree or other. Even those of us who do not experience emotions would probably be classed as damaged to a certain extent. Not being able to feel emotions is a major handicap for those like us who have so many hidden memories from past abuse. I suppose being unable to process emotions does have it's benefits though, simply because myself and caitlin are able to relate what we saw without being affected by it. The younger ones who were present during the atrocities find it extremely difficult to talk without becoming extremely fraught.
Amongst us are several who are bulimic, several are self harmers, whilst others are alcoholics. Some of us smoke, some cannot bear the smell or taste of nicotine. Some are affected by alcohol intake, others are not.
Over the years we have had many diagnosis' of various ailments. The body suffers with joint problems and we all suffer to some degree. Tests that have been done remain inconclusive because depending on who is actually present during the blood tests etc the results vary. We had have diagnosis' of Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia to name a few, however as one test shows positive for these ailments another test will show negative.
It is very complex living with DID but we enjoy keeping the specialists guessing!
On the following pages the stronger "out" personalities will relate their stories, how they came to be, what their likes/ dislikes are, how they "fit in" to our family. We will share with you everything we possibly can.
The "out" crowd
J She is 5 years old. Cries a lot, is terrified of grown ups (big people hurt you), likes to scribble pictures but will only use black or dark blue crayons. Her pictures are never happy ones ~ they always portray events that happened to her when the body was small. Her prized possession is her "blanki" which is actually a piece of blanket from way back that survived the many house/home moves. J is just beginning to learn how to write words with the help of shaylee jade.
fera and jade Fera and jade are angry 7 year old twins, they are seldom allowed out because they both have a tendency towards destructive behaviour. They do enjoy to color and draw pictures.
Keera She is 8 years old. She also cries a great deal and can only be comforted with "huggles". She likes to draw pictures of cats and other animals. Like J, Keera will only use dark coloured crayons/pencils. She loves to watch the dvd of Bambi which a good friend kindly sent to her as a gift. Keera was the first one who ventured out during a counselling session. Keera can write with both hands but favors the right.
Niesha She is also 8 years old. She doesn't come out very often as she fears the outside and especially fears people. Niesha struggles with her writing and we believe that she is dyslexic. She will not tolerate anybody touching her. She does occasionally like to draw pictures but has a tendency to become destructive and usually end up scribbling so hard that the pictures get destroyed. Niesha is right handed.
Hope She is also 8 years old. Her favourite color is pink and she is very much into loving God and Jesus. Her prized possession is a small cross and chain which she insists on hiding away, " so that it is safe". Hope is extremely well versed in the writing department and can come across as being a great deal older. She is ever hopeful that life will become easier. Hope was one of the limited few who were unharmed and she refuses to see badness in anyone. Hope is left handed
Tash She is 9 years old. Her favourite colour is orange, favourite movie is Finding Nemo. Tash is a very angry young child and is a self harmer. She can be destructive at times and teases the twins dreadfully. She is the one who would always present during the "beatings" because as tash says " she taught herself not to feel physical pain", this ability to switch off pain has been passed along to many of the others who emerged after tash. She had one prized possession which unfortunately got destroyed by leah. This was an orange Ty peace bear. Tash never cries. She is right handed.
shaylee jade and shaylea 10 years and 9 month old twins. shaylee jade is our artist and draws amazingly lifelike portraits although if you were to talk to her she would convince you that she absolutely detests drawing! shaylee jade "arrived" first then because of everything she was forced to tolerate, shaylea arrived to lessen the intensity of the events. They both insist that they are bad and stupid, rarely get angry because they fear this emotion and have only recently learned what "safe" hugs feel like. Their favorite color is red yet they fear blood,Their favorite movie Little Red riding hood. Their most prized possessions are their coloring pencils and art books. Both the twins are left handed.
leah She is 11 years old. A very angry young girl who caused many problems over the years. Leah fears possessions of any kind and has a tendency to destroy others possessions because she feels that IF anything is given by anybody there surely much be payment required. It is taking a long time to make leah realise that people do give gifts and do NOT expect anything in return. She is very straight forward, says what she means, will argue back if given half a chance and has an extreme intolerance to people touching her. As she describes it "the hands burn the skin". leah is a self harmer and she is right handed.
shanta She is 12 years old and is the "peacemaker". This can cause problems because no matter what the dispute shanta will step in and agree to whatever is being insisted upon. Often it is not something that is beneficial to us as a whole and that is the main reason we try to prevent shanta from making an appearance. She is extremely calm mannered, polite and eager to keep the peace.
christs child ( c.c) She is 11 years old and extremely religious. Over the past x number of years cc has rarely made an appearance other that to check on her precious silver cross and chain. She did however present a great deal during the host childs' 12th to 14th years when the "parents" insisted on weekly attendance at the local church. cc like hope escaped all of the abuse at the hands of the parents.
charly She is 13 years old. charly is anorexic/bulimic and cannot tolerate food inside the body. She loathes reading and writing but enjoys listening to music. Her favorite color is green and she is left handed. charly was nicknamed by a friend of ours as "chatty charly" because when she starts to talk or write to someone she gets extremely carried away and will talk about anything and everything. She also has a wonderful sense of humor despite everything that she went through. Her biggest wish is to simply fade away hence the need to deny the body food. charly is the one who deals with anything medical, blood tests, injections or examinations.
alana is 13 years old. She is constantly angry, hates the parents with a vengeance and insists that she wants them to rot in hell. Due to the levels of anger that alana holds inside, we try to regulate her time out. We fear that her anger would overspill and inadvertently be aimed at those who do not deserve it. alana enjoys reading and is left handed. She is a self harmer and also bulimic.
cali She is 14 years old . cali trusts nobody and will do and say anything to prevent others within our system from trusting people. She can be extremely polite and often comes across as much older than her 14 years. She can and does lose patience easily and is very quick to let of steam if something is annoying her, unfortunately her language can often be quite colorful . cali is a self harmer but not to the same extent as some of the others. she is right handed.
ella She is 15 years old. ella is extremely quiet, morose, often suicidal and carries extreme levels of shame and guilt. She loathes living and cannot see any way forward. ella is the studious one, she writes verses/poems and reads absolutely anything. She is very distrustful of people and will not accept physical contact from anybody. Her ambition IF we survive is to get our story published. She is an extreme self harmer. ella's favorite color is grey and she is ambidextrous.
abby She is 15 years old and a very angry girl. She fears her anger because she has yet to learn safe ways of releasing it. Instead she turns the anger in towards herself and self harms (she burns the skin) and she is also bulimic. abby is very quietly spoken and hates raised voices. She cannot tolerate physical contact from anybody.
nicki She is 16 years old, extremely street wise, loud, angry, Hates men, swears for England and says exactly what she means. Despite her tough, robust demeanour nicki can be extremely sensitive as is shown in our journal entries. nicki either likes you or hates you, there is no in between. She views everyone as a potential enemy until such time they prove themselves to be trustworthy. nicki lives in black,everything is black, black and more black. She is an alcoholic, a smoker,a self harmer and has also taken numerous overdoses. nicki is able to communicate in both French and Italian. She is ambidextrous but favors the left hand.
tara and kate Aged 17 and 18. These two are nicki's "partners in crime". tara is the " bad guy" and tries to influence nicki into doing risque deeds, she is the one who flirts with danger, entices the opposite sex, and lures nicki into drinking. kate on the other hand is the "good guy", she will bring calmness back whenever nicki and tara have gone too far. Neither kate not tara communicate a great deal these days but they were strong personalities when nicki held the reins.
caitlin She claims to be 26 but in truth is older than the self. caitlin is mean, angry,extremely distrustful, says exactly what she thinks without consideration for anybodies feelings. She is bulimic,a self harmer, alcoholic and a smoker. caitlin is extremely negative about everybody and everything. She continually causes upset amongst the younger ones by telling them that they cannot trust anyone. She has a nasty habit of using the younger ones memories against them. Some of us feel that caitlin has many characteristics of the "parents". She is the only one other than myself who know everything that ever happened to the body without the emotional attachment. caitlin is right handed and her favorite color is dark blue.
Kayleigh As our friend nicknamed her "Mary Poppins" ~ practically perfect in every way. Kayleigh does not profess to being any particular age although she is several years younger than the self. She is well mannered, polite, intelligent and calm.Never gets into a "flap" over anything, ensures that the house runs smoothly, that bills are paid and generally makes sure that everyday stuff is accomplished. Kayleigh is "the lady of the house".She does not however possess the ability to process emotions. Kayleigh was not present during any of the abuse suffered.
Kris He is the same age as Kayleigh ( whatever age that may be). Kris does the heavy work, decorating etc. Pretty much the general "handyman". Kris does a lot of the driving if we have to travel any distance and he is responsible for fuelling the car, checking oil, tyres etc. Kris never speaks to anybody and rarely communicates. He's more the strong, silent type.
Vonya and nia are of indeterminate age. Both are considerably older than the self and although they never communicate with outsiders they do spend time "out" but only inside the house. It is usually one or both of them who deal with the house cleaning, dish washing etc. They both emerged when the self was in her early teens specifically to do the household chores. Nobody else could be trusted following a spate of "accidental" breakages of the mothers pottery/ ornaments etc.
This completes the list of the stronger personalities. There are others who make occasional appearances but they never communicate with outside people, whilst others never venture out. They simply stay hidden .
Verity