The Only Way Out is Through
7 days of integrating a dissociative persona
Prologue: 2008
When the first dissociative persona became physical in my very best therapist’s office in 2008, she said, pointing at me, “She wants to become famous from writing about me.” I don’t know, it may have been true and I acknowledge her knowledge of me may have been more accurate than my awareness of all my selves at that time. Today, all my dissociations trust and believe that I do not write about them to become famous at their expense, or to become famous at all, but because it is how I best express myself and it is imperative that they be known by me and by others, for their own benefit and mine. All references to my therapist are factual and my time with her is documented on mini dvd’s that she gifted to me when she retired in 2011.
Day 1 Saturday
You spend a wonderful day at Venice Beach with bestie, who has come into town to defend their dissertation and received their PhD. Celebrations abound for two days, and pictures with your newly purple hair have been pasted all over social media, funning at the beach and raising glasses of beer at a chi-chi beer bar. Your glass has the first beer you’ve tasted after the first and last Heineken you had in 1979. Back at home, you have teatime with an Indianized version of Chex mix that they have made for you, and for dinner you share khichdi (a savory porridge of rice and lentils) accompanied by yogurt, which is an Ayurvedic fasting meal for those in the West but comfort food from both your childhoods. They go out in the late evening to have young people good times, returning at 3 a.m. You go to bed smiling at 10 p.m.
Day 2 Sunday
I woke at 4 a.m. disoriented and nauseous. Stayed awake trying to figure out what was causing both the physical as well as mental discomfort. Then the body spoke, and all hell broke loose. Explosive diarrhea and projectile vomiting repeatedly and simultaneously for over an hour took away breath. All that healthy dinner coming up, so much more than I had eaten. Just reaching for the water glass to rinse my mouth out started a new wave of throwing up. Soiled and smelling sour, I went back to bed, exhausted.
Woke again to find nothing had abated. Stomach was on a rampage, and neither end of the GI tract made it into the bathroom intact. Dripping from both ends I texted bestie, sleeping in the next room, to get the dogs out. By the time I was done, Peeku had licked up all the Mumma spillings off the carpet in the bedroom. I sprayed the bath mats with air freshener in case she followed me into the bathroom like a toddler, and folded them over for good measure so she couldn’t reach them. Bestie was packing, getting ready to leave. It became obvious I was not going to be driving them to LAX as planned.
Now there was screaming inside my head. A lot of screaming. NO…GET OUT…in English, and Hindi words I couldn’t make out at first. Of course, I had figured out what was happening: a dissociation was sharing a memory. The screaming was loud enough for bestie and me to not really be able to have a conversation. But we did realize that after 10 years of a loving friendship, this was the first time they had been witness to my dissociation without presenting outwardly. That is, they have seen me as other personas, but I have not had the internal experience in their presence while still being my adult self. We have come a long way, and maybe the little one inside me knew enough to trust them. Or there were other triggers, many food related, that I have deduced later but had no idea of at this time. I have found no study so far on why personae integrate when they do, but I have learned to surmise mine fairly accurately. I discovered the triggers as the days went on.
With aforethought, we contacted my green pharmacy and had them deliver a vial of CBD tincture to help with the nausea and any other symptoms that might arise when I was alone in the house after bestie left. My only friend in geographical proximity brought a bottle of electrolytes and thoughtfully left it outside the door so as not to get the dogs barking as they are wont to do and waking me up in case I had managed to sleep. Concern evident on their face, bestie took an Uber to the airport. I couldn’t even walk to the door to wave goodbye. I sat still on the couch even as my body continued to expel, a towel spread under me and a small lined garbage can by my feet to keep every surface as clean as I could. The memory began to become visual, and I knew the exact moment I was watching. I have processed this memory in the past, it is a pivotal point in the memoir titled, Living June in September (writing in progress), but this was a new layer, a deeper wisdom, that was manifesting.
NB: I will be using the 3rd person for this younger part of me, to share more precisely what dissociation and integration look and feel like from within. When she is ready, and we feel as one, I will refer to us simply as I.
She is wearing only a plain white cotton underdress that was commonly worn in my child-time in India, standing under cold water falling from a round rusted metal shower-head close to the ceiling. She is drenched, looking out the open wooden door of the bathing room of our government issue flat in Delhi, the hem of the door eaten away by years of collected water on the bathroom floor. My perspective is from being outside the open door standing in the small verandah that the door opens into, looking at her. She is livid, she is screaming. GET OUT! GO AWAY! Something in Hindi I cannot quite decipher. I don’t know if there are tears in her eyes because the water is falling on her face.
NB: This moment was immediately after a multiple perpetrator sexual assault (RAINN definition of gang rape) on 10-year old Juhi by her father with her uncle, her mother’s younger brother, in June of 1963 when her father had her alone for a full month. I believe it is possible that it the moment this dissociation came into being, full of rage and not compliant to being quelled. She may have been shouting I WILL TELL in Hindi, I’m not sure yet. She disappeared into other parts of my psyche and I did not meet her until 2010, but this event may have been what made her father afraid enough after eight years of molesting her to never assault her again.
NB: I am writing this on Day 6, and we had to stop here for emotional respite after 2 hours of writing.
Day 3 Monday
Most of the day went soiling and cleaning myself, unable to put anything in my mouth: no still or sparkling water, no juice or tea, certainly food did not seem an option. Managed to do a load of laundry with only my few cotton nighties that had taken the brunt of the explosions. The screaming from my young Juhi quieted down by early afternoon and I made a cup of warm ginger water with lemon. Before I could add sweetener, she indicated silently that she would prefer honey, which is what I added to the drink. That cup of liquid stayed down and I was encouraged to try chai (black tea with milk, which is my coffee alternative, and equally addictive) but after a few sips it was a no go. I offered it again close to dinner time. Yes, she would like some. But not the white thing — stevia. So honey it was again, although I was hyper-aware of using glucose or sucrose because of my diabetic status. Now we are conversing in short sentences in both English as well as Hindi.
*I will use English words to avoid translations from Hindi when they are not imperative to the narrative*.
Dinner: Do you want to eat something? An assent. She didn’t know what she wanted. I opened the fridge, we threw out all that was open: leftovers, older fruits and vegetables, jars of my recently made-at-home condiments. I did not stop this purging, did not disagree, did not ask why. I opened the snack cabinet. Wave of nausea, closely followed by retching. No, nothing snack-like. Then I offered something she didn’t recognize: frozen baby ravioli. I dropped a handful into a pot of boiling water.
“I won’t like that,” she says.
“We will have it with a little bit of butter, nothing else. If you don’t like it, we will throw it away.”
Assent. Sitting down with six tiny pieces of ravioli topped with half a pat of butter in the smallest bread-and-butter plate on the shelf, I made the second cup of warm lemonade that day and added a single drop of CBD oil to it. In very slow bites she managed to finish 3 pieces of the pasta and the entire cup of hot drink. These are the smallest cups in my kitchen, not the ones I drink from, almost ever. But it seemed the only right size to her. I could not keep my eyes open past 8 p.m. and went to bed. We slept through the night, waking irregularly with bad dreams and vomiting.
NB: I have made it a point during my recovery and healing of the last 11 years to not further burden my children with my mental health struggles. During the hospital stay in 2014 and most of 2009–2012 they have seen several dissociations presenting, but then my adult consciousness was subsumed, so technically I was not the one sharing memories and information about my past with them.
All this notwithstanding, I promised them 5 years ago after my discharge from the hospital that I would always send them health updates, which I unfailingly continue to do. So I texted them on the family thread about my physical symptoms the first day I began to have them. I added that cognition was difficult because of the screaming inside my head. And for the first time in my memory (though they have been loving supports throughout, I have few and ragged memories of their interactions with me, especially during crises when I am most susceptible to memory loss) they stayed in touch with me all this week, checking in daily to see if I was improving and adding acknowledgments and confirmations of this current processing. I cannot say enough of what this loving compassionate support means to survivors and how it accelerates the healing process. I am using the text thread to keep this telling accurate.
NB: To complicate matters, it rained continuously from the day the symptoms first appeared and the dogs, Bunni and Peeku, refused to go outside to do their business. They did not want their kibble which bestie had left for them on Sunday, and did not eat it on Monday either. They are accustomed to having it with steamed buttered cauliflower or broccoli, plus pieces of freeze dried meat, or other little fun morsels I add to their bowls. Bunni tends to hover close to me when I am ill or processing, and Peeku tends to hide. Neither come to ask for rubs or attention when I’m in a bad way, which is the Universe’s biggest gift to me. Among many others.
Day 4 Tuesday &/Or Day 5 Wednesday
Woke at 4 a.m. with nausea but no output at either end. Cuddled in soiled bed with my little one, stroking her arms. Slept again for a few hours, waking refreshed. Optimistic after last night’s pasta feast, had a cup of ginger tea with double the dose of CBD…two whole drops! Optimistically poured kibble for the dogs, pouring a little garlic powder infused melted butter over it, with pieces of grilling cheese. Began prepping my own breakfast, a savory cream of wheat concoction from my food culture, called upma. This is a simple meal quickly ready, which her mother made often. I already knew that onions were not acceptable to her although they are an integral part of this food in my cooking. Reached in the fridge for a serrano, she shook her head no. Turned away to boil a small potato. “I don’t want aloo” she said. “It’s okay” I answered, “you don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. I won’t put it in the upma.” NO! I put the red potato in the microwave anyway and immediately ran to the haven that is the bathroom. Message received: no potato, no upma. How about some sweet cream of wheat? With milk? There was no answer so I started a fresh pan with Indian style creamy cooked porridge called kheer. Looked good, smelled good. There was an internal side eye happening, so I threw out all the old dairy and almond milk, pouring from a new carton. Added sugar instead of Splenda because now we’re out of stevia. Took out jar of slivered almonds to add to the simmering milk. Sly eye, maybe even rolling eye. I put that away and added a spoonful of almond meal. Everything’s looking good. Then another mad dash to the arms of the waiting bathroom. What I ate yesterday, I can eat that. So I boiled the water and made, like yesterday, six spoonfuls of pasta for breakfast. Today she doesn’t want anything she is familiar with. Now we know. So I got her to eat four spoonfuls this time. No chai, she said (which I haven’t had for three days now, not with a teabag in it!). No hot ginger water, not even sweet. Cold? Lemonade? Yes. 6-ounce glass of fresh lemonade with ginger, those 2 drops of herbal tincture…every morsel stayed down. We watched a little television, which is normal for me at late morning, but nothing kept her attention so I turned it off. We talked some more about…I don’t know…it will come back later.
With much effort, and with many breaks, I stripped my bed down to the mattress and began by wiping down the plastic cover and washing the soft mattress cover. After it had dried and was still warm, struggling with her 10-year old arms, she helps me get it back on the bed. I did all the sheets in a second load, dried them, but left them in the dryer. I didn’t need her to tell me how tired she was so I came to bed with a towel and a flat sheet which I lay on the bed for our nap. I opened my phone and made jokes with Matt (Stephen M. Tomic) on Facebook, then she asked for a song. Know this: the song is from a Hindi film from 2016, I just heard it three months ago, and have been listening to it on a loop as can be attested by a comment I left somewhere back in November on one of Farida’s poems. Here are the lyrics, partially and roughly translated by me. I have added the video at the end of this piece. Don’t be fooled by the visuals; they play with the storyline and have little to do with lovers or the words being sung by the characters.
The wings of the bird that is my soul struggle to find a peaceful island, tell me what to do. Appear to me, or at least give me false hope, what shall I do. Friend to lovers hear my call, you are my guide, my only guide. Your destination is beyond these borders, god (the Universe) is your savior. I am the trail in the wild, looking for my paradise. I want to be part of your caravan, I want to chisel away all my shortcomings to be with you. You are my guide, my only guide.
I know why I have responded to it: the minor key composition, some words that resonate deeply, but this younger me has heard it somewhere inside me, like an unborn child in my womb. So I play it. Twice. And begin to cry as I rub her back. Because I am not the the guide she is looking for, she is the guide I need for my healing and sanity. She reaches up with her 10-year old hand and strokes my face, wiping away my tears. She cuddled into the crook of my elbow, her arms thrown trustingly around my waist. Then we slept.
NB: The tenses in this memory rendering are varied according to where I was in my head at the time…sometimes able to tell the story in the past, removed from it…sometimes living the moment again. This is how the path of healing meanders for me. Thank you for your indulgence.
Read the conclusion “Conversations With My Younger Self” and the history of the bruise memory here.
