MEET ME

Who am I? That indeed is a good question to ask. I've put a lot of prayer and thought into what I wanted to share in regards to myself. Sometimes that is a question that I even have to ask myself. One day I'm feisty and stubborn and sarcastic, while other days I'm passive, comfortable, and calm. Some days I don't want to know who I am. Sometimes I don't even like myself. But ultimately, I have no choice. I am who I am on any given day. After being diagnosed DID/SRA several years ago, I still fight it. I don't want to be DID (and definitely not SRA!)! Sometimes I would rather consider myself to be crazy. Anything but DID! This society doesn't understand DID so they ridicule it, demean it, and/or deny its existence. Especially those within the walls of the FMSF. They can accept crazy though. They can accept it without any understanding. If I AM DID, then I am forced to admit that there have been some pretty horrible people in my life. This is not something I WANT to believe, let alone remember. My life has been messed up enough without this. I certainly didn't need to add more stress to my life. I have been married to the same man for twenty years-which is a miracle in itself! We have three beautiful children. We also have one cat and one dog. I live in a brand new house in a wonderful family oriented community, I drive a brand new car, and I have more than my heart could ever desire and then some. DID just doesn't fit into my life. Neither does crazy, but at least people accept that. My therapist says, "Who cares if they accept it?" I do. If they don't accept "it," then they don't accept me. So far it may appear that I live a "normal" life. Only on the outside. It's the inside life that is tearing me apart. Ever since I was diagnosed I have been searching the Internet trying to find "me" out there. So far I have been unsuccessful. Way back into my childhood I have always had weird aches and pains that no doctor can seem to diagnose. I had "dizzy spells" where everything would go black and I would think I was going to pass out and then my eyes would clear and it would be as if nothing happened. But they sure did scare me. I would have chest pains that would grip me. I believed that if I moved just a hair I would have a heart attack and die. I've been "paralyzed" in my arm. I could not move it or feel it for fifteen minutes. Once I was in a hospital visiting my Grandpa and I had a "dizzy spell" and passed out right there in his room. Again the doctors couldn't explain it. Just two months after being married the stabbing pains began. At first they were in the crotch area, but soon spread to the ovaries. I had a laporoscopy surgery done looking for endometriosis. Nothing. No explanation at all. Test after test. Needle after needle. Nothing. It wasn't long and the pains had spread throughout my entire body. Around this time I met the first of many Christians who would pray with and for me. He was my boss and a pastor of his own church. He encouraged both my husband and I to stay strong in the Lord. He gave me a song, "You are the Lord, my Healer." I still listen to that song today. But it is hard to stay focused on God when you are in so much pain and you are receiving no answers whatsoever. Not from God, not from doctors, not from anybody. Then of course you hear, "It's all in your head." I have to laugh now when I think of that because technically DID is ALL IN YOUR HEAD! HA! After many years of living with pain and no answers, it just became my "normal." It was something that I was just going to have to live with. Maybe it is the thorn in my side. I didn't like the pains, but I had no choice but to accept them. In the Fall of 1997 that all changed for me. We belonged to a wonderful, loving, charismatic church just down the road from our house. We had many friends within the "in crowd" and all was well. We went to church every Sunday, once in the morning and then again for the evening service. We went to the Wednesday night Bible studies, I joined a Bible study on Tuesday nights, and we joined in on the prayer meetings. I was truly a Christian. I read my Bible faithfully, sometimes up to twenty chapters a day. We listened only to Christian music, read only Christian books, and prayed consistently for our friends and loved ones. All that changed in just one summer night. I used to say I have been abused in every way you could imagine. I never knew how true those words would be. I had never heard of Satanic Ritual Abuse or even spiritual abuse. It is my opinion that the spiritual abuse I have suffered has been more painful than anything anyone else could have ever done to me. That summer night I "manifested" in our church. The altar call had been made for anyone wanting deliverance. About a month before this particular night I began having trouble being in church, especially during praise and worship, my favorite time. It would make me sick, literally. I would hear this voice inside my head telling me, "Leave! Get out now! Get out of here! If you don't leave I will make you pay for it until you do!" The longer I stayed the sicker I became, but as soon as I walked out of the sanctuary doors, I was fine. The pastor's wife was also my therapist at the time so she was aware of everything that had been happening. She had already been told about "the Wolf." We both believed this to be a demon since neither of us believed in Multiple Personality Disorder. So when the Wolf manifested that night, she was right there on the floor with me trying to cast it out! I had over thirty people surrounding me, praying, and commanding for this demon to go. It never left. Over the next several months I received over fifty hours of knock down, kicking, screaming, swearing, slamming around deliverance. It only made things worse. After just one month of this, the pastor's wife turned on me. She accused me of manifesting for the attention, doing this on purpose, not wanting to be healed, having a secret sin that I wasn't willing to give up, and the worst-I was working for the Devil. One deacon's wife told people, "She is mentally ill and if she would just get on her medication she would be fine." One deacon said, "I don't know why you waste your time with her. She's not saved anyway!" During one deliverance session, the pastor fell asleep! By the spring of 1998 we had lost all of our "friends" in that church. I fight every day with myself as to whether or not I am a Christian. I have made this a Christian site because I still have the "morals" of a Christian. I want to be a good person and follow Christ and try my best to live as He would have me live. But then there are the other parts of me who refuse to be called a Christian. Sometimes I don't understand why God allowed my abuses to happen in the first place. I don't understand why He didn't stop His own kids from causing such harm to me. Because of what took place in that church, I find it very hard to even go to a new church. I fear, "What if I manifest again? Will they treat me the same way? Will they be nice at first and then turn on me when God doesn't heal me in their timing?" How can I trust God to help me now when He didn't help me then? I have a love/hate relationship with God these days.