You Are Bad.

I talk too much. Always have, and as I have been trying very hard to accept and be okay with in recent years, I always will.This has been one of the biggest causes of our internal conflict as someone living with DID.

My alters struggle with my personality and the way it impacts them. I am an extrovert, I talk too much, I unintentionally interrupt people and I am extremely annoying to be around for any length of time.

I am very aware of my faults. My alters and other outside people in my life have been pointing out these character flaws to us our entire life. Unfortunately, knowing my short comings hasn’t given me the ability to change them.

I loathe that I am like this. I hate how it hurts my alters and affects the lives of those around me. I promise you if I could be different I would be and I have tried to not be like this, God how I’ve tried but I am completely unable to stop it. I might last five minutes while consciously trying to act ‘appropriately’ but inevitably I get distracted and fall back into these annoying character traits.

Suicidal ideation has come and gone throughout my life in varying intensities since early childhood. Different factors play their roles as to ‘why’ but fundamentally, the reason I have wanted to cease to exist is shame.

I hate who I am as a person and I always have.

I wonder if this is one of the reasons I developed DID? It is naive of me to think I was the ‘first’ and yet I can’t help but wonder if they were created by our brain because I am so shit, and in order to survive, there needed to be less shit versions of me so the people around us didn’t go crazy and leave.

I mean, realistically, a lot of the cptsd traumas we experienced in childhood could have been avoided if I wasn’t like this. Not everything, but a lot of it was brought upon myself – it seems my alters were very much aware of this and have been understandably frustrated by me since the dawn of time. I always fucked everything up for them.

I had an amusing conversation with my niece recently – this is the niece who came about via egg donation, for the purpose of this post I’ll name her Giggles. So Giggles is 8 and lives interstate. Her grandmother (my mother in law) was visiting over Christmas and so Giggles had to stay in her little sister’s room and she was telling me how her little sister, let’s call her Mischief, was “OMG Aunty Kate she is soooo annnoying to live in a room with!”

I thought the way she said it was funny and cute so I relayed the story to my mother in law this morning. My mother in law has always been a bit funny about Giggles. She has never said anything specific, but it’s been pretty clear that she wasn’t happy about the way Giggles came into being (genetically related to me) and when Mischief was born (not my egg spawn) it became obvious who the favourite child was.

So MIL says, “Bah! Giggles is far more annoying though. She’s exactly like you. She looks like you, acts like you and talks like you. Faith (SIL) hoped raising her in a different environment would help but it seems to definitely be genetic.”

Okay cool. At least I know where I stand. Thanks MIL. Now I know MIL never exactly loved me marrying her son 20 odd years ago,but I thought we’d been on better terms. I try really hard to rein myself in around her but I am like I am and can’t stop it. Unfortunately none of my calmer alters want anything to do with her so they very rarely seem to front around her.

So I struggle with the whole egg donation thing. I mean I agreed to it during a hypomanic episode that had been going for months. I decided on a whim, without considering my mental health issues and without consulting my husband or family. I recognise that’s not okay.

I hadmade peace with that to an extent because well, I love Giggles. I get random text messages from her parents telling me how much they love her and how thankful they are and that seemed to make it all worthwhile.

But now giggles is eight, they think she has ADHD. They take her to therapy every week and while frankly I think therapy should be mandatory for everyone, I can’t help but wonder if they see our similarities and assume she’s going to end up crazy.

When things happen like MIL making these comments I get anxious that Giggles is being put into a “just like Kate” box and not getting an opportunity to just be an extroverted kid who loves music and animals and talks too much.

I worry that I did the wrong thing by doing the egg donation in the first place. I was trying to help, but perhaps I’ve just brought someone into the world and doomed them to a life of suffering and failure? Doomed her to a life of thinking something is wrong with her and that she’s fundamentally “bad” because she shares my DNA.

I’m sorry Giggles.

One of our little parts, Isabella, feels this even harder than me. She’s crying because she remembers how lonely she was and how nobody liked her. I’m sad because I never kicked the habit that hurt her. V is annoyed because she says MIL’s comment was really rude. Catherine is apologetic for not dealing with MIL more.

Giggles is just a little older than Isabella perpetually is and We all see their similarities. Suzi try’s to comfort us from inside the way she did as we grew up. Suzi was Isabella’s only rock. I worry because Giggles doesn’t have a Suzi, but then again I hope to dear God she never needs one.

Kate.