Voices of Courage, About Us

We chose the name, Voices of Courage, because that is what we wish to live up to. We are usually NOT courageous in anything. Mostly we are afraid. We are afraid of what people think about us. We are afraid that we will let people down. We are afraid that we have hurt somebody by something we said or did. The problem is that we don't remember things that we have said or done much of the time. If people appear angry or distant or seem to avoid us, then we are sure it is our fault and we go further into our inner world, vowing never to form a close association with anybody else, ever. This is what we constantly battle with. We are afraid of going totally broke. We are afraid of having no place to live, no food to eat and nobody to connect with in case of an emergency. We are afraid to live, but not afraid to die. We are afraid that we will never find a reason to keep going on, other than the reason that if we die of other than natural causes, we will be hurting people who love us. We have worked very hard to cut off contact with all people from our past and to make no new friends to whom we would have to be responsible. We are now down to our Ts, our children and our cyber friends.

Voices of Courage, is our way of fighting back. A way of telling ourselves that we can speak up about who we are and why we are the way we are. Being MPD is nothing to be ashamed of, yet it is something that we must not advertise either. We are daring to share with the general public that being MPD/DID is a gift from God that allows a person's survival from very horrible abuse. We are still learning to accept our gift. We are growing in understanding of the complexity of our lives and the delicate balance that is created by delving into past history.

To date, there are 60+ of us. 58 have given their names or have been named. Others, like some of the protectors and inner self-helpers have remained silent where their names are concerned. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't really know how many of us there are, but I have a rough idea, I think.

Living with being multiple is truly a gift and truly a challenge. Our MPD/DID diagnosis was made in 1992 after 2 years of intensive therapy for our high degree of suicidality. The diagnosis was later confirmed by an MPD specialist hired by an insurance company that needed confirmation before continuing their coverage on us.

I lived my life from very early childhood in a world that I didn't think unusual. It was all I knew. (I now have more memories of my childhood than I did in May of 1998, when this website was established. What memories I do have, have taken 12 long years to piece together from relatives, old report cards and work in psychotherapy.) I was weird, different and shunned by my peers. I know now why that was, but as I was growing up, I didn't understand why people avoided me. I was too unpredictable, shy at one moment, aggressive at another, smart at one moment and unable to read or understand numbers at another. I was the perfect little lady at times, a male, and the worst of tomboys at other times. I was accused of things which I knew I did not do. I was credited with accomplishments that I knew were not possible for me to attain.

Then at age 17, when I left home for the first time, things changed for me. My "system" (henceforth to be referred to as fambly) began working together, in cooperation. We appeared as one and functioned pretty much as one most of the time. The members of my "fambly" began finding ways that they could have their needs met and not attract attention. This worked fairly well as long as I didn't actually finalize any of my goals, as long as I did not become "something" or "somebody". When I took and passed the State Boards for my RN license, all of that changed. I crashed! My world came to an end. I had broken an unbreakable rule, "do not be". This all sounds so simple, but it is not. My father (the main abuser) and some of his friends abused me emotionally, sexually and physically for the first 24 years of my life. My father's abuse began while I was only an infant, still nursing. Following this, I married an abusive man or I trained a potentially abusive man how to abuse me. At any rate, I spent the second 24 years of my life being abused in some of the same ways my father abused me. For reasons that I couldn't understand (but now I do), he was constantly suspicious of me, accusing me of lying to him, stealing from him, being unfaithful to him, etc.. I say that now I do, because I didn't know that I was anything other than myself. Knowing that I am MPD explains many things that I could not otherwise understand. The only difference was that my husband had a terrible temper and he lashed out at anything close to him when he was angry. Although he never struck me, he did lash out at objects and broke things he valued. I became terrified of him, but knew that the only way out of my marriage was if he left or one of us died. Several times during our marriage, I went into therapy only to have my husband pull me out of it. It cost too much, nobody had any business knowing about family matters. I suggested marriage counseling; he said that there was no problem, I just needed to get my act together. At age 48, I then decided that I had to die, as it seemed the only way to escape what I perceived to be an extremely hopeless situation. This was the beginning of therapy for real.

We have been in therapy since February of 1990. I have been hospitalized 6 times for my suicidality. I am still working in therapy to develop co-consciousness and harmony in living with my many selves. I am learning to be patient with myself and with those who share my body. There are setbacks and awkward moments, but at times there seems to be some forward motion. There are times when this life is very difficult, as when I want to do something, but nobody else in this fambly wants to do it.

We are first of all Christians (well most of us anyway), then artists, poets, writers, an RN, a psychologist, a computer technician, a graphic designer/web designer and a linguist, among other things. Of course, we are not all active at the same time and we are not all aware of each other's presence. We have come to appreciate the talents and knowledge attained by so many in our fambly. The greatest hardship in this area is that sometimes the artist is gone for long periods of time, as with each of the others who have so much to offer. There is much unrest in our fambly and part of it is my fault as I have trouble accepting our diagnosis at times. I get in such strong denial, and this causes all kinds of problems. It is discounting for those many members of our fambly who took so much abuse so that I might be spared. It makes some so angry that they just 'have' to prove to me that they are in deed here. It sends some scurrying away because; obviously they are not supposed to be here. And these are just a few of the problems created by my denial. When we are all working together, we are awesome. God has indeed given us many gifts. When we aren't all working together, we are a disaster.