That's true. It feels like my abusers control my dreams, which is technically incorrect (the best kind of incorrect).
My brain is glitching out tonight. I've been so many people thanks to Brandi that even being asked what my gender is causes so much confusion. My brain literally believes it. I think. It's hard to explain and it's almost 4am so I'll just get to it some other time
The Fungus was the most damaging, but I've spent years before Fungus being others, even loving them at the same time that I was them. I had to behave as if H was in the room, for example, the "shadow king" who I won't name clearly because if I wrote it into a book I'd rather his name not come up here in a Google search. I understand him so well. We were friends with a weird bond, yet I also had to know his thoughts because I was him? Does that even make sense?
And his son R, who was adopted actually because plot twists I guess, but I'm not here to tell stories unless it matters for trauma healing. But I was R too, and he had lost his daughter. He almost named another daughter after the one who died. My brain feels such grief thinking about it, as if I really were her father and I can't bring this up to a therapist without looking insane, but I'm so sad about it...? ??????
And there were so many others. Usually male because Brandi was sexist(? Yes, she was a woman, but she HATED women, not really my business why) so I just glitch out now?
It makes me so sad that my own name confused me. It's not a bad name. My mother is old fashioned and picked a pretty sensible name that also sounds pretty and professional (mostly, most people I've met with my name were alcoholics, but everyone has something to work through). But I can't go by my name easily. I get uncomfortable if I hear it, and I can't really say other people's names either (I'm never 100% sure I'm talking to the person I think I am?) but my own name is rarely spoken.
Luckily I have nicknames. My friends all call me by one of my nicknames. Or, by my last name, because it is cool and hard to spell but a signal of a musical, Jewish and Russian line. That part of my identity I do understand and do just fine with.
In a meeting today the lady asked if I was "FL" [pretend initials] and I said yes and then said that she could call me Firstname. But I got uncomfortable and said something about Lastname. Not, "Ms. Lastname," or "Mr. Lastname."
I know to put "Ms." if I am required to have a title.
Most direct questions about my identity are met with horrendous confusion as my brain tries to remember who I am now. It was hard to separate things. But I had to. But... I did this to myself...?
Brandi NEVER called me by my name. She never said she loved ME, but she showed the shadow king all kinds of affection.
Also, many, many, many others. But after I tried to tell her the "truth" for the first time, in the summer of 2009? Or, maybe it was August? I dunno -- whenever it was that I realized how far she was taking it finally and I got frightened -- no, that was the second time I told her?
Anyway, a time I told her it wasn't real, she stopped saying she loved me. And she never said it again. Not after 2010 for sure. She kept referencing how much of a liar I was. How I didn't deserve love and it made her uncomfortable to say it to me. But not to shadow king.
Brandi is matching that "red flags of a psycho" list more and more. I don't want to believe it because I know she really was depressed and looking for help, but... who behaves like that? Even when they are depressed? We weren't drowning -- she didn't need to hold my head underwater in order to breathe.
I don't think she's a psycho, exactly, but definitely SOMETHING was wrong with her.
She never called me by my name. She called me Buddy.
Sometimes, Broseph.
She called me by a shortened version of my name at times, and that is something I am comfortable enough going by -- but towards the end of our relationship/whatever-it-was, she started calling me a different name. I have adopted it as my own, though, and it doesn't feel connected with her at all.
Brandi gifted me a 3DS one Christmas (I am forever thankful of this -- I had been dreaming about wanting one for a while and was so happy to get one -- and I still have it and love it) and put that name down as my username.
My friends at school noticed it, thought it fit me well, and began to call me it. Even my sorority T-shirt (we had the highest collective/mean GPA in all the university) has that name on the back. My friends in another sorority were surprised that I had it spelled differently in that context.
My other friends spell it differently. It has no strict spelling.
I think I'm calm enough to sleep now.
I'm guessing my service dog knew earlier that I was going to start having identity problems. She's been with me through this abuse (did I really just call it "abuse"?) and surely knows the signs. That's why being in Iceland without her turned out to be so dangerous(?). That must have been why she was kissing my hands trying to get me to stop typing about my mild, non-traumatic (but ones I hope to make sense of) childhood memories. She knew it was a sign that I was trying.... something. To make sense of me?
The most messed up part is that because of the basic parts of the PTSD illness, my memories feel distant to me. So it feels like I'll never remember who I really am, because all the memories are so.. real and distant?
For example, I listened to music today that made "me, " L, want to tear up because he has trouble getting close to his daughter, because -- well, no need to type what straight up does not exist, right? That won't help me. It's not real. I feel INCREDIBLY ridiculous that it's affecting me this much. Does litterally anyone know this particular problem? Where your identity just doesn't make sense, and it keeps you awake after really gross nightmares of something that REALLY DID happen but is so horrible it couldn't have?
But even the other identities have traumatizing, f*cked up pasts that have earned me stares on occasion.
It is mostly Fungus that confused me, because it was so inhuman and alien and so much of my time after a bad head injury(I'm guessing) that it's been so hard to shake off.
I'm so bothered about figuring out who *I* am. I have to be more patient. I CAN sort this out. Just... it'll take some work. But what's working so far is to say that I am not this, and not that, but "I am me."
Things I do know about me, so far:
- I am a human being
- I am biologically female (that feels so weird, but so does every other gender?)
- I think I like the color blue
- I love my dog (in a normal way)
- I have been through at least one shitty thing
That's good enough. I'm calm enough to sleep now.
If Fungus was not so world-encompassing, I think I could have healed faster. I knew so much of the tragedy around Earth.. but, that was through news. I can't know things like that any other way.
I really don't like the way this story of my life sounds. I can't wait to just be me. This story is the opposite of cool and it's disturbing and sounds insane. I just want to get over it so I can be an interesting person without a freakishly weird past that haunts them.
On the bright side, I hear a lot of people get confused when you ask them a lot of questions about themselves so it's probably not the weirdest looking stress to outsiders :P
Very glad for this forum. I would NEVER say this stuff elsewhere. It's just too bizarre. I don't want it to be a part of me but hopefully I'll be able to let it go soon : )
