Qwillpen

Hi, Im Qwillpen, host for this system. I have been the host for 28 years now. I am a writer, so a lot of the writing you see here will be done by me, but is very different than what you will see from Cassy. Cassy has a unique gift of being a "recorder" or secretary for us. She can look upon us and see things that we cannot see, like how we came to be here. Much of her writing will reflect that. I wanted to write a little something to let you know about me and why I am doing this. There are many reasons, some of which I don't even understand. I have a great deal of fear about it, as I am exposing the deepest parts of me here, but I feel that the only way I can truly heal is to be of some help to someone else. As we record our journey to healing in these pages, it is my hope that someone else will find hope in healing, will realize that regardless of horrors of our childhoods, we can and do recover. Many of the things you will see reflected in these pages may appear to be just the opposite, but what I have learned is that healing in and of itself is a painful process and often seems hopeless to the one trying to undertake it. You will see, hear, and perhaps feel our hopelessness from time to time, but it is the reasons we are doing this that I press upon you to remember. The overall goal is to provide hope, in the midst of the worst hopelessness and despair. I have always felt different, a part of another world. It was only 5 years ago that multiplicity was suspected, but I was not able to grasp that at the time. I went through many therapists in search of the right diagnoses for me. I have been in and out of psychiatric care since I was 12 years old. I have been diagnosed as schitzophrenic, bipolar, depressed, ADHD, PTDS, panic/anxiety disorder, you name it. All of these came about from the multiplicity, but I just was unaware of it. When the true diagnoses came, I could not accept it. I could accept bipolar disorder, and embraced it fully, even though the drugs they gave me didn't change anything. I refused to accept being MPD. I would accept, however, that I had an inner child, and that is when Leslie and I got to know each other. My therapist at the time was well intentioned, I am sure, but in his desire to "integrate" me and my desire to deny the presence of others, we ignored and put into boxes the others who made themselves known and only dealt with Leslie. Leslie is 8, and the closest to me on the inside for the most part. We share co-consciousness, but the struggle was hard for us to get to this place. The first thing we had to do was learn to communicate. We began, many years ago, by writing letters to one another on notebook paper. I wrote to her on blue notebook paper, and she requested pink to reply. Brad, our therapist, encouraged me to buy pink paper for her, so I did. I kept those letters, and soon will post them here for you to see our early attempts to communicate with each other. This journey is hard, bitter, and often cruel. The flashbacks, nightmares and body recall are terrible reminders of why we are multiple. Some days it is all I can do to bring myself to get out of the bed and make it to the bathroom. Other days I am full-functioning, with a great deal of activity going on. There is no way to tell what will be a good day and what will not until the day gets here. This in one of the things I want to see change in this journey of recovery. We all have good days and bad days, but most of us can still function on the bad ones. I cannot. This makes it impossible for me to hold a job, even part-time. This fuels my feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness, and so the cycle goes. I want more for me than this, and I hope each day the road I am on will bring me there. One of the most difficult but most important things I have learned along the way, is that I am not just an abuse survivor or just a multiple. For years this has defined my life. Today I am looking for other things to define who I am, other than what has happened to me. I was created for a purpose and a reason, and not just to be a victim of savage abuse. This is one of the hardest concepts for me to grasp, because my whole life has been based upon abuse. Today I put my foot down, no more will this be the reason for my being. I have a greater purpose, and hopefully as we continue on the road to recovery, we will discover what it is. Perhaps, you too, will discover yours as you follow me down this road. Thanks for being a part of my healing.

Qwillpen