TRUTH
Recent social media and book reviewer interest in Lillian's 1980 speaking presentation caused me to reflect on her TRUTH.
In contrast to the Lillian who could not bring herself to speak out against child abuse, Lillian spoke as an integrated person during her presentation. In this recording, Lillian’s voice is measured. She speaks with purpose. Her words are compelling.
Lillian's account of her journey to integration is inspiring.
Reflecting on Lillian's presentation, I recalled the brittle hard-edged personality of Esther, the childish Sarah Ann who endured sexual abuse as a six-year-old in the name of exorcism, the rage-filled, calculating, homicidal Rose, and Ellen, who at age eight, endured the torture of a sadistic stepfather.
Prior to full integration, Lillian who wrote in her journals:
What does being a multiple personality disorder mean?
It means lying in bed and having horrible memories of waking up, unable to get your breath because you feel six or eight years old and some old man's tongue is in your mouth.
It is wishing, longing for a family that you will never have.
It is cuts on your body.
It is waking up in the hospital from taking too many drugs.
It is hating yourself for betraying your so-called family.
It is wanting to kill them without knowing why and sometimes feeling the same about your therapist.
It is terrifying dreams that leave you breathless and convince you that someone is standing at the end of your bed, again!
It is not knowing what to do except to escape into "someone else."
It is crying and hurting and devastating memories with you all of the time.
It is sleeping in the closet or on the floor or wherever you feel safe.
It is having a 6-year-old asking, "Are you mommy? I want to kiss her goodnight."
It is your child telling you, "I thought you were dead."
It is that horrible barbed-wired knot in your throat when you wake up.
In 1994, three years before her death Lillian wrote: "Where am I now? All my time is mine. Not lost. There are tears by the bucket for the lost years that I now remember, along with the feelings. I don't automatically know how to cope with everything at once, but I am staying one-person. There are frustrations, glaring mistakes, faltering steps and once in a while, success. I am relearning.
Reflecting on this presentation I asked myself, where was the Lillian who wrote in her journals? Now, hearing Lillian's voice so many years later, I find myself wishing that all of her readers could have known her.
Frank Alabiso, Ph.D.
