My Life Interrupted: Memoirs of a Multiple

By Janet Harrison

This is a culmination of my life experiences, learning how to interact with people, my journey of realization, and what I've learned about DID, my experience with being a runaway, becoming a drug addict, survival through prison, suicide, loss, and my journey to find peace as a survivor. In this book WE share my experience growing up in a cult, and the court proceedings surrounding the leader of that cult, Ariel ben Sherman, and the events that led to one of the most famous controversial Supreme Court cases in history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Sep 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9780359076376

Book preview

My Life Interrupted: Memoirs of a Multiple

MY  LIFE INTERRUPTED

me.jpg

Memoirs

Of a

Multiple

DEDICATION

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY SISTER.

I WILL LOVE HER AND MISS HER UNTIL I DIE.

MOIRS OF MEMOIRS OF A, first I'd li

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Dr. Martin Luther King

THE TRAVELER

Once upon… the story goes

Of dragons, knights and kings

And only those who are swift of heart

May capture all these things

But what about the heavy heart

The one who must traverse

The child that wilts beneath the thumb

Of chapter, line and verse

Who carries through this weighty life

An old and rusty sword

And hears the battle cry again

Repeated word for word

Do not look back my soulful child

My hero strong and brave

Hold no more within your heart

The wanderings you crave

Look no more into your eyes

To find the caverns deep

Past the ogre citadel

Into the dragon’s keep

SearchlifemintButnely souls

Lost beneath the crags

Strewn about by blighted dreams

Like old discarded rags

For what was dark, will find great light

In places never known

The  search to find the greatest gem

Will bring the traveler home

A HEADS-UP

(Just so that you know, the differences in script are so that you know when we have switched..)

Boots

Deuce 

Lost

Janet

Ms proper

Pidgeon

The Baby

Helper

Myself

Goodgirl

Asshole

PRELUDE

I know that there had to be a particular reason that you picked up this book, either to read it or just to 'check it out'.      

If your reason is that you have someone in your life that has D.I.D. (Disassociative Identity Disorder), or they ( have) had some involvement in a cult, and you ( have tried) to understand what they went through and (you)want answers... Or if it is you.... I wrote this book for you.

SIDE NOTE

I want you to know that no matter how bad things get or how hard you fall down, or how many times, or how hopeless and purposeless life seems, there is a chance to live a pretty good life and even a pretty full life.

And there are ways to approach things and methods to use that will bring hope to what seems like never ending madness.

I know, because I'm living proof that a little goddamned open mindedness, a whole hell of a lot of stubbornness, some well placed drug binges, a whole heck of a lot of time spent with God- either cussing Him out or just crying out. Some determination to not hold a grudge, a lot of time furiously studying - wanting desperately to learn, and a whole lifetime of seemingly endless trials and errors, are the only things that kept me from giving up.     

Which is what most of us do. We may not give up on the outside, but on the inside we believe, with everything that we think we are, that there is no reason to even try. And, a life without hope is not worth living.

I have, somewhat up to this point, come to the conclusion that I am not damaged goods.

I am unique.

I am not disabled, I am enabled, to be so much more than most people could imagine.

IF I do not make my decisions based on what other people think or try to tell me that I should do.

At some point I discovered that, if left alone, and not freaked out over, we(all of us) do really good. We actually work together sometimes.

There are still those 'other' times...when I feel like my life is ruined or hopeless. Or that I was never even given a fair chance. I mean there are times, lots of times, that I don't remember. Years even, and what if I 'go away' and this body gets killed before I get another turn? 

Yes, it really is that way.

Then there are the times that I was here, but not in control, or times when I wasn't here , but I get a chance to see some of the memories.

Some of us know about the others, but a couple of us don't want to.

I have NEVER talked to anyone about that stuff except my baby sister, because we were in it together. We were all each other had. And now,.…? X

But I don't feel like that as much as I used to.

Life has been pretty good for some of us. In fact some of MY memories are almost 'great'.

For those of us who live with DID, we have to write our own story.

Which I found myself doing for most of my life.  

I was the most creative liar in a crunch.

I had no idea who I was so I made myself up. I had no name so I took a name from someone that I knew in school.

And, of course, I complicated the hell out of the name to make myself mysterious

and so people wouldn't ask dumb questions about why I went by a nickname.

No one knew my 'birth' GOVERNMENT name and I liked it that way.

That way they were always addressing Pidgeon and there was no way they would accidentally trigger one of the others.

Because when someone calls us by our 'birth' name any one of us might answer

I finally began to figure things out about what could have been going on with me when I was in my late 20s. Up to that point I didn't care,

or I thought that I was being fucked with by mother fuckers trying to slip me up and were playing mind games,

or blamed my losses of time on Blackouts. Which was not hard to do seeing as how I drank to pass out. Meaning, that I would drink myself sick, go throw up, and drink some more.

But I never blacked out when I drank, but it was a good cover story.

Most of the time we have no idea what to do next,

I always know what to do next but the girls don't like to hurt people's feelings,

or try to do what's best for everyone,

when not one mother fucker was there for us .

I say fuck em alL

We have been a 'Dog and Pony Show' more times than I can count, but yet we keep reaching out. And that is why I'm sitting here, right now. Just you, and I. And me And me. And me, and I, , and me, and me, and me, and me , me too, And the rest of us.

So, 'Thank You', for giving us the opportunity to share our life with you...

...even if it is only for a few hours.

THE COURAGE TO HEAL

So often survivors have had their experiences denied, trivialized, or distorted.

Writing is an important avenue for healing because it gives you the opportunity

to define your own reality.

You can say: This did happen to me. It was that bad.

It was the fault & responsibility of the adult.

I was-and am-innocent.

'The Courage to Heal' - Laura Davis & Ellen Base

CHILDREN AND CULTS

"We know very little about the psychological treatment of children who have left cults. No systematic study of children's' post-cult psychological picture has been conducted. Very little clinical work has been reported on. The suggestions that follow are based more on reasoning than experience. 

(two completely different r-ealms of thought. I don't ever listen to someone that is telling me about something they have only READ about, unless I have even less exposure to the subject. But if I'm living it.... you have to have been there to get me to listen.)

When I was in prison, I was in a drug program where most of the counselors were fresh out of whatever school they went to to get their licenses, and they had a cousin or a friend that had a cousin who had a drug problem, so, they knew how I felt. WTFE

Yeah, I know that's not how I'm SUPPOSED to feel, but fuck em. How can they tell me what works and what doesn't work if they don't know? Or if they can't at least TELL me they don't know.

Essentially we are saying: We know A about cults; we know B about child development;