(Click Image for Source Credit) 

Recently I began writing down all the names I use for various purposes as I was beginning to confuse myself.  I have a name for Facebook, my company name, my online name, my Open Salon name, and of course, my "real" name.  I have to do this to protect my own and my family's identity because of the risk we live with being the victims of violent criminals and witnessing their crimes.  Who are the perpetrators?  Mainly, my own mother, father and brother, but a few of their "friends" were also involved due to the cult activity they were mixed up in during my first years.

Today it is the "real" name which pains me.  

I have struggled through the ravages of trauma for the last five and a half years.   It started much earlier than that, but for the last five plus years I have been in twice a week counseling at a minimum, with several in-patient psychiatric stays early on.  Just now am I beginning to feel that I have come out of crisis mode into some assemblance of normalcy.  Right, whatever that is.

I was given my birth name as homage to my godmother's daughter.  That family wasn't much healthier than my own, and their son became one of my early abusers.  The story growing up was that he spent so much time with me trying to teach me to walk.  As I began to recover memories starting at age 33, I soon found out he wasn't interested in helping me walk, he was on his way to becoming a full-blown sexual predator.  He is now divorced from his wife and has no access to his daughters, thankfully.  That was one pervert I didn't have to track down and share with his family the type of person he really is.

 My middle name I share with my grandmother whom I never met.  She is the source of the alcoholism gene in my family lineage, although I am sure someone came before her, too.  She taught my mother to become a violent criminal and stacked the cards against her developing into a healthy human being.  Originally, her middle name was supposed to be my first name, but luckily my mother felt it was too old fashioned.

So what's the rub?

Unfortunately, dissociation (previously referred to as multiple personality disorder) is most often portrayed in the media as people, usually women, developing separate personalities with distinct names, physical symptoms, and often life stages (as in your "8 year-old self"). Many of these cases stem from outdated therapy modalities where the therapist encourages each of these distinct "personalities" to come out to share their part of the story which caused the fracturing, rather than educating the patient that they are simply different aspects of themselves which need to be integrated back into the whole.

For me, I was diagnosed with "dissociative disorder not otherwise specified".  Like "dissociative identity disorder" or DID, I fractured into hundreds of pieces, but I still had a core self which spoke with all the other parts.  For those with true DID, the fractured parts may communicate with the core self but not with the other aspects of the self (or any combination thereof).  This makes a therapists job extremely hard.  The true test of therapy is healing these fissures so integration is possible.  The cutting edge modality of EMDR is incredibly helpful in achieving that goal.

And, despite what so many of the legacy stories  have shown, it is possible.  I am living proof of that.

With all the social stigma and inaccuracies surrounding this disorder, changing my name feels taboo.  I want to let go of the energy surrounding my chosen names, but I fear it will already make an awkward situation in my life even more awkward.

Right after my memories began to break, we were in Texas because my father-in-law was dying.  It was a difficult trip to make without my new revelations.  While there, the first reaction I got to what was happening to me was from my sister-n-law.  She threw in my face the time I had gone bezerk on her husband for driving like a maniac in Costa Rica.   She said, "I don't know what to believe - maybe you are one of those crazy people with multiple personalities".  While I did lose my temper, it had nothing to do with DID, it had everything to do with his reckless driving.  

The idea that I was vulnerable enough to share the horror of what was happening to me with someone I considered close family being met with utter distaste, was gut-leveling for me.  It was the beginning of a long road of isolation and relationships I had to let go of because people could not find the compassion it took to deal with something so life altering on a continual basis.  I literally had to become a new person without any of the usual suspects I had come to rely on.

Luckily, the universe provided bucket fulls of divine resources which guided my way, but that is a story for another time.  Back to the name game.

As a kid growing up, I desperately wanted to be Marcia Brady.  What child of the 70s didn't at one point or another?  Today the only sentiment the name Marcia holds for me is a nostalgic one.  While having lunch with my dear girlfriend recently, she thought Serena described me best.  To be honest, it is the only name that has been suggested that feels like a fit.

Serena Joy.  I like it. 

Hell with 'em anyway.