Our Secret

“Can you keep a secret?” I hear a voice from inside, and picture wide eyes staring back at me. This little child in me, so innocent, in spite of being the result of my own innocence lost, keeps many a truth from my conscious self.  I’m unsure whether or not I am ready to learn what this alter holds. As I begin to doubt that we should even be having this conversation at work, my only thought in response to her is that I have.  I have many kept secrets, for all these are locked inside of me, hidden even from myself. This sounds like something that should wait until we’re in a safe place without the demands of our current setting at risk of being unmet.

The shards of my mind, carefully crafted into alter personalities are the secrets I knowingly keep. Those are my own. I know not the depth and scope of what the fragments of my brain have kept at bay so that I can live a semblance of a normal life.  Some semblance, as it is anything but “normal.”  But it is my normal. Our normal.  I would say it’s all fairly well-kept, as few who know me personally know how many of us there really are…

“You seem different today, anything wrong?” I hear my co-worker’s voice as though echoing down a long corridor and I return to the present surrounding me. Her question bounces through my headspace, garnering a laugh from Cora, who quips “Ah, if she only knew!” I stifle a laugh as a smirk crosses my lips. Cora’s sense of humor keeps things light.  Even when I feel so heavy, as I do today, writhing under the impending storm of another truth waiting to be revealed, and wondering at the way the initial traumas aren’t the end of the story. Always new traumas surround learning events long since blocked out to protect myself, realities that become new again at their revelations. It erodes my perception of reality, and of myself, as the ocean tides ever shift the sands and carry away the grains as it washes away from the shrinking land.

“Just not feeling myself today,” I respond from somewhere behind the alters fronting just now. It wasn’t a lie. I hardly know who I am most days. “Tell her.” I feel Cora pushing from the inside to come out. She hasn’t the apprehensions I have about disclosing my condition. Oh, to feel so carefree!  I don’t think it’s that she is wholly unaware of the consequences of confiding in the wrong person, on the contrary, she simply does not care what they think of us.  She figures It’s a good way to weed people out, and so not waste our time building relationships with those who would surely abandon us if they knew.  It’s not an illogical approach. But I’m left holding the bag when the dust settles, feeling vulnerable, and overexposed.  I feel so foolish when I wrongly believe I can confide in a person, and find out the hard way I cannot.  But it’s such a strong desire in me to be fully known and understood and accepted by another human...So much of the time it’s easy enough to discern whether this or that person should know.  Most people we cross paths with are temporal after all.  As a general rule, coworkers and superiors are on that list.  I try to keep a safe distance with these people.  I  could lose my job, or my position at the very least, if they were aware of my dissociative disorder, whether as a result of their knowing too much, or too little about it.  We could lose friends.  We have lost, “friends” as Cora points out they weren’t friends to begin with...I suppose she’s right. Hints the reference to our coworker as opposed to “friend from work.” It feels safe to refer to her as such, in spite of the connection we’ve developed over time. We discuss many personal things. She seems trustworthy. But I get attached so easily. Cora knows. It frustrates her. She’s ready to spill the beans, test this “friend.” I’d be lying to say I don’t want her to know. But I want her to know, and not tell the others; to know and not judge. I want her to know and accept me. Us. It feels like she would.  But then I’m reminded that the weight of this truth about myself, nothing I’ve confided thus far holds a candle to it. “Remember how your closest “friends” have disappeared.” Ever the realist, Cora says, “You’re already too attached.  The longer you wait the harder it’ll be on you. You know I’m right.” I know she’s right. Part of me just wishes to go on like this, leaving my “friend” in blissful ignorance, and enjoying the relationship. But I need a real friend. Someone who knows about us. I need a friend I can discuss this with. Someone who I can speak to without having to be mindful of the pronouns I use in my speech. Someone who doesn’t look at me sideways when I say “we” or “us” as is my normal custom. Someone I don’t have to pay to talk to and someone I can be honest with about how I am doing. How we are doing. How disorienting this all is. Someone to whom I can safely say, “I’ve been away for a few days, what have I missed?” Someone who isn’t offended when I forget details of their lives, because the day they told me, it wasn’t me they told, but an alter. 

“You don’t seem like yourself today, sure everything’s okay?” I’m drawn to the front by my coworker’s voice again. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“Yea, I know, thank you,” knowing though she means well, she’s no idea the heaviness of what lies behind my awkward presence this day. I decide to take the leap. I look up from my work and meet her gaze.

“Can you keep a secret?”