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“I take it then that this is a very productive woman we’re talking about.” “Exceedingly,” Stanley said. “Which leads me to believe that this can’t possibly be multiple personality. She’s never been debilitated, nothing seems to stop her. And I definitely don’t see a neat parade of alternate selves who come out and say, ‘Hi, I’m so-and-so.’”
Rabbit was a very young and unevolved child who held the pain for almost the entire Troop Formation.
He would also understand how the woman, when she was present, and unbeknownst to herself, was only a conduit for other Troop members.
“Why,” she blurted as her eyes flew open, “is it so easy to get there now?” “Because you are ready now.” Stanley smiled.
Why hadn’t she begun to transfer that guilt to the stepfather where it belonged?
were they thoughts or voices? Whatever they were, they had begun, just before her visit to A Woman’s Place, to spring up with no warning.
own name, with no shadows and no voice distortion. Instead, she’d found not only another victim, but a mirror-image of herself—and her own case was termed “rare” by every printed word she’d ever encountered on the subject.
Jeannie Lawson had been a multiple as the result of sexual abuse and brutal, physical torture by her stepfather’s teenage boys. Jeannie, and the woman whose condition he’d almost decided on, were supposed to be rare, too. Were they? What about the brutal offenders? Men and women who would never turn themselves in? Could there be more brutal offenders—and perhaps multiples, too—in greater numbers than anyone imagined?
The Gatekeeper gave the signal. And in the shadows of the Tunnel Walls, the Weaver bent to his task with nimble fingers. He gathered the threads of the veil that shrouded all and wove each one back into place. The woman’s suspicion floated away. No longer able to feel the fear, she believed that it did not exist, had never existed.
Nails, a Troop member who dealt with rejection, charged up front. Nails was now “sitting forward” in the mind of the woman who could still hear and operate, and therefore believed that the actions and words were her own. Even if she did feel “removed” from everything. “Three of my agents quit,” Nails said to Sharon and lit a cigarette.
Catherine picked up the carry-all purse from the desk and slithered out of the nightgown she’d never liked.
“Jeannie can’t have told you much,” Martha Ryland said. “Frankly, she still has an aversion to men. She’s given me permission to fill you in.” Stanley remembered the little Jeannie had told him. She’d had multiple personalities; three to be exact, each one distinctly separate from the other.
Stanley did know. Adult child-abuse victims in the work force were often regarded as “risky” employees, prone to falling apart on the job. They probably weren’t any more risky than other employees but the stigma was there. If a prospective employer should get wind of the added stigma of multiple personality, Jeannie Lawson could face an even tougher battle.
This is the first time that Jeannie has reached out to anyone. I view her willingness to go this far as a sign of recovery, and her psychosocial history, when she turns it in, will probably be something to behold.”
what few multiples there were, in general, operated in a world wherein emotions were “buffered” for them by their other selves. The selves, depending on how many there were and how damaging the cause of the multiplicity, handled what the first-born child could not. So that the degree of life which the first-born child might enjoy could range from a lot to a little.
“Like what?” she demanded. “I’ve hidden my whole life, mostly because I was frightened of what other people thought. What is it you’re afraid people will find out from the tapes? That I’m crazy? My best friends tell me that. I don’t care about my enemies.”
Perhaps I should tell you. It probably doesn’t mean anything but lately I’ve been hearing more than one thought in my head at a time. Perhaps I’m only talking to myself, but that name “Miss Wonderful” keeps popping up. Now there are other names.
And for every statement I make to you, pointing out that or any viewpoint, I can give you twenty more, all in conflict with each other. They all belong to me and none of them belongs to me.
All the while, some perversity, some ancient hope, ground at me. I cherished her individuality, that spark of independence no child should lose to life’s restrictions and parameters. I went against Norman’s wishes. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, train her to bow to discipline and respect us as parents, simply because we were. Norman wanted her neat. Neat? I hoped she’d be herself—beautiful, free, sure of her own worth.
In that instant when he lunged, glared at me with his face almost touching mine, I cannot tell you exactly what happened in my head. It was as if someone had taken it from me, bent it out of shape. It wasn’t me anymore, it was as if I had been invaded. I howled like some demented animal, waiting for the blow; childhood sat in front of me. A sound started in my throat. The sound grew, not so much in volume as in intensity, and reminded me of an animal, a small one, trapped and in pain. I was unable to stop that sound, couldn’t really be making it, but it went on and on. Norman talked to me with
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I look at the paintings hanging on the walls here in this house and people tell me I painted them. I can’t believe they ever came into existence. I look at me when I can bear it—I’ll never be real, Stanley.
“Any other self,” Jeannie said, “can use ‘I,’ and any other self can refer to the group as ‘we.’ There’s a very peculiar period during the ‘coming aware’ stage, when ‘we’ is used and yet the other selves really aren’t aware, or all that aware in some instances, of each other. It’s sort of like a cloud in the sky and you feel moisture on your skin and know it’s about to rain. It’s that kind of forewarning, I guess. Am I making sense?”
The Buffer moved aside then, but not completely, as Miss Wonderful smiled, wide-eyed, at every man at the table. “Isn’t that lovely?” she asked.
Miss Wonderful and another Troop member were about to receive their signal from the Gatekeeper and “evidence” themselves.
Unlike other Troop members, the Outrider might consult and make mutually agreed concessions with the Gatekeeper, but she needed no signal to do anything. Part of her job was keeping sadness away and to do that, she had to be “around,” or at least available most of the time.
The Outrider vanished of her own accord. As the Buffer moved back in and immediately moved over, Miss Wonderful took her place. Happiness came in a flood, so excruciating that the woman wondered if her mind had snapped. A smile washed over her face in a giant wave. The smile obliterated all sexuality. With sexuality gone, so was the fear the woman had felt all her life. Miss Wonderful had just evidenced her full self. It was all that she was, the complete absence of “bad.” But there were two people in the car with the woman. The other began to evidence himself until, as with Miss Wonderful,
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Mean Joe did. Gigantic and quietly powerful, his presence was distinctly protective. As he continued to wrap himself lightly around the woman, she felt safe and trusted him immediately, without question.
Mean Joe stood by her side, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, deadly quiet. He did not look up. He looked only from side to side and his eyes were slanted and knowing. The woman felt his simmering anger and sense of purpose.
Any Troop member who wanted to be a part-time Front Runner first had to travel with the Outrider, absorbing a working familiarity with the safety mechanism. So now as the Outrider monitored through the Buffer and the Front Runner, whatever reached the woman, a smaller Troop member sat, listening attentively and hoping one day to be chosen. She was only twelve years old, so there was a lot going against her. She did, however, have a sharp mind.
Why, Twelve asked the Outrider, do we have to be so careful, why can’t we all just evidence right now and bring the memories with us? We can’t all do that, said the Outrider. Some of us are too damaged. Besides, there’s always that dumb but justified word: caution. If we make a mistake, there’s a lot to lose.
Yes, said the Outrider. There are two cold places for us that we know of. One is the Well, a thing of this earth, this time. Olivia lives there—if it can be called that—and when she speaks, one grows cold with listening. The other place is not of this earth or of this time; its coldness comes from the one who lives in the furthermost reaches of the Tunnel.
Easy, said the Outrider, feeling herself fading away and the reins being taken from her grasp. The one in the Tunnel held the reins now and his hold was firm. Twelve received his name and knew that if she said it aloud before it was safe, she would never be a Front Runner. His voice as he spoke held a slight brogue that Twelve did not feel was “borrowed” at all.
This person who is speaking, said Twelve with great politeness, is he the head of our Troop Formation? Some say that it is so. There was a smile beneath the brogue. But there be no competition here. T’a man, we are equal as individuals. No one o’ us could stand without the others; and even i’ we could, we would n’ want to. Something awful occurred to Twelve. She had to ask because what she was receiving from this person who had replaced the Outrider was so peculiar, so all encompassing, so terribly without end, without beginning. Are you what they call god? No, darlin’. The brogue was rich and
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“You ever heard a rabbit die?” he asked his partner. “The sound she’s making. That’s it.”
When she recorded notes at home, they were full of static. Even brand-new batteries and then a new tape recorder hadn’t helped.
Lady Catherine Tissieu was appalled at the thought of anyone throwing anything at Morgan. Her nose went into the air. Who would dare?
Ten-Four lay on the bed and counted her gains. By observing Morgan in action, her methods of negotiating had improved to the point where it astounded even herself. Ten-Four found Morgan’s brain fascinating. She wanted to snatch his mind from him and graft it onto her own.
[Stanley would ask months later how it was possible for the Troops not to know of each other’s existence all these years when obviously they could, at times, talk to each other. The Interpreter would tell him that the Troop members had been speaking but not to each other. “It’s a matter of thought transference, Stanley. We could hear each other’s thoughts sometimes and didn’t know where they were coming from. The woman, when she could hear them, simply believed they were her own.”]
On her own, without Ten-Four “leaking through,” the woman had no concept of real estate.
She struggled to write down what she had just experienced, but sensed that another mind, not Ten-Four’s this time, was doing the thinking and figuring for her—and that this wasn’t the first time. Could that be? And was that her question or someone else’s? For one tiny moment, the woman knew she wasn’t a broker. What was she?
“For you, there isn’t any more . . .,”
Ten-Four and Nails showed the lots to the builder that morning. When either of them became too tense or abrupt, as was their nature, the Outrider stepped in with a joke.
A glitter had come into Catherine’s eyes as her fingers flew over the keyboard. She was another of the Troop members who could not cry.
The trouble with multiplicity, he supposed, was that to an outsider it did sound “crazy.” The multiple might look and act, in some cases, like anyone else on the street, but inside the mind, it was another whole ball game. Another form of sanity.
Nails was absorbing from the Buffer the emotional blows the woman took, but only from the furthest distance possible. Nails didn’t need to know that she and the woman were separate, or why or how the Troop mechanisms worked. She simply needed to solve a problem voiced by a worry that belonged to almost the entire Troop Formation.
“You still say I’m not nuts?” Ten-Four’s voice was sharp. Ten-Four acted on facts alone and wanted to know beyond any doubt that they were facts and not merely hopeful wishes. “No. You are not nuts. Incest victims in order to survive the experiences of childhood sometimes live simultaneously in more than one world. We call that fragmentation.”
“Different emotions within you,” he said, “emotions you felt must not be expressed for one reason or another, compartmentalised themselves. They are separate from each other and you.”
Among the Troop members, only the Gatekeeper had observed through the Interpreter, how the “walls” had been worn away just enough for Miss Wonderful and Mean Joe to break through to each other in the car that day. Mean Joe had been born of a single-minded purpose, to protect the most vulnerable Troop members. Miss Wonderful’s innocence put her at the top of his list, so their instant recognition of each other once their barriers had come down was only natural.
She’d come to a point where answers, even harsh ones, would be easier to live with than more unknown terrors. But a premature diagnosis of multiple when the problem might lie elsewhere could damage therapy progress, perhaps irreparably. His job at the moment would be to encourage and help her define her own reality.
Catherine, who had merely voiced words through the woman for the last few moments, now materialised. Catherine had been speaking, for a more damaged Troop member, thoughts and feelings held as a child; a child who had lived until now behind Catherine.
