I'm not sure where they came from, those mental changes I got last year. And as I think about it more, it feels a bit weird to me that I took that personality change with such ease and acceptance, as if it wasn't a big deal at all. I can't say for sure how big part of me that changed, but can only vaguely say I think it was somewhere between 50% and 75% of it. Possibly more, possibly less, and I have no way of truly knowing as that kind of thing can't really be accurately measured. But I just shrugged at it and continued on. I could barely make sense of the unfamiliar words that came out of my mouth and hands, I hurt people, I lost old friends and gained new ones, changed my style rather drastically to match my new self, started trolling and shitposting and posted inflammatory comments online, got into politics, laughed at my darkness in chorus with Anna as I had become much more like her.
But maybe that is why I wasn't so very alarmed by it, cause it wasn't that unfamiliar... I had known it, by my side, forever... from Anna. I reflected her darkness and looking at her from then on, finally felt like I was looking at another aspect of myself. Like the distorted mirror between us had straightened itself out a bit. And I saw, not an enemy, but a hurting friend. A familiar face with emotion in her eyes as she too... felt something. It wasn't just me, or my half of us, that changed, cause she changed too. She having always been the darker, abusive, cold-hearted but protective ice queen of us two — and me having always been the over-sensitive, highly emotional, hurting and self-destructive bleeder of us two —
of course I had to become a worse person and she become a better person
for us to both get closer to the other and meet halfway. Almost so close that we would blend in with each other, but I know that partially we did. And I know that when we both looked at each other, right after that shift, we both saw ourselves in the other like never before.
We traded and adopted aspects of each others' personalities, but we are both me, technically, so did I actually change? Now that's quite a philosophical question to bite into, isn't it? I've always had the feeling that the person that is me is somehow much bigger and far more complex than I could ever possibly grasp. I don't think I would have learned as much about myself, who I am, had I not split into two halves as a kid. Cause you can't see the core of a fruit unless you cut it in half first. Perhaps there's more truth in that analogy than I realise. Because splitting in two, and meeting a side of myself as though it was another person, really shifted the dynamic between... er, myself and myself? It gave me an objective perspective of the highly subjective. And that, is a learning experience too vast to possibly not be grateful for. No matter how painful it was to endure.
It's been like looking into a distorted mirror not knowing if it was the mirror that was distorted or me. But it was the mirror, at least for the most part, but of course I'm distorted too. Cause now that most of the mirror has somehow been restored again, I recognise that face in the mirror again and it's with both sorrow and euphoria that I embrace myself. Perhaps sorrow mostly for the years that I got lost in darkness, a darkness of literally torturing myself for almost two decades. It is bittersweet to come out of that kind of darkness, it has to be. Cause I can't help but feeling awful for all the harm I more or less put myself through, although I was as Anna then and I have no memories of ever being Anna. But now I know what she felt like, what she was thinking, what drove her to that darkness, and I want to smack myself in the face for never having understood until I partially became her, yet I also want to embrace her cause I see her pain now. I know that the abused child became an abuser. I just couldn't accept that it was me.
But I do have one memory of being Anna, cause I just realised something. Why did it never hit me before? When I abused her, that other child when I was 9, which caused my split, I've lately felt as though it was Anna who did it but that it was me who saw the world through her eyes, somehow. Like a very intense "shift" but like I was her. Like I had her consciousness, for that short moment in time that changed everything forever. But what I never saw before, no matter how ridiculously obvious... was that I've always been Anna and the perspective doesn't make me less her or her less me. But now I really think that was the start, her creation, the actual split. Right in that very moment. That I, with my own consciousness, acted out a darkness so horrifying and extremely powerful, that I literally created an alter from that one experience, which in turn was created by the abuse I was put through before that, as I couldn't accept the fact that it was me who did that horrible thing to her... whom I was supposed to protect, and me whom she was supposed to be able to trust. Of all other kids in the entire world, it was me she was supposed to be able to trust.
I couldn't bear the burden of what I had done and gone through myself just a month or so earlier. The silence and the eroding emotions I kept locked up within me until my adulthood. It wrecked me apart. It tore my young mind into two distinct halves that saw each other as separate people sharing the same body. I still struggle to grasp that just that one experience, those few minutes, literally split my mind in two and changed my life forever. The far beyond immense power that must have had on me. I just can't grasp it. But the most mind boggling thing about it though, is that even though that is my most painful memory, I also think it's the most important one I have, but at the same time, it might never have happened. That makes it difficult to sort out, to understand it, to analyse it, when it's so paper thin it might as well be transparent and melts like snow in my hands. Did it ever happen? I worry I might never know. That it's gonna nag at me forever and keep carving in my soul, scared that bringing it up out in public could ruin my family that I love so dearly for that one horrible thing I may or may not have done 20 fucking years ago.
If it wasn't even real... then what the fuck would my family think of me to even come up with such a story? They'd be beyond mad at me. But then, if it turns out to be true... I have far worse to worry about than them just being angry at me. I can't even, don't even want to, imagine what an emotional hell we'd all go through then. Is it worth bringing it up and digging up such a horrible and horrifying old memory? Would it bring closure? Would them knowing ever be worth the pain? Could I ever put my family through that and do I even have the heart to? Or would I take it with me to the grave? Cause I don't think she has the memory that I do, which makes me even more uncertain of the truth behind it. Maybe it is just my fucked up brain playing the cruelest tricks imaginable on me? At least I can't imagine anything could be more cruel of my brain to do, than giving me such a memory then having it be proven to be false. Knowing that might split me into three.
Yet I want for it to be false, cause I don't want to have caused such damage. And I'd rather have it be me being damaged than her, especially if it was by my hands. I think the damage to my mind might be irreparable either way. It will always have a badly half-healed, still oozing wound there. Whether it actually happened or not. But the thing is I think it did, cause I don't think it would have affected me quite this badly, had it been false all along. And the tension between her and me can't just be for nothing. It's like an electrically charged power field of a no-go-zone between us. It can't be for nothing. Scared to even sit next to her on the same couch, and when she hugs me I feel like I'm breaking. That amount of remorse, you could form into a planet and call it Jupiter, and it still wouldn't be enough.
I feel like I'm hurting her by just continuing to existing. Like I should be executed for what I did to her. Not celebrate birthdays with her or joke about her weird taste in clothing while she jokes about mine. I feel the hissing within me, hear chalks against a chalkboard, and I'm unable to move. Wanting to do the impossible, undo what I cannot. But even though I don't think she remembers it, I can still see that it affects her in ways she probably can't find an explanation to. Like she probably wonders about things she struggles with that most others do not. But... would giving her an answer be "nice" or the most awful thing I could possibly ever do to her, next to what I have already done?
My question is simply, is ignorance bliss, or is the truth, no matter how cruel, always better? Cause here I stand between the choices of letting her keep having that ignorance of what she can't remember — or reveal to her a memory more horrible than I think she'd ever want to know. But then, if I take it with me to my grave, I worry that I could be depriving her of her chance to heal from it. But I also know, that regressive memories are really, really not something to toy around with. Perhaps that choice should not be up to me, no matter how responsible I feel over what happened, perhaps it would be better to leave that decision up to a professional. Of course it's still my burden to carry, but I do think that on that particular point, some actual expert advice would probably be a good idea, before I do another thing that can't be undone.
If only I had the right words when I needed them, and not just randomly like this.
I feel as though I've come a long way with Anna just this past year, as we partially merged, and finally stood face to face as equals. And saw not just what the other had done, but also knew why. It brought us together, and I cannot think that was a negative thing to happen, cause I feel down into my soul that it was extremely necessary. Without it, I think finding peace of mind in any conceivable future would have been impossible. Cause you can't find peace when you're in a constant war with yourself, truce or not. And you can't shake hands and agree with your enemy before you've seen what they've seen and felt what they've felt, and they have done the same about you. That, I think, was a very important step for me and Anna in finding peace within our shared mind. Of course, I cannot possibly find peace if she can't, and the reverse goes for her, because we are connected and dependent on each other. We both dance the same tango.
I have no clear vision of the future, but I think we will mostly continue to more and more become one again. How it can be possible without any therapy, any medication for that issue, and so few to talk to about it, I don't know. But maybe even the most horrible wounds can also self heal, for whatever reasons I'm not aware of. But regardless of how or why it's started to happen, it's now, at least somewhat clear to me, that me and Anna are slowly but quite surely, becoming one whole person again. I both fear it, and look forward too it with much anticipation. What would I be like? I haven't seen that me... well, probably ever. Cause even before that split, I had so many issues I can't rightfully call child me "whole", but more so call that a ticking bomb just waiting to implode. I do not think I was ever really whole in this life, except from possibly when I was a toddler.
I don't think I really was born broken, but rather just very fragile, and that I started breaking very early on. But I don't see that as only negative, no matter how bitter that melody may sound, cause I think it was all the breaking that eventually made me tough and hard, which I always wished I could be.
Of course, as a child wishing that, I didn't know there was such a
heavy and longlasting agonising price for that toughness, but still
somehow worth it. It is and it is not. Cause how can I feel such deep, soul-cutting remorse for what I did, yet somehow consider it "worth it"? I don't think I used the right words. I see that even that had and still has a purpose, and very important lessons to teach. I just wish it didn't have to be at the cost of someone else. Someone that I love.
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