What…?

So I saw the “shrinky-dink” Monday and he started me on a new med that had me sleeping off and on the whole fucking day yesterday, so I decided to watch some movies and just zonk out as I needed.

And what do I choose to watch…? Sybil…

I’m sure a lot of you have never heard of it or have never seen the original made for TV movie with Sally Field. If you haven’t seen this particular version, I highly recommend it. Sally Field is such an amazing actress and I honestly don’t think she gets enough credit for how amazing she is. She also doesn’t get enough credit for still looking like Gidget at her advanced age… and you guys probably never saw that show… I blame my mother for every old show I’ve ever gotten hooked on through re-runs because she would have me watch them with her.

But I digress…

It makes you wonder why I would watch a movie based on the life of someone suffering from multiple personalities (loosely, as the real doctor was supposedly giving her the suggestion of having multiples to get a book deal) when they’re doped up on Topamax… I honestly don’t have an answer for that other than to say I was doped up on Topamax! That’s not entirely true. I do like this movie and I watch it fairly often because it’s a great story and the acting is phenomenal.

But this all had me wondering… Are those with this disorder the only ones who have multiple personalities or do we all, in some ways, possess them?

Granted, people can possess more than one personality type, like type A, type B, mix-mashes of traits such as ISTJ (introversion, sensing, thinking, judging) and the like. But can normal people who are not mentally ill possess a version of multiple personalities?

Multiple personality disorder (a true disorder) is always characterized the same way. People seem to black out and lose time, such as in Sybil. In the beginning of the movie, it would jump from one scene to another, usually with her saying, “What…?” and looking at her watch to see how much time she’d lost. The same was true in the movie The Three Faces Of Eve. Eve White had no idea Eve Black even existed for quite some time, let alone have a clue what the fuck the more extroverted, spend happy Eve was up to when she was snoozing. Imagine how fucked up that must be… You’re washing dishes or some other mundane task, and the next thing you know, you’re staring at a pile of new, fancy clothes on your bed and have no clue where they came from because you don’t know that you went out to buy them. Or, more specifically, another separate personality living inside of you did.

But that’s not what I’m getting at, here…

Think about it… In some ways, we all have different personalities, don’t we? We have the professional in us that takes care of business when you need to act accordingly. We have the social butterfly we pull out for parties where we’re around a lot of people we don’t want to think that we’re aloof, antisocial or weird. We have the wild person who comes out when we need to let off steam, let our hair down (usually around strangers because we don’t want people we know to see that side of us). We have the normal person we bring out when we don’t want people to know what a fucking weirdo we really are… So, in essence, we possess a plethora of different personalities that we put on like a costume. And we all do it, every single day.

The only difference between people with multiple personality disorder and everyone else is that people with the disorder have personalities independent of the original while the rest of us don’t. In people with the disorder, their personalities have names, faces, backstories, various abilities and talents that the person and other personalities don’t actually possess. So one personality can read music and play the piano while the actual person with the disorder and the other personalities can’t. One personality can be a genius while the actual person and other personalities are morons with IQs that rival that of a glass of Kool-Aide. It’s weird…

But back to the point…

Now, before you think to yourself, “Holy fuck, she’s bat shit insane!” hear me out… Then you can decide whether I’m definitely bat shit insane or if you’ve literally gone bat shit insane with me. Deal? Okay, then…

So here’s the thing… Your personality changes as you mature (and as you age). You may not notice it, but it does. Some people’s personalities change and stay that way until the next big change while others change but you can still see the person they once were surface from time to time. For me, I’m the latter of the two. My personality changes as I age but, every now and again, you get a glimpse, however large or small, of the person I once was. Of course it’s hard to say if that’s just because that’s how it is or because I’m bipolar… Tough call on that one…

When I was in high school, I actually gave myself the nickname Kiki (I heard it on a TV show and liked it). Mainly I did it because I hated my name. It was one of the most popular the year I was born, so there were a lot of us. I’d hear people call that name in the halls and, when I looked, it was never me they wanted, so I stopped looking. Kiki was a way for me to know when it was me being called out to.

But I noticed something… Kiki became more than just a nickname at some point. I wasn’t a stable individual (obviously, I’ve had this mental illness for a long time). I had a difficult time coping with my up and down moods and varying states of mind caused by either the excessive, non-stop bullying I was receiving (yes, even from teachers) and/or the mental, emotional and verbal abuse I was receiving at home. Something had to change or I wasn’t going to make it through to adulthood, of that I was certain. And children can be pretty resourceful. Their minds usually find some way of saving themselves (mine had been doing that since the age of six). So, to save myself, my mind apparently decided that Kiki was going to be of a different type of personality than I had previously had. Kiki was a tough, crazy ass bitch, cold and callus. It was a coping mechanism that worked then.

Eventually, things started to get a bit better as I began to mature, but I still struggled a bit between being me and still needing to be Kiki. Worse, I still didn’t seem to feel like I fit in anywhere.

One day, when I was in my late 20s and looking for some anime to watch on an Asian network my area got at the time, I found a music show. What the fuck, I thought… I liked a lot of the anime themes and I’m a huge music buff, so I figured I’d see what modern music from Japan sounded like. The featured group was a rap group (I hate rap, but I liked these guys) and they showed other videos as well. That was how I found L’Arc~en~Ciel and developed an obsession with the bassist, tetsu (shown here back in the 90s). I finally found something that made me feel like I belonged somewhere even if no one else understood it. I eventually joined forums to find people who shared my obsession with J-rock and pop and had someone give me the nickname kitsu.

And so kitsu became like another personality. She was upbeat, fun, the kind of person who felt good pretty much all the time. It was great, to be honest. But, over time, I saw her less and less, mainly because my family and friends just couldn’t understand my obsession with Japan itself, let alone Japanese music. even acquaintances thought it was crazy. I eventually grew tired of defending myself and the things I was enjoying. I still listen to J-rock and pop when the mood strikes and I get to see kitsu for that moment in time. It’s nice when I do. I miss her…

But one thing I’ve always held onto, in some shape or form, was the hippie I was born as. No matter who I was, that little bit of hippie was always there, hiding, sleeping, whatever the fuck she was doing…

Now that I’m… well, I’m old, okay… I’ve really embraced the hippie I’ve always been and have found that it really has been making me feel more comfortable with myself, more than I’ve ever been my whole life no matter who I was.

That was when I realized that everything had been wrong from the start… Like literally, I realized that my parents had named me completely wrong… I hated my name my entire life because it never seemed to fit my personality. It was a name for the more popular, snobby, pretty girls. It wasn’t meant for girls like me who were individuals who didn’t seem to fit in. And, after that one idiot told me I was “Jackie Blue” (like the song) it plagued me for years. Mainly because I knew he was right… So, when I decided to embrace my hippie-dippy self, Jackie seemed to be a very befitting name for some reason. That’s who I am now. If only I could get people to use that name instead of what it says on my driver’s license. I’d like to legally change it at some point, but I really want to try it out and see if it really does work well for me, first. How do you do that if no one wants to call you that?!

Anyway… None of this is to say I don’t see Kiki or kitsu or any of the other monickers I’ve gone by in real life or online ever again. All of them pop up here and there, usually when those qualities are needed. When I need to be defensive, Kiki shows up. When I’m slap happy and fun loving, there’s kitsu, more than likely jamming out to some J-rock or pop and bopping while she’s driving (ooh, bad kitsu for that). And the original me shows up from time to time, mostly when my mental illness has made me go off the deep end, spiraling out of control. But, right now, Jackie and her mellow hippie-dippy ways, the one who’s adopted things like meditation, the belief in chakras, wearing patchouli, lighting incense every morning is the main personality right now. I like her… I hope she sticks around for a long time…

So… does any of this mean that I have multiple personalities or, what they fuck do they call that now… dissociative disorder?

I don’t think so, no…

In my case, my personality adapts to whatever I’m facing in my life. Like when I was suffering a lot of abuse as a child and teen, I had to develop a defense mechanism to prevent myself from getting hurt by being cold and callus, distanced from everyone. Just like, at some point, I needed to find something that fit with me. And now, when I really need to start chilling the fuck out and calming those depressed, anxious voices inside of me, I adopted the hippie-dippy personality that had laid dormant my whole life.

But none of these personalities are their own entities…

Every single one of them is just a different version of me… There are a whole plethora of them, actually, as I needed to adapt as I changed and grew as a person. But none of them has their own backstory, a life separate from mine. None of them show up and do things without me knowing about it until I come out of a blackout state and become myself again. They’re all me and I’m totally aware of the changes in how my personality changes depending on the situation. And they didn’t give themselves names or tell me what their names were… I gave them names to make my life a lot easier in differentiating one personality type from another. It was a bother trying to explain my varying personality types to people with just a description. It was easier to just name them. Then if I’m feeling like a crazy bitch, I can just say I’m in Kiki mode… Actually, I do say that when i’m feeling pissy… See? It’s a lot nicer than saying, “I’m feeling like a real hard ass bitch today and I want to punch you in the dick for no reason.” Instead, I just say I’m in Kiki mode and everyone knows what I’m getting at.

What are your thoughts on this, dear readers? Do you think that most of us have various personality types that just sort of show up without having a dissociative disorder (multiple personalities, whatever the fuck they want to call it now) like Sybil? Do you think that it’s just something that people with mental illness or an abusive past have going on? Or do you think I’m bat shit insane?

Either way, feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you think.

(Bat shit insane… you’re thinking I’m bat shit insane… but it’s okay…)