Reflections on Dissociative Identity Disorder 

A child is all the tools a child has,   

growing up, who makes what he can.

                                      William Matthews

There was only me to be 

Roy Rogers or the Lone Ranger

to save Dale Evans or Tonto

who were also me. Of course,

my pony filled in as Trigger or Silver

or whatever trusty steed he needed to be.

It was just a game, but maybe

it was the beginning. At least,

it’s something I can remember. 

I was in the first grade,

and Monday through Friday 

I was alone after school until 

my older siblings got home.

I can still smell the 2x4’s that framed

the unfinished addition to the house.

There was a corral with a chute for loading 

cattle and 17 acres of irrigated pasture.

My childhood was strange and scary,

something I definitely couldn’t handle.

It’s hard for me to know exactly why, 

but not hard for some other me to know, 

but some other me won’t say.

All I know is that I broke 

into pieces, all me but not 

all known to one another.

I get glimpses of things, near 

memories: a taste in my mouth, 

nausea and fear, voices, ugly 

visions… Sometimes I am a cacophony 

of uncertainty that barely breathes.

I talk to myself but not in a normal way.

I lose time, but we don’t.

It is a way to cope with the schism 

between being told in the 5th grade

by your mother that you don’t have to 

be afraid of your father,

but then hiding from him 

in the juniper bushes at midnight

as he chases your mother around

the dining room table, catches her

and slaps her face. You know this

because you crept out of the juniper

and looked through  the window into 

the real world. But no one speaks of this, 

and you are ashamed of what you know.

It may be hard to imagine forgetting

an entire manuscript of poems, 

meeting strangers that know you,

or being called a liar because of 

something you did but didn’t do.

It makes me wonder whose life I’m living. 

It makes me wonder if I’m the one 

whose talking to you.