The Elephant in the Room

The first thing to understand when loving someone with dissociative identity disorder is that you will do things very wrong. I learned this lesson yet again.

What I did was something that came from a place of love and support.

I wanted to comfort.
I wanted to soothe.
I wanted to heal.

What I did was prolong a child’s fear.

Fear from the past that was the present for my wife’s child alter.

The Cry I Will Never Forget

She would wake up in a night terror. I will never forget the cry that I would hear in the night as she lived through her nightmare. This cry was different. There was something haunting about it, something primal. It was not just fear and pain. It sounded like both at the same time. The cry stretched on until her voice became ragged and weak. It faded not because whatever she was experiencing had passed, but because she no longer had the strength.

She would roll over and hold me so tight. Terrified of memories I did not know, but she was reliving.

I knew her life was full of terror, but only by living through that scream did I truly know just what she experienced. What her Little mind could not survive if she lived it. What was walled off to save her. Save her from the terror that she lived through but thankfully could not remember thanks to her powerful mind. No child should have endured it. I am thankful for her unique mind. For her dissociative ability. For her complete and thorough amnesia, which allowed her to survive.

She simply doesn’t remember, but her Little does.

Trying to Pull Her Into Now

I tried to hold her. To tell her she is safe. To reassure her of my love for her. To try and convince her that she is in the now and not the past. That she is safe.

But night after night the scream persisted.

I would wake her. And ask her questions that she answered in her childlike voice.

I asked her the things I would ask an adult to pull her into the now.

“Tell me something that you see or hear that makes you know that you are in the now and not the past.”

“I am married,” she would say as she shook. Even though she would slightly giggle since she knows she is my wife but is five years old.

She would repeat over and over again, “It’s the now, not the past. I am safe. It’s the now, not the past. I am safe.”

But the terror was still there.

I could feel it through her shaking.
 I could hear it in her voice.
 I could see it in her tears.

How was I failing her? Why was this missing the mark so completely? How can I keep her safe?

Safe from a time that wasn’t mine and she wasn’t in. Safe from horrors that she was actively living, separated by 40 years?

She would finally sleep from the exhaustion. I would hold her as she still shook in her sleep. And I would lie there for the rest of the night awake. Awake in the shame and guilt I felt for not being able to comfort my wife and all of her parts.

They are all my wife. They are all not my wife. Both of those things are true at the same time.

The Revelation

I don’t know when the thought occurred. Sometimes things creep into your mind in the strangest places. Wherever it was, it hit me like thoughts normally do for me. All at once and with complete understanding. Like a revelation.

I knew I was wrong instantly. That I was approaching the issue completely backwards. I was not to bring her into my time. I was to give her what she required in hers.

The comfort.
 The empathy.
 The safety she needed to give room for the love to hold space.

How do you soothe a child?

Give her what a child needs.
Comfort her like a scared child.
Keep her safe like a child would want to be kept safe.

My wife once spoke of a stuffed animal that she slept with as a child. It was a pink stuffed elephant with flowers in her ears. It was a token of comfort and safety in a life at an age where terror visited her in the night.

Monsters were real in the dark of her life.

I could not find that exact elephant. But I found another one, soft and furry, with a crooked trunk raised over a playful pink mouth, and I knew it was the one.

I hid him under my side of the bed and hoped.

Meeting Brandon

We went to sleep that night, and hours later the terror came. She rolled to me and grabbed me in fear. I held her until she caught her breath.

I woke her in the same way I had in the past.

“Hello, Little One. I love you, and you are safe.”

But this time I added, “And I have a present for you.”

I handed her the elephant. I told her that it was special and it would watch over her at night. That she would always be safe with him around.

“This is for me! He is so cute! I am going to name him Brandon.”

Brandon was the dog on her favorite show, Punky Brewster.

She grabbed him in a way that she could move Brandon’s arms and head like a puppet. She moved her fingers to make Brandon’s arm wave. She made him walk across the bed and give me a kiss. She turned on the light to inspect him better. She saw Brandon’s little pink mouth and ruffled the hair on top of Brandon’s head. She rubbed the furry ears and pulled on his tail.

And she beamed.
She smiled like any child.

She was not there to hold years of unspeakable trauma.

She was just a child.

She giggled and laughed and curled up with Brandon under her chin. She looked up at me, smiling.

“Thank you, Scott David Beach. I love you.” (Her Little always uses my full name).

And she drifted off to sleep.

I have not seen her since that night. I have not been awakened by the screams.

Since the night that I didn’t try to pull her into the now, but met her in her past.

I accepted her in her time and comforted her by meeting her where she was. Even when that was a child stuck in her trauma time of 1985.

They are all my wife. They are all not my wife. Both of those things are true at the same time.

I held her and watched my wife as she slept. Feeling like I had been given a life that I did not deserve.

Photo Credit: LeadWithSafety.com

Photo Credit: Unsplash

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