The Hole Within

CHAPTER 19

I am not sure why I went to him as he worked with victims of sexual abuse. Was it because of Mike or because I exhibited many of the signs of being a victim? Regardless, I saw him reluctantly. Lynn was a frog faced man with a poorly grown moustache. He ran the sexual abuse treatment center in Provo. He was not as easy to snow as my first therapist had been. He did not believe my lies, he saw through my defenses and he always knew I had been drinking or was high. Naturally I denied ever being sexually abused. He wanted to try hypnosis with me. I finally relented to shut him up. Hypnosis was not like I thought. It was just a deep state of relaxation with the therapist voice guiding you. After a few practice sessions he guided me back in time, calling it regression. He would tell me an age and I would recall a remembered event. (This kind of therapy is now hotly-contested as false memories can inadvertently be implanted / suggested if a therapist is not very careful and skilled.)

When we got to my childhood I drew a blank. I had no memories to give up. This became our area of focus - there must be some reason why I could not remember. I have no idea how long it took for me to remember the severe sexual abuse by my father beginning at eighteen months. Lynn was pleased with his breakthrough and spoke to me kindly, giving comfort. The sessions became more intense and the memories more bizarre. A Satanic cult, of which my father was the High Priest of who killed a baby for sacrifice. Being made to participate in the murder of that infant. Being raped on the altar while cult members looked on. Being locked in a cage for hours on end. Being put in four point restraints and raped by members of the cult. My paternal grandmother being the High Priestess of the cult. The more I remembered the more splintered my life became. I was suicidal and begin to burn myself.

Soon Lynn diagnosed me with multiple personality disorder (read: diagnosis de jour). Lynn spent time calling forth personalities and speaking with them. In short time, he found a dozen or so personalities. My sessions with him were brutal; three to four hours long. Alyson was the prominent fearful child which the others kept locked in a room. Jessica was the confident seductress. Kandy was the Satan worshipping punisher. I write:

Rolling waves rush over my head –

My mind

Barren

A wasteland filled only with uncertainties and

Them –

They who seek to fill it

Those hidden intruders

Helpers and hinderers

Builders and destroyers

Those I created to hold the holes in

My life

One screams of pain and fear

Another laughs at injustice

One seeks to kill all those who live

Another seeks to kill herself

Many more have their functions in this

Desert

Where's the life?

The life in living

Alone

In a crowd of Them who

Stay to protect one against

Herself.

Liz spent a lot of time and energy talking to the different parts of me. It seemed I was Lysa less and less. She would mother the child Alyson and battle the angry evil Kandy. I think I used the illusion of my personalities to get my needs met and to express my anger. I used them to manipulate. I had become a master manipulator. Just like anyone with an eating disorder or who mutilates themselves is. I used Alyson to garner love and physical affection and Kandy to rage and insult, trying to get Liz to reject me. If she did not it meant she really loved me. Something inside me demanded that constant proof. And Liz stuck by me. Until she did not.