While I was away, receiving training at the local center for the blind and visually impaired, and, through that process, experiencing the freedom that my peers have always had to some degree for the first time in my life, I also continued to learn things about my relationship to CommunityBelonging that I feel I must share here. Many of these things are still painful for me to look at directly, but if I don’t see the reality of the actions I have taken in relation to other insiders, the past three or so years of work will have been almost entirely for nothing.
This article will serve as a confession of my mistakes, not a defense. There is nothing justifiable in what I’ve been doing, however unconscious I was of the actions I describe below.
***
Dear readers,
In my quest to help each insider’s identity develop as fully as it could, I have unconsciously been controlling them in all areas of their lives, and have become so enmeshed with them that I have trouble telling where I end and they begin. I have had a history of controlling insiders, but until January of this year, I did not want to face how extensive my domination of them was and how much this had impacted our progress, or our presentation to the outside world. Now that I have faced my actions and their results head-on, I can say in confidence that my controlling of the others of this community is, by all accounts, unacceptable. As a being, I have no right to put my words over those of anyone else’s, as I had been doing when members of the community other than myself attempted to independently communicate with outsiders, with one another, and with me. As a being, I have no right to put my thoughts and feelings into the lived experiences of others, regardless of whether or not I share a body with them, as I had been doing when insiders attempted to come to front, talk with friends in the outside world or write something. As a being, I have no right to take on the identities of others and then convince myself that it was they, not I, who did or said something, as I have continued to catch myself doing in many, many instances which, to an outside observer, may resemble full-blown switching. While there have been times where insiders are indeed at front, attempting to act, speak, and otherwise live independently of me, all of these actions have left them in a type of confinement that I can’t begin to imagine, and I, as a being, have a responsibility to put a stop to that now that I am aware of it and know that I won’t be destroyed by that awareness.
The reality is that, because of my actions, trust between myself and other members of the community is most likely nonexistent, though I have no way of confirming this, because I have no reliable method of properly communicating with many of them, which is, in and of itself, another result of my stupidity. As soon as I was fully aware of what I was doing and had faced its impact, I began taking steps to reverse the damage, but long-term progress on that front could take months, if not years. In the meantime, I must also come to terms with the fact that much of the work that has been put into the subject of me being a multiple in spaces like this one, as well as other environments I am involved in because of connections with friends, may have, at least in part, been based on lies, namely, the lie that I knew and could communicate well with most of the community. In a recent therapy session, I admitted to myself that I was not close with any of the insiders, and that, in many cases, I hardly knew them at all and could not think of a single conversation between myself and them that did not involve me controlling what I was receiving in some way, accept for two of just such interactions that happened weeks apart in late 2015, which means that, effectively, I am back at square one and need to start many things over again. As I sit at the computer, several other pieces of interactions in which I was not controlling what other insiders were saying to me come to mind, but they are not enough to convince me that such problems with control have not been a constant issue from 2015 to the present, and they are not enough to change my mind on the course of action I have taken with hopes of reversing this highly destructive, unethical and disgusting habit. In February of 2019, after several attempts to stop controlling members of this community had failed, I wrote a list of questions which I hoped would help all of us find ourselves, following that with a list of goals which I created specifically for myself, in hopes that, in meeting them, I would have a better relationship with the community as a whole. Finally, I began keeping a log of every situation in which I had met those goals, and eventually I used both the goals and the log to create what I called a “contract of correction,” putting the questions from the first document aside so that I could more completely focus on this critical element of our life.
While I was hesitant to create such a contract at first, given its associations with behavioral therapies that have caused us harm in the past, what was ultimately written was something that I was comfortable with, because I was the one writing it, and I wrote it, as far as I know, independently. I am including a copy of this document below, in the hopes that it will be something that all of you can take into consideration if you end up asking yourselves whether or not the things written here are worth reading. Nobody wants to spend their time reading things that may or may not be true, and though my word may or may not mean nothing at this point, I can say in honesty that my commitment to stop controlling CommunityBelonging’s population is one I am willing to stand by.
Sincerely,
Maria
*** this is the beginning of the contract of correction. ***
Contract of correction.
Date: April 13, 2019
Name: Maria
Age: 19
Gender: female:
1: problem (active 4/13/2019.
I base my identity and sense of purpose on the fact that the insiders of CommunityBelonging exist.
Goal (active 4/13/2019)
I will be able to define myself apart from the insiders of CommunityBelonging and expand my sense of purpose to include things that are not involved with their lives.
2: Problem (active 4/13/2019)
I unintentionally control what other insiders do and say while they are at front or near me on the inside.
Goal (active 4/13/2019)
I will learn ways of moving aside and allowing the insiders of CommunityBelonging to have freedom while they are near me, whether they are at front or inside.
3: problem (active 4/13/2019)
I am fearful about many things in this process, particularly that I may not get things right.
Goal (active 4/13/2019)
I will continue writing out my observations so that I have something to look back on when I am doubting my ability to make progress, and also continue to cultivate a state or attitude of acceptance of my experiences, as well as those belonging to others.
*** this is the end of the contract of correction. ***