"Some of my parts were very strong and dominant in my life; others were not, but all of the parts functioned as my internal 'cast of characters' throughout the healing process.
     "Eventually, and with God's divine intervention, I was able to have the assistance of an external cast of characters who worked in concert with my internal characters. These 'external' people were just as amazing as my inner 'people' or parts. While my internal parts were a testament to the God-given powers of the mind, my external parts (friends) were a testament to the power of God's love, but how much can you ask of a friend? Are there limits to Christian love? I was dealing with an extremely complex mental, emotional, physical and spiritual condition that could drain the energy of people around me. Indeed, I was as needy as a small child even though I was in an adult body. Would I find anyone willing to support me in what appeared to be a bottomless pit of neediness?
     "Would I dare ask?" (My Tears Fall Inside, page 63)

     These child parts were as real as a physical child of the same age. Not only that, but these child parts were suffering extreme trauma from the affects of torture and abuse. As their memories surfaced, the child felt as if the event had just barely happened so their insecurities and fears were massive.
     In the early stages of my healing journey, I didn't trust people enough to let any of them into my world. Since I thought I was crazy, how could anyone else think differently? I also believed that everyone else had more value than I did, so I didn't want to "bother them" with my "stuff."
     There was no way I would take the risk of letting people into my world. It was only through God's intervention that people were brought into my life who could reach me. Thankfully, He had a plan.

     No matter how complicated our life is, God sees the bigger picture and if we rely on Him, He can create amazing and unusual circumstances which will facilitate us. He can touch people to reach out to us, but He can also give us courage to reach out to others. How have you seen God's hand in your own life?

     "As my therapist saw my physical distress with chest pains and ulcers, and seeing that I wouldn't or couldn't cry or get angry, he was very concerned. In desperation, he advised me to find an outlet, whether it was drawing, painting, or poetry. I chose poetry, or rather--'Writings From My Soul.' My inside parts jumped at the chance to express themselves because it was clear to me that unless I could reach in, pull out, and express the feelings and memories inside, I would literally not survive. It was truly a life or death situation." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 60)

     I decided to introduce three more personality parts to you.

     "LONELY LAURA: Lonely Laura was also created when I was five years old and then re-created to fill the role as an adult. She was hurt, sad, lonely, and really didn't believe that anyone could love her. . .
     "TINA: Tina looked only for beauty. She could be heard to say, 'I look to beauty to survive.' Tina felt if she could focus strongly enough on beauty she would be able to block out the horror.
     "Most child parts split off when I was a child and continued as children; others grew with me into adulthood. Because my mind was so capable of making thse splits, I continued to split off parts into adulthood when dealing with the traumas of my marriage. As was already mentioned, some of these adult parts were actually 're-purposed' child parts who re-emerged as adults to take on adult issues. One adult part was:
     "MORTICIA: Morticia was an adult part in her twenties who believed she was dying of a broken heart and took on all of the broken heart chest pains that I experienced during my marriage. With Morticia, I discovered that whenever I had chest pains and would write 'Writings From My Soul,' the pain would go away.
     "Morticia wished for death and slowed down my body functions. She believed if I died, then I could be happy. . . Morticia got her name from 'mortician,' someone who takes care of dead bodies. She felt like she was dead inside.
     "It was the combination of all my 'parts' that created the sum total of my emotional world, my existence, and the forgotten realities of my childhood. My various parts experienced life differently and saw the world through different eyes. Until these parts learned to, or were allowed to express themselves, I suffered from a growing list of physical and emotional symptoms." (My Tears Fall Inside, selections from pages 58-60) 

    As promised, I will introduce you to a few more of my personality parts.

    "LOVER: Lover was created when I was five years old and received 'her' name because the hired hand, Tony, who molested me called me 'Lover' sometimes. She really believed that Tony DID love her and felt extremely sad and abandoned when he left. She was confused about love in every way. When the therapist told Lover that what Tony did to her wasn't really love, her heartbreaking answer was, 'But that means nobody loved me!'

    "PRETEND POLLY: Polly was another five-year-old. She was a very strong part, and had to be. Polly claimed that when things were too bad, they couldn't be real and were therefore just pretend. My therapist, at one point, encouraged 'her' to talk with all of the other parts of me to see what each one believed. The other parts did a good job of 'bursting her bubble,' making it harder for Polly to pretend, creating a terrible experience for Polly.

    "NUMB NANCY: Nancy, yet another five-year-old, 're-emerged' when I was an adult because of traumas I experienced as an adult. She was a very strong part and was able to make me numb to both physical and emotional trauma.

    "LITTLE ONE: My five-year-old parts included one simply called, 'Little One.' She was very confused about the role of men and women. Little One hated being a girl because she thought girls were always being 'used.' She longed to be taken care of and thought if she made me sick, then somebody would watch her more carefully and nobody could hurt her.
    "Little One was full of a lot of sad emotions and was possibly a no-name dumping ground for the emotions of other parts, including the emotions that were blocked by Numb Nancy or Pretend Polly.'" (My Tears Fall Inside, selections from pages 57-59)

    Feel free to ask me any questions or to make comments. Don't worry. I will let you know if there is any question I don't want to answer. :-)

    I promised I would begin introducing a few of my personalities, so here goes. . .

    "DEB: Deb was a twelve year old part. I believe she was created at that age because some part of my brain could sense the craziness inside and needed a way to appear normal. Twelve year olds do NOT want to be weird or different, so Deb was very teenaged in her attitudes. She was a protector of the 'child parts' within, and helped control these parts so that other people would not know that they existed. Deb taught all of the inside 'child parts' the rule that everyone needed to respond to the same name (Shawna) so that no one on the outside would find out about them. She seemed to sense that if others found out about all of the personalities, we would get locked up and everyone would know we are crazy.
    "Deb did everything she could to make us appear the same as everyone else in the world. She did her very best to keep everything inside 'under wraps.' She observed everything around her and liked to think of herself as an intellectual survivor. Deb was so effective in her role that very few people ever had a clue that I had distinctly different parts." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 56-57)

    "ANGEL: Angel was also created when I was a very young child and continued to grow up with me into adulthood. Angel loved the Lord and always wanted to do what was right. She tried and tried to be good all of the time but never felt that she was good enough to be worthy of love.
    "Angel was a major part of the core personality. She was a very dominant part during all of my teenage years and into my early married years. I once asked my husband to please call me Angel. He wouldn't do it, and now I am glad. It frightens me to think that by that time, Angel was so dominant she wanted to be called by 'her' name instead of by what everyone else called us--Shawna. Angel felt she had to be perfect to be loved or lovable." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 57)

    Meet a few other personalities in my future blogs.

    "Discovering various personality 'parts' made me feel crazy. I wished so badly that this discovery wasn't real, but my parts were becoming so obvious to me that I couldn't deny their existence.
    "I had no concept of the difficult, painful, inspiring, transforming journey that lie ahead. I would soon discover that the 'team' of parts inside of me would be the key to my healing. There is something merciful and God-sent about the mind's ability to 'split off' into parts during extreme trauma. Each part carries certain memories or emotions that would be overwhelming if let out all at once. These internal personalities served me well in holding their pain for many years.
    "The gift of dissociation, however, is a temporary gift because eventually the child matures enough to 'take back' the experiences and memories, freeing the undeveloped child within from permanently languishing in his or her traumatized world. In a sense, the healing cycle requires a mature adult who is better able to deal with the previous trauma, who can step in and 'rescue' the child parts from their abuses. In what appears to be an unusual 'quid pro quo,' the child parts who were rescuers early in life, become the rescued as the adult 'takes back' and 'owns' her memories and pain." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 56)

    I am extremely grateful to the parts of my personality who suffered so long to hold onto my memories and emotions. They were true heroes and I am grateful I got to know them. I will begin introducing a few of my 'parts' in the next few blogs, but if you can't wait to learn more about them, you can read about them in my books.
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    "I was absolutely frightened as I approached the therapist's office for the first time. It was a large office building with a fairly clinical atmosphere. . .
    "I sat on a comfortable chair facing the therapist, and he sat on another comfortable chair facing me. He asked me if I was okay with him video-taping our sessions. . . I didn't have a fear of being recorded, so I consented.
    "He asked me to close my eyes and look inside of myself. This was how the first therapy session began and it was typical of sessions thereafter. When I looked inside of myself, I would often see the vivid image of a child. When I let the child speak out loud, she (or he) would tell the therapist about an abuse that had happened, and the therapist would hear the voice and vocabulary of a child.
    "Later, I was able to watch the tapes of my sessions. I was surprised when a different voice, clearly a child's voice, would come out of me. I also realized through watching the tapes, that I had different mannerisms and behaviors for each of the different personalities that came out, and that the vocal qualities and expressions were different for each.
    "It was interesting to me that it was all so consistent. When a specific child part came onto the screen, I could see and hear myself use a particular tone of voice, use particular mannerisms, and age-appropriate vocabulary. I would then switch, and different 'people' would emerge. I might switch back to the original child part and the voice quality and mannerisms were completely consistent with how that child part had been previously.
    "I was amazed at how quickly the child parts were wiling to let me know they were there and how willing some of them were to explain what happened to them." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 55)

    It was amazing to me that even if a particular child part hadn't spoken to the therapist for several weeks, when she talked to him again, her tone of voice, mannerisms and vocabulary were totally consistent with what they were several weeks previously. Being able to observe this consistency by replaying a video of earlier sessions made it harder for me to deny the reality of the parts, much to my chagrin at the time.

    "Another 'Cinderella slipper' occurs when something is NOT present that should be. One of my most perplexing experiences was having missing memories. I had holes in my memories and was unaware for a long time that I was missing those pieces of my life. My memory loss was so complete that I was unable to 'remember' that I couldn't remember. In other words, I truly believed that I was the product of a perfect childhood because I could not remember otherwise in spite of growing evidence to the contrary. Where there were missing blocks of memory, there was no discomfort or feeling of loss, so I was blissfully unaware that I was unable to remember." (My Tears Fall Inside, page 45)

    One of my first memories to return was about Tony. This memory didn't return until I was in my mid thirties. I had no conscious memory that there ever was such a person as Tony. Then I had terrible, vivid nightmares and flashbacks that there was a hired hand that lived with our family on the farm by the name of Tony. In these nightmares I was five years old and he took me out of my bed at night and sexually abused me.
    I had total amnesia that Tony even existed before my memories returned but because there were other members of my family, I realized there was an easy way to establish if I had just "made up" Tony. I called my older sister and asked, "Did we ever have someone named Tony live with us?"
    She immediately replied, "Yes we did and I didn't like him at all!" So the memory of this man, including the sexual abuse, had been lost to me for many years.
    Total amnesia about traumatic events in our life can be very merciful. Unfortunately for me, that amnesia was temporary.

    If you are finding my blog interesting, please feel free to comment or share my blog on your Facebook page.

    "On a summer day in 1990, my neighbor called. She said she was going to an education week at the local university where they offered a week filled with various classes and workshops for the public. She invited me to go with her and I agreed to go.
    "There were many classes to choose from and I noticed one on childhood sexual abuse. I felt apprehensive about going to that class but thought I might learn something that could help me. I decided to risk it. . . I was late, so I grabbed a seat near the back. The professor's lecture was already in full swing.
    "After being seated, I heard the instructor say."

    "If you think you might have been abused as a child, and you actually were, the symptoms you experience will not go away; they will continue to get worse and worse until you deal with the actual abuse problems. 'And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.' (John 8:32)"

    "When these words were spoken, a powerful feeling came over me and I knew that this was true for me. As I thought back on the previous several years, I clearly saw how much worse my triggers and symptoms had become. I didn't know what had happened to cause those reactions, but suddenly I knew I HAD to deal with whatever it was, even if I didn't want to. . ."
    "Three months after attending the university class on childhood sexual abuse, I started to see a therapist. It wasn't long before memories of my childhood began flooding back. Sometimes the memories returned through nightmares that increased and intensified. Other times they came back through the child parts of me that had been hidden from me prior to receiving therapy." (My Tears Fall Inside, pages 53-54)

    When life has been agonizingly painful or we have made bad choices, facing the truth about ourselves, the experiences of our past (and even about the present) can sometimes be extremely painful. In a desperate attempt to avoid that pain, it is not uncommon for us to re-write history and to create our own reality--one that isn't "that bad." The problem with living in that make-believe world is that we cannot progress in that place. The answer to that dilemma is to take the steps necessary to face our pain. When we finally have the courage to face the actual truth about the painful parts of our life, eventually that process leads to becoming healthier and happier. We no longer have to hide behind our fairy tale world and we can see life much more clearly. We are finally free to see life as it really is.

    "Over the course of many years I went from the misery of being a fragmented personality to a highly functioning and joyful person. So how did my healing process begin?
    "As an adult in my mid-thirties, I was unaware of what my 'Cinderella Slippers' meant. I had no conscious memory of the serious problems when I was a child. . .
    "I was perplexed and disturbed when my older sister started to have memories of childhood sexual abuse. She called me a few times. . . These few phone calls upset me deeply.
    "On one hand I didn't think my sister was a liar, on the other hand I simply did not believe that it was possible for a person to forget such horrible things. I felt bad for her, but I could not stand to hear her talk about this crazy part of her life. She eventually quit calling because she sensed my distaste for the conversations. In our last phone conversation she mentioned the word, 'triggers.'
    "Having never heard the word in connection with abuse, I asked, 'What are triggers?' She informed me, 'A trigger is where you have fear or a panic attack from something and you don't know where it came from.'"
    "I didn't say anything out loud, but my heart sank and I thought, 'Oh my Gosh! Is that what all that is?' I knew that I had experienced many episodes of unexplained panic and extremely intense fear, but until that conversation, I had never associated my experiences with the word, 'trigger,' and the possibility that these episodes could relate to some forgotten childhood trauma. This really bothered me." (My Tears Fall Inside, pages 52-53)

    Sometimes the act of discovery is a difficult and painful process. At this point, I figured out that something terrible must have happened to me to cause all of the reactions I was experiencing. However, I didn't remember anything. So I decided to leave well enough alone and just be glad I couldn't remember. Unfortunately, in my case, this plan of action (or inaction) couldn't be maintained permanently.