As I reach this stage of my journey of healing and self-reflection I have begun to realize that my perception is changing. For most of my life, I have felt like I was on the outside looking in. In other words, for me, that means I was not a part of my life but an observer. This caused me to have a lot of problems trying to remember things. I would see or feel something I wanted to remember but it could not be internalized and the next time I saw or experienced the same thing it would still feel unfamiliar.
I have begun to realize that recently those very same things are a part of me and not external. It is a subtle shift and very difficult to put into words, but it is more than fleeting. I guess it is like the difference between experiencing something in real life and a movie. It is like I would experience or see something, and it was somewhat familiar but did not feel like I had experienced it. I am sure that much of this can be explained by the diminishing influence of my multiple personalities over the main mechanics of my mind.
When one personality experiences something and stores the memory, it is complete with feelings and intensity to that personality. When that memory is available to the host, me, or another personality it is flat and like something previously seen on a screen or heard secondhand through speakers. The memories, feelings, and experiences previously recorded in my collective mind are still flat like that but recently I have noticed a difference in that the memories that have been stored in the last few months are more vivid and finally feel real.
The coolest part is that if I had not experienced my life and memories as flat I would not know how cool and precious my memories truly are. I do not know, although I doubt, if the old memories stored by my alternate personalities will ever take on a more realistic feel, but I am very pleased with this new state.
Again, this brings up many questions such as is this new state of processing due to the alternate personalities losing power or simply from having a healthier mind. I think that if it was generally improved mental health then all of my memories would have improved quality as well. It seems to me to be similar to when you upgrade a computer system, processor, or application. The information stored under to old system is usually set aside and is still available but is not the same quality as the new stuff.
If this is true of my situation, and I think it is, then it is like trying to enhance an old image stored with an older system that has less quality. When I do that the new image usually looks worse than it did before trying to enhance it. It is kind of like when an old black-and-white movie is colorized. Some of the basic colors like a blue sky are fairly accurate but after that much of it is up to the artist performing the colorization. In some cases, they have documentation that would describe a dress worn by an actress as blue or the color of a house or other item. But in the end, they are guessing.
In the same way, many of my vaguer memories have been made clearer with anecdotal stories that I have read or that have been told to me but again it is subjective to the memory of the other party. I have been very careful to make sure I did not over-colorize my past by trying to over-enhance my recollections. In the early stages of my healing, it would have been easy to do that but the therapist I was working with at the time was very careful to not force anything and would tell me to “give it time and it will come”. He was right because over the next few years as the personalities have revealed themselves and their memories made available to the whole I have been surprised many times and am glad I didn’t try to make something up to fill the gaps.
So that brings me to why I say today I am on the inside looking out and not on the outside looking in. After the personalities of Danny and Tina emerged I thought we had discovered them all and was ready to start the next phase of my healing journey. It is only in hindsight that I see that I was still not processing the way I am today because those memories are also flat. As I began writing more and the manuscript for my book took shape one last personality, Sally, emerged and, again in hindsight, I know that after she emerged the memories I created are full.
One of my theories as to how and why that happened is that as long as I had a personality still outside the whole then the system was still stuck on an older version of the memory-storing application software. We were still incomplete and in conflict as well. No matter what the explanation I know that since Sally came along my memories are more complete and I can tell the difference.
As I have expressed many times before, here I have choices. I can whine about how unfair my life has been and how much it screwed me up. Or, I can take the high road and appreciate the unique perspectives I have on so many things. I would not appreciate the completeness of my memories and experiences today if I had not experienced them in another state.
So today I again take the high road and look at life - From the Inside Looking Out.