So what’s been haunting me for my entire life has now become evident, as a child my personality fractured into pieces. The piece that lived with my mother and Me or as now gives me relief, Dickie, the piece that lived with his loving grandparents in the summers.
Now my manifestation of DID doesn’t feel like the movies portray. It’s more of a compulsion to act but maybe there is more to it as I can’t look at mirrors in the dark as I’m terrified to. Umm…more memories to investigate.
People close to me have heard me say for a few years that it doesn’t seem that I’m in control of my amygdala. You see, my physical level of agitation never seems to fit my environment. There is a disconnect and now I am convinced that “Ricky” has been in control of my fight or flight center. The only thing experimentally that doesn’t line up perfectly is Dickies’ martyr complex. Hmmm…
So I’m left with the question, am I still Richard (don’t sue me Lisa Genova) the answer is YES I’m still me but now with the ability to talk. I’m still the loving caring person I think I am but with almost uncontrollable emotional dysregulation. By working on my anxiety but not the underlining cause I’ve created a perfect storm. Rickys’ pain and suffering have been hidden for so long that it’s inconsolable and now Dickie has no defenses from Ricky stepping on our amygdala. There doesn’t ever seem to be a correlation between my physical level of tension and my environment.
So yes, I’m still Richard, but I like to be called Dickie. 😉