[kimmydawn]

when waking up that I'd been gone...just gone...and felt different - someone else.

I knew that I would lose all track of time, even at 10 or 11 years old. I would go outside to "play" and the next thing I would know is it would be getting dark. I would "wake up" and know that I was going to be in bad trouble. Where did the time go? What had I been doing all that time? I really didn't leave to come play at 2 in the afternoon, did I? These were always times that I would go off by myself.

The first "in my face" of what I'd done during those periods was about that same time. I was 10/11 (I know this because of where we lived at the time). I was at the skating rink.

When the emotional, physical and sexual abuse was at its peak, and my dad was overseas, I would go to the skating rink every week. I was such the regular that I got to help, was cared for by those who ran it, etc. The man who worked there ran my abuser off telling him that brothers don't treat their little sisters that way and that they were supposed to protect them, and he wouldn't have it another time. It was SAFE, and I was safe!!! Heck it wasn't even that bad that time, and someone stood up for me!!!

Anyhow, at the skating rink, it was time for the "boys only skate". I have no clue what happened, but I remember that same man "waking me up" on the rink..."I" was out there in the boys skate pulling myself along the rails as if I didn't know how to skate at all (I was an excellent skater). He asked me what I was doing, then asked me if I was ok. I was confused and didn't know what was going on. I was horribly embarassed and went and sat down. I soon put that incident away with all the other incidents that didn't make sense.

It's one I've never forgotten though. What I like about remembering this is what "surrounds" it...the fun, safe, cared for feelings as I remember knowing at the same time that I was different. When he "woke me up" I still had the sense that I couldn't skate and I belonged in the boy's skate.

I didn't know it, but by then I was already the skilled dissociator with many parts of this mind which were well formed and specific. See, by this age, it had already been years...

Good memory, strange memory, reflective, making sense memory. Anytime I hear the old song "We're an American Band", I immediately "go back" in a good flashback.

Thanks for reading. Can anyone share a similar experience wherein they knew that things were "off" but didn't know how, why or what?

KD

[OneAndMany]

I remember waking up in the middle of ballet class while everyone was doing some position or jump and having no clue how to dance or who the other little girls were. I was either 5 or 6 at the time. This happened more than once. Usually, I woke up after class while putting on regular shoes out in the hallway. This was the first time that I remember having to fake it or else get "caught". I just remembered this during the past week when my two year old and I started to practice tap dancing together (just for fun, not for a class).

BTW, I was never "good" at ballet or tap because I didn't have one person who was able to be out during every lesson and recital. It was a mix-n-match which made for really interesting dancing during the recital. Just keep watching the person in front and do what they do! I can still feel the "swirling inside my head" sensation that happened when I switched too much while dancing.

Thanks KimmyDawn for sharing and letting me share too. Hope this makes sense as I'm switching a little just writing about it.



Elizabeth

[kimmydawn]

It does make sense. Thank you for sharing!

I was similar to you in the fact that not all of me can sing and "I" was singing solos from the time I was about 9. I couldn't, and still can't, always sing...

It's something I've always known as well! Thanks again for sharing!

KD

[Fuzzybear]

(((((((((((((( kimmy ))))))))))))))

[kimmydawn]

thank you ((((((((((((softfuzzball)))))))))))))

KD

[heartspace]

Kimmy, I don't have a dissociative disorder, but I would like to thank you for sharing your memory of what it was like, as it helps me understand what people with dissociative disorders go through. (I've never really known anything about it before coming here).
I'm glad that the memories are not all horrible ones.

[kimmydawn]

thank you heartspace.

[kimmydawn]

i have many other knowledges of getting in trouble for things i didn't do, etc. however, this is the first real memory with everything there, as opposed to just knowledge.

kd

[allthegirls6]

When i was in primary school, about 6yrs old, I "woke up" getting into trouble for ripping a whole classes art work off a wall. Now Im 40 years old, Im sure i could pass a lie detector test cos i dont remember doing it. But my teacher was adamant she watched me rip the stuff off. A letter was sent to my parents and you can imagine the bother i got into, but its only now, years later that i think i must have "gone away" and someone else did it. Im not destructive by nature, but i must have been that day. I still see my teacher and she maintains i did it. It can be scary cant it.

Things these days are not so bad. Im more in control and we have a definate communication going on and most of my nstuff is clearly in my head.

Does any of this make sense

((((((((((((Kimmy))))))))

I have two situations that brought realizing not everyone dissociates and that I do.

The first one was one day my sister was watching the bunch of us younger siblings and I had refused to eat my lunch. She had been told by my parents to make sure she fed us lunch and lunch was soup. I was plain tired of eating soup. and for some odd reason I still don't know why, the kind she had chosen looked like vomit to me and I just could not eat it. The end result was sister and I got into a verbal fighr and I went running to our shared bedroom. Not too long before this our parents put a sliding bolt on the door to only be used when changing clothes. I broke that rule that day by locking my sister out of the room.

I laid down on my bed and watched out the windows at the clouds. The next thing I know Im sitting at the window and I look back and see my body on the bed (real or imagined I have no idea). then I hear my sister pounding on the door. then Im back on the bed and I got up and unlocked the door and tried to tell my sister I either floated out of my body or I fell asleep and dreamed it but I was floating.

She picked up a lamp and told me if I didn't quit lying to her she was going to kill me. People don't float out of their bodys and I hadn't been in the bedroom long enough to fall asleep. and that if I told anyone else about this lie of mine they would lock me up in a nut ward forever so I best just shut up about it.

I never again mentioned to anyone that I floated on musical clouds until I told SKR 5 and a half years ago.

The second situation happened at school. We had this one teacher who if you were not fully inside the classroom when the bell rang you were considered late for class.

this one day I happened to be the one with one foot in the classroom and the other outside the classroom and was told to go to the office and get a pass for being late.

When I got to the office instead of the normal female secretary the first person I saw was the guidance counselor. He gave me a 5-10 minute lecture and a pass. While he was yelling I started feeling that floaty feeling. I remember starting up the stairs to go to class and the next thing I know I have locked myself in one of the bathroom stalls and the school nurse was looking over the top asking if I had started my period and if so I was going to be ok. I told her no and I didn't know what was going on. She told me to stop lieing. if I didn't want to tell her why I had locked myself in the bathroom that was ok but she knows my parents didn't raise me to lie to her. People don't lock themself in a bathroom stall without knowing what was going on. When I didn't say anything else She let me spend the day in her office laying down.

After that I made sure that I kept quiet and fake and bluff when I really didn't know what was going on. It helped that I have a hearing problem because if all else fails and I can't figure out on my own what the conversations and so on are I can say - what? and people belive I didn't hear them because of my hearing problem and they repeat them self adding more details that help me figure out what was going on at the moment that I "woke up".

[kimmydawn]

yes, it makes sense ((((((((( girls )))))))))))) thank you for sharing that. i so understand the confusion and hurt when being blamed for what we didn't do...

it makes so much sense to me now, though.

thank you also for sharing where your dissociation is at today. it seems we're alot alike there as well.

KD

[kimmydawn]

thanks (((((((((myself))))))))))) for sharing.

you know, you make another good point in the fact that i think i'm the BEST at bluffing it through. i never realized how this mind automatically (like blinking and breathing-without thought) reacts to others facial expressions, the environment, etc. because i was so unsure of experience, but also because i realize that even when i thought i was "here", i was in and out alot and would miss many more parts of convos, etc., than i had any clue of. i would notice the larger amounts of time, but i lost alot regularly in bits and would have to bluff my way through it. i was so used to it, and it became an automatic response, that i had to work HARD to try not to do that and to, at the least, let people know they'd lost me.

that's another reason being online works so well for me. i can read something five times if i have to before responding. it's kinda cool that people can't see in that respect.

this convo makes me realize how far i've come...even from a couple of years ago. alot of this was tackled early in therapy...the communication/understanding/staying present part.

KD

[Mahali]

Post deleted by January

[Gemstone]

When I was about 7 (thats a guess) I was at school and in class, and when I "woke up" I was outside playing on the jungle gym. There was a teacher yelling at me because they had been looking everywhere. Apparently I got up and ran out of class and the teacher thought I was sick. When I didn't come back the teacher sent people looking for me and I was outside playing. I didn't remember how I got there but they thought I was a disobedient brat.

I remember a good bit of times. I would always hide places, and I would "wake up" huddled in a tree, a drainage tube, on the roof, in an attic, etc.. In fact, that still happens.

[Gemstone]

Another thing that happened all throughout my older child years and still as an adult it making soup. Its weird I know, but when I was young people would always thank me for making dinner. I would never remember doing it, but would normally play along, because I was used to that kind of confusion. Whenever someone was sick "I" would make a pot of soup.

I never understood it, but my brother told me recently that I had an aunt that taught "me" how when I was young. She died recently and he brought it up. I spend a lot of time with her, and she apparently really liked soup.

[Mahali]

Post deleted by January

[kimmydawn]

((((((((((((( Place )))))))))))))))))

I have so many of those same kinds of memories. It was so confusing a time, yes?

thank you so much for sharing.

KD

[kimmydawn]

Thank you so much for sharing that you also know what it is I'm talking about. I feel so much less isolated!

((((((((((((((( Gem )))))))))))))))))

You bring about another good point of waking up in a hiding place...for me it was a huge bush, the doghouse, trees, tops of dumpsters (I know...yuck...the child didn't care though).

I can't tell y'all what it means to know that we can share this because of the confusion, but also some good, it can bring about.

Love,

KD

[kimmydawn]

Place, I think you were right on topic...spot on.

KD

[Evangelista]

((KD))

I was 9 yrs old, woke up on a cliff over looking our small town, people were screaming at me not to jump, and the police car was speeding across the dirt road near where I was standing, I don’t know how I go up there or what I was doing, or how long I had been there, I was a few inches from the edge, but I was seeing the Picture from the Church book of Jesus with all the children around him and he was reaching for me…
other times got blamed alot for things dont remember doing..destroying things..waking up in strange places outside of town..looking for my dad..just wandered off allot I guess..used to wake up in the house hallway holding my younger sister's bedroom door shut so they couldnt come out, thought something really bad and evil was going to get them if they came out of their room even when my stepfather and mom wasnt home..

teen years were worse..once woke up with police in front yard and phone in my hand.standing staring out the big bay window in the front room staring out into the yard..just standing there with policemen squatting near the wall waving there hand at me trying to get me to open the front door..bunch of squad car had there guns out..lights flashing....police said someone called said someone was being k*ll*d..said they heard screaming in the back ground..just yuck stuff..sorry..

put a trigger icon just in case...thank you for letting me talk about it a little..feels strange but okay here among friends..

[January]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Kimmy wrote: See, by this age, it had already been years...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

I cry for all of us who had already suffered years of abuse by the time we were 10. I'm sorry, I know that's not the response you wanted, but I just had to say it.

((((((((((((The Children )))))))))))))))

With love,

Jan

[kimmydawn]

((((((((((((( evangelista )))))))))))))))))

yes, it's ok here among friends. thanks for the trigger icon. i always know, though, when speaking of memories and DID, they're more often than not triggering. so sad...

thank you so much for sharing.

we are a beautifully unique people.

KD

[kimmydawn]

(((((((((( Jan ))))))))))))))))

How beautiful and yes, unfortunately with most cases of DID 10 yr olds were known to abuse for years.

(((((((((((((the children))))))))))))))))

kd

[Mahali]

Post deleted by January

[kimmydawn]

It's odd kd, I think you become so used to it you don't even think of it much after a while.

HOW TRUE FOR ME! I told t that so many times. I didn't even think about it because it was something that always was and I thought everyone was like that.

There were several times that I would end up in W. Va. at grandparents (very safe) as an adult and not remember going. It's a trip in more ways than one. That was as a young adult.

My teens? Nah, I don't have much there at all either. Not too interested in reclaiming it either...

This is too cool, y'all. Thank you so much. I feel like I'm in group (we don't have that around here for DID) and just "sharing" intimately.

KD