"Montage" is our systems name of the collective conscience to keep the body name private.

I thought about this, and it has dawned on me that there was a "body mode" or whatever you want to call it that we lived in. It was a role that we all played, the person that we tried to pass as, pretend to be, or role play. We kept the conscious character "Montage" progressively alive. It wasn't anything special, just a way for us to stumble through life "unnoticed".

I have described it as a theme that we played to in the past, but on further thoughts about it and because of recent events and realizations (very emotional ones, like life threatening ones), I now realize the true nature of our unified behavior.

Montage never felt like she fit in with society, that things that are natural for others were so foreign to her. She was lacking in most forms of social skills due to our individual short comings. The ability to feel like a "full" person, to be able to mesh together aspects of other experiences to create a confident action is unavailable to her. This was a major stressor to our system, for it caused moments of great vexing to our conscious character- feelings of inadequatecy, lacking, confusion, unsuredness, conflict, fear,....prevailed. Montage cried over "why?" too many times.

We were all role playing with our main character "Montage" molded in the conscious realm because life was real. By mindlessly staying in voluntary denial, we avoided the truth and propelled it by never looking inwards too hard. We were so immersed into this desire to be outwardly singular that we forgot about being inner individuals- we brain-washed ourselves, even to a point on a sub-conscious level we thought that we were the character. You can say we were caught up in it. We had to survive.

We hit on the truth about ourselves when we became aware at about 15 or so for a few months. We have been reading books on Freud and sub-conscious healing and psycho-analysis that recognizing what was wasn't a shock. Being a prospective psychology major, Montage thought this was kewl, then the realization that she would no longer be a normal teenager sank into the systems conscious. She was already having a hard time at life, and that this was the worst thing that can happen to an awkward teenager trying to fit in. That's when we consciously voted to hide all this from ourselves to lesson the abnormal- like we needed more added to our already bad esteem.

To Montage- we were questioning our sexuality, gender, didn't feel at home in our body....a lot of how we individuality felt about ourselves bled into the conscious because by taking out the individual "I" factor, we were each lost. Our self-esteem was shot, we lived a big question mark.

The conscious is like a bridge on a ship or control center where we mains worked at as a group watching reality transpire. When and as we were needed to do our job, it's like stepping up to the command chair putting on headphones and mic taking over control. This is why our dissociation seems nonexistent, or seamless....we are prepared and ready for a trigger to happen. After years of rehearsal, we pretty much know who needs to be present and ready. Of course, when a needed other is asleep or not present, Bobbie dazes out as we try to find them.

With so many versions of how to be, we came across as the oddball trying to be something that individually we're not. With so many unlearned skills to life, Montage appeared the naive, withdrawn, socially awkward person. We had too many holes in our capabilities that more had to emerge. We all took a crash course on life on the fly. All this finally came to a crashing end 32 years later, and here we are, exhausted to living that way.

It's been a year since the big reveal, or when we collectively gave up. The stress of trying to be "one" has been tremendous, so much that we've had plenty of emotional/mental breakdowns. The episodes usually happened in solace that seeing a professional never happened...maybe we would have gotten help years ago, like in our early twenties? I don't know- the self-instilled fear of being discovered kept us from seeking help.

So, here we are today, not quite sure what to make of it or how to proceed in our exposed selves. Of course when role-playing, one has to stay in character but now the rules are much more relaxed. Some of our individuality has naturally manifested itself which has stepped up the inner battle a notch as to who we really are or suppose to be, like who is the true individual...a notion that we've neglected to establish since we started to haphazardly winging it out of ignorance.

We've had tons of individual self-discovery take place, putting us back to where we were back then. We now know who, how, and what we are which is like starting all over. Of course, we still go with playing our part because of present responsibilities and obligations like marriage, eating, rent, and child rearing.

Since I have to go, this is where it ends.

We just seen our new T and I read the above to her, she wants an emailed copy.

We went there and spilled it and she's like willing to help us. I barely can remember it, though.

Now we're dissociated and dazed out all over the place.

Hmmmm.

[kecanoe]

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

We just seen our new T and I read the above to her, she wants an emailed copy.

We went there and spilled it and she's like willing to help us. I barely can remember it, though.

Now we're dissociated and dazed out all over the place.

Hmmmm.

Dissociated and dazed is a perfect way to describe me post-intense therapy session. And yay! you found someone who is willing to help.