Heroes in My Head

by Judy Rebick

  We didn’t have a megaphone or a mic, so we gathered in circles around the Crucified Woman. There were a few men there, but it was the women I remember, their heads down, eyes lowered, soaked in sadness, still in shock. Some women were crying. Then someone began singing Holly Near’s “Singing for Our Lives.” We were grieving together as women, as feminists, as mothers, as sisters.

  I’m pretty sure Marilou said a few words, or someone did, but mostly we talked about what had happened and what we were feeling. There were media asking questions and we answered in subdued voices, eyes downcast.

  The week after the December 6 massacre, I was invited to speak at a rally on abortion rights in Montreal. Initially, the rally was to focus on Chantal Daigle, whose right to abortion case was going to the Supreme Court. But since it was only a week after the Montreal Massacre, it became a huge feminist memorial. Every well-known Quebec feminist — in the arts, the unions, politics, and the women’s movement — was there. When I walked into the huge auditorium on Saint Denis Street, I was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd.

  The women’s movement in Quebec had been remarkably successful. They came from a highly patriarchal culture where women didn’t even have the right to vote until 1940, twenty years after the rest of the country. The women in that room had fought for and won the same degree of equality as elsewhere in Canada in much less time. In one generation they went from the highest birth rate and the highest rate of weddings to the lowest. Women’s status in society changed in a truly revolutionary way. Many feminists believed that the action of the assassin was part of a backlash against those dramatic changes.

  However stunned we were in Toronto, it was much worse in Montreal. The hall was full, but it was quiet. In the bathroom, I ran into Françoise. She was a tough left-wing feminist who was never afraid to take a stand and speak her mind.

  “He hated feminists.” She was slumped over the sink trying to stop crying. “He hated us but he killed these young women. How do I deal with that?”

  I nodded sympathetically.

  “I feel guilty,” she continued. “I know I shouldn’t but I do.”

  “I understand, Françoise, but it isn’t your fault they died. It’s his fault.”

  “Yes, but one of the young women even said, ‘We are not feminist.’ Imagine! They blamed us, too.”

  “No, they didn’t. She was just trying to save herself and the others.”

  That she felt guilty surprised me at first. But I found guilt in many of the women I talked to. He wanted to kill them, prominent feminists, but he couldn’t get to them so he killed these innocent young women instead. Was it survivor guilt? No, it was another form of oppression. Blaming the victim is a component of oppression. It’s part of patriarchy and sexism and it is part of colonialism and racism. What young women today call “rape culture” is full of this kind of shaming and blaming.

  Radical feminists think all acts of violence against women are political. Violence against women exists to stop women from fighting back, from achieving equality both at a personal and at a societal level. There’s little question that the École Polytechnique killer’s act was political, just as there is little question that it was also personal, coming out of a rage against women taking his place in society. With the exception of a few prominent feminists, at the time no one in Quebec was willing to accept this explanation.

  The events of December 6 reverberated through my body, my mind, and my memory. The pain of the original trauma of my father’s abuse and anger, and of all the male violence I had shut out of my mind for years and years, flooded my consciousness. Today we call it a trigger, but back then I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.

  * * *

  After Christmas 1989, the different personalities started coming out more frequently. Marcia got each of them to agree that they wouldn’t come out in public. It wasn’t a problem with Simon, but some of them were small children with very little self-control.

  “Hi, Marcia. I’m Lobo, and I can run fast, real fast, faster than anyone.”

  “Hi, Lobo. How old are you?”

  “I’m five,” he said, proudly holding up five fingers. Lobo was restless, jumping up and down and from side to side on the seat, standing and sitting, looking around. “I don’t like it here, Marcia. Can I go out and play?” Lobo stood up and started for the door.

  “Please sit down, Lobo. I’m sorry but you have to stay here with me. If you go out, you could get Judy into trouble. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”

  Lobo dropped his head. “No,” he said in a small voice. “Can I go pee-pee?’

  “Yes, the bathroom is right there.”

  Lobo jumped off the chair and ran to the bathroom where he tried to pee standing up, but that didn’t work too well so I sat down and he disappeared. But not for long.

  “We’re starting to see the others now, Judy,” Marcia explained. “It seems some of them are small children, so it might be difficult to control their behaviour. They want to protect you, that’s why they exist. But they might come out so you have to be ready for that. Have you told anyone about the alters?”

  “I told Alvin, but that’s all. I don’t think he really knew what I was talking about. There was enough to deal with, just trying to figure out how to continue his relationship with our parents,” I said. “Alvin was shocked when I told him about the abuse, and now that I’ve told him about the personalities he thinks I’m a little crazy. It’s not easy for him, trying to keep his relationship with me and with my parents. I don’t want to put too much on him and I get the impression that he doesn’t want to know too many details. He believes me and that’s what’s most important, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, of course. He’s in Ottawa anyway. It’s here you need some support. Decide which of your friends you trust with this kind of information and tell them. You might need their help.”

  “Okay,” I responded, but I had no idea what she was talking about. I soon found out.

  Marcia lived close to a Dairy Queen. Lobo was still around, as the alters often were just after therapy. He saw the Dairy Queen and came fully into my body and headed off. The Dairy Queen was about half a block north of Marcia’s building on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Don River, a lovely location. Lobo skipped and ran along the sidewalk. I was hoping no one was watching a middle-aged woman skipping down the street with a big smile on her face. When we arrived, I noticed the woman behind the counter looking at me kind of strangely. I guessed that Lobo looked super excited to be at the Dairy Queen.

  “What colour ice cream do you have?”

  Now the woman knew something was wrong with this person. “Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry,” she said. Chocolate was Lobo’s choice. At least in that he was like me. He sat on a nearby rock overlooking the Don Valley, kicking the rock and wolfing down the ice cream cone as any five-year-old would. I had sensitivity to soft ice cream. It had a strange metallic taste and made me nauseous and a little headachy and dizzy. But as I sat upon that rock I tasted what Lobo tasted, and it was delicious. There was no reaction to the ice cream as long as he was out.

  When he was finished eating he disappeared, and my usual reaction to soft ice cream kicked in. I immediately got a headache and felt dizzy. It was the worst reaction I’d ever had. I found out later that alters can have not only different allergies from their host but even different medical conditions.

  As I was learning, the mind is astonishing. At five years old, my mind had fragmented into different compartments to protect me from the terrible things my father was doing to me. I had created different personalities who employed a variety of tactics to try to stop him and to keep what he was doing to me from me. Once I started splitting into these different personalities, I no longer knew that my father was abusing me. For decades I had no memories of the abuse or any other events that the alter personalities considered dangerous.

>   I decided to tell my friends Sue Colley and Gord Cleveland, who I trusted and saw quite frequently. We’d known each other for a long time, and I needed friends who would guard my secret and give me support when I needed it. Sue and Gord fit the bill. Gord’s mom was bipolar so they were used to dealing with mental illness. And since I spent part of the summer with them at their cottage in Muskoka, I knew they would notice if the alters came out.

  I went to their house and told them. They were incredibly empathetic and supportive. I had already told them about the sexual abuse, which was a big shock. Telling them about the multiple personalities was easier because everyone reacted the same way to that. Curiosity. No one I told had any idea how to react to it. After, we turned on the television. Someone on TV said that everybody liked them and I said, “I wish someone liked me.”

  Sue and Gord both turned to me.

  “Is that one of your personalities?” Sue asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “It didn’t sound anything like you.”

  “Maybe they can come out like that. I’m not sure.”

  Sue and Gord were a great support. Sue gave me a key, saying, “Any time you need help, feel free to come over. Wake us up if you need to. Whatever you need.” I never took advantage of that generous offer but I was grateful for it.

  Marcia and I agreed that the younger alters could come out with anyone who was aware of my condition. If the person knew I had multiple personalities, the personalities were allowed to come out. The problem was when an alter got scared and I hardly ever knew what caused that to happen. When one of them wanted to come out in public, I would feel nauseous. It was strange because I didn’t feel that way when they came out in therapy or even in front of friends. Perhaps it was a warning sign so I could get away if I needed to. One time I was in a restaurant with a friend, and a friend of hers came in and joined us. For whatever reason, he scared one of the alters. I started to feel sick, excused myself, and left.

  They usually didn’t come out when I was working, but one day I was in a meeting with people from the pro-choice movement. We were discussing the idea of raising money for a full-page ad in the Globe and Mail, denouncing the new draft abortion law that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney was proposing. The women around the table had worked together for ten years in a fractious but still functional relationship. This time there was tension between me and some of the women over a recent dispute. I started feeling nauseous during the meeting, but I had to chair so I couldn’t leave. Through silent thoughts, I tried to convince whatever alter was trying to come out to wait. Fortunately, the women around the table agreed on how to proceed and everyone was almost as anxious to get out of there as I was.

  Once I got home, I used my journal to communicate with whatever alter had tried to come out. I had a feeling it was not one of the little ones.

  “Who is there?” I wrote.

  It was HIM.

  HIM was the only alter without a name. The others referred to him as HIM. HIM was the only one who was angry at Simon. Some of the alters didn’t know about Simon, but the ones who did loved him because he was taking care of them and me. HIM was angry at Simon because he came out to Marcia, whom he didn’t trust, and HIM was always angry at me. Constant rage would be the best way to describe HIM. HIM never talked to Marcia; he just yelled. When HIM first came out, he tried to attack Marcia physically. That’s when I learned that I had control over my body even when an alter was present. It took a lot of concentration, but I could stop HIM from jumping Marcia and I did. Apparently HIM was willing to talk to me, if you could call it that, in the pages of my journal.

  “You let them push you around just like you let Jack do those things to you. You haven’t changed. You’re weak. You should yell at them about what they did to you.”

  “It’s not the same,” I replied. “If I yell at them, it will just make it worse.”

  “Bullshit. Up yours. You know nothing. You’re chicken, cluck, cluck. cluck. Let me at them and I’ll show you how to do it.”

  The writing became illegible after that. That’s when I realized that HIM sounded a lot like The Voice who had come out during therapy with Mark years earlier.

  I was starting to get worried. In a couple of months, I was supposed to go to Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., to participate in a week-long intensive sign language course at the only university for the deaf in the world. But with everything that was happening in my head, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

  * * *

  Around this time I made a list of the alters with descriptions of each as I understood them:

  Simon is a boy, very mature, calm, and thoughtful but not strong on feelings. He thinks that to get by in the world, you shouldn’t feel things too strongly. He takes care of Judy and also the younger ones, Mary, and Pricilla. He keeps HIM in check so he doesn’t hurt anyone. He is very worried about Judy now because she is upset so much of the time and he thinks she can’t handle this level of feelings. He likes Judy, even loves her, but recognizes her weaknesses. He trusts Marcia, too. At first he was scared of her but not now. I am not sure how old Simon is. Marcia calls Simon the “guardian personality.”

  Sophie is a girl and she is twelve years old. She wants to have fun and thinks Judy is a big fucking drag. She’s really pissed off with therapy because it is taking all the fun out of life. She’s the one who comes out when Judy is sexually attracted — the flirt, the game player — but Judy doesn’t let that part of her out anymore so now she comes out more as the snarky part, a bit on the mean side. She likes Judy’s friend Rob a lot but wishes Judy would seduce him instead of just talking to him. In fact, she’s really getting pissed off with all this fucking talking and she is thinking about interfering more.

  HIM is angry and mean and yells at Simon. He is furious that Simon has told Marcia so many secrets. HIM hates Judy for not fighting back and he never talks to her because HIM would probably get so mad he’d kill her, so Simon keeps them separate. HIM respects Simon though because Simon can take it and has held everything together for so long. HIM wishes Simon would take over.

  Lobo is a little boy about five or six years old who can run faster than anyone and wants to run away.

  Lila is a young woman of uncertain age with a Southern accent who is always smiling, rather seductive, and thinks if Judy had a more positive attitude to life, everything would be better. Lila is not Jewish.

  Mary is a sweet playful child who skips and plays and doesn’t know anything is wrong. She doesn’t even know who Judy is.

  Pricilla is five years old and very scared.

  Fifteen

  And Then There Were Nine

  In the winter of 1990, two more personalities, Porsha and Trouble, emerged in therapy. Now there were nine. As soon as Porsha emerged, she started pounding my side. As far as I remembered I had never been into hurting myself, but there she was hitting herself with my fist. Oddly, I didn’t feel anything.

  “Where’s Jack?”

  “Jack is not here. He lives far away,” Marcia responded.

  “Don’t talk to me like I’m a baby. I’m not a baby.” She was angry at Marcia now and stopped hitting me.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Porsha. I’ve been around as long as Simon, you dope.”

  “Simon hasn’t told me about you.”

  “That’s ’cause he’s stupid. He thinks he knows everything but he doesn’t. I’m the one who stopped Jack, not him. I’m the one who protects Judy, not him. He thinks he’s so important. What does he do? Nothing. I’m the important one.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

  “No way! I’m not telling you nothing. Why should I?”

  “I’m trying to help Judy. Your telling me what happened helps her to remember. By remembering she’ll start to feel better.”

  “What, are you ki
dding me? I know she feels better when she doesn’t remember nothing. That’s what’s best for her.”

  “That’s been true up until now, Porsha. But now Judy is stronger and she wants to know what happened so she can stop hiding from it.” It would be a few more weeks before Porsha revealed her secrets to Marcia and me.

  Porsha faded and Trouble came out. He was laughing.

  “I’m Trouble, and I taught Judy to get sick,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and lifting his head in a gesture of tremendous pride.

  That was a real eye-opener. All my life, I had been sick off and on. In childhood, I got a lot of ear infections, not to mention every other illness going around. At sixteen, I suffered from a month-long depression. At eighteen, I had gallbladder surgery, rare for someone that age. In my therapy with Mark, I discovered that a lot of my physical illnesses had emotional sources. Kristi, my massage therapist, said that I somatized my emotional distress, meaning my body reflected my emotional problems.

  Trouble revealed that getting sick was a defence. When I was sick my father never abused me, at least sexually. He just yelled at me. Once I vomited in my bed, and he dragged me into the bathroom and forced my head into the toilet. I’ve had a phobia about vomiting ever since. Throughout my life, illness was an escape. When everything became too much, I would get sick, mostly digestive illnesses. I thought I just wasn’t taking care of myself, suffering from burnout, running myself ragged, but Trouble told me that it was another defence, like dissociation. Kristi would add that getting sick was the only way I could stop working so hard. What a mess!

  Simon seemed kind of depressed at this point because he was losing control of all the alters (Lobo came out in that session, too) and that scared him. I was getting more and more worried. I considered whether I should cancel that trip to Washington, D.C., or if maybe it would be good for me to get away. I wasn’t sure, but I always hated to admit defeat.