I wonder if Renee sees how rapidly they are moving toward integration. Renee and Jo both speak persuasively on why the Flock should not integrate. I don’t argue (of course!), but I wonder if deciding not to integrate is an important step toward that end. This is an amazingly logical disorder, and I’m beginning to see the Flock’s determination that they will not integrate as entirely consistent with that ultimate plunge.
Clearly integration is not possible until the personalities like one another enough to subsume into one. In the past, the arguments against integrating have been filled with fear of pathological behavior or fear of denied secrets from the past. Now, when Renee or Jo tells me that she is not going to integrate, what I hear is overwhelming love and respect for all of the personalities.
As Renee affirms all of the personalities, is she beginning to affirm newly recognized parts of self? We’re getting closer to that all the time, partly thanks to Unity’s group conferences. Now, when Renee makes a decision consciously, she knows, or at least suspects, that Unity has already given everyone a chance to have unconscious input. Renee knows that, more and more, she is acting on the Flock’s behalf rather than her own.
I even see Renee’s final attempt at securing local psychiatric support as evidence of a new, improved self-concept. There was no reason to believe that Renee would find what she said she was looking for. Maybe she knew this on some level, but needed to have closure on last year’s incident with Dr. Tate. The rejection that greeted her served as a catalyst for the new affirmation of self expressed through the intra-Flock conferences. I finally understand that the Flock often requires external stimulation when it’s ready for a growth spurt. It’s as though everything gets ready internally and then waits to be kicked “on.” If the kick doesn’t come naturally, they go out looking for it.
Maybe this is one of the essentials for the therapist treating a multiple—the ability to “kick” when needed, and the ability to stand back and watch the multiple manipulate her environment to produce what she needs. I’ve now been in touch with a number of clinicians who work with multiples. It’s clear that my reparenting relationship with the Flock is different from many of the other multiple-therapist relationships, but there are some essentials of good multiple treatment that seem to be present in even the most traditional psychotherapeutic setting.
Any therapist treating a multiple must play a variety of roles for the various personalities. Even if the treatment is confined to the office, the little ones need hugs and attention, just as all children in treatment might. Different personalities have different ways of working through pathology, like any group of patients, and the therapist must adjust to provide an adequate treatment approach for each one.
At the same time, the therapist must give each personality what is needed but must keep in mind that any message is being processed by the entity as a whole. I don’t think I’m being arrogant when I say that I’m impressed with what I’ve been doing intuitively. I’ve always had great faith in my unconscious, and when I trust myself on that deep level, maybe I’m expressing the same facility that Unity is demonstrating in the Flock.
32.
The Flock went home for Thanksgiving more secure in our internal and external relationships than we had ever been. It was good to be with Lynn and Gordon and great to be with Steve. For the first time in my life, I felt and responded to sexual desire. In the past, I had been sexual because that’s what men wanted. But things had changed. I loved Steve. I desired him.
Thanksgiving morning, Rusty went with Gordon to check out how The Channel had been bedded down for the winter. Gordon showed Rusty the engine he had removed and taken apart to repair while the boat was in drydock. He reminded Rusty how the engine worked to propel the boat when there was no wind. “I know that, Dad!” Rusty said huffily.
“It’s been a while since we sailed together,” Gordon explained. In fact, it had been more than two months. Rusty shrugged. In Rusty’s time sense, it didn’t seem long at all. He had probably had all of six hours of time in the last two months and was amnestic for the rest. He didn’t think he had forgotten anything. But maybe his dad knew something he didn’t.
A little uncertainly, Rusty interrupted Gordon’s tour of how the boat was maintained in drydock to ask, “Did I forget a whole lot, Dad?” Gordon stopped, thoughtful as always, and finally said, “No, it seems to me that you didn’t forget anything at all.”
Rusty relaxed then. They turned to leave the cavernous boathouse, passing dozens of vessels snug under tarps. Gordon stopped suddenly and headed back to The Channel. “I’ll be right back, Rusty,” he called. “I forgot something. I’ll meet you by the bulletin board that says ‘Attention Captains!’ ” Rusty had never before noticed the sign. He hadn’t needed to. He and Gordon had had no reason to stop here on their way in. For the first time, Rusty was struck with the awareness that there were words here in this special place. It was a boat place and a man place. He didn’t know that it was also a word place.
Gordon was gone for no more than a few minutes. But in that time, Rusty became transfixed, staring at the letters on the sign. Letters made words. Words could hurt….
“OK,” Gordon broke in, steering Rusty away from the sign and out the door, “let’s get out of here.”
Rusty stumbled after Gordon, tense and disoriented as he walked through the parking lot. A stop sign. Car names. License plates. Words. There were words everywhere.
In Gordon’s car, Rusty looked down and studied his sneakers to avoid looking out the window and seeing all the letters, all the words. “The words,” Rusty said, his voice quaking, “they’re everywhere, Dad. The words, Dad. They’re gonna cut me. They’re gonna get me. They’re gonna kill me.”
“No, they won’t, Rusty,” Gordon said. “The words can’t hurt you.” Rusty didn’t argue, but sat tensely, as though anticipating assault.
Rusty jumped from the car as soon as Gordon drove up in front of Steve’s house. I saw Rusty’s look of terror as he fled inside the Flock, but I put his concerns aside until later. I needed to get things ready for Thanksgiving dinner at Lynn’s, with four generations of Wilsons, Steve, and me. We’d get to Rusty soon; he wasn’t going anywhere.
Later, Steve went home alone and the Wilsons’ house was quiet. Gordon, Lynn, and I stretched out before the fire. “Time for Rusty?” I asked. I was more inclined to doze in front of the fire than to attend to Rusty’s fears. But I decided to leave it up to Lynn and Gordon.
“Time for Rusty,” Gordon said.
Rusty smiled quickly at Gordon and Lynn, but then moved to the cause of his anxiety. “Words, Dad,” he whimpered.
“Tell me what you see, Rusty,” Gordon encouraged in his deep voice, which at times like this soothed, comforted, and took away the sting of old fear.
Rusty saw the sand under his sneakers and the dunes all around him. He saw the ocean grasses waving in sea breeze, heard the crashing of waves and the calling of gulls. Then he saw the stick, moved by some unseen hand, writing words, letters in the sand. “Words. The stick,” Rusty said, backing away from memory. “The words, they’re gonna cut me up.” In Rusty’s mind, all of the letters had sharp edges. The hand became the stick became the letters became the pain.
“Words don’t hurt,” Gordon said, guiding Rusty from his panic back to the memory. “People hurt. Who’s holding the stick?” Rusty saw the stick again. He wouldn’t look, couldn’t look up to see the face, the body behind the stick. Rusty was gone, and Josie was there.
Josie trembled for a minute, ignoring the scene playing itself out in her mind. She fixated on the wall. She would hit the wall before she could be overcome by the memory.
“Josie,” Lynn said, noting the change in personality. “It’s OK, you’re with Gordon and Lynn. Gordon and Lynn are here.”
Gordon slid closer to where Josie was cringing. He stroked her back.
“I’m here, Josie,” he said soothingly, encircling her so that he could grab her quickly if she lunge
d for the wall. “Tell me what you see,” Gordon urged.
Gordon meant peace. Josie relaxed against him and turned to face her memory.
“Where are you, Josie?”
The wave of memory splashed over Josie, drenching her in the past. She sprawled in the sand. A stick poked viciously at her crotch and thighs. She could feel the scraping pain through her jeans, felt betrayal and violation of her soul.
“You got a prick, huh?” a voice said gutturally. “Is it there? Is it there?” the voice demanded with every jab.
“Stick,” Josie whispered to Gordon, reaching back to the present. “Who’s holding the stick?” Gordon asked.
Josie looked up and saw her father’s face, almost unrecognizable in his torment and rage. Her crotch burned. “Hurts. It hurts. Please, Daddy, no,” Josie whimpered, squirming away from the stick and its fire.
“That was before,” Gordon said firmly, “not now.”
Josie returned gratefully to the present and nestled into Gordon’s arms. At peace, she slipped back inside, and Jo found herself in Gordon’s gentle, protective embrace. Embarrassed as always at the need for such protection, Jo tensed. “I-I’m OK,” she said. Gordon slowly disengaged himself, recognizing that Josie was gone. But he stayed close enough to remind Jo that his touch was nothing to fear.
Jo took in her surroundings at a glance and relaxed, pleased to find herself in Lynn and Gordon’s living room. Then a sweet, bitter piece of nostalgia supplanted her comfort. Lynn recognized that Jo’s dreamy look focused far beyond the fireplace and plants. “Tell me what you see, Jo,” Lynn urged.
She grinned at being caught daydreaming, but answered casually. “Oh, I was just thinking about my father.”
At Lynn’s encouragement, Jo went on. “I was remembering a day with him at the beach—early fall on the Outer Banks. I sat near some dunes, weaving the sea grass.”
Jo could almost feel the rubbery green spikes in her hands. She could almost smell the salt air. “I was about eleven. My father had walked some distance from me and was sitting by his own dune, drawing or writing in the sand with a stick. He looked so dejected and sad. I wanted to walk over and comfort him, but knew he’d never let me. Sometimes he just shut me out, and I didn’t understand why.” Jo was glad she had many happy memories of time with her father to counterbalance sad ones like this.
She drifted into her nostalgia, and I slipped past her to come out, holding a few more pieces of memory from other personalities.
“Hi there,” I said, with the forced casualness I had come to adopt when describing a scene of abuse. “Are you ready for the whole picture?”
“If you are, sweetie,” Lynn said.
“As you know, Jo couldn’t let herself go over to comfort her father, but Missy could.
“Ray lost it when Missy went over to make Daddy feel better. Although the Flock was eleven then, Missy was perennially five. Maybe he just couldn’t deal with what he saw as his daughter’s ‘little-girl act.’ Anyway, his reaction scared Missy. As usual when Missy got scared, Rusty surfaced. I guess Rusty’s ‘I’m a boy and I’ve got a penis too’ posturing was just too much for Ray to take, and he struck at her crotch with the stick.”
Rusty pushed me aside, filled with new understanding and a new sense of well-being. There was no doubt in any of us that Rusty had heard every word I said. “Hey, Dad,” he said excitedly to Gordon, “the stick didn’t kill me, the words didn’t kill me. It’s because I’m here,” he said, pointing to his head, “and here,” he said, pointing to his heart, “not just here,” he said, pointing to his crotch. Rusty was gone before anyone could react.
We three sat silently for a minute. Then we all talked at once. “How did he hear me?” I asked. “Holy cow, he’s found his real self!” Gordon shouted. “Maybe he doesn’t care anymore that his body’s a girl’s,” Lynn trilled. “Rusty!” Gordon and Lynn called together.
I glanced inside. Rusty lounged nearby, enjoying the external bedlam, knowing that I’d be coming to look for him.
He stood up, grinned at me, and then ran a finger down my cheek. “Check you later,” he said and strolled back and back, humming a sea chantey taught to him by one of his dads. “I love you,” I whispered as I watched him disappear.
“Where’s Rusty?” Lynn asked. “Don’t you think he needs to come back and talk about this?”
“No, I think he’s doing just fine on his own,” I said.
I left soon after, wanting to cherish alone Rusty’s gesture, his gift for me. He knew now that he was one of us.
33.
I eagerly shared my new understanding with Steve when I returned home that evening, telling him with pride how Josie and Rusty and Jo had worked together to resolve the old damage. Now that Steve really understood that there were many different personalities living in this body, it was important to me that he come to appreciate all of us, as I had. After all, Steve was going to marry the entity, not just me.
The next day, Steve and I spent the afternoon with friends. Jo wanted some time with Steve as well, so I moved aside during the long drive home. Jo glanced around and reflexively checked her watch. She did so without embarrassment, knowing that Steve finally understood all about her.
Jo sat thoughtfully for a while, enjoying Steve’s company. He seemed to be aware of her presence, and she was comfortable with that. At least he no longer assumed something was wrong when she came out.
Jo decided that it was time that she and Steve discuss something that had been troubling her. “Steve,” she said, “would you rather be involved with me, as a multiple, or with some other, ‘single’ person?”
He paused and said, “I don’t know.”
Jo wasn’t offended by Steve’s response; aside from Lynn and Gordon, Jo still wouldn’t let herself feel close enough to anyone to feel rejected. But Steve’s answer puzzled her.
“Lynn told me that you and Renee were talking about getting married next August,” she said.
“Yes, that’s right,” Steve agreed. “What do you think of that?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “if you’re not sure that you would rather be with me than with some other person, I don’t understand why you’re talking about marriage.”
Steve told Jo that he had some real concerns about marrying the Flock. Last summer, he had assumed that integration was the ultimate goal and that it would be quickly forthcoming. Now it seemed that the Flock had chosen to remain separate personalities.
“You yourself have told me,” Steve said to Jo, “that you think integration is philosophically untenable. Whether you’re right or not, I don’t want to live the rest of my life with a bunch of separate personalities.”
He confessed that certain personalities in particular troubled him. He didn’t feel he could adjust to male personalities like Rusty, who “might seek sexual expression outside of the home.”
Jo was unaware of the dramatic change that had occurred with Rusty the night before, so she considered Steve’s arguments. “If Rusty is or would be sexually active in some way, I quite agree with you. But I’m still stuck on your earlier point. Let me respond to your concern about integration.”
She searched for an analogy that might fit her understanding of the situation. “I know that I argued against integration not long ago,” she said, “but now I don’t think that’s any more appropriate than arguing for integration. Do you remember from your reading of The Republic what Plato said about happiness?”
Yes, Steve did remember, but Jo continued, thinking out the analogy as she expressed it. “Plato said that you couldn’t strive for happiness. If you lived right, if all of the parts of your soul were in harmonious order, then happiness just naturally followed.”
Jo smiled at the ironic aptness of the analogy. “Excuse the pun about separate parts of the soul,” she said, “but I do think that the metaphor holds. Integration isn’t something that a multiple can strive to achieve. Maybe it’s not even something that she can seek to avoid, if she keeps gr
owing healthier. Maybe, once all of the personalities are fulfilled and working harmoniously, integration just naturally follows.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Steve concluded, but Jo continued her dispassionate consideration of his reservations.
“However, I do understand your concerns about living with a multiple,” she said. “I would think it would be far more trouble than it was worth. I wouldn’t marry one either.” As far as Jo was concerned, the matter was closed. The Flock would not marry Steve.
The matter was far from closed for me, as I let Steve know a few minutes later. Jo may not have felt rejected, but I did. “I’ve told you about my being a multiple for almost as long as we’ve been together,” I said angrily. “The other parts aren’t anything new. How can you suddenly change your mind about getting married?”
“The other parts may not be new,” Steve said calmly, “but my understanding of them certainly is. I can’t deal with the idea of marrying someone who contains personalities like Josie throwing herself against walls. Do you know how bad I’d feel if my wife committed suicide? And I can’t deal with Rusty thinking he’s male. Would you marry a closet homosexual?”
Steve’s arguments made no sense to me. “First of all,” I said, “I don’t like Josie’s behavior any more than you do. Her throwing herself at walls is a pathological part of the disorder that is being worked out with Gordon and Lynn. As I, and others in the Flock, learn to handle our own feelings of fear and anger, there is less reason for Josie to appear and release those feelings in her abreactive way.
“The suicidal feelings are like that too. They are reactions to past abuse. We are less suicidal now than we’ve ever been, and I’m sure that the feelings will soon stop altogether.
“You are also all wrong about Rusty. Yes, Rusty thinks he’s a boy, and he is a boy, but not in a sexually active sense. The Flock, as a whole, respect our commitment to you. We don’t express ourselves sexually outside this relationship now, and we certainly won’t when we’re married to you.”
The Flock Page 31
