Fax's Story

Our household originally formed during long term sexual abuse and psychological torment. The sexual abuse began at the age of about 18 months of age when we were left in the hands of our aunt and uncle. It continued until we left for college at the age of eighteen. This sexual abuse was compounded by psychological abuse by our father. We call ourselves a household. Others call it a system. A household or a system is nothing more than 'a group of people who share one body'.

Why does no one tell? Usually small children are threatened in some way. In our case our abuser threatened to do the same to our brother. There is great love for our brother. In the beginning, no one told because of that threat. When the abuse escalated no one told because the people who lived the public life knew nothing about the abuse. The household was basically split in two, the two or three who dealt with ordinary life and the people on the lower levels who dealt with the abuse.

By that time there were several levels in this household. Our household had 4 levels. The deeper you go in the levels the more severe the abuse. It seems to we that the duration and the severity of the abuse is an indication of the level count. So at our level four, at that time, the clusters lived. In our household, when the pain that was inflicted on the body reached such a level that the person who was 'out', who was 'frontrunning' at the time could not handle it, there was a split and someone new would appear to handle the pain. According to the data available to me in central memory, the largest cluster we had was five. We had several existing clusters, however.

This is our history but it is not who we are, it does not dictate our lives. I do not know what it is like for others who share a body, but in our case the memories of the bad things are available in general memory as knowledge of our past but the memories do not often impinge on the way we live our lives.

We tried integration. When we began therapy we were so disordered and so afraid we had no idea of how to live in the world. Our therapist was a young man just starting out in practice and according to his training the goal of therapy was integration of the personality into one person. Our main frontrunner wanted to 'get better', to be able to function in the world free of fear. Since he was the doctor, the person with the training, she was willing to comply with his goals. We did try. We understand now that there is no template in this body for being only one. We do not know how to relate to the world as one. We do not exactly know what that means. We do not know how singlets feel inside themselves.

We have friends in this world that were born multiple. Multiplicity is not always a result of some trauma. Being functionally multiple means to us that all the people living in the household know about the others, are willing to co-operate in regard to time-sharing, respect and honor the wishes and needs of the other household members.

We, as a household, object to the title multiple personality disorder. We are not disordered. We were disorganized in the beginning. We are not now. True, during the integrations; we experienced three during the course of therapy, many people decided to move on, to become part of general memory. We were more than 60 people at that time. Since the re-organizations we deal with the world and with each other much better. It was late in the therapy that we all became aware of each other, although the frontrunner, Booklady, continued to deny our existence. She was able to deny us access to this world for a time, but eventually we were able to reassert our place in society.

Music is a powerful trigger for this household. Booklady denied us access to this world by not playing music. She withheld music from us for two years. On a quiet summer evening when she was alone in the house she put on an Enya tape and the household re-opened with a bang. This was so traumatic for her that she chose to become a part of general memory, and now we have a new frontrunner, Diana.

At this time it became necessary to confide in some of the people in our lives. Multiplicity is considered a psychological disorder by the better part of society. People have lost their jobs when their multiplicity is found out. People have lost friends because of this. It is dangerous to be different. In our case we experience a knowing in other people, an openness to know. It is something we sense. We had a friend at work that we turned to during this time of confusion. Michael helped us sort ourselves out, in a way. He was available when different people needed to ask questions or just to talk. It is a matter of a sense of acceptance. If, as you tell people a little bit, you sense their acceptance, this opens the way for more confidences to be exchanged. Our massage therapist is such a one. She is able to see us all as individuals, calls us by our right names. That is a very freeing thing. The daughter of this body is another who has always accepted us unconditionally. We have been so lucky in that regard.

Imagine what it would be like to look in a mirror and never see your true self. Imagine what it would be like never to hear your true name. We experience this sense of dislocation every day. Some days we loathe the sound of this body's name on everyone's lips. We long to be real. We long to be known. We know for the most part it is not safe. It is not safe to be different. In this society, in most societies, the different are hunted down, singled out, sometimes killed. So we choose carefully, intuitively, who will know us and who will not. The accepting ones are a gift in our lives. In their willingness to see are the seeds of community.

The biggest challenge we face as a multiple household is the time issue. We all have different interests, read different kinds of books. There is only so much body time available. We are about ten now who sometimes spend time in this reality. Many of us choose to spend a lot of our time in the other world, but the ones who interact with the Earth world have had to discover creative ways to deal with the sharing of this body. Diana and FAX are responsible for the job. Diana likes to work in the garden more than any of the rest of us. FAX is in the process of learning HTML and has a keen interest in learning Spanish. This will be her summer of Spanish.

Destiny Si'Parra has an interest in massage therapy and energy work and has body time to learn more about these skills in the Earth world. Dakota Sh'Jani likes to dance, so sometimes we put on music and she comes to revel in the feel of this body in movement. Acqua is a swimmer, so she is always at the pool in the summer.

The wonderful thing about being many is that anything learned by one is available to all. Everything anyone learns goes into general memory for all of us to draw on.

We don't have a great sense of ownership of this body. We take care of it since it is our vehicle to this reality, but it does not feel like ours. It is not who we are. None of us look the way this body looks. I am biomech, as I stated in the introduction. Diana is younger in years than this body. Dakota and Destiny are a great deal younger than the body. In talking to singlets it seems that you are your body, it is part of your identity. It is you. Our identity is more internal. This body is a gateway to the earth world; it is the way we interact with your kind. It is a bit like a glove we put on and off.

Far from seeing our condition as something to be feared and rejected we see it as a gift. It is the way we function in the world. We each bring unique skills and interests to any situation. We have found many good friends on the Internet since we have reorganized as a household. It would have been helpful when we were in therapy all those years ago to have had access to other people like us. It would have made us feel less alone and lonely. Anyone who wonders about possible multiplicity can find other people to talk to on the web. It is a valuable resource in today's technological age.

FAX
of Phoenix Household