All of Me (34 page)

Why was I always having my stomach pumped?

Dr Laine had the answer to this. She’d met a personality named Rebecca. Rebecca had taken the overdose of pills that got us rushed to Mayday that first time. And the next time, and the time after that. Each time, though, Rebecca followed the same pattern. She would gulp down Dad’s pills, then stagger downstairs and inform Mum or Nan or Lorraine or Dad what she had done. They had called an ambulance and the medical process had taken its course. What was obvious was: she didn’t want to die.

It’s a classic cry for help.

The overdoses had continued. She’d considered crashing the car and also throwing herself from the top of a local multi-storey car park. Then, at Warlingham, she’d managed to hang herself. Hearing that made me reach instinctively for my neck. In my mind the burn felt as fresh as it had all those years before. Again, there was enough chance of being discovered that assured me it was not a serious attempt.

But there was another episode. This one was in Lewes during the time we’d been assigned round-the-clock protection from those two guards. Somehow Hayley had given them the slip and gone to visit a friend in Lewes. Once there Rebecca had taken over and popped a canister of pills in the sanctity of our hotel room. Before they could kick in, the police – alerted by the security guards – had discovered her. They arrived just in time to call an ambulance.

Hearing these stories was just that: they were stories. I’d already dealt with the fallout from Rebecca’s actions – did I want to dwell on the suicide attempts again now?

But then I realised I still wasn’t seeing the full picture. There was one very important question I hadn’t asked. Even when I realised, I hesitated. Did I honestly want to know the answer?

Yes,
I decided.
Yes, I do.

Okay: exactly why did Rebecca try to kill us?

Now I was at the crux of the matter. This was why I had been in denial for so long, in the face of irrefutable evidence, that I suffered from DID.

This is what my mind had really been protecting me from.

Because, as Dr Laine was sad to explain, to accept that I had Dissociative Identity Disorder was to accept that our body had been abused.

As a child.

Again and again and again.

It’s enough to drive anyone to suicide.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

That’s not Skye

Was she there?

Dawn pressed her palms against the shop window. Even with the glare of the sun behind her she could make out the customers, all those mothers with their little tots, pushing them around without a care in the world. Some of the strollers were open, their little occupants wide-eyed and smiling. One by one Dawn ticked them off her mental list. The closed ones, where the little passengers were sound asleep, were another matter. Dawn peered harder.

Was she in one of those?

She ran round and stood in the doorway.

Is she one of them?

Is one of those babies my Skye?

D
iscovering the truth about DID and what my mind had been protecting me from all these years was hard to process. I’m sure it was the hardest part of Dr Laine’s job, informing me how my body – our body – had been subjected to the worst kind of abuse at such a tender age. From therapy sessions with Hayley and Bonny, Dr Laine had assembled the bones of our background. Then she had encouraged the dominant personality at the time to step aside and let other alters emerge during those sessions. Dr Laine and Aimee both seem to have the power to summon other personalities – although only if those personalities are willing to appear, and if the dominant alter doesn’t ‘block’ or fight it. One by one she met the poor victims and learnt their stories.

Not all of the victims were coherent – some were too young, frozen in time as toddlers, small children or even babies, doomed to remain at an age where the pain was still as raw as the day it had happened. We all seem to have stopped ageing at a certain point. For me it was twenty-one, I don’t know why. For two-, three- and four-year-olds I think it’s obvious. That’s when their childhoods were taken away. Some of them are still too paralysed to speak. Most of them haven’t even revealed their names. They’re all scared, all scarred, all ashamed – and I just want to hug them and say, ‘It’s not your fault!’

The luckier ones had had the chance to age and try to put some distance between them and events. Other older personalities denied the abuse although their own lifestyles indicated their suffering. Eating disorders, along with other symptoms, is a tell-tale sign. Self-loathing, especially the wish to die, was another. Judy, Sonia, Julie and Rebecca are all likely victims.

Part of me didn’t want to know the details for fear I would never recover. But another part was desperate for any information. It may not have happened to me, but this was my body. If I couldn’t share their pain, I felt an obligation to my fellow alters to know as much about it as possible.

Dr Laine never discovered all the details but she learnt enough. As my parents both worked, they had entrusted Baby Kim to various local babysitters on those occasions when Nan couldn’t look after her. Sometimes the sitters took Kim into their own houses. On other occasions they would look after her at ours. This wasn’t as cavalier as it might sound today. You have to remember this was the early 1960s. Communities were tighter. Children would regularly be passed around a network of babysitters who, today, probably wouldn’t even be asked. As far as Dr Laine was concerned, my parents had acted as anyone else in their position would have.

What they didn’t – what they couldn’t – know was that one or more of these sitters took advantage of his or her position. I don’t know who the guilty party was and I don’t want to because it would disturb me more if I remembered being alone with them – especially if they were abusing Kim when they were at our house. But it’s enough to know that it happened, again and again and again.

Unable to cope with the physical and mental pain, Kim Noble’s mind had fractured. In her place had appeared hundreds of others, all as innocent as Kim. Some suffered as she had suffered and some, like me, Hayley and Bonny, had been lucky.

Learning the truth made me somehow feel I was dishonouring Kim. After all, she would have done anything to forget what had happened to her and here I was wilfully drawing those memories out from the others who suffered like her.

Without the help of Dr Laine I probably couldn’t have coped. With every new revelation, I questioned whether I had to go on, whether I needed to know everything. But for me to fully accept DID, to fully take on the responsibilities of becoming the dominant personality, it was essential. Yes, it was the worst feeling of my life – but knowing everything about our body’s past was a very small price to pay to keep our daughter.

Other personalities weren’t as lucky. One in particular was stuck in time for another reason altogether.

Through Dr Laine I learnt that a personality called Dawn had given birth to Aimee six years ago. She was the one who’d endured the caesarean section, although I share the scar. She was the one who had just cuddled her little baby Skye when the officials from social services had come in to remove her. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like. If I had to make a choice between suffering what my body suffered as a child and losing my daughter, I would take physical suffering every time. There can be no greater loss for a woman.

The more of the story I learnt, the worse the ordeal sounded – not just for Dawn but Hayley and Bonny too. And of course for Aimee.

It had begun during a routine visit to Dr McGilchrist at Mayday, when he told Hayley he had to inform social services of any women with mental health problem who were pregnant.
Fine,
Hayley thought, and understood why. A social worker, called Christine Impy, came to the house to do an assessment which, again, Hayley completely endorsed. Hayley couldn’t have been more co-operative. As she told Christine, ‘If there is any danger to this baby from the inside or outside, then she has to be taken away and protected.’ Further assessment appointments were booked to take place at the social services offices and Hayley didn’t miss one. Christine couldn’t have been more impressed; not only was Hayley attending all her antenatal appointments but everything at home looked exemplary: there was a stroller (bought by our dad) and a crib, clothes, a high chair, car seat, bassinet, bottles, bath, diapers and toys – you name it, Hayley’s baby, as far as Christine was concerned, was going to have it. Even the nursery was all beautifully decorated well in advance. Nothing was being left to chance.

Christine was equally as thorough. A pre-birth appointment was arranged which Hayley, a lawyer, a policeman and thirteen other interested parties attended. It was agreed by all that Hayley and her baby should be transferred to a mother-and-baby unit after the birth for monitoring. There Hayley would have support and Christine and co. would have final confirmation that she was more than capable of being a ‘normal’ mother.

If only they’d stopped there, a lot of heartache could have been avoided. Two personalities’ lives might not have been scarred forever.

Social services decided, as a final safeguard, to get an independent DID specialist to assess Hayley. Two weeks before Aimee was born Hayley attended a meeting with Dr Elizabeth Hall at 9 a.m. on a hot August day. By the time it finished at five, Hayley was exhausted. But, she reasoned, the more time she spent with Dr Hall, the easier it would be for her to see that Hayley was going to be a fine mother. Certainly it should be clear that her baby would be in no danger.

After the meeting was when things began to go wrong. After months of attention, suddenly it was hard to get information out of social services. Pre-arranged appointments with Hayley were cancelled and when she phoned to find out which mother-and-baby unit she would be going to they said it had yet to be decided.

But my baby’s due any moment …

Days went by. Finally, three days before the scheduled caesarean operation, Hayley was informed a social worker would meet her at the hospital. Little did she know that the social worker had instructions to remove Aimee the moment she was born.

Nobody told Dawn anything. Even when Aimee was taken away minutes after birth, Dawn was still kept in the dark.

‘Where’s my baby?’

‘She’s been taken to intensive care for tests.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’

Dawn wasn’t the only one denied access. The visiting room was packed with friends and family bearing balloons and flowers. My Dad had been there for ages and now Lorraine and her sons, Ivy, and our neighbours had all arrived as well. They were all told the same thing: you can’t see the baby and you can’t see Kim. As one, they all had the same fear: is there something wrong with the baby?

For Dawn, separated not only from her child but also her well-wishers, the not-knowing must have felt even worse. If her baby was having tests, it stood to reason doctors thought she must be ill. What was wrong with her? What wasn’t she being told?

The answer, it turned out, was
the truth.

Dawn’s baby was not having tests at all. Social services were trying to get an order allowing them to remove the baby. They assumed it would be a matter of minutes before it came through. In the end, the order wasn’t granted until five o’clock – a full day during which child and family were separated.

When a doctor suddenly appeared with her daughter, Dawn could have been forgiven for thinking everything was going to be okay. Feverishly she grabbed her little girl and hugged her for dear life. She barely looked up when her visitors were allowed in for the first time. She certainly didn’t notice the social worker appearing at her side – but she would never forget the next few moments for as long as she lived. As Dawn screamed, the baby was removed once again from her mother. Her life with foster parents would begin the following day.

I can’t imagine how traumatic that must have been for Dawn. Like me, she hadn’t been party to the prenatal assessments. She didn’t have a clue why social workers were involved or why any of this was happening. She just knew it was wrong and it was unnatural. Even her body was telling her that. As she lay there sobbing through the night, Dawn felt the milk forming in her breasts – milk meant for Skye, milk that she would never be able to have.

Dawn has had to live with the memories of the actual removal but it was Hayley, appearing soon afterwards, who had to face the trauma when she discovered what had gone on.

‘Ask Dr Hall,’ she begged a social worker. ‘She’ll tell you I’m fit enough to look after my baby. Check her report!’

‘That’s
why
your baby was taken,’ the social worker replied. ‘Dr Hall made it clear you would not be able to cope.’

Hayley was shocked. She thought the pre-birth meeting had gone well. She didn’t know what Dr Hall had said but hadn’t thought there was any problem. Although Christine had always been efficient and kind, Hayley felt betrayed by the system that had allowed this to happen. She accepted that having commissioned a report from an expert, social services were duty-bound to follow the recommendations.