Splitting and Integrating

The two or more of me.

I overheard a couple of good friends talking...about me (and me)...while I was standing there.  These are the dearest of friends and would have said this to my face had I not been walking away.

So I have been in so much deep thought lately, before this conversation I overheard.  I have known I have dissociated and split on numerous occasions.  To what degree is what I am wondering.  When I was 14 I started going by a new name.  With that new name came a new identity.  A new style.  A new attitude.  Was that when I split?  I am aware now of the duality that came with my adolesence.  I definitely didn't see it then.  Since reaching adulthood, more identities, styles and attitudes which seem to come from nowhere.  Now, there are the identities that came with work, but there are so many different people others know me as when they meet me.   Those who are patient enough to stick around get to see the many different sides of me, not just the many roles I fill.

I thought I had it all hidden.  I thought I had it all figured out.  I have lost days, conversations, events.  Keeping my "crazies" all to myself is what I have been aiming for, but as I get older, as my recovery is supposed to be moving along, I seem to be exhibiting more and more symptoms, especially the last two and a half years.  I have so many times where friends have reminded me of things I did.  Of times when I just wasn't myself.  A few of them have seen me psychotic.  I try so hard to keep that hidden, but that's not such an easy thing to hide.  More and more frequently I'm losing track of time...wondering how I got as far as I did while I was driving.  "Wow! How did I get here when I was just 100 miles east of here".  That was just last week.

So to integrate, I feel I must first figure out who I am, and who I am.  I have to be familiar with all of me before I can weave myself into an integrated multicolored, multifaceted cloth.  Am I just splitting or am I dealing with a few different me?

What did I overhear?  That I have multiple personalities?  They know something I don't?  They either know nothing about me or they are completely right.