Over the last ten or twelve days, keepers trying to blog has become a very difficult situation.  As we stated before, our new blog on KEEPERSKORNER has been taken down for now so we are using this (our present and future backup blog) for communicating with our blog friends.  However, another part of this situation is that keepers have lost our original blog on which we wrote for over a year.  Losing that blog is difficult for us because that was the main blog where keepers told a little of our story and put ourselves out there so that people could get to know the multiple behind our ministry at KEEPERSKORNER.  To us, that was important because who and what keepers are influences our choices in our ministry greatly.  But, as they say, everything happens for a reason and we know that must be true in this case as well as others.  So, keepers are thinking we need to begin telling our story one more time–only with greater distance and more experience under our belts–which may enable us to tell our story from a whole new perspective this time around.

The body that keepers occupy is now 58 years old.  We were born into a family where both parents were serious alcoholics.  We had one older brother and three younger siblings.  On our mother’s side–our family of origin was chock full of perpetrators who placed no value at all on little children.  We are also mothers of one son and two daughters–all of whom have been estranged from us for several years now.  And keepers are Grandmothers to several little children.  Truth be told, keepers wanted very much to be part of those little ones lives but that was not meant to be for us.  We have seen our grandbabies only a couple of times since they were born over the last five years.

We have several people in our system that we consider artists.  Beth is our eleven year old alter who works with markers and colored pencils.  Ellen Keeper is one of our adult alters who paints in watercolors.  And Maggie is another adult alter who works with pastels and does only portraits.  Sarah Christine is our 18 year old alter who does calligraphy.  Yashi is our Asian alter who works on rice paper and does Chinese Calligrapy along with some Sumi Art (Her work has yet to be made public).  And Polly is our 14 year old alter who writes poetry.  Much of keepers work is displayed on our website KEEPERSKORNER and is offered free to our sister multiples who find meaning in any given piece.  Keepers have done gallery showings but did not enjoy the experience very much and found it difficult to accept money for our artwork so we have not done this type of displaying our work since beginning our ministry here at KK.  And keepers have done a great deal of pro bono work for the St. Louis Artist’s Guild (where we have been a member in good standing for years now) and for local churches and for events like CHILD ABUSE AWARENESS WEEK.  Keepers have enjoyed doing pro bono work over the years but have begun to limit it in our lives as our focus with our art has shifted over the last eighteen months.

Several therapists have told keepers that we are a textbook case of MPD (we still it MPD instead of DID because that was the name when we were first diagnosed.)  We have lived a life filled with body memories and very low self esteem and minimal functioning or cooperation within our system.  At one point, keepers carried five separate pairs of glasses with us wherever we went.  Each pair was a different prescription customized for a specific alter.  Fortunately, a few years ago, keepers found an eye doctor who put all five prescriptions into one pair of glasses.  The company that made the glasses tell us our pair is the most complicated they have ever constructed.  Keepers have also had serious physical problems over the years.  We have weighed up to 406 pounds (due to a medication where we gained 14 pound a week for over a year).  And we have weighed as little as 100 pounds.  Needless to say, our closet contains a multitude of sizes for various weight periods.  We have alters who can communicate in different languages.  We have an alter who is deaf and mute who communicates with sign language.  Who have an alter who spent her early years as a dancer.

Keepers therapeutic life began in the early 1970’s when we saw a psychiatrist for a while.  Our JM was in the military and keepers were having a very difficult time with that kind of life.  Our psychiatrist was very compassionate and obtained a Humanitarian Discharge for our JM so he could be with keepers on a more regular basis.  After that, our next therapeutic experience began in the early 1980’s with a woman who readily admitted that she could not make sense out of keepers and withdrew as our therapist.  Then, we saw a second therapist for five years.  She was the one who diagnosed our MPD.  However, she was not a woman who could work adequately with something as complicated as multiplicity.  Then, we moved on to the man we call our former therapist–who was our T of record for 17 long years.

Keepers former therapist was of the belief that there was nothing to our system except repressed memories and abreactions.  In the 17 years we worked with him, we never once had a conversation where abreactive work was not the focal point.  He spent all of our time in session or on the phone digging at repressed memories.  Unfortunately, keepers had no way to know any better so we thought his treatment was appropriate and went along with it.  But keepers were continually faced with the fact that we were not getting any better (in fact we only seemed to get worse).  We had no ability to stabilize and no ability to get beyond our past solely because our therapist was constantly keeping everything unearthed.  Only now do keepers know that our continual decline was due to the therapist doing very bad therapy with us.

Keepers have lived a mostly reclusive life for years now.  Largely, this is because we never had anyone to teach us how to function in the world.  Our former therapist spent many years separating keepers from each other and discouraging communication between us which made us very unstable even within our home.  I am very sad to say that the many years of incompetent therapy were the very years when our children were growing up and so influenced by what was happening to their mother.  In the life of a child, 17 years takes up most of one’s youth.  Unfortunately, keepers children got the worst of keepers during those years of their lives.

Physically, keepers have always had such bad posture that breathing was almost impossible.  Our system had begun “panic breathing” (breathing using the shoulder muscles instead of the diaphragm).  We had severe spinal problems that had left us unable to move easily.  Our spine had been operated on at the cervical level which did little good.  Due to childhood abuse, keepers had much of our large intestines removed in our early twenties.  We have also been through doctors believing this body had cancer of the cervix which entailed many biopsies which showed–eventually–that cancer was not  our problem.  Then, in 2001 keepers went through a major breast cancer scare which entailed ultrasound and biopsies and a multitude of other tests.  Even today, keepers have a mass in our right breast that must be watched and attended to regularly.  Unfortunately, keepers have lost faith in the medical profession and do not follow our required mammogram schedule as we should.

Keepers also spent a great many years as addicts.  We were addicted to prescription drugs like muscle relaxers and pain killers and anti depressants and sleeping pills.  We also had an alter who drank heavily while taking these medications.  Once, keepers were unconscious for four days.  Once we wound up in the hospital.  Still, somehow, our addictions went on without change for a very long time.  Since keepers remember our mother giving us shots of bourbon to make us sleep when this body was only three, we have come to understand that addictions were not only inherited but learned behaviors within our family of origin.

Keepers mother passed away in 2002.  Within hours of our receiving the call that she was gone from this earth, keepers began to change and to heal.  We stopped using medications of any kind and we ended our life of one alcoholic binge after another.  The morning after the news came, we went to a hairstylist who took us from grey to blond and found a style that suited almost all keepers (except maybe our boy alters).  We began following our life long dream to do a charitable organization that would improve the quality of life for multiples everywhere which is now known as our ministry here at KEEPERSKORNER.  Keepers found the strength to report our former therapist (and see our case through).  We also reported the uncle who had harmed us so badly because keepers were given information that not only he but his adult son were still molesting children in this family.  And keepers had to report one of our own external children for behaviors that were harmful to our grandchildren.  That child has accused us of being mean and vengeful for standing up for our grandchildren but it was the only way keepers could protect our grandbabies since this adult child of ours ignored our several requests that we dealt with the issues of his behaviors in keepers therapy sessions.  Keepers are glad that we found the strength to do our reporting because our former therapist was convicted and our uncle was removed from the home in a way where he will never harm a child again and our own child got help for his problem which tells us we did the right thing in spite of the fact that the cost to keepers has been tremendous.

One of the most painful things that ever happened to keepers occurred a little more than three years ago.  We had reunited with our family of origin (after many years of not having them in our lives) because our youngest daughter was getting married and wanted her aunt and uncles at her wedding.  When we got back in touch with our siblings, we also reestablished contact with a female cousin of ours.  J (this cousin) and keepers began spending a good deal of time together.  One Sunday afternoon, J confided in keepers that her father (our uncle) had confessed to her on his deathbed (some 9 years before) that everything keepers remembered about our childhood was true and that he knew of our abuse even when keepers were very little.  The fact that J took nine long years to give us this information destroyed our relationship with her.  The fact that J was a teacher made this situation even worse because it meant she would not report abuse that came to her attention in her career.  This happened to be the same Sunday that J confided in keepers that our uncle and his son were still abusing children within the family.  J wanted keepers to remain quiet because the mother of the children being abused might be upset when the truth came out since our uncle was her husband.  Keepers could not remain quiet about all of this and went to DCFS immediately which ended all relationships within our family of origin.  It also left keepers with unending pain over the realization of the kind of people keepers come from.

In today, keepers are healthy and happy on a physical level and an emotional level and a spiritual level.  We let go of our Catholic upbringing and found our own faith in God without the structure of organized religion even though we associate a lot with ministries based on God’s love.  We have breathed normally for years now.  Keepers will always remember the moment when our breathing switched from panic mode to breathing from the diaphragm because it was so shocking to us.  Our body now stands straight and is supple in spite of our being so long in the tooth.  We live here at KEEPERSKORNER–peacefully and quietly (for the most part)–going out a couple of times per week to lunch with a friend or be out and about with our JM.  Keepers do not drive because our dissociative tendencies do not mix well with our being behind the wheel.

Keepers look back and feel how the pain of being different and feeling so alone almost destroyed any chance we had on this earth.  Even in today, our aloneness can consume us when our JM is working many hours at his day job.  But, something about us is very different because we took our dream of helping other multiples have a better life than keepers had and turned that vision into our ministry at KEEPERSKORNER which is what our lives are all about in today.

peace and blessings,

keepers