I do not know if I want to ask a question or make a statement. Perhaps it is both. I am an SO who has written articles for Many Voices before, and here I sit before our computer, trying to formulate how and what to say. .One of my coworkers’ wife has MS, a debilitating disease that has progressed in it’s steady way over the last 20 years or so. It is similar to my wife’s multiplicity evolving in it’s revealing itself. After several doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists it was finally diagnosed. My coworker and I have lately come to discuss our common feelings and occurrences we have with our wives. Even though one has physical problems while the other has multiplicity there are many similarities while there are very important differences.

They both have very similar moods and reactions to their troubles, but the major things I have realized is that his wife has something anyone who looks at her can see, it is a physical deterioration that is obvious, everyone can sympathize, yet my wife, could be looked upon by 20,000 people and maybe, maybe five would notice something, notice something that raised a question in their mind as to her well being. That is a large difference!

What is even more disturbing to me is that their children were raised to the best of her declining abilities, not her heart felt love for them but her physical ability to do things for them and with them. Even so, it was the same in our life, with my wife doing her best with her many selves, to get the right one out at the right time as best she could. My friend’s wife has her children’s support and help, they have no problem taking grandkids to see grandma, they help take her to the doctors when my friend cannot, because to some degree at least, her condition is so obvious!

Now that our children have moved out of the house, and taken spouses, and begun having children, they act as though they have no idea what is going on. Mom has nothing visibly wrong with her so it must be bologna. She and her selves are not to be allowed any leeway when things are going badly, if an abreaction hits, why can’t someone else come out and handle it? They grew up with it, experienced it, we explained to them what it was, and they each at one time or another helped her through abreactions when I wasn’t there or the current psychologist could not be reached, they knew what was occurring, they knew different keepers, they each had their favorites, they even learned how to get around one keeper saying “no” to a request and finding one who said “okay” or “yes”!

Of our three children two are completely absent from our lives and one is only partially there. Only one explained to their spouse what MPD is and he accepted it. The other two either did not try to explain it because “she wouldn’t understand” or “there never was a good time” while we have no idea what the other said or didn’t say, we just know the result. The odd thing and what we have not found out the reason for yet is that the child whose spouse said they understood, and we believed him, are ones completely out of ALL of our lives, they moved to the West coast and no one has heard from them in years.

So, physical debilitation gets support and help and assistance, yet she is sad and depressed because her health is slowly fading while my wife, a multiple, has no support from family or friends or assistance, except from a very, small few, and she too is sad and depressed because oh so very often she is so very much alone, alone at home all by herself, no one calling except me from work, no one calling to say come help with the kids or visit us, no one saying I understand, I remember what you went through, and why.

Sound familiar to anyone out there in the Many Voices readership? Believe me, I hope not, but I am afraid to some it is all too familiar. We all know how difficult it is to open up to people, reactions vary but usually are incredulous. She has warily opened up to a few people, I have also, telling some coworkers, some have accepted it and asked questions about it while others have said “no thanks, I can’t this”. She became close to a lady who she helped at church, we even visited her home, and as the relationship lengthened she encouraged my wife to “go on Dr. Phil” for all of the wrong reasons! She then began to introduce my wife to others as “her multiple friend” or “the one I told you about”, not exactly a confidence booster, as my wife was becoming this woman’s “possession” to display to her other friends.

Loneliness compounded by when your children marry and leave you emotionally and physically, friends who are not really friends, so how about your family? Yes, the family, some of whom have experienced the same abuse you did but have not yet admitted it to themselves, others who are still abusing others in the family, and then there are the ones covering up for the abusers. Not exactly a bunch of people you even want to hear from. As of now there is one brother she can speak with and he lives on the West coast, so hearing from him is wonderful but not very frequent because of his job. Just recently she called the state and reported a cousin who is carrying on in his father’s footsteps and now most of that part of the family is aghast that she would do such a thing! Not much friendship or contact there of a positive nature.

To all of the multiples out there who have experienced this or did or maybe will, I offer my thoughts and prayers that it will be short and resolved soon for you in some way, shape or form. To all of your SO’s I beg you to be as understanding and supportive as possible, it is a loneliness you probably cannot comprehend. It is not only a loneliness now, but it echoes with all of it’s hollowness from the past, when they were oh so alone, after their perpetrators left the room, leaving them there, with no on to comfort them or hear them cry or wipe away their tears.

John W. 25 January 2006