Hiding - wanting invisible

From upsi http://upsi-upsi.blogspot.com/2012/09/invisible.html

 http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/the-invisible-client/

upsi post on wanting invisibility caught my attention.  DID, MPD, multiples, all forms of living as compartmentalized personalities feels like a shell game.  Accept for instead of trying to find the true self, I was constantly hiding myself from the world and me.  I was especially afraid to face me.  I knew in my teens that I didn't function quite like everyone else I knew.  I asked for help then but readily let simplistic off the cuff answers push aside my concern.  Plus, I learned from difficult lessons, if too much attention came to me, I would pay a heavy price in discomfort at home.  When I entered counseling, I went for marriage counseling with a quest to improve my ability to communicate better.  I knew that some how what I felt didn't seem to communicate to people around me.  I could have wonderful conversations in my head but the words coming out of my mouth felt more like the aftermath of a train wreck, all jumbled and distorted.   The line that riveted my attention:

"On a practical level, psychotherapy with such individuals can be challenging because they keep important information hidden from the therapist for long periods. Sometimes they may feel safe enough to tell their therapist about the fear of opening up, but often they simply talk about issues and feelings other than the most important ones."

I realized that I did this a lot.  I didn't intentionally hide some things.  However, often I would talk about something minor, if that wasn't rejected then I moved on to something more important to me.  I realized that I did this with more people than my counselors.  In the class I took about talking to teens, I stated, "If you listen to the small stuff, they will tell you the big stuff."  After making the statement I realized that was exactly what I did.  I would talk about small stuff, if that wasn't rejected or ridiculed then I would move on to more important subjects.  I finally came to the conclusion that most people do that.  Ice breakers, small talk, chit-chat, all play the vital roll of testing the waters of a relationship.  I struggled in counseling trying to talk.  I started bringing notes or practicing until I could tell what I wanted to say.  KavinCoach kept pushing me to just talk without practicing.  I kept trying to tell him I couldn't do that.  I felt frustrated trying to explain the complexity of getting certain statements or relating incidences past my voice box.  Some days I felt like a toddler with a limited vocabulary and the extreme desire to scream my frustration.  One session, he finally pushed the conversation into areas I hadn't practiced.  My mouth open and shut but no sound came out.  I couldn't utter the terrible words that told what happened.  The pain of trying to talk intensified my distress.  KavinCoach observed, "You really can't talk without practicing."  I felt a flood of relief that at last he understood that me facing me was the most difficult battle I had.  I buried myself deep out of reach of cruel words and cutting remarks.  The silken line he threw to me in my dark hole of depression looked like a coil of barbed wire ready to rip my hands to shreds if I grasped it to pull myself out of invisibility.  Shining the light of open conversation on my abusers left me equally exposed.  Invisibility, depression, MPD, are all elaborate defenses against people.  The process of counseling became a getting-to-know-you party for myself. 

I recommend both upsi's blog with comments and the original article.  I suspect every reader will come away with a different aspect of how invisibility applies to their situation.