It's been a very long time since I've written. Not that I had nothing to say but that what I was going through and that upset me couldn't really be explained and described here until it had happened...
On April 8, 2022, I participated in a program filmed with Sophie Robert in the company of psychiatrists and psychologists. It's a SACRED step forward, a huge VICTORY for me!!!!
You will soon be able to find these programs on Sophie Robert's channel: Dragon Bleu TV
Here is the topic taken from the announcement made by Sophie Robert:
"As a prelude to a new series of five TV shows dedicated to post-traumatic stress disorder, including ten new shrinks, I had the privilege of meeting three exceptional women, for this new show dedicated to Dissociative Identity Disorder. What is the impact of repeated sexual abuse and violence on a developing brain? To answer this question, Dr. Coraline Hingray is a psychiatrist at the University Hospital of Nancy, specialist in psychotrauma; Eléonore Tarlet, is a psychologist psychotherapist and TCC supervisor - EMDR, and Maïlé Onfray, survivor of the hell of a catholic sect of charismatic renewal, suffering from DID. You will be able to discover Maïlé's moving testimony in a second program which is entirely dedicated to her. DID is currently the subject of a trend on social networks that contributes to reinforcing stereotypes and disbelief about this very real disease. do glamorous or “fantastic” Maïlé will tell us about her experience with luminous acuity: yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Traveling a long way in his company is a rare privilege. All three have embodied this difficult subject with a hard-hitting and restorative intelligence."
Participating in this show was a very long internal preparation for me!!! An internal work that began at the end of 2020 where I began to tell myself that it was time for me to testify publicly and that instead of hiding behind the anonymity of this site, I should, as so many have done. others before me, speak and make my voice heard in a more authentic and more "palpable" way. It was the courage of others before me that pushed me, encouraged me, allowed me to surpass myself to get here today. People I admire and respect like Jeni Haynes, Caroline Spring, Olga Trujillo, Regina Louf... who also have DID like me. Or people who did not hesitate to expose themselves to change the laws, society on the cause of child protection such as Jean-Baptiste Cazeneuve, Mié Kohiyama, Andréa Bescond, Doctor Muriel Salmona, François Devaux, Flavie Flament, Lyes Louffok, Maud Julien, Adélaïde Bon, Sarah Suco, Menahem with Yolande Zauberman, Amoreena Winkler, Sébastien Boueilh, Jade Miller... And so many others...
It has now been about 5 years since I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID. It was a relief and a tsunami. Relief because finally I had keys to understand my experience, my reactions, my difficulties, my internal battles.... And tsunami because a psychologist and a psychiatrist believed me, saw us and heard us finally, but that made all these flashbacks , this suffering, these pains, these very real terrors...! I was not crazy. A mixture of relief and absolute horror...
My father passed away 6 years ago. His death was the beginning of my descent into hell. By his death, his injunction to silence for me was broken. And everything exploded... The scraps of memories, the smells, the sensations... Little by little these flashes that assailed me took on meaning and I was able to hang some of them on places, periods when initially it was just a stinking, haunting smell that I smelled everywhere, lying in bed and feeling the weight of a body climbing over me and crushing me, the tip of a knife under my right breast, the heads of two dogs behind my skull... Then other things came back... the memory grew. My father above me ejaculating on my face and wiping me with this stinky cloth handkerchief while whispering to me "my little darling". The dogs and the cages, the shock of the metal cages when I had to climb on them to escape the dogs, my cheek in the grass and the mud, the knife and the man threatening me saying that he could kill me if I did not obey him and kill my parents and my family like the burglar who entered our house a little before. The room where I was when the man came in the middle of the night and climbed on me... and so many other more or less complete memories...
Preparing to testify was not easy! When my memories started to resurface, I was in a rage and a mad rage!!! I wanted to say ! All! To everybody ! I started calling my family, talk to my friends, write on forums, on social networks... Then I had barely done it when I was overwhelmed by immeasurable pain! I was on the ground, curled up, throwing up, screaming in pain and terror. I felt like I was dying. I was dying! That was what my body was telling me. Terrified, I deleted and erased everything I had written, I denied. No it is wrong. Nothing was done to me. All of this never happened. I'm well. My childhood was perfect.
Then again it exploded. I was in a fight with my body, a fight to the death. To feel all these things, to have these flashes of images, to hear these words of voices that I recognized as those of people I had grown up with, to feel these hands that hit me, squeezed me, these nails that dug into my flesh .... I had no choice. I did not control. It was like being dragged away, strapped into a torture train whose destination was suffering and death. No turning back. Few or no breaks. The train was moving and I had to cash in and bear.
All these moments, I lived them when I was alone at home. Without spectators. Without witnesses. When my daughters were away. As if my body and my brain by mutual agreement had said to each other we can let go, the way is clear...
Little by little, thanks to my psychologist and my psychiatrist, I was able to establish an internal dialogue, understand how I worked, what triggered this explosion of flashbacks... I learned to listen to myself, to listen to the voices in my head, becoming aware of the feelings in my body, anticipating difficult times, taking care of myself.... I ended up understanding that refusing to listen to one of my dissociative parts, refusing to feel pain, the anger, sadness or disagreement they had with what I was doing, saying or experiencing inevitably led to an explosion of pain and terror, an impediment, a blockage. I ended up learning to listen to the different feelings and emotions that lived in me and take them into account. I came to accept the fact that I had different opinions, wills, goals and beliefs in me and that if I wanted to be free to act, to do, I had to take them into account and accept compromises. It's not perfect yet. Compromises are not always found. We still often have moments of conflict and disagreement, moments when we refuse to listen to each other, moments filled with pain and terror... We still have moments when we wish that all that didn't exist, that 'we don't have a DID. We still have times when we tell ourselves that we are a beautiful person, that we were a nice girl and that normally beautiful people and nice girls nobody hurts them, that these girls there, they are loved, protected... Moments when you tell yourself that the sect in which you grew up, the guru, were admired, loved. They were doing "good", they were "saving" society, they were "doing "God's work", they were "good men"... The guru said that I was his "adopted daughter", the monk said that I was his "girl at heart", my father sometimes said that he was "proud of me".... Do you say that to someone who is raped and mistreated? "Is it possible? And the adults around? They were sacrificing themselves, giving their lives for the sect. Do we obey someone who does evil so much?"
I was constantly torn. I'm crazy, it's not possible. Why am I feeling all this? I can't make it all up! Why would I make all this up? Why would my body and mind inflict all this pain on me if it's not true?
About two years ago, I started to think about how to bear witness to what I had experienced but by making "compromises" with my dissociative parts terrified by the act of speaking. I created this site anonymously. I could thus express myself without being overwhelmed by terror and pain. It allowed me to experience the fact that "saying" does not kill me. What to say is a right. What saying didn't mean that I was going to be killed, that my family was going to be killed...
Then I listened to the testimony of Jeni Haynes. At that time, everyone was talking about post traumatic stress disorder, dissociation, "traumatic" (dissociative) amnesia. But not a word about the DID. I felt like I was denied, cast aside. As if the fact that I have TDI excluded me from the "metoo cause", that they refused my victim status to me too. DID seemed like a dirty word and I felt like it was constantly associated in people's heads with the concepts of induced false memories, schizophrenia, false mental illness, mythomania... I had the impression of being plague-stricken with a contagious disease that should not be approached. As if my testimony would discredit that of all the others... It was very painful and it made me very angry! It was screaming "Come into my body! Come! You'll see if I make it up, you'll see how horrible it is!". I was trying to explain to my relatives, my friends... I lost a lot of them. Almost all of it actually. I felt very alone. Alone to howl my pain and my anger.
Then videos started circulating about the DID on the internet. I thought to myself: cool! Finally we talk about it! But without wanting to hurt anyone, what was described there had nothing to do with my daily life. Nothing to do with my experience. Nothing to do with the immense suffering I have to face day after day. It has become a kind of "fad". As if having a DID is fun, funny and magical...
The fact that I have a DID is NOT fun, funny or magical. I have DID because from when I was two years and two months old until I was 18 I was raped, tortured and raised and born into a cult and education, l he environment in which I had to build myself was abusive, deleterious and completely crazy and violent. To survive it, my brain did a marvelous and excruciating thing: separate me into several "selves". "I's" who went to school and were able to learn, "I"s who suffered rape and violence, "I"s who obeyed the cult and the rapists, "I"s who formed friendships, "I's" who sought help to be protected and escape, "I's" who became mothers and tried as best they could to protect their daughters, "I's" who carried suffering and sadness, "me"s who bear bodily and physical suffering, "me"s who analyze, monitor and warn, "me"s who love, "me"s who test to see if we can trust, "me"s who bear hatred and anger for what has been done to me, little me's, teen me's, adult me's, dude me's... It's a wonderful thing because thanks to that I survived, I was able to flee the cult and find safety, I could and I can learn, I can love, I can trust, I can take on a job and my role as a mother. ... And it is a c excruciating hose because what's worse than having to cut yourself off, being forced to break up so much so as not to die?
I'm afraid. I'm afraid that this "fad" of the DID is just another setback for people like me. A new way of denying ourselves, refusing us any care, any help, any right to speak and reconstruction... So I decided to testify to tell about my suffering, my difficulty from day to day and my anger too. This anger in me for having been invisible, dehumanized, silenced, unprotected for so many years.