And Now We Are Nine - Introducing Paul [Me]

We began this journey with seven recognizable alters. About six months ago, a new alter, Cherish, came to light. I wrote about it then, having a lot of issues searching through my head and trying to find out how she fit in. She came without certain skills, like writing and eating and even simple things like taking a shower; it's been an experience helping her learn to be a 'real person', so to speak.

The last few weeks, I've been having similar feelings of someone else being in my head. Thoughts that I couldn't attribute to anyone I know about in there, feelings that didn't come from the eight I knew of. And those thoughts traced back to a new alter again. I had of course suspected that's what was going on, but didn't have anything I could be sure of, just suspicion. I avoided talking about it to anyone, lest I 'speak it into being'. But last weekend, he came out completely. He exists. His name is Paul, and he is an eleven-year old boy.

Paul frightens me a little - well, his memories do. He brings with him very clear memories of being raped by an uncle or another adult male - on a regular basis, over a period of time. Now, these can't be memories of mine - there are specifics in the memories that could only happen to a little boy. And there's a little brother in the memories. So I don't know where these memories come from. Most of the time I think I just read too much and have too good an imagination.

So this weekend, he came out fully, and sat and talked with the boyfriend for a lot longer than I expected. He seems like an okay eleven-year-old boy. He's got a little snarkiness in him that reminds me of Sam. He seemed to have a decent grasp on being 'real'; he even asked for a piece of candy that he knew was in a drawer. So he seems to have access to a lot of memories from the rest of us. He stated clearly that he's not into the S&M play and doesn't want to be hit. Not a problem. He likes video games.

What I didn't expect was that the biggest conflict for Paul - is Kiara. They've apparently been sharing a 'room' in my head, because he doesn't want to 'sleep' alone. And he doesn't like all the girly little-kid stuff. (You know, the English language really isn't sufficient to talk about multiplicity sometimes.) And she doesn't like having another kid around who's getting all the attention. Imagine Mommy and Daddy suddenly come home with a new kid - an older brother. She's not super-thrilled - maybe with time things will improve between them. We did 'make' him a room. We even did some online 'shopping' for a bed that's raised up as a loft with a desk and shelves and stuff underneath. He liked it, and we posted a picture to his pinboard for him. And then we had to shop for a bed for Kiara and post it to her board, too.

So last night was the first night I've slept alone since Paul came out. And I was surprised at how much he was out during the night. I woke a lot, and he was there. I think he's going to settle in okay.