Silent One [Me, Lynn]

"Is Silent One needed any longer - maybe it could fade away?" That's how I finished my last blog post. I don't think I've ever really written about Silent One before. Some of that is because it frightens me. And some of it is simply not knowing what to say. But I think it's time. I'm seeing three stages of Silent One's existence.

Stage One - Escape Mode
Silent One began as a crisis all-fail response. When I was abused by my husband and couldn't physically leave to get away from it, I left mentally. I completely checked out and left the body lying limp and helpless on the floor. This catatonic state is Silent One. I had some vague view of what was happening, but couldn't react, and didn't really feel the pain or hear the yelling. You know, when the victim doesn't react to the abuse, it seems to take the energy out of the abusing.

When I went into this state, it could last for minutes, or for many hours. Either way, I/we would eventually fall asleep, for some amount of time, usually only minutes. And that's when the terrors began. Nightmares, screaming, running, terror, fear - but all inside my head. And inescapable, not like a dream that you wake up from. From the outside of the body, though, all that's happening is some twitching of muscles, and maybe some rapid breathing. Until the end, when I would wake up screaming. Sometimes at home, sometimes in the hospital.

This happened enough times to have a very predictable progression. It continued to occur periodically for years after the initial trauma, generally triggered by extreme emotions. Unfortunately, that could include sex or other positive experiences. The frequency gradually tapered off until several years went by without.

Stage Two - Recognizing Silent One
Once I got into BDSM, I knew that I had to keep people from grabbing my throat - that had set off an 'attack' a few times in the past years. But one night it happened; someone grabbed my throat by accident. And I collapsed, curling into a fetal position, then going completely limp - catatonic again. I came to without the screaming, though. Instead I started sobbing - like my heart was broken - to the point of gagging myself repeatedly. Eventually the sobbing died down and I recovered. And made sure everyone knew to leave my throat alone.

As I became aware of being multiple, I recognized this horrible state of catatonia as being likely to be another alter. And named it Silent One. Although my primal coyote beast is a headspace, not an alter, Silent One does feel like an alter, just one with a lack of personality. Silent One is a null state where all personalities have fled, and none are present. It's an un-personality. But although there aren't thoughts or actions, there are emotions present. I suppose that's why I categorize it as a personality and not a headspace. There's terror and anger and fear and pain and a sense of looking, being lost, all mixed up out of control. I've avoided this state whenever possible, but it's part of me/us, and has to be faced eventually.

Stage Three - Exploration
My boyfriend loves breathplay. Turns out that we do, too. Sam and Rubi and I all yearn for it. But there's a point of being choked out by blood cutoff, not air cutoff, that's just before actually passing out, where you lose control and go limp and drop mental control of yourself. With most people, that's quickly followed by loss of consciousness. When you release control of yourself, you pass out. With us, there's an intermediate step. I feel myself let go, and start to pass out, but that's when Silent One takes over. It fills the vacated mental space and remains conscious. From the outside, I'm not sure it looks any different from passing out, but I'm still aware, just not in control. I can 'feel' Silent One in front.

In the past months, we have purposely played with this. At first, Silent One would eventually fall asleep, and the terrors were back, with screaming and crying as I awoke. But the boyfriend recognized the twitching that precedes the terrors, and experimented with ways to stop the progress there. He tried calling each of us out, without a great deal of success. But one time, he was able to call Cherish out enough that she asked him to hurt us, distract Silent One from the internal terror by an external sensation. And he tried several different ways of doing that, with varying degrees of success. So he was able to help me break into control with a combination of hurting the body and calling on either me or Cherish. And most of the time, we avoided the terrors. Progress!

Last night, we made a new step. After some breath-play, Silent One was out. And as we were just starting to twitch, the boyfriend tried a particular pain to break me out of that mode. But instead of me coming out, Silent One... reacted. This is big; it's never reacted before. It moved away from him, away from the pain. So he went to get a flame, which also helps break us out, and Silent One actually opened up my eyes and appeared to be looking around. I don't think it could really see - the feedback I picked up was almost like my eyes were crossed. But the flame drew its attention, and the boyfriend says his voice seemed to create a reaction, looking more in that direction. However, from my vantage point, I know that nothing he said actually registered as words. Silent One appears to be without language, and possibly somewhat deaf. Which makes sense, considering that part of its genesis was to stop hearing abusive yelling and fighting.

One last thing about Silent One - I have read a tiny bit about catatonic schizophrenia, and the description seems to fit Silent One's behavior, only with the safety valve of switching to another alter. I'll have to learn more about it.