I passed a woman on the street the other day whose arm was amputated at the elbow. And my first thought was, "It must be nice to have her disability right out there obvious." I was having a pretty negative day that day, one of those days where I'm questioning my multiplicity.
All the multiples I know have had those Doubting Days. Am I really multiple? Maybe it's all in my head, just a terrible effort at getting attention that has become so intent that even I believe this thing that's not even true. Who am I kidding, saying that different people live in my head? What am I, a little kid, talking to my invisible friends? Why don't I just grow up, take responsibility for all of my life, and quit pretending? Why do I put the people around me through this, making them participate in my make-believe? Do they really believe me, or are they just humoring me? What does that say about them? About me? It would be so much easier to just be a singleton. I think I could do it if I tried.
Now keep in mind, I don't usually think like this. Just on those dreary unhappy-with-myself days. Days when not even my alters want to talk to me. Days when it's quiet in my head. So when I saw the woman with the amputated arm, the idea of having the thing that sometimes cripples me right out there in the open, where I could see it in front of me, and not have to doubt whether it's even there or not, that was very appealing, in a way. I know she never looks at her arm and wonders if it's really there or not. She never wonders if her arm might show up if she just quits feeling sorry for herself. It's concrete. She's missing an arm. No doubt about that.
Of course, that means every time she meets someone, that's the first thing they know about her. Nice to meet you - hey, you're missing an arm! And the obligatory curiosity. I think about times when I've had a bandage in an obvious place, and how tired I got of answer questions about what happened. And that was for days, not for the rest of my life. For everyone she meets, she starts of as 'that chick missing an arm'. She has to start every relationship a few steps behind 'that chick', and work her way up to having a name and personality in the other person's mind. Every relationship takes a little more work.
Invisible problems, like mental conditions, at least can be set aside to deal with after you get to know someone. I'm a big proponent of telling people early on in our relationships that I'm multiple. And I'm not talking romantic relationships, but just people I'm going to spend time around. I don't want to hide who I am - all the who I am - who we are. If I'm going to be friends with someone, I want them to know early. But that does mean there's always the Question Phase, where they ask about why I'm multiple and who all lives in my head, and how they're supposed to interact with me, with us. Just like the girl with no arm, I have to explain my disability over and over again.
Except I get to chose when that part comes up. I can control how well I know someone before it becomes known. Can't do that with a missing arm. The cashier at McDonald's (for example) can tell she's missing an arm, and ask her annoying questions about it, right away. I do visibly advertise that I'm weird - I shave my head and wear a steel collar - but I don't quite cross that line where every stranger I meet feels the need to ask me for details. And depending on how someone reacts to that part of me being weird, then I have a clue how they might accept me being a we, and if I want to disclose that to them.
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