Call Me Alice

"Call me Alice. Let me fall down the rabbit hole into a world of adventure unknown. Call me the Queen. Let me rise above the masses and with the power of my voice make all those who dare to cause me harm, quiver and shake. Call me the Hatter. Let me mad with joy and riddle those around me for I am without fear even though I should be...."

I wrote these words many years ago in an essay on what literature in general did for me. Alice in Wonderland was one of my favorite books as a girl, it was the perfect getaway for the chaos and turbulance that often surrounded me.

I would sneak under my covers, flashlight in hand, and while the storms of anger, resentment and vitriol filled the hallways of my home, I would lose myself inside the story that I so loved.

Back in 2018 I finally received the diagnosis for why I had felt so "detached and disconnected" most of my life. Complex PTSD and Disassociative Identity Disorder.

Two very different issues, but at their core, it meant that the mechanisms that I developed as a child in order to survive are also the things that kept me from feeling truly alive.

I went through the motions. I became a mom at 16. Then again at 21. I raised my kids, got married then divorced. Married then divorced again once more. I ate, I slept, I worked, I played, yet through it all, I never felt a solid, real connection to anything.

It wasn't until I began a new type of therapy called EMDR and the another called DBT that I began, to "wake up" as it were and begin to get in touch with me.

For the first time, perhaps since the age of 5, I was (and am) truly connected to my own life.

Writing, is one of the ways I've accomplished this. By sharing my stories, by getting words that once floated through my brain like cars inside a traffic jam, out of me and onto the page. In the process of writing out my own personal experiences or simply writing for the joy of it, I have rediscovered the love of literature I once had.

Now, however, instead of using it as a form of escaping into a world that feels far safer than mine, I can curl up with a good book, or sit at my computer and create a world of my own and be content in my present time.

This particular challenge asked us to describe something that brings us peace. For me this it. Sitting here, sharing a brief part of my journey, with you the reader, knowing that I am aware, awake and alive today to do so brings me that peace.

After multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations when the pain felt too big, and my body too small and weak, I am grateful for the opportunity to share these words and thoughts. It means that I didn't give in, that I get the opportunity to have moments and experiences and to make each day the best it can be.

Writing is cathartic for me. It is the way I now find closure, open doors, and reach out to others who may also be in need.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be like Alice, to travel into another world and find the adventure waiting for me. As I've grown up, however, I think I feel more like Dorothy. After many years of trying, I finally clicked my heels three times, and found that the power was indeed within in me all along, home is wherever we make it, and I'm eager to keep discovering the missing pieces of me.