Page 72 of Margot
“Yes. He told me that I’m Margot and I honestly don’t know what that means. Do I have multiple personality disorder?” The diagnoses trembled its way out of my mouth.
Dr. Adler gave me a gentle smile and shook her head. “No, Sutton. What you have is no longer called multiple personality disorder. It’s called DID or dissociative identity disorder. Your mind has split into one or maybe more, alters. Margot is you but she is also–as she knows it—her own person with her own life and memories.”
I rubbed my forehead with the heel of my hand and shook my head. “I don’t feel like I’m dissociating. I feel like myself all the time. Maybe I’m a little out of it lately, especially since I broke my finger but I don’t feel like I’m turning into someone else,” I argued.
“That’s common. If you never knew you had DID then you wouldn’t recognize when you’re switching to you alter or letting them take control. Let me ask you this, Sutton, have you been experiencing headaches or body aches frequently?”
My mouth went dry and I nodded my head.
“Do you ever have moments where you can’t account for the time that has passed? You suddenly realize you’re doing something or you get startled for no reason and have little to no recollection? Maybe the recollection you have is fuzzy or disjointed.”
My insides trembled from the accuracy of her questions. She was describing how I’d been feeling for the past month. My fingers played notes in the air frantically and Lennox placed his heavy palm on top of them to stop it.
“Yes, I’ve experienced all of that. It mostly happens when I’m at the piano but since my finger has been broken, I haven’t felt that way. I’ve just been tired,” I explained. “I need some water. I need a moment,” I placed my hand to my chest and breathed slow and measured breaths.
“I’ll get you some water,” Dr. Adler said, standing.
“Lennox, when you two were in Honolulu, was that the first time you noticed Sutton switch?”
“Yeah. Like I told you, I thought she was role-playing. I was excited until I realized something wasn’t right.” Lennox looked at me and I looked away. I couldn’t bear to look at him knowing all the things I’d accused him of that weren’t true.
“Sutton, when you broke your finger do you recall feeling far away at any point or not feeling attached to the moment? I’m trying to figure out when Margot surfaced and why.”
“I do remember feeling like I’d walked off somewhere in my head. Somewhere dark. I saw everything happening from another vantage point.” I looked at my hands and my broken finger in its splint.
Dr. Adler handed me a bottle of water then picked up her iPad and started typing furiously as she nodded.
“Usually, people dissociate when they’ve been dealt a traumatic blow. Often times it happens in childhood but there’s no rule that says something like a pianist breaking her finger wouldn’t trigger it as well.”
Lennox shifted uncomfortably beside me and I could feel words building up inside of him. Embarrassment burned through me, but I looked at him anyway.
“What is it?” I asked.
“When I started really talking and listening to Margot, she told me about some really dark things that happened in her childhood. She mentioned always having to be the strong one and having to deal with things that no child should have to deal with. She mentioned her innocence being stolen and her trust in the world being broken.”
I blinked repeatedly and tried to go back as far as I could in my mind to access whatever memory Lennox was talking about. I had no recollection ever saying those things though.
None at all.
It was pure insanity.
Dr. Adler looked at Lennox and nodded then she typed more things on her iPad. “Did she ever give you any details about what happened in her childhood?”
“No, I got kind of close but she never wanted to talk much about it. She’d start getting headaches so I backed off.” Lennox reached out for my hand and I hesitated before locking fingers with him.
Dr. Adler didn’t miss a beat. She said, “Is that something that happens often between you two? The hesitation before intimacy?”
“All the time,” Lennox blurted. “Except when Margot comes around.” How was it possible to feel jealous of myself? I wondered if Margot was what stayed behind that locked door in my mind that I could never open. I was jealous because she seemed to let Lennox get close without thinking twice while I clammed up every time.
“Sutton, I think you’re holding on to repressed memories that only Margot has access to. Do you have any memory of anything traumatic happening in your childhood?” We sat in silence while I reached into my memories and tried to pull out something traumatic. I couldn’t though.
Every time I tried, I came up against the locked door. Now I knew who was behind it though. I wished I could communicate with her. Seeing her on the video Lennox showed me let me know that even though she was me and I was her, we were night and day. She even looked different.
“I-I can’t remember anything bad from my childhood.” I shrugged my shoulders and looked at the doctor. I felt empty inside like I was floating through space and I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t call for help, and I couldn’t steer my way home.
“Sutton, you look so worried. Please don’t be. Rest assured that having DID is not a bad thing nor is it the end of the world. It means that we have lots of things to untangle but it’s not beyond the scope of what can be done.”
“Sutton, I’m here for you. I love you so much. You’re perfect. You’ll always be perfect to me.”
“I’mnotperfect, Lennox! I’m shattered. I’m a woman broken into a million pieces. I don’t even know myself. I don’t know when I broke or who broke me. I’m far from perfect.” I folded my arms and crossed my legs, rocking my foot anxiously back and forth.
“You’re not broken. Something happened and your mind fractured but Sutton, you’re still perfect to me. This is who you are and I’m okay with that. I accept it. There’s nothing you could say or do to convince me that you’re not the one for me. You always have been and you always will be.” I couldn’t sit in the face of someone so pure. I couldn’t sit there and look at Lennox knowing that I was the broken one all along. I was the one causing the rift in our family. I was the problem. It ate me up inside.
I was wrong.
I was broken.
I stood up and bolted out of Dr. Adler’s office. Everything was too much for me. It was too heavy and my shoulders weren’t made of onyx like Lennox’s. Mine were paper and they crumbled under the stress of finding out I was two different people.
…
