Misty, Bradley, And Everyone Else

Wednesday Prompt: Who are your split personalities?

Most people only know me by one name. My family and childhood friends know me by my middle name, the one I grew up using. My insurance company, utility providers, and the IRS know me by my first name. Jester’s family and friends know me by my first name as well, as I chose to “switch over” after I left my ex.

Those names, though, both my first and middle, describe the outward aspect of myself. I could be presenting as Misty, or as Bradley, or even as Firefly, but my given names will encompass any of those aspects of myself because they merely name the body that houses these personalities.

I named Misty when I was very young. She is the narrator inside my head, the aspect of myself that observes what happens and then churns the experiences she observes out into words. She is capable of naming the emotions I feel, of figuring out why I do the things I do. When I have dissociated, in the past, Misty was the part of myself that pulled away to observe. Without Misty, I would barely understand myself.

I had a dream a few years ago, just before the time that Atlas began to realize that he was, in fact, gay. I was taken on long road trip by some people that I didn’t know, and we ended up in the woods. Somehow, I knew exactly where I needed to go; my fellow road-trippers stayed behind in the van as I went on through the woods, up a steep hill, until finally I came to a clearing.

There was a male figure in the clearing, standing on a boulder, shining angel white and completely naked. Farther up the hill, a female stood naked as well, watching.

He spoke to me. I can’t now remember what he said, but I woke up the next morning knowing that this was my masculine side. He was me, showing himself to me for the first time in a way that I could properly see him.

Bradley was always there, of course. He was there when I and a few friends cross-dressed for the local summer festival. He was there when I shaved off my really terrible dreadlocks and felt myself grin when a customer at work called me “Sir.” He was there in that picture of myself when I was eight, dressed up like a ninja. I simply didn’t recognize him as a fully-formed aspect of myself, with his own distinct preferences and even attitudes (Bradley likes folksy music and cooking good food), until I was twenty-seven years old.

In a way, Bradley kept me safe for those last few months of my marriage. Atlas couldn’t stand Misty, but he loved Bradley. Truthfully, Bradley still loves Atlas too.

There is the playful side of me, the one that flirts like a teenager and pouts like a ten-year-old. She likes to dance when there is no music, spend hours shopping thrift stores, and binge watch Studio Ghibli films. Jester gave her the name Firefly; she is the unruly child that Jester must keep in line.

And there is that aspect of me that lives very deeply within, who only comes out in times of intense emotion. She is the one who cries in deep, breathless gulps, who sinks to the floor in a puddle when the voice of Panic becomes all-consuming. She resides in the amygdala, the parts of the brain that control instinct and deep-seated beliefs and overwhelming emotion. Hers is a name that I do not wish to share.

I do not have dissociative identity disorder (DID), or “split personalities”. I consider all of these to be different aspects of myself, rather than different selves. I can choose to let Bradley take over in a social setting where Misty would feel uneasy and Firefly’s presence would be, well, silly. Around most female presences — including Atlas — Bradley will usually naturally come out. Firefly springs forward around most males, but occasionally I find myself around someone who seems to pull Misty out. Snake has always done that.

And this is something, dear readers, that I have never quite put down in writing (unless texting counts as writing, that is). I have hidden my names, hidden Misty behind Bradley, hidden that part of me that feels most deeply, but I am not hiding so much any more.

The names have helped me to know myself. And of course, it is only through knowing myself that I can heal.