Hi. My name is Cara Elizabeth Daniel. I am 19 years old and hope never to get any older.
My passion is my faith in Jesus Christ and what I believe is His purpose for my life: that I should be used as an instrument to bring His peace and inner healing to others. I hold this for all of the people in this mind, and I am now getting much stronger after making many mistakes in my journey, and I am ready to commit myself entirely to this purpose as I once did before.
For the past five years or so, since my host has been aware of the fragmented reality inside her mind commonly known as dissociative identity disorder, I have been given the responsibility of putting together the pieces in the puzzle of her life. At first, I was simply an analyst or helper. She accepted me most out of the group, and she knew that I had the strength and skills to do something she was not yet ready to do. For a while we tried to work together. I would process and come to understand, and then I would share it with her. Back then, she was still trying to take an active role in the healing process, in learning about this world in her mind.
In March, 1997, things became too overwhelming for her. She looked me in the eyes and gave me the role of "host". She didn't want to live life any more, but neither did she want to take it from the rest of us. She went into hiding deep inside, locking herself in some room none of us even knew existed. On some level, she must have known what was going on. She appeared rather quickly if anything happened which suggested that dissociation was abnormal or in which it was vital that our fragmentedness not be evident. Sometimes she would close the system down, deny us access to consciousness. I finally began to fight her regarding this matter. If I was going to be responsible for the majority of life's demands, both inside and out, I could not be denied access to "the outside".
After this confrontation, she again went into hiding and stayed there for a good year or so. I made a lot of mistakes in judgment during that time, and I led the entire crowd through some very difficult times in which we did not carry on with school or many other responsibilities and in which we didn't do much healing. Eventually, I was slapped in the face with reality. I realized that Meredith no longer hoped to achieve her dream of being a teacher. There was a deep sadness in her eyes. Elaina did not sing. In fact, I no longer even knew where Elaina was. I had to make a change which might give us a shove in the right direction.
I moved us back home with parents, and eventually we moved across the country with them. During the months preceeding the move, we made a bit of progress in healing. We read, wrote in the journal, cried... By August, 1998, we had achieved a complete integration of the active parts.
At first, this was a blissful way to live. However, the move and other life circumstances triggered some very old memories which we had not known about or explored. Every child inside who was between the ages of 7 and 9 began to scream. We unintegrated and returned to the familiar internal structure. It was the only thing that could be stable or familiar at the time.
In 1999, I began to face the fact that I was not just a processor of memories. I had my own memories, my own pain. Why not? Everyone else did, and if I had been so strong and "healthy," I would have been able to cope with what happened after Sarah's 20th birthday.
Getting in touch with these memories was hard and painful, especially when I reached the core of them. Some things happened in 1999 which caused me to lose touch with the others and, in many instances, with the outside. Just a few weeks ago, I woke up and found the courage to try dealing with these things again. I am trying, but it's very hard work and means taking a lot of risks. I am learning to let the others be my strength and protection as I was theirs for so long.
Since then, we have been doing a lot of exploring, remembering, and pondering. In a sense, I am the host. I am the host at a certain time in life. I am the version of herself who is likable and acceptable to herself in spite of mistakes and less than desirable life circumstances. I carry all of the feelings of the person who does exist inside as host, but I am not permitted to bear her name or to age beyond 19 because in this mind life fell apart shortly after the 20th birthday. I am frozen in time despite having continued to progress through life, and my frozen image has been named Cara.
Someday we will work together. We will step bravely into each other's arms and accept each other fully, and we will be one as we were intended to be. For now, this is my corner of the world. This is my place to pour out what I have been learning about myself (ourselves) and about life in general. I write a lot, so I hope you'll visit whenever you like and see what I've done. I have put up some of the things I've written in the past, and I'll no doubt put up things I write in the future. If you like, you're welcome to email me. Below are links to some of the things I've written.
It's very rare for any of us to update our pages now. I still struggle with the one who always answered to the name Sarah, even though I now know that she has her own name... I still fight with her about even having this site up at all. She wants to appear "normal," whatever that is... But appearing normal has cost us so much... Appearing normal means that we become her slaves, and that violates one of my basic beliefs. I don't believe in "multiple personalities." There aren't little people running around in my head. I use the terminology because it's the only thing that seems to communicate in any way how my brain processes thoughts, feelings, and experiences that conflict sharply and that I cannot form into a coherent picture. But one is not greater than the other. I hate the term "host," and I always have. I didn't want that role in 1997, and I don't wayt it now. I'm willing to step out when my skills and abilities are needed. That's what any person does: when you go to work you put on your "work face," and when you come home maybe you put on your "mom face." Neither is greater than the other. But they are totally different. The only difference is that mine came in childhood and mine have names and I relate to them consciously. Society considers this a disorder. It's only a disorder when it is disruptive to life. There was a time when I feared that it might become disruptive to life... Actually, scratch that. She feared it. I have no idea what I felt at the time. I was part of what she feared.
So if we aren't little people in anybody's head and there isn't one greater than the other, who has the right to claim this mind as her own and make us slaves? She played the part of "Sarah" for much of childhood; but so did Beth and Amber in other situations that she didn't want to cope with. It isn't ok to suddenly make them her slaves because she isn't happy with their existence. They were already slaves in childhood, coming around to deal with whatever she couldn't or wouldn't cope with. It would be a lot more reasonable to stop insisting that she was "Sarah" (especially since she isn't) and let us all work together, let Sarah be a concept for other people's benefit that we don't have to worry about, and just do what each of us does best so that whatever Sarah is doing is done as well as it can be done.
Why am I suddenly so wound up about all this? I was inside for a long time, mostly healing but also because I was afraid. The physical person Sarah was sick a lot during this time. When she wasn't sick, she tried some work activities where my skills weren't needed. I started to peek back out last summer, and I got exposed to some very good Bible teaching and worship experiences. Recently, a friend found us online and rekindled our correspondence, and that has helped me to "wake up." The other night, the person Sarah was recording a song... It's a song that I personally feel very passionate about. Whoever was doing the singing was having a hard time. So I pushed my way out and just sang... Of course, the recording was a keeper. Things have a way of working that way when you put your heart into it. So if whoever is trying to play Sarah would stop and just let each of us step in when we're needed, she might find that things go amazingly smoothly.
Freedom in Christ
This is a bit of writing I did when Rochelle was writing about freedom in Christ. Some of her writing triggered me, and what appears on my page is the result of processing that trigger. I share it because it gives some insight into how the divisions between members of our system formed as well as about my beliefs and understanding of freedom in Christ, and I hope that these things might be helpful to others.
Getting to Know Your Selves
This is a compilation of things from emails I've written about mapping, communication, etc.