I suppose I should comment about the difference between the system I lead to the system Redeemed is. It’s very hard to communicate clearly what I am referring to. Each of the personalities in my system have their own names that they identify with, as well as their own sense of self. All the members of my system don’t necessarily share information, awareness, or memories, even though we cooperate well with each other. In Redeemed’s system, they all share one single sense of self. It’s a bit tricky when one part of herself doesn’t agree with or is in conflict with another part of herself, but even then she experiences it as a conflict within herself.

Now to pick up with my life story;.

When we went south, the person leading the “deliverances” and doing the “instructions” on how we ought to live our life (though he would NEVER have stated that in the plural tense) identified me as a spirit of rebellion, and in a way that fit. On a very core level I did rebel. Leaving the girls behind so totally undermined my trust in my parents (which was fragile anyway because of the abandonment issues as an infant). It came out first with my insistence that I would no longer identify myself by the name my family had always called me.
[Even this has a story. When I (the many of me) was born my parent’s couldn’t agree on a name for me, so they called me “Little Princess” until one of my mother’s brothers gave them an ultimatum that gave them 24 hours to come up with a name for me or else he would name me for them. Recognizing that they emphatically didn’t want that to happen, they agreed upon a name with the understanding that they would always refer to me by a nickname that was a combination between my first and middle names. Whenever I started a new class in school or the need for introduction arose, I was consistently asked why I had a combined name – why not go by just a first name. It embarrassed me to have to explain it over and over, and my classmates often laughed at it; so when we moved to the east coast I refused to use the combined name anymore. I tolerated the combined name from family members including extended family, but asserted a single name to identify myself to every new acquaintance. After the diagnosis, it was my sister who first came up with the name of Plex, and it fit so well that it became my new name to identify with.]

The rebellion found expression in other ways, too. I felt my parents didn’t understand the numerous struggles I faced, and in fact when I tried to tell them, they said they didn’t believe me. Psychology professionals I have worked with have tried to help me see that my rebellion was really a logical response to my parent’s lack of support and understanding, but I continue to struggle with guilt about it. To be quite honest, I still hear Eddie’s accusations – ones I had to admit were true no matter how abusive Eddie was about it.

The kids in the new church youth group made great sport out of coming up with creative ways to hurt me. When I went to my parents for support and protection, they said, “If you wouldn’t react they would leave you alone.” Although that might have been true in the beginning, them telling me that in front of the youth group and then saying and doing nothing to them to curtail their activities only made matters worse. I appealed to their parents, and was told I should be honored that they spent so much time and effort on coming up with new ways to hurt and humiliate me. (In this church the families were largely related to one another and the whole clan were a unique combination of strict and teasing with each other.) I would try very hard not to react to the teasing and cruelty, but that just made the youth go to greater lengths to get a reaction which lead to truly abusive and injuring behaviors; but even then I got them same responses from my parents. This went on the entire time I lived there – until I got married after college.

The new school was a complete nightmare. I had a few friends who I trusted, but even they had family lives that were foreign to me – emphatically not Christian oriented. There were extreme tensions between the races (including violent racial riots in the high schools) which were largely equally represented in the population That alone was a new and foreign experience for me. The man who was principal the first year we lived there was openly prejudice, was having an affair with one of the teachers, and arranged for some of the girls in the 7th and 8th grades to come and play secretary during their lunch time. His version of playing secretary was both immoral and illegal. My parents insisted I was making it all up to get out of attending school; but then the school board ended up paying the man twice his salary to get rid of him and avoid making the 7th and 8th grade girls testify against him in court. Even then my parents never apologized for not believing me and did nothing to address the struggles I was having as a result.
Another thing that happened at that school was an incident where a classmate stole some money from me. The girl who stole my money was black and she got a group of other black students (grades 2-8) to harass me. Eventually they attacked me with switchblades, but a friend saw what was happening and broke their circle around me. She pulled an illegal switchblade of her own to get them away from me and together she and I ran into the school to get away. That incident ended with the girl hanging herself at her own home.
I truly hated everything about the school and frequently was sick to my stomach and/or ran a fever on school day mornings, so I missed a lot of school. Academically they were years behind the school I had attended in the other state, so there was really no good reason for me to attend, in my opinion.
In the fall of that year I ran away from my father when he insisted on taking me to school, and in the process of trying to hide from the police and everyone looking for me, I hit a kid in the head with my cloth purse to get him to leave me alone. It didn’t hurt him at all but it did shock him. I was caught but instead of having to go to school, the principal insisted I was dangerous to the student body and she would not permit me to attend (how ironic is that – I get attacked with illegal switchblades and nothing is said or done about it; but I hit some kid with my purse and I’m too dangerous to attend). My sister (three grades behind me in school) brought my school work home for me to do and send back with her the next day for most of the rest of that school year. This arrangement was totally ok by me. There was nothing academically challenging in the work so it rarely took me more than an hour or two to complete.

I had some severe conflict with one of my teachers the second year (who was also acting as principal while the school board looked for someone to replace the guy they got rid of). She altered the grades I got on my tests and papers by taking 10 grade points off in her grade book; and I was able to prove to my parents that I wasn’t lying about that.
There is another thing I need to mention because of its significance. Apparently during this time I ran away from home and was gone for up to two weeks. No one in my system or any of the known systems at this time has any memory of what occurred during that time. We learned of it happening from my father, and according to him my parents were terrified about me being gone but they never questioned me about what had happened when I just showed up back at home one day. They had not notified the police or reported me missing or anything, and life just carried on like nothing ever happened, according to my father.
The thing I do remember clearly is that my parents had decided to send me to live at my aunts home in another state; but I begged them to not force me to go. In my mind and heart this was paramount to them rejecting me and getting rid of me like what they had done with the girls from the state school. They offered to let me stay on the condition that I would not run away anymore, and I agreed.
I so severely hated myself and my life at this new location that I tried to kill myself a couple times during the first two years living there.