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Emptiness and Stuff

I don’t come out much anymore; when I do, it’s to game or use the computer. One of the things I do is play World of Warcraft, but it seems that “I” told my guild that I needed to take a break a couple of weeks ago. I guess I get it, I haven’t been as active lately, and I can’t expect Saoirse to play on raid nights when I’m not around to keep my guild attendance up. But, on the other hand, I think it’s a little rude because I’ve worked when Saoirse wasn’t around. You’d think a little reciprocity would be in order.

Also, in the rude category, my user account didn’t have admin permissions to the cafe when I logged in today. Hopefully, that just means Saoirse was using my account to test how the site looked as a normal user and forgot to put my access back? I’m the one who started the damn blog; you’d think I’d keep access to it. Fortunately, our password manager makes it easy to log in as each other, so I was able to log in as Saoirse and grant myself access. I’m sorely tempted to take away Saoirse’s perms, but that might lead to a battle that no one would win.

That’s not why I’m posting here, though. It was the whole empty-shell member post that caught my eye.

Boy, can I relate! For 25ish years I was our host. And as host, I was a confused, empty shell. Like a lot of this dissociative stuff, even thinking about it makes me kind of start to check out, so this may not be a long post. I was made to be a “normal” (ha!) face to the world, and I had (still have) very limited access to trauma memories and such. I shuffled through life, kind of like the undead. Shuffle, shuffle, “braaaaaaiiinnns”.

In a way, I was indeed undead. I was animate, but did I have a life, a soul? I’m not sure I had either, at least a lot of the time. It’s taken decades for me to start to figure out who I am. Sure, I can be funny and playful, but inside I’m still largely empty. Missing memories. Missing strong emotions. Missing my humanity. That’s part of why I retired as host. I didn’t want to be “the host” anymore; I wanted to figure out who I was outside of a system role or job. I just wanted to step back and focus on me, not on adulting, not on the others in the system, just me. Maybe that’s selfish, but after 25 years of service, I felt I was due. I never got a chance to be a child – I came into being when we were around 20. I’ve been empty since the day I was “born”. I need time to kick back, play video games, and discover who I am. Because I’ve found that no one – in the system or without – can truly fill that emptiness but me.

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t-e-c
The Electric Circus (t-e-c) is a dissociative system first diagnosed with DID in 1994. View their profile here.

Responses

  1. You wrote:
    “but inside I’m still largely empty. Missing memories. Missing strong emotions. Missing my humanity. That’s part of why I retired as host. I didn’t want to be “the host” anymore”

    I think I have a lot in common with these sentiments… the part(s?) of me that functioned more have been deeply wounded by our circumstances (our ‘failure’) and have given up for awhile. We used to get through ANYTHING, and now we’re disabled to the point we can’t work, and it’s just too confusing. Lots of lost faith in our abilities and in the world in general. Out of fresh ideas for how to function more completely.

    I hope you find what you’re looking for as the non-host.

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