The Sum Of My Parts - A Memoir

My upcoming memoir, The Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder, emphasizes the healing process and the nature of resilience. These installments from Chapter One contain some descriptions of violence only for the purposes of illustrating why and how dissociative identity disorder is formed. If you are a survivor or someone sensitive to these scenes, please take care in reading these installments.

The Sum of My Parts
Chapter 1: Installment 2 of 7

I was very close to my mom and thought she was the smartest woman ever. She told me that she started school at the age of four, graduated from Catholic high school when she was sixteen, and then became the only person in her family to go to college. Her degree and her bilingual Spanish and English shorthand and dictation skills allowed her to find good jobs as a secretary. That day when I was nearly four years old, she explained to me with a smile, "I'll be working in a hospital downtown." Even though I was terrified, I was very proud of Mame. She was smart and she was going to take care of us.

And she did. When my mom got that job, my father decided she would give him all the money she earned so he could decide how it would be spent. I later learned that my mom cashed her checks and put some money in an account that my father didn't know about, then brought the rest of the money home.

I felt so much love for her as she sat on my bed, holding my hand and very gently telling me that she was going to be at work during the day instead of taking care of us. I searched her face, and in her big, dark brown eyes I found the look I so desperately needed to see, the look that meant she loved me.

As my mom held my little hand in her big one, I looked at her long, polished nails. She wore a shade of deep red, almost burgundy, and her hands looked soft and beautiful. She had long, thick fingers, or at least they seemed long to me at the time. She held my hands and inspected them to see if I had washed them. She smiled. "You have my hands, Olguita." I have Mame's hands, I thought. My heart filled with love for her. She always looked just perfect. Her black curly hair was stylishly short. She was tall but thin and wore makeup. Yet even though she was smart and beautiful, she also seemed fragile to me. I was always afraid of losing her. I was always afraid of her getting hurt. It just seemed like she could break so easily.

As she held my hand in hers, she explained, "I have talked with Doña Graciela, and she's going to take care of you during the day." My next-door neighbor, Graciela Hernández, was old, and we respected her for the wisdom that comes with age. Doña, a title we were taught to use for female elders, became her first name to me. When I went to her house, she welcomed me with both arms wide open, followed by an enormous hug in which I disappeared into her soft body. She seemed gigantic to me, and very tall. She couldn't have been either one, but I was small, even for a three-year-old, and in comparison she seemed huge. She always wore loose-fitting dresses, not anything fancy but something like a big cotton robe. She wore her long, white-gray, wiry hair pulled back into a bun and, like my father, had age spots on her hands and wrinkles all over. Her skin felt roughened by the sun, and to me she smelled like a woman who had spent most of her life working in the fields of El Salvador. She was a simple woman who didn't wear perfumes and rarely indulged in anything special for herself.

If I couldn't be with my mom, Doña Graciela was the next best thing. I was so excited to see her face every morning, get her heartfelt hug, and hear her say, "Good morning, my love, Olguita"-words that began a day in which Doña Graciela allowed me into her life and let me share in her activities. We would start in the kitchen, where she fixed eggs and pupusas, which are like thick tortillas that she filled with cheese. Then we went to the basement to do laundry and iron clothes.

Most of Doña Graciela's family still lived in El Salvador, but she lived in the other side of our duplex with her forty-five-year-old daughter and her nineteen-year-old granddaughter. Theirs was an unusual household in our culture: three women living in a home without a man. My father seemed to track the movements of her granddaughter, Gracielita, watching her leave the house and come home and commenting on the time she left and what she was wear¬ing. My father didn't like that Gracielita wore pants or that she spoke English. He didn't approve of how Doña Graciela and her daughter, Señora Graciela, were raising her. "Gracielita needs to learn respect for her culture. She is a young woman who does not know how to be a woman." The way he looked at her and spoke about her scared me. He sounded disgusted, the way he would later sound with me.

My father had many rules. At three years old I knew many of them very well. Girls were to wear only dresses. When I grew up, I was to marry a Latino, have children, and take care of my husband, my children, and my home. My father even insisted that I play in dresses, which was hard because my underwear showed and kids either made fun of the holes in my underwear or teased me because I was wearing my brothers' hand-me-downs. I hated playing outside when I was wearing my brothers' underwear. Eventually I adapted by wearing my brothers' old shorts under my dresses.

During the day, Doña Graciela was alone, her daughter off to work and her granddaughter attending college nearby. She treated me as if I were her own child. Together, we listened to novelas on the radio, and I enjoyed her hearty laugh or her outrage at the characters' misbehaviors. I didn't follow the plots, but I laughed and acted indignant right along with her. After lunch we watched one of her favorite shows: Dark Shadows, a soap opera starring a vampire. We tuned in faithfully despite the fact that the show was in English. Spanish was the only language either of us knew, so there we sat, watching every day with no idea of what the characters were saying.

Relationships Essential Reads

The Importance of Financial Wellness for Couples

3 Signs That Your Partner Is Falling Out of Love With You

Invariably, Doña Graciela fell asleep in her chair watching TV. Once she was asleep, I would pull the crocheted blanket from the couch and cover her with it. Our summers were unremittingly hot and humid, and like us, Doña Graciela didn't have air-conditioning, but she never complained about the blanket or took it off. Then I lay on the couch and napped too.

Look for installment 3 next week.

Find out more about the memoir or Olga's work.