Today I find myself in a family with two adults, one dog, and two children. Those who know me would know at this point that Carley and I have only had one child together. Does that mean I've had another child with someone else previously? No it does not. See, Carley sort of accidentally brought a child of her own into our relationship. I realize this explanation isn't getting any better to understand at this point... it just sounds like one of us has an extra child, which is sort of true. See, Carley doesn't have an official diagnosis for multiple personalities, but I can confidently tell you that she absolutely has a complete additional personality.
This personality came about when Carley was three years old and her name is Kylie. Currently through a process of having birthday whenever she has felt ready to grow, she identifies as being fifteen years old; though she will always have the characteristics of being three. So in essence, I have an extra child running around here sometimes whom I get to take care of. She's absolutely adorable and I love her in every way. It can be a little bit difficult when I'm exhausted and now I have to care for both Isabelle and Kylie at the same time, but for the most part it's really nothing at all. She started calling Carley and I mommy and daddy recently which is nice because we know she feels loved and cared for, which is something she requires to feel ready to grow as time goes on.
How could I be so alright with this just... happening? Some may think I would have been alright with this because I was so madly in love with Carley at the time and we knew that she was pregnant, but that actually has nothing to do with it at all; well... I was madly in love with her, so that part is true. The thing is that we had already dealt with this sort of situation before. When Carley and I first met, she started having seizures shortly after getting hit in the head. These seizures left Carley in a bit of a silly state for a long time afterwords which a normal seizure event wouldn't do. We went through a whole process to finally find out that the seizures were psychological which is physically the same as regular seizures, only these tend to have more triggers as they are usually due to some traumatic event(s).
As this process went on, I learned that she had another personality named Little Carley who was five. At first, she grew whenever she felt like she had completed some sort of milestone such as dressing herself or cooking her first sidekick all on her own, but eventually she realized she didn't really feel like she had grown and we figured out that she needed some sort of birthday celebration to make herself feel older. Yeah, sure this was weird and a bit annoying at first, but Little Carley quickly became a part of our little family and we figured it all out together.
There was a lot of frustration and anger and many other feelings which were incredibly difficult, but we got through it all. Having someone in your life who has this going on is just... incredible. It's so hard to truly explain just how amazing of a journey this has been for us. I think it's unlikely that Carley will ever get an actual diagnosis for this because I don't think Kylie has any want to come out and introduce herself to the psychiatrist. So if you're needing some sort of documented proof by a medical professional, you're not likely to see one. However, I can tell you that this is incredibly rare and that even the medical professionals don't know very much about this phenomenon. There isn't anywhere readily available online or in easily findable books where you can learn about this. It's just not something that many people have, and I don't think there have been enough cases of this for there to be enough research to really know how this all works and what to do about it. Believe it or not, I think I'm one of the few people in the world who really has a great understanding of this phenomenon.
As far as I can tell, at this point the psychiatrist believes this is a disassociation thing. I guess multiple personality disorder is not what the diagnosis would be called anymore, but I don't really like the thought of calling this Dissociative Identity Disorder because it's not just her acting differently or watching herself do something without being able to control herself. I can truly say this is a complete additional personality which could take control of Carley at will and has different thoughts and likes than she does. There's so much about this to talk about, but it's too much to let out all at once.
Why am I revealing this to you? We have decided this is something we want to do for two reasons. The first is that this is a huge part of our lives and there are some situations where this can become a little bit strange. Obviously Carley and I go out places sometimes, but I also go out places with Kylie at times so some people do potentially see Carley acting in two different ways and they may have questions about this. Now, we really don't need to explain ourselves and if you don't believe us or if this makes you uncomfortable, then that's your problem; we're still going to go about our lives whether or not people support us. The second reason I feel it necessary to reveal this information is because mental health is a very difficult topic to discuss. There's so much more going on and mental health issues are so much more prevalent than anybody really knows, but we're all so afraid to talk about it out of fear that we will no longer be normal or we'll be judged so heavily if there's something wrong with us. This is the sort of thing we need to start talking about so that more people are comfortable coming forward with this valuable information.
If anybody has any questions, feel free to comment on here, on Facebook, on Twitter, or anywhere else you might find this post. You're even welcome to email me directly with any questions at Kyle.Welykholowa@gmail.com. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
~ Kyle Welykholowa
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