Hey guys, My name is Liz. I’m writing this to explain myself and not to gain sympathy but maybe a little understanding for the events that happened.
When I was young I had a really traumatic childhood that ended with me being put into foster care at around 5. I don’t really remember much of those times but after I was placed into the foster system I got a wellness check and was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). If you haven’t heard of this before, It is typically brought on by trauma that you are unable to deal with, therefore, causing your brain to dissociate from reality and create separate personalities or alter egos so that you don’t have to remember the trauma.
Lots of people have just 2 personalities but I’ve heard of cases where people have dozens. As far as I know I only have 2. I am pretty functional but if anything happens that causes a strong negative emotion, or even sometimes randomly, I switch and from that point on I have no idea what happens. Most of the time I go back after a couple minutes or hours but there have been circumstances where it’s been a couple days and it’s pretty terrifying.
I’m 22 now and was released from foster care at 18. I used to work as a Barista at a local coffee shop until I had a DID related incident and was fired. Now I just live in a shitty little duplex apartment and work from home doing super boring data entry, but it suits me, I do better staying away from the public. Due to my childhood I don’t have any family that comes to visit and because of me basically being a shut-in I don’t really have any good friends either. From what I’ve been told from other people when I was younger my alter ego has a tendency to be… violent at times. Apparently when I switch I become distant and have serious anger issues, it’s almost as if all the dark parts of me are all compiled into this separate personality.
The most common random trigger for me is at night when I can’t fall asleep. Normally this happens once every couple of weeks but It’s been increasing lately. Imagine the last thing you remember is being in your bed trying to fall asleep but then suddenly it’s 3-4 hours later and you are walking back in your apartment, with no idea what you’ve been doing or where you have been that entire time. I think it’s been getting worse for a while but it’s been happening every 2 to 3 days now and It’s starting to become scary for me.
What happened last night was the worst one so far. Last time I remember was around 10PM but when I came back it was noon of the next day. Normally I come back uninjured and empty handed but this time I had come back with a big scratch mark on my arm, as someone with nails had scratched my arm. I also was holding one of those little locket necklaces that could hold a picture inside. It was circular and looked to be made of silver, I opened it up but saw there was a picture of a boy that looked to be a young teenager. I wondered where I had gotten this, had I stolen it from someone? I set it down on my desk and started to work for that day.
It was two days after that particular incident, I had just turned my TV on and was flipping through the channels. I stopped on a news channel where they seemed to be talking about some murder in my area. They showed this picture of a teenage girl and were describing how they had found her body this morning in a local lake that was just a few miles from where I lived. The police stated that they were currently on the search for the person responsible and were pursuing leads. They asked for anyone with information to call the number on the screen. Next the parents came on and were describing their daughter while holding back tears. They said she was wearing jeans, and a fluorescent pink shirt on the night of her disappearance. What they said next immediately filled my heart with dread. The parents said that she always wore a silver locket necklace with a picture of her little brother in it, and it hadn’t been found on her body. I turned the TV off and just sat there. I felt so claustrophobic. All I could hear was my rapid heartbeat.
Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump. Thump-Thump.
My mind was racing with questions. What the hell did I do? Did I kill this poor girl? Why would my other personality even do this?
I ran to the toilet and threw up, I felt sick to my stomach. I mean how could I do something so terrible and not even know, is it even my fault? The rest of that day I just laid in my bed as my guilt festered. Thank God that night I didn’t have another switch, because I can’t imagine what would have happened. It was now the next day and I had the TV on and it was playing the segment about the girl like every 30 minutes, everytime it filled me with horrible guilt but I couldn’t look away. I was carrying this girl’s locket around with me everywhere now. I kept it in my pocket and would pull it out to look at it occasionally. A knock resounded on my front door. I was looking at the locket at the time and set it down on my kitchen table before walking over to the door. I opened it and saw Gina, she was the 40 something year old lady that lived next door. She lived by herself and I think she just got lonely sometimes and would come over every couple of weeks bringing food and would eat dinner with me. I didn’t really mind because I could tell she needed someone to talk to sometimes and she was one of the sweetest people I’ve met.
“Hey Gina, what’s up?” I greeted.
“Hello Liz! I made pasta, and wanted to know if you wanted some.” Gina said in her kind voice.
“Sure, thank you! Come on in.”
I swung the door open for her and took the pasta from her to help. I walked into my kitchen and set the pasta on the counter, grabbing a plate for each of us. Of course at this exact time the TV was playing one of the tear filled segments about the girl that had been murdered.
Gina sounded really sad when she said this, “It’s terrible what happened to that poor girl. I can’t imagine what kind of person would do something so evil.”
“I wish they would stop playing the same damn thing over and over again, I mean seriously we get it.” I don’t know why I said that. I guess all my frustration had built up.
Gina looked at me with a slightly surprised look. She just looked away and then said, “I’m gonna go serve the pasta, could you grab some napkins hun?”
I nodded. I guess the napkins were out in the kitchen. I walked out of the room and went to the closet to grab more. As I came back with napkins I saw a quick hand movement into Gina’s pocket. Weird. I ignored it and placed the now full plates on the dining room table.
“Alright, I’m hungry let’s get to it”I chuckled.
“Hey, I just wanted to bring it over. I’m actually just gonna head back to my house, I have plenty leftover there.” Gina said dismissively. She never did this because she always wanted the company. An alarm was going off in my head. As she started to get up and turn towards the door, I noticed the locket was missing from the table, I’d almost forgotten I put it there.
I cut her off blocking the door, Gina was a nice lady but going to Jail or some mental asylum was not an option, “Gina. What is in your pocket? Why are you trying to leave so soon?”
She had a look of terror on her face, “Please just let me go home.”
I was upset now, “GINA GIVE IT BACK!”
“I know what you did! You are a monster, you killed that innocent little girl!” She tried to push past me and get out that door. I shoved her, hard, my rage from the past days exploding in one motion. She launched back a few feet and slammed head first into the corner of the table. She was unconscious and blood erupted from the back of her skull. Shit shit shitttt… I thought. What the hell did I just do?
My thoughts were interrupted by a “breaking news” announcement on the TV. I looked over and it was an update on the girl. I watched intently and they said they caught the person responsible. It was some old dude. Apparently he had kidnapped and then savagely beat her before dropping her off in the lake. Then it got even worse. They showed the locket that had been missing and It wasn’t even the same one I had. The picture was of a completely different kid that was way younger. I had a full on panic attack now, hyperventilating while thoughts were firing off in my head. I killed Gina over nothing. What is wrong with me? What If I’m the evil alter ego? Everything went black.
When I awoke I stood up and looked around. Gina’s body was gone, all the blood had been cleaned. I looked at my hands and there was a slight red hue to my fingernails. My alternate personality had taken care of it all, protecting me as usual.
The one thing I don’t get is where I got the locket in the first place? Was it some crazy coincidence where my alter ego had stolen it or found a similar locket at the same as the murder, or did the other side of me have awareness of this and have some sinister reason to make me believe this? I hope one day I get answers to these but for now I have no idea.
For now I’ve been going on with my life as usual, I don’t think Gina had any family or anyone to miss her but I’m still waiting for a knock on my door any day now. I think I’m a danger to society but I don’t want to be drugged out in some institution somewhere, so I’m working on moving somewhere to hideout for a while, I’m gonna stay completely socially isolated for the safety of everyone. I’m sorry Gina. I hope you guys can learn something from this and always be cautious. Anyone can be a killer and people will perform any atrocity in their own self interest.