She sits in a place of constant horror. She judged herself as stupid and bad and inept, and vowed to protect and hide the little that she saw remained of our heart. She sees it as a small pinkish pearl, cherished undamaged heart. But all around it, hidden deep within her is the darkdeath that we took in also. And the darkdeath is like a living disease, with tendrils that creep out and touch the wounded places and keep them hurting.

She knows the darkdeath is there, she has known it all along. She has held the memory of that horror hidden for a long long time. I still don't fully understand why. I mean, she says it was too horrible, and terror didn't want to have to look at the darkness within and think it might be us. That WE might be evil inside. Lots of confusion then about who and what we were. And the darkdeath itself, whispering in the dark, whispering from within, generating more confusion, telling us we were evil, a disease, the cause of all that is wrong. But still, it reminds me of the sexual abuse, and how daddy says don't ever tell, and we in our fear and shame and confusion, keep silent. That's what this part feels like. Fear and shame and confusion.

So, out of that confusion, we try to build a structure. I felt her struggling to "make sense" of it. She looks around for somebody to blame. I feel her locking in on the desire/need and saying 'You! You're the one who reached out. You're the one who called out to the darkness and drew it to us. It's YOUR fault.'

And the desire/need says 'We love! We NEED to love!! We didn't do anything wrong, feel us, feel this warm, fuzzy, slip and slidey, pretty, dancing, music and undulating..."

Whomp, down comes the clamp.

Then rage steps in and tries to defend desire/need. 'It WASN'T our fault. It was something out there, and there was no reason for it, we didn't do anything wrong, we didn't cause it to happen it just happened and how DARE you say it's her fault, how could this happen to us, let's go out there and smack it back, let's show them what blasting is really about, I can do it, I can move now, watch me!'

Whomp, down again comes the clamp.

At that point this part was pretty strong, and she was determined to 1) prevent that blast from ever happening again, and 2) find out what caused it in there first place. Her own sense of failure and horror at the charred stub that used to be our heart and the pieces that were lost out in the dark ... combined with the pain and terror and self-hate being stirred by the hidden darkdeath, made her want to say 'Wait! Don't anybody move a muscle or make a sound until I can figure this thing out!'

She didn't know, we didn't know that we needed to cry. We had no safe haven, we had no way to heal, and we absolutely had no way to know that it wouldn't happen again. We were desperate. That's no excuse, and anyway, what happened was, she got left. Desire/need got tired of being sat on and went in search of love. Rage got disgusted and tired of being squelched and went in search of a war to fight. And all the other parts, everybody got sick and tired of being sat on by terror, squashed and judged and held back. So little by little this part dwindled and shrank and became so... nothing. Even her own terror started to leave her.

How does this fit into the stories in the books, I'm really not sure. This is just a little slice of time in this part's memory, but this part has been on the front of my life. I know she's not all that I am, and of course, since I've been crying so many different parts, I can see and feel many different aspects of me now. But growing up, I never was conscious of any other part but this one. And how she presents, I think, is better-than, self-righteous, fearful, timid, rigid, stiff, cold, not affectionate or easy-going, very .... what's the opposite of spontaneous? Anyway, that's how I felt myself. Not someone laughing or lovable or fun, not someone to love.

And then... jump to some later time ... we see him coming, we see him approaching and something in us burbles up in excitement and hope and love. Closer and closer and ... he goes right past us. We turn and see. Behind us and off to the right is desire/need. Undulating. Singing her siren song. SO beautiful. He never even saw us, he doesn't even know we exist.

As they turn to go back the way he came, she twines herself around him and rubs herself against him and sings her song into his ear... and over his shoulder she looks at us. Smug. She knows what he wants and it's what she has and we don't. Not anymore. He will never see us, never want us, never love us. Because we're not even a woman anymore, and she's MORE than woman. We can see it in her eyes, what she is, we're not. She knows it and she is glad. There's my payback for squashing her and blaming and judging her.

So.