When I ask my guests to share a real, honest story — no holds barred — sometimes I have to coach or pull it out of them a bit. Not in this case. Ciara is a fierce tiger of a woman and if I’m ever in Australia and need an attorney, there’s no doubt who I’m gonna call. She’s also, as you’ll read here, a terrific writer.
I’m grateful she opens up here about this extraordinary and difficult part of her life. Thank you, Ciara.
The Last Valentine’s Day 
14 February 2006 I walked into an empty apartment. My husband, L, wasn’t home yet. We tended to get home around the same time and it was an each-way bet who beat who.
A note on the dining table instructed me to log into an email account called ‘youwillalwaysbemyprincess’. Surprised, but excited by the prospect of a romantic Valentine’s Day surprise, I rushed to the computer.
Minutes later, my world was crumbling.
The account contained an email from L explaining he was going overseas to ‘get help.’ He said he was ‘sabotaging our marriage,’ but didn’t explain how.
In a daze, I stumbled downstairs barefoot to check on my car. Don’t ask me why, but for some reason the presence of my car was incontrovertible proof he was gone, the email wasn’t a joke. I burst into tears in the car park, stumbled upstairs blindly to find shoes and car keys and less important things like purses and driver’s licences. I was heading out the door when my groceries turned up. I had completely forgotten them. I shoved the cold stuff in the fridge or the freezer, left the rest on the floor, and drove to my parents’ house.
An hour away. Crying the whole time.
Don’t ask me how, but I made it without crashing. I hadn’t called my parents, so I just turned up on the doorstep bawling my eyes out. What followed was a very confused recounting of events. I don’t really remember it. I remember L’s were called, they came round, didn’t know where he was or what had happened. People tried to call his mobile (like I hadn’t already done that…). No answer. Everyone was as clueless as me.
Eventually I was bundled off to bed. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t stop the mind working, thinking over and over and over about where he was, what he was doing, if he was OK. I got up at 4am to answer client emails. I hope I didn’t give any bad advice… No one’s sued me yet anyway. I forwarded the email from L to my boss as explanation of why I wouldn’t be in (yes, I have a good relationship with my boss, in fact I’d say I love her!). The idea of talking to anyone about it was too painful.
In the morning, Mum drove me to work to pick up some stuff and explain to my colleagues (back then it was a very small office – only three of us, a very close-knit group, and I was the ‘baby’ lawyer) and then home. I found L’s phone bill to find the phone number for one of his close friends. She assured me she hadn’t heard from him and didn’t know where he was. Then I found a credit card bill with charges for a cheap hotel in Sydney when my husband was supposedly in Melbourne for training with work.
Then we found L’s mobile phone, left behind in the apartment so I couldn’t call him – and the SMS on it, from the friend I had called earlier, reading ‘I can’t wait until you get here.’
At about the same time, I got an SMS from the bitch offering her condolences and hoping I found L.
To say I saw red is an understatement. There is a reason my Twitter profile reads ‘Cross at own peril,’ and what followed my reading of this SMS is the very worst, most frightening example of how relentlessly, bloody-mindedly single-purposed I can be when wronged.
I sent her a blistering ten-part SMS telling her I knew what was going on and exactly what I thought of her. I used a lot of big words I don’t recall and some profanity I wouldn’t normally utter. Then I got serious.
I didn’t have her address but I knew she lived in Orange (rural New South Wales, Australia – and a 4 hour drive from Sydney) and was supposedly a doctor. I had her home phone number and I had her name. She wasn’t listed in the phone book. I tried to find her address using a reverse phone number search to no avail. Then I hit on the fact that doctor’s work addresses are public, so I called the Australian Medical Association and tracked down what I think was her practice in Orange, but still no pay-dirt on a home address.
Mum tried to pull me off the computer. I’d be at it for several hours. She’d packed away all my groceries and cleaned the kitchen. I told her not a freaking chance.
Eventually I got hold of L’s best man. He knew nothing about what had happened, but because the bitch had helped him out with his website (he was how L met her) he had her home address.
I was headed for the door, baseball bat in hand.
Fortunately for my career, Mum said it was too late to drive to Orange, and if I still wanted to go in the morning, that was fine. Of course, by then, I’d cooled down and I didn’t. All I really wanted was to feel back in control. I knew where he was. I had the address. I could go there if I wanted to. I had control. It wasn’t necessary anymore for me to actually drive out there.
Eventually it came out that L has dissociative identity disorder, or multiple personality syndrome. This is an impossible thing to explain. The easiest way is to say he literally has more than one person in his head, and when one of them takes over, it’s like L has a blackout while the other personality makes all the decisions. Who knew what he had been doing with whom for how long?
I’ve had relationships bust up before. But adding mental illness to the mix increases the emotional difficulties exponentially. You can’t understand what’s happening; how can you explain it to someone else? Everyone is so judgemental. People told me the DID was an excuse for his bad behaviour, and I wanted to scream at them ‘How?? It makes things worse!’ You feel like you don’t know your husband anymore. You don’t know your husband anymore. And neither does he.
The best way I could explain it: it was like going from point A to point B without travelling the intervening distance, and when you get to B it’s a brick wall and you’re travelling 100mph.
It’s like waking up and your life really is over.
I was pretty destructive for a while. I called everyone I knew and told them what he’d done in the space of 48 hours. I don’t recall why exactly. I think because I couldn’t stand the idea of having it drag out over weeks. I yelled at some guy in the street who told me if I gave up my daily coffee I could donate the money to charity. I don’t drink coffee and I had a lot on my mind. I cancelled L’s health insurance. I lost cheques – in fact, when I found them, I had no recollection at all of ever having received it. I strained friendships. I sang a lot of karaoke, drank a lot of vodka, and made a lot of people very soggy.
Eventually I joined an online support group for spouses of sufferers of dissociative identity disorder. The idea of therapy or counselling was complete anathema to me, and this was as far as I could make myself go. It was the best move I made – just having someone who understood, who could tell me what he’d done with me; needing to tell them was a blessing. These were people who had walked a mile in my shoes. Suddenly I didn’t feel like I was crazy anymore.
Someone did suggest our relationship was codependent, which was something I assiduously denied at the time, but in hindsight they were probably right. I also think L (or one of his other personalities) was emotionally abusive to me. He’d often make jokes at my expense or call me names under the pretence of teasing. Dad didn’t like it, though I brushed it off as a joke. I was fortunate enough to have almost bulletproof self-esteem so it didn’t demoralise me the way it could have (in fact, I hardly even noticed at the time) but it’s wrong that it happened in the first place.
At the time I joined the support group, we were discussing reconciliation. You may think I’m insane, but ‘in sickness and in health’ and all that. I felt I had to do everything I could to make it work – and fail – before I could walk away at peace. So I did. The support group helped me to understand what reconciling would probably mean – no children, letting go of my control freakish ways, and a few others. My one condition was he had to have therapy, because if he didn’t, I knew nothing would change, and what self-respecting woman would put herself through that?
He wouldn’t agree to have therapy, so I wouldn’t agree to remain married to him.
We divorced officially in September 2007, slightly more than 2 years after we wed*.
Now people say to me how amazing I was, how strong I was, how ‘together’ I was. I look at them like they’re nuts and wonder who they’re talking about, because the woman they describe bears no resemblance to the woman I was.
I can attest to this – if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger. And, maybe, a better person.
But I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day anymore. The forge turns iron into stronger steel, but it also leaves its scars.
*Australian law makes it very hard to get divorced in the first 2 years of marriage, in case anyone was wondering.
Ciara is a writer of high fantasy. She has been reading fantasy since she was 9 and writing it since she was 11. Born argumentative and recognising the long road to make money out of writing, Ciara wisely invested her natural inclinations in a career in law.
http://www.facebook.com/CiaraBallintyne
Website: http://ciaraballintyne.com
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RachelintheOC
Rachel Thompson aka RachelintheOC is a published author and social media consultant. Her three books, A Walk In The Snark, The Mancode: Exposed and Broken Pieces are all #1 Kindle bestsellers! When not writing, she helps authors and other professionals with branding and social media for her company, BadRedhead Media. She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut. Buy Now : A Walk in the Snark * Mancode: Exposed * Broken Pieces
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MT Such an amazing story! @RachelintheOC HOW MULTIPLE-PERSONALITY DISORDER RUINED MY MARRIAGE by guest @CiaraBallintyne http://t.co/AfdhSoS6
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What an absolute disaster of a marriage. You are one tough woman, and I’m glad you got help for yourself. I hope L did, too, but that is no longer your concern. You have a great husband now who will travel with you to rainforests and splash around in puddles in Scotland, and not to mention an adorable little girl who has the best mom in Australia. Good for you for moving on and moving on to something bigger and better. Lots of love.-A
Nope, he didn’t. He called me a few months after my daughter was born in 2010, wanting to talk. I was hesitant, because I was not in a place where I was amenable to the notion of him telling me he’d made a mistake and wanted me back (like he had done many times before) but what he wanted was to know what went wrong for us. He didn’t remember. He was shocked and, I think, saddened when we hung up, though it wasn’t a long phone call. I wasn’t as tactful as I could have been or, in hindsight, as tactful as I wish I’d been. I think probably one of the other personalities has been in control since we separated, hence his lack of memories. It can be hard for sufferers to seek therapy because the other personalities have a vested interest in avoiding it – therapy can mean they cease to exist. Last I heard he’d remarried, had a baby, and was getting divorced again.
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My ex is a paranoid schizophrenic. We made it five years before I almost had my own nervous breakdown due to the stress and had to get out of the marriage. It’s a sad thing and a very difficult thing. And isn’t it funny how you can live with someone with such a condition and not know it? When I found out my ex was diagnosed PS, it was a light-bulb moment… “Oh, so that explains a lot!” Glad you made it through it and I hope a wonderful man comes along and makes you love Valentine’s Day once again. My current husband is totally the reward I received for making it through the first one, LOL!
Yes, sad and true. Thank you for sharing your story, Cindy. Ciara is remarried, happily, and has a lovely young daughter.
I never realized my ex was an alcoholic. We were young, in our 20s, everyone partied. Never mind that he always had a beer in his hand. Eventually, it would be his undoing — well, the contributing depression and all that goes with it. You think you’re responsible for the emotion upheavals but when you leave, you realize you’re not. Not at all.
It’s a mountain, sometimes.
It is very much a light-bulb moment. It’s also a sad reality that (in Australia, anyway, and I doubt it varies much there) 99% of marriages involving mental illness end in divorce. It is a hard thing to live with, and you have to make adjustments to usual expectations to cope, and that doesn’t always work, either – how do you stop expecting someone to behave like a normal human being? And if you have kids, you parent alone, and if you don’t have kids you won’t have kids because you are parenting your partner… Sad realities.
I describe it as a frog in a hot pot. If you don’t know, if you toss a frog in a boiling pot of water, it jumps out. If you put it in a cold pot, and turn the heat on, it will stay there and boil to death. Or so I am told. I haven’t personally etsted it of course! But it’s a pretty accurate description of my own marriage and I’ve met other women who really relate to the analogy. It’s not until you get out and look back that you realise that damn pot was boiling you to death.
I have since remarried, and my husband is a wonderful man, but I’m afraid the shine has gone from Valentine’s Day forever. Perhaps it would have been different if my husband was mad about it and made a fuss about it, but he isn’t, and without someone else’s mad enthusiasm for it, I doubt I will regain my own.
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Lovely Ciara, you ROCK. Thank you for sharing this story.
My father was diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder when I was 12 years old. Truly there was more than one person living inside his head. From my earliest childhood memories, which go back to before I was 3, my dad’s behavoir was confusing and sometimes terrifying. His various personalities were very unlike. The “good daddy,” his primary personality for most of my childhood, was a loving and protective father, a faithful husband, and a hard-working provider, working two to four jobs simultaneously to provide for our family. One of his jobs, for six years of my childhood, was as the minister of a small church.
One of my dad’s personalities was terrifying, to say the least. My parents marriage ended on the night that personality came so close to murdering my mother that I had thought she was dead.
My father also blacked out when different personalities would take over, and have no memory afterward of what he had said and done. After his MPD was diagnosed, my dad’s primary personality changed from the conservative minister father to a hippie-type, pot-smoking, motorcycle rider who ran around with “women” who were only a couple of years older than me.
As Toby Neal said in one of her comments here, “Severe early childhood trauma/sexual abuse is often one of the precursors.” Yes, that was the case with my father.
I suppose I am lucky, I “only” developed Complex Post Trauamtic Stress disorder/injury from my insane childhood.
Hugs to you, Ciara, and to awesome Rachel, too, for sharing your story.
Lady Q
PS: Ciara, regarding your statement that “….if it doesn’t kill you, it will make you stronger. And, maybe, a better person.” — my fun-in-dysfunctional saying is: “That Which Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me GrUmPieR.”
Remarkable, your description of your father sounds very much like my ex! He was a very responsible, loving, caring partner who was always considerate of my needs and at the time we separated the responsible breadwinner of our marriage as I had only recently graduated uni. I was never aware of his other personalities but our relationship was punctuated by occasional bouts of inexplicable behaviour wildly inconsistent with the man I knew and loved. And though I did not consciously ‘see’ those other personalities (because who looks for them unless you know they are there to look for) and they never identified themselves by other names to me, our relationship terminated a number of times before we married. I said above I wasn’t going to say how many, but I changed my mind – I took him back SIX times. Every time we broke up, it was sudden, uenxpected and there was no pre-cursor in the way of arguments or anything like that. Just BAM. Every time he came back and said he didn’t really know why he left. You think it’s just an excuse, but now I think he meant it in the literal sense. But how do you tell someone you don’t remember leaving them? And why did I take him back? Apart from ‘young and dumb’ because the relationship was so good when we were together.
After we separated, he went much the way of your father by the sound of it – he ran around with a young crowd, I heard there was drugs involved, he wontheir friendship by buying stuff for them, drugs and others, hooked up with some pretty young thing, got her pregnant, married her, and broke her heart. People said I should have ‘warned’ her, but I’m certain she was told I was the evil bitch queen. I do, in some way, wish I was able to share with her now my experiences.
Your own issues are one of the reasons I had to face not having kids if I stayed with him. It’s not fair to knowingly bring children into that kind of environment.
I love your saying!
I can certainly understand your taking him back so many times. You loved the good and loving person he was most of the time. It is very bewildering when the personality you love, shares his body with one or more other personalities, particularly when one or more of those personalities are hurtful and anything but loveable. And of course you didn’t realize that he had made more than one personality, who would ever expect such a thing? When the truth came out with my father’s MPD/DID diagnosis, then all the craziness made sense, in hindsight. But at the time that it was happening, before we knew the diagnosis, my dad’s changeable and sometimes bizarre and abusive behavior was just plain confusing.
For anyone interested in learning more about Dissociative Identity Disorder, which was previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder, I highly recommend reading The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout.
Psychological problems are extremely hard on marriages, so I’m not surprised at your finding that the vast majority of divorces involve mental illness of some kind. As I said in my first comment, I have Complex Post-traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of my abusive childhood. My husband also have PTSD, his was caused by Vietnam combat. It’s a hard life, in some ways, with us both being so dysfunctional at times. But the good thing in our case is that we totally understand each other, and neither of us expects the other to be very “normal.”
Truly, we put the FUN in dysFUNctional. Even our precious rescued dog, who happens to be an Australian Cattle Dog of the Red Heeler variety, has PTSD from the abuse she went through as a puppy, by her original owners. She has nightmares and a very pronounced startle reflex, panic attacks and depressions and hypervigilance. But she is also pure love, and we feel very lucky to have her, she fits right in with us.
I’m so glad you have a happy marriage now, Ciara. When you’ve lived with a man who has more than one personality, finally having a normal marriage toa normal man must seem like paradise in comparison. My mother’s second husband was a godsend to our family, especially after the trauma we had all been through.
I do want to say this, though, about the plight of those who suffer from DID, or Multiple Personality Disorder: I can’t even begin to imagine the hell they must have lived through to become so psychologically fractured, and the hell of trying to function in life, to work and earn a living and have relationships, when their personality keeps changing and fading in and out, losing time and not remembering things they’ve done and said — that has to be a special kind of hell, all on its own. For many years I deeply resented my father’s psychiatric illness, and his many abuses. But now that I’ve learned more of what DID/MPD is about, I am amazed that my father was able to work most of his adult life, and provide for our family — to me, that’s the eqivalent of running a marathon on two fractured legs. I believe that my late father did the absolute best he could with what he had, and I am able to honor his memory now, and to remember with love and appreciation the good personality who co-existed with all the others.
I’ve said that – when your partner behaves in bizarre ways, no normal person thinks ‘Wow, maybe he has more than one personality’ – but in hindsight, all the puzzle pieces fall together.
I totally agree it must be a nightmare for those who suffer from it. What must it be like to wake up and not know where you’ve been, or what you’ve done, or with who? What must it be like to wake up and find your spouse or partner gone and not know why? I can only imagine, and in this instance I’m sure my imagination does not even come close to the horror of the reality.
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Ciara, my heart breaks hearing the story of your marriage, a love still, now lost, and others who have shared their own stories about this huge mental illness. I see you in a much better place now and admire your strength. Huge strength.
Thanks Justin. I am in a better place now, and very grateful for my new husband and daughter.
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Hi Ciara. Thank you so much for sharing your story. Amazingly strong. xo
Happy to share. Not enough people talk about these issues.
Hi Ciara,
Sad story. I’ve been married once and separated 4 times and have experienced every emotion. Two of those partners had mental health issues. One sexually abused my daughters and I lived with anger and violence for 3 years, and that affected every relationship after. I’m certain she had multiple personalities, but the one she favoured was the insidious one. These experiences make some people stronger, more often the pain remains and no one notices. The longevity of caring is questionable.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Ciara, and EveryOne.
Your experience was horrendous, Ciara. Multiplied by the fact that you weren’t dealing with a ‘normal’ person.
If you had known the nature of your husband’s problem, it would have been much easier for you.
Mental illness is rampant in the human population. The way we usually find out is when someone literally goes off the deep end. It’s usually what triggers a diagnosis.
I’ve been through it too.
About making you stronger or killing you, I think it’s true. Sometimes the old you is gone and you never look at things again, the same way.
Life isn’t perfect for anyone. But mental illness is a tough one. No one asks for it and it ruins lives.
The best we can do is to just do our best.
You’ve done very well. Good for you!