Quotes from Joan Frances Casey

I feel as though I can only hold it together if I don't worry too much about its falling apart. (288)

Why didn't I feel that I belonged to my parents? How early could I have known that I was not right? I think it has always been part of me. Can a newborn sense her parents' disappointment and feelings of frustration at not being able to change the unchangeable?

I knew Lynn was a "professional." Like all of the therapists I had seen before her, she was talking to me because she was getting paid to do so. But she was better at pretending that she cared. Her body language and sympathetic "umm' suggested that she really listened. (12)

I don't expect to have a fully verified story of how Jo's disorder developed, but I don't think that historical accuracy is as important as what I call "emotional truth." People attach different levels of significance to the same events. No two participants in any event remember it in exactly the same way. A single broken promise, for example, among thousands of promises kept, might not be remembered by a parent, but may never be forgotten by the child who was disappointed. (34)

The little girl's dependency on her father made [his] abuse more insidious.

It's like I'm carrying around this huge secret that I'm never supposed to tell. But since I don't remember just what I'm supposed to keep secret, I'm afraid I'll tell it by mistake.

It's as though I'm sitting in the audience caught up in a well-made film.

More than one personality was created in the hope of being the daughter Nancy could consistently love. More than one new personality was created in response to Mother's unexpected fury.

Even the most damaged and disenchanted teenager was only waiting for someone to see the real persona beneath the defense and respond with genuine caring. (63)

The accuracy of my memories, whether things happened exactly the way that the personalities remember, doesn't really matter. If my memory, combined with the memories of the other personalities, provides some coherent past, then that is far better than the blankness I have. Whatever inaccuracies may occur because of the passage of time or because of the colored intensity of "emotional truth" harm no one. All that matters is that I gain a firm grasp on what is real. (165)

I have come to believe that concentrated time, when it's needed - freely given and with a special purpose - can accomplish goals that even years of traditional treatment sometimes cannot. (185)

Lynn said that therapy was like separating the strands in a tangled web of yarn. It made sense that things would keep getting more separate for awhile so that we eventually came back together in an organized way. (205)

I'm going through hell," I cried, "and Steve wants me to be thankful he baked a pie." (272)

I was just thinking that I started off OK," Jo said. "There wasn't anything different or wrong with me when I was born. I wasn't inherently bad or freakish." That's right, Jo," Lynn said. "Other people—my mother and father—did things to me that made me feel all wrong about myself," Jo said, another warm wave of new, sure knowledge washing over her.

She knew she needed Lynn, so she wouldn't get angry at her. Jo's parents had taught her long ago that it was not safe to get angry at someone she depended on. (53)

I thought carefully about the events of the evening and decided that there must be limitations on desires. It wasn't true that I could have anything I wanted. I felt good about understanding that, but I still didn't know how people figured out what it was safe to want. I did know, from my mother's scolding, that 'wanting' was a problem. If the desire could not be filled, then I was greedy and selfish. Since I couldn't figure out how to judge the possibility of fulfilling a desire. (66).

Now that she had the diagnosis to explain her sense of reality, she sorted some of the chaotic jumble of thoughts and memories. "I'd feel funny having 'daydreamed' my way through whole seasons," Jo said, "but then I'd hear someone say, 'Time flies,' or 'How did it get to be three o'clock already?' and I'd think that everyone was like me.

I had never before considered that people near me might have problems that were not caused by me. I had been created to please people. If the people around me weren't happy, I must be doing something wrong. Lynn helped me see that I lacked the power to make other people feel anything.

When I was with my mother, I sometimes thought of myself of a trophy—something to be flaunted before friends. When out of public view, I sat on the shelf ignored and forgotten.

I was just thinking that I started off OK," Jo said. "There wasn't anything different or wrong with me when I was born. I wasn't inherently bad or freakish.

Nancy was as proud as she was critical of her younger daughter. She spoke glowingly about the precocious little girl who said her first sentence at seven months and walked at ten months.

No person could fill twenty-six years of lack. And each personality had learned from experience that is was less painful to set limits than to have some external person set limits for us. (95)

The Flock have come a long way in their acceptance of this, and when a professional refused to deal with them in a straightforward manner and, in fact, manipulated and deceived them in return-they rebelled fiercely but self-protectively.

Everyone seemed to be getting healthier, happier, and more productive... I now felt that I was sharing this body, this physical space, with a whole group of very interesting and worthwhile people.