Family Tree

Update: 2009
Below is the original Family Tree as written in 2006. There have been some changes since then. The “Kathy” listed here has retreated back to the Core. I am Kat, aka Mattie. (Nice to meet you.) I’m Host, Gatekeeper and have been Primary for several years. Most are staying behind the curtain and are less likely to come forward than in the past. All decisions must still be by 100% agreement, however.

Here’s what I know about me…

We’ve known we were multiple since we were 2 years old. From what I’ve learned in group and in therapy, we are the extremely rare exception. Most DID people “find out” they are DID. A few have a “gut feeling” about it. But I haven’t met anyone yet who grew up this way — not since literally babyhood. How did we know at such an early age? We’ve been co-conscious from the beginning.

The first split was Kathy – the original Host; Mother – the Law Giver; and Debbie.
We believe Debbie was the original single personality, by the way, not Kathy.
They were the beginning of The Core, soon followed by Anne, Lisa and Kitty. It looks like this:

Mother (is always over our head, in the Chakra Etheric position actually)
	Anne (3rd Eye Position) rarely seen
Lisa (always on the left or in our fists)	Kathy (the Host usually moves to the center)	Kitty (always on the right or in our head)
	Debbie (always always always behind everyone, no matter who’s out)

What is the reason we split? Early on, the only thing anyone knew of their own existence was to protect Debbie. Does that mean from abuse? It means from everything. That’s why Mother was the first one out. Mother decided what we needed protection from. That meantpoison, knives, cars and the people from the South side of the street. Don’t ask me what that means. Mother was only two herself when she made the Law. And often, Mother wanted, needed, to protect Debbie from us (correction made by Mother herself. if she’s going to allow us to write this, she says, we need to get it right). That was part of Mother’s Law before Lisa… and then she became the cause for that reason.

Do we cut?
No. because of Debbie. Otherwise Lisa would.

Who are the other families?

There are the kids:
Natalie (6 years old, leader of the little ones, her family — description corrected by Natalie herself)
brown hair, brown eyes. her job is to talk to the mom (we never call that woman Mother. that would be insulting Mother and is not just against the Law, it’s unthinkable)

Jessica (6 years old)
brown hair, brown eyes. her eyes are bigger than Natalie’s and usually hiding behind a teddy bear or pillow. Jessica loves to dance.

Pretty (4 years old)
blond hair, blue eyes. we have a picture of Pretty

Summer (4 years old)
blond hair. blue eyes. says she doesn’t look like Pretty at all, but looks like the sun instead. she told us that is her outfit Pretty is wearing though.

Blue (no age)
Blue is not the “superintelligent shade of the color blue.” Blue has blond hair and blue eyes. She decided that everyone in the entire system (body) needed a color of their own, so to Blue no one has a name, they have a color. We don’t all know our colors, of course, only Blue does. To her, Natalie is Purple; Jessica is Green; Pretty is Pink; and Summer is, of course, Yellow. Blue sees Summer in her true form — the Sun.

Joe (13 years old)
Joe is all boy. His main job is watching after the girls and he is very proud of his job. Except when it comes to food. Joe and Natalie fight over food. Natalie is a vegetarian; Joe’s favorite foods are bratwurst and pepperoni pizza.

Chorus was first out after the Core group. She later split into Chorus; Radio; and The Announcer.
Chorus is female. She has been portrayed perfectly on tv — on Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode where Buffy has the ability to hear the voices of every student in the school. This is not only Chorus’ voice and how she sounds when she speaks, it is also her ability. She can hear everyone in every system — all the time.

Radio is male but can sing with either a male or female voice. He not only has the most amazing vocal ability the world has never seen, he also writes awesome music. I have no idea who blocks me from writing down his songs or his music, whether it’s Mother or Radio, but apparently it’s forbidden. I’ve never gotten a single line on paper — they will space me out before allowing me to write it down. I guess that’s just as well. If the world can’t hear his voice on these songs, they would never fully appreciate them anyway.

The Announcer is also male. He is always calm and sounds like a 1950s tv news host (or sometimes the guy from Laugh In). The Announcer does have a sense of humor, after all.

Ghost — intermittent Host from age 19 to age 26. She is the only ‘non-multiple’ alter. How is that? She is the only one who has ever lived alone in our head, which is something none of the rest of us can comprehend. She’s also the one that Tony first met because she was Host when he came along, and for the first 2 years of our relationship with him. Once the rest of us came back and Ghost receded again, that was when Tony revealed our secret to the family — something he thought they already knew. She’s back again (2006) and having a hard time of it.

Kat (now also Mattie) — was born on the job – literally. Kat goes to work for us. No one else ever goes to a job except Kat anymore. Because she was born so recently (after 30), switches with Kat are different than any of the others. Or they used to be. She’s getting used to it now. At first it was like the description in First Person Plural (shudder/switch) or better yet, extreme nauseating dizzy spell – SWITCH. Not so much anymore unless Kat is rolodexing trying to maintain control. She usually only has this problem when dealing with negative confrontation on the job or lately now that a friend at work knows the rest of us exist — some of them want to actually meet him instead of looking through the curtain. That is against all Rules and Kat knows that. She works hard to keep the Rules (which are different than The Law, by the way). The kids don’t want to meet him, but the others do, especially Dominique and Kit-Kat. Me? I could care less (no offense! really! I just don’t like people in general). Our kids don’t care about other people either — except little people (other real-life kids). They find them fascinating.

Law #1: No one must ever know anything. (hey laws are made to be broken, eh?)
Rule #1: No one comes out to anyone unless asked, invited or in a safe environment, ie DID group. That Rule cannot, under any circumstances, be broken.

Kitty-Bear – 16 years old. was born when we spent half a year as a carnie, at, what else, age 16.
Kitty-Bear was the first to reveal herself to Tony. Big mistake! Huge! well, how would you react if your 28-year-old girlfriend was suddenly a 16-year-old carnival worker?

Kit-Kat – Kitty-Bear’s twin, but she looks like Lisa – dark, almost black, hair and dark eyes. Not brown eyes, but so deep blue, they look black. Kit-Kat has Kitty-Bear’s wild side and Lisa’s temper.

Echo – Echo is 6 years old, like Natalie and Jessica, but isn’t a member of their family. They do all talk to each other though, and Natalie helped Echo learn to speak for herself. Early on, all Echo could do was exactly that – mimic someone else’s words. Now she still usually needs someone to help her start a sentence, but she can finish with her own words. Echo is also an artist. She drew her self-portrait, which we’ll have to find and put here. She has red hair and blue eyes. As the only redheaded alter, she is thrilled that we literally dyed our hair red.

Dominique – 17 years old, going on 30. Dominique thought it was so great that the nurses at Timberlawn recognized her simply by her blood pressure (which they took several times a day. turns out that’s one of the physical, medical tests that show which alter is out at any given time). Before that, no one had ever acknowledged her before, and the nurses insisted on knowing her name and getting to know her. As one
nurse put it, “If I’m going to see you every day, I might as well know who I’m talking to, don’t you think?”

Kathy – (me. the current Gatekeeper) when no one else is willing – or able- to come forward, Kathy takes over as Host.

The GateKeeper – named herself after, what else?, the character from Ghostbusters. No joke. That was her job, she figured it could be her name too. She has been in hiding for years. No one knows why, except that she did have a run-in with our therapist.

There are others. Some have names, some don’t. These are the primary, known alters. We are, for the most part, all co-conscious with each other, with the exception of Ghost, although she’s trying.

As far as we know, there is only one (or two?) non-co-conscious member(s) of our system. How do we even know that? Because they like to drive. And, yes, we do, on occassion, find ourselves off somewhere without knowing how we got there or sometimes even where we are. And every once in a while we’re told we said something no one remembers saying. Or bought something we have no idea when or even why. So there is at least one. But anyone else not named here is either blocking or for whatever reason doesn’t want to be named. That’s not a Rule or a Law. Anyone who does want to keep secret…. just does.