Before I start, I would like to say that this will probably be a long post and that I am not professionally diagnosed as of this moment.
So, some background info on me and where it kind of all began. I am the youngest of three kids of my parents (I have a half-brother from my mother’s current marriage) and was the reason my parents got married. When I was three, they got a divorce and it was around then when I heard the first voice. I went to sleep and had a dream where I “chose” to be the carrier of the voices between two of my cousins who weren’t born yet. The man in the dream gave me a voice I knew as B and B wouldn’t talk a whole lot, but when he did he was polite. We would play in my dreams and sometimes he couldn’t control the dream anymore so it would turn into a nightmare. It wasn’t until I was five when my dad left my brothers and I (we were living with my mom at my grandparents and he would visit us every night. When I was ten, he came back) when B turned really mean. I had a nightmare that I had before and still scares the shizz outta me now, but when I woke up from that nightmare, my mom wasn’t there to comfort me and I was alone in the room. At that point, I was having night terrors almost nightly so my mom would have to comfort me a lot. When I didn’t see my mom anywhere, I thought she had left like my dad and B started yelling at me that it was my fault. He said that their divorce was my fault cause I wanted too much stuff and it costed so much money, that I was a big baby and my brothers didn’t love me, that if anyone found out my mom left then my grandparents and brothers and aunts would leave me too, etc. I started praying and B wouldn’t get any nicer until I heard two more voices who told him to shush up and they were so so nice to me. They told me their names (Sophie and Salem) and they told me that B’s name is really Bartholomew and that he’s being corrupted by something that happened in the past. A couple nights later, they introduced me to another voice named Lucus and he was also super nice to me. They were like my family and they taught me how to talk to them without anyone else knowing because they didn’t want anyone to take them away from me. As I grew older, more voices would pop up and I would start noticing more of the physical sides of having The Soldiers (what I call all of them). Every time I got a new voice, it was like cotton balls were being cleared from inside my head and it was like someone added a heavier stone in the middle of my ribs (between my lungs). All of them were like a big family to me (Bartholomew stayed mean and he was like a grumpy uncle no one liked) and they taught me lots of things. They would see what I saw, they would talk to me when I was bored, they loved listening to me read books and it was the only time really when it was quiet in my head.
The Soldiers taught me how to read big words and soon I was racing past the other kids in my class when it came to reading. They taught me that there was multiple realities and that they all came from different ones and had fought in the same war together. They told me myths and legends from their realities, especially the one about how these new realties were created. In my physical family I was raised as Christian until I lost that faith the night Salem and Sophie came to me. Then I became an avid believer in everything the Soldiers taught me.
When I was thirteen, I told my three closest friends about the Soldiers. They were the first people to ever know about it and they were really accepting. My closest friend (she’s still my bestest friend) is really logical and smart so she listened to everything I had to say before she eased me into the idea that maybe the Soldiers aren’t real. I was offended and the Soldiers were amused that she said that to me, it was like they were treating our conversation as two toddlers babbling to each other. My other two best friends were asking a lot of questions and they were just as accepting.
I can’t remember when I asked the Soldiers why they were with only me, but I do remember that they told me they needed me to share their stories with this whole reality. They said that they can’t let their stories be forgotten and that once I finish writing all their stories, then they can leave. I didn’t want them to ever leave but I wanted other people to know what I knew so I made sure to do a lot of “planning” first before I tried writing down their stories. I would ask them to share their stories with me before I write them and at night it would be like picking up a book to continue reading where it left off. During certain points though, they wouldn’t want to talk to me about it at all and it wasn’t until I got the last voice at the age 14 or 15 when I realized why. When I got that voice, it also started the period of when the Soldiers and I would have our falling out.
In the order of when I got the Soldiers:
- B(artholomew)
- Salem and Sophie
- Lucus
- Isadora
- Blair
- Heather
- Lucia and Anna
- Annahelician (we call her Cian for short)
- Jack
- Unknown (real name is Jonathan)
- Candy (short for Candence)
- Amelia
- Emily
- Melissa
- AEthelweard (AEth for short)
- Idiria
So, when I was around 14 or 15, I had another dream. At this point, I thought I had all the voices AEth would give me (he was the man in the first dream when I got Barth {I’m the only one who can call Bartholomew Barth or Barthie} and they are brothers). When I woke up from the dream (it was me stabbing myself in the chest with a sword and being held by Sophie and this guy as I die), it was dead quiet in my head. I got so scared that the Soldiers left me I almost started crying if my dad wasn’t in the room. It was when I tried getting one of them to talk to me that I got a new voice. The Soldiers didn’t want to talk to me and Barth was being strangely affectionate towards the new voice and me. When the new voice started talking, she told me her name was Idiria and that she was the other half of my soul. She then told me everything the Soldiers didn’t; She told me that we were with the Soldiers when they fought in the war, that we sacrificed ourselves to save everyone else, that we had a daughter we accidentally killed, etc.
Everything she told me made so much sense. She shared our memories of our past life/her life and it was as if I recovered from amnesia. I tried talking to the Soldiers, but they didn’t want to talk to me for a while. They cried a lot, especially Salem who mistook me for her friend Daisy, and they whispered a lot. They also “went to the other room” a few times during the day. I started getting really paranoid because Idiria told me that when we were still living as Idiria, this group called the dark society was hunting us down and won’t stop until they capture us again and use us for their plan of taking over all the realities. I got so paranoid that I would stay up all night huddled in the corner and would run to the bathroom at school to escape the feelings of everyone watching me. I put tape on my cameras on my phone and laptop and I would stay inside my room all day on my computer. I wouldn’t even trust my best friends with anything. I wouldn’t shower for a week or two because I didn’t feel safe being in such a small room or away from my notes and such.
Three years ago, I was camping with my bestest friend R (the one I gushed about before 
) and her family when I got into an argument with the Soldiers. AEth and I talked about the stories and how I thought I would be able to finish them sometime in my thirties (eighteen stories to write with almost two books per story? Yeah, that would take a while) and he started accusing me of not loving them anymore and wanting to get rid of them because R said it wasn’t very healthy. He tried getting me to turn on R by saying she doesn’t care about me, she just feels sorry for me, she’s scared of me, etc. and I got so mad at him that I forced him “into the other room”. That was when Cian told me that because I was acting so strange that maybe they shouldn’t leave me alone at all because I could be dangerous. I thought she meant that they would stay past the time I finish their stories and she said very quietly that AEth was thinking of taking me with them when they leave. She further clarified that once the Soldiers leave this reality that I should go with them and leave my body, as in everyone in this reality would “‘think’ I died”. I flipped out and Salem argued with Cian for me. This fight tore the Soldiers apart so it became a constant argument in my head.
Around the time that fight happened, I did research on my symptoms and schizophrenia became the closest I could find on it. R and I got into an argument (she told me it didn’t make sense that I would develop schizophrenia from the loneliness I felt because then more people would have it and I told her I could’t control how my mind reacts to things) and I didn’t want to tell her that Salem and I got in a fight too about how she felt like I was abandoning her like my dad abandoned me so why should she fight for me. Heather became the only voice who wanted what was best for me and she told me that I should ignore the rest of them and keep doing research on how to deal with the Soldiers on my own. She tried suggesting that I tell my parents about it but that was when the Soldiers would hurt me and her. They would erase my memory of somethings, they would make my bones ache and give me terrible headaches that wouldn’t go away and they held my period in for five months while forcing me to see “memories” of my past life when I was pregnant until the death of my baby and myself (my doctor didn’t know what was wrong because it wasn’t a cyst or a hormone thing and definitely wasn’t me being pregnant). All the Soldiers hate me (even now they do, just less intensely. Bartholomew and Heather are “trying to help me”) and they tell me to try to run away again or to kill myself so they’ll see I’m loyal to only them. They scream at me and they hurt me and they show me my worst memories as Idiria. About a year and a half ago I came to the theory that they need me to die before my 20th birthday or we won’t go together like they want. My 19th year is to be the worst and it’ll be really hard not to hurt myself or off myself. When I was Idiria, I died when I was 19 and the life before that I only know I died when I was still considered young.
I’m 18 with my birthday coming up in less than a month and I’m terrified. I guess my best friends and my boyfriend (of one year and two months. He knows about my condition and it helps so much being with him) Lately, I’ve been having nightmares again and even the one when I was young of the silhouette man. I’ve had to stop myself from jumping on the bus to another city over and run away. I made a promise to my boyfriend and best friends and my favorite teacher back in high school that I’ll tell my parents before Christmas but I’m so scared of what if they reject me or tell me I’m faking it or they believe me and it turns out I don’t really have schizophrenia. I’ve been hearing things at my dads house calling my name at 2 am, but I dunno if my condition is getting worse or if it’s something paranormal. My dad admitted to hearing voices in high school and his side of the family is prone to supernatural/paranormal experiences but I’m not sure if there have been more people affected with this condition or if what they say is true.
So there’s my life story basically. There’s definitely more details, but I didn’t wanna write a whole chapter book in this one post Please feel free to ask questions and any clarifications and what not.