Heroes in My Head

by Judy Rebick

  All I could do after that session was sleep. For weeks, I couldn’t get enough sleep. I was feeling guilty about cutting off contact with my parents. I was also starting to notice a lot of fear. I thought that the personalities were making me afraid, but Marcia explained that as each personality emerged I would have access to the feelings they were keeping hidden from me, as well as the memories. Fear was the major one.

  I would wake up early in the morning, at four or five, the hour of abuse, feeling terrified. The fear was like a glacier sitting on my chest, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to stay warm. I felt cold, so cold that it seemed I would never get warm. That’s when I started taking hot baths in the morning to let go of the cold and with it the fear. When fear came on during the day, it was nausea that announced its arrival, and with it usually came an alter. Somehow this fear didn’t emerge when I faced danger or a threat in the real world. It was coming from deep inside of me and it was old, old fear, the fear of a child. The adult was still fearless.

  February 1990 was the most intense month of activity for the alters. In an attempt to stop them from coming out everywhere, I decided to ask them to communicate with me in my journal. When I went back to those pages, I was amazed, mostly by the fact that all the handwriting looked different. Some of them signed their notes, some didn’t. Some of the writing was incomprehensible.

  February 21, 1990. This is my first attempt to contact my alters through writing, so who wants to take a turn?

  ME I AM SICK TO DEATH OF YOU AND YOUR WAYS. I FEEL THAT YOU WILL NEVER HAVE FUN NEVER BE ANY GOOD, NO MATTER HOW MUCH TIME THEY GIVE YOU IT WILL RUN OUT AND I WILL BE WANTING FOREVER AND I AM VERY FRUSTRATED WITH ALL OF THIS SO NO WAY. CAN’T YOU BE HAPPIER OR SOMETHING BECAUSE I AM REALLY TIRED OF ALWAYS HAVING TO PROTECT YOU. — Sophie

  Little known persons of less than seven years are not being heard from enuf here and we also have something to say but little known persons of more than seven years keeping taking all the space and yelling louder. Wishing they would go away so we could come out and play and not be so tired all the time. — Mary

  * * *

  Despite the chaos in my mind, I decided to attend the workshop at Gallaudet University, hoping the diversion would be good for all of us, me and the alters. As I had never been to Washington, D.C., I decided to stay downtown for one night, see the sights, and then go to the hotel near Gallaudet, a Holiday Inn that was in a poor, Black neighbourhood. I was fine until I tried to get a cab to take me to the Holiday Inn. The first driver refused to take me, after warning me against going there at all. When I finally arrived at the hotel, I went to push the door. When it didn’t open, I pulled but it was still locked.

  I tried again. Was the hotel closed? I was sure this was the right address. I could see someone had come into the lobby. I waved to get her attention, but she refused to open the door. Instead, she pointed to a sign that read: “Please show your photo ID to the reception to validate your identity as a hotel guest.” The lobby was locked. I’d travelled around the world and I’d never been to a hotel where they locked the entrance to the lobby. I started to feel nauseous; the alters were getting restless. Maybe I’d made a mistake coming here.

  Eventually, I got in but that night I had a lot of trouble sleeping. The nausea came and went, and later I had a strange dream. A blond girl was using sign language to interpret for me but she was talking at the same time. I told her to stop talking, but she wouldn’t stop. She was grinning at me as if to say, Up yours, I’ll do what I want. I argued with her, getting increasingly angry, and she just kept defying me. All at once I realized she wasn’t an interpreter; she was an alter. I didn’t know which one because I didn’t know what they looked like. When I woke up, I wrote in my journal:

  Who is there?

  Too many men here too many men here no like dangerous not safe fuck off dangerous no like too many men watch out look out not safe here anywhere damn trouble know from much. — Pricilla

  I had a headache and wondered if Trouble was causing it. I asked in the journal:

  Trouble. Are you there? Who is there? What’s going on?

  There were two alters communicating with me. I am pretty sure one was Trouble.

  You want to know what’s going on fine ask but you don’t listen so fuck you … I told you not good here. Take a cab not safe and you don’t listen. — Sophie

  Men too many men here don’t like, very scary, you never listen to us, always risk, don’t want you alone too scared too many men. — Pricilla

  I responded, Yes, I did listen. I took a cab yesterday afternoon instead of the subway and I came right to my room.

  Because I made you feel bad you would have stayed out and took the subway and everything so I made you feel bad and that always works. — Trouble

  This was the first time any of the alters had tried to stop me from doing what I needed to do. I was nervous. A little nausea as a warning sign was one thing, but now I had a terrible headache. I couldn’t just stay in the hotel room. My employer had paid for the course; how could I explain not going? I had to work it out with Trouble. I was alone in the hotel room so we had a conversation out loud.

  “I’m the boss, do what I say or else I’ll give you the worst headache ever,” Trouble said.

  “But I am listening. I promise I’ll take cabs from now on and I’ll find someone else in the hotel to walk to school and back with me. The men are safe. They’re not dangerous. They’re students like me.”

  “You don’t know if they’re dangerous. Why are all the doors locked if they’re not dangerous?”

  So it was the locked door that scared them.

  “The doors are locked because there are a lot of robberies around here, but I don’t have anything valuable so you don’t have to worry. I promise. To tell you the truth, you’re scaring me more than the men.”

  That worked. No wonder I was tired all the time.

  When I got back to Toronto, I thought about writing my mother a letter. She had just had some kind of stroke and Alvin said she really wanted to talk to me. I figured I owed her an explanation, but after consulting the alters I had second thoughts:

  Is someone there who wants to talk about having contact with my mother?

  Yes I do want to talk about it. I’m sick about it and can’t believe you really want to see her. I am really sick about it really sick. Let her die who cares, just let her die from it. She deserves to die after what she did. I can’t believe you really care about her at all ugh ugh ugh. — Trouble

  I won’t help you at all. I hate this stuff I hate you and your brother and I wish it would just stop. Oh you got my views now you shit fuck face. Who cares what she suffers after what she made us suffer. Who cares. — unsigned

  Simon here now. I feel rather differently about it. My view is that if your mother is willing to hear this, you should talk to her after all she was also a victim of Jack and maybe it would help you and I know you love her and would feel devastated if she died without seeing you or hearing from you so I think you should write that letter and see what happens.

  NO, I WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN NO WAY NO, I WON’T LET THAT HAPPEN NO WAY CAN’T HAPPEN. TOO SCARY, TOO SCARY. — Porsha

  I didn’t write the letter. My mother recovered from what was a ministroke.

  While I was thinking about how I could survive the intense feelings and confusion produced by my therapy, Norma Scarborough asked me to have lunch with her. Norma was president of the Canadian Association for Repeal of the Abortion Law during the fight for the Morgentaler clinic in Toronto. In her sixties, a school secretary, and a mother who had lived in the suburbs, Norma was a comforting presence for our movement in the media. Her white hair, warm smile, and soft face belied a fierce determination in her commitment to the cause and to what she thought was right.

  I hadn’t seen Norma in a while. When I walked into the small coffee shop near the CHS
office, I was very happy to see her.

  “Judy, Doris Anderson and I were talking about who is going to take over as president of NAC this year.”

  The National Action Committee on the Status of Women was the most powerful women’s group in Canada. NAC was a federation of more than five hundred women’s groups from across Canada, ranging from the Conservative Party Women’s Caucus to the Communist Party Women’s Caucus to the Women’s Temperance League to Vancouver Rape Relief, a radical anti-violence group. A new president was elected every year with a two-term limit. Doris Anderson, a pioneer feminist, had been president of NAC in the early 1980s.

  During the pro-choice struggle, I was also advocating for employment equity as part of my job at CHS. In 1984, Justice Rosalie Abella produced a landmark report on employment equality. Instead of using the controversial American term “affirmative action,” she coined the term “employment equity.” More importantly she identified four “target” groups — women, visible minorities, people with disabilities, and Indigenous people — who faced higher levels of unemployment, underemployment, and wage inequality. On March 8, 1985, Flora MacDonald, the minister of employment and immigration in Mulroney’s government and a true feminist, introduced a federal employment equity act in response to Abella’s report.

  People with disabilities, and agencies serving them, saw a real opportunity to fight for jobs in the context of the new law. My boss Denis Morrice asked me to co-chair a coalition of disabled people and agencies to lobby for employment equity in his stead. My role here was very different. I was a behind-the-scenes organizer, using my contacts and experience to create more impact.

  My work on employment equity had soon led to my involvement with NAC. This was during the time of the free trade debate and NAC was playing a major role. Economist Marjorie Cohen had written an influential paper showing that the proposed free trade agreement with the United States would not only affect industrial jobs, but it would lower the standards of our social programs, which would have a negative impact on service jobs, most of which were held by women. Many of us felt inadequate when it came to debating free trade because of the focus on economics. Up until that point, feminist issues focused mainly on political and social inequality. Varda Burstyn proposed starting a Women Against Free Trade group in Toronto and I worked on that committee as well, learning more about the economics as we organized.

  “We both agreed that you would be the perfect person,” Norma continued. “We’ve consulted with quite a few women. They agree. With Mulroney in power we need a fighter and we need someone who’s good in the media. You fit the bill. Plus I think women across the board trust you. You’ve travelled around the country, so everyone knows you. You’ve been involved with NAC committees over the last couple of years, so you know how the organization works.”

  “But I’ve never served on the NAC executive. Isn’t there an heir apparent on the executive who wants to do it?”

  “Not really. Everyone agrees you’d be the best person. If you want it, I’m pretty sure it’s yours,” Norma said firmly.

  I agreed to run.

  Sixteen

  Throwing Caution to the Wind

  The offer to become president of NAC arrived at a moment when I needed to find a way through the chaos I was experiencing. I was feeling more and more helpless as I relived the abuse and tried to deal with the personalities. At the time the only book about childhood sexual abuse was My Father’s House by Sylvia Fraser. Once she had recovered her memories, Fraser spent a lot of time alone, and in her words let herself go mad until she had worked through the trauma. I could never do that. My instinct told me that if I let myself fall into madness I would never get out of it. The personalities would take over and I would disappear. I needed to feel powerful in my life to survive.

  In key moments of my life, I’ve known what I had to do. I get a feeling in my solar plexus, what some people call intuition or an inner voice. Despite my ability to dissociate from my feelings, I was always attuned to that intuition. I didn’t think about what I had to do; I just knew. What could make me feel more powerful than being president of the country’s largest women’s group?

  Marcia was against it and so was my brother Alvin.

  Simon spoke to me through my journal on March 15:

  I don’t think you can handle this, Judy. I am very worried about things. You are sick and working too hard and now you’re feeling like running for NAC, which I’m not sure is a good idea at all. I am worried that everything will collapse and you won’t make it. I am very, very worried. I want you to think very carefully about this decision, very carefully because life is precious and you don’t want to throw it away.

  Up until this point I had listened to Simon. When he told me that the only way to protect my sanity was to cut off contact with my father, I did it. When he told me that I couldn’t see Susan Swan because she scared too many of the alters, I did that, too. Susan was a very close friend who had helped me through a lot of hard times, but she was sometimes very invasive in her questioning. While it was a quality that I really appreciated, it scared some of the alters so I stopped seeing her for a time. But now I was certain that I couldn’t survive the therapy without feeling powerful in my life and equally certain, as I always was, that I could handle it. I always felt better when I was active. The more work I did, whether in the women’s movement or at my paid job, the better I felt. Working to change the world was like medicine to me. I needed to be engaged. I needed to help others. I couldn’t survive if I just concentrated on myself.

  Of course there were also political reasons for me to run. Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney was moving the country to the right through the free trade agreement with the United States. NAC had played a major role in opposing the treaty, which would effectively weaken social programs. NAC had also opposed the Meech Lake Accord, a set of proposed amendments to the Constitution recognizing Quebec as a “distinct society,” which was Mulroney’s greatest priority because the province had not yet signed on to the Constitution, which had been repatriated from Britain in 1982. The Conservative government’s response to NAC’s opposition was to cut its funding and attempt to discredit the organization. Barbara McDougall, the minister responsible for the status of women in Mulroney’s government, would say, “I belong to the YWCA because I want to swim and the YWCA is a member group of NAC, but NAC doesn’t speak for me.” If the organization wasn’t able to show that it did indeed represent women, more funding cuts would come.

  The Montreal Massacre had brought a whole new level of attention to issues of violence against women. The Mulroney government was trying to recriminalize abortion through Bill C-43. The Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies, which was looking at how to regulate new technologies like IVF, was beginning hearings. In some ways, the women’s movement was at the height of its power, and I thought I could make a difference.

  Mostly I kept my troubles a secret, but I did tell Alice de Wolff, NAC’s executive director. I figured if anyone needed to know it was her. I told Alice in confidence about recovering from the abuse and even about the multiple personalities. She told me she wasn’t worried because I was a strong, effective person. Later, she confessed that she didn’t know anything about multiple personality disorder, and she might have been more worried if she had.

  Just before the June 1990 NAC annual general meeting, in which I would be acclaimed president, the federal government cut $1.6 million from women’s centres and shelters. In Newfoundland, women’s groups occupied the secretary of state’s offices for more than a week to oppose the cutbacks. The secretary of state was responsible for funding women’s groups. The women mobilized tremendous support in the community with people delivering food and drink from around St. John’s. NAC issued a supportive press release. Then one of the women from Newfoundland called and asked if I could help organize solidarity actions across the country through NAC’s networks. As a
lobby group, NAC was not accustomed to organizing street-level demonstrations, but the member groups mobilized into action.

  The secretary of state was Gerry Weiner, so we had barbecue wiener roasts in front of his department’s offices across the country. In Toronto we were dragged out by police after a few hours. John Crosbie, a much more powerful Conservative minister who was from Newfoundland, spoke out in Parliament, demanding that the government reverse the cuts. And they did. It was a tremendous victory for women’s groups and set up my presidency as being a new wave of feminist activism.

  Being NAC president brought a whole new level of public attention to me. It’s true that I was in the media a lot during the abortion struggle, but most people didn’t know my name. I was the girl from the clinic or Morgentaler’s spokesperson. Once I was president of NAC, I became a public figure. All the newspapers did profiles; from the Montreal Gazette’s “Rebel with Many Causes” to the Globe and Mail’s “NAC President a Radical Both Friends and Foes Say” to the Toronto Star’s “One Tough Fighter,” the story was the same and pretty accurate, too. The Star tried to get me to pose wearing boxing gloves, but I declined. The media liked me because of my history with the pro-choice struggle and because they figured I’d make for good copy, so the profiles were very positive, which I have to admit made me feel pretty good.

  In addition to announcing that NAC would be more radical and visible protesting in the streets, I was clear about my priorities as its new president. In Toronto, women of colour had been fighting for inclusion since the early 1980s and I had been part of that struggle in the IWD coalition. Through employment equity work, I understood the power of what today we would call “intersectional feminism,” linking gender equality with equality for other oppressed groups. And my work with unions through the pro-choice movement helped me understand the power of working-class women. In my acceptance speech I said: