Chapter Text
The signs came slowly at first. Christy referring to conversations he didn’t recall. Driving to work and ending up at the mall without remembering the trip in between. It wasn’t until Thanksgiving that these episodes became impossible to ignore. Link had woken up on the couch to the smoke alarm screaming and the turkey black as charcoal in the oven. He had angrily asked Christy how she could have possibly forgotten the turkey in the oven and Christy shot back in astonishment that he was absolutely not allowed to insult her cooking skills, ban her from the kitchen all day, and then blame her when dinner got burnt. It was then that they decided Link needed to see a doctor.
After a few assessments, the diagnosis came back. Dissociative Identity Disorder. Link stared at the paper in his hands and the three little letters, DID, stared back at him. This didn’t make any sense. Sure Link could be a little forgetful sometimes but that was just a part of who he was. This was something only crazy people had. And didn’t it come from childhood abuse? He hadn’t experienced anything like that. He’d lived a normal childhood. He remembered his life with fantastic clarity. There absolutely had to be something wrong. Despite these numerous objections, a trauma specialist was recommended and therapy began three weeks later.
Mary Fields was a kind woman with softly curled hair and gentle eyes. Her voice was quiet yet authoritative in the way one would expect to hear as a mother guided her child. Her demeanor put some of Link’s anxieties at ease but as he settled into their first meeting, his defenses were still high.
“I don’t need to be here,” Link said cooly as he sat on a white, pillow covered couch and avoided eye contact. Mary sat across from him in a plush armchair. To her left was a rocking chair with a brown teddybear placed on the seat. He chose to look at the bear.
“I can tell that you don’t feel comfortable, but that’s perfectly normal,” Mary assured him. “I just want you to know that our sessions together can be whatever you need them to be. If you want to talk about the stresses of work or family life we can do that.”
Link chuckled bitterly. “Talking about family would open quite a can of worms, wouldn’t it?”
“How so?”
“Christy is worried about me,” Link informed the bear. “Sort of. No…I think she’s more worried about herself. And the kids. She doesn’t want me to come home covered in blood and acting all confused about it got there.”
“Have you hurt anyone before?”
“I incinerated a turkey.”
“Link, how familiar are you with DID?”
“I mean, I looked it up a bit. You get real messed up as a kid and then a bunch of people live in your head. Like Sybil.”
Mary paused, carefully piecing together what to say next.
“Not quite like Sybil,” she began slowly. “Not in most cases, at least. DID forms before the age of six. When a child experiences repeated traumatic events during this developmental stage, their brain fractures into different parts. All those parts are you. They aren’t other people. It’s just that instead of forming as one, uniform personality you have developed separate compartments in your mind where different parts of you live. What we try to accomplish first and foremost in therapy is cooperation within your system. You and your alters, those other pieces of you. Does that make sense?”
“No,” Link said frankly. He looked Mary in the eyes this time. “I’m almost forty. I’ve never had alters before. No one ever told me I was acting like someone else. I don’t remember anything bad happening to me when I was a kid.”
“Well, you wouldn’t,” Mary explained. “One of the purpose of alters is to hold those traumatic memories and hide them from you. To protect you.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“No, you’re not. I would never suggest you were. You are a normal human being whose mind went through a normal defensive response. There’s nothing crazy about that.”
“Whatever.”
“Multiple personalities, huh? When do I get to meet them?” Rhett asked at lunch the next day. Link had been worried that he would be offended that he had waited almost a month to tell him about the diagnosis but Rhett was completely unfazed by any of it. He might as well have said “Hey, three weeks ago I got a puppy.”
“You’re not weirded out about this at all?”
“No way, man,” Rhett said, crunching down on a carrot stick. “It is what it is. You’re my best friend. Nothing’s going to change that.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Except now I guess I have a bunch of best friends.”
Link was unimpressed.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m sorry, buddy,” Rhett said, his voice empathetic. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just mean that I’m here for you no matter what. I don’t think any differently of you just because someone gave you a label. You’re Link Neal. That’s all that matters to me.”
Link couldn’t help but smile at his friend’s reassurances. He was still uncomfortable about the whole thing, but he could feel some of the frustration surrounding the subject melt away. He picked up his mug and swirled it, watching the water inside slosh along the inside of the cup. “Thanks, man. I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you’re treating this so…normally.”
“How else would I treat it?”
“Well,” contemplated Link, leaning back in his chair, “since it’s you I guess there really is no other way.” He laughed. Nothing was funny, he was just shocked at how comfortable Rhett could make him about literally anything. No matter the ups or downs, there was always Rhett. Sitting in the employee lounge sharing lunch and chatting together about this made everything seem less intimidating. The two continued to talk and the conversation naturally drifted to other topics: upcoming Good Mythical Morning concepts, the company New Year’s party, what to get their wives for Christmas. It almost seemed like everything was normal. After lunch, the two climbed into Rhett’s car and carpooled home. Link watched the LA traffic stall them on one side and zoom past them on the other. He blinked, and he was on the roof of his home. It was dark out. He turned around and looked through the window behind him. Christy was staring at him with tears in his eyes.
“And what did Christy tell you after you came to?” Mary asked. She didn’t take as many notes as Link thought therapists were supposed to. She spent most of the time just listening. It made Link feel good.
“She said that I kept going on and on about how I wanted to get out of the house and away from everybody. I guess my accent came back which was the first thing that tripped her up.”
“Your accent?”
“I grew up in North Carolina,” Link explained.
“And so you went out on the roof?”
“Apparently. And I took my shirt off, too. I was freezing when I came back inside. It was like forty-five degrees out.”
“What else did Christy say?”
“That I called myself Larnold. That’s the main reason why she was crying. She said that she thought I was mad at her and just faking this whole multiple personality thing to hurt her.”
“Because you called yourself a different name?”
“No, because I called myself Larnold. He’s a character Rhett and I came up with for one of our shows. He’s fake.”
“It doesn’t sound like he’s fake.”
“He is though!” Link insisted. “He’s some hillbilly caricature written up for a Youtube video. Why would I call myself that?”
“Link,” Mary leaned forward slightly and rested her forearms on her knees. “Sometimes our alters communicate with us in subtle ways. The fact that they are surfacing so distinctly now is a good sign. It means your mind feels healthy enough to let them be known. It’s possible that before now, your alters more hidden presence manifested itself as creative inspiration.”
“That’s crazy, though.”
“It’s not,” Mary said, and then before he could ask his next question she answered it by saying, “and neither are you.”
“Well why don’t you do some research on it?” Rhett asked. Link was exhausted. He and Christy had been up all night fighting about the roof episode. One thing he loved about their marriage was that they never went to bed without resolving major conflict, but last night that resulted in a bed time of three AM. To add insult to injury, his tired mind had prevented him from correctly answering six of the eight zoo facts on during that day’s Good Mythical Morning. That gave him the extra punishment of having to drink a “zoo food smoothie” consisting of the most unappetizing zoo diet ingredients for various animals. The one mouthful he attempted to drink had ended up in the trashcan but the taste still lingered in his mouth. He was in the employee bathroom brushing his teeth when Rhett, leaning against the next sink over, brought up the suggestion.
“What do you mean research?” Link asked, spitting toothpaste into the drain and continuing to brush.
“I’ve been reading up on DID—”
“Wait, you’ve been reading about this?” Link asked incredulously. His mouth was still half full of toothpaste and some dribbled out onto his chin as Link spoke. Rhett’s eyes glimmered with an amused grin and he pointed to his beard.
“You, uh, you got something there, buddy.”
Link quickly rinsed his face and toothbrush and gargled water. When he finished, Rhett continued where he left off.
“There’s these ways of communicating with alters,” Rhett said with a nonchalance that still seemed almost inappropriate to Link. “Some people have a special journal where alters write when they come out. Some people have each alter keep a video diary. That way you can become more aware of each other and work on becoming co-conscious.”
“Co-conscious?”
“It basically sounded like being able to see and hear everything that an alter is doing while they do it. So you don’t lose time. You can even get to the point where you can have internal meetings with your alters so you all work together better.”
“Woah, woah,” Link put his hand up between himself and Rhett. Rhett pulled his head back slightly, surprised by the gesture. “You’re talking about having a powwow with fake people in my head?”
“They’re not fake, Buddyroll.” Rhett’s voice was gentle. That soft, authoritative gentle that Mary mastered so completely. In therapy the tone was reassuring but coming from Rhett it felt degrading. He didn’t need to be consoled. He didn’t need to be lectured by someone who suddenly had an internet PhD in psychology. Rhett wasn’t his doctor. He wasn’t his parent. He was his friend. All this researched information felt like a slap in the face. Link knew how to take care of himself. He didn’t need Rhett to do it for him.
“What do you know?” Link barked. Rhett’s face looked shocked at the sudden burst of anger. “You don’t know what is happening to me. I don’t even know what is happening to me. I’m not some trauma victim. I’m not going to make a journal or…whatever! This is a phase. We’ve been working too hard, plus it’s the holidays. I’m stressed and it’s making me act weird. That’s it, ok?”
“…ok.” Rhett didn’t try to mask the hurt in his voice. He just looked at his friend in silence, his brow slightly furrowed in injured confusion. Link turned his head sharply away and firmly grabbed both sides of the sink with his hands, his head heavily drooping in front of the mirror. He didn't speak.
“Listen,” Rhett began cautiously, but Link didn’t let him finish. He stood slowly and looked at Rhett with a somber face. Not angry, just serious. His chin was tilted slightly upward in an uncharacteristically prideful pose. Rhett’s eyebrow raised as he waited for something to happen.
“Sorry about that,” Link said. His voice was slightly lower than normal. “Link is a sensitive man. You’ve known him long enough. I’m sure you understand.”
“Who…who am I talking too?”
“Seaborne. I’m very interested in what you have to say. I think maybe the two of us can help solve Link’s problem. Let’s go talk in the break room.”