WEBVTT	#Elemental Media Engine(TM) 2.17.1.0

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Bri: I don't know how
much you know about it.

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I just don't want to say
something that's too far advanced.

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So if I do just say
OK, I have a question.

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In everything there is a scale.

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Dissociative disorders can be anything
from feeling like I'm here, but not here.

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Is this a dream? Is this real?

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To switching to a completely
different personality.

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A lot of people think
that DID is like forever.

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Like it's permanent
and it isn't.

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And it's fun.

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Because if you look at
it from an abstract view,

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not in the heat of the moment
like everything is different.

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When you're looking at it
from here, versus right here.

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It's all about perspective.

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[Bouncy music]

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For our clarity alters will always mean
someone in my head that's not me.

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I have at least 67.

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I say at least because like I
worked with a therapist and we

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wrote out the different
ones that we could name.

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Me, I am Bri.

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Maybe answer the first question
first, the ones that are most prevalent.

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And I have probably
a good five or six.

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[Children playing in background]

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So I have Norawa,
she's a seven-year-old.

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Just like cute little
button seven-year-old.

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You know, like she just
wants to cuddle with everybody

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and have a story told to her, and
do colouring books.

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But with magic markers
'cause they're for big girls.

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And there's Angel.
She's more serious.

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She tries to joke around a bit
but it comes off way more serious.

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She comes in and she tries to
joke around, and it offends everyone.

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And then she doesn't understand
what happened because she was

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trying to joke around,
but she's very serious.

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And then there's Symantha,
that's S, Y, M, A, N, T, H, A.

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And she is the Protector.

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I had a really hard time
protecting myself from stuff.

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I didn’t think I was worth it, but
boy if there was somebody innocent

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who needed it I could
sure get in somebody's face.

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If I'm her, right?

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And then I have Riley who's
14 and she's more studious.

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She's very practical.

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[Jingly music]

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She's the one that when I organise
stuff she comes behind me and goes

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"it looks better this way."

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And this is my struggle with her
because we both organise well,

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but she likes to go by
colours, and I like to go by size.

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You're in the middle of doing
something you know totally how to do.

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You just remember
being in your car,

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and now all of a sudden you're halfway
through making like Thanksgiving Dinner.

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Did you put in the salt?
Did you not put in the salt?

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[Bouncy music]

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How long has the pie been
in? Did you set the timer?

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[Thump] [Bouncy music]

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[School bell rings]

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The one thing I've been able to keep
from the time I was seven is my journals

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Because I hid them.

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I would bury them. I
would stuff them in walls.

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I put them under things that nobody
looked at which I thought was fascinating.

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And when I was free I went
back and collected them. [Laughs]

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So all of me writes, different
handwriting, different hands.

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Just depends on who is who.

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I don't know anybody with DID

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who hasn't gone
through something so mind-numbingly awful

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to even just express it.

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I might be able to tell you what happened,

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but it would be flat affect
all the way, no emotion.

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Because if I put emotion
in there I can't talk.

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There's so much, so much.

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I was sold when I
was 15 months old.

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I didn’t get out until I was 36.

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That'll do it. That'll do it.

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Because a lot of times during
this human trafficking like the first

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part of it is basically
breaking you in.

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Ad if they get you at such a
young age they break you into

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a way that compartmentalises
your mind anyway.

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Makes you exactly
what they need to sell.

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That day, that
weekend, whatever it is.

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I have parts of me
that are from always.

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They're innocent little pieces of my
brain that know exactly what the process

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is of sex which is really
sad, but it's still very true.

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For some reason I was blessed
with an aptitude, with a higher IQ.

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And so I adapted really
well. That's how I survived.

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It was my biological mother
who did it. She sold me.

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Her house was one of
the ones that got raided.

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She actually didn't go to prison.
She was released on a technicality.

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[Thoughtful music] I called the
National Human Trafficking Hotline.

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I saw it in some store
and I was able to get away

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long enough to make a phone call,
and they hooked me up to the FBI.

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The FBI raided the place,

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and then took me and dropped
me off at a domestic violence shelter.

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I had no family, no
friends, no connections.

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There was no
place for me to go to.

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There's no halfway house for
people who don't know anything

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about how to be a person you know?

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I knew how to be sold. I knew how
to be what someone told me to be,

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but I didn't know how to
make choices for myself.

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I didn't feel strong then. I do
now. [Laughs] But I sure didn’t then.

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When I first moved here I had to really
hone in on my ability to rein in my terror.

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Every little noise
just scared me.

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I didn't know who to
talk to, who I could talk to.

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So I talked to everyone. Because when I'm
anxious apparently I become a blabbermouth

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and just hello everybody!

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Let's all talk together! And let's just
keep talking no matter what we're saying.

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And [laughs] it was a bunch of
nonsense, and I had to rein that in!

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I saw one of the guys who had purchased me.

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He was at the gas
station here by this house.

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And he saw me. And
he got out of his car.

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I was sitting in the truck,

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and my boyfriend was in the gas
station and he got out of his truck

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like he was going to
come over to the one I was in.

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I cannot tell you the fear. Because
I don't even know how to express it.

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I peed my pants.
Like I really did.

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And he was getting out, and he was
just passing the gas pump on his truck.

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And Chris walked out of the gas
station, and that's my boyfriend.

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And the guy saw him, and Chris
is big, tall guy. Six foot, muscles.

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He has one of those looks
of the don’t F with me looks.

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This guy looked at him, and looked at me,
and got back in his truck and drove away.

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I've never seen
that happen before.

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People I have been with, that I tried
to get away have been hurt, and killed.

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This is the first time ever that
someone was there for me.

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And he didn't even like, know.

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He got back in the truck, and I tell
him and he's just like "what I'm here for."

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Like to him he was like of course. I
love you, that's what I do you know?

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And to me never happened before.
Hey, I was 37, whole 37 years.

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Parents didn't even
do that. nobody.

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And he's just like that's what
people do when they love you.

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Rocked my entire world.

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I don't have a favourite.

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The way that I was able to

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heal was we had to create some
form [whistle blowing] of communication.

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And I don't like words
because words can lie.

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So no talking in my head for the most part.

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But emotion can't lie. So I picture
like my - like you know the world?

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How there's in the very centre it's
molten magma, and it's hot, and it's fiery?

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Are you following me?

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All right, now let's put
this over here for a second.

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Do you remember Care Bears?

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Well Care Bears had the
little symbol on their belly.

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And when someone else was feeling
sad they would do the Care Bear Stare,

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and they'd stare all the
good emotions into that one!

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Yeah? OK, the very, very middle of me.

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The middle of who I am
is that molten, hot love.

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The gooeyness that is. The
goodness, the middle it's me.

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And every single one of
my alters is a pot of that.

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But each one is a
different Care Bear.

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So when somebody is feeling sad, or angry
and they need a different feeling from

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someone else inside we do the Care Bear
Stare at each other, and they receive it.

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And that's how my insides
communicate with each other.

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The middle, the core, the
love. That's my favourite.

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My greatest desire
is to put this out there

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in a way that is not
self-deprecating.

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Because it insults the people
I'm with, along with myself.

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I am awesome right now.

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I mean I'm in school. These are
really important, huge, big things.

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From a person who was told they were
stupid their whole life, and now I matter.

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And I don't just matter
to the people around me.

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I matter to me.

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And any other person with DID,

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or with depression, or anxiety, or
post-traumatic stress disorder can come

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to a place to find themselves
where they're also -

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have that burning
magma thing in the middle.

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That's just love.

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[Bouncy music]