Comment by Trent on 23 Mar 2010 at 2:30 am

Hi Karen,

Greetings from Australia. I just finished reading dr baers book regarding your treatmeant and i must say it has been one of the most amazing reads of my life. I myself have been lucky and fortunate to have never been abused and actually im also in the enviable position of not personally knowing anyone who has either, but even so i must applaud you on your strength and fortitude to go through what you did and come out the other side as well as you have.

I was actually given the book to read by my wife who is a psych nurse and at first i have to admit i was hesitant due to her suggesting to me terrible books in the past, but i was bookless for my morning train ride to work so i thought id give it a chance and im soo glad i did!

I have a few questions that i hope you could find the time to answer for me, and forgive me if youve answered them before in your blog, but as im sure you know its quite large

Firstly Im curious about the gifts/posessions that your alters gave to Dr Baer. They were obviously very important to your various parts but since youve been integrated for some time now, if you see these items, do you still feel any affinity towards them?

Secondly and lastly, at the end of the book Dr baer wrote how he has received over 5000 pages of writings from you, and that was back in 1998, Now that its nearly 12 years later and you have still been filling notebooks and entrusting them to the good Dr, does he have any plans on putting together another book/website of it all? Id love to be able to read some more, and besides surely he must be running out of room haha

i again thank you for your time karen and also thank you for allowing Dr Baer to document this amazing process. I hope everything in your future is what you hope

trent

Dear Trent,

I’m glad you took a chance and read my story, and I’m glad your wife thought my story was interesting, too!

I don’t mind your questions. I’m not sure if I’ve answered them all before, but that never matters to me. I answer each question as it comes and never search back through my previous answers. It’s easier this way.

My alters did give Dr. Baer many gifts through the years. I don’t believe we ever missed a Christmas or birthday, including many in between special occasion gifts. My alters wanted Dr. Baer to feel appreciated in the best way they could. I’m sure Dr. Baer knew that if he did not accept these gifts it would’ve devastated our entire system and well-being.

I recently had the opportunity to take my alters’ gifts, drawings, and journals back from Dr. Baer. But I couldn’t. I became overwhelmed with emotion just viewing the open box. Seeing my alters’ possessions had an affect on me. Once I saw one of the six file boxes that contained my things, I froze. I felt it would be too overwhelming for me to sift through those items at this time. All that my alters and I have shared with Dr. Baer is being cared for by him. Dr. Baer has promised that if something were to happen to him, all will be returned to me. You are right, Dr. Baer is running out of room and has limited space to store more. Actually, I now send him emails: thousands of them since the publication of our book.

Dr. Baer keeps all my writings up to the end of our therapeutic relationship. I myself have a few thousand pages waiting to be shared for a sequel to our story. We surely do have more than enough information! I’m not sure whether Dr. Baer is willing to help put together another book, but I am more than ready to share my journey after integration. I would love for us to write a sequel together.

There is so much more to tell about my becoming one woman, dealing with heartbreak, relationships, dreams, and more.

Thank you for all your kind thoughts, compliments, and well wishes for a future filled with hope. I truly appreciate them.

Karen