Hello…Ragdoll here.

Andrea has decided to give me space (and time) to tell my side of our story. It goes back quite a ways, but is mostly a slow burn until this year. So I’ll try to keep it brief, try to keep it moving and try to keep it interesting. I think it is.

There is talk of unaliving, so if that bothers you, you may want to skip this entry and move on. It is Andrea’s blog after all.

About thirty years ago, there was a very bad event that happened to us. It was a suicide that, while not successful, was more successful than we would realize. This previous person, who I’ll call The Progenitor because I have a love of pretentious code names (I didn’t name me the Ragdoll, though), attempted to kill herself, but when she pulled the trigger nothing happened. But everything happened.

At that moment, she shattered.

The Progenitor was a writer and she had hundreds of characters in her head. And with the Progenitor shattered, we were all likely going to die. It was decided (not by me) that I would be the replacement. My story involved coming out of an amnesia to create my own personality, and therefore I would be the best one of us to take over. I was shoved to the front and locked in, and I opened my eyes not knowing who or where I was.

It took two days in a storm drain to reconnect all that, and I became convinced I was The Progenitor.

Fast forward about five years. Still thinking I was The Progenitor, I began creating a story and the main character suddenly appeared to me. They didn’t need to be built or created. They were just there. We began working on our stories for about five years, when I noticed she’d become aware of “the real world.” Around the same time I began doing a lot of meditation and she and the character that is “The Oracle” were somehow able to get involved in my meditations. I found it weird, but sure, why not.

And during these meditations and deep dives, I learned I wasn’t The Progenitor but one of the story characters. And that’s when Andrea realized “if Ragdoll can get out, I can.” And one night in 2005, she did.

I don’t know how she did it, but she got out and thankfully when the house was empty. She didn’t do much apparently. Exploring the house and backyard and eating an orange from what she’s told me. What was I doing? No idea. A mystery I would solve twenty years later.

As I learned more and more about us and our system, I began telling close friends. “I think I have some kind of personality issue going on. I don’t think I’m really…real.” Some people took it well. And that made me confident. And then three people took it badly. Two took it very badly. I lost a relationship over that reveal.

I decided that this was all bad. This was all very bad. And I dropped it. Not just externally but internally. I didn’t just stop talking about it. I blocked my memory of all this. And I didn’t just block my memory of it. I blocked Andrea and I blocked The Oracle. All of them went back to being stories, and I went back to thinking I was The Progenitor.

And that would have been the end of it had I not met Tay Tay twenty years later.

One day Tay Tay revealed to me that there were others. Taylor and Didi. And I took it in stride. I’d had personal experience in this, wether I remembered it or not. I eventually got to know Taylor and Didi and they got to know me. And then they learned about how my story world, The Backwoods, worked. And they were very much insistent that they were all people like Taylor and Didi.

I pushed back, of course. They’re all stories. I remember “training” those characters into their stories. But they insisted.

And during a big talk about this with Didi, and my defense of who my story characters were which got a bit heated, who came out in my defense but Andrea. Andrea kept pushing back about how she was a story. And Didi smacked her and I with a bit of logic.

“You have your own thoughts don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re independent of Ragdoll, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You tell her your story, not the other way around, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You are a real living thinking person.”

And not only did that stop Andrea in her tracks. It made her remember her time out. And it made me remember who I used to be.

That first week or two was really hard. Something I do is this thing where my characters can type through me. I relay stuff to them, they relay it to me, and we can talk to people online that way. There was a lot of talk between Taylor and Andrea this way. Learning who and what we were. And then Taylor learned Andrea got out once.

It took a lot of coercion, a lot of reassurance, and a lot of “you’re going to be fine,” but I voluntarily stepped aside and she took over for an evening. Taylor was there for her the whole time. And me? I don’t remember. According to Andrea, I mentally slumped over and fell down while she took over. I “ragdolled” which is where I got my name from.

And the mystery of what happened to me in 2005, was solved. Even a mystery of a missing twelve hours of time (and 260 miles!) was finally solved.

Today, things are not great for us, but not in a personal way. My life is super busy and complicated. And now I have an invisible roommate I live with while losing half my hours. How is it April already? January was 102 days ago. But for me, it was around 51. I’m doing my best to give her time for her life. And she is doing her best to be patient with me. We’ve carved out a bit of a schedule where she gets around half the time and I do. I still have to go to work, and she almost shared in that, too.

She’s learned to drive, has a love of coffee (yech), hiking (yay!) and listens to music 24/7 (why is my radio on the Top 40 station?), and thanks to Taylor enjoys the slow life of reading and taking it easy. She’s not a time waster, though. She decided on her own she didn’t want half of my job and instead takes care of the house for me. She’s made my bed more times than I ever have in my entire life. I’m even teaching her how to cook as best as I can being unconscious when she’s out.

And she likes pranking me. Often passing control back to me and finding myself in the water heater closet, or slumped in the corner. Once in the shower. A few months ago, I bought a little ragdoll for myself. Just something for me to have and to try and get more comfy not having control (and essentially snoozing) for half my time. She found it, and puts it around the house. Once sitting it at the table like it was having dinner, another time sitting on the couch with a game controller in her lap.

She trolls me, but it’s never hurtful or angering. And I love her for it.

I’m about to pass off to her now, so she can have her half of the day. It still sometimes bothers me and I can get oogy about it if I think about it too much. But she’s taking care me. Probably better than I’m taking care of her.

Thanks for listening. I should let her have her day. Go live your life, Angel.

–Ragdoll