One face, many voices.

Today has been a very hard day. I had my first appointment with my Therapist for 2012 today, and it went well, but....
I am currently in the process of applying to the government for financial assistance. In order to do this I must show them how sick I really am. I have an interview on Monday with someone from that department to access my ability to work. Today my therapist wrote a letter of recommendation for me to assist in the process. We worked on it together. She asked me to list the symptoms I experience regularly, these she included in the letter.
Although these symptoms are of course nothing new to me,( I live them every day) it was very upsetting to see them listed in such a way. I guess ultimately I live a level of denial about the symptoms I experience as well. I know I have the disorder, I know it disrupts my day to day life and how I function, but the depth of it really doesn't sink in until times like this. Its like taking all my worst features and laying them down in black and white for all to see, and it sounds terrible. I sound sick.
OK, I have a serious disorder and will be receiving treatment for it for many years to come, but for me this is the only life I know. I don't know what it is like to not hear voices in your head every day. I don't know how people go through a day with their own private thoughts and feelings and no one interrupts to tell them they are wrong or to decide to take over.
My life is not my own, neither is my body or my thoughts. Every waking moment I share them with over 15 other people who have their own desires and opinions. It is never quiet, and not often easy. But to me this is life. I am not one, I am many, and together we function in this body the best we know how. Perhaps that is the biggest thing for me to remember...I AM MANY! I appear as one but that has nothing to do with the truth. To function together everyday is a challenge, a big challenge. The smallest things can be the hardest things to master. What to wear, what to eat, what to do? Are all questions that need to be to some degree agreed on by the group. ( or at least whom ever is near the surface at the time) I have stood in my kitchen and cried over wanting to eat a tuna sandwich for lunch that another alter could not stomach. Some days it all gets too hard, many days,  I give up and do nothing or eat nothing as it is easier than the fight.
I am confused as to what I am supposed to be doing in a day, I often take my cues from others around me. Voices chattering in my head about what they think or want. Things I am supposed to listen to but haven't heard because I have not taken time away from life to catch what they say. Feeling nauseated or terrified for no apparent reason, but knowing it comes from someone inside and if you work hard at it, it may subside..in a day or two.
This is normal to me. I have lived this way all my life. I cant imagine being any other way. To me this is normal, it only seems strange to others.....and sometimes to me, as I begin to see the truth of what my life has become.