The Nom de Plume
A series of works in progress
Self-Diagnosis is the preface to one’s autopsy of body, mind and spirit -- the cathartic ability to self analyze and help guide the soul to healing. It had taken four decades for Nicollette Winslow to stand completely naked in front of a mirror, void of clothing or make up, observe her visual scars on the surface, accepting the ones not seen, and fully embrace who she’d become.
The mirror is often brutally revealing and a highly provocative platform in which to stand in front of a jury of your own peers, those twelve indifferent personalities of your inner being. The ones who’ll be all too happy to tell you you’re not pretty enough, not good enough, not young or thin enough, not nice or tough enough, not smart or athletically inclined or anything in between, not loved nor valued nor appreciated, and never of these, are you enough.
Addiction and compulsion in Nicollette’s life, for all intense purposes, were a union, for better or for worse. One didn’t really exist without the other. Each mildly tempered, they fed and supported one another in a murky sort of codependence, quietly dysfunctional and without a sense of malignancy. If addiction reared its ugly head, compulsion would step in and set limits for addiction to abide by. In return when compulsion overwhelmed, addiction would step up to the plate providing temporary relief. As with many relationships, together they balanced and managed her, allowing for (the illusion of) perfectionism, regularly keeping the realities of dysfunction hidden far away in the back shadows, always giving the impression of a state of healthy and happy. She was far from having multiple personalities, though it would have benefitted her greatly during tumultuous times in her life to point the finger at ‘one of them’, and in general, it permitted her to portray a fairy tale life. But when you mix in one too many elements, the concoction can become lethal, and when rebellion came for a visit -- and it often did throughout her life -- it continually threatened to rock the fairy tale with minor explosions.