Jess cuts herself. Pink spirals and dark scars cover her biceps and thighs and places she can hide. Like cuts, people slice through her life to leave a mark, too. Her brother Jessie is one of them.
Their first year outside the psychiatric facility in which they grew up has Jess trapped in a small town with no friends while Jesse starts his senior year of high school. Jess and Jessie share the same struggle with dissociative identity disorder. They see themselves as different people, but share one body. Each is only the other's reflection.
This book dives into a realistic struggle with a rare neurodivergence and also the more common struggle in all of us to understand who we really are.
Early readers have said âa really compelling novelâ and ââŠliked this book both for its bravery and understanding.â People As Scars deeply explores issues related to CIS gender and accepted gender as well as mental health rights and how these issues play out in daily life for someone coming of age in todayâs world. Those who have been able to engage with these sensitive subjects have found People As Scars to be driving and well thought out.
Jess cuts herself. Pink spirals and dark scars cover her biceps and thighs and places she can hide. Like cuts, people slice through her life to leave a mark, too. Her brother Jessie is one of them.
Their first year outside the psychiatric facility in which they grew up has Jess trapped in a small town with no friends while Jesse starts his senior year of high school. Jess and Jessie share the same struggle with dissociative identity disorder. They see themselves as different people, but share one body. Each is only the other's reflection.
This book dives into a realistic struggle with a rare neurodivergence and also the more common struggle in all of us to understand who we really are.
Early readers have said âa really compelling novelâ and ââŠliked this book both for its bravery and understanding.â People As Scars deeply explores issues related to CIS gender and accepted gender as well as mental health rights and how these issues play out in daily life for someone coming of age in todayâs world. Those who have been able to engage with these sensitive subjects have found People As Scars to be driving and well thought out.
Youâd see the scar my father left first. For six years, his mark had defined me. It whispered my story to everyone who looked.Â
Other whispers around my new school held my attention as I moved from class to class. I could see kids titter and gossip.Â
 âIs she trying to be a boy?âÂ
âDo you think sheâs OK. Like is she gonna stab us âcause a voice in her head tells her to?âÂ
âI wonder if thereâs a real âherâ in there somewhere?âÂ
I tried to ignore the stares. Itâs not like I could blame these kids. Iâd spent plenty of time staring in the mirror asking myself the same questions. Well, when Dr. Grace had let me near a mirror, I guess.
Questions lingered with me constantly. LikeââWhat am I doing here in high school?ââa year older than everyone else and insane. I didnât belong with these children.
The classes offered no surprises. The teachers were reluctant to introduce me. Maybe theyâd been counseled not to draw attention to me, not to draw me out of my shell. They had the wrong person if that was the case. My alter Jess is the introvert. Iâm a rockstar. Iâd have been happy to take center stage and stand in the spotlight.
As it was, the spotlight wasnât offered andâhappy as Iâd have been to bask in itâI didnât really have any drive to seek it out. I was enough of a featured attraction without having to work at it. So I sat in the back and did my best not to sleep.
The one regular performance I had to put on came at 1pm in the guidance counselorâs office. The institution Iâd left had intentionally chosen a small school for me out in the boonies. Someplace calm and quiet. Because of that, the guidance counselor also served as the social studies teacher. He had a Bachelorâs in psych, as I understood it, which made him qualified for both roles when coupled with a Masters in education.
âHey, Jessie,â he said as I stepped into his office.
âSure,â I replied. I took a seat across from him at his desk and made eye contact. He and I would get to know each other really well over the next nine months. Check-ins regularly per Dr. Graceâs orders.
âHowâs the first week going?â he led with. A nice, safe start. Nothing could be wrong with a âHowâs your first week of school?â Iâd learned to read people pretty well in the institution. If youâre around psychs enough, you pick up a trick or two. Mr. Halberd was nervous as all hell. He wasnât really cut out to deal with me. A 17-year-old boyâwell 19-year-old girl to himâwho was certifiably insane. He was a part-time guidance counselor and full-time social studies teacher. But him meeting with me was the only way I could stay in this school. Good of him to agree to it, I guess. Though I suspected he craved some limelight of his own.
âNot bad. Only half over,â I answered without commitment. It took Dr. Grace months to get me used to her. Jess was pretty easy for a shrink. She was blunt and open about her feelings once you got her over her shyness. Me? I talked around my feelings.Â
He tapped nervously on the notebook in front of him. He had one of those stereotypical black and white covered Mead notebooks that schools kept around. He must have grabbed it from the supply closet. I saw over his shoulder that he had a squat bookcase with a few shelves of notebooks. Must have a Mead for each kid he dealt with. Easy way to keep a file, I guess.
I wondered what he kept in those other notebooks? Couldnât be anything too interesting going on in most of these kidsâ lives. Some virginities lost or stolen here and there. A bunch of kids who didnât know what adults they wanted to be. Maybe a couple of kids who really would have been better helped by juvi than being written down in a Mead notebook.
He let out a deep breath and smiled at me. âCan I be frank? I donât really know how to start a session like this. Usually I just hand out career aptitude tests or slip girls Planned Parenthood pamphlets on the sly when they need them.â He looked me dead in the eye. âGot any suggestions?â
Iâd done this one before. The co-conspirator approach. To get me to open up and feel comfortable with him, he was going to be in on a few little secrets with me. First admitting that he didnât know what he was doing and then that he offered girls advice that might not be school board sanctioned. This was probably a great tack to take with kids who should be in juvi. It absolutely was the wrong tack to take with a young victim of secrets so awful they literally printed them in the papers.
âNot really, man. Iâm just told to show up. This is your show,â I answered. Not in an aggressive way. At least, I didnât think it was aggressive.
He leaned back in his chair and took another big breath. âYou know,â he started, âYouâre the first person with DâIâD Iâve ever even met?â
DIDâdissociative identity disorder. Those three letters were what defined me. Back in my diseaseâs media heyday, it was known as MPDâmultiple personality disorder. Since then, psychiatrists had largely wanted to distance the disease from its media portrayal. So the name was shifted to reflect another of its symptoms. Dissociative episodes were common even outside multiple personality disorder and widely accepted in the psychiatric community. The focus overall had moved to the disease as a form of dissociation rather than a fracture into separate personalities. Honestly, the majority of the psychiatric community had taken to rejecting the idea that wholly separate personalities were really present in patients with DID at all.
I shrugged, causing the zippers on my leather jacket to jingle. âHavenât you heard that DID is a bullshit diagnosis? It doesnât exist. Just a myth of the psych trade.â
âDamn the man,â he replied with a laugh on his lips. Adjusting in his chair, he kept his eyes on mine. Iâm not ashamed to admit I let mine drift away and to the notebooks behind him again. âSo, if DID is âbullshit,â then who am I talking to? Is this the introverted, intelligent Jess Iâve heard so much about?â  He flashed a warm smile and I felt her kick in my uterus for a moment.
âNo. I donât know if sheâll be coming here much. Schoolâs not really her thing. Sheâs too smart for all this. And too mature. Iâm the one who wants at least one year of being a regular kid. Or so Dr. Grace says.â
âReally? She said that this is just for your benefit, Jessie?â
I shrugged again. âOK. She didnât quite say that. But Iâm the one she made the deal with.â
âAnd what does Jess think of it? Of being a high school senior one year behind?â
âShe and I donât talk a lot. Youâd have to ask her.â
âOK. Can I talk to her?â he prompted.
How naĂŻve was this guy? Hadnât they prepped him for dealing with me? Probably not. I mean, when would they have? Dr. Grace maybe spent a phone call or two talking to him. My checking in with him wasnât replacement for quality therapy. It was just a lifeline to make sure I didnât go completely off the deep end. To make sure the Coco Man didnât eat me.
âDidnât Dr. Grace explain how that works?â
It was his turn to shrug. âHowâs it work?â
âIâm not a sideshow act and neither is Jess. We donât just swap back and forth like that.â
âHow comfortable are you with me asking questions about yourâŠâ he looked around for a word and found a terrible one, âcondition.â
I rolled my eyes. âCondition? Really? You would have been better off just saying psychosis.â
He cocked his head to the side and nodded. âProbably right. I told you Iâve never done this before.â
âYouâve already seen her, right? Dr. Grace sent you videos of both of us?â Oh God, I thought of something. âOf all of us?â I corrected myself.
âJust her and you,â he answered to my relief. âShe seems very bright, but shy.â
âLook, is this my session or hers?â I asked.
âI honestly donât understand the difference as well as youâd like or as well as Dr. Grace might. Iâd like to meet Jess.â
His honesty was a bit disarming. More disarming than Iâd have liked. He was better than Iâd first given him credit for. âWell, sheâs not here right now.â
âAnd so I have you, Jessie,â he conceded. âHow have the other kids been treating you?â A right hook to distract me from his left jab.
âHavenât really had a chance to talk to anyone the first few days. Been getting some looks going into the boysâ room. Donât know how they see her so easily.â My leather jacket hid her tits fairly well. And I had on a tight t-shirt beneath the baggy REO Speedwagon tour shirt Iâd found in a thrift store. And a tight sport bra under that. I did my best to hide her body with my personality, too. But somehow, the other guys could see her.
âI can imagine,â Mr. Halberd said.
To be âfrank,â that pissed me off. âCan you imagine?â I leveled a hard stare and raised eyebrow at him.
He took it in stride. âI can. Not from your perspective, Iâm sure. But I can imagine how awkward that would be for both sides. Them and you. Youâre welcome to use the ladiesâ room.â
âTheyâd look at me even more,â I assured him. At least with the guys, I knew what they were thinking. Maybe a little shame or excitement at having a girl catch a stray glimpse of their dick. Maybe some desire to find out if I had all the parts other girls had. But mostly I could handle it.
Girls on the other hand, they were catty and mean and you didnât always know what they were thinking. Hereâs this cross-dressing lesbo, âcause how else would they see me, walking into the ladiesâ room. Iâd be a laughing stock and not even to my face. Rumors would float around. Itâd be a whole thing.
Plus, nothing made me feel like I wasnât me faster than being Jess. Iâm a boy, sheâs a girl. If I started hanging out in the girlsâ room, Iâd be her. Just her in my clothes. Neither of us ever enjoyed that kind of switch. Waking up and finding myself in one of her long hippie dresses with her longhaired, chestnut wig on. No thanks.
âOK,â he conceded. âI guess this is more just an introduction to each other than anything today. Is there anything youâd specifically like to discuss before I send you off to study hall for the rest of the period?â
Study hall. Never really done that before, but Iâd seen movies with it. Sounded better than a two-bit shrink cross-examining me.
âNo, Iâm good to go right now.â
He wrote something in his Mead notebook. It was the only thing heâd written up to this point. I imagined it was something like âShe reports no significant issues with integrating into the school environment at this time.â I couldnât be bothered to try and read it upside down.
âOK, Jessie, I think weâre good for today then. If anything does come up, feel free to have the office page me out of class.â
I smirked at that. âOh, Iâm sure thatâd go over well. âMr. Halberd, please report to the guidance counselor office because Ms. Jessica JimĂ©nez is having a dissociative break.â That wonât make me even more of an outsider than I am.â
Mr. Halberd was nice enough to smile at my school PA impersonation. âIâm sure Ms. Carlos at the front desk can keep it more discreet than that. And I want you to know youâre supported. You donât have to be here, as I understand it, and you chose to. I think thatâs a brave choice. Are you planning to go to college?â
Study hall sounded further and further away. âI donât know. Maybe. I just wanted to try and be a normal teenage boy for a year, first. Well, as normal as possible given the circumstances,â I ran my hand over my shaved head. âAnd Iâll have to work it out with Jess. I want to go to school. Sheâd like to travel the world a little, I think. I donât know.â
âDo you really have such different goals?â
âItâs easiest to think of us as Siamese twins. Two different brains joined at the hips.â
âMore than two?â he prompted.
So Dr. Grace had discussed all of us with him. Us, me, Jess, and the Other.
The Otherâs voice whispered on the edge of your perception. When the Other was around, you didnât think like yourself and had trouble focusing on the present. Your thoughts became just you and him.Â
You heard a locker slam out in the hall and jumped in your seat a little. Mr. Halberd wrote something down in his Mead notebook.Â
âSure,â I answered, snapping back to myself. Mr. Halberd knew the truth, so no use denying it. But I also had zero desire to go into it right now.
âAlright, you can go for the day MissâŠâ he caught himself. Or did he? Was he just dicking with me? âMr. JimĂ©nez. Study hallâs in the library. You know how to get there?â
âAlready been doing it this week.â
âRight. Well, learn good things.â
âThanks,â I said, standing up and taking my backpack with me.
The hallway was empty. The school only had about 400 students. So it was quiet when everyone was in class. There wasnât a lot of room for people goofing around without being noticed. And with such a small student base, the percent of them available to be doing some extracurricular activity during classes was pretty small.
The conversation with Mr. Halberd left me jittery. He was so frank. He had that smugness that comes with middle-aged men. A bit of a stereotype with a salt-and-pepper beard and coffee breath.
Were those my thoughts? Sounds more like Jess.Â
Go away, Jess. Iâm the one who goes to school.
No one really paid any attention to me when I reached my study hall. The librarian watching over us just directed me to find an empty seat. I sat at the same empty table near the opposite end of the library from the door that Iâd been using all week. The library was pretty small. Nothing like that one in the Breakfast Club. Just a single level with some shelves around the perimeter and some half shelves in the middle. Enough to hold just a few books and several large tables for studying.
I couldnât keep my mind on my book and scanned around me. Something about that meeting had put me on edge. Finally, I found a cute blonde to distract me. Sheâd apparently missed the memo that the 90s had been over for 20 years. She wore mom jorts, pink flip-flops, and a green t-shirt that barely covered enough to pass dress code and probably less. Her long, curly blonde hair drew my attention. I was a sucker for blondes.
I managed to kill the rest of the 30 minutes left to me stealing looks at her. If she noticed, she didnât make it obvious. And I donât think she noticed anyway. In fact, no one was really paying any attention to me here, which was nice. They were all so engrossed in their cell phones or textbooks or whispered conversations that they didnât have time to pay any attention to the new boy at the back of the room.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. And really comfortably. I mean, the staring continued. But no one really took any interest in me other than to gawk occasionally. Pretty much par for the course so far. Some of the guys got nervous when Iâd enter the menâs room. But others didnât even pay attention.
When the final bell rang, I headed for the girlsâ locker room. So far this was the consistently most awkward part of the day.  Iâd managed to avoid it one day. It wasnât a requirement that I give Jess some time. But I could tell she wanted out.
There were three entrances to each of the locker rooms. One off the gym, one off the hall near the wrestling room, and one off the pool. Iâd been told to use the one off the hall if I didnât want to be noticed and theyâd given me a locker near that door and away from where the extracurricular sports girls were mostly clustered.
I slipped in as quietly as possible, looking around nervously. Iâll admit, the temptation to go find those girls I was trying to avoid pressed on me a little. I mean, I was living every teenage boyâs wet dream. I was in the girlsâ locker room. But, if they saw me, that would completely destroy my cred as who I was. All they would see from then on would be another girl. And I definitely didnât want that.
I set my backpack on the bench and fished the tote out of the locker. I could hear girlish chatter and giggles a few rows over, but I was more or less hidden in this part of the locker room. Quickly, I stripped off my jacket, Speedwagon t-shirt, tight undershirt, Converse, socks, and jeans.Â
Jess didnât like to pack on the layers of clothes that I did. She didnât really have a need to hide our female body. I slipped on her airy, long hippie dress. It featured a brown floral print that looked so her. Finally, I fished her wig out and laid it over my shaved head.
The thing is, the change comes when it wants. And so there I was, cross-dressing as my twin sister and feeling completely uncomfortable. I slipped her Birkenstocks on.
Jess eyed Jessieâs backpack distastefully. ClichĂ©d, it was covered in pins advertising emo bands and social movements. It wasnât really her thing. She folded up Jessieâs shirts and bra and jeans and put them in the tote with his jacket. It was too warm for a leather jacket anyway.Â
Grabbing her purse out, Jess transferred her basic necessities from Jessieâs jacket pockets. She shut the locker. Having less to lose than Jessie, she moved closer to where the girls were giggling and talking because thatâs where the sinks and mirrors were.
It was always odd to see her reflection in the mirror. She looked so much like Jessie. Of course, thatâs because she shared a face with him. Jess knew that. She might be crazy but not delusional. Well, not all the time anyway.
Jess set her purse down and put a little makeup on and straightened her wig. A couple of the girls saw her, and Jess could swear she heard them whisper something. Who knew if it was good or bad?
Finally, the torment over, Jess went back to the tote and backpack. She collected them, and left the school.
She almost managed a smile as she walked through the warm Fall air. Another school day survived without anything too awful happening. And the weather was idyllic. Blue skies, warm air, and summer lingering.
The halfway house was only a few blocks from the school. The town wasnât all that big. So it wasnât like anything was too far from the school.
She felt stupid walking down the street looking like a kid who just got out of school with a backpack on her shoulder. She wasnât a kid.Â
But then if that were true, Jess wouldnât be on the way home to momma. Not her own momma, of course. Mom was far away. Ms. Hinkle, who provided the halfway house, was just trained and willing to rent a crazy person a room and some monitoring for a while. Of course, Dad was paying for it like everything else.
Ms. Hinkle and Dr. Grace had conspired and colluded to set this arrangement up for Jess. Like Mr. Halberd, Ms. Hinkle was another control measure. She worked for the county mental health clinic. She was a psych nurse, not a shrink. But she knew enough to deal with Jess. And she routinely rented her attic loft out to abused women seeking shelter. The description fit Jess, even if she wasnât quite sure she was who Ms. Hinkle had in mind when sheâd started the service.
âHi Jess,â a painfully skinny woman named Teresa called out from a neighboring yard as Jess walked up to the door of the house.Â
âHi,â Jess replied cordially. âHowâs the gardening going?â Teresa had taken to using the flowerbeds in front of her house as her primary form of therapy. They did look really lovely.Â
âNot bad. Really nice sun today.â
Jess nodded, âWell, itâs looking great.â She headed into the house.
The house wasnât all that old. Nothing in this town was. In the 40s and 50s, what had been pretty much a farm turned into a little bit of a hub after the highway cropped up nearby in the 30s. So most of the town was no more than 60 or 70 years old. Of course, some older places were around. And nothing was much newer than 30 or 40 years, either. The place had existed in a sort of stasis since sometime in the 1970s.
Jess had grown up somewhere much busier. But like a maiden sent off to stay with her âauntâ during an unwanted pregnancy, Jess had been sent to a secluded place to recover. Which worked just fine for her. Someplace bigger would have made it harder to monitor her anyway.
She took the stairs up to her room and finally dropped the heavy bag. Maybe she could find a backpack they both liked. That would make it all a little less awkward. Thankfully, she had plenty of money for backpacks and whatever. Stealing around here wasnât a good idea. Jess didnât want to risk winding up in juvi. Theyâd never let her back in school again, and they might even cut her off from Dr. Grace. No, she needed to stay on her best behavior possible.
Stupid! I wouldnât even go to juvi. What was I thinking? Hard to remember that Iâm not a high school senior. Well, I am. Dr. Grace got me in. Theyâre not going to take that away from me. But Jess isnât. Sheâs 19. Iâd be in with the grown-ups. If they didnât institutionalize me again instead.
I looked in the mirror to see I was frowning. My thoughts were weighing on me. Jess wasnât invested in being in high school. Sheâd have been happy to get a GED and head out into the world, I think. But I wanted to have one year, just one year as a teenage boy.
I fished my homework out of my backpack and we worked through it. It was always unusual when we set our mind to an academic task like this. Iâd find myself drifting in and out of dominance. I could never decide if it was cheating. Some subjects she was stronger in and some I was stronger in. But all the homework was technically mine. So letting her take over for math wasnât necessarily fair. Though, all that was in our head, I guess. To the rest of the world, we were the same person.
After finishing up, Jess went down to help fix dinner. Everything here was a group effort. It hadnât taken her long to adjust to that. The institution hadnât been exactly DIYâthere were a lot of orderlies around to do quite a bit of the manual labor and just make sure the nuts didnât hurt themselves or others. But the shrinks did encourage everyone to work on projects they could be trusted with. Obviously, nothing involving knives.
Ms. Hinkle trusted Jess with a knife even though Jess didnât try to hide her scars. Her dress sleeves were short and anyone that cared to really look at her arms could see the intricate, minute, faded scars of spiral after spiral carved into her biceps over the years. Sheâd been with Dr. Grace for six years now, and Jess had mostly been incident free the last two. But the old spirals were still there if you looked closely enough.
Jess told Dr. Grace it was a way for her to control the pain. Apparently, Jessie wasnât enough of a coping mechanism. Of course, the more Jess worked to get along with Jessie, the less the cutting happened. So maybe he was enough.
Jess sliced up onions and peppers to top the pizza dough Ms. Hinkle had out. Ms. Hinkle herself was in her office. Jess could hear her typing away. Ms. Hinkle did thatâcaught up on her life after work. She didnât like men or conversations all that much. So Jessie mostly stayed to himself or pretended to be Jess when he was here. He could fake Jess pretty well. God, that sounded nuts. How can you fake being yourself?
Not that Jess was the real us any more than Jessie was the real her.
âThese onions are making me cry,â Jess said to Ms. Hinkle as she came into the kitchen. She was a blonde lady, about 35 or so. The tears werenât a criticism, mostly just a conversation starter.
âThe trick is not to feel sorry for them,â Ms. Hinkle joked.
Jess gave her a complimentary laugh. âIâll have to try that next time Iâm cutting one. But theyâre just so cute.â
Dinnertime was probably the most awkward for her. Not the meal but the event. When Ms. Hinkle ate with her, she left space for Jess to talk. Jess never really knew what to say.
Tonight was the first night in the week sheâd been here where conversation came easier for Jess. She managed some small talk about the day after school and the neighborâs garden.
Ms. Hinkle talked about the usual thingsâsituations she was facing now at work and in her limited social life. Most of the small talk seemed overblown to Jess. Ms. Hinkle had some idea of what real trauma was. But largely her little worries were benign and uninteresting.
The evening finished itself out, and I finally found myself staring at my bed. Jess had taken off her wig because it was impractical to sleep in, and put on one of my shirts because they were baggy enough to work as a nightgown. I was happy to be in my own clothes with my own stubbly scalp showing.
I turned away from the bed and fished my contraband out of Jessâs desk. Sheâd managed to sneak a steak knife up here. I know, keeping a knife around when youâre a cutter is a bad idea.Â
I opened the window wide and pulled a chair over to it. I ran my fingers along the edges of the blade as I stared out at the quiet street. It was dark and I could see lights on in the houses around us. It wasnât like there was a sign out front to advertise that a psycho lived here. But in a small town like this, all these neighbors must have known.Â
I let out a long breath. My lungs relaxed. It felt good to have a quiet moment. The volume seemed so turned down here. With no orderlies or threats of treatment.Â
I was out.
Seventeen year old Jessie just wants a normal teenage life. He wants to go to school. He wants to meet girls. He maybe even wants to make friends -- if everyone could stop gawking at him. Jessie notices the stares, but can't decide if they're looking because he's the new guy at school, or because he's a boy stuck in a girl's body. No, he's not transgender. It's just that he shares a body with his nineteen year old sister, Jess, who is a bit too mature for high school.
In Aaron Black's People As Scars, readers follow the perspective of a DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) patient, turning the bland routine of school into a labyrinth of mystery, leaving readers contemplating what will happen next -- and guessing what happened in the past. Seamlessly blending first person and third person narration to give his characters a voice, Aaron Black offers us just enough information to keep us turning the page, wanting to know the truth of our main characters.
Although at times there are some outdated references and language, it speaks to the characters' experience -- being outcasted from society and trying to blend in. I appreciate Black's consciousness in depicting a DID patient as a complex human being with individual thoughts and emotion. Readers of this story may relate to the experiences of Jessie and Jess, making this book a great way to shed the stigma of Dissociative Identity Disorder and other psychiatric conditions.
People As Scars is a contemporary fiction that draws you in, and makes you empathize with the multiple people inside one protagonist. It's a very interesting concept, and I applaud Black's writing and ability to portray such a complex main character with ease.