"Somebody" was here

So. I spent several days pretty much on my back because of fibro. Then I made it to therapy. Somehow, in that process, my teenagers emerged (not, unfortunately, in therapy, but afterwards).

They are convinced that W. is not going to help with setting limits or other methods of taking care of them. Full disclosure: I'm not 100% able to trust that W. will be able to cope with this, or them, either. This doesn't help the teens to feel confident. But, unlike me, the teens' response is to feel angry, hopeless, and rejected. They powerfully resent their sense of responsibility for taking care of W. when they feel it's not reciprocated on her part. They are convinced she's "not capable of being a grown-up."

They get furious, and turn that fury almost immediately onto themselves. I think they want to hurt W. by hurting themselves, or at least, to cut themselves off from the anger and pain inherent in being teenagers who are expected to act like adults (they do seem to recognize that their sense of this is complicated by the fact that, technically, they are adults; I suspect they also resent the adult parts for not being capable of doing the things they want done, like laundry and housework).

Yesterday, the main one out is the one who calls/called herself "Somebody." Where did she get that name? It was a joke she made in high school, when someone at school asked about family nicknames. She said, "My nickname in my family is 'Somebody.' As in, 'Somebody needs to do the dishes,' or 'Somebody needs to clean up this mess.'" She resents it, and yet, she does the work. From what I've been able to figure out, it's not even that she minds the work, per se, just that she resents the feeling of having to take care of other people, getting nothing in return. But it's a name that reflects very little person-hood, and a whole load of resentment.

So she and Jamie were pushing one of W.'s bigger buttons. As far as they or I (or, for that matter, W.) can work out, they weren't doing it intentionally to be manipulative. They were operating on their honestly held belief that W. was eventually going to stop taking care of them, and so they wanted it over with as quickly as possible. So Jamie and Somebody argued that having the rules just upsets them, and causes conflict, so we should stop having rules.

This time around, they tried really hard to be moderately civil and not do things to make W. worry about them/us/me. But much as they wanted to get their disappointment over with, they really couldn't cope with the fact that they had been right. Since they felt pretty certain that they couldn't cope with living with W. without having the safety of limits being set, they figured their best option was to figure out how they, the parts, could just "go away." At the same time, they really didn't want to have to disappear, so they just felt more and more trapped, and more and more furious.

Fortunately, W. "came to," as she put it. We have a rule that only adult parts are allowed to negotiate whether there will be rules, and what those rules will be. The teens took advantage of W.'s preference for avoiding conflict, and of the fact that she really does want to keep each part and the whole system from feeling upset. They doubted her ability to keep up with limits, and so pushed at her weakest point (her lack of confidence in setting limits with them/us/me if someone pushes against them). W. realized last night that if she wanted the teens to feel safe, allowing them to get rid of limits was not the way to go. This calmed the teens down considerably, and they realized that they really did prefer to be wrong about W.'s ability to set limits. Once again, they were relieved to see that she would set limits, and not expect them to operate as adults.



Some good things did come out of this. For one thing, the teens (particularly "Somebody") don't experience the fatigue of fibromyalgia. They have the pain, but ignore it. And "Somebody" is very good at getting things done, so the laundry got washed yesterday, and they/we/I got to walk over to our favorite coffee shop to hang out. The thing to figure out is either how the teens can share that energy with the rest of us, or how they can be out and active without constantly testing limits and feeling miserable (although, come to think of it, that's a lot of what being a teenager is about, isn't it?).

Another good thing about "Somebody" being out, and actually talking more or less civilly to W. last night, was that she was able to see that perhaps having a real name would be a good idea. One important thing W. made sure to explain was that no part (especially "Somebody") is required to do all the work, nor does she love us only so far as we take care of her. And so "Somebody" has agreed to consider having an actual name. Right now, she's leaning towards "Ellis" (because it sounds like "else," which amuses her in combination with "Somebody," and because it also refers to Cinderella, without the baggage that name carries).

So. Some progress.

--Cleo