some thinking

i was thinking a little bit last night about the grown ups. cleo was out for a little bit, for some complicated reasons (there is something stressing her, specifically, out, which is why she showed up; but then she went and talked with w, so they spent some time together).

anyhow, afterwards, i was thinking about the ways having the adults around benefits me, and not just people outside. and i could think of advantages to having some of the adults. like xan is good, because she makes friends and she's brave and fun and outgoing. kind of like an aunt who's not that much older, but enough older that they're a grown up. i like xan. and even the mama, i can theoretically see the advantage to having her around. she does those mama-type things, like nurturing and sewing and baking bread. also, she has been taking care of the really little kids for a while now, and we can see she's not so bad to have around.

or the writer part, or the smart one, or the analyst... they don't come out very often, but they are definitely useful. they take care of situations and then go back inside. they don't block the rest of us out, for one thing.

but cleo... maybe part of it is that i (jamie) don't get along with cleo very well. or maybe it's that she has trouble believing she's really multiple. she's a lot more like ellis, i guess. the two of them are similar, so i have some trouble figuring out why we need both of them. except cleo really is a grown up, and ellis isn't. but from what i can see the main difference in what they do is, cleo has a different relationship with w. and she's less resentful about doing grown up stuff. well, ok, and she's more attracted to w.

but then ellis finally had a really good point last night, when i was thinking about it and trying to figure out what benefit i get from having cleo.

she pointed out that i don't get any real benefit from grace or elysia or the nonnys, not that i can see, but i don't complain about having *them* around. so maybe i should think of cleo in the same way. she IS here, so i guess she has the same right to be around as anyone else.

i guess for me, part of it is that i think of the adults as the parts we made on purpose. i mean, i can remember kind of intentionally creating parts when i was a teenager, not that we knew we were doing that, but it's pretty much what happened. like, the smart one, that was TOTALLY someone the rest of us came up with to cope with school. we *thought* we were just improving our confidence or something. so i guess i think of the adults as more... not really real parts, just pretend. but i guess they are real just like the rest of us, so they should be allowed to be around.

the other weird thing is realizing that they have things they struggle with, just like the rest of us do.

i guess part of what i don't like about the adults is, i'm ANGRY at them, because they didn't have to experience the bad stuff. it seems really unfair. i mean, i can understand why it happened. they were made so there were parts who didn't experience the bad stuff. and since they weren't present for it, ok, sure, they have known for a long time (maybe always?) that it happened, but they really didn't *experience* it.

and even though in my brain, i know the same thing i told w last night, that the older a part is, the less time they've been around (mostly--the mama has been around probably since i was ten or so, but the other adults didn't show up until i was way older than that).

anyhow... the younger parts are the ones who had to go through the worst stuff. that's probably why there are more nonnys who are little than who are teenagers, even though i can think of at least 2 teenaged nonnys.

but when i see the adults, i have a hard time accepting that they would just sit around and let the rest of us get hurt. and i guess a lot of the anger i feel towards them is the anger i have for adults OUTSIDE my body, who didn't do something to make the bad stuff stop. and i guess it's not the fault of the adults inside my body, any more than it's the fault of the grown ups i've met since my body grew up. none of these people had the ability to intervene.

the other thing i don't like about the adults in the system is, they get very sure they are right to be super responsible and take on too much. but i guess i have to trust w and my therapist, that they really will make sure that doesn't happen.

i guess that's all. mostly because my carpal tunnel is acting up, and my fingers are numb from typing!