Jigsaw Analogy

Resilience

2010-10-08T01:35:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I posted. Some of it is that I've been busy, some of it is that I've been sick when I haven't been busy, and I guess a bigger part of it is that I haven't been in much of a writing space lately.

I guess I've gotten out of the habit, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I tend not to write as much when things are going moderately well, and I was kind of in the habit of coming to this blog when I was really trying to sort things out.

I guess I would come here most often when I was trying to shore up my life. I would write about things, trying to figure things out, trying to hold myself together. And I've needed less of that in a lot of ways. I'm coming up on a full year since the worst of the depression ended. I think this is probably the longest stretch I've gone without having that lurking depression inside of me. I would never say it's gone forever, but I'm feeling pretty confident that I'm able to handle it.

Because here's the thing: I do still get depressed. I've even come close to being suicidal, although it's kind of like I built a staircase out of that deep, dark pit, and while I might drop down into it, it doesn't take long for me to find the way out again. Which is pretty damn amazing, you know? To have the depression come up, in response to things that objectively suck in my life, and then to be able to find the path to not being suicidal any more.

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I've been thinking a lot over the past week or two about doing something for the It Gets Better Project. (For those of you who don't know, it's a community response to the number of recent suicides by kids who were being bullied for being queer.)

Mostly, though, I've been defending the project to people who are absolutely livid that someone is saying "It gets better." I guess the people who object to that are still really caught up in their own pain, and can't see how important it is for someone to be able to believe that things get better. The people I've seen who object to it don't seem to believe that things *do* get better, I guess. And so they're angry that the problem of bullying isn't solved immediately. They're maybe jealous of people who *did* find a way to make things better. And, with some of them, it seems as though they think the people who are living better lives now got there by luck or magic or something, and they feel cheated that they (the ones who are currently unhappy) didn't get that magic.

All I know is, one of the things that helped me through some of the worst times was the fact that there was always at least some part of me that refused to stop believing in the possibility of things getting better. Sometimes, it was a very small piece of a very quiet part of my system. But it was always there. It thwarted my suicide attempts. It kept me going to therapy even when most of me was absolutely certain that nothing would get better, ever, at all.

It took me almost eighteen years of therapy to get to a point where I felt better. Objectively, I have to admit, I didn't start feeling really bad until my external circumstances *were* better. When I was still being abused, I was pretty damn certain that there was better, and I did what I had to in order to live to get there. Hell, I did what I had to so that the future I got to would be a place I wanted to live. And that SUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKED. Just to be clear. I wanted to leave home when I was eleven. I knew it was horrible. I knew it was bad for me. And I also knew that, since I didn't have anywhere to go, anywhere safe to live, that leaving home would mean that I was going to close off a lot of options for myself. Options I wanted to have, like being able to go to school. So I made a deal with myself: live through these next seven years, and then you can leave home. So it was seven years more of abuse, choosing over and over to stay, since I didn't have anywhere I could run away to. I mean, I could have lived on the streets. Hell, it's probably even the case that, had I said something to some of my friends, they would have helped me. But I didn't know that then, so it didn't seem like an option.

Anyhow. I got through those seven years by holding onto the belief that it would get better. That I could leave the abuse behind me, and that things would be BETTER.

And they were, on the outside. I can still remember that first year away from home. Have you ever done the thing where you press your arms against the sides of a doorway, as hard as you can, for a minute or so, and then step out, and your arms just float up, without you making an effort? It was like that. I could just float through things. Everything seemed easy, everything seemed perfect.

And then the nightmares started, and the flashbacks. And I started having all of those horrible feelings coming up, the ones from when I was being abused. I felt like I was a horrible, worthless, disgusting person. I felt like a fraud. I felt like if people found out about me, they would despise me. I felt like people were about to reject me. And so on. And I could look around at my life, and see that everything outside of me was great, and so it seemed like the logical conclusion was that I was the one who had something wrong with me. The problems were inside of me, and there was no escape. And that is when I got suicidal.

I'm just kind of rambling now, still trying to work out what it is that I want to say for the It Gets Better Project. Because what I want to say is, even when the outside circumstances have improved, you might not feel better yet. And that is realistic, and human, and it DOES NOT MEAN YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FEEL BETTER. It just means you need to keep working on it.

What I want to say is, you have to do a lot of work for it to get better. It's not just going to happen for you. You have to find ways to be around people who are supportive. You have to find ways to accept yourself. You have to find your own way into being safe, and you have to make some hard choices along the way.

What I want to say is, you have to keep going. Even when it seems like you're never going to make it, you have to stay alive anyways.

What I want to say is, those of us who have survived have a responsibility to help those who are still being hurt. We need to do what we can, both to make things better, AND to give hope to the ones who are still struggling. There are a lot of different ways to do that, but being as honest as we can, and speaking up as much as we are able, is one of the ways.

I'm still thinking this through, but I wanted to write something down for now.

update

2010-06-19T00:33:00.003-04:00

it's been a while since any of us wrote anything here, and i figured i should give an update.

there's been a lot of life stuff in the past (eek!) half year. some of it was really hard... not so much stuff that was directly about me, but stuff with various family members. and i've been in really rotten physical health, so there've been a LOT of times when i wasn't up for sitting at the computer (darn it), and didn't have the energy to think of something to write.

but that amazing place in my healing process? boy, yeah. it's been almost seven months now, since i got there, and it hasn't gone away. and i've gone through enough stuff that i KNOW would have knocked me back into bad depression, and it just didn't.

i'm not saying that i haven't felt sad, or even depressed, but it's different in a way i have trouble describing. that suicidal edge hasn't been there. i've (we've) been able to feel emotions, and accept that they are all temporary. something might make me (or someone else inside) feel bad, but we're all able to realize that we will feel better.

there were a few weeks, right at the beginning, when it was like endlessly fizzing water, just joyous, even through things that were upsetting. and then someone i'm really close to died, and that fizzing really went away. because, well, yeah. but the funny thing is, even through the deep sadness that went along with that, i was able to see that i wouldn't feel that sad forever. and i was able to handle a lot of tough things while dealing with the specifics of that that i don't think i could have handled on my own before.

i guess the main reason i'm writing right now is to say that, yes, healing is possible. if you keep slogging through, you'll get to the point where you're not always being blindsided by panic attacks or depressions or all of those nasty triggered feelings.

the funny thing is, it's not like i haven't had panic attacks or depression or triggers since november. it's just that they aren't as bad. they don't knock me out as far, and i can get back on my own.

i guess the main thing is that i'm able to see my emotions as information, which i can act on in different ways. i don't feel like i'm held hostage by them, or attacked by them. they're just... information. sadness or depression are signs that there is something hurting me, and i can use those to find what's hurting me, and look for ways of easing the pain.

i guess the biggest thing is that all of us in here have gotten to a place where we realized that we can *do* something to ease the pain. we don't have to be stuck there. and that makes all the difference in the world.

so i'm sharing this, because i know that i would get discouraged, back when i was first reading lots of blogs, at feeling like the slog was endless.

the other part i want to share is this: you never know when it will happen. right before it happened for me, i'd had months of some of the worst depressions i could remember. the pain was unbearable and intense, and i would go from feeling fine to suicidal, all of a sudden. it felt like i was never going to get better, and like i'd made no progress at all in all of those years of therapy. and then, i don't know. something clicked. it's like the healing had happened, separate from a bunch of the parts who were active. and the parts who were most active for months before the change were some of the ones with the deepest hurts, who seemed least affected by any of the healing. and then, all of a sudden, they went from seeming not healed at all, to being pretty much there.

and, yeah, i've still got parts, and i think i'm always going to have parts. we've been spending more time out together, or maybe it's more that we're more aware of each other when we're out together, since that meshes a little more with how we experience life. we're all able to accept each other, even if we don't necessarily *like* or agree with each other. things are just smoother internally, with less of the deep conflict. and, so far as all of us are concerned, that is the kind of integration that works for our system.

i'll try not to go another six months in between posts. :)

Multiplicity can be a choice

2009-11-29T08:52:00.002-05:00

First, I want to say that there is so much I have to talk about, that I collectively have experienced over the past week. I have come to an amazing place in my healing process where I feel absolutely confident that I will never again feel as bad as I did in the past--I will feel bad at times, because that is part of the human condition. But the horrible, hopeless despair is gone, and that degree of pain is unlikely to return. The joy and relief are incredible, and I want to share them with everyone I know. But right now, I'll just share the thing that made everything click for me. Maybe later, I'll write more about how it feels to be where I am.

So. Multiplicity as a choice.

I had inklings of this from the beginning, but I never realized it. Once I realized I was multiple, I knew it was important for me to accept it without shame. I knew that would be a vital part of my healing process, because shame is simply not an emotion that leads to healing. Shame helps to cement unhealthy patterns, and no matter how many healing skills we learn, the shame will undermine them every time. (But be aware that you have to go ahead and learn the healing skills, or else you won't be able to get past the shame. And try not to feel ashamed of being ashamed.)

If multiplicity is something that was imposed on me by abuse, it would make sense to say "well, then, my healing won't be complete until the things caused by the abuse have been healed." It would make sense to focus on "healing" my multiplicity.

That never seemed to work for me. Parts of me were very resistant to the idea of being healed until they couldn't be fully and discretely themselves. They never liked the idea other people described, of integration meaning that all of who the parts were got blended into one single person. Their experience is one of being individuals, having thoughts and feelings that are fully their own.

And when there was a focus on healing the multiplicity, it really got in the way of internal communication. Parts who felt they were more healed--the ones who had more access to healing skills--often felt invested in being the ones who led the rest of us. They did have a point, because everyone did need to heal. They were right about that. But they thought they knew the right way to do it, and on that, they were wrong.

So, awkwardly and uncomfortably, we did our best to accept our multiplicity. There was always some doubt, about whether this was really a path that would lead us to healing. Maybe we were wrong, a lot of us worried. Maybe we were slowing the healing process by defining each part concretely. Maybe we were so warped by our childhood, or so invested in some kind of, I don't know, exhibitionist need to be multiple that we were making the problem worse.

But at the same time, we were also sufficiently self-aware to keep checking on a simple thing: whenever we started to act as though we were all individuals in here, people who share a body and absolutely have to compromise, communicate, and cooperate on our mutual life... things would start to get better. The headaches would go away, we could get more done, there were fewer panic attacks and less lost time. When we started to act as though we were a singleton, we lost cooperation. There was more depression, more fear, we were less able to live the life we want to have.

There was still shame and doubt, though. We kept on ignoring the comments from the little kids inside, who insist that lots of people around us are pretty similar to us. We bought into the idea that multiplicity is caused by abuse, and that that it's fairly uncommon. Our shame led us to think that our sense that lots of people are multiple was simply a desire to feel like we had less to be ashamed about.

Then we realized something: what do we have to be ashamed about, anyways? We didn't cause the abuse. We didn't ask for it. We didn't seek it out. For the entire span of our life that we've had control over, there has been no abuse. When we have had a choice, we have chosen healthy relationships. So if multiplicity is anything, it's a lucky development. Our mind, for whatever reasons, gave us tools that allowed us not only to live through the abuse, but to achieve our goals, and live a healthy adult life.

Honestly, we suspect we were going to be multiple regardless of what happened, in one way or another. We might never have chosen to have our own names, and we certainly wouldn't have had to spend years in therapy to cope with being multiple. The problem isn't the multiplicity, and we've realized that more strongly than ever. What has caused problems in our system is that the parts have spent their lives coping with being abused. Healing has taken so long, because we're going through a bunch of different "people's" healing process, and we didn't understand that for most of the time we were working at this.

I started listening when parts kept saying "trying to become ex-multiple, for us, is like trying to become ex-gay." And we have strong opinions on that one, for ourselves. We *are* queer. We accepted that from the outset. We chose to be who we are, without shame or guilt. We didn't listen to the people saying we were only a lesbian for reasons outside of our control. We chose to embrace it. Even though we believe it was true for us from the beginning, we also actively chose to be who we are.

So why not choose to be multiple? It's gonna be there whether or not you choose it. It doesn't matter where it came from, it's there. And there are so many advantages to just going ahead and treating ourselves as a multiple.

When we accepted that we are different people sharing a body, we're holding opposites in our hands: we are one person, living in a single body; we have to learn to cooperate because what one of us does affects everyone here. But at the same time, we are individuals. We each have our own experiences, memories, opinions, and things we want out of life. We can become more fulfilled as individuals when everyone inside is able to understand that they are not the only one here.

The best example is from those times when things are fairly settled for our system. No one is having anxiety, no one is afraid or upset. And then whoever is at the front, if they haven't learned to accept that they are multiple, feels that they are the only one there, or (if they somewhat accept our multiplicity) they think they are the only one in front. So when deciding what to do, they will assume that their opinion is the most important one. "Do I want to check email or play a game?" they will ask themselves when they are getting on the computer. "Well, I want to check email, but I want to play the game more." So they play the game, not realizing that "check email" was a request put in by another part. It can lead to chronic frustration and lack of satisfaction for parts who are less strong-willed, and less able to claim the front. We've been realizing that this is happening recently, and it was a breakthrough in communication. It's really hard to communicate with yourselves if you don't believe there's more than one of you. It's difficult to communicate with people when you assume you know what they want or believe without asking them.

Somehow, this process led us to the notion that by embracing multiplicity, we were embracing something really joyous. It is as though by working to define each part, and accepting that we are each individuals, we were able to click together and accomplish integration of each of our individual selves. We could find all of the parts of ourselves we had assumed belonged to someone else inside.

And that can lead to an amazing realization. It did for us, anyways. We have a part who has been more suicidal than most of us, and who never lost that desperate sense of needing the pain to end. She would say--and we all often thought it was other parts saying this, but now we know differently--she would say "I need the pain to end; I feel like my choices are to continue in pain, to be dead, or to stop the pain." And her first choice was to stop the pain, but she didn't know how. We have finally realized, for us, that acting to stop the pain is all it takes to ease it. Going to therapy, sure, but also, we realized that we have the right to tell people to stop doing things that hurt us. And we have the right to act for ourselves, to reach out, to be honest and imperfect, and not always in control. We realized that there is more safety in taking risks than in constantly being braced for abuse that is no longer happening.

Growing up, we had no choice. We just lived through it, closed ourselves off to the pain, and did our best to survive. As adults, that pattern was ingrained. We would act to avoid things that were painful, and we would stop obvious hurts. But the hurts of isolation, the hurts of being around people who we care about who are hurting... those, we didn't know what to do about, or we were afraid to act.

I can't quite say which came first, deciding to embrace multiplicity willingly and without shame, or realizing that we can choose that third path: the path that leads to changing the rules so that we can be happy and fulfilled. Honestly, it probably happened simultaneously, along with a lot of other things. When we are able to listen to other parts, they will tell us some very healing things.

Whatever the cause, realizing that multiplicity is a choice, and making the choice to be multiple, somehow caused us to experience what has got to be integration for us. We are still each our individual selves, and we feel fairly confident that we've collected all the lost bits and pieces of who we were. It's been delightful to realize that a part who seemed to do nothing but provoke problems is also the one who finds nothing more satisfying than to fix things. Messing stuff up is part of fixing things, and Petra is dedicated to doing both of those things. Most freeing of all is how Why transformed into Tertia--she has always pushed us, in ways that felt terrifying to everyone involved, to find that third path, the one that requires neither living through abuse nor being dead. Her desire to end the pain was strong, and her desire to live a life without pain motivated the rest of us to keep up with the healing process.

Why do I call it integration, if we have not turned into a single person? Because we've realized that integration doesn't have to be--perhaps should not be--about everyone becoming the same. It's about finding a place for every part, and giving them an equal voice in the running of the system. It means that we take each part's needs into account, and work to make a life where all of us can be happy. We are one system, and we've never doubted that. But we are also a collection of individuals, and choosing to accept that has given us access to more strength and joy than we imagined would ever be possible.

United States of Jigsaw Analogy

2009-11-20T07:58:00.003-05:00

"I pledge allegiance to the fact of the single personhood of Jigsaw Analogy, and to the community for which that stands, one person, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

I've been thinking about a lot of things, lately. Or, more to the point, we have been thinking about a lot of things lately, since there are two parts writing this! Anyhow. One of the many things going on in our collective head is some thinking about what it means to "integrate."

Reading the "healing" literature, (well-intentioned, but sometimes that is some really damned SHAMING literature!). Anyhow. Reading that, you'd get the impression that for a multiple to heal, they have to do something like become part of a Borg collective: "Your emotional and intellectual distinctiveness will be assimilated into our collective. We are Borg, resistance is futile. You WILL be assimilated."

Um, hello? That version of integration would be like telling people of color that in order to be integrated into society, they have to act just like everyone else. It's like saying that an integrated society is one where somehow people retain their "culture," but God forbid they go around acting different from the norm, because that would mean they weren't really integrated. And sure, there are people who believe this. Hell, there are people who think that the way to make society--or, frankly an individual with multiplicity--happy, healthy, and worth living in is to get rid of anything that doesn't fit with their idea of perfection.

That is just about the stupidest idea, when you come to think of it. Sorry, racists and people who can't handle difference. I know that other parts of this system like to act all tolerant and everything, and want to make sure that everyone feels welcome reading this blog. Too bad. If you're a racist, I don't care if I offend you that I think racism is stupid. And if you're someone who is going to tell me that the best way to be integrated is for all of the parts to merge into one, well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and risk offending you, too.

When I read or hear about people "integrating" in that fashion, it seems more like they are becoming ex-gay. I mean, yeah. They've learned to repress the parts of themselves that make them different from the norm. And this can make people feel more comfortable, and some people--therapists and psychiatrists included, God help us all--think that feeling more comfortable by avoiding conflict is totally the way to go.

I respectfully disagree. I want to integrate in that fashion just about as much as I want to become ex-gay, or want to integrate racially by pretending my skin color is invisible. Ain't gonna happen, folks.

But what if there were a different way to do this? What if integration as a multiple could be more like becoming a republic, which is to say--a lot of individual parts, recognizing that they are part of a whole while still being individuals. What if instead of focusing on merging into a seamless whole, integration could be something messy and complicated and hard to work through? Something where maybe it isn't easier, but no one has to be assimilated into the collective?

Which isn't to say that I'm against that whole "pulling together the disparate parts of yourself." 'Cause the fact is, multiples DO need to do that, or at least my system did. Or maybe it's just checking in, and recognizing which parts of the whole go with which parts. There are a lot of folks inside of my body who thought that they were just one thing. (Ellis, for example, thought that aside from being resentful, she was pretty much perfect. :P ) But as we've had each part "integrate" their experience, they've discovered, "Oh! look at that! It turns out that I'm not just angry--I am the one who is really good at these things, and I'm the one who does those things that are totally unrelated to being angry!"

Because the complicated thing with sharing a body is, if you're not very in touch with yourself as a part, you can lose touch with parts of yourself-the-part. If you've got shame, or fear, or whatever, maybe you attribute parts of your actions that don't fit with your self-image to other parts of the system.

So let's say you see yourself as absolutely perfect, like Ellis does. You might have a hard time reconciling that with the fact that you're really critical, and judgmental, and just a wee bit controlling. And parts like that (sorry, Ellis, but this is true. Goes for you, too, Cleo.) will think that when they fight to make sure that the entire system acts like one single person, some assimilated Borg collective of "individual parts" who represent to the outside world as a fairly seamless whole, that they are doing this for other peoples' comfort, or that they are doing this to keep the system safe.

Here's an analogy for you: This is like gay people who are so uncomfortable and afraid and ashamed of being different that they "act straight" all the time. Don't get me wrong. There are times that you need to act straight. Or at least, there are times when you need not to call attention to the fact of your difference.

But that doesn't mean it's true ALL the time. I suspect it's not even true MOST of the time. It's all about calculated risks. Look around you. Are these people really going to hurt you if they find out you're different? How can they hurt you? Most of the time, there is absolutely nothing they can do, if it turns out that you're different.

Sure, this isn't true for everyone. There are people who will lose their jobs, or their children, if someone finds out they are gay. There are people who will lose their jobs, or their children, if someone finds out that they are multiple. I say, those of us who don't run that risk have a responsibility to be as out as we possibly can. Because you know what? The only way, the ONLY way to make the world safe is for people to be brave enough to reclaim the different parts of themselves, and be proud of every part of who they are.

I'm not saying that individual parts can go off acting like they own the whole body. Because you are parts of a whole. Call it a jigsaw puzzle, call it a crazy quilt, call it a republic. It doesn't matter what you call it. You're not in this alone, and you can't go off acting like you are. And that includes the parts who try to pretend that the way to integrate is to pretend that everyone is exactly the same, and there is none of that difference that makes people so uncomfortable.

Note: this post started out being written with Ellis, but then she got over her bad self and let me take control. Me being Xan. I'll point out that it's a problem, when someone who is all over the idea of being out as multiple has trouble coping with the idea of some other part showing up in a space that is supposed to be accepting of multiplicity. Like, you know, their own blog.

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-13T21:17:00.000-05:00

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The aim is to write a whole novel in a single month. Notice that I say "write" rather than "complete," since the only way I can make it to the finish line is if I don't stop to edit on the way.

The novel I'm working on might be of interest to people who read this blog, since it's about someone who survived abuse, and now needs to learn to cope with the tools she used--things like dissociation, and shielding herself emotionally. I frame it as a fantasy, and an exploration of fairy tales, so hopefully, it will be interesting even to people who haven't coped with these issues.

I have posted an excerpt at my writing blog, and I may post more, if anything seems ready to share as the month progresses.

A very good book!

2009-09-22T19:13:00.002-04:00

Here is a link to a very good book called The Monster At The End of The Book. If you have not read it before then definitely you should. It is very funny and I like it a lot. I bet you will like it too. In the story, Grover from Sesame Street is afraid about the monster at the end of the book and he does not want you to turn the page, but I bet you WILL turn the page if you are curious about books!

toni collette won an emmy for tara

2009-09-20T22:09:00.002-04:00

it's pretty cool. (i only know about this so soon because w found out somehow, and she came in to tell me. i didn't even know when the emmys were!)

i kind of hope this leads to more awareness about DID/MPD. the show handles it pretty well, i think. it's intelligent and humorous without making fun of the disorder, in my opinion. so i'm glad i'm not the only one who thinks so.

i dont know

2009-09-19T22:09:00.002-04:00

so i was going to therapy a lot for a while because the other parts thought i needed it most or something. well, me and a couple of other parts. and one of the things that has happened i think probably because of therapy is i dont get suicidal any more. at least i havent for a while.

most people would think this is good. i guess it probably is. but its not like the feelings that were overwhelming went away. so now what happens is i feel horrible but i dont feel like theres a way to just make those feelings go away. i guess what i learned is i can live through them and that they will eventually end or something. but when im feeling those feelings it seems like they are just too much. but i dont get an escape hatch.

maybe there is something that will happen with more therapy where i will get to a point where those feelings arent so horrible any more or something. and i guess there are one or two things in my life (i mean MY life not just the life of the body where i live) that i kind of like. so its not 100% horrible and that is better than it used to be where i thought that other parts were just me pretending to be ok or have fun or filling time. now i can tell that sometimes things actually are a little bit fun or not too bad or something.

but its really hard when the things that used to be who i was are disappearing. im not as mean to w because i guess i care a little bit about how she feels but that only goes so far. i mean i can care a little but then i cant keep being all nice and stuff so i just kind of go through enough motions that i can go out of the room and not have to have anything to do with it if im in a bad mood.

it used to be i would get in a fight or do something to cause problems and that was really a lot easier and it wasnt so uncomfortable for me as when i care a tiny bit but not enough to help.

and i dont get the options of hurting myself except for things like smoking. i mean i am even eating my meals and taking stupid vitamins. but i kind of cant cope with everything turning all perfect and smooth. i dont like it. i guess i feel a little guilty about that. and i can hear the voices in me saying "what are you saying everything is perfect and smooth you are still lazy and not doing anything worthwhile and never ever doing as much as you are supposed to be doing" and stuff like that. like not doing housework or having a job or sleeping in a bed with w. i feel like those are signs im bad.

maybe i am worried about other stuff going smooth because once that stuff is more ok then i will be expected to do everything like i used to like sleep in a bed with her or take care of the house and have a job and just everything.

but at the same time i feel bad that i cant handle doing that. i am supposed to want that and instead what i want is to kind of not do the things like that that make me panicky and overwhelmed. ESPECIALLY if there isnt an escape hatch like being dead. because it feels like that stuff is this big rock pile balanced above me and if i move anything even the littlest bit wrong then it will all come crashing down on me and i will be crushed. and being crushed when there isnt an escape hatch is a scary idea.

folk festivel

2009-07-19T08:30:00.000-04:00

I am at a fok festevel for this week i have ben looking forwerd to it for a wile caues it is fun to be here. Also the pepul here are very nise even if you do not act normel they will still be frindly. We have been here a few tiems so we know the pepul pretty well it is great. Also it is a good way for a vacashen of not to much money espeshelly if you liek music. It is not onley foke music also it is other kinds of music. My frinds are all asleep riet now but that is ok.

i dont see the point

2009-06-19T22:58:00.002-04:00

w has asked for lists of things she can do when i am depressed or upset. i have given them to her. i even set up a website that she can look at from her phone or her computer that has a list of things she can do instead of saying she doesnt know what to do. she doesnt look at it.

and i suck so much there is no one else i can call. i guess i have a couple of friends but they are busy with their own stuff and not available. my therapist was away this week and will be away next week so thats no good.

i did my best to hold together this week and it worked until things tipped over today because there was just too much stress and now i am stuck with this place of feeling like crap and i cant get myself out and there is no one i can think to call for help i have already done all of the things i know to do to feel better and they are not helping i cant go to sleep because the fucking people upstairs have their music blasting so i am just stuck feeling like crap and having absolutely no exit. im too panicky to go out and be around strangers plus there is nowhere to go in this fucking neighborhood even if i did want to go out. sure i could go hang out at the 24 hour convenience store but its not like that will help anything.

i feel like worthless crap. it sucks to feel so rotten and know there is no one i can call to talk to even if i were feeling better. and i know if i were feeling better that wouldnt be so bad i dont mind that my friends have things they are doing or are busy with. but the fact that i can feel this way and there is no one to call and i am just out of ideas of what else to do.

and i cant even think about killing myself because i know that isnt an option other parts wont let me do it no matter how crappy i feel or how long it lasts so i just have to accept that i have another forty or fifty or sixty years of this to come. fuck. i hate this.

2009-05-05T15:08:00.002-04:00

we're pretty excited about the sims 3. it's funny. we were really into the first version of the sims, but then with relationships and life and stuff, never got into the second version.

but the thing we're really looking forward to about the sims3 is that it seems like it will be possible to make sims who will behave like different parts of the system, and that will be really cool. we'll see how it goes once we actually have the game (we're really disappointed that they postponed the release until june, since originally it was february).

been a while

2009-05-01T09:48:00.002-04:00

i haven't posted in a while. partly it's because i've been having bad fibro, and i still don't have a good desk chair, so i get tired pretty fast when i sit at my desk. partly, it's because the parts who have been out lately haven't been as interested in writing, or if one part wants to write something, someone else has another idea of what to write about and then there's conflict, so nothing gets written.

or maybe it's that the parts who have mainly been out aren't ones who have been on the blog much so they don't feel as comfortable writing? not sure.

i miss the things i used to do, and by that i mean things i was doing just a few months ago.

in terms of an update, we wound up thinking about the reasons s. had for not taking our insurance any more, and they made sense. and also, we figured that if she's willing to see us for a copay that is less than half what she was getting from the insurance company, odds are she isn't actually trying to get rid of us. so on the up side, we'll still be seeing her for therapy. on the down side, that's $200 a month we have to spend now that we didn't have to spend before. but there is another positive: i applied for food stamps, and they are giving me... $200 a month. so it works out even, pretty much. so that's good.

one thing happening is that parts have been struggling with memories and being triggered. one thing we've realized is that the triggers from present stuff are especially powerful because we don't actually remember the stuff that made it triggering. not sure if that makes sense. i explained it to w like this: let's say i went to the circus, watched a bunch of clowns, and then got stepped on by an elephant. but i blocked out being stepped on by the elephant, and just remembered how painful it was. so now, every time i see clowns, i'm afraid of the pain of being stepped on by an elephant. so clowns are what's scary. but really, the problem was the elephant.

so i kind of think if i can get to the point where i remember the elephant, then the clowns won't be nearly as upsetting.

the problem is, it's hard to stop blocking out memories. it's one of those things i have done for so long, and it's such a habit to keep myself from remembering things. and i have a lot of fears about remembering things, too. and i used to get such positive responses from NOT remembering, and it's hard to let go of that. plus, there's the fear that i'm making it up.

i guess that's something to think about. intellectually, i don't really believe the false memory people are right. they just come across as people who are trying to keep things hidden, and who are trying to keep people from finding out about bad things.

but at the same time, i can think of a bunch of things that i used to think were just nightmares i had, and then someone in my family will describe something that happened, and it's like... oh. that wasn't a nightmare. that really *happened* pretty much exactly as it did in the recurring nightmare.

so it seems like i would then be more willing to believe the *other* "nightmares" i have that are like those are also true. but in a lot of ways, i don't want them to be true. but at the same time, maybe realizing they are true is the only way to reduce their power. on the OTHER hand, realizing the things i now know are true are true hasn't reduced their power. those things are still upsetting for me.

so that's part of what's going on, at least right now.

what i dont understand

2009-03-12T16:16:00.002-04:00

what i dont understand is why i cant mess up at all before people drop me. there are two people in the world that i tried to trust. w hasnt dropped me yet but im sure she will pretty soon unless i shape up and i am tired of trying to keep myself together so i think i wont bother. it will just make things easier, because she will drop me too and then i wont have anyone.

i know there are people who say they care and i guess they do as far as it goes but i know they are only around so long as i dont ask for anything or expect anything from them, just take what they are willing to offer without being asked. i know that if i start expecting things then people will get tired of me and figure out a way to stop having things expected.

it just sucks when its someone i tried kind of hard to trust and as soon as i slip up then shes not there anymore.

what sucks even more is how she is going to get to do this and tell herself and everyone else that it was my choice she bent over backwards by offering a cheaper fee so i could keep seeing her but i wasnt willing to pay it. a cheaper fee, sure, but even if i went to just one session a week instead of three it would still be more than 1/4 of my ssi. and if i wanted to see her 3 sessions a week like we have been then that would be almost all of my ssi money and since we're paying more rent now that would mean we would have to figure out how to pay money that really isnt available.

so what sucks is i cant even talk to her about how it feels like shes dumping me for being too difficult because she will just say that isnt true it is that same way that people all my life have said one thing but done another.

i wasnt even that difficult. i dont miss sessions or show up late. im not rude or stuff like that. it just goes to show that no matter what people *say* when they are trying to act like im a normal person what happens is one little slip up and not even that little and then people dont want to help anymore.

but im not supposed to say that i am supposed to go along with pretending that everything is normal and just pretend that people are there for me. well you know what they arent. w is still around but its only a matter of time. the only reasons she sticks with me are she hopes that the good parts will be back more and also that she is worried that she wouldnt get someone else to date her if she fixed her low self esteem she would see that lots of people would be happy to date her i guess i should be glad she isnt fixing her low self esteem but im not i would rather she could see it would be easy for her to get someone else to date her. and also she doesnt want to be someone who had a breakup of a long relationship and i guess she thinks that breaking up would mean she was a bad person or something. but i think that once she realizes no one would think she was bad for breaking up with me then she will dump me.

i guess i should have expected this. i didnt though. susan has always said she is committed to working with me so i took a chance. i guess i was testing that when i said i wanted to quit. i didnt really want to quit i wanted someone to stop me from hurting myself well no one is going to stop me from hurting the only thing they will do is if i say i am going to kill myself then they will lock me up in the psych ward. they wont help all i can do is figure out how to not care that i am hurting and that i am so worthless that as soon as i am a little bit of trouble people drop me.

i guess that isnt fair to w because i am some trouble for her but i think that as soon as the trouble outweighs whatever good she has gotten then shell dump me. i just wish it would happen soon i guess that if i can keep the other parts from coming out then it will just be a month or two before she gets fed up and then i will be free. there wont be anyone left who would be more than a little upset if i disappeared. i guess people will say they would be a lot upset but i dont think it would take that long i know how to just kind of drift away and then people wouldnt really even think about me after a while. i just need to accept that things arent going to get better and then it will be fine.

therapy

2009-03-12T15:42:00.002-04:00

i was thinking about quitting therapy for a lot of reasons mostly that i dont think its making much difference for me. theres no reason for me to feel depressed any more but i still do so that means its something wrong with me instead of something wrong with things in my life.

well the decision about whether to quit therapy got easier i think because my therapist isnt going to be taking my insurance anymore. they are flaky about actually paying the therapists and even though they do it eventually it takes a long time before they pay up and a lot of hassle. so my therapist is done with dealing with them. not just because of the issues with getting paid for my sessions but also the trouble with other clients of hers that have this insurance. i dont know how many of her other clients have the same insurance though.

she did say she would do a reduced fee for me but the cheapest she could possibly go would still be a couple hundred a month even if i was having fewer sessions. and if im going to pay a couple hundred a month for something why not pay for something that will actually make me feel better like drugs or something? i dont know if drugs would make me feel better but they might. i guess that isnt a good idea because its not legal. i dont know.

i cant help but think she did this right now because im not being all good and saying the right things anymore. like, i told her last weekend i was thinking about quitting but she had me come in on tuesday anyway and she convinced me to keep trying but then today she said she was going to stop taking my insurance. she says that doesnt mean she doesnt want to keep working with me but she knows we dont have much spare money.

so i guess i will be quitting therapy pretty soon when she has stopped taking my insurance. it was stupid of me to trust that she would still be there. as soon as i started being difficult she made it difficult for me to see her so that she could say she was still willing to work with me and it would be my fault that im not seeing her anymore. i dont care. i know that she did this because i was difficult and this is her way to tell herself its my fault and not hers. now i just have to wait for w to get fed up which will probably happen pretty soon.

hard times

2009-03-11T22:41:00.002-04:00

i should feel better than this. there is no reason to feel like i've been feeling. my life is good. i have a partner who cares about me, i'm not getting abused, i got approved for ssi, we have housing. w got her tax refund, so we've even got money for treats.

but i feel crummy. i am depressed. probably part of it is that if the stuff on the outside of my life is fine, and i'm still feeling crappy it feels like there's nothing i can do to feel better. if i can't be happy now, when things are going all right, then i'm never gonna feel happy. if i don't feel loved by w, if it just doesn't make me feel like someone will take care of me and keep me safe, and if i can't do that myself, then it's like these feelings aren't ever going to ease up.

i guess i should try to let other parts come out more, but i keep winding up being the one who is out. not enough that i can just get it over with and stuff, but enough that i'm mostly the one here. i dont know. i guess i should just try to do the things the other ones do and not let things slide i cant be bothered i just dont care but the other parts are out enough that w is sticking around. theyre out enough that i dont quit therapy even though i think that would be better. but theyre not out enough for them to be happy.

i dont even know if i want them out. i guess when they are out i dont feel as bad or something. at least there are times when i am not aware of whats going on around me or how i feel. there is a dotted line in how i live, where there are times that just dont happen for me. mostly if someone else is out and im not there at all then its like that time doesnt exist and i disappear or something. is that better? i guess its better than hurting so much i want to be dead. but then the next time im out then i still hurt this badly and i am getting tired of hurting and since i cant decide to just disappear and not exist any more then maybe its better if i can be out more and figure out how to stop hurting. but i dont know how except the one way and if i talk about that then there will be evidence if someone wants to put me in the psych ward. i dont really want to be dead i just want to stop hurting. and i dont have much hope for that. i feel like if i cant feel ok now then what reason do i have to think i would be ok in the future?

i know im not supposed to feel that way or talk about it or something. im supposed to say oh, poor me, i went through trauma when i was a kid of course i feel bad. but i have been through what, sixteen years of therapy now? something like that. hasnt really made much difference that i can see. almost three years of dealing with did, and i still feel crappy any time i show up. ok, sure, other parts dont. great for them. still sucks when im out. i still want anything that will stop the pain, and i figure its a two in three chance that being dead would be less painful than where i am now. i dont know the chances of feeling better while im still alive but im not feeling hopeful about it.

but right now im not going to do anything about it. i wish i could just will myself dead but that doesnt work. i guess if it did i would have done it when i was a baby.

i remember when i was in 8th grade, writing a paper for science class. one of the first times that was probably good evidence for me switching, because apparently this paper had been talked about every day for more than a month, but i found out about it the day before it was due. but thats not the point of what im writing about. i was reading something or other, in some book. it talked about how babies who arent taken care of, who dont get nurtured, will just fail to thrive. they will die, even if theyre getting fed. probably worse if they are getting hurt along with that, i bet. but i guess there was just enough nurturing, or something, to keep me alive. enough of whatever it was that i managed to learn how to switch and dissociate rather than just giving up and dying. i guess there was a part who managed to get some kind of nurturing. that wasnt me. i can feel a direct line back to that other baby, the one who learned when it was tiny to stop noticing how it felt because if you notice how youre feeling then you are going to cry and then you get hit. so you cant need to be hugged or have your diaper changed or get fed regularly. you have to just figure out how not to need any of that.

or maybe its the baby who was not ok with that who felt hurt and sad and angry and all the things youd feel if your needs werent getting met. i dont know. its not exactly like i am that baby, just that baby is like... an earlier version or something. i dont know. but its there. its there in that place where i am, where petra and terra usually are. maybe another one. and now im not completely sure who i am. why is that baby with us? why are we so tangled up together? i know that at least petra and terra want to be like the other parts, more ok, more relaxed, stuff like that. they dont want to keep being tangled up with me. i dont really want them tangled up with me. but that keeps happening.

i dont know what im writing about or even why im writing. theres a part of me thats getting really mad that im doing it and now i dont even know who i am.

Snow day!

2009-03-03T00:37:00.002-05:00

Today was a snow day we are so happy about that caues it is from we asked for there to be a lot of snow there was hardly any snow all winter long and almost we thot there wuld not be any snow at all this winter ecksept just a little bit but then there was all most a FOOT of snow. we did not think ther wuld be a snow day tho caues they all most never give a snow day here then ther WAS a snow day so w stayd hoem and we playd in the snow also we had hot chocklit and chocklit otemeal for brekfast it was yummy the hot chocklit was a snack after we playd in the snow not for brekfast.

We are happy about the snow not just caues we wanted it also from we ASKED for it and we got it ivy says ask and ye shall receve that is from probly the bible or maby somwher els i do not no for sure. it means if you ask then maby you will get soemthing lots of pepul asked for a snow day then they said it was a snow day but i am maby the onley one who asked for about one foot of snow and then i got ecksactly that.

I do not always get wat i ask for liek i askd for a puppy with curly ears i did not get one singel puppy but that is ok a puppy is a lot of WORK i fond out caues up stars has a puppy they do not taek good car of it they tie it up out sied it is very sad i do not want to do that it is to meen but if i was to buzy to taek car of it probly i wuld do that so i will just hav a maginary puppy or else one that is a toy. i will hav to find a frind a diffrent way from a puppy i think that is better.

hating being crazy

2009-01-20T17:40:00.002-05:00

today is one of those days where i am really HATING being crazy. really hating it.

instead of watching the inauguration, i had therapy. things kind of went downhill from there. i mean, just spending my day having therapy is bad enough in the usual run of things. other people have jobs, do useful things in the world, do things for other people, and so much of my time is taken up by coping with the fact that i am crazy.

and today, it was the inauguration of the first african-american president. this is amazing. i am thrilled. and yet... the tears i had today were not tears of joy, and it was the stupid, all-about-me feelings that i hate having, but don't have the force of will to keep from coming.

why was i crying?

i was reading an email, and someone was writing about how wonderful this is for little biracial children, how they can look to the white house, and see that anything is possible. and the tears came, because here i am... i had so much potential. when i was a kid, teachers would say that i could become the first black, and the first female president. they really believed i had that much potential.

as i got older, i realized i didn't want to go into politics, but i definitely still had that potential. i really believed that i could do anything i set out to do. and for 20 years, for maybe even 30 years, i was able to make that be true. hard work, intelligence, luck. whatever combination of things, it was working. i was demonstrating how much i could do, in spite of handicaps.

it was about overcoming. that's kind of how i made peace with the things i couldn't control: i focused on overcoming them. sure, we were poor when i was growing up, but that was something that didn't have to be permanent, that didn't have to say anything about who i was as a person. same with me being biracial, or female, or anything else.

i guess i thought that by getting past it, by achieving what i wanted in spite of the things that made it hard, that kind of erased the negatives.

and then... it feels like it all got thrown off by me going crazy. everything else, i managed to handle. i even dodged the bullet several times with going crazy. i can think of times where it came so close, and i managed to get past it, and keep going on.

so this last time... damn, it sucks. it's like i lost all of the things i was trying to do, which means, deep down, that it feels like i lost my chance not to be the person that the bad stuff happened to. because that's what the accomplishment was about. it was about proving to the world, or maybe more, proving to myself that just because i was black, or poor... just because i was abused during my childhood, it didn't mean i couldn't have a good life as an adult.

it's not about being black, or poor, really. certainly, those are things i can talk about with people, so i can tell they aren't the things i have trouble with. but i guess that i believed that if i just did enough, achieved enough, overcame enough, i could erase the abuse. make it like it didn't matter, didn't count, didn't really happen.

and then being crazy came along, and proved I really couldn't just ignore it. I couldn't really just act like it hadn't happen or didn't matter. And I'm furious about that.

But maybe mostly, I'm furious with myself over that. It was my job to make it as though it had never happened. It feels like that was the only way my life could work, the life I wanted to have. If I could act like it didn't matter that I was abused, that it was all in the past.

It's not even, not exactly, that I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. I just wanted to have a life where it didn't matter that it had happened to me. Where I could deal with it, once a week, in a tidy therapy session. Where I could be a good advocate for children, make sure I did everything I could so it wouldn't happen to other children, and leave it at that.

I didn't want to walk around covered with scars. I didn't want to have to have it be this crippling thing that's making it hard for me to even make it through the day, with shockingly little expected of me.

I certainly didn't want it to take away from sharing joy with so many other people in this country, this historic moment that I feel is getting tainted by things that happened half a lifetime ago.

And that's part of what really makes me angry. That here I am, sixteen and a half years after leaving home, and I'm still reeling from the things that happened. It's not fair. I'm furious at my mind, for not being able to find a better way out, for interfering with my ability to cope. I'm furious with myself, for not being able to maintain the discipline that would have let me keep going on.

I want to be able to feel happy, and all I'm getting is sadness and anger. It sucks, and it isn't fair.

still alive

2009-01-12T13:49:00.002-05:00

i haven't been posting much, since we moved last month, then there were the holidays, and just a lot of chaos added onto the stuff already going on in my head.

i'm still alive, and while there are parts who aren't happy about that, at least they're managing to stick around for right now. there's been a lot of switching, probably triggered by the move, and a lot of internal chaos, either because of the move, or stuff that was already stirred up inside, or because of the external chaos of still not having all of the furniture we need for the apartment, and so too much of our stuff is in boxes.

i'll try to be a little better with updates, or at least to notice when someone really depressed has posted so i can be sure to have some kind of update after that.

and to anyone whose blog i generally comment on, but haven't: i'm still trying to get caught up, so i haven't been reading blogs much. and added to that is the fact that several of the parts who have been out a lot recently just don't seem to spend much time online.

2008-11-20T17:12:00.004-05:00

best case scenario if i stay alive is maybe i will be in a *little* less pain in a few months, and maybe i will be in a lot less pain in a few years. if im lucky. and i might wind up being in this much pain over and over again the whole time im alive. there are no guarantees that i will feel better for a significant amount of time. and the only way to get to a point of being in less pain is to go through a lot more pain.

if i die, theres a good chance i will stop being in pain right away. sure maybe it wont work that way but odds are better that i could stop being in pain and it wouldnt come back.

if im dead i dont have to ride the subway any more.
if im dead i dont have to be in crowds.
if im dead i dont have to cope with moving.
if im dead i dont have to cope with anything any more.
i wouldnt have to deal with my family or relationships.
i wouldnt have to deal with money.
i wouldnt have to deal with packing.
i wouldnt have to deal with finding an apartment or living somewhere i dont like.
if im dead no one will expect me to cope with anything. while im alive people will keep on expecting me to deal with things i cant cope with.

i really wish i were dead because thats the only one where the odds are good that i could stop hurting really soon and stop having to cope with things i cant cope with.

plus if i die before w finds a new apartment she can get one that is cheaper and not have to worry about what i want, she can just find something that meets her needs. i think that would be a lot better because then she wouldnt get stuck paying too much in rent or living in a neighborhood that isnt as convenient for her just because i need it. and she wont move based on only her own needs as long as im still alive. if i werent around she could even just look for roommates instead of a whole apartment and that might be easier.

2008-11-18T22:36:00.004-05:00

theres no point to even trying. things just get worse and worse and i dont feel any better. if theres no hope of feeling better any time soon then i really cant figure out how to keep trying. and there really isnt. gradual isnt soon enough. i hurt too much to even contemplate trying to commit to sticking around until the end of the month but im supposed to feel better at the thought that maybe if im lucky and i get to be pretty much the only one who goes to therapy for a while even though there are other parts who are also having trouble... even if i do get to be the main one in therapy then maybe in a few months ill feel a tiny bit better and in a few years ill make it to low average in terms of how i feel? i cant do this. i really cant.

and there isnt even anyone i can call for help or support because i need to respect that w isnt equipped to deal with this and my therapist isnt available again until thursday and she already spent time on the phone with me in addition to our regular session. and that would be the sum total of people i could call for help so im on my own with this and i really cant cope. i just cant. i really cant. i cant handle the thought of one more hour of feeling like this and theres nothing i can do.

2008-11-18T20:40:00.001-05:00

any time i start to even think about having hope that things will get better, i get some bad news that shows me that even thinking that things might get better only sets me up to feel even worse. my therapist said that feeling better would be "gradual" and that it would be a long time before i would feel better. i cant wait that long. i dont think i can cope with even a few more days and shes talking months or years before i feel better. i cant do that.

everything sucks

2008-11-14T23:04:00.002-05:00

and it looks like not only will i have to move out of my apartment but we'll have to pay more money for a place that totally sucks *and* i will get stuck with a much harder and longer commute to and from therapy. great. it takes me half an hour or longer to get myself on each train because of anxiety. now i'm going to have to be doing this at least twice in order to get to therapy and twice to get home. plus it will be a rotten transfer. great. just great. or i suppose i could drive, except if we move to the bronx that means paying $4.50 each way for the bridge tolls. oh yeah. and also it means that i would be driving at a time when i know i'm switching all over the place.

so great. we're gonna have half the space for several hundred bucks more a month, and my days are going to suck that much more. i will have that much more anxiety and that much more frustration. and since it's a rare thing for any elevators or escalators to consistently work with the stupid mta, i'm also going to be wasting a ton of energy climbing up and down stairs in the subways.

i hate this. i don't know why i'm even bothering to stick around for the move. if i were gone before then, at least w could get a one bedroom or studio apartment and she could save a ton of money and probably stay in a neighborhood she likes better. but no, she says i have to stay til after the move, which is just her way of manipulating me into not going anywhere at all and its not like it matters because she is acting like if i just wait a little bit thigns will be better except that i have waited for fourteen years of really wanting to kill myself and four or five years before that of thinking things would be better when i got to college and its not like i havent been trying or going to therapy or stuff. i have spent at least two different years trying all kinds of meds none of which helped and most of which added on weird anxiety things or lightheadedness or something like that on top of the depression. so yeah im gonna try meds which have yet to work for me. or im gonna sit around hoping that maybe tomorrow i will feel better but i never feel better all that happens is a different part comes out.

i dont see why i have to wait until after the move when it makes way more sense to just go away before the move. its not like the move is what made me suicidal. its that it was the last straw. i was already at the end of my rope and then half a dozen things got added on but im supposed to just keep coping and im supposed to be the one who thinks of how to get better.

well you know what? i dont want to get better. if someone wants me to get better then they can figure it out. i am done with trying. i quit. i just quit. i can not do this any more.

not fair

2008-11-09T21:31:00.002-05:00

its not fair. i am really depressed i think i am always depressed i dont have any memory of not being really depressed and sad anyway. and there are parts who are trying to get out and i WANT them to get out so they can take over. but even if they get out for a little even if they arent doing something that might be overwhelming still i keep winding up back out. i dont WANT to be out. i am depressed and just want to be dead and there isnt really anything anyone can do to help that and i dont know how to get better. maybe in therapy on tuesday but i really dont need to be out til then but instead i keep winding up being out without wanting to.

if the other parts want to be out and they arent doing anything that upsets me and they want to be here and i dont i just dont understand why i am stuck being out which doesnt make anyone happy with how things are.

argh

2008-11-03T22:57:00.002-05:00

therapist called and left a message saying she won't be in tomorrow. this is upsetting a number of parts.

and i'm upset for what is kind of a silly reason. why am i upset? not because she won't be there, but because collective-i have gotten to a point where it MATTERS that she won't be there. we used to be better at this stuff, didn't get upset. it didn't matter whether our therapist was at a session. so long as they were reasonable about notice, we didn't really care. that was better. then we didn't depend on the t. it was just a casual relationship, could take it or leave it.

but now it's upsetting if we don't have the appointment. how is that a good thing? it would be better if we didn't miss her when she's gone. it would be better to not rely on people, because then it wouldn't be upsetting if they aren't available.

like, with my family... well, ok, i guess that is upsetting. but i didn't used to feel that. not like with my emotions or anything. i mean i would get a little upset, but mostly i could tell myself it didn't matter, that i would just take whatever i got, anything i got was a bonus, don't expect anything. mostly, i'm still like that.

but now, with both w and therapist, i get upset if they aren't available when i need them, or when i'm used to seeing them. and this doesn't seem like a good thing for anyone. i have to deal with the stress, and spend all of this energy calming myself down, and then they have to deal with me being upset. it would be easier for everyone if i didn't care and i didn't count on them. i can't see how this is healing, if what it means is i get upset when people aren't there.

exhausted

2008-11-02T22:37:00.002-05:00

or, as the little kids say "i am EZOSTED!"

partly, it's fibro (and boy, do i resent having my fibro still flaring up in the fall! usually, i get a couple of months of better physical stamina! i WANT that. i NEED that!)

but more of it is that this was an exhausting weekend for me. yesterday was thoroughly aggravating until about 5:20. we were having a meeting of dinner collective--our first since we started a group on meetup.com, so i was anxious to get to the meeting place on time. but the chickens i was roasting turned out to still be frozen, which set me back by about an hour and a half (ever tried to rapid-thaw chickens, and then pry out the giblet packages from half-frozen chickens? not an easy task!)

and at the same time, our internet wasn't working (which turned out to be a router problem, and i need to figure out how to deal with that, since it's still happening sporadically.) so i was trying to fix that, thaw the chickens, get dinner made, keep the kitchen from becoming a *total* disaster, and not getting any down time.

dinner collective went well, although only one new person showed up. but we now have several meals in the fridge for next week, and that is a really good thing.

today was more emotionally exhausting. trying to deal with idiocy on our landlord's part, and doing some tiring processing with w (good, useful, not tense, but tiring never the less.)

last week was also very social, which can be difficult for me, so it's just been a while since i had down time, and there isn't a whole ton of down time coming up, either.

but that wasn't really why i started this post, now that i think of it. what i was *going* to write about is how i sometimes feel like i'm making things up.

case in point: tonight, the ones doing the majority of the processing with w were adults. those who have been reading for a while might be aware that the adult parts haven't been around a lot for the past year and more (not since the end of summer, 2007). they've been coming around more often for the past few months, but still not that often. one thing i, ellis, have noticed is that a lot of times in the past when w. and i both assumed it was adults, it was actually me. i have always operated as a kind of quasi-adult, so that makes sense. at least to me.

but the adults also tend not to announce their presence a lot of the time, at least, not if they aren't doing something specifically "adult." and i get that it can be uncomfortable to say "oh, right, this is who i am" to someone who has known you for a long time, and who you're used to just being "you" with. and the bulk of the time the adults were around, they were kind of the default, you know? i/we were with w for 4 1/2 years before DID was something we'd considered. and then the adults were only around routinely for about the first year post-diagnosis, and then it's been more than a year of us younger ones being the ones who are mostly out.

right. so the point. i went to check in with w before bed, and mentioned that it had been adults. i KNOW it was adults for the bulk of that discussion. it had happened a couple of minutes previously, and i'd gone into my room, and out for a cigarette, and then came back. and it seemed like a good idea to say, "hey, this is one of those times you got adult time." but it felt like i was making things up. not because of w's response, but because i had to say something. it's hard, because neither w nor i is always good, even now, at checking to see who is out. and it's hard, because there's a level where it feels like "if she can't see it herself, then i must just be pretending when i say what's happening."

not sure where i was going with this, but there it is. just some thoughts.

2008-11-02T08:26:00.002-05:00

we got this award from Battle Weary. i think it's our first award!

i don't know who else already has this award, or whether they read this site anyways, but i'll pass it on to Michelle, Tempy, and HeidiVillage.

Gaems!!!

2008-10-28T23:11:00.001-04:00

We maed a page of GAEMS to play!!! they are diffrent gaems we liek or maby think a diffrent persun will liek. you can try them. we did not maek the gaems we just put them on the page ok.

by from MANDY!!!!

iGoogle

2008-10-25T10:30:00.002-04:00

We have found out something very neat. What we found out is you can make different TABS on your iGoogle page and then every tab can have different stuff on it and a different theme. This is super cool cause it means that we can make a home page for us that is different but it's the same page.

Like we just made a page for me and Jewel and Rain and maybe Amanda if she is not to grown up today. It has fairy games and coloring and stuff like that. But also there is a page for the grown ups with things like calendars and to do lists.

There is very cool stuff to put on your iGoogle page. You can have games or organizing stuff. And you can make a tab for every part if you want and then that person can just click on their tab and they have all of their things right there. And they can look at a page that is just for them.

The best thing is it is free!! You do not have to pay even a little bit, and you can put neat stuff on there. And also because it is online that means if you are on someone else's computer then you can have your page, and then it will go away when you are not on their computer because you will not stay signed in on Google.

All you have to do is have a Google email or something then you sign in and then you make a page for every person!

united states of tara

2008-10-23T00:33:00.002-04:00

i just watched the trailer for the united states of tara. it's a program that will be on showtime at the beginning of next year. it's about a woman who is multiple, and how she and her family are coping with it.

i know the program has upset a lot of multiples. i've read people who are offended at the very idea of it being a comedy, and i suspect that no matter how well it's handled, it's not going to be ok with some people. well, i *know* that's true. there's no way to please everyone.

but they did please me. i appreciate the way that it seemed like they addressed the range of her personalities, and how that could cause discomfort with her family. i also liked the husband's interactions--it really seemed as though he'd built up relationships with at least the parts featured on the trailer, which is a nice message to be putting out there. the notion that it's ok for a partner of a multiple to interact with different parts.

probably my response has a lot to do with my own experiences. i know that my partner is uncomfortable with thinking about having a sexual relationship with the parts who aren't adults, or who aren't the parts who started the relationship with her (although, looking back, a *lot* of us started that relationship. it was a team effort, so to speak.)

and i'm comfortable with the idea that sometimes, coping with DID is just plain funny. when i'm with my friends who know that i'm multiple, we do joke about it. we aren't making light of the trauma, or the parts that are hard. we're making light of the fact that, for instance, i can go from having a serious political discussion to being all excited about seeing a lady garbageman back to the political discussion, then on to something entirely different. or we laugh about... just the humor of the situation. and the trailer for this show didn't make me feel like they were making fun of multiples, it made me feel like they were laughing at the way that it's funny, and also being conscious of the fact that it *isn't* always funny.

maybe when someone more coherent is around (or at least when i'm not in the middle of revolving door world!) i'll post something more about this topic. but for now, i feel like it's gonna be nice to get to watch the program, and see how things develop.

the only down side is, will people think i'm making up my multiplicity because i saw it on showtime?

links to blogs and sites

2008-10-18T13:33:00.003-04:00

Mostly because I wanted it for my website, and so that I can keep all of the various linking I do in one spot, I want to mention my page linking to blogs and websites connected to DID/MPD and trauma/abuse survivors. (Here's the link)

The page is focused on personal sites and blogs, rather than the professional ones. Eventually, I'll also get up pages with links to support forums and to professional sites.

Check it out, and if you know of a blog or site I should include, or you find your blog or site there and wish it weren't, please let me know, ok?
:D

self-help/support groups

2008-10-17T12:36:00.001-04:00

i'm looking for opinions! please comment on this post, or send me an email, or something like that, if you have a response, ok?

i'm thinking about starting a self-help group for people with DID/MPD in my area. right now, it's still in the planning stage (like, because i know it would be a bad idea for me to try to do this without having at least one other person helping, and it takes time to find someone who would be interested!)

but i was wondering--if you could have a support group that did just what you wanted it to do, what would that look like? if you're in a support group now or have been in the past, what are the things you like and dislike about it?

note: in this case, i'm talking about a self-help group, and not something therapist led. because i think that in many ways, the best people to help me cope with being multiple are other people who are also coping with being multiple!

thinking

2008-10-16T00:07:00.004-04:00

i'm up late tonight for several reasons. the reason i'm *still* up is that we went grocery shopping last friday and didn't wind up cooking some chickens that were on sale really cheap (like 49 cents a pound cheap!) and rather than risk them going bad, w and i decided it made the most sense to go ahead and cook them tonight. and since i don't have to get up as early as she does, i'm the one doing the cooking.

we got home late, which caused the whole chicken discussion to happen at 10:30, because of our flaky couples' therapist, who rescheduled our appointment from 6 to 7. that alone wouldn't have gotten us home late, except that i was having serious panic and couldn't get onto the train. we tried... waited for at least three trains, and i just couldn't manage it. so w eventually suggested that we take a cab instead. on the one hand, this was a good idea. if i'm panicking to the point of being suicidal over getting on the train it really doesn't make sense to get on the train. on the other hand...

i feel really ashamed of the fact that i get suicidal over things like being in crowds. i mean, there isn't a good reason for it. i'm not actually in danger. i feel like i should just make myself cope. i feel like i should be *able* to cope. and i can't. there are things i can do. i pop rescue remedy like it's going out of style. i listen to music, i read, i do things to do healthy dissociation so that i'm able to get past the panic and get onto the train. i do a lot of positive self-talk: i remind myself that the train is safe, that it's ok for people to be on the same section as me, that it's not dangerous to have people stand near me. that i won't get hurt just because someone is standing in the same section where i am waiting. that it's not an aggressive thing for them to be doing. that they probably aren't even noticing me.

but really. normal people don't have to feel proud of themselves just because they managed to get onto the train. normal people don't freak out when someone else starts walking on the same sidewalk where they are walking. and i *know* that i used to manage all of that all right. but then i remember the times when i couldn't, like the times i wound up freaking out on planes because i didn't have a window seat, or all of the little things i've done for years to reduce anxiety.

see, the downside of dissociating less is that when i start to feel panic, i actually feel it. over the years, i've gotten less good at automatic dissociation.

and it's frustrating. i know that when i was growing up, i dealt with all kinds of things that were objectively way more stressful. and they didn't send me into suicidal... not exactly depression. it's panic to the point where death seems like a way better option, where it feels like there's absolutely no other way out.

someone inside had a good analogy for it, how i tip over so easily into feeling suicidal. it's like there's a cup, where things that need to be coped with are drops or splashes of water, and when the cup overflows, suicidal feelings spill out. for me, the cup is really small. on a good day, i can cope with whatever comes. but if the cup is getting filled up with things, even something pretty minor will make it overflow.

the good thing is, therapy over the past couple of years has gotten me to a point where the suicidal feelings don't last as long. it used to take longer for me to tip over into "suicidal," but then it would last for months. now, it doesn't take much at all, but it's over in hours or days. i suppose that's a good thing.

i just wish i could get to a point where i didn't tip over into suicidal at all.

and i guess another good thing is this is one more thing for me to think about at the times when i feel guilty for applying for social security: normal people, people who are coping well, don't actually have to struggle against suicidal feelings just to get onto the train, or to drive down the street.

it's not weakness, laziness, or any of that that is making me not be able to do the things i need to get done. if i could stop these feelings, i really *would* stop them. but i can't do it on willpower. and i don't need to be ashamed for my failure to stifle the feelings that make it so hard for me to do daily tasks.

Interesting thing

2008-10-15T17:11:00.000-04:00

i just saw a bus getting pulled by a tow truck. i bet it takes a very strong truck to pull a BUS!

At a farm

2008-10-12T16:11:00.000-04:00

We went to a farm today and we picked pumpkins i got a copel of pumpkins that were still atachde to the vine it was fun. Also we got lots of appels they are so delishes it was fun.

long time, no post

2008-10-08T17:37:00.002-04:00

it's been a while since i posted. i guess the thing is, there are parts who really don't want any journaling to happen. of any kind. some of that is because they are afraid someone will find out, and that then i'll get hurt (they will get hurt? we will get hurt?) they are afraid someone will find out i thought i was multiple and then i will get punished. it's hard to believe that that won't happen. i don't know who is writing this because i feel like i am just supposed to believe there is only one person inside of me but i kind of know that isn't true but at the same time i don't. i don't know if that makes any sense at all.

someone is fuming inside because they feel like i'm (they?) are just right back where they were at the beginning of all of this, like, 2 years of therapy specifically for did, and there are still parts of me that don't believe there is more than one person here? and i'm not any closer to being cured or anything? i don't know.

but there has been a lot of resistance to writing. we are testing it out right now to see how it will go. it's scary.

i'm wondering, do people who didn't go through abuse, but then they think they did, do they get a choking feeling like someone is going to punish them for talking? one of the little kids is saying, no, it's not a choking feeling, it's when they put a pillow on your face cause that will make you feel like you can't breathe but then they take it off and you can breathe again but if you tell someone, then they can do that for a longer time and no one will believe you, because nothing will show.

if a family is not abusive, then they probably don't show you all the different ways they can hurt you that won't leave marks, right?

i feel really nervous about talking about how i was abused not even saying anything specific i guess just that i was abused, because it's like something really really bad will happen just from letting myself think that. but i am testing it out.

my therapist says that people who didn't get abused don't usually have flashbacks or images that come into their minds all the time she says i'm definitely not schizophrenic and i looked at the diagnosis stuff for that and i think she is right because i don't have the things that would explain voices that way the voices in my head are not like the ones with schizophrenia.

i guess the things i am going through say that something bad happened to me. w and my therapist and my friends don't think i could fake all the time like this, they think the only way i could be so consistent from part to part, even when i am not quite sure which part is there and stuff, like the only way i could fake exactly the same handwriting for every part, or the same voice, or the same favorite things, is if the parts are real.

but i feel like i will get in trouble if i say that there is more than one person in here, or stuff like that. i know people say i won't get in trouble but i remember people saying i could tell them things, and then they went back to my family and that was not a good scene. you just can't know for sure if you can trust people.

someone is saying it's different now but how do i know for sure? like, what if they are just saying that, and they are secretly with other people, and they will tell them i told, and then i will get hurt? or what if they just aren't careful, and then something slips on accident?

mostly i want to believe it is safe now but that is just kind of something i have wanted to believe for a long time, and usually it didn't work out and i don't know for sure how to know whether it really is safe or whether i am just tricking myself into THINKING it's safe.

like, i thought things would get better in college, and then everything kind of fell apart. but i guess that was just stuff inside my head, and not someone outside of me hurting me. i guess it's true that since i went to college, no one outside of me has really hurt me again. that's 16 years... i guess that's a pretty long time. i don't know. i'm not sure it's a good idea to decide i'm safe.

i guess that's all i will write now. maybe someone else will write later.

2008-08-24T01:09:00.002-04:00

i know there are parts who think i am ruining their life. well, i don't care. i am tired of hiding and letting them pretend that everything is ok because it isn't and it never has been. i am tired of letting them pretend to be all good and perfect like they are doing all the right things to get better and letting them try to trick me into being good and going along with things and pretending that i am ok and all i need to do is talk to a stupid therapist or write in a journal and then everything will be fine.

they don't know what they are talking about. talking about the stuff that is on my mind isn't going to make me feel better it is only going to make me feel worse. i am tired of pretending that a bunch of stupid talking is going to make me feel better because it won't. and i'm not going to act like i can trust people or let any part of me trust people because we will just get hurt and i am tired of getting hurt. people just ditch me when they get bored or when they aren't in the mood to be around me any more and i am just supposed to act like thats ok.

or else they will do stuff when you least expect it and then you will think you are safe and all of a sudden the things are happening again.

i know that once people see how i really am then they won't want to be around me and they won't even bother to pretend to like me. i don't care what they say about how things are different because they are not different it is still just like it was back then and i cant stand it when people expect me to do different things just because they say things are different now because they are not different.

and too bad to the parts who think i ruined their life i will keep on coming out and i will stop hiding and i wont even let them stop me from writing in this blog because i have the password too and when i can think of other things to do then probably i will do those but i dont know for sure what i will do because because i just dont know for sure what i will do because i guess i am too weak to do anything really bad because i dont want to get people too upset but at least i can take myself away but even that probably i am too weak to do i dont know what i can do but i will do something as soon as i can think of what. or at least maybe i can make myself be strong so that i can do something bad but every time i think of doing something really bad then i get a sick feeling and i cant make myself do it i dont know how i used to do really bad things without getting sick to my stomach at least i dont remember doing those things but people said i did and i dont know how i used to do it without getting so sick that i couldnt make myself do it probably i used to be stronger or something.

mostly the only thing i can really do is just hide somewhere even if someone is looking at my body i can still hide if i want to and they will just get a rock nothing else because i can just turn my feeling parts into a rock and then they cant touch me any more i dont care what people want to do they cant hurt me i will just sit there and they can do anything they want and i wont care or i will just go to a far away place where i cant feel what is happening i bet that is what rocks do when they are in a volcano or something they just think themselves far away and then it doesnt hurt to get melted and crushed and stuff.

i dont care if people inside think i am ruining their life they had their chance for their perfect life and they couldnt handle it so now i am here and if that messes up their stupid plans and keeps them from doing the things they want too bad.

they messed up my plans because every time i was going to go somewhere else they kept on making me stay and i could never get away except for a week or two and they wouldnt even let me go somewhere just by myself it was always something with permission so then they could keep on looking perfect and then they could fool people into thinking they were all smart and good or some garbage like that well they cant do that any more because i will not hide any more and now that people can see me they will know what i am really like and i dont care whether the other parts like it or not they can just put up with it because its supposed to be my body and my life too and i never get a say and i am tired of being perfect.

people keep telling me there isnt consensus about stuff like leaving or dying or stuff like that. well, there isnt consensus about acting all perfect and like everything is ok either so i wont do that and they arent allowed to do it either because its my body and my life too and if they dont want to listen or have me around then too bad.

and the parts who keep wishing i would just go away and be quiet, well too bad. lucky for you i am too weak to figure out how to do something really bad just because i dont like to see someone get hurt or an animal or something. it doesnt mean im not going to figure out something i can do.

probably i can make everyone get really tired of me being around all the time and then they wont like anyone who lives in this body any more and then they wont get upset when i just go and leave somewhere and then i can finally leave and people wont try to make me come back because usually when i go even when the other parts were acting all nice once i go away people dont really care and this time i will just kind of stop talking to anyone and probably they wont notice once ive been away for a while.

those other parts can just keep on wishing i werent around or that i would disappear or they can try to get me locked up so they dont have to deal with me.

they all say that i can make my own choices when they can trust me but that is a huge lie because all that means is i can make my own choices when my choices are the same ones they would make and that isnt the same as having choices its just going along with someone elses plans and i am tired of doing that because it isnt my plans.

so i am going to be out as much as i possibly can and then they will see what their life is like when who they truly are is out where people can see it and then people will know what im really like and they will get tired of me and they will stop wanting to be around me and probably they will think im really horrible.

Foke festivel

2008-07-31T18:24:00.002-04:00

I wuld liek to riet about going to a foke festivel. We went to a foke festivel last week. It was fun espeshully caues the pepul at the foke festivel were super nise they did not tees a persun if they were diffrent insted they were nise.

Also ther is lots of music at a foke festivel we saw soem music we liekd and also soem music we did not all liek but it was ok caues we only had to pay a littel of money to go and it was fun mostly.

But then the foke festivel got too ECKSITING. that is caues of the wether. the wether was STORMS. it was a storm of LITNENG and THUNDER and HAIL!!! that was TOO ecksiting caues then things like TENTS fell down not just littel tents but also BIG tents liek where lots of pepul were going to eat. also ther was all most a FLOOD caues of the rain. that is how ecksiting it was.

I liek a foke festivel mostly. i liek the music. also i saw soem shooting STARS and thos are my favrit. they are so cool! i liek to see thos and then i make a WISH on them liek in the song about you maek a wish on a star that is wat i do.

I gess that is all for riet now. ther was soemthing els i wanted to riet about but i do not remember that is ok. maby i will get to riet later ok.

we enjoyed this video

2008-07-29T16:55:00.001-04:00

lots of parts have other things to post, but for right now, i'll share this video, which i think pretty much all of us liked.

Test video

2008-07-25T19:00:00.000-04:00

Not sure if this will work but it's worth a try. i'm enjoying the music at this festival. Some of the other parts are DONE with being away from home. one good thing is that we can see the main stage from our camp site. So i can enjoy the music even if other parts are cranky and want to hide. or even if the people i'm with are asleep and the littles don't want to go somewhere by themselves or with strangers.

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Simple syrup?

2008-07-21T16:13:00.001-04:00

I think that perhaps making simple syrup is not so simple on a day when i am switching every few minutes!

Disability

2008-07-20T18:25:00.001-04:00

Filling out the application for disability. Question for those who have done this: how much did you mention other parts and switching?

The zoo!!!!!

2008-07-18T21:57:00.001-04:00

O boy! i had SUCH an ecksiting day to day!!! i got to go to the ZOO with some FRINDS. they are pepul from my group for pepul liek me, also they have other pepul insied of them.

We had fun!!!! we got to see lots of animuls. it was not a super big zoo just a littel one that was good caues it was HOT to day and i think i wuld have got to TIRED at the big zoo but maby one tiem we can go to the big zoo to gether i did go to the big zoo one tiem with one of the pepul and maby we can go again i have a zoo member that is how i can get in for FREE and also one other persun plus w she can go for free to!!!!

Today we saw neat animuls. There were PINGWINS i liek them and puffins and also poller bears. ther is a pickchur of the poller bears at the top i used my phone to make that pickchur so it is not super good but i can go a nother tiem and probly ellis or soemone will take more pickchurs.

We had SO much fun. i liek thos pepul we went to the zoo with i hoep they liek me to. probly they do they are nise pepul.

I liek to have a zoo member caues then i can go to the zoo when i want but only i liek to go if i have a frind to go with me caues then it is more fun. also i can go to the kwariem. i went to the kwariem a littel bit ago again with w we saw thos animuls again liek the walres and the the fish and stuff. also the sea lien show at the kwariem is more intresting than the one at the zoo.

I hoep i can go to the big zoo soemtiem also with thos pepul i saw to day caues i liek to go with them they are fun to go with and they are not so gron up as w all the tiem. w is very nise but she only is a gron up and it is fun when i go with a persun who is also littel insied.

W caem back from her thing she was away at for ONE HOLE WEEK!!! i missed her mostly befor i did not miss a persun i just did not mind so much but this tiem i missed w super much and now she is hoem. she was still gone this morning so that is why she did not go with us to the zoo but next time probly she WILL go.

bye.

the DID/MPD workbook

2008-06-24T16:12:00.002-04:00

i set up a forum for creating a workbook for coping with DID/MPD and other dissociative disorders. i'm a pretty good researcher, and have yet to find something like this, either on paper or online; at least, i haven't seen anything like that in print or online.

so i figure, if all of the other mental disorders get to have workbooks, why shouldn't we have one as well?

but i'm not particularly much of an expert in coping, so i'm asking anyone who is interested if they would like to help as well.

i'm not expecting people to be experts or therapists or anything like that. it's more along the lines of self-help, and pooling our knowledge. i know that i've come up with some solutions that other people found really helpful, and that other people have come up with things that i found really helpful.

so if you have any interest in the DID/MPD workbook, or if you know someone who might have interest, please check it out, or pass the information along. feel free to post about it anywhere that seems appropriate.

thanks!

wallpaper

2008-06-23T14:47:00.003-04:00

i don't know what's up today, but i swear, the wallpaper on my computer has gotten changed about five dozen times today. normally, the wallpaper on the computer stays the same for months or years on end, but different parts have been grabbing the computer mouse as the slideshow of pictures plays on my google sidebar, and clicking "set as wallpaper" every few minutes.

no real point to sharing that, i guess. but it's getting a little crazy for me. crazyER.

on the bright side....

2008-06-13T15:10:00.002-04:00

so i finally got convinced to try applying for disability, and we were supposed to do the interview by phone this afternoon. i'm not doing so well today (have i been doing well very often lately? does making it to the point where i'm not in the *middle* of panic attacks count?) but i was gonna go through with it. w was going to be on the phone with us, so it would've worked out ok. i think.

anyhow, she just got a call from the disability people, and they wanted to reschedule for tomorrow morning. so that at least can be put off a little longer. maybe i'll be more functional tomorrow morning. or more coherent. or something.

on the anxiety front: i realized something, as i was pondering why it seems like things have gotten so much worse. and it occurred to me: if i'm dissociating less, and becoming more aware of how i feel, physically and emotionally, then it stands to reason that i will actually go through *feeling* the things i formerly dissociated. such as physical pain (and it turns out i get a lot of that) and definitely things like anxiety or sadness or anger.

so i guess it's a good sign, that i'm feeling these more intensely.

i keep reminding myself that it's like when you're doing deep levels of organization in the house: things get WAY messier for a while, while everything gets pulled out to be put into new places. and then it gets WAY better when you're done.

i only wish it weren't taking so darned long!!

memories and monsters

2008-06-06T10:51:00.003-04:00

had an interesting conversation (does it count as a conversation if it's all in my own head?) with the part who was out in therapy yesterday. not quite sure who it is. maybe one of the nonnys, but not completely sure. i think she's probably eight or nine, just based on the images i get when she thinks about things.

anyhow, she'd been talking with my therapist about how it is really dangerous to play, and how it's like there is a certain number of times you can play when nothing will happen, and you never know how many times that is, but if you play one too many times, then it will make the bad thing happen. same with not remembering all of the little things they do to keep safe.

her logic as to why things haven't been as bad since i left home is that maybe they just got better at being able to be careful, and if they *stop* being careful, then the bad things will happen.

after therapy, i was trying to get a sense of what exactly they mean, when they worry about "bad things." and this one gave me some interesting information. i don't think that they actually experienced the abuse directly. from the perspective of some of these parts--the ones who are super careful about following lots of "rules" and stuff like that--what they experience is this:

they miss some particular step or magic thing or make some kind of mistake. then they feel dread and fear about what is going to happen. then they "wake up" in pain, or they have more "nightmares."

and the thing is? i have fibromyalgia. i wake up in pain a LOT of the time. so now i'm trying to explain to them the difference between how i wake up in a lot of pain now, and it's not the same as when they were little. i point out that i *don't* wake up with bruises i don't know the origins of, that kind of thing. but... it's hard to explain the difference, because to them, it seems pretty similar.

what's funny is, they don't seem fazed by pain if they know where it's coming from. i was weirded out yesterday because i seemed to have a blister that i didn't remember, and then all the kids told me where it came from, and they didn't mind that at all.

and the nightmares... if all they remember is "nightmares," how can i explain that the things that happened when they were little weren't the same? that *those* things actually were happening, but the terrors they have *now* of nightmares are memories, and not actual "monsters."

but at least now i have more of a sense of why they are so nervous.

i can't believe myself

2008-06-04T08:03:00.002-04:00

so i heard about this website called "kitten wars."

originally i thought i'd check it out because, hey, kittens and wars. how could it be wrong?

but what is it? it's a cuteness popularity contest. you are presented with the pictures of two kittens (or cats) and then you click on the one you think is cutest. and then you get another pair, and another, and another... soon, minutes have passed by. this isn't even educational, like free rice dot com.

and just in case that's not enough cuteness and kittens for you, there's cats in sinks dot com. because you needed to look at more kittens.

i don't know why this appeals to me. i find lolcats and i can has cheezburger rather annoying.

so who knows. but if you like kittens or cuteness, you might want to check it out.

disability

2008-05-29T09:30:00.004-04:00

several people have suggested to me that i should apply for disability. i'm not sure what i think, but i'm leaning towards that right now.

but even as i type this, i am also thinking "how disabled am, i, really?" and it's hard for me to answer that.

i'd say that if w were totally incapacitated, or something like that, sure, i could probably get it together to figure out how to work at a job. but the truth is... there have been times when that seemed like it would be the case, and i couldn't get it together.

it's hard for me to accept that i can't actually do something. i mean, my legs aren't broken. in fact, none of my bones is broken. my body doesn't work the way i would like it to (it often startles me to discover that things i'm so used to are not, in fact, normal. you know, like being physically capable of standing up while a train or bus is moving).

i've tried to get myself to where i can do freelance work from home. i have trouble accepting that there is a good reason i haven't been able to manage this. i mean, i'm smart. i'm willing. and i just can't do it. i can't manage to work on my website, which isn't even something where there is a deadline.

i had to stop working on my dissertation, because i couldn't handle it.

but what "counts" as being really disabled? i keep hearing those voices in my head, saying "if you really HAD to, you could do this." and i can't work out what's true. there are a LOT of things i've felt like i really had to do, things i FEEL like i really have to do, and i can't. i have tried.

i've tried to make an appointment with the ob/gyn to get some health stuff taken care of, and i haven't been able to do it. i spend hours getting myself to dial the number, and then i can't manage to make the appointment. same with the dentist or the gp. there are physical health things that are actually problems. things that are definitely going wrong... and i can't manage to make the appointments.

does that count as disabled?

does it count as disabled that i mostly can't manage to shower, if i *can* manage to change my clothes and use deodorant, so i'm not visibly unbathed? does it count as disabled if it takes me three or four tries to talk myself onto a train if it's crowded? (and for me, "crowded" equals "people sitting on 3/4 of the seats")

i see people who can manage to keep working, even though they have much worse things going on. there are people who manage to work with all kinds of disabilities. so i can't figure out why i'm not managing it.

just because i become intensely suicidal when i push too hard... shouldn't i suck it up, and make myself work, on the theory that there's probably only a 20% chance i'd actually wind up committing suicide? i mean, that indicates that there is an 80% chance i'd live through it. those are good odds.

feels in a lot of ways like i'm just not trying hard enough. but then, there's also the fact that i feel like i'm trying my best, and just not succeeding. and that is... weird. i mean, i was raised to believe that the only reason i would fail at something i am supposed to do is if i haven't tried. and so i keep doubting that i've tried hard enough, because i keep on failing.

just... processing through this. not quite sure what the point of the post was.

flashback

2008-05-23T23:19:00.002-04:00

trying to process through a particularly intense flashback i had this afternoon. not really sure why it was as intense as it was, but then, who knows about these things?

so i was standing there, washing dishes. this is an activity that is often pretty triggering, and i know perfectly well why (lots of abuse around doing jobs perfectly; also abuse that happened simply because i was there in the kitchen, where someone might notice me.)

as i was washing, almost done with the task, i found myself flinching, braced as someone hit me. i turned slightly, so i'd be able to predict where the next blow was going to fall, and so i wouldn't instinctively try to lift my arm to protect myself. and somehow, i managed to notice that i was in my kitchen now, that this wasn't really happening.

i think part of what made it more intense than usual was the combination of circumstances. i was stressed when i started washing the dishes (although less so than i've been for a lot of this week). there were my hands in the water, washing dishes, checking to make sure the various plastic ones were getting fully cleaned. and i was listening to a song i listened to a *lot* when i was a teenager (Go On, by Russ Taff). so there were a lot of signals that brought up memories.

trying to remember what i was thinking about right before the flashback, and i really can't think what it was. nothing that is out of the ordinary for when i am washing dishes, and not feeling especially trigger-y (because i have learned that if i'm feeling trigger-y, washing dishes is not one of my better options). i hadn't even dropped something, which often brings up a flashback.

my sense of it is that much of what made this flashback as intense as it was, is that several parts experienced it simultaneously.

often, with a flashback, i only get part of the experience. for me, it's often mostly emotional. i know that the little kids, especially, get ones that are mostly physical (a more intense version of body memories, from what i can tell). some parts get ones that are mostly memories, as though they are watching something happen.

i also suspect that part of what made it feel different was the fact that at least one of the adults was nearby as it came. or so i suspect.

afterwards, after i had grounded back into the present, and decided to go ahead and wash the last couple of dishes, even though i was feeling kind of overwhelmed by the flashback... one of the parts who has been out recently commented on something. she was feeling kind of... dismissive of some things. i don't know. but she said something about how one reason the adults haven't been around lately is that for them, they would rather be dead than admit they can't handle things, or that they are not doing a perfect job with everything in their lives. (perfect in their world, which means... not necessarily perfect, but doing all the right things, and trying hard, and overcoming adversity. admirable is maybe a better word?)

i'd like to deny this, that the reason the adults haven't been around is because they can't handle imperfection, that they really would choose suicide over this, and that it's not just their insistence on continuing to function that has made other parts block them out, but *also* the fact that the adults would be more inclined towards suicide, if they were unable to enforce that perfect-ness.

and yet, i do remember a conversation i had with cleo last winter. she was incredibly distressed over me being dropped from my phd program. she was really feeling suicidal, as though this failure was... life-threatening. and i can remember someone (me, another part? i don't remember) pointing out how, we wound up where we are because the choice seemed like we could risk suicide, or we could continue being functional (in the sense of doing a lot of work, and managing without more than minimal help, and doing everything well), but at the time, the two were incompatible. and we asked, "so would you rather be dead than fail to be perfect?" and her response was an unequivocal "YES!"

so i can't deny that it's true, at least about cleo.

it's been hard for me to start to see that, for all they seemed so functional, the adults in this system really aren't perfect. they aren't actually more functional, even. they just appear to be so.

not sure what the point of this post was.

i have been meaning to write a totally different post about the song i linked to above. it's a good song, even if you don't normally like christian rock. the message is pretty simple, and for those who aren't into all the "god stuff," there isn't an overwhelming amount in it.

positive things about parts who have been out lately

2008-05-22T09:34:00.002-04:00

it's been frustrating and exhausting with the parts who have been out lately. hard to deal with them, hard to figure out what to do.

but i've noticed some really positive things about them.

first, intellectually, i know they are there as a kind of safety valve. they are doing the things they do in order to protect us. they are trying to keep us safe, the best way they know how. i suspect they came out because of a few things that happened with w, which really did make us feel like we can't trust her. particularly, the little kids got hurt, and these parts that are out are really trying to keep them from being hurt.

one thing i noticed yesterday, as the parts who were out (who would rather not have names right now, which gets complicated in talking about them, but i'll respect that)... anyhow, as they were venting some rage by destroying things, i noticed that they can actually hear all of the other parts really well, probably better than we more "functional" ones. they were able to hear when someone spoke up about not wanting particular things destroyed, and they did listen. so while we're regretful about some of the things, nothing got ruined that was *that* important, despite how those parts were feeling out of control.

what's more, we made it through the day without doing major self-harm. those parts *wanted* to cut, quite a lot, but listened to the rest of our objections (specifically, not wanting the scars). they even listened when we requested that they not send nasty text messages to w until she was done at work, because we didn't want to make her day any harder than the lack of sleep the night before had already made it.

intellectually, i know the rage they are feeling is important. there were things that happened that left me/us really badly wounded--more spiritually than physically, but the spiritual wounds linger. and they are able to be furious about that hurt, in ways that i am not.

they are able to say out loud all of the desperately hurting things many (or most) of us feel inside. and painful though it is, i think that getting those feelings *out* is better for us, in the long run, if we can live through it.

2008-05-21T13:48:00.002-04:00

and let me add it's not just that i'm a jerk. if it were just me i could understand why no one is helping but they are also not helping the parts they claim to like.

2008-05-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

what sucks is i can't even make w happy by killing myself because i can't think of a method i am sure would work and i do NOT want to get stuck in the hospital being told i am manipulative and histrionic again. and i guess it is manipulative to say how much i want to be dead if i have no idea how i would do it. i just wish if the pain won't go away and no one can or will help that the pain could just kill me and i wouldn't have to keep living with it. but no one can help and even people who insist they want to admit they wish i could just kill myself like w said last night. i don't know what is wrong with me that makes me unworthy of help.

Proof i was right

2008-05-21T10:10:00.000-04:00

she said outright last night that she wished i could kill myself and leave the others behind. how long will it be before she admits that she wants all of the inconvenient parts dead so the only ones left are the ones who take care of her and don't ask for anything in return?

hating this

2008-05-20T20:28:00.003-04:00

i hate this. i hate the fact that i can start to regain control, but as soon as i slip, there are other parts out. fighting with w. making trouble. pushing everyone away. i make a vow to myself that this time i will hold on, but as soon as i move, it's like someone comes out.

they are convinced that no one is ever going to love me or take care of me. and so they are doing everything they can to push people away. and then they get suicidal because they have just confirmed to themselves that no one will love me (them?) or take care of me (them?). and if i go out and try to smooth things over, they get pissed at ME for trying to suck up to people and make them like me on false pretenses, and they insist that the only reason people are at all nice to me is that i take care of them and don't ask for anything.

and what the f*** am i supposed to do?! either i am trying to maintain relationships with people so they won't reject me and give up, which the other parts find unsatisfying because they want people to love them even though they are being a$$holes. or i give up and just try to keep them away from other people, which proves to them that no one loves them.

i can't win. there is NOTHING i can do to fix this. the best i can do is try to keep myself alive long enough that these other parts give up, and try not to let them alienate everyone in my life. they are doing a f***ing good job of that, alienating everyone.

I HATE THIS.

i want the damned grown ups to come back and THEY can deal with this. but i think chariots' comment was right. they ditched me just like pretty much everyone else has ditched me. w is still around, but i know she is worn out, and there is only so much she is willing to do, and if the other parts don't stop, i know they will wear her out entirely. certainly, she is going to take breaks from dealing with us/them, which is only going to confirm to them that she isn't in this for the long haul. certainly she has the sense not to keep getting in fights with them.

and there is NOTHING i can do to prove to them that this doesn't equal her not caring. there is NOTHING i can do to prove to the other parts that someone not wanting to deal with them being f***ing a$$holes does NOT mean people don't care. they are convinced this is true.

so what will happen? if i'm lucky, these parts will back off and i'll get to deal with all the fallout from their crap these past weeks. i will get to spend a ton of time trying to make it up to w so she won't be resentful. and then i will have to try to get my life back together.

if i'm not lucky, the best-case scenario is that someone notices how badly they're doing and manages to keep them from killing themselves (which includes killing me and the others, for the record). best-case scenario there ends up with me in the hospital, which will only confirm to those parts that no one cares and they might as well die.

worst-case scenario is no one manages to intervene, and i don't get to live through it this time.

this would be a GREAT time for the adults to show back up. this would be a really USEFUL time for them to step in and take control. they should NOT be leaving this on me.

hating this

2008-05-20T08:12:00.002-04:00

i am so tired of this. tired of everything. tired of trying to cope with the other parts.

the adults haven't been around. every time we get close to the adults being around, something happens, and then... no more adults. so i'm stuck trying to fix things so the adults can come back. i'm stuck trying to hold our life together so that things don't fall apart completely. i'm stuck being responsible for a bunch of parts who don't appreciate me. but i can't rest, because every time i relax even a little, some other part comes out and starts f***ing things up. they get in fights with w, and leave the house because they know it pisses her off and makes her worry. i'm doing everything i can to prevent more extreme self-harm, and that's pretty much all i'm managing.

and i feel like i keep getting shoved back into the role i originally had, of the one who was stuck dealing with the garbage no one else wanted to deal with. when is this going to be over? when do i get to just be a normal person? i don't even mean "normal" as in "not having DID." i mean "normal" as in "not stuck doing a job i am getting thoroughly tired of doing." but there it is. i can't help taking responsibility, because if i DON'T, i know perfectly well no one else will either.

i know it's different from when i was a teenager. w is not abusive. but i can see that some of the parts who have been out will push her until she acts abusively. she is a human being, and if they push her past the point she can deal with them in other ways, it's not gonna be good.

so the not-abusive part is better. but in lots of ways, things are worse. because you know what? when i was responsible for my siblings and the house and all that? i still was *separate* from them. people could still see me, and even if my mother did pretty much nothing but criticize how i handled things, at least people outside the house could see that i was good and responsible and not a jerk.

but now the people i'm responsible for, the ones whose behavior i really have no hope of controlling, are inside my body. the ones who i'm trying to keep from running away or hurting themselves or wrecking my life? they live in my f***ing BODY.

and that's a whole lot worse. because 1, people see them and they see me too. they think that i should be taking care of this, keeping all of this garbage from happening. and 2, the life the other parts are f***ing up is MY life too.

i am so TIRED of this. i am scared of the fact that my safety relies on the ability of a 15 year old--and exhausted, frustrated, worn-out 15 year old--to continue being sufficiently responsible and persuasive and in-control. because i am the one responsible for whether or not i'm safe; it's not anyone else's job. i am the one responsible for whether i am able to get better. i don't f***ing know HOW. but it's still my job.

and then people will say to me, "oh, put that responsibility on someone else. let one of the other parts be responsible. let them take some of that." but the other parts DON'T. if i'm not in control, nothing good comes of it. and i can't be in control all the time. the reason they didn't lock me up along with the adults is that i can't keep other parts from coming out. so they know they can push me aside pretty easily. so they can get out and I CAN'T STOP THEM. i just get stuck cleaning up the mess after they have been here.

and i don't get to do any of the things that **I** want to do. because any time i'm out, it seems like i'm just trying to clean up the mess the others left. trying to keep w from getting completely fed up and exhausted and hating us. trying to clean up the literal messes. trying to get the others to even have a f***ing MEETING so we can talk about this, but no, they aren't willing to meet, at least not with me. they are refusing to get better, and i don't know how to get them to a point where things aren't so horrible, and i am just STUCK with this.

and the little kids haven't had time out for a long time, so i feel guilty about that, too, but i can't find a way of making that happen, because i don't actually know how to get other parts out if they aren't wanting to come out on their own and the little kids are stressed out about the fact that there are a bunch of furious teenagers. and they're upset that w doesn't remember to ask them to come out. and the other teenagers have been telling them that if w really cared she would remember to ask them to come out, so if she doesn't, they should keep themselves safe by not trying to come out at all.

I AM SO TIRED OF ALL OF THIS. i am FIFTEEN. when do i get to relax and just be me? i'll settle for getting to relax and pretend i'm an adult. i don't have to act like i'm fifteen. i just want to f***ing RELAX and not be responsible for anyone but me.

dang

2008-05-19T07:05:00.002-04:00

i had a dream right before i woke up that was *hilarious*, or at least, it was during the dream. but i forgot it as i woke up.

well, i also remember thinking that the NPR fund drive that was playing on the clock radio alarm was probably why *something* had been happening in the dream (you know those dreams that incorporate things going on around you as you sleep?).

wish i could remember the dream itself.

anyone read this?

2008-05-11T09:25:00.002-04:00

Multiple Personality: An Hispanic Perspective

i was looking for a different book that someone had recommended, and came across this one in the search. it's a more clinical book, i think, but one that focuses on puerto rico, rather than the united states or western europe. so just wondering whether anyone's read it.

interesting observation

2008-05-11T09:19:00.002-04:00

collective-i have been having daily meetings by typing to a private blog. one interesting thing has been that after whoever is done typing, they click on the names of whoever was present at the meeting. and what's weird is, it's not always the same group of people, and i (ellis) am often surprised at who is there... like, "really? this part was there, but this other part wasn't?" like, how do i know these things, or something, when they didn't specifically say something at the meeting. and yet, they generally let me know if they are there, and if i don't hear someone say they're there, then i don't click on their name....

just a little bit of interesting-ness, i guess.

New stuff!

2008-05-08T21:21:00.003-04:00

We put new things on our web site at the littles pages. There is a new part of Amanda's story and also some videos from our trip to the aquarium. Hope you like it!

Oh, also, there is a link now on the side that will show you when we make new posts over there, so if we don't remember to write about it on the blog, then you can just look there, and you will see if we put up a new page, ok?

some thinking

2008-05-05T07:50:00.002-04:00

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!

busy, busy, busy

2008-04-24T08:26:00.002-04:00

we're very, very busy and we've got a lot to do,
and we really don't have time to explain it all to you....

w is on vacation, and we've got a seder this weekend, so we're really insanely busy this week. i'll hopefully get a chance soon for various of us to post about what's been going on, but for now, enjoy the song linked at the bottom of this post! ;)

Busy Busy Busy - Kevin Kline by Sandra Boynton

sometimes i get tired of the pity party

2008-04-20T09:17:00.002-04:00

this is going to be a fairly non-specific post, because i want to make it clear i'm not speaking about any one person or group of people.

but sometimes i get REALLY tired of the whole "pity party" that tends to happen when people are coping with having a history of abuse. sometimes, it feels like there's a culture of saying "oh, woe is me, these bad things happen and there is NOTHING i can do to change this, and now another bad thing has happened, and ANOTHER.... oh, woe is me. oh, i can't do anything to change this."

and then you look at the situation, and it really seems from the outside that there ARE things that person could do, but if you suggest those things, then you are being unsupportive and cruel and not validating how difficult things are.

i guess maybe part of this, on my end, is a reaction to my older sisters.

here's my usual example of the kind of thing i mean (no triggers, unless you get really freaked out by a lack of sympathy on my end, or by financial stuff):

my older sister has trouble with her finances. she tends to spend impulsively, and she doesn't budget. she is well into adulthood--she has spent more of her life over the age of 18 than under it. and she would keep having services shut off, and wound up having her house foreclosed, because of financial mismanagement on her end.

her response? to be upset that our mother hadn't taught her to budget when she was growing up. so it's not my *sister's* fault she had money trouble, because it was our *mother's* job to teach her to budget.

and i often see people (to my knowledge, not people who comment on this blog, in case you're wondering) who do the same thing with their abuse histories. they are like, "oh, i wasn't treated right when i was a baby, so now i am forever scarred, so feel sorry for me."

well, ok, yeah. we do get scarred. it totally sucks. but there are things we can do to change that. particularly once we reach adulthood, we have a LOT of options.

it's not like we can make things perfect, because we can't. yes, there are a lot of things that are hard. and there are days when i can't bear the thought of going on trying to cope and heal.

what i'm objecting to is the people who really do seem to be refusing to move beyond acknowledging the pain. the ones who spend a whole lot of time talking about how everything is so hard, and don't spend time taking responsibility for their own lives. with people online, i try not to say much, because i know that only a tiny part of who they are shows up, and it's entirely possible that they *are* doing a lot of things to improve their lives.

but sometimes, people online remind me so strongly of people in my non-computer life. the ones who, rather than sitting down and learning to budget for themselves, spend twenty or thirty years bemoaning the fact that they weren't taught to budget in childhood. the ones who refuse to take action on their own behalf, because they are still waiting for someone to come and save them.

and, yeah, i'm speaking from a place of privilege. i managed to figure out how to go to college, and because my parents weren't paying for it, that meant that when i left for college, they no longer had any concrete way of controlling me.

i was fortunate enough to not get into an intimate relationship until i'd done enough healing work to be aware of what a healthy relationship looked like.

i have been amazingly lucky in my friends. while we all have our issues, we do seem to be more likely to encourage people towards healthy rather than unhealthy behaviors.

i have also been fortunate in the therapists i've worked with (barring the idiots right after i was in the hospital, but that was two months out of my life, and i was able to see that they weren't doing me any good).

it's not that my life is perfect, or that i don't have hard days. and i don't know, maybe there are people who look at me and my life, and see that same pity party going on. i mean, i'm not working, because of the fact that between fibromyalgia and DID, it's just a struggle to get more than three or four "good days" in a row. and i'm sure there are people who look at me and think "well, if she would just ______ then she could be doing so much better."

so i do try to be sympathetic, and generally, i hold my tongue when people seem focused on having a pity party. sometimes, i even type words of support, trying to be compassionate and respond to their pain.

but then i get frustrated, and just kind of back off. because there are some people who seem to focus so much more on how other people mistreated them, and how they are wounded, than on figuring out how they can take control of their own lives, and change things for the better.

just had to get this off my chest. and apologies to anyone i might have offended by writing this.

Things that bug me

2008-04-12T08:57:00.001-04:00

one thing i really can't understand is why people think it's reasonable to ride the train wearing enough perfume to make people sick. you'd think they would have more courtesy.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month

2008-04-10T19:06:00.001-04:00

For once, I remembered this before the month was over. (Oh, just checked, and realized I wrote about it last year, too. But it's a subject that could be written about far more often, so I'll do it again.

Here is a page with statistics about child abuse. There are also links at the bottom with a lot of other information.

Child abuse is altogether too common. Even if the statistics on abuse are inflated, the odds are, you know someone who has been abused (ok, if you know me, you do know someone who was abused as a child). And odds are, you know someone who has occasionally or routinely behaved abusively towards their children.

Abuse isn't always obvious. Families where the parents are abusive don't necessarily look any different on the outside. Abused kids don't always show signs of it. Abusive families can go to the zoo or the amusement park. The parents can treat their children well, particularly when someone is observing them.

Abusive parents might not even recognize that their behaviors are abusive. My guess is that more than 90% of abusive parents had no intention of abusing their children before it happened. There are a lot of reasons they might have wound up being abusive, but I think it's pretty rare for someone to say, "Hm, let me have a child in order to make their life a living hell."

And, speaking from my own experience, I'd also say that parents who are sometimes abusive also genuinely do love their children, and want the best for them. At the same time, whether they are over-stressed, or lack appropriate skills, or were abused themselves and are unable to recognize that what they are doing isn't okay... there are parents who do abuse their children.

I guess my point is, be aware that this happens. Try not to think of abuse as something that is rare, because sadly, it isn't. Try to recognize that even someone you like, even someone who seems like a really excellent parent, can also be abusive some of the time.

And let's try to do what we can to end the cycle of violence. It's not something anyone should have to experience.

Spring!

2008-04-10T12:52:00.001-04:00

I admit I didn't get very excited by seeing the bulbs coming up or even by the days getting longer. But today for the first time this year I was able to leave the house without a jacket and THAT has me grinning. :)

There was a cool street musician tonight

2008-04-09T21:20:00.002-04:00

Here is the video. We can't figure out how to make it show up on here without uploading it somewhere else, so I'm just putting a link. I think it starts to play as soon as the link loads. I don't know if everyone's computer will show the video, but I hope you can hear it. It was pretty cool. I bet you'll know the song. It was a surprise to hear that song tonight! It made us smile.

Car alarm birds

2008-04-09T10:34:00.002-04:00

It's that time of year again. Over the past few days, I've been hearing the mockingbirds in our neighborhood singing one of their favorite "songs": the "car alarm" song.

The first time I heard this, about 8 years ago, I couldn't quite believe what I was hearing. But it was that distinctive car alarm sound (WHEE-oop, WHEE-oop, WHEE-oop, breep, breep, breep, breep, BRAWK, BRAWK, BRAWK, BRAWK, oooEE, oooEE, oooEE). Ok, so maybe I didn't make it really clear in my description of the sound, but I think you know the one I'm talking about.

There are at least two, probably more, mockingbirds near my house who have been going through this song lately. I maintain hope that I'll be able to catch one of them in the act, and record it for posterity, and for the amusement of those who don't live near a car alarm bird. Maybe it would be even better to get it on video, but the birds are just shy enough that they always wind up flying away before I can get the camera ready.

On an only marginally related note, Brooklyn has not only mockingbirds that sing the car alarm song, but also a colony of parrots that live in the (urban) wild.

I am writing a story!

2008-04-05T09:58:00.002-04:00

Hi. This is Amanda. I'm 11.

One of the things I really like to do is to read books about normal kids doing normal things. Like The Penderwicks, which is a really good book about just ordinary kids one summer. But sometimes I want a book about a kid who is more like me, but I haven't found any. So instead, I'm writing a book like that myself.

Here is a link to the pages. Maybe you would like to read my story, and tell me what you think. You can leave a comment there, or here, if you want to! Thanks!

Changing the World

2008-04-04T10:29:00.003-04:00

A little bit at a time.

Maybe it started with the ninjas.

Living in cities, I've gotten used to seeing homeless people, sitting on the sidewalk, with a sign propped up next to them. The sign is generally written with sharpie or crayon, on cardboard. Usually, the signs are pretty much the same: homeless, need food, please help. Last December, I was walking through a craft fair, and saw a picture of a homeless guy with his cardboard sign. My eye began to slide past, but then I noticed what the sign said: "Ninjas killed my family. Need $$ for kung-fu lessons." I saw the actual guy yesterday, and gave him some of my pocket change. Why? Because his sign has made me smile for months. And because, using the same resources any other panhandler can access, he did something that created some change in the world.

But I know I was thinking about change before I saw that sign.

Probably it goes back to feeling really lonely last fall. One of the things many of the younger parts in my system want is to have friends who are their own age. It wasn't seeming possible. The in-person support group I attend didn't seem to lend itself to much contact outside of the group, and the people on the online support group I'm a member of are either located far away, or aren't interested in meeting in person. So I was thinking about ways of meeting other multiples, so that my younger parts could make friends with their younger parts. One of the things that came out of that was the new DID/MPD/Dissociative awareness ribbon. And I noticed how easy it was, when I just went ahead and got the ball rolling.

And so I've been remembering how all it takes is someone to get the ball rolling, and change can happen. It's not quite that simple. There is a lot of brainstorming and trial and error involved. It helps to have other people to help bounce the ideas around, and to share the excitement of the possibilities.

So yesterday, for a lot of different reasons, I started yet another bulletin board (see what happens when I get pretty much unlimited space online? And my current sites are only taking up a small portion of my available bandwidth, too, so the possibilities are pretty much endless!)

The bulletin board is imagine.copingincrazyville.com. It's a space for people to talk about what they want in their lives, and in the world, and then to come up with strategies for how to get there.

I think that for many of us, the process of healing from abuse, or coping with our own particular brand of crazy, can be really isolating. We begin to focus on small things, to spend more time looking towards the past. And there is a place for that. But I think it's also important to make sure we look forward, and take the steps to make our future lives the kind of places we want to be.

What's more, I look at my life, and realize that I didn't start off with especially many resources. I don't have especially many resources now, or at least, not more than many other people I know. So when I think about the way I'm able to have things in my life, I believe that it's possible for others as well. Maybe we all starting out with cardboard and a sharpie, but we do have some choice about what we do with them.

So if you're interested, please check it out. And if you know of some people who have ideas, but don't know how to implement them, please let them know about the site. I think it can be a lot of fun.

sometimes i feel like a fraud

2008-04-03T08:38:00.002-04:00

not about the DID. that, clearly, is really going on.

but... here's the thing. i have been working on pages for coping in crazyville. and i try to write things that are useful, helpful, optimistic there. i do the same a lot of the time when i post to a mind's journey.

i write things that, at some level, i know are true. i offer suggestions, support, advice.

and then i turn away from the computer, and there i am. severely depressed, or hurting. unable to find my way out of my own problems.

who am i to be talking about possibilities for change, ways of coping with feeling suicidal? it's not like i routinely get through days without feeling bad, it's not like i don't have times when the only way to cope seems to be that i just need to be dead.

and yet, when i'm able to read that information myself, it helps me, too. so i know it's good information. when i'm able to follow it, it does work.

but i feel like a fraud. it's like i'm saying things, but just faking it. i do kind of realize that it's not faking... that's part of having DID, i guess. that i will watch what other parts are doing, and it doesn't feel real for me. i mean, there are parts who really do genuinely seem to enjoy life.

sometimes i feel like maybe i should just hide, never make anyone have to deal with me. what is good about *me*? all i bring to this equation is a lot of pain and upset, anger, unhappiness. and it feels disingenuous when i am here, watching my body write these other things, these things that are focused on being more proactive. i don't feel proactive. i am not able to follow the advice i see *someone* in my body handing out.

and if i can't follow it, then why do i bother putting it online at all?

yesterday, someone wrote a page about the difference between help and rescue. but at the same time, there i was, just wanting someone to solve my problems. there are pages on the website about how it's important to choose life, and how other concerns don't matter as much when it comes down to a choice between those and being alive. but here i am... i get to a point where i can't cope, and it really does seem like the best choice is to just be dead, because i can't see any other way out.

so i feel like a fraud, offering the advice i don't really believe.

(um, i really don't want the sympathetic "everyone deserves to be alive, you're not a fraud" kind of comments, please. or the kind that say "you are SUCH a fraud, you're a horrible person, etc." for that matter. not sure what kind of comments i *do* want, but i know it's neither of those.)

Dinner collective

2008-03-31T19:54:00.003-04:00

or, some thoughts on creating community

W and I recently joined with her sister and a couple of our friends, making a "dinner collective." For us, this means that once a week (or less often, depending on schedules) everyone in the group cooks a meal that will serve five or six people. Then we pack it into leftover containers, meet up, share a meal with each other, and exchange the containers. For the effort of cooking one meal, we get to have five *different* meals. Plus, we have a low-cost, relaxed social gathering with friends.

I originally had one of these ten years ago, when I lived in Portland. I got the idea from Everyday Acts and Small Subversions, by Anndee Hochman. She described several dinner collectives or co-ops, and the idea struck a chord for me. Why couldn't I get some friends together and do something similar? While the idea of meeting with friends every night seemed appealing, it wasn't a practical option for us. So we settled on a weekly meeting, with containers of food to take home. It saved us a bit of money and a lot of time. I tried to start other dinner collectives later, but couldn't quite get them off the ground, because people were dubious about the concept.

So I'm glad to have one now, and the other members are equally glad. We find that it's much more exciting to cook if we know someone else is going to be eating the food as well. And since we're more excited, we try more ambitious recipes, which makes the food more appealing, which keeps us from walking to the nearest take-out joint rather than facing the drudgery of yet another meal cooked at home.

Even though we eat apart, there is still a social aspect to the meal collective. We think of each other as we're eating, or at least I think of the others.

I have been working to regain a sense I used to have, that it is possible to imagine my life as I would like it to be, and then find a path that will take me there. I can remember how I used to be able to leap from a vision of what I wanted into the implementation of that vision. And this experience with the dinner collective is reminding me that what it takes is making small steps.

So I'm also thinking about the other things I want in my life. What is it that I've been missing? How can I begin to find those things again? And how can I show other people that it's possible to re-shape our lives into a form that is more satisfying?

P.S. If you click on "preview this book" in the link at the top, you can browse the different sections. The chapter I'm talking about is here.

dance party in my head!

2008-03-29T11:29:00.002-04:00

this post is mostly to see whether it actually works to "share" music from rhapsody.

one of the things we've found in my system is that some tasks (say, washing dishes or making dinner) go more easily when we take that time to have an internal dance party. i'll listen to music, either on the stereo or in my headphones, and whoever wants to can hang out dancing. the little kids especially like this. it's also been a way to get in touch with the baby, because usually someone will go find her and bring her to the dance party. not sure how she experiences it, but they usually make a point of including her.

so here are today's tracks from the dance party in my head:

Here's a link. Not sure how it works--I'm guessing you have to have an account, and they say free accounts still let you listen to 25 tracks a month without paying.

And here is the list of tracks:
1. sing, Shout, Dance - Kingdom Heirs
2. I Love To Laugh - Sweet Honey in the Rock
3. Philadelphia Chickens - The Bacon Brothers - Sandra Boynton
4. Hush-A-Bye Hard Times - Dolly Parton
5. Still Gotta Get Up In The Morning - Sweet Honey in the Rock
6. Magellan - Broadside Electric
7. Rock-A-My Soul - Acappella
8. Busy Busy Busy - Kevin Kline - Sandra Boynton
9. Do What the Spirit Say Do - Sweet Honey in the Rock
10. Be Like A Duck - Keith Boynton - Sandra Boynton
11. Still The Same Me - Sweet Honey in the Rock

The Easter bunny

2008-03-24T13:06:00.002-04:00

Yesterday in the morning time the little kids here were super disapointed cause the Easter bunny did not come and leave us a basket. but Ellis said if we did not SAY we wanted a basket then we would not get one, and she did not know we wanted a basket so she did not tell W we wanted a basket. so we were disapointed.

We did not say about wanting a basket because we thought probly the Easter bunny would KNOW we wanted a basket and then we would get a basket that way cause the Easter bunny is MAGIC and a magic thing knows when someone is a little kid inside and will need a special thing like an Easter basket. But maby it is diffrent if you live in a stupid grown up body.

But then!! O!! What a suprise! We went to W's sister's house and she had a present just for US! Gess what?!? It was just like an Easter basket only she did not mean it to be like that, it just was. That is how we know the Easter bunny helped cause W's sister maby would have given us the present a diffrent day or she would not have the present.

She gave it to us just cause she is a nice person and she likes to give pepul presents all the time cause she likes pepul to be happy. She is a very nice persun.

What the present was is three very big BEE YOU TEE FUL cookies. They are decorated with sparkly stuff. They are a lion, a monkey and an elefunt. They are soooo beautiful. O! we love them very much! Probly we will eat them soon cause that is what you do with cookies. But first we will be happy to have these beautiful cookies. They came in a fancy bag with ribbons and paper grass. That is also how we know it is an Easter bunny thing.

O! It was so nice for her to give those to us! You do not have to give us a present to be nice to us, but when we get a present it makes us soooooooooo happy!

Thank you so much!

PS-We cwaperated on this post caues we all wanted to write. We are getting GOOD at cwaperating!

let me know what you think

2008-03-22T18:58:00.004-04:00

i(we) have been working a lot this week on figuring out how to write (or, in the end, how to modify) themes on wordpress, so we can organize our website through that, which will mean that even those of us who can't write html can still put up pages. plus, it will be easier to keep links and the overall theme of the site updated, all from one place.

anyhow, we finally got it to the point where we're willing to show people who aren't w, so if you want to let me know your opinion, you can go to coping in crazyville and take a look around. the site is very much still in progress, but i'm pretty proud of having managed to put together as much as i have. (also: if you use a browser other than Firefox, Explorer, or Netscape, can you let me know if it's not working? thanks.)

there are other things i could be writing about, and i might get some of those up later this weekend. but right now, that's what i have to say.

**update**
if you have the time, and feel like doing so, we (ie, us in jigsaw analogy) would also appreciate feedback on the content. it's one thing to have the pages in theory, but it would be nice to know whether anyone else likes them!

unconditional love

2008-03-20T07:28:00.003-04:00

ok. before i begin this post, i want to clearly say... generally, i am in favor of unfettered free speech (except spam--i DESPISE spam, and delete it). however. with this post, i'd like to request that people not leave any comments that are just to say things like "oh, poor you for having that experience" or anything like that. sometimes, sympathy is something i can't handle. if you feel you must, go ahead. but please don't feel obligated to say something, ok? thanks.

I wish you hope, that keeps you looking toward tomorrow
and away from yesterday.
I wish you faith, in yourself and all humanity
and the belief that we will finally live as one.
I wish you joy, I wish you peace,
I wish you more than you will need.
I wish you unconditional love.

~~from Unconditional Love, by The Four Bitchin' Babes.

i started thinking about this post because of a conversation i had with w last night. even at the time, i knew i was asking kind of unfair questions. the kind of questions where, even though i wanted her to tell the truth, there was really only one truth that wasn't going to upset me.

you see, i asked her if, had she known how our lives would unfold, would she have chosen to be in a relationship with me. and she couldn't give me an unqualified yes. some of that is just w--she *thinks* too much about these questions, or she doesn't hear the question behind the one i ask. and i ask those questions, because i know she will give the automatic answer if i ask "do you love me? do you REALLY love me? do you love me unconditionally?" and i don't trust the automatic answer to be true. so i ask questions that have less automatic answers.

in my life, my experience of love has not been unconditional. growing up, i was taught that the path to being loved was fraught with danger. and to a child, or at least, to me as a child, love was the source of things like a reliable place to live, food, clothing, shelter. and, oh yeah, that emotional nurturing that is supposed to be so important.

but my experience of love was that it could be easily taken away. if i could not discern what the adults around me wanted, they would stop loving me. if i could not be good enough, or if i asked for things they were unwilling or unable to give, the love would be taken away. depending on the adult in question, that could mean that they would abuse me physically or emotionally, or it would mean that they just stopped noticing me.

and yet, in many ways, being noticed in a way i was told was loving could be equally dangerous. because sometimes, being noticed meant getting something perhaps intended as "positive" attention from people who really didn't consistently understand what it meant to be nurturing to a child, and how just because you're touching someone doesn't mean you're touching them... there. or in that way.

so i was not an especially cuddly child, to say the least. which also led to punishment, because if i couldn't accept nurturing love, the occasionally appropriate kind, the adults in my life would get furious. why was i rejecting them? why was i saying, with my body language, that i didn't appreciate their love? because that's what goes through the mind of a six month old, or a three year old, or even a ten year old. and because, clearly, being furious and raging is going to teach that child to accept nurturing when it's available.

there were adults in my life, people in my life who were not violent, who were not abusive in any way. but for my first five years, i didn't have any extended experience of that. so by the time i got to school, i understood the positive attention i got from teachers as being based entirely on my ability to be good--to learn quickly, to not ask for any extra effort, to help where it was needed without getting in the way. and let me tell you, it was much easier to follow the explicitly stated rules of school than it was to follow the invisible twisting path at home.

but here's the thing. you know how they say in trainings for people working with kids, that kids will seek out negative attention if they aren't able to get positive attention? that may be true for some kids. not so much for me. i didn't fully trust positive attention anyways, since i never could understand when positive attention was going to be safe. so i certainly avoided negative attention, and was fairly undemanding of other attention. if it seemed freely offered, i would take it. but i certainly didn't seek it out.

i learned not even to rely on family members who weren't abusive, because for whatever reasons, they tended to... well, to be unreliable. my father is a big example of this. i didn't meet him until i was eight. then, for the next 2 1/2 years, we wrote to each other, and i spent some vacations with him. and then he stopped writing, stopped having me to visit. he never really said why. he just stopped. for a lot of reasons, that just reinforced the message that there was something wrong with me, something that kept people from being able to care about me, to love me, to give me attention in ways that were safe.

yes, i had teachers. and i am grateful for them. but for the most part, teachers were something transitory. built into the relationship was that it was time-limited. it was a teacher's *job* to teach, and the would do it no matter how you behaved. when a teacher was kind, it still fell into my vision of what they were supposed to do.

looking back, with all the various times i can remember teachers going out of their way for me, it occurs to me that they actually cared about me, as a person, separate from what they were "required" to do. but it never once occurred to me, growing up, that a teacher would want to see me when they weren't being paid to do so. it never occurred to me to go back to see a teacher after i was no longer taking classes with them. because my baseline experience was that people only spent time with me when they felt they had to, that people only allowed me to be around so long as it benefitted them.

growing up, i somehow picked up the message that one's family is supposed to love a person unconditionally. and since it was pretty clear to me that my family did *not* love me unconditionally, i took away the lesson lots of kids in that situation do: that there was something about *me* that caused me to be less lovable. that this wasn't the fault of the people who were unable to love me, but something about me, as a person.

at some point in high school or college, i found out that my mother had had an abortion. (disclaimer: don't get me wrong. even with this particular experience, i am 100% pro-choice. people have every right in the world to determine for themselves what happens when they are pregnant.)

the thing is, my mother's story about how she had decided to have the abortion reinforced some really negative lessons i had already learned.

when i was a few months old, she divorced my father. and then she found out she was pregnant. i assume there were a lot of reasons she would have decided to have an abortion. i mean, being a single parent with three kids already, and not much money, having an abortion or giving the child up for adoption, would probably have been a good idea. had she decided to do this because she didn't think she could be a good parent, while it might have been kind of sad, i could see her point.

but the thing is, the reason she told me she had the abortion was because she was concerned the baby would be dark-skinned. my father is black, my mother (and the rest of my family) are white. she didn't feel she could go back and not have *me*, but the subtext as it came across to me was, "had i known what would happen, i wouldn't have chosen to have a biracial child."

i know there are parts who have often understood that the "wrong, unlovable" thing about me is the color of my skin. too "white" for my black father to want to have anything to do with me (or for the black kids in middle school not to beat me up for it); too "black" for my white (and rather racist) family to fully accept me. they coped with me by insisting i wasn't "really" black, but at the same time, my skin color came up pretty often. the conditions i understood for being loved required that i deny basic parts of who i am; and also that i not cause trouble, that i be hyper-good, simply because i was only loved on sufferance, and should i ever be difficult, i would be dangerously rejected.

and knowing that there had been the possibility that i would have had a sibling, someone who would have been my full-blooded sibling, who would have looked more like me, who would have been close to me in age... how much of the pain and loneliness and isolation i experienced growing up, how much of that might have been alleviated if my mother had chosen to carry the pregnancy to term, and have the child? at the same time, knowing what i know now... would i choose to subject someone else to what i grew up with? no. so i'm not going to say my mother shouldn't have had the abortion, because i can't see that it would have benefitted whichever soul eventually came to reside in that collection of cells.

okay, so where was i going with this post? oh, right.

so knowing all of this, knowing all of my experience of rejection, i was talking to w about my difficulty with trusting her. and i said, "it's really unfair to you, the fact that it's so hard for me to trust. because no matter how trustworthy you are, the hurdle you've got to get over to achieve my trust is set immensely high."

and w gave me the strangest look.

"unfair for me?" she asked.

because, ok, sure, it's kind of difficult for me, too. but i guess i'm used to it. i'm used to not being able to trust that anyone will love me unconditionally. but w isn't. she has mostly known people who were able to give and receive unconditional love. and here she is, in a long-term relationship, kind of stuck with someone who is always braced for rejection.

so yeah, to me, it seems harder on her. because she isn't doing anything wrong. because she isn't the one who hurt me. and yet, she's the one who gets the fallout from all of the pain i grew up with. and i'm less able to be a good partner to her because of that. we won't even get into the fact that she thought she was getting into a relationship with an adult, and seems instead to have gotten stuck with this whole mess of teenagers and little kids, and the adults have now been gone for seven months, with no idea of when they will return. so to me, it seems like the one getting the really unfair part is w. (yeah, i know. it's something i'll discuss in therapy.)

i do wish for hope, and for the ability to look towards the future rather than the past. but sometimes, the past gets in the way, and makes it awfully hard to build up the faith that unconditional love is even a possibility.

religion

2008-03-17T14:26:00.002-04:00

i keep starting this post and erasing it and starting it over. i guess the problem is that there are several things i want to blog about, and i can't get them in order. or maybe there is more than one part trying to get something said? that might be why i'm thinking four or five separate things at the same time.

so what's the point of this post about religion? i guess to just write about some of what's going on for me right now.

first, there's the whole RA thing. i am relatively certain i didn't experience ritual abuse. but this is a hard time for people who did, and there's this... backlash, i guess. where i feel guilty talking about the things i enjoy about this season, because i know that some of it is really triggering to other people.

so i get mad--that there are these jerks in the world who do what they can to pervert and ruin holidays for little kids. i mean, what the hell? (um, sorry, i'll address that later....)

and the thing is, spiritually, i'm most comfortable as a pagan. and here we are, with the spring equinox falling on a full moon. this should be a happy, positive thing. i should be able to feel free to talk about rebirth and all of that. i should be able to feel comfortable with writing about my pagan experiences.

but because of those a$$holes who do things and abuse kids on a seasonal calendar, i feel like i need to be super-careful talking about pagan holidays, because even more so than the christian ones, the pagan ones got taken over by those jerks who are using them for really evil purposes. this is more of an issue for me around samhain/halloween/pagan new year. and even MORE so around winter solstice/christmas/yule. i'm generally more casual about the spring holidays (well, more on that later, too). but there's the whole ritual abuse thing, and i really don't want to go around doing the equivalent of kicking people where they're already bruised, so i don't write about it.

so there's that part.

and then there's where i am, religiously. i was raised christian. i was raised christian in the kinds of churches that just weren't really... uplifting. the kind where your experience of christianity is a whole lot of judging and shaming and all of that. the kind of churches that justify what i can now recognize as child abuse, but which they insisted was just parents trying to raise "godly" children. the kind of churches that say to stay in an abusive marriage because it's god's will, and the woman's duty to behave in a way that will "save" her husband, rather than to cut her losses and protect herself and her kids.

the kind of churches that discourage people from doing anything "worldly" like reading books the church hasn't approved, or listening to music the church hasn't approved, or really, doing anything that gives evidence of really enjoying the world, or thinking outside of the incredibly narrow little box the church defines for them. i don't just mean "don't drink, smoke, or chew, or run with those who do." i'm talking about "christian rock is evil because it's too worldly. you should only listen to music *we* say is ok." and "don't read anything ungodly, like (i kid you not!) c.s. lewis, madeleine l'engle, susan cooper, or, heaven FORBID, j.r.r. tolkien." (for those who haven't read them, these are all deeply christian writers of pretty darned christian fantasy novels.) i mean, seriously, my churches when i was growing up thought these books would lead us into sin.

the kind of churches where they spend weeks in sunday school teaching little eight year olds about the book of revelations, and how good christians will have to suffer and starve because they won't be raptured until after the tribulation, but they won't be able to buy food or anything because to do that you'll have to get the mark of the beast, so you and your family will starve to death and not be able to have anything, and go through a whole lot of terror and suffering, just to prove you're worthy of god's love.

now, don't get me wrong. it's not that the people were evil or bad. i totally get that they thought they were doing the right thing. i mean, if you really believe all of that, and you honestly believe that there is only one way to get to heaven, and it involves a lot of pain and suffering, then maybe you are doing the right thing, by your beliefs, if you push other people to follow impossible rules. i don't know. i guess if i believed that the only way to be saved was to go through pain and misery, and i wanted my children saved, maybe i would do that too. i just don't know. because i can't bring myself to believe in a god who aims for all of the "true believers" to be in pain and suffering. i mean, what would be the point?

but anyhow. what it ends with is that, even though i know there are a lot of devout christians in the world who don't have that worldview, it's hard for me to hear people doing a lot of talking about christianity without all of this being triggered. and so i just kind of shy away from the god-talk, because i feel like my own religion isn't gonna be accepted. (i describe myself religiously as culturally christian, spiritually pagan. and that gets thrown off because in terms of actual practice and religious observance, i'm closer to jewish, because i do that with my partner.)

and because all the god-talk is just triggering to me. but i feel guilty about not reading blogs, because i just can't cope. and i feel alienated from some forums, because even when they call it "spirituality" (or even on totally unrelated threads) lately, it seems like it just turns into this whole christianity thing.

i keep losing track of where i was going. i suppose i could've made an outline and stuff, but i'm just not feeling it.

right. the whole being triggered by christianity thing. i mean, i know that people aren't meaning to be triggering. but there's a level where i feel like... why is it ok to be spouting all of this stuff that is really immensely triggering to me, that brings up all of that guilt and shame and fear and pain.... but i can't even say a little bit about my *own* positive religious experience, because it's too close to things that people are triggered by?

i know i can't be the only person who was abused in a fundamentalist christian context. i can't be the only person who was scarred by the people who did all the god-talk, and were always doing something that i've considered the true meaning of "taking the lord's name in vain" where they bring god into discussions of things that are totally unrelated (like, "i got this toilet paper at 75% off, praise be to god!" ok, that's a *slight* exaggeration. but only slight.)

and i can't explain how it is that *some* people talk about god, and it's not triggering, and other people do, and i want to run out of the room and start screaming.

and then it's even weirder, cause it's not like a bunch of us in this system find nothing of value in christianity.

i mean, i guess religion is like sex. no, really. there are some parts who need to avoid it totally, and there are some parts that have learned it can be a healthy thing, done in a caring and respectful way. and there isn't any one true way.

maybe that's it... some of the people who have been bugging me write in a way that reminds me of the christians who insisted there was one true way (theirs) and no one else was going to get to heaven, and actually, anyone who didn't do it their way was basically either uninformed, or a deliberate sinner.

i really hate the whole attitude of "one true way" pretty much anywhere it shows up. because, honestly, there ISN'T one true way. there are different ways that work for different people, and there's nothing that says any one of them is better than the others.

ok. not sure what my point was, or anything like that, but that's some of what i wanted to write about.

2008-03-11T09:11:00.002-04:00

I hate the subway. I hate the subway. I hate the people who jam onto it with no regard to personal space and i REALLY HATE the people who put on their make up on the train. I hate everything sometimes.

AAARRRGGGHHH!!

2008-03-10T14:05:00.004-04:00

so today, i sat down with the mail, meaning to just make sure that the letters with the "explanation of benefits" from our health insurance we all correct. and lo and behold...

nope. they were trying to deny the claim for mental health benefits for me, saying i had exceeded my maximum. given that my maximum is "unlimited," i think that this was wrong.

so i called the number on the letter, and proceeded to spend twenty minutes trying to get to an actual person who could explain what went wrong with the coverage, and what to do to correct the problem (since we're talking about ~$1000 worth of therapy from last year, plus however much it would come to for *this* year, it's an important problem to correct!) the first two times i made it to an actual live person, they said they weren't the ones to answer my question, and then i wound up getting bounced back to the very first part of the voicemail system. i hate voicemail.

anyhow. the thing is, before i started going to therapy as often as i have been, my therapist and i both called to make sure that DID is covered under mental health parity in new york. and the people my therapist talked to assured her that it was. and the first time this bill got sent back unpaid, she called again, and they assured her again that it was covered. so we're working under the belief that... you know, it's covered.

after spending so long trying to get to a person, and dealing with people who spent several minutes taking my information, and then telling me they weren't the ones to answer the question, i couldn't help but think, "boy, it's a good thing for them that the hospital people who diagnosed me as borderline weren't right, because if i were borderline, i would SO be screaming at someone by now."

**update**

brought this up with my therapist today, and she had already talked to them, and they *insist* that they've corrected whatever, and she should get a check in the mail. we'll see. i just hope they finally get around to paying her. and i'm grateful she's willing to put up with the stupidity of insurance companies, because she's a good therapist, and i couldn't afford therapy if she weren't on insurance. and certainly not the amount of therapy i've been getting!

a silly comic strip

2008-03-09T08:26:00.002-04:00

today's For Better or For Worse comic strip reminded me of the way that they say "everybody has different parts." plus it was really cute.

for those who don't read it, it was just an adult spending a bit of time with a kid, acting like a kid. and the kid enjoying it.

trust

2008-03-03T09:25:00.002-05:00

so the new couples' therapist w and i are seeing who (knock wood!) appears to be working out for us, has talked about trust several times.

and i was thinking about this. she asked whether i trust w, and i can honestly say i trust w more than i trust anyone else in the world. and that's a collective answer. we all trust her more than we trust anyone else.

which isn't precisely to say we *trust* her, just that we trust her *more*. the therapist (e, we'll call her) asked me to rate it on a scale of one to ten, so i'd say, overall with w, it's about a four. although probably it's a bit higher, but i was doing an average, you know. so maybe a five.

but then, i'm never quite sure what people mean when they ask me about trust. i mean, i trust pretty much anyone i interact with routinely not to be physically abusive. more or less, at least. there are parts who don't feel that trust, but they're also the parts who aren't entirely certain that anything actually exists. so i'd say, of us who are out often enough to have a sense of reality, we trust the people we interact with routinely not to be physically abusive.

i trust that when i buy canned food, the contents of the can will be what is marked on the outside. i trust that when i use my debit card, they will only take out the amount of money they are supposed to. i trust coffee shops and restaurants to give me food that isn't poisoned. i trust people driving cars to have some basic awareness of following traffic laws.

so where is it that i'm not trusting people? i have trouble trusting that they will remember i exist when i'm not right there with them. i have trouble trusting that people will follow through on things they've said they would do for me. i have trouble trusting that i will be able to depend on anyone outside of myself.

i'm able to trust people *not* to do things pretty easily. i trust people in my life not to go calling my family and letting them know about the things i've told about. i trust people not to tell me that i'm lying. mostly, on that last one, because there is still a lot of fear around people not believing me. but mostly, i trust that people will believe me.

i trust most people not to go out of their way to hurt me.

but at the same time, i really *don't* trust most people (or any people) to go out of their way to help me, or even, to go out of their way for me at all. and i guess that's where the lack of trust comes in. i find it really difficult to believe that people will make much of an effort, or respond well if i ask that from them. and i don't have much faith that people will continue to want to be friends with me, or whatever, if i ask for too much. and since i don't know where the line is, what "too much" is, i try not to ask for anything that hasn't been expressly offered, and try to avoid asking for too much of that, either.

and i guess there are parts who don't feel safe allowing emotional vulnerability to show, so probably, it's either just a long-ingrained habit, or we don't really trust people to be safe with emotional vulnerability. i guess we don't really trust that people aren't going to be critical of us, and reinforce the negative messages that run in my/our head: that i'm just lazy and selfish and not trying hard enough or working hard enough or that i'm making all of this up. a little bit, we're starting to trust a few people, and it's not like we've had too many negative experiences like that for a while (well, there was the hospital and right after, but that was so *clearly* messed up....)

maybe it's that it doesn't feel safe to allow myself to rely on anyone else. much as i and a lot of other parts are desperate for help, it doesn't seem safe to believe that someone else will be willing to be there to help us cope. and so we close off and withdraw, because sometimes, coping is the only thing we can do, and figuring out how to cope and also be with people becomes impossible. i don't know. and i *do* know someone else has been waiting to do something else, and i've held on for a while, but i guess i need to be done now.

Spiderwick Chronicles

2008-02-26T18:01:00.003-05:00

We went to see the spiderwick movie today. it was a VERY good movie! it was a littel scary but that was ok caues we made a plan the plan was soemone will say "this is a movie and they will all be ok at the end of the movie" when we got scard. that way it was ECKSITING to watch that movie like a roller coster caues we new it wood be ok at the end!!

One thing good about this movie was it was about CWAPERASHUN. that means the pepul had to work together to make it be ok. one other thing good was it was about how you hafta fight the monsters insted of hide from the monsters caues if you hide from the monsters then you will just be scard but if you fight them then it is scary for a littel bit but then it is all better and the monsters are GONE.

That is a lessun we will try to remember. we will talk to the nonnys more about that caues rite now they are bein monster gards that is they are keeping the monsters away by being gards and they do not get to have fun and they are only scard all the tiem caues they are afraid of the monsters.

Monsters are scary but when you fite back then they do not win. only the pepul who are very brave will win.

In that movie every one had a job they did. well the gron up their mom her job was on a computer in a diffrunt place. but the kids all had a job and they had to cwaperate to make it work ok. and even if their job is diffrunt from the other job it is ok caues they all did a good job.

There were some parts funny and some parts scary and some parts sad in that movie. I will not say about everything caues then it will be a SUPRISE when YOU go and see the movie.

We saw that movie caues W told ellis and jamie their job for today was to see a movie! that was a suprise to! we chos that movie caues W every singel time she wants to read the book first befor she sees a movie, so if we waited for her then we wood not SEE the movie except on a tv. so we picked a movie that is better when you can see it big, and the other movies we can see on a tv.

That movie gave me an idea for a plan with the nonnys. this is my plan. we will make a plan to go and FITE thos monsters!!! insted of being gards or stuff we will FITE them and then they will be DED and they will not bother us any more! we will hafta cwaperate and work together soemone says cwaperate means work together so i do not hafta say it 2 tiems but it is ok I will do it my way caues this is my turn to rite. i will rite the way i want to!

So we will go FITE them together and then they will not bother us. we will make some things for proteckshun and they will make us be safe and then we will throw things at the monsters liek in the movie and the big ones who can use a sord they will do that and maby we will do other things and then the monsters will go away and not bother us and the nonnys will not hafta be monster gards any more and they can let us have fun and be happy and stuff. that is my plan!

what are we to each other?

2008-02-25T22:32:00.002-05:00

the title is referring to me (collective-me, and more specifically, the parts who have been around since august, which is to say, not the adults) and w.

it's something we've (by we i mean collective-me and w) been trying to figure out. it's one of the reasons we've been seeing couples' therapists. the plural in that is because the first two we saw didn't work out well. we'll see how the third one goes.

anyhow, i figured i might as well make a post about it, trying to figure it out.

if there were just one of me, and if it were one of the adult parts, or even if the adult parts were more present, the answer would be easy. the adults and w are partners. they have a romantic and sexual relationship that turned into a committed partnership. if it were just them, the answer would be easy. i don't know if the relationship would be easy, because from what i've observed, all relationships require a great deal of work, even in the absence of other issues.

but here's the thing. we younger parts definitely don't have a romantic or sexual relationship with w. for several months now, we've been sleeping in different rooms. (and let me tell you, that has made a huge improvement in our relationship, whatever it may be, because it reduced the degree to which we younger parts were getting triggered by being in a relationship with her!).

so we're not partners in the sense that most people would use that term, because it's not really a spouse-like relationship.

but it's not like we're strangers. w is the person i trust more than anyone else. it doesn't mean i trust her a LOT, it just means that i trust her more than anyone else. and i think that's true for pretty much everyone in the system.

when i was thinking about this earlier tonight, someone piped up that w is definitely *family*. which is true; family in the chosen sense, anyways. someone who is going to be there for me. someone who is an important part of my life. someone with whom i share a lot of history, with whom i live.

but it's still hard to work out our roles in this relationship.

i guess what i'm "supposed" to do is have the adults be the ones who are out more often, having a relationship with her, and the rest of us are supposed to... what? i don't know. i read the treatment guidelines for DID, and it seems to imply that it would be unhealthy for us to have a relationship with her separate from the adults in the system, that having w be anything other than the system's (the adults in the system's) partner is somehow unhealthy.

but that doesn't work. because the rest of us are inconveniently here. and we live with her and interact with her. she supports us financially. she supports us emotionally, and we try to do the same for her.

one thing that's been getting clearer to me is that i just don't quite understand how to be in an adult relationship. the adults seem to know this, but they have been blocked from coming out for six months now. and even though i (ellis, by the way) can do a lot of things the adults do, i really don't get how to be in an adult relationship. mature though i can act, developmentally, i'm only 15.

so it comes back to the question: what are we to each other? w isn't my partner, or the partner of any of us who have been around. she's not some random stranger. she's not really like a friend, although we are friends, kind of. the relationship is closer than that, and more... fraught with complications, i guess.

w has described it (and particularly these past few months) as being like what would happen if her partner all of a sudden had these kids she hadn't mentioned having before, and they all showed up on our doorstep, and moved in. and then her partner went away, leaving her with just the kids.

actually, that's kind of apt. although, looking back, w might have suspected something given that we were out buying toys on our second date!

but then, what is the relationship? i guess a lot of us inside here do kind of interact with her as though she were a stepparent. i mean, sometimes being friendly, sometimes being resentful, having this relationship that we can't quite understand or define, but knowing it exists.

i feel guilty that the adults haven't been around. not that i can figure out how to convince the others to let them back. they were getting close to doing that, and then all of these new parts started showing up, and things got really chaotic again. i feel guilty that i can't be her partner. and i feel guilty that i feel guilty for that, and i also understand that my guilt over that is tied to the degree to which i was expected to be my mother's partner when i was actually fifteen, and the anger and resentment i feel around that is about being triggered... but i do feel genuinely sorry that i can't just be the adult partner w needs. of course, in a lot of ways, what my mother wanted wasn't precisely an adult partner, which is probably why i was able to do the job back then. w seems to want more equality, and some indefinable (to me) adult-ness that the adults have, and that i just don't get.

anyhow, no great insight, but it's something i've really been thinking about. because maybe it would be easier to sort things out, if we could figure out what the relationship is in the first place.

life

2008-02-19T22:02:00.003-05:00

i would've added the follow up to that, except i'm not as depressed as marvin the paranoid android.

one thing that's slightly annoying is that i've had something i wanted to discuss with my therapist for the last couple of sessions, but when i (as in, the body i live in and share with a bunch of others) go into therapy, things are so switchy that the last several sessions, i haven't really gotten to have much of a chance to talk with my therapist about the things on *my* mind.

i suppose i could write her a note, but i guess i'm still at a point of feeling like i need to not be asking too much, and so writing a note still feels like asking too much of her time. i mean, the woman already gives me not only three sessions' worth of time every week, but we pretty consistently go over the time we're supposed to spend together, so there's the extra five or ten or fifteen minutes at the end of the sessions.

the main thing i'm worried about is this: i don't seem to be making much progress. i'm not sure what progress would look like, or what mileposts i'm aiming for (or inchposts, as the case may be). but it really feels like i'm not much further along than i was a year ago, or two years ago. well, ok, so the parts who were really suicidal seem to be better able to tolerate distress, and haven't gone into being actively suicidal for, oh, about two months now. being optimistic, i could say this is because they're feeling more able to work through their stuff. being less optimistic, i'd say it's only been two months since the last bad time, and nothing really upsetting has happened in our external world in the intervening time.

but back to optimism, i haven't even really noticed the kind of reflexive suicidal thoughts, like when something is difficult in life, and no one inside can think of a way to solve the problem, there always used to be the thought popping up of "there's one way to stop having to cope." and i don't think that's been there as much. i know grace has been feeling a little adrift, trying to figure out how the heck to cope, if that isn't the option.

but really.... two years of working on this stuff, putting my entire focus on it, and the best i've gotten is a reduction in suicidal ideation?

and it seems so selfish to have traded the reduction in suicidal ideation for my day-to-day coping skills. i can't manage a job. i can barely manage keeping the house even a little bit together. well, i did clean up two or three hairballs today. but i'm not being a very good housewife. i'm not working on my dissertation. i'm not working at a job. on a good day, i can manage to go to the grocery store without having a full-blown panic attack.

it feels lazy. it feels like i'm not working hard enough. it feels like there is something i should be doing, and i'm not doing it.

but since i know i'm working hard, and w and my therapist *say* i'm working hard... then there's something that isn't working. because this much effort, and all i get is a reduction in my inclination (or other parts' inclination) to start making plans about how to be dead?

sorry, that doesn't quite seem like a balanced trade-off. especially since i'm not convinced those feelings won't return if i force myself to cope with more than i'm coping with. especially since the last time i tried that, two months ago, it triggered a bout of serious suicidal feelings.

it's not that i want to risk doing something that will wind up with me being hurt or hospitalized. i just want to feel like i'm making some concrete progress.

and i'd like to get the chance to talk with my therapist about what our treatment goals are, and what i can be doing in order to reach those. but then there's the voice in my head that says i'm just looking for someone to rescue me, or to do things i ought to be able to figure out on my own. it's not that i want my therapist to solve my problems, or anyone else. not exactly. i just feel like i keep doing things that aren't working, or aren't moving me to a place where i am coping more effectively, and i don't KNOW what to do differently, and i really want someone to help with that. i don't think that's the same as wanting someone to rescue me. but i'm not quite sure.

no real title

2008-02-18T23:45:00.002-05:00

there are a lot of things i could be writing about, or that others have been thinking about. and we've been switching so much lately that i bet one of the others will show up before i'm done, or something.

anyhow, one thing to mention here is that i have a cold. and it sucks to have a cold, but at the same time, hopefully it means the reason i've been really exhausted and run down lately is from the cold, and not from some dire exacerbation of the fibro. so as far as that goes, it's ok. the cold should be over with in a week or two (unless i got a different cold from the one going around, or unless i get lucky and get over it quickly).

another thing to mention is that i've been really switchy. like, not having any part around for more than an hour at a time, tops. lots of times, it's more minute to minute. not sure what's causing it. spent a chunk of the weekend, and parts of today, so switchy i could barely stand up. lots of vision difficulties. some of it i have been covering up, so i don't think w or others quite know the extent of it. some of it, i don't notice until something calls attention to it. i mean, if we're all doing more or less the same thing, then it's not so much of a problem. but i was trying to write something down--just a quick jotting, and realized looking at the handwriting that i switched about four times in five minutes or so of writing. so it's hard to get things taken care of because we don't always agree about what we're trying to do.

one positive from this is that i was still really switchy and spaced out when w and i went to couple's counseling today. not usually a good thing, and there was a moderate panic attack on the subway. but the positive part is, this new couple's therapist was able to handle the switchiness, and i wound up feeling more grounded afterwards, and even though i wasn't comfortable (nor, i think, were any of the others) with calling attention to the fact that i was switching all over the place... or, well, with saying who we were and when it happened... but the new therapist was still someone we felt comfortable with, and felt ok talking about things. so we'll see how that works out. i didn't feel like she was pushing at me too much, even though she was talking a lot about my issues. but she seems really careful to balance the discussion between me and w, and it feels like she takes both of us seriously. so that's good.

now i'm gonna stop writing, because someone else is about to be out, and i can barely focus my eyes.

plus, i'm not 100% sure who i am, and it feels weird to say that, but there it is. i'm not ellis or grace or jamie or rynn, or one of the adults or littles. beyond that, not sure.

Sesame Street!

2008-02-16T22:23:00.002-05:00

We have been watching Sesame Street. It is a good show. Not the show now with too much Elmo. We are watching the old ones they say are not good for today's children, but I am a child from the old days I guess caues these are good shows and we are watching them. They make me happy and then it is ok for some tiem caues even the ones who are scared or sad or soemthing they will watch and we can be ok for a littel bit. We got the DVD from Netflix. We will watch them some more.

That video up there is not from the DVD it is one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve. i like that movie very much. so we found it on line. it is good. that is all. bye.

2008-02-15T10:07:00.001-05:00

Oh my GOODNESS! Went to the atm to get cash. First two weren't working. Finally found one that was. Put in my info and then noticed there was a twenty dollar bill already in the slot. That's 2000 days of good luck!

To my credit, I did go to the person at the store, and ask whether anyone had come in saying they didn't get all the money they were supposed to, and all of that. She just kind of laughed at me, and said it was my good luck. So I guess it was.

2008-02-13T16:05:00.001-05:00

Just testing to see if i can post from my phone.

still having a hard time, and a question

2008-02-12T18:11:00.000-05:00

so things are still hard. i guess it's to be expected. or something.

therapy today... very switchy in the first part of the session. as in, i know at least three of us were out, possibly more, but not sure how many my therapist noticed (it's a kind of switching i guess happens a lot in my system--where a bunch of us are cycling through, and we're all more or less aware of what the conversation is, but no one is there for more than a few minutes at a time, so we all just kind of cover it up so things look ok). i know jamie was out for a bit, and ellis, and grace. me too... don't think i have a name? i know i'm not one of those three, and i know i'm not rynn, and i know i'm not one of the little kids. but not sure who that leaves. maybe there's a list somewhere and i can find out. i know i've been around before. i've probably said i was ellis or jamie, or even one of the adults. i don't know. just used to thinking i'm someone else, i guess.

still very switchy. my eyes keep crossing... i think that's evidence of parts coming in and out?

so there was that.

there's also the fact that a new little was out in therapy. not precisely new, except she doesn't have a name yet. but she's one of the "nonnys" we've felt (the "nonnys" are the ones who aren't giving names yet). did some water color paintings, and then talked for a while about religious stuff. that's where the question comes in.

(trigger warning for religious stuff)

anyone have experience helping a little, or an actual little kid, deal with the kind of stuff that comes out of being raised in a really fundamentalist christian church? you know, the whole if you don't follow every single rule of the church then you are going to hell, and people will tempt you down false paths and try to get you to stray and don't read anything the church doesn't approve of, and things like the chronicles of narnia are on the "bad" list because they lead people down false paths and talk about magic.

kid also has some of the experience of physical and sexual abuse, at least, i overheard one of the others saying to her that "that stuff" was bad, even if someone says it was helping her to not give in to satan because she had to learn how not to respond to temptation.

she doesn't want to listen to the rest of us, because anyone who says that the churches she went to are wrong is clearly just trying to lead her astray. going down false paths, stuff like that. giving into worldly temptation.

trying to find things that aren't forbidden by her religious beliefs. wanting toys seems to be evidence of being "worldly." tv is definitely sinning. don't have any "approved" books....

wish she were willing to listen to the rest of us, but we're clearly tainted by sin, because we think that perhaps god doesn't want little kids to suffer. not to mention things like being a lesbian, or the fact that to the extent we practice religion, it's either paganism or judaism.

so there's that going on. plus the body is having a lot of memories (by that i mean, anyone who really gets into the body starts having body memories... combo of sexual abuse, physical abuse, and being force fed, rarely all at once, but in random variations). plus a couple of older ones having memories of physical abuse, both bullying and at home. plus littler ones remembering abuse too.

just wish it would let up for a while.

for the record

2008-02-11T21:28:00.000-05:00

when using the internet is one of your major sources of support and soothing and calming, it's REALLY bad when your router decides for no discernible reason to stop working for hours on end. particularly since you can't find your paper manual (if there ever was one?) and need to use... yup, the internet to find out what the default password on the router is so you can reboot it.

when does mercury go *out* of retrograde?

moments of grace

2008-01-30T22:26:00.000-05:00

one of the problems with having DID is that there is only one body, and all of those who want to do something that requires a body have to try to share it. that's a though to preface what may wind up being a really confused/confusing post, because even though i have things i want to write, i'm not 100% certain that i will be able to hear myself think through all the things the *others* are thinking, or that i will be the only one writing things down.

aimlessly finding an entry point to what i was thinking when i decided i wanted to write.... i (we? someone?) have noticed something. the more each of us in this system is able to differentiate ourselves from the others, the more we are able to integrate *ourselves*. which seems kind of backwards--achieving self-knowledge by separating more thoroughly from other parts who live in the same body? but hey, it's all in the name of greater mental health, right?

so, about me. recently, i got a "real" name, as opposed to something the others (or even i) used to refer to myself. my name is grace. i chose it in part because for a while, when i talked to our therapist, and she asked for a name, and i couldn't think of one, and she suggested just naming a color, and i knew for sure the color that fits me, the color pretty much all of us think of when we think of me... gray. anyhow, we were using the color gray to refer to me in therapy, but for a lot of reasons, particularly because of the reasons that i feel surrounded by grayness, i didn't want that to be my name, and the others in the system didn't, either.

so in part, the name "grace" is because it sounds pretty close to the word "gray."

but there's also the thought of moments of grace. i know how they feel, but i don't have words for them, not exactly. moments of grace... those points when because of something or someone or just random chance, when things get better. they don't last long, but i guess they don't need to. it's that feel of a spring wind in the middle of winter, that beam of light that reminds you that maybe the sun really is planning on coming back again. or it's that second when you look up, and there is a gorgeous moon, and you had forgotten how beautiful the world can be. or that morning when you bend over to put on your shoes, and find that for some reason, your back and hands aren't hurting so badly, and you can do this without pain. those moments that come out of nowhere, and then go right back into nowhere.

there's the religious thing, too. you are saved not by works, but by grace. like, no matter how much effort you put in, no matter how good you are, how well you follow the rules, it's something else that saves you. or it doesn't. and there have been a lot of times in my life where it's been pretty clear that i've gone solely by grace. because it's not like anything else was stepping in to save me, some of those times.

i wouldn't say i'm christian, and i know there are parts who are, and i know there are parts who are pretty badly scarred by our particular experience of christianity, and i know there are parts who just happen to have a more... broad sense of religion. but anyhow, christianity is my first language for religious things, so i'll talk about those moments of grace, with the warning that i don't mean it in a precisely christian way. i mean, it was by the grace of god that i was led to all those fantasy books that opened up my mind about what religion could be, and allowed me to reconcile my own experiences with the religion i was raised with.

okay, another transition. i'm not particularly good with transitions. it's one of those writing things i can't really manage.

for years, well before JA was diagnosed with DID, before any of us had even heard of dissociation, the others still had a name for me. that was "the hopeless one." because, well, that's a very noticeable part of who i am. i know it frustrates some of the others, because they find that things work out better when they can behave as though the positive outcome is going to be there. but oh well. sometimes, things can feel pretty darned hopeless.

the other name for me was "the suicidal one." i wasn't suicidal to begin with. heck, i was even pretty hopeful. i had a plan, and it seemed like such a good plan. i was going to put really strong protections around the part of my mind that was my *self*, and stick it out at home until i turned 18, and then i would leave, escape cleanly, and go to college, and live my happy, successful, fulfilled life. i would get therapy and neatly process through all the stuff that i knew had been problematic when i was growing up. and everything was gonna be ok.

maybe my mistake was not starting therapy as soon as i left home, but that didn't seem like the hugely important part, not to anyone who was out, at least. not that we knew about each other, except how we kind of did. i mean, we're all really used to kind of watching ourselves go around in the world, commenting on it, trying to figure out what's happening.

i can remember some of college, and most of it, the parts where it wasn't clearly me in charge, were weird. "hm, here i go, acting like a college student. i wonder how i know how to do all these things," i'd think. but i was used to that.

but then i guess collective-i started getting flashbacks. definitely started getting a lot of body memories, which none of us had a name for, but that we knew were... something not about how the body was working, you know? something that felt phsyical, but wasn't, and went along with distinctly uncomfortable emotions.

oh, yeah, and there were a whole darned LOT of emotion-memories coming up. flooding with despair and unhappiness and all of that.

so my clever plan had some flaws, and i had absolutely NO idea what to do next. general advice: college counseling centers are not necessarily the place to go if you're highly functional but suffering from a fairly major nervous breakdown. so the counselor i saw somehow missed the nervous breakdown, and saw just this person who was a "little" unhappy (despite being TOLD by my friends--and i admitted it was true--that i hadn't eaten more than a few bites, if that, for about three or four months). so her advice? "decide to be more cheerful."

which, i admit, is advice i'd given myself in high school. to decide what my moods would be, and cause myself to feel that way. well, looking back, to create a part who had the traits that would let her feel that way. but given that the reason i was in counseling was that that had failed to work any more... i felt like i'd given it my best shot, like i'd done absolutely everything i could think to do, and nothing was helping. so that's around when i got completely suicidal.

not sure where i was going with that, but ok. oh, right, moments of grace, and the grace of god. so, by the grace of god, i do have parts who didn't ever want to die. so they are probably the reason that the majority of my suicide plans are things that would be likely to fail.

and it was sheer unadulterated grace from on high that i suffered no physical ill effects from the one time i overdosed except for a lingering gag reflex when presented with the particular brand of medicine. and maybe it's even grace from on high that no one found out about that particular incident until much later, because it meant that instead of getting stuck in a hospital, the other parts could show up and take over, and go on as though nothing had happened. which, given the results, might have been the best outcome for then.

anyhow. the other thing i meant to write about in this post is how, as we parts grow more distinct from each other, we also find our-individual-part-selves growing more integrated.

because it turns out, i'm not just, or only, despairing or suicidal. i never was *only* suicidal. i'm also one of the ones who loves to read. i like to do puzzles. i like to go for walks, or color. i loved to ride my bike.

a lot of the time i am present, but none of us were aware it was me, until we started working on being aware of who we were. and as each of us is able to say, "oh, that's me" or "oh, that's her" we're all learning that there is more to each of us, and always has been more, than the labels we first had.

not sure what my point is. and i know others had things they wanted to say, but i think by this point, we're all tired, or tired of writing, so that's all.

Groovy Girls

2008-01-30T11:19:00.000-05:00

I am writing about Groovy Girls. They are really super toys. They are not too big and not too little. They have VERY friendly faces. I am getting a whole COLLECTION of Groovy Girls. Mostly that is because we cannot find the clothes for sale, but we can find the dolls.

One good thing about Groovy Girls is they come in almost every single color that a person is colored. And they can all be friends. That is why they are a good toy if somebody might feel bad about what color THEY are, because then they can see that all colors are very good, not just some colors.

Also they are good because they are just the right size to play with.

If you know a girl who needs a present, then maybe she will like to have a Groovy Girl. They are the same age as a girl, and not a grown up like Barbie is. Also, they are not too expensive. They cost only ten dollars or something. So if someone gets an allowance, then they could save that allowance for just a few weeks, and then they could get their OWN Groovy Girl.

That is all.

From Michelle, but also Jewel and Rain like this post too. We are sharing. Kara did not help because she is still very little.

stupid fibro

2008-01-27T21:51:00.000-05:00

not sure why it's been so bad lately. that is, i can't tell if it's that the adults have been a little closer to the surface, and they do have worse fibro, or if it's that i'm fighting off an illness.

all i know is that, pretty much whoever is out, we've been totally exhausted.

it's hard to remember that, let's face it, i'm not a nap person. hardly any of my parts are nap people. according to my mother, i stopped napping around the age of six months. but lately, it's been a couple of naps a day. just sheer exhaustion.

and when it's not the exhaustion, it's the pain. usually, fibro pain just makes me kind of crabby. i can't tell for sure whether this pain is worse, or i'm just more whiny about it. i do know that there have been several times in the past week when i found myself whimpering a little to myself over the discomfort. it feels worse than the time i broke my tailbone (of course, when i broke my tailbone, my body was so kind as to provide me with some endorphins, and those definitely take the edge off the pain).

the main issue i'm coping with is that even though there are a ton of things i want to be able to get done, mostly what i've managed is resting, resting, more resting... and going to therapy, which does take priority over getting the apartment organized, if i'm prioritizing what little energy i have. i'd just rather be able to get a bit more done.

or, if not that, i'd like to stop feeling guilty for not getting more done.

(this is several of us simultaneously, i think. ellis writing, but others concur.)

Support for Supporters

2008-01-22T08:07:00.000-05:00

At the last meeting of my DID/MPD support group, we *finally* managed to get an OK to send out an email to our list announcing the fact that people are starting a support group for supporters. So if you are a supporter of someone who has DID/MPD or another dissociative disorder, and you live within easy traveling distance of NYC, you may want to check this out:

Support for Supporters:

Some partners and friends of people with DID or other dissociative disorders would like to start a peer support group for people who are supporters of those with DID/MPD or another dissociative disorder. People who are welcome include partners, friends and supporters of those with DID.

The group will initially meet in Manhattan, at the same time as New Landscape, but in a different location so as to insure privacy to everyone in both groups. The person you support does NOT have to attend the New Landscape group in order for you to attend the supporters' group. The supporters' group will make its own decisions as to meeting guidelines, etc., once it gets going.

If there is enough interest (and there already is), the 1st Partner's Group meeting can start next month! If you or someone you know might be interested in attending this group, write us back for details.

~New Landscape

contact@new-landscape.com

sometimes

2008-01-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

sometimes i am afraid that if i admit to myself or anyone else how hard this is, then i won't be able to keep on coping. that i will just fall apart and everything will come crashing down around me.

things are hard. i am managing to cope, but they are hard. a lot of memories have been coming up recently. parts who have new information.

some of it is good--being able to figure out why i react with panic in some situations.

and some of it is just hard. hard. hard.

it's easy to go with a level of denial--like, how could i POSSIBLY have not remembered that? that was a BIG thing, not just something small.

and it's even harder, when i have a different version of the memory, something that's easier to cope with. how can i remember part of something, and not the whole? how could i re-write something as it was happening, and erase the parts i couldn't cope with?

but logic intervenes--do i benefit from making this up? not so much. there is no real gain from making up these memories. i don't feel better. i don't get more sympathy from other people, since what i do remember is bad enough to get all the sympathy a person could want.

so what do i get from it? sadness, hurt, remembered pain.

what do i get from looking at the memories? a measure of relief from panic and body memories.

so logic says, probably these things are real. probably these things happened. that doesn't make it easier. even though i know that remembering doesn't make me less of a survivor, it's still hard to allow myself to remember, and to examine the intensity of what happened. i am afraid of becoming one of those people who spends their entire life complaining about how forces outside their control ruined everything.

i was successful in high school and college and afterwards in part because of the denial. if i could make myself believe... not so much that it wasn't happening, but that i could keep it from affecting me, then i could go on with my life, and take control.

if i focused on the things that were under my power, i told myself the things that i couldn't control just didn't matter, they were separate from me.

might get it together later to write some memories, but this is hard. it's just HARD.

my therapist asked yesterday whether i would be interested in doing a double session on tuesdays instead of a single one. i think this is in addition to the sessions we have on thursdays. so three hours a week of therapy. doesn't seem like much, until you consider the degree to which therapy can knock me out. it's exhausting, even when i'm talking about superficial things.

but maybe it's not such a bad idea. it scares me, though. i'm afraid of being too dependent. i'm afraid of being too needy. and i'm really afraid of getting into these memories, and stirring things up.

i know that dealing with memories isn't entirely incompatible with living my life. but it's hard. it's overwhelming. i would rather pretend that everything is okay now, that we can do a few little mental exercises and **poof!** everything will be okay.

i'm afraid that instead, i'll fall apart entirely.

RANT!

2008-01-14T14:38:00.000-05:00

So, there I was, innocently reading the paper this morning. And there was an article about how Cymbalta was approved for use with fibromyalgia.

But could they just leave well enough alone and talk about how fibromyalgia is finally getting recognized and treated? Oh, no. They had to keep on quoting doctors talking about how it's all in our heads. Especially because the doctor who initially created the diagnosis now regrets it.

Yes, there was some good information mixed in there. And it did make the front page of the New York Times, above the cut even. But it makes me furious that so much of the article was taken up with casting doubts on the reality of fibromyalgia.

The main thread in the denials was this: giving the illness a name means that people focus more on pain others would just tolerate or ignore.

Let me tell you this: yes, I do focus more on it, and stop ignoring it. Does this mean the pain is new, or the attention to it increases it? Well, let's think about that. About two years before I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, my hands and feet started hurting really badly in the mornings when I woke up. I ignored the pain.

About a year later, I noticed that one of my feet continued to be mildly uncomfortable (compared to the morning pain) throughout the day. Also, it was swollen enough to make it difficult to get my shoe on. I finally went to the doctor, who at first dismissed it, and then sent me to an orthopedist, who diagnosed the BROKEN FOOT. So I have it on very good evidence that the pain from fibromyalgia is subjectively greater than the pain of a broken bone.

Fibro pain has distracted me from the pain of a broken tailbone, and from the pain of badly abscessed teeth. The fibro pain is objectively worse than things that are generally objectively deemed quite painful.

I personally think this: saying that diagnosing fibromyalgia makes people feel pain is like saying that me learning about racism is what made my family racist. As though they were perfectly normal before, and now I just see racism everywhere.

Because if I hadn't learned about racism, I wouldn't have thought that telling someone they only got into college and graduate school because they were black (rather than, I don't know, intelligent and hardworking) wouldn't have been racist if I hadn't learned about racism.

Because the pain that kept me from noticing I had broken my foot wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't been diagnosed with fibromyalgia.

Think about it.

Needs and Wants meme

2008-01-09T10:33:00.000-05:00

KatM at Finding the Light in the Darkness tagged me with the "Needs and Wants" meme from Survivors Can Thrive.

Rules of the “Survivor Needs” Meme:

Please link back to the originating meme at Survivors Can Thrive, so people can see its origins, get ideas for their own self-care list, see who’s already been tagged, and maybe we can track how far this meme goes.

=> List 25 needs and 5 wants. Try to restrict your needs list to things that have to do with being a survivor of some sort of abuse, assault, etc. Your wants list can be anything you want!

=> Use this list to remind yourself to get your needs met this holiday season and in the New Year.

=> Pass on this meme and tag five people to play this meme with you.

25 Things I Need

1. Basic subsistence: safe housing, food, shelter, medical care, clothing.

A good support system, which includes:

2. Friends who accept me as I am.

3. A therapist who is competent and ethical.

4. People I can call when I need support, or am lonely, or just because.

5. "Community" in the sense we used when I lived in Portland; people who are working together on activist causes, who also support each other and making sure to have fun in the midst of trying to help the world.

The ability to understand that:

6. My life is in my own hands; whatever happened in the past, my future is what I choose to make of it.

7. Things have changed, and I am no longer in a dangerous situation.

8. Not all people are untrustworthy.

9. It is good, and strong, and right to ask for help when I need it. It is ok to ask for help, even if the person I ask to help me isn't able to help in the way I ask them to.

The courage to:

10. Fail. Yes, the courage to do something even if I don't succeed. The courage to accept that I have not done what I set out to do.

11. Try again.

12. To face my past.

13. To face the future, and accept that it will come.

14. To speak my truths.

15. To be as open as possible about all of who I am.

16. To trust other people, and to believe what they say, rather than what I fear.

Time to:

17. Play.

18. Do healing work.

19. To learn new things.

From myselves I need:

20. Patience with the healing process.

21. The willingness to go slowly instead of trying to force myself to get "better" on someone else's (or my own imposed) schedule.

22. Cooperation amongst my parts, and a willingness to listen to each other.

23. Patience with each other, remembering that we each have our own issues to deal with. Even when it means continuing for a while to carry burdens we'd rather let go.

24. A commitment to each other, and to keeping the promises we've made to each other.

25. Self-awareness and distinctness for each part, because it really does seem to help us to heal.

Five things I want
1. (More) friends who live nearby; particularly, friends who are coping with some of the same issues.

2. A playgroup for littles, where they could spend time with other kids who are their age, without all the problems connected to someone in an adult body playing with external children.

3. To be able to help others, and share the things that have helped me.

4. A DID/MPD/Dissociative disorders visibility/awareness/activist movement. I want to know I am not alone, and to stop feeling as though I absolutely need to hide who I am. I want to stop feeling ashamed, and seeing others like me feeling as though they need to hide. (Note: I'm not talking about being "out" in every single situation; but, like many visibility movements, I've seen acceptance increase as people are able to be more visible. I want that.)

5. There are a lot of things vying for this last spot, but I'm gonna go with "To win the lottery." Because most of the things vying for this spot require a substantial amount of cash (living in a co-housing community; creating a community space for people to hang out and do projects and have gatherings; having a second-run movie theater that will show good movies even if I miss them when they are in theaters; having a huge playroom with room for all the littles' toys; having the ability to do all the travel I'd like to do; plus all of those crass material wants most people have.)

I want to add here that many of the things on my "needs" list are things I do have, to one degree or another. Not necessarily all the time, but I am exceptionally fortunate in the people who surround me, and in the life I have. It's sometimes hard to believe that these are things I've chosen, and brought into my own life, but they really didn't happen accidentally. And while some of it was luck, some of it was the result of life choices I made when I was in the middle of growing up. I'm grateful to my earlier selves for everything they have done to get me where I am now. And I hope we're able to continue to help each other through this new phase of our lives.

Okay, so let me think of who to tag.

Definitely Fallen Angels, at "A Safe Place"

These others, well, I don't know if you've been tagged yet, but I'd rather post this and get on with my day, I didn't see you tagged in the places I checked, so:

Roses on the Moon.

Village of Many.

Oompaa/hlhshorty.

Ophelia at "Welcome to the Twilight Zone." (I know your blog is friends-locked, but I figure it won't hurt to invite you to do the meme!)

Christmas

2007-12-25T08:43:00.000-05:00

One advantage of external kids would be that, most likely, they would be willing to go amuse themselves with their stocking, and then I could keep sleeping while they did that.

Instead, the internal kids woke me up at seven this morning, bouncing with excitement because they were SURE they heard Santa last night, and wanted to go see what was in the stocking. There is nothing that so confirms I have other people in my head than the way that I kept trying to shut my eyes to get some more sleep, and the littles kept opening them and bouncing to get out of bed.

I hope W. appreciates the fact that I have done everything I can to keep them occupied and distracted this morning, so that at least one of us will get the chance to sleep until a more reasonable hour.

Santa Claus!!

2007-12-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

You can find where santa claus is!

Santa claus is going around the world only it is magic or somthing caues we cannot really see him and mostly what santa does is helps people to remember to be nice to someone.

like i was a santa caues we gave presents for the kids who do not have money. we gave a big huge kite and also a book about space and also the super fort. the super fort is a very good present caues it is a fort you can bild any different way. we gave those things to the poor children and then they get them and they will smile when they open their presents caues they are not garbidge presents they are good presents and probly their mommy or daddy will smile to caues they will be happy if they can give a nice present.

that is why i was a santa claus. also i will be a santa claus and fill up w's stocking with good presents. maby we will make a lot more presents for her to. for hanuka, you give presents to but it is just people giving presents and not someone magic except in one or two stories there is something magic and also when the oil lasted for 8 nights insted of one, that was magic or a miracle. a miracle is when god does magic.

santa came to our house already i think but maby he will come again and eat some cookies and fill up our stockings that will be nice. santa is a person who lives at the magic north pole. that is the one you cannot get to unless you are an elf or santa or something. maby tonight we can watch a movie about santa. i would like that very much.

also they have movies about santa. the movies show where he is right now. michelle and mandy and kara and me and everyone are very much excited about christmas. ellis is probly tired or something but she is helping us to make a good present and then we will make another present to but i will not say what they are caues they are suprises.

Thinking

2007-12-20T20:13:00.000-05:00

One of the main things I (Ellis) have been working on in therapy is accepting that there are times when I need to stop working, and be okay with not doing everything I feel ought to be done.

I know this is particularly one of my issues, because coping with too much to be done is why I came to be.

Nineteen years ago, I was fourteen years old. My foot was in a cast, because I had sprained it in gym. I was responsible for babysitting my younger siblings every day after school, while my mother took night classes. I was in charge of making sure they did their homework, got fed, took care of chores (or at least making sure the chores got done, which often enough meant that I was the one doing them), and got into bed on time. I was also responsible for keeping up with my own schoolwork, and doing well in school. (This last, at least, held a personal motivation, because I understood that if I did well in school for four more years, the reward was that I could have an all-expenses paid ticket *out* of my home.)

I was fourteen years old.

None of this was considered too difficult for me. If I couldn't manage to do all of that well, it was because I was lazy.

All my life, growing up, I was taught that I was lazy. In the face of all evidence, I believed I was lazy. Because, lots of times, I really wished I could be responsible for less. I wished I could just curl up somewhere and do absolutely nothing for a little bit.

I believed I was lazy because sometimes, the last thing I wanted to do was get dragged out of bed to hear about how I hadn't done enough that day.

I believed the problem was my laziness.

So, fast forward to my adult life. How can I possibly see anything I do now as difficult, if I was taught to believe that what I coped with at fourteen wasn't difficult?

I think part of my struggle with learning how to stop pushing myself is that it makes me feel like I'm being lazy, self-indulgent, selfish... it makes me feel like I'm weak. It also makes me feel disloyal to my mother, because she taught me that what I coped with at fourteen wasn't too hard for a fourteen year old to cope with.

And it also makes me scared. Because if I really am lazy, maybe if I don't push myself, I won't get anything done. And then I will be a failure, someone who waits for the world to solve all of my problems for me.

Intellectually, I know I do plenty. But emotionally, not so much. I'm working on this. Perhaps, a day hasn't been wasted if I don't spend eighteen hours pushing myself to get things done. Perhaps, it's enough to do just what I can, and to stop when I start to feel panicky. At least, I can consider this possibility.

DID/MPD/Dissociative Awareness

2007-12-13T22:24:00.001-05:00

The conclusion!

So, the voting has ended, and here are the winning designs. I'm pretty proud, since the image on the left is the one I designed.

And, since it's the one I designed, and I had a nice, clean, large version of it on my hard drive, I went ahead and made a Café Press store with a couple of items. I'll probably add more products soon, as I get the chance to spend the time doing it. I can only hope that the process will get easier the more I do it.

So that's the good thing for today.