Resilience

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.


*
*
*

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.

Read More......

update

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. :)

Read More......

Multiplicity can be a choice

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.

Read More......

United States of Jigsaw Analogy

"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.

Read More......

NaNoWriMo

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.

Read More......

A very good book!

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!

Read More......

toni collette won an emmy for tara

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.

Read More......