Snow day!

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.

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The Easter bunny

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!

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Thanksgiving, part two

So there's another thing I'm grateful for. It's something I'm a little bit ambivalent about it, but I can also be thankful for it.

I have dissociative identity disorder.

I can see the ways that it's created problems for me, I can see the ways that it's a difficult thing to cope with, and how it makes many aspects of my life more difficult.

But, looking back, I can also see how it's made me able to survive, and left me capable of forming relationships, of coping with the world around me, and of being able to maintain just a level of normalcy that I wouldn't necessarily have managed without it.

Because of DID, I can continue a relationship with my family, and not have all of the bad stuff there in my mind while I am with them.

Because of DID, I was able to have parts who had a happy childhood, without the constant dread and fear that I might otherwise have experienced.

DID is most likely the reason I was able to do well in school, and be able to use going to college as a path to escape. Because of DID, I didn't feel like I had no good options, and I wasn't inclined to do more self-harmful things like running away, using drugs, acting promiscuously, or whatever. And because of DID, I didn't commit suicide, because I did have at least a few parts that were sufficiently committed to staying alive that suicide wasn't an option.

DID is how I managed to keep the ability to accept parts of myself I might otherwise have come to despise (my race, my body, my gender, my sexuality). DID is why I am able to have healthy relationships as an adult.

For all of the things I hate about this, for all of the things that I find difficult or challenging or unfair... I can also see, at least at the moment, how dissociation is most likely the only way I was able to survive long enough to have a chance to heal. Because no matter how much I look back, I can see that I really had no other options, and no one was going to come along and rescue me. And DID really is the most healthy way I could possibly have rescued myself.

So here's a big thank you to my child selves, for figuring out the best way they could to keep myself (myselves) safe until I was able to do something in order to heal.

Hanging on my wall is a cast picture from a play I did about domestic violence and self-defense. One of the lines we repeated in the final scenes was "We keep ourselves alive, every day." And my parts did that for me, and they do that for me. And even if the struggle to keep myselves alive every day may not always seem worthwhile, and while it may be a lot of work, and while the struggles in the current moment are more a result of the choices my child selves made, well... we keep ourselves alive, every day. And for that, I am truly grateful.

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Thanksgiving, part one

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for, and Thanksgiving is really the official time to write about them. Right now, I'm thinking of two big ones.

First, there's the fact that, despite all of the chaos and confusion and dysfunction in my family growing up, or perhaps because that chaos, confusion, and dysfunction was so absolutely constant, holidays are something I can really enjoy. Many people who grew up in dysfunctional homes find the holidays hard to deal with because things got worse. I suppose things might have gotten worse at the holidays, but that's not how I remember them. Were there bad holidays? Yes, definitely. There were a few really horrible ones, if it comes to that.

But here's the thing: because they weren't more horrible than a whole heck of a lot of non-holidays, the horrible didn't stand out. And instead, what stands out are the moments of peace and happiness that show up, even in a problematic home.

Now, Thanksgiving wasn't a big holiday for us, growing up. We celebrated it, to the extent of having the meal, and generally, of making some effort to think of things we were thankful for. Mostly, it was about the meal. As the kids in our family have grown up, it's become a bigger deal, because it's a different holiday if you have to actually pick up and go to someone's house, rather than just having a slightly special dinner with the same people, at the same table, where you have dinner every night.

But my connection with my family's Thanksgiving is somewhat tenuous. Since leaving for college, I've spent just one Thanksgiving with my family. For me, it's a holiday where I can celebrate my adult life, spend time with friends, and have a much more relaxed approach to things. It's a holiday where I discovered that I can be okay with celebrating it two days late (that is, if we feel like making a turkey dinner tomorrow!).

Back to my point. Thanksgiving was always a more "minor" holiday for us. Christmas was the big one, and it's a holiday that I absolutely love. And my childhood didn't spoil that for me, not in the least. I don't deny that there were problems, nor that they had an impact on my experience. But in many ways, I took a strengths-based approach. Okay, so I was likely to be disappointed by presents. So I learned to be okay with not getting things that I wanted, either because of the fact that my family couldn't afford them, or because of the fact that I was the least squeaky wheel (by the time I was a teenager, my mother would confide in me that, due to limited resources, my siblings--particularly my older sister--would be getting more or better presents, because they would make everything unpleasant if they didn't, but I was sufficiently mature to behave whether or not I got something I wanted).

I learned to love the entirety of the holiday--the food, the lights, the tree, the music, thinking of things to give to other people. All of these were things that I could take part in, could enjoy, without worrying about whether other people would remember to think of me.

And I am grateful that I was able to find ways of being able to enjoy the holidays, to have fun with them, to take the best of what was offered, and to still have that delight in the world around me.

So that's the first thing I'm grateful for.

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