Ten Years Ago/digging through journals

I was looking for a poem I had written, to post on my other blog, and found the journal where I had written it. I decided to read the journal part while I was browsing.

And, oh. Wow. Apparently, I really do have DID. And, apparently, I knew it ten years ago. How could I block that out of my mind?!! I had run across a different journal where I was writing about DID very hypothetically, and I thought that was the only place. But, no. Not only that, but somehow, even in the same journal, I could keep myself from noticing that I was dealing with DID, and use entire sections of the spiral notebook to write about other things, with no knowledge that there was stuff about me having DID in the same notebook.

I'll put a couple of excerpts behind the cut. Oh, and another thing. Looking at them now, I can see my handwriting shifting, and I recognize which parts were writing, even though I didn't know or acknowledge those parts at the time. I'll change colors where the handwriting changes.

7 Sept ‘97

Amazing how sleepy I get, as soon as I open up my journal. I guess I really don’t want to have to be dealing with any of the issues that I need to journal about. It’s one thing to make up a fictional survivor monologue and tell it to people in a play. It’s another thing to talk more directly about real things that actually happened to you. And I have a hard time believing that I’m really out of it, that there’s something to be out of, that I deserve to not be treated like I was…

And yet, there are people who know me now in ways that people haven’t known me before, and they still seem to like me well enough. And I’ve gone through more than a year now without the reputation of being someone who doesn’t like to be touched, and no one has chosen to do anything harmful to me.

I keep waiting for it to get easier, but it doesn’t. It can get easier for me to accept the difficult things, but the parts that are hard just seem to continue being hard. I wonder if I will ever get to the point where the DID isn’t so overwhelmingly a part of who I am… I keep waiting for a part that I can control and stop. For a point where I can be in charge. I’m afraid to let go for fear that I’ll never regain control. I’m afraid that if I let myself be a little weak & forgiving, I will never work hard and get things done again.

14 September, '97.
It seems like I spend so much of my life waiting. For the bus. For stuff to pick up at work. For the energy to do anything. To get better. I guess I just get frustrated with the zen of things. With the need to relax, and just let things happen in their own time. Patience is not one of my stronger virtues.

I guess it's partly that it's dangerous for me to live in the present. So much of my life, my survival depended on my ability to ignore the present and prepare for the future. And since then, my primary experience with living in the present has been tied to a sense of despair that things will get better--or maybe it hasn't been living in the present. Maybe I was just living in the past.

It's really hard for me to know who I am. When I'm talking about myself, it's as though I'm not even there, like it's a person I'm reading about. Somewhere, under all of this, I must be a real person, with feelings & all of the things people have.

And it's funny to write this way, now that I think of it, because I am more a real person than I have been at any point in my life that I can remember.

5 September '97 (ed. note: I think I meant October--it's between other entries for October, anyway) Ouch. Here it is again. I can't wait until a time in my life when it's over.

It's so hard to resist the temptation to turn to metaphors: Hansel & Gretel, after the woods. Even when it all works out at the end--even when people end up lots better in the end... Is it really better to be materially better because the people you needed to trust threw you into the forest to manage your own survival?

I am just so tired of feeling like I don't own my body. Of feeling like the only way to be safe is to leave it, and hope that nothing really bad happens while I'm not in it. It really sucks. Especially because I don't think it's a good coping skill for the life I have now. People aren't trying to hurt me anymore, and I wish I could hold onto the body for long enough to get better.

25 Feb 98 I HATE this. It's like being a kid again. There are all of these things that need to be done for me to be safe, but I don't know what they are, or how to do them.

Maybe being a kid is the key to my mood swings. I'm relatively calm & happy all day, but when I have to come home, and worse, when I have to go to bed, things fall apart. Or checking to see who's here, feeling safer if there is someone... Shit, panic attack...

I am so desperate. It feels like I'm two or three people... like I get to be confident and smart and attractive when I'm at work, but when I'm alone or at home, I'm this ugly little slug, that people either avoid or step on and destroy.

I feel so trapped. I like the positive feelings I get when I can do well on things, but it feels like I'm just setting myself up to be hurt. As though... I don't know, as though by doing well, that's just going to make the other side of my life more hellish and awful. As though if I spend energy doing well at school, I'm just going to get pounded on when I get home, so I won't get above myself. That is so stupid--that never happened. I also feel like if I tell, nothing will be true, no one will believe me. As though I am making all of this up to get attention. So I don't feel like it's okay to talk to anyone, because if I'm just doing this to get attention, I don't deserve it.

I feel so stupid, and worthless, and lazy, and powerless. Like I can't move, like there's nothing I can do to feel safe. Like there are a million things I need to do, and I can't figure out how to prioritize.

I am so tired of taking care of myself. Of paying my bills and feeding her & washing her clothes, & making appointments & she isn't worth it, & she doesn't deserve it, and I don't like her, and I wish she had never been born. I hate her. All she does is ask for things and nag. I don't want her. If she wants something, she should take care of herself.

Oh, fun. The uncensored diaries of J. See how she shockingly refers to herself in the third person.

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Learning to Draw

There's a new project in our system, and it's actually kind of fun. Some of the parts are working on making a story book together. They are good at writing, but not drawing. So, they were thinking of which part in the system could learn to do something like drawing, and they thought of me, because I usually do the things other parts can't do.

This is actually kind of nice. I figured out how to make drawings look like we want them to, and it wasn't too hard a trick, once I paid attention to what they say on websites where they're teaching you to draw. The littles are frustrated, because I read the websites last night, and I still haven't gotten able to draw well enough to make the pictures they imagine come out on paper.

They're also going crazy, because it takes them, like, two hours to get a story written the way they want, but it's taking me "forever" (like, half an hour a picture) to get the drawings.

But what's good about all of this is, the system seems to be thinking that, just because I'm good at doing things, and just because I will do the things no one else wants to do, that doesn't mean I should get stuck doing nothing but the stupid boring unpleasant stuff. So that's cool.

And it's good to see they appreciate the fact that I can figure out how to do things RIGHT. See? It's not just for staying out of trouble. Figuring out how to do things right can be FUN.

--Ellis (formerly called Somebody)

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April is Child Abuse Awareness Month

We all know children, and it will serve them well if people remember to keep an eye out for them, and do what we can to keep them safe. Do the children in your lives a favor, and make sure you know the signs--not every abused child acts out in ways that call attention to their problems, but symptoms do show up.

I will add my own two cents, from my own experience: abusive parents aren't evil, and I don't think they even necessarily intend to cause harm. For the most part, abusive parents still love their children, but are overwhelmed, or stressed out, or are unable to recognize that their behavior is inappropriate because it simply mirrors what they, themselves experienced. If you suspect a child you know is being abused, be supportive of the parents, rather than condemning them.

Given the specific issues that I have as a survivor of child abuse, I think the following list (from this page) is especially pertinent. It lists the symptoms of child abuse, with a strong awareness of dissociative responses.


As they note, the list is not comprehensive, and it is more a "things to watch for" list than an absolute indicator.

ABC's of abuse

* Abnormal body awareness, numbing, detachment (depersonalization and/or derealization)
* Abrasions or cuts appearing on the body which have no apparent reasonable explanation
* Ambidexterity; evidence of different writing styles, widely fluctuating drawing abilities
* Asthma
* Auditory hallucinations (hearing voices, usually "inside" head)
* Behaviour that does not appear "normal" e.g. severe anxiety around other children or adults, antisocial behaviour in the form of hostile aggression or withdrawal behaviour accompanied by depression.
* Belief that his/her soul is "lost", "sold" or "possessed"
* Behaviour which indicates apathy or depression
* Behaviour which is antisocial and hostile in nature
* Bruises or welts appearing on the body, especially those which reveal the shape of some object which was used to produce them. e.g. sticks, belts, buckles, electric cords, a hair brush, etc.
* Bruises which are unexplained or located on parts of the body which usually do not get bruised through the bumps and falls of a child's everyday living.
* Burns caused by rope friction, usually found on legs, arms, neck or torso as the result of having been tied up.
* High pain tolerance; lack of awareness of injury or illness
* Burns which leave a pattern outlining the object which was used to make the burn such as an iron, electric burner, heater or fireplace tool.
* Burns with a "sock" or "glove-like" appearance on hands, or feet and " doughnut:" shaped burns on the buttocks. These types of burns are usually caused by either dipping or forcing the child to sit in scalding liquid.
* "Caretaker" tendencies with corresponding self-neglect or abuse
* Childs clothing appears to be stained, torn or bloody
* Child continually hungry
* Child expresses or implies sexual activity with a parent or other adult
* Child has been diagnosed with having VD of eyes, mouth, genitalia or anus.
* Child reports pain, itching, bruises, or bleeding in the genital area
* Child shows withdrawn behaviour, refusing to participate or dress appropriately for physical activities such as swimming
* Child speaks of home with a lot of fear and anxiety, but is fearful of intervention
* Chronic bladder infections
* Chronic night terrors
* Clothing not suitable for weather conditions
* Compulsive or obsessive thoughts; rumination
* Confusion about family roles & relationships; fluctuating knowledge of family roles and relationships, occasional confusion about who is mother or father
* Confusion and/or concern about what constitutes childhood
* Consistent lack of cleanliness/or an intense obsession with cleanliness.
* Convoluted thinking; exaggerated tendency to anticipate the motives of others, especially authority figures
* Does not seem to understand play, inability to play, excessively anxious to know "rules"
* Eating disorders; food phobias, especially "red" food, meat, or herbs (anxiety response rather than simple dislike)
* Epileptic-type seizures or episodes of fainting or unconsciousness with no medical explanation
* Evidence of frequent trance states (forgetfulness, confused denial of witnessed behavior); high vulnerability to trance state induction (for example, during "storytime" or in response to poetry, music, rhythmic sounds, etc), yet phobic of "formal" hypnosis induction techniques
* Evidence that the child's physical or medical needs are not being met.
* Exaggerated startle reflex, especially followed by evidence of dissociation and/or amnesia
* Exaggerated reliance on state-dependent learning; evidence of inconsistent skills and knowledge
* Exaggerated sense of guilt and responsibility for others
* Exaggerated tendency toward age-inappropriate abstract thought or analysis with a corresponding ignorance of basic instinctual knowledge, e.g. abnormal ideas about eating , sleeping , elimination, death, identity
* Excessive superstition about numbers (especially 3, multiples of 3, 7 & 13) and symbols (especially pentagrams, crosses, circles, runes)
* Expectation that he/she will be thought "crazy", "bad" or "evil"
* Extreme compliance with authority figures; severe alienation from peers
* Extreme fluctuation in skills, behavior, appearance
* "Flat" affect; confused and/or inappropriate emotional responses, especially to scenes of violence or abuse
* Fear of being photographed
* Fear of eye contact
* Fear of physical contact, hugging, touching
* Frequent incidence of excema or other symptomatic skin disorders and non-specific skin irritations
* Frequent somatic symptoms or illness accompanied by lack of complaint (uninitiated disclosure) or awareness
* Frequent weeping without the ability to relate to a reason, or with denial of emotion
* Highly phobic with multiple triggers
* Human bite sized bites, especially those that are adult sized.
* Hyperviligilance; insomnia (only able to sleep in morning or during daylight)
* Inability to differentiate fantasy from reality
* Injuries in various stages of healing which appear in a regular pattern or are grouped together
* Lack of congruent short-term memory; confused personal history
* Lack of supervision especially in dangerous situations or while participating in activities which extend over long periods of time.
* Loss of appetite, refusal to eat
* Minimal or no ability to defend self; marked inconsistency in aggressive or self-protective abilities
* Olfactory hallucinations, especially when followed by dissociative episodes
* Precocious knowledge of metaphysics, philosophy, mythology or ethics, especially with no conscious memory of having studied these subjects); assumption that information or knowledge can "come to you" without learning
* Rapid mood swings or "simultaneous" contradictory emotions, e.g. laughing and crying, angry yet submissive
* Ritualized behavior (things must be done in a certain order or in a proscribed way in order to be "safe")
* Self-mutilation, usually hidden
* Sexually responsive to perceived "perpetrator" figures; contradictory sexual naivete, modesty, repressed sexuality with others
* Small circular burns appearing on face, arms, hands, buttocks or soles of feet which may have been inflicted by a cigar or cigarette
* Statements that imply an assumption of parallel, contradictory realities, for example that there is an "inside" world and an "outside" world with opposing rules, or that everyone performs acts that must be kept secret
* Suicidal ideation and attempts from an early age
* Tattoos or unusual scars (scalp, behind ear, palm of hand, inside thigh, over heart, next to nipples); "box scars"
* Uncharacteristic episodes of severe, unfocused anxiety, e.g. crouching on floor, rocking, nail biting, compulsive scratching or biting of the self
* Unexplained fractures to nose, face, ribs, legs or other parts of the body
* Unwanted pregnancy occurs, and child is afraid to mention partners name
* Visual hallucinations (blood, knives, animals, eyes)
* Young Child shows knowledge or interest in adult sexual behaviour, not appropriate for his age group

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Shadow Monsters and Fairy Gifts

The difference between stories and history may sometimes be narrow, but the chasm can be inpenetrably deep.

My earliest career goal, once I had one that was my own, and not an answer to fob off on adults who asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, was to be a writer. I had other goals too, sometimes because I lacked confidence in my ability to support myself by telling stories, and sometimes because I was terrified of what I might write, were I to tell the stories I found inside.

I kept finding myself unable to face the truth that is inherent in good fiction. The stories deep within me were overwhelming. I could not tell them and feel safe. So instead, I wrote shallow stories, stories designed to do nothing more than quiet the people and worlds that swelled within me. And then, frustrated by my shallow, meaningless stories, I decided instead to focus on my other goals.

If I were not a writer, I would be a teacher. If I could not tell my own stories, perhaps I could give other people the power to discover their own. And, as is true with most people whether or not they have DID, I have more than one passion. So I turned, in my professional mind, from stories to histories.

My past would not let me go, so I chose to evade it by embracing a broader past. How better to separate myself from the pain and fear than to brace up my walls with intellect? Occasionally, I noticed the irony. I studied the history of childhood, and had no memory of my own.

History is a discipline that requires concrete evidence. The focus on proof allowed me to deny my own past, because I had no documents, I heard no oral histories; if the flashes of memory were unverifiable, I could behave as though they did not exist in fact. What is more, by reading about the problems other children have faced, I could minimize the terrors of my own experience. There is always something worse than what happened to one person. There is always something worse that might have happened.

I channeled the remainder of my past into activism. If I could not face my own childhood, at least I could honor the children inside me by doing what I could to protect other people and help them to heal. I taught mothers at a domestic violence shelter better ways to cope with their children. I taught their children ways to find safety in threatening situations. And I helped women to heal and keep themselves safe in self-defense classes.

But no matter how much I wanted to avoid it, I could not escape my past. Dissociation is a separation of parts, but that separation is (only) internal. No matter how stark the boundaries I had created, the different parts remained inside the body I use. And every so often, they would rear their heads, desperate, terrified, furious.

A little more than a year ago, I had to make a choice. I could hope that my self-protective parts would continue to pull me back from the brink of death, or I could stop denying the existence of my other parts. I had come far too close, once again, to not surviving the emergence of some of my parts. I was terrified, and I finally allowed myself to face the divisions I had shied away from acknowledging, time and time again. Whatever my doubts, and however difficult it has been, it probably was the right choice.

But I find myself once again at a point of decision. My training as a historian blocks me from telling my own story. I hedge myself about with demands for evidence, and dismiss my truths as speculation. But my parts will not allow me to write history, and have not allowed me to do so for the last year.

So if I cannot write my dissertation, perhaps instead I will write the other books that are inside me. I will embrace my fears, and write stories that are less factual but far more true.

To that end, I am starting yet another blog, where I will post the elements of what may or may not eventually become my books. A writer has to start somewhere, and that is where I will begin.

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More About Magic

by Michelle.

Here is some more stuff that I will write about magic. Lots of parts inside do different kinds of magic.

The little ones and the hiding ones do a special magic. Their magic is so when something is going to hurt the body or is too scary, they can get outside of the body and then watch something happening. If a part is there and they are scared too, then they can sometimes go with the little one or the hiding one who is doing this, and they can not be there when something is scary. This is magic because it means you are floating away and not inside the body. Mostly they do not do this, but sometimes when something scary happens, like someone falls down the stairs, they will still help everyone just watch so they do not get hurt so bad.

The Story Girl, mostly, and Amanda and me a little bit too, we watch to see if there is something magic we can use to get into a magic land or get wishes or something like that. We have never found one yet, but we are still looking. Jamie and the other teenagers help because they like to find money on the ground, and sometimes magic things look like money, so they help. We also look for special cool things like shells, and we are very good at finding them because we practice looking for magic things. Also, we look for maybe a magic path, like they found to go to Narnia.

A lot of us are good at turning invisible. Sometimes you have to do a spell, but sometimes, you just have to remember that you need to be invisible.

Rynn and someone else who does not want me to say who it is, they are very good at making shields. A shield is a thing so people can not make you feel bad. It also makes it ok so that you don't have to feel all the spiky things from people around you, when they are thinking too loud or something. I think they were the ones who made the first safe places inside. The one who does not want me to say who it is made her safe place too strong, and she got stuck and now she does not know how to get out. But Rynn, she did it a little different. She made houses for people. She did not remember about the little kids, but we found safe places. Without the safe places inside, it is just thorns and scary places with the monsters and you have to be super careful so they do not notice you. But the safe places inside are better, and you can play. And when Rynn made the safe world inside, then we kids could make good places to go to also. W. helped us to build the magic house and town. That is our favorite place, and mostly we are all living there now when we are inside. It is a place where all of us can go, and sometimes W. can visit us there even.

Rynn also makes our room safe, but she is not very good at this any more. What she does is, instead of the shields just being inside us, she puts them around a room, or around an apartment. But she does not know how to make the shields just right, so they do not work as well as they used to do. The shields she put around our old room, those kept people out of our room even after we went away. We found out, because someone in our family asked, "What did you do to your room? I don't want to go in there ever." And since our old room turned into that person's room when we left, that shows how good those shields were!

The Hip Chyck does something that is a little bit magic, and she even thinks it is magic. What she does is, she knows that believing in something enough, and working at it, can make it happen. She is saying it is not exactly magic like in books, but it is magic to me because it is about making things happen that wouldn't happen if you didn't believe really hard. What she does is she believes really hard that something good can happen, and she acts like it is going to happen and does work, and then it does happen, even if other people said it couldn't.

The Mama does a special magic. She does magic so that where we live is a nice place to be. When we lived at home, she also did lots of magic so that people would be calmer and not fight so much. She also does little spells about things like being happy and calm and safe at home. Also, she does little spells to get parking spaces sometimes.

The Mama and the Hip Chyck, and Rynn a little bit, and the Story Girl a little bit do a magic inside. They call it "grounding," but it is not the bad kind of grounding that is a punishment. It is a kind of grounding that helps things to be quieter inside, and stops too much poking stuff from getting in from the outside. It takes our energy and it connects it to the center of the world going down and to the stars going up, and then we can breathe better and feel better. Also, Hip Chyck learned in self defense class that if you do this, when someone pushes you or something, you don't fall over as easily, but it doesn't take energy to not fall over.

These are two magic spells the Mama and the Hip Chyck made together that we use when we need them.

One is if we are looking for something and can't find it. We say, "If I were the ____, where would I be? Right here on the _____ where she could find me." And then we find it. But you have to make sure you are using magic when you do it, and how the Mama says you use the magic is you find the string inside yourself that is connected to the thing you are looking for, and then you follow that string to where it is. It works the best if you were the last person to touch that thing.

Another one is so we don't worry so much about money stuff. It goes like this: "With the waxing of the moon, so may our prosperity grow. With the waning of the moon, so may our troubles fade away." Mostly, the grown ups use this one. It is a spell they can say whenever they see the moon, and then things will get better and they will not have to worry so much, and they will keep getting better. The Mama and the Hip Chyck say it is ok to be pagan AND a Christian or something else. They say that God is not just a man like in my picture Bible, but is something we can't understand. I think this is probably true, because one time when I was praying and thinking about God, when I saw God, it was a beautiful flower that smelled good and made me feel better. So God is lots of things, so that spell is ok to do. It does not make God upset.

Some of the grown-ups don't like to tell people about the magic, because they are embarrassed. Those grown-ups are Cleo and the Analyst and the Smart One. They don't think magic is real. Everybody else inside believes in it and does different kinds of magic. Some of it is to keep us safe. Some of it is to make things better and happier. The Hip Chyck says her magic is especially to make the whole world a better place and to show other people that they can make things better and they can do things even if they don't think they can.

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Magic

by Michelle.

S. says she does not think magic is real. But I think she is wrong. This is because I do magic, and it is important to do some kinds of magic. Maybe some of my magic is just silly little kid stuff. But lots of my magic is very important.

These are the reasons I do magic: 1. So that people will love me because I don’t forget about doing important things like jobs, and so they will not think I did not do my jobs. 2. So that people won’t make a mistake and get me in trouble when I was not the one who did something bad. 3. So that I will not have nightmares.

The most important is about nightmares. This is the magic I do so I will not have nightmares. 1. I make sure to step on every single crack when I am walking on the sidewalk. And especially I make sure that I do not walk across a driveway when a car is in the street. 2. I say my prayers before I go to sleep and I ask God to make sure I don’t have any nightmares. 3. I sleep very carefully, curled up, and invisible. 4. I count things like the stairs so I know how many steps away a person is if I hear the stairs, and so if I wake up after a nightmare and it is dark I will not fall down the stairs.

This kind of magic is only good for one kind of nightmares. Those are the kind where something heavy is holding you down and there is scary breathing and you can’t breathe and it makes your tummy hurt.

It is very important to always do the magic so that you will be safe from these nightmares.

There are other kinds of magic, too, but that is the most important one.

Some of the other parts also do magic that helps to keep us safe. They are in charge of other kinds of magic. My magic is just about being good, and being invisible, and not having nightmares. Sometimes I forget to do some part of the magic, and then something bad happens.

Maybe this is because you can not do magic 100% of the time, but only part of the time, and sometimes, you don’t do it at the important time, since you maybe aren’t good at magic and you don’t know when the important time is to do it. But if you remember to be very careful and always do the magic every single time, then maybe you will go for two weeks or something and not have one single nightmare. It is not so easy to make people love you, or to always be invisible all the time, but if you are careful, you can mostly do this too.

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"Somebody" was here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

So. Some progress.

--Cleo

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Guilt or fear

I've been having a flare-up of fibromyalgia. It happens every year. For that matter, to a lesser degree, it happens every month. So combining spring and that time of month has knocked me out.

I feel guilty about it. W. was encouraging me to accept it, and to let go of the guilt, and to allow myself time to focus on meeting my body's needs.

Thinking about it, though, here's the thing. I think that the guilt helps me to stave off the fear of what this means. I mean, if I'm lazy, that means everything is under my control. If the problem is not trying hard enough, not committing myself to doing what I need to do, what I should do, what I want to do... then, conceivably, I can decide to do differently.

But if the problem is a physical disability, it's not under my control. If I'm not faking the fibromyalgia, if I'm not making up the DID, then I can't just decide to be better.

And it's even harder to accept that with the DID, I actually am doing everything I am "supposed" to be doing to get better. With the fibro, yes, I could be taking meds (none of them actually worked when I tried them, but I could keep trying different ones). I could be getting massage (which did reduce the pain and fatigue, but only when I had a massage therapist who was experienced with both fibro and survivor issues, and which didn't actually do away with the fatigue and pain to the extent that I could manage a full-time job year-round). And that's about it.

I am not good at accepting what I can't control. I am good at controlling myself, at forcing myself to do things that, on cooler reflection, I can't really handle. This is hard.

And there's the sheer boredom of being too exhausted to sit up for more than half an hour, or to hold up a book for more than an hour at a time. There's only so much a person can do, flat on her back (and despite having hundreds of TV channels to choose from, there's very little to watch).

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Meet the Robinsons

W and I went to see Meet the Robinsons yesterday. Here's what we (inside) have to say:

this is Teller. i will tell about the movie for the kids. lots of us watched it because it was a safe movie for kids to watch. one cool thing about it is that there were glasses and they were not paper they were plastic so they are cool and we can keep them.

there was a cartoon at the start. it was chip and dale about peanuts. it was funny. michelle didn't like it caues they were being bad but it was funny and the rest of us liked it.

then there was the movie. it was a littel bit sad at the start because the poor littel boy, he was left at an orphanage. but the orphanage lady was nice to the kids. then he grew up to be a big kid and he did science things like a peanut butter and jelly hat. but that made a mistake, and then the people, they dident want to adopt him, they wanted a different kid. and the boy was sad. but then he made a thing for a science fair that was going to help him see his memory of his mommy who left him, so he could go find her.

then the exciting parts happened, cause a boy from the future came, and told him a guy in a bowler hat was gonna steal his project. and that guy came. he was not scary because he was a funny bad guy. he was very funny. but he broke the science project and ruined the fair. and the boy was sad. but the boy from the future took him there. and then the rest happened.

the movie was happy and one funny part was when the two boys got into the future, and they had an argument, and one boy said, "you have to do what i say because i'm older" and the other boy said, "you have to do what I say, because i'm from the past, and that makes ME older!" there were lots of jokes in the movie that made us laugh about it.

This is Cleo, writing for the adults:

We liked the movie quite a bit. It was a little bit on the strange side, since some of the stuff that happened was really very random and a little bit hard to follow. I don't know if it would have really been worth paying extra to see it 3-D, but we had passes, and ended up not having to pay extra, so that was fine.

The movie had a really excellent message, basically that you can't let things that happened in your past ruin your future, that you have to take responsibility for how you choose to live your life, and that if you weren't born into or raised in the family you want, you should choose a family of your own, and take control of your life. The movie showed how people who hold on to anger at someone else, and don't take responsibility for the roles they play in their own lives, sabotage their own lives along with everyone else's.

The main villain wasn't especially scary at all, but there was a portion at the end that did get quite frightening. It was over quickly, but it was still a part you might want to have an adult around for (just to reassure children, inside or out, that everything would work out fine, and that the problems would be solved before too long).

This is a movie I might even consider buying, because I'd like to watch it again when I have a little more time (when will they come out with 3-D movies for the home? That would be really cool!).

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Trying

It is very hard for me to accept that, just because I want to do something, choose to do something, it doesn't mean that I can do something.

I would say that I have come to this level of acceptance with fibromyalgia. I would say that, but on reflection, it's not really true. I've managed to ingrain some habits--rest more often, be aware of what I eat, don't try to do some of the things that are far more difficult with fibro--but, on the whole, my main feeling is that I'm just being lazy, if I could just find the willpower, then the pain and fatigue wouldn't keep me from doing the things I know I should do. I suppose it's for the best that I'm not the only adult part, since I would probably manage to push well past the point of collapse.

Perhaps because it's "all in my head" or perhaps just because I've been trying to cope with it for less time, this whole struggle with DID is seeming even more difficult. There isn't something about it that can easily be seen by other people. From the outside, I am just one person. So why, then, do I find it so difficult to get these different parts to just do what I would prefer to be doing?

For a lot of reasons (self-respect, financial security) I really would like to be working. Even though I am dimly aware of the fact that my body won't do it, even if it weren't for the difficulty of coping with where I am in my mental health process, it still feels like I'm being self-indulgent, lazy, selfish. W. has enough on her plate without having to support me financially.

And yet, realistically, I know it's something I can't do. If I can't manage to do routine household tasks, there really isn't any way I could currently pull of working outside the house. But I still feel very guilty about it.

Maybe it's because I used to be able to push myself to do things that, on rational reflection, I shouldn't have been able to do. And if I could pull something off at, say, fourteen, then why can't I do something that's objectively easier at thirty-two?

More than that, there's the struggle of figuring out how to cope with the different parts inside of me. I mean, it's my brain (although, here, I get a chorus of voices insisting that, no, it's their brain too, and I'm not allowed to act like I'm the only one, and so on). But I did always think I was the only one, and felt really guilty or surprised or confused when one of the other parts would show up.

Perhaps because the adults in the system have a pretty good degree of co-consciousness, our experience is more, "This is odd. Why am I doing this when what I thought I wanted to do was that? Why do I enjoy doing this thing, as though it is something I always enjoy, when just yesterday, I couldn't stand to do it at all?"

We, in the system, have always been careful about stating strong opinions. And we've been even more cautious about doing things that indicate there are different people inside. A lot of that, probably, is me. If my job is to pretend everything is normal, then we have to present a united front to the rest of the world.

This makes some things easier. My closet doesn't look "different," because we simply came up with clothing compromises so that the majority of parts would be happy willing to wear the same clothes. I have practiced acting as though it's perfectly normal to have a bunch of different toys, or to have a range of books to read (although several parts have been short-changed in that category, because they like books the others are embarrassed to carry).

But this united front has made it more challenging to cope with the problems (I reluctantly admit) we have. Just because the Analyst can explain why something is happening, just because the adults in the system decide that the goal is to feel better, be responsible, take care of the things we need to take care of.... Just because I know something intellectually doesn't mean it's got a path to carry over to any of the other parts.

And I guess it's not reasonable of me to expect to do all of this "right" the first time I try. That said, it has been my experience in the past. I could decide I would keep working even though I was tired. I could decide I would get into a good college even though I had no idea what I was doing. I would decide I could get sufficient rest from three or four hours of sleep, and convince my body to go along with me.

And because I used to be able to do that, the guilt from not being able to do it now is kind of crushing. It's hard to convince myself that my failure to do the things I feel like I "should" do is not because I am lazy, or selfish, or not trying hard enough. It is because, in fact, I can't do these things right now. I can't stand that. And I can't understand that that's true. And then, I think: If I can't get that, then what must people think of me, when they're not inside and can see how hard I'm trying? Because it doesn't look like I'm trying from the outside, or else I would be succeeding.


I guess trying is not the same as succeeding. But I've had a long experience of, if I just try to do something with my full will behind it, then I will succeed, to one degree or another. And so this repeated failure feels not so much like failure, as failure to try. Because if I tried, I would succeed. I guess that's not really true. But it's still, deep down inside, what feels true.

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Teamwork

Last week, Jamie kept saying something (thinking it loudly, that is) over and over. "I'm 14. What's your excuse?"

At the time, when I overheard it, I figured she was having a mental conversation with W. But this weekend, I realized something. She was probably also talking to us older parts.

And she is right. We are adults, and as such, need to be working with W. to help take care of the younger ones. We are adults, and while our position is somewhat complicated, in that we're inside the same head as Jamie and the other kids, we still have to figure out how we can take on some of the task of setting and maintaining limits.

One hard part has been this: not all of the adults are really ready to completely accept that the DID exists. And so we often feel kind of powerless and overwhelmed when one of the younger parts is fully present. And we (I) have trouble accepting that things are much better when I/we behave as though we really are different people who just happen to share a body.

I mean, how on EARTH could that be something that will lead me to be mentally healthy? It really just seems like it's going to make things worse, acting as though I am separate from Jamie in ways that make it possible for me to do more than shout, over and over, "Don't do what you're doing. Do something ELSE."

And yet... yesterday, the adults in the system decided to behave as though we are separate from each other, and need to work together as a team. We found that it was possible to support W. in coping with Jamie without Jamie participating in that conversation. I think W. felt less alone in coping, and we all felt much better with the results.

When I accept that I have different parts, with their own needs and opinions, things get calmer. It's that simple. Things are better when I act as though there are different parts. But that doesn't make it any easier to accept. I still feel more comfortable with the methods I've used for the rest of my life: choosing how I ought to be, and forcing myself to act that way regardless of other impulses I might have. But that doesn't seem to have worked as a long-term plan.

And I'm thinking perhaps the risks of accepting that we really are separate parts are outweighed by the gains we'll get from doing that. Perhaps I really am better off accepting who I am than trying to force myself to become who I think I should be.

--Cleo

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Who have you met?

Yeah, two long posts, within minutes of each other. Sometimes that happens. Heck, it even happens when the same part is operating.

Lately, as I've come out to more people about having DID, they've been asking, "So, who are you?" or "Who have I met?" As the post I just wrote shows, this is a complicated question to answer. Much of the time, we're not quite certain ourselves.

So, if you know me, who are you likely to have met?

Well, first, the younger kids rarely come out by themselves around other people. It's hard to pretend you're an adult when you behave and talk like a little kid. They do show up in flashes, but they are not the ones fully in control. But Mandy (who is five or six) and Michelle (who is eight) and Amanda (who is eleven) have spent time around many of my friends, kind of in the background. Mandy is more likely, because Michelle and Amanda are a lot more shy.

The Teller (who is seven) doesn't tend to come out around people other than W. or my therapist, because she was created pretty much to tell someone about what had gone on to cause the DID in the first place. So a combination of long-time habit and general reticence keeps her hidden. More of the younger parts simply don't come out at all unless they're alone or with W. They're the ones who hold more of the direct experience that got me to the point of having DID, and given a choice, they hide pretty much all the time.

You may have seen the Story Girl, but she doesn't really talk much. She reads books and makes up stories of her own. Either her age varies, or there's more than one of her. Sometimes, rarely, she might talk about a book she's read, but she's really shy. Strangely, she's not the only one who reads. However, she is the one who, given a choice, would spend all of her time reading, to the exclusion of anything else. So if you've been around me at a time when I pretty much ignore you to read a book, that's probably her.

Of the teenagers, most of you have had the delight (hrm.) of seeing Jamie's effects on W. Mostly, you haven't met her personally, because as much as possible, we other parts try to keep her from ruining our relationships with other people. If you've been around me pretty recently, since the kids made the decision to "lock up" the grown-ups, you've possibly met Rynn. She's 17, and had previously been known as "the oldest runaway." It's been interesting getting to know her, and watching her make the decision to come out and participate in life. You've probably also met "Somebody," who is fifteen or sixteen, but takes over when there isn't an adult in the system who is capable of coping with something we have to do. She's also not an especially pleasant person, since her primary experience of the world is coping with things that are beyond her abilitities and doing things she'd rather not have to do. She's good at it, that's why she exists, but she's not nice about it.

You're most likely to have spent time interacting with the adults.

If you knew me in college, or in an academic setting, you've spent time with "the smart one." Basically, what she does is show up for discussions about intellectual things. As her name says, she's smart. That's what she does. She's actually pretty outgoing, so long as the topics of conversation are either intellectual or related to being in a classroom. If the discussion moves to something else, she's likely to stop being the one in front, because she doesn't have the information to deal with other parts of life.

You've probably also met the Hip Chyck. She's the outgoing, activist one. People who knew me in my early 20s spent a lot more time with her. She's very political, and spends most of her energy thinking of ways to change the world through social activism. Unlike the smart one, she is more impressed with knowledge for the sake of change than knowledge for its own sake. Plus, she likes to have fun while doing it.

You're perhaps even more likely to have met Cleo. She chose her name as a nod to what the system had been calling her before she was willing to accept that a system existed. That was, "Cleopatra, queen of denial." She chose the name because, in a certain sense, denial isn't always a bad thing, or at least, her role was not always bad. She is the adult who can behave as though everything is all right and under control. She has been learning that it can help to improve my/our situation situation to admit everything is not okay. However, there are times when it's handy to be able to act normally. Life is easier to get through when, sometimes, you function as though everything is fine, even though it isn't. It's sometimes okay to not be holding the knowledge of the abuse, simply because it's far easier to do something else when all of that isn't right there. So another of Cleo's tasks lately has been to figure out how to balance her initial role (denial at all costs) with her new role (holding things together, accepting what's going on, but also living regular life). It's kind of like she abdicated as queen of denial, and is now, I don't know, prime minister of denial. (Okay, I'm vague on the specific political terms, but you know what I mean.)

You're a little less likely to have met the Analyst (that's me), but if you read this blog, many of the posts are mine. My job? I analyze things, obviously. Specifically, I figure out why I or other people do things the way they do, and decide on a course of action that will give the best possible outcome. I try to figure out what does and doesn't work for me, and how to make myself get to the point of being mentally healthy. I tend to intellectualize things, so that I can understand them without feeling the emotional pain that goes along with the knowledge. I'm the one who started therapy, and who generally tended to go to therapy until last fall. This caused a certain amount of confusion, since I'm not exactly good at conveying emotions, and many therapists don't quite grasp that someone who can calmly say, "This thing is going on, and I'm upset about it," really means that they are upset, even if their body language says otherwise. In a lot of ways, I think I'm the grown up version of the Teller. And, like the Teller, mostly what I do is talk (endlessly) about the things I'm observing and trying to understand. It helps all of us that the internal censor has been increasingly less effective, so that we can actually talk about things a little more.

Another of the main adult parts is the Mama. She's pretty much like her name (although not as effective as one might expect in parenting my own internal parts). She does a lot of the nurturing, crafty kinds of things. She's the one who actually gets a lot of pleasure out of doing grocery shopping, housework, and crafty things. She is really good and patient with kids. She's the most pagan of us, and the one who enjoys keeping up with spiritual rituals. She's really grounded and calm. She tends to be a little introverted, but she does come out with people she/we know.

I guess how I will conclude this post is to say this. You may be wondering, "Which one is the real or original J.?" And, so far as I (or any of us) can tell, it's best to think of "J" as a collective term. We are all the real and original J. We'll all answer to that name, and it is still sometimes rather frightening to know for certain 1, who we are in the moment, 2, that other people know who we are, and 3, that someone might call us by a name other than the pre-approved collective name. It's a process. Stay tuned for further updates.

And don't worry. We're not going to get (much) stranger than the person you already know.

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Self-Analysis

Perhaps you would think that, having recognized that I have DID, and that I have different parts, I could then go on to solve the problem, and everything would be okay. All right, if you are me, you might think that way.

One thing I've been grappling with recently is this reality: my various parts really are separate. More than that, my younger parts really are younger. Jamie, for instance. Despite living in my body, we are talking about a fourteen year old. She has all of the reasoning skills and logic that are apparently normal for fourteen year olds. And when she is strongly present, my own adult logic and analysis of what will happen as a consequence of behavior just isn't going to carry over.

In theory, I was aware of this. I have known for some time that the reason I have such a hard time, despite knowing perfectly well what is causing me problems and how to cope with it, is that this information has not carried over to my various parts.

Pretty much, if only my adult parts were around, we'd be doing all right. Aside from all of us being rather type A and perfectionist, we're pretty mentally healthy. We are capable of trust, we understand how our actions impact our life (lives?). We are able to cope with our feelings, and to move on from mistakes (well, okay, that's an area that even some of the adult parts could use some help with).

But. The younger parts are not there. They are developmentally their own ages. And a normal fourteen year old just isn't going to use the same logic that an adult will. More than that, she cannot be held to the same standards as an adult, or expected to be able to have the same reasoning capacity as an adult. The same, obviously, holds true for the younger parts as well.

Part of why this is difficult for me to grasp is that, due to having these parts separated from me while I was growing up, when I was their age, I was far more adult. I constantly analyzed what was going on, and calmly and rationally made my decisions based on what would have the outcome I wanted. I was good at predicting the appropriate action for each situation. This had a whole lot of benefits. I fought less with my family, I rarely got in trouble, I did quite well in school, and I got to go to well and truly escape the frustrations and pitfalls of being a teenager, particularly of being a teenager in my specific family.

Last week has really brought home a huge part of what it means to have DID. Each part is pretty much like a separate person (not exactly, but, well, I can't put it into words). And each of us really does respond to the world in different ways.

More than that, I've been realizing that it's real. Yeah, this comes up a lot for me, but I guess that's just how I am. And this part of realizing it's real comes with realizing how important it is to get to know each of my parts, and for us to understand both ourselves and each other. It seems simple, but it's harder than you might think.

For one thing, for 32 years, we trained ourselves not to admit to anyone (including ourselves) that we were separate from each other. We never allowed even the merest thought of having different names to enter in, because if we had different names, it would be harder to deny that something had happened. If we were to recognize that there were different parts, we might start poking around inside the brain, and asking questions that were going to cause problems.

For the system to do its job, most of us had to be largely unaware of the full extent of what had happened. And if we knew about each other, we might start to talk. And things slip out when people talk to each other, particularly when they're trying to find out why other people are sharing their brain.

And if we were allowed to behave differently from each other, we might do something that would call attention to the massive secrets we were all carrying. Outsideople might notice that there were different people inside, and start wondering why. So even in matters of clothing and style, pretty much, we decided on one that no one inside had any huge objections to, and stuck with that. Whether or not every part especially likes the clothes, since we spend so much time unaware of our body even when we are in it, clothes we just don't think about were an easier solution. Plus, it saved a great deal of time when getting dressed, because otherwise, different parts would be arguing about what to wear or how to present ourselves to others.

We are only just beginning to accept how just because something happens with our body, it doesn't mean that a particular part was the one who was in charge. And, a lesson that's harder to understand is, it's actually a little important for us to recognize who we are.

I'm not sure why this is difficult. It's harder for the parts whose names are descriptions, rather than names. Like for me. I often don't realize who I am. It would be far easier if we had separate bodies, but we don't. And it would probably be easier if we hadn't spent so long trying to convince the world and ourselves that we are the same person. We're not good liars, so the only way to convincingly tell that particular lie was to believe it ourselves.

So one of our jobs at this point is to start recognizing ourselves and each other. Rationally, I know we'll be much steadier, calmer, happier once this happens. The people who are close to us will be able to recognize who we are, and we'll get to do more of the things we (as individual parts) enjoy. More than that, it will help the less assertive parts to sometimes get some of their needs met, if we're paying attention to who is getting things and who is not.

And it will help to keep parts from behaving unilaterally. Rather than getting to behave like they are the only one, and can make decisions for everyone without consultation, we'll have to accept that we're only part of the system, and can't decide some things without consensus. On the flip side, if we acknowledge to ourselves that we're separate, we can have the opportunity to make choices of our own, and express our own, individual preferences. When asked to make a choice or share our opinions, we won't be too paralyzed with conflicting information to give an answer, and we won't have to stick with the standard system answers, either.

And it will make relationships with outside people less confusing. Mainly, I'm thinking about my/our relationship with W. Within my system, we're not always good at passing on information, so W might have a conversation with a part, who doesn't realize it's important enough to pass on to the others. More often, I think, because we don't identify ourselves individually, if the parts are of a similar age, it can be hard for us to notice when we've switched, and if we don't notice, then there's a tendency for information to get lost. And, sometimes, a part will come in forcefully and disruptively, which will also hinder communication about things the last part present had discussed.

So it's a goal. We're working on it, and I, myself, am working on accepting that just understanding things intellectually doesn't mean I'm magically able to make something true. There is work that has to go on in the space between knowing the answer and making it work for me. Or something like that.

--the Analyst

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apology ;P

Dear W.

Sorry I called you big nose. Very, very sorry. I should not have said that. I will not say it again.

Sincerely,

J.

P.S. Very sorry, bubble-butt.

;P

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apology

dear W.

i'm very sorry for my behavior the past couple of days. i have been very mean and i forgot the most important rule which is it's ok to be mad but it's NOT ok to be mean.

one thing i did that was bad was, i decided what you were thinking and i got mad about that even when you said it was NOT what you were thinking and i just said you were LYING when really you weren't. that wasn't fair of me because i didn't even give you a chance.

another bad thing i did was to say lots of nasty things to you and swear at you. even though it is ok to feel mad it isn't ok to say mean things to hurt someone else. i am sorry about that because i had a hard time remembering that you are not a robot. you are a real person with feelings and just because i feel bad doesn't make it ok to say things to make YOU feel bad.

ANOTHER bad thing i did was ignore the rule about bedtime. that rule is there because even if i don't feel like it, my body has to sleep. also, it is there because YOU need your sleep and it's hard for you when you are worried about me.

i am sorry for doing things to make you worry about me like going out without telling you where, or not answering your text messages when you are at work or i am out on a walk. and especially i'm sorry for going out after you went to sleep because that will make it hard for you to feel like i am safe so you can get your sleep.

one problem with how i acted was because i imagined talking to you about setting limits for me because that is something i need you to help me with. but the problem was, i got mad at you for not helping even though you didn't know about my imaginary conversation with you. it wasn't fair for me to expect you to read my mind.

and even if we HAD had that conversation, it's not fair for me to keep on being more and more bad to make you do something.

i am especially sorry for ripping up the sign you made for our door. it is not ok for me to do something like that no matter how angry i feel.

one important thing i have to learn is you can't help me if i don't let you. and being mean or walking away or refusing to talk are things i did, and it means it was not your fault that i felt lonely. it was my fault.

i am also sorry and ashamed that i worked so much to get the other parts to believe you don't really like us. you are right. i told them hateful things, and that was very wrong.

also, i destroyed Mandy's toys because you gave them to her. that was wrong. i did it to hurt two people. i wanted to make you feel like we didn't like you or the things you give. and i bet Mandy you would not stand up for her and say it wasn't ok for someone to break her toys. that was because i was jealous that you take care of her and not me, and i wanted to make her feel like you wouldn't really and truly take care of her. but that was not fair of me because it wasn't a fair test. you already knew Mandy wanted to break those toys, so it wasn't something important of hers, so you didn't know about the test.

i am very sorry about my behavior and i hope we can work together to come up with ideas for how i can make things better, and also for ideas about how i can do things differently the next time i'm feeling bad.

sincerely,
jamie

ps. one other hting i should not have done is posted those posts on my blog. even though it is my blog where i can write aobut anything i want i wrote those posts to be mean to you and to show how angry i was and how bad i was. it was not ok to be hateful like that. also, i am ashamed that i showed our friends and even strangers how mean and hateful i was being. it is ok if i write things like that in my private journal but not ok to post them online. why it is ok in my journal is even if i am wrong it's still ok to say somewhere how i feel. but not to do it in a way that is to hurt someone's feelings.

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whatever

she may think that if she ignores me long enough, i'll just disappear, but she's wrong. i'm going to stay around until she kicks ALL of us out, and then at least i won't have to deal with someone who says they care but they're lying.

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trapped

i hate this. i hate being here and i cant get the other parts to just let me leave. there is absolutely nothing i can figure out how to make myself do to feel better and the other parts wont let me do anything. i just want to walk away, or drive, or just leave, but they wont let me. i want to scream and have fights and break things. there is nothing i can figure out how to do.

and im mad at people because they like the other parts just fine and pay attention to them and take care of them and even though a certain person says she cares about me its just a lie because she only bothers with me because its a package deal and she cant get the other parts who she actually cares about without having me too. if she could get rid of me im sure she would. if i could just go away i would and everyone would be happier. but i cant figure out how to disappear so im just fucking stuck here and feeling like screaming but i cant even do that because the other parts wont let me do anything that would make anyone else have any problems.

fuck them. so im writing here and i dont care if they dont like it i should get at least one place where i can say things.

i hate it HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT here. its not like anything is going to change either because no one really cares about it and im just supposed to figure out how to be one of the good ones who does what im supposed to on my own. and since i cant do that then im stuck feeling like crap.

and i hate that the other parts get to do things to feel better and have people care about them but because all i do is be a jerk all the time no one likes me and i know its reasonable for people not to like me but no one helps me to figure out how not to be a jerk they just wait until i go away and then theyre all nice to the other parts.

its not like i do anything that bad. im just crabby and snappy and not nice. even if i want to smack people on the street or break windows or do things like that, i dont and i probably wouldnt even if the other parts didnt stop me. but certain people like the little kids even when they feel bad, but they dont care about ME and i hate that.

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Book group, and musings about adult parts

Book group was last night. The book was "Geek Love" by Katherine Dunn. My thought upon finishing reading it was, "I can't believe I read the whole thing." The "geek" in the title refers to carnival geeks, who bite the heads off of chickens. It goes downhill from there. I (Cleo) and other parts who slogged through reading it didn't enjoy the book at all. It's creepy and depressing, without much to say for it as something to spend one's time doing.

But I read it, because I know that the smart one likes to go to book group, and wouldn't be as happy there if I/we/she hadn't read the book. That's how the division of labor goes with intellectual or academic things: whoever is around gets through the reading, one way or another, and the smart one shows up to talk about things at the last minute. I never really know how it happens, but even with a book where I would swear that I had just run my eyes over the pages, not taking in a word, I turn out to have intelligent things to say, and can discuss it as though I spent a lot of time thinking about it. Plus, the smart one is pretty extroverted, in the limited sense that she really enjoys talking to people about academic things. So it's a bit of fun for her.

She realized, right at the start of group, that "Geek Love" was also a reference to "Greek Love," and if you view the book as a Greek tragedy, it's actually very interesting (that is, if you're interested in Greek tragedy, which I am not). The smart one really enjoyed the discussion, and had a lot of good things to say.

The other thing about book group, and this is a little scary, is that I've been invited (and agreed, heaven help me!) to lead book group in May. I have to choose the book and everything. On the one hand, I'm not worried about it, since I like to talk, and the people who come are very ready to discuss things, and they're engaged, and it's something I know I (as in, the smart one) is very good at doing. On the other hand, I'm really worried about choosing a book. What if people don't like it? What if I choose something really stupid for a book group? Do I choose a book that's a "usual" book group choice, or do I risk getting people irritated by choosing some genre fiction that I know I like and have wanted to discuss like this?

I mean, it's silly for me to worry. No joke, the smart one once taught a class where we had a deep intellectual discussion about Henry Huggins, a children's book by Beverly Cleary. Tied it into the cold war and everything. If I can do that, then any book with any intentional allusions will be fine!


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I've been thinking about how my adult parts work lately. It seems a little odd to me that I'd need to have as many as I do. On the one hand, I can see where it makes sense, at least with some parts.

The mama was created so I could be good at taking care of my younger siblings and home-making type things, and like it, and not feel utterly overwhelmed. So she does pretty much all of that stuff, and it's actually soothing and calming for her, rather than the aggravation or overwhelmed-ness that other parts feel.

The analyst showed up, I think, when I was about 14, so that I could cope with the knowledge that I really needed therapy "when I grow up" and look at everything directly, but very unemotionally. So, for instance, she's the one who can calmly and un-upsetly give the basics when I'm first talking to a therapist. And she can explain things, and give me a sense that, so long as I understand why someone is doing something, I can cope with it (like my family persistently using the n-word in "joking" reference to me).

But then, why is the analyst separate from the smart one? I guess in part, because the smart one needed to have absolutely no awareness of what it was like at home. When I am in the middle of a class, I can behave as though the only thing in the world for me is the intellectual topics at hand, and they are utterly separate from the emotionally fraught things that might be connected with them. And, unlike me, the smart one is confident that admitting she doesn't understand something is a sign of intelligence. It works for her, but she only deals with academics anyhow. Plus, she's incredibly intelligent.

Or why am I, Cleo (formerly "Queen of Denial"), separate from the smart one? Maybe because the smart one really, truly, completely needed to be no more than vaguely aware of how things were at home? Or because I am kind of in the middle, and behaved at school as though nothing was wrong at home, but also behaved at home as though.... my job was to hide things from everyone to keep us safe. To not write in a journal, or talk to people, or anything. To act like everything was under control and I knew what I was doing, and I needed no more help than what I specifically asked for (and I only asked for things I knew I could get). So I guess that's why I'm separate from the smart one.

I don't exactly know why the hip chyck is separate from any of the other adult parts. I know how she's different, but not why. She's more active and activist. I guess the main difference between her and the analyst is that she's focused way more outward than inward. She's more confident. She has more fun. And she's way more social, which is a very useful thing to have access to. Plus a few other things she does better than the other adult parts.

Not sure where I was going with this, but it's part of what I've been thinking about.

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Thinking

I was thinking about something and it made me kinda mad. This is what I was thinking. The rules now are very different from how they were when I was little for real.

Like right now, for real, I am actually a grown up. I am big and I sometimes know how to do lots of things when there is a grown up there to help inside. But if I don't do lots of jobs thats ok, cause if it makes me feel bad or yucky then its ok if I don't do jobs.

But when I was for real a kid, I used to get in trouble if I didn't do lots of jobs every single day and I had to do them just right or else I would get in trouble and I had to do the whole job no matter how I felt. Even if I was feeling sick or if I got hurt I was still supposed to do the jobs right or maybe I would get hit or someone would say something mean to me like I was lazy or stupid or something like that.

Like washing dishes sometimes I would get in trouble if they weren't perfectly clean or if I didn't wash every single big pot and even if I was only eight I would get in trouble if they didn't get clean and I would have to get out of bed and wash them again or something like that.

Sometimes now when I wash dishes I kind of remember about that and I feel scared like someone will hit me or yell at me if I don't do it just right and then I am afraid that maybe something will break and I will get in trouble so I don't like to do dishes sometimes cause then I think about people getting mad and the people are very much bigger than me like way up to the ceiling and they will hurt me if I do it wrong.

But now no one gets mad even if I do ZERO dishes all day long and don't put any away either. Even if I am big its ok.

And people say thats fair and ok and how its sposed to be cause people arent sposed to yell at you even if you dont do your jobs even if you are big. And maybe they are right but that means that what used to happen was very super wrong and I am mad cause people were very mean to me about stuff like jobs and they were bigger and I dont understand why people who are super big are allowed to be mean like that.

Like another rule was I could not hit someone who was littler than me when I was still little but if someone was big they could hit people cause they were the grown ups, and if someone was little they could hit me cause they didn't know better but I was in the middle and I wasnt ever allowed to hit someone cause I wasn't big and I was sposed to know better. But why do you get to hit someone just cause you are lots bigger than them? That seems like a mean thing cause a big grown up is WAY bigger than a little kid.

And I feel super mad about that cause it was NOT FAIR. Not one bit.

This is Teller mostly and a little Mandy cause Mandy wanted to say some of this but she just felt mad and wanted to yell.

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Accepting

One of the things that's hard to cope with is this. I can't just go ahead and decide that I'm going to do something, because it's something I'm supposed to be doing, and then force myself to do it.

It used to be, pretty much no matter what, I could force myself to get things done. This eroded somewhat when I got fibro, but it was still there. I could just... force myself. The necessary parts would arrive, and take over, and then I would have things done.

Okay, so maybe it caused some problems. I do suspect that this tendency was a contributing factor in getting the fatigue with fibro. I still remember my senior year of college, having the sensation that I was sucking the last dregs of energy out of my bones, just to make it through all of the things I was doing.

But there's the other side, that reliability, the assurance that, no matter how impossible something seemed, somehow, I would manage to make it happen. Not literally impossible things, obviously. Just... things. Things like getting up and going to classes two days after an unsuccessful attempt to off myself. Things like carrying five classes and three jobs that semester, coming out of it with a decent, if not excellent, gpa. Things like walking for miles on a broken foot (more than once, with different broken feet).

One of the hardest things to accept lately is that I can't seem to make this happen. Perhaps it's that I no longer have the absolute necessity. Somewhere in my brain, I seem to have figured out that, little as I may like it, I will not disintegrate or be destroyed if I don't accomplish the things I would prefer.

But the guilt and shame pound against me almost constantly. I hear the voices berating me for being a worthless, lazy, good-for-nothing failure. And no matter how much I try to remember that they're not right, it's still hard.

I'm working on it. I'm working on being ok with doing less than I would prefer. I'm working on being ok with taking things slowly, allowing them to happen rather than to seem to happen. And I'm trying to accept that healing is more than knowing what the right answers are and forcing myself to say them regardless of how I feel. But it's hard.

--Cleo

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Faking it

I guess one of the things is, for lots of the parts, our entire job has been to fake normal. And with me, a lot of that is, acting like there's nothing wrong, or at least, not letting people get close enough to see.

I've been around more, since the little kids "locked up" most of the adult parts. But I kind of operate stealth-fashion. And I guess part of the problem is, I don't know for sure who I am. I mean, obviously, the default answer is, we're all the same person. But it's not exactly like that. And I'm not one of the ones who got acknowledged or named.

Mostly, that's ok with me. I feel very uncomfortable admitting that I'm a separate part. I don't like people to notice when I come in and out, because that's not what's supposed to happen. But in therapy we're talking about stuff, and, I don't know, I have been feeling a little awkward about the fact that when my therapist thinks she's just seeing one person, the adult, the "host" or whatever, she's actually had a conversation with two or three parts, not all of whom have a clear idea of what we've been talking about.

It's easier with the little kids. They're more sure it's okay to be out, or at least they've been learning. And it's easier to tell a little kid from an adult, you know? Particularly since even though I guess I'm more of a teenager, it's really hard for me to understand or explain how it is that I'm not really grown up.

I kind of use the things the Analyst did, and figure things out. I know where most of my memories come from--high school, mostly, although some in middle school, kind of, I don't know, fading in.

There are things I feel uncomfortable that I did, but I still can't think of better ways. I mean, maybe things would have gone easier if I hadn't been working so hard to hide everything. But I still can't see how that would have worked. And it's hard for me still to realize that maybe even if people did know about what happened, they wouldn't think there was something wrong with me because of it.

Some of it is because my family is poor. Trashy. I feel guilty about that, like I should be doing something differently, I don't know. Like if people find out about that, then they'll think I'm like that too. Hard to talk to people about that, but there are parts that have, and I guess it's ok. Except it's not.

It feels like something to be ashamed of, like the other bad stuff was because of the trashiness. And even though I know it wasn't something I could change, there's still a feeling of being ashamed of it. And wanting to hide. I don't like people to know about all of that. I don't like to think about the reasons that I'm all split up and divided inside, like that makes me dirty and disgusting.

I'm kind of working on that. It's hard, and part of what's hard is, I feel like I should already know this. I guess I even knew it a little back then, not that it did any good. I wasn't especially good at passing, except that people don't really look, you know? I guess partly because other people had a lot more going on in their own lives, and partly that I didn't fit the picture of someone with "problems at home." Didn't cut. Didn't skip school. Looked like I was different by choice, and not just because I couldn't manage to be like the other kids.

Mostly, I spent my time alone. Read a lot. Had superficial friendships, although maybe they just felt superficial to me. I didn't let myself out, or get close to people. Really, mostly, none of my parts have. It's kind of lonely, but better that than being found out.

Not sure what the point of this post is, but I may as well post it anyhow. Kind of working on that, letting people in some more. Of course, I'm also terrified of what will happen if someone in my family reads this, but I guess with what's already there, I've got nothing to lose.

I'd sign this, but I have to admit I'm not exactly sure who I am.

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Today

Sometimes, it's hard to accept a bad day, when I've had a few good days in a row. Today is not a great day. I can't say why, but I'm jittery and anxious, and not able to do anything, really.

Partly, it's that my body is incredibly achy and painful, because of the fibro. And I guess some of the emotional stuff is because I (or at least some of my parts) were doing some more intense work in therapy this week.

It's hard to be sure, and even harder because my issues are invisible on the physical level. It's not like I can have an x-ray or some kind of objective examination, and someone can say, "Oh, this is exactly what's wrong, and here's how long it's going to be wrong."

And it's very difficult for me to accept that perhaps the best path is to give in to this, and go rest in bed. It feels lazy and self-indulgent, but when I try to do something, I panic and stand staring, even with the most simple things (washing dishes, sweeping the floor, deciding if I'm going to go to the store). So it's not like I'm getting more done by staying out of bed.

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Tea set

We made the tea set today. W remembered to say "Can Michelle come play" and I DID and I got to paint the tea set and that was fun. And then we had a tea party with the dolls.

Sometimes I don't get attention cause I don't make a big noisy fuss like Ramona in the books does, but maybe sometimes its not a big fuss if you just tell someone you want to have attention. And this time no one forgot and I got to do something fun, and that was really great.

I read somewhere that people aren't sposed to ask for a different part to come out but I can't come out very easy and the other parts push and they getta come out and I don't so when W. asked for me especially then I got to come out so I think it's ok even if the people say it's not sposed to be like that.

We had a fun tea party and now the tea set is painted with polka dots like I wanted and none of the other parts really wanted a tea set anyways they just always like to come out. But I do too, and I got to.

This is Michelle.

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Silences

I've been paying attention to my silences lately--the things I don't say, the ways I don't speak.

Part of it has been realizing that some of the overwhelming panic I feel sometimes when asked my opinion, or what I want to do, is that I get altogether too much information from different parts. The information is not consistent--different parts believe or want very different things at any given moment. So the question "What do you want to do today?" brings up far more confusion than I think the asker intends.

And I don't yet know how to manage the negotiation required--figuring out how to let each part have their say and behave honestly, without feeling shut out and silenced. And, at the same time, I don't want to threaten the parts who feel intensely uncomfortable with perceptible inconsistencies, or looking like there's something different about me (as in me-the-group). We are/I am still working on letting go of the old "rules," and "don't answer to different names or in any way indicate that there are different parts working here" is one of the biggies.


Another part is simply the fear of behaving as though I think my problems merit consideration, care, concern, attention. I was raised to believe that because worse things had happened to someone else at some point in time or space, then I should not allow myself to be upset. And because other people had needs, mine could not be considered. And, besides, it is weak, lazy, inconsiderate, selfish, etc. to say that there is something wrong.

And then there's the covering up. I feel guilty and ashamed that I am not managing to overcome my "issues" with the apparent ease that allowed me to deal with things in my life for the first thirty or so years.


Beyond all of that, there is the fact that I just don't know where to start. When people I haven't spoken to in a while ask, "How have you been?" Well... even if they would be perfectly happy to listen, even if they are compassionate and caring, there's more to say than I can figure out how to get out.

So in a lot of ways, I just kind of avoid it. I don't speak, I don't reach out, I pretty much shut down. I've made a commitment to avoid denying things, but I'm not really skilled at it yet. Denial used to be my main job (as in me-the-part). And figuring out how to cope without it is kind of confusing, because I just don't know what to say.




Oh, and some internal thinking has gotten me to the point where I think maybe I should say right here that this blog is for all the parts, and we can each write whatever we want because no one has to read it if they don't want to, and maybe we'll try to get comfortable with signing our own names, too. Just fyi.

This post was mostly written by Cleo but the Teller reminded me to add that last paragraph.

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High Functioning

Someone recently got me thinking about how "high functioning" is defined.

By my own standards, I'm definitely not there. I'm able to do only the barest minimum of the things I used to do, or the things I would like to be doing, or the things I should be capable of doing.

On a good day, I can eat three times, and do a couple of routine tasks. On a bad day, I focus on making it from one end of the day to the other.

And yet, I know that in a psychological sense, I count as "high functioning." I'm not sure how this works, although I've seen people who don't count as "high functioning," and I can see that I'm different from them.

I suspect that for psychologists, it comes down to whether I am capable of living independently. And since I'm capable of maintaining a relationship with someone who is willing to support me financially, that counts.

In some ways, this is good, because I definitely don't want to be in a psychiatric facility. But in some ways, it's immensely frustrating, because it's hard for me to understand how I am unable to do so much, and yet, it looks like I'm ok.

So there's still that struggle to accept that there's really something wrong. I think a large part of my identity has been wrapped up in being high functioning. In being competent, and able to just overcome the things that should have held me back.

I mean, coming from a family where half of my siblings dropped out of high school, I not only went to a prestigious four year liberal arts college, but I also made it into an Ivy League graduate school.

And here I am, unable to jump that last hurdle. And whether or not I finish my dissertation, right now, I can't conceive of getting even a low-end retail job, let alone the kind of job my education should have prepared me for. There are just too many days when the absolute extent of what I can cope with extends only as far as feeding the cats.

But I still count as high functioning. And, what's more, I'm still at the upper end of functioning for people in my family. I remind myself of this, on the days when I start to believe that I must be making up the trauma.

It's still hard. Hard to believe that things I could successfully block out of my memory were that bad (because, yeah, people only block out happy memories). Hard to believe that the things I do know happened were bad enough to be causing the effects I'm coping with. Hard to believe that the people I know now would have done the kinds of things I remember. Hard to recognize that the things I remember happened to me when I was small--that I didn't have the resources and strength I do now, that my body was half, or a third, or less the size it is now.

And it's hard, on the days when I remember not to push past what I can cope with, to remember why it is that I have to be so careful.

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Analogy

I've been trying to figure out my difficulty with journaling lately. It's not the same difficulty I usually had, a resistance to writing things down, although that's a part of it. But I go somewhere to write so I can have a "system meeting," and find myself doing all kinds of other things (picking up the free newspaper so I can read it all the way through, for instance).

Today, I realized that part of the problem is that I feel somewhat resentful of having to have a "meeting" with my different parts, having to consciously cooperate in running my life.

My current analogy is this: It's like you're living in a house, where you've lived all your life. You think you live alone, and then you start to realize that there are a bunch of other people who hang out there. Some of them, you invited in to help with something temporary. Others, you really have no idea why they are there. But there they are, and they won't go away.

You can go into your room, shut the door, and pretend you're alone, but you can still hear them moving around in the house.

You find their things sitting around. You see evidence that they have been there. You realize that they are moving things around, or making decisions about the house that you didn't really participate in. You realize that the house rules that you've just followed automatically were created by these other people.

And, even though you didn't choose to live with this whole crowd, there they are, and now you have to meet them officially, and cooperate with them, and come to compromise, and all of that work. Some of them you like pretty well. Some of them are rather annoying. And some of them are downright scary, because they will make decisions that will destroy the house, just because that's what they want at that moment.

The analogy I've seen a bit more often is that it's like a bus, where different people keep taking control, or there has to be cooperation about where it goes. And that's another thing: if you think you're in a private vehicle, but it keeps making stops for other people... DID is kind of like that.

Part of the problem is that it's just hard to make this adjustment. I've spent my whole life just kind of, I don't know, acting as though I was on my own. Some of the inside parts are happier that way, because it's easier to sneak around if people don't know you're there.

So, for instance, the teenagers can just slide in when I go to get something to eat and distract me so that I forget to eat, but also forget that I didn't actually eat. Or the little kids can make me walk into a toystore and buy them toys, without me really being fully aware of why I'm doing that.

And lots of the parts feel safer if no one knows they exist. They are terrified of being found out. Some of this is because I've gotten lots of positive feedback from my mother for my ability to not remember a lot of the abuse. And more, it's because I've seen the denial and anger that comes out when my sisters have talked about their memories of abuse when they were little. So my desire to be a good girl requires that I not be able to remember, that I be sufficiently separate from the parts that remember the "bad stuff" that I can behave as though it didn't happen to me.

So tangled in with the resentment of having to communicate with these parts that have been hanging around my "house" is the fear of what it means to communicate with them. How will I be able to forget their stories once they have told them to me? How will I be able to behave as though nothing happened when they keep on reminding me that things did happen?

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DID would be really cool

If it weren't so inconvenient and periodically so distressing, that is.

Friday and Saturday, a couple of my teenaged parts were really strongly in front. They have a very inconvenient way of combining depression and moodiness with a refusal to communicate in any rational way, because they don't believe anything is going to change or get better, and they're tired of making the effort.

And then, Saturday evening, I switched. And the depressed feelings just went away. But more than that, I could tell that I was a different person. The words I used while I was thinking were different. The way I processed pain was different. The things I wanted to do were different. And, to make it even more clear, my ability to see was different.

This is one of the weirdest things I've noticed about DID. My different parts have different visual acuity. Some parts are really near sighted. Some parts are more far sighted. Different parts have different levels of astigmatism. And different parts have more or less trouble with focusing at close range.

Several years ago, I had two eye exams within a couple of weeks. The first one was just going into one of the places that will give you an eye exam and two pairs of glasses for $100 or so; I went there because I needed new glasses. The second one was a follow-up appointment with an opthalmologist, because I'd had a long bout of double vision the previous spring.

During the first appointment, they tested me, and I was moderately near-sighted, with very little astigmatism. The second time they tested me, I was moderately far-sighted, with moderate astigmatism.

At the time, I assumed the discrepancy between the two tests was due to the first place being less skilled. But now that I've been paying attention to the different parts, I've come to realize that how well or poorly I see is pretty closely connected to who is out.

And I've noticed other weird physical things. I have different levels of allergies, and I'm allergic to different things, depending on who is out. Some of my parts don't seem to have fibromyalgia, while most of the rest of us do. Some parts really don't feel pain, while others (particularly the little kids) can't ignore it at all.

I've also been more aware of the differences in how different parts think. I noticed it particularly this last Saturday, when all of a sudden, from feeling trapped and resentful and angry, I found myself thinking about my life in terms of "narrative repetition" and symbolism. I was very distant from the emotional pain, but working through it intellectually. My personal history had become a novel to analyze and comprehend, not something to feel unhappy about.

It's hard to describe the shift, particularly now, when I'm a day and a half removed from it. I used to think of it as just having a different mood, but there's a lot more to it. How I think changes substantially. It's not just a matter of whether or not I'm happy/sad/angry/anxious/contented/bored or whatever emotion it might be. And it's not even solely a matter of state-dependent memory. The best way to explain it is simply to say that it's as though I am a set of different people.

I've noticed this also as I've been journaling more, particularly as I spend a little more time writing by hand. I was writing the other day, and as the topics changed, I observed variations in how the words were being shaped on the paper. And just as I had decided I made it up, I started looking, and found that each "voice" on the page was quite consistent in handwriting... not something I'd been thinking about, until I watched the handwriting change as I was writing last week, and then went back and read things I'd written about before. And then realized that there were things I didn't remember having already written about, and the handwriting was the same each of the times I'd written about that topic.

I feel like none of this is making sense, so I'll end for now. I wish I'd had the analyst part write about this on Saturday, instead of trying to wait and then re-create it after the fact, 'cause it makes more sense when she's the one talking.

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