not good right now

i've been describing the problem as being like a panic attack that's externalized in my internal world: it doesn't seem to be coming from any part, but it's affecting all of us. or else as a tornado everywhere inside. overwhelming, chaotic. really making it difficult to manage to do anything.

the little kids say it's not a tornado, it's exploding monsters. and the monsters are exploding all the time and making a big mess and breaking things and stuff, and if you hide very still and quiet they will not come close to you or get you. but if you move or something, then the monsters will find you and they will hurt you or explode or something and you will get hurt when that happens to.

it's like an internal natural disaster, although i guess that the real world doesn't have to cope with exploding monsters (can you imagine the ads for that insurance, though?).

no one inside is really able to trust anyone or anything right now, so not much communication, because we're all focused on surviving.

i just want it to be done and over with. can't figure out how to make that happen.

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Still not in a writing space

But I thought I would mention that I went through and replied to a bunch of comments, so if you commented on something over the past couple of months, and you're interested in a reply from me about it, you can scan through and see.

Not sure why writing is so hard now. Probably just readjusting to being back at home. Lots of disruption and trying to get back together and stuff; also, over the summer, I really got out of the habit of writing, and it seems like it's taking some time to gear up again.

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Back again

There's a lot to blog about, and perhaps we'll get to it, or perhaps we won't. I don't know. Lots of parts, the littles especially, were worried about blogging while on the road, so we didn't do much of it.

But now we're back, so maybe we'll get some writing done.

One thing that came about from this trip is that the visit with family was actually a good thing. For some people, this would mean, "not triggering" or something like that. And, honestly, nothing was so out of my experience and preparation that I couldn't cope with it.

But, really, what was helpful was this: my family was just like they were when I was growing up. And with many different parts observing, what became most clear is that they were both abusive and loving in this weird mixture where you can't really separate the good and the bad. So, in the end, we came to an agreement in our system here. We each should decide for ourselves how to interact with family. Those who don't want to don't have to, but those who want to can keep up a relationship.

Because it's really absolutely mixed together, and it's also really clear that the kinds of things I automatically do to protect myself around them keep me insulated from the worst of things.... So I'm not especially in emotional danger, and certainly not in physical danger. Thus, whatever relationship a part wants to have, that will work for that part, but there's no all or nothing solution.

I don't know if I'm making sense. I've been thinking about this for a while. Mostly, it's that those who doubted the abuse could tell that it had really happened (my siblings talking about it, my mother denying and minimizing things that, even at the level she admitted to, were just plain messed up; lack of body boundaries and weird interactions between people). And those who doubted the love could tell that was also there (harder to quantify, but it was there).

So mostly what I got out of that part of the visit was confirmation that the decisions I/we have made about coping with the family were the right ones. And we don't need to push for confrontation, because those responsible for stuff will deny it up and down--watched a couple of siblings going down that path.

I guess that's about it for right now.

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Pioneer Girls

I can't make the pictures work quite right, but the first one is of Laura's dugout site, the second one is of the homesteading house outside of De Smet, SD, and the third one is of Caddie Woodlawn's house. Caddie's house is the real house where she lived, and the homesteading house is made just the same as the one Laura's Pa built. You can read more about this in this post.

We have been traveling across the country, and we got to see lots of places where pioneer girls lived. One pioneer girl was Caddie Woodlawn. Her real name was Caroline Woodhouse, but they called her Caddie. When she was a girl, she lived in Wisconsin on the frontier, because this was back in the 1860s. Kind of when Laura was born in the Big Woods of Wisconsin. The place where her family lived is a park now. They have their real house, and also a pump where you can pump water, and some other things. There is no one who works there, so you just look around and have a picnic.

The other pioneer girl whose places we went to was Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have loved those books almost forever. First we went to Pepin, Wisconsin, where she was born. They built a log cabin that is like the one her Pa made. They also had souvenir shops.

Then we went to Walnut Grove. That is where Plum Creek is, where they lived in a dugout, which is a house dug into the side of a creek bed or something, and also their house, but their house wasn't there any more. There was a lot of stuff in the museum about the TV show of Little House on the Prairie, because that was where the TV show was.

We went to a pageant, which is a play that people put on about something like history or something they care about. This one was about Walnut Grove when the Ingalls family lived there. It was very fun.

Then we went to De Smet. That is where her family stayed for the longest. They have a very good museum there, and other things too. This was the place with the best things to look at and buy. The people there knew a lot about the books, and also what happened to the family after the books were done. Then the best thing happened!

We went to the Loftus store, which is still there, and the man who worked there asked if we were staying in a covered wagon at the Ingalls Homestead. We didn't know about those! So we went and asked, and we got to stay in a covered wagon (even though it was more like a tinker's wagon or something, and not a prairie schooner). We also got to see the really wonderful museum the people made there. And we made a corn cob doll, and a button toy. We cooked our dinner in a dutch oven with legs, like what they called a spider in the books. (This was ours, so if you go, you should bring your own.)

What is really cool is this is the real place where Pa homesteaded. That is where people used to be able to get land from the government for almost no money (they just had to pay for a certificate or something). Pa did this, and the family lived there. We made our fire with branches and twigs that fell to the ground from the actual cottonwood trees Pa planted. We got to ride a covered wagon to a school built at just the same time as the Perry School where Laura taught for a term. And they had lots of pioneer crafts to do, and I got to do them even though I'm not really a little kid, but it was okay to do them at this museum. That was great.

If you like Laura Ingalls Wilder, you should definitely go to De Smet. The people we met there also really like her, and they make things at the museums as much like when she was alive there as they can. They have really good things. Oh! Also, when we were getting souvenirs, one of them was a CD with a recording of Laura's ACTUAL VOICE. That is so cool! We will be traveling more, and other parts have lots they want to say, but I am taking my turn now, and they can write their own things later. This is Michelle.

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The Land We Belong to is Grand

Okay, so we haven't been to Oklahoma, and we're not likely to go there on this trip, but the statement still holds.

This is likely to be a rather scattered post, for a few reasons. First, because it's late, and we've been traveling all day. Second, because I haven't had the time to really stop and think for a while. Third, because W. is in the same room, and likely to be talking, which distracts me. But mostly, because lots of different parts have things they want to have mentioned, and they're all being noisy trying to get their own words in.

We've been seeing a lot of the country, but like any kind of knowledge, what I'm realizing more and more is how little of the country we're actually managing to see. It's been amazing nevertheless.

Getting off the main roads makes the traveling all the more interesting. We have only gone to two nation-wide eateries so far. Other than that, it's been all of those little local chains, or independent places. This means we're never quite sure what to expect with food, but also that we've had some really great experiences.

One of the good things about the trip so far is that there's been something for everyone. We've seen lots of animals, and gotten lots of chances to look at the stars. We've met all kinds of different people, and gotten to know more about the US (and a bit of Canada). We've visited historical sites, which has been especially neat since it's lots of places we've read about for years, and now we get to see what the land around them is like, and to learn more things about all of it.

I think we will get more chances to write next week, since we'll be more settled for a couple of weeks (visiting my home town), but who knows? Hopefully, we will still remember what has been happening and how to describe it when there's more of a chance to post.

The best thing is that pretty much all of the parts who have been out have been enjoying themselves and the trip has been relatively trouble-free so far (knock wood).

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Our trip

We started our trip on June 30, by going to a family thing and then visiting a friend. Then we started driving. I will write more about it later when we have more time and stuff, but things are going pretty well. W. is doing some of the driving, which helps. It also helps that we're making sure to have fun, and we're getting along and things like that.

Don't feel like I've got much time for posting, so that's all I will say for right now.

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I am my mother's daughter

I see so much of her in me. Whether it was just the genetic luck of the draw, or whether I learned my behaviors from her, I don't know. I do know that none of my seven siblings has these particular traits, and she raised them as well.

What are the traits? I dismiss my pain; my first level of defense is to ignore it; second is to take an aspirin (or Aleve, usually). And then to ignore it. I take on more than I can handle, and then proceed to get it done (this ability has disintegrated over time, much to my dismay). I set high standards for myself, and don't really grasp the notion that doing less than my best is sometimes acceptable. I also don't grasp the notion that sometimes my best is less than perfection. I attribute my failures to not having worked hard enough, or long enough.

By themselves, I don't know that these traits would necessarily even be that bad. The problem is, there are more, less pleasant traits.

I get frustrated with other people's "laziness," and since I am a workaholic, anything less seems like sloth. I am more inclined to intellectualize than to empathize. I tend to think critique is better than praise (as in, taking the time to analyze how something was done, and figure out how it could be done better, rather than just saying, "Oh, good job."). And, given my high expectations for myself, I suppose it makes sense that it's incredibly difficult for me to ask for, or to accept help (but, because I'm only human, when I get overwhelmed, I need help. So then I feel angry and resentful that people aren't helping me.)

Worse, I notice more and more often how not just I, but quite a few of the other parts as well, am really classist. How I could have picked up that level of classism while growing up as poor as we were, I don't know. Well, okay, logic says that internalized oppressions tend to be more intense anyhow. But for all my knowledge of how class works, and all my beliefs, overall, that classism is bad, I still have a visceral dislike of people who display the behaviors associated with a particular class bracket (it cuts across race and gender).

Some people can look at an abusive parent and say, "I would NEVER do that. I COULD never do that." I look at my mother, and think, "I can see how she did that. I can see the factors that would put me into the position where I might do the same things."

I'm not saying she did the right things. Heck, even when I was a teenager, I didn't say that. One time, she asked me whether I thought she was a good mother. I responded that I thought she was a good person but not necessarily a good mother. Obviously, this was not the right answer.

And, honestly, I can see almost as many good things in her parenting as bad.

I sometimes wonder whether my ability to see where her behavior came from means I wasn't "really" abused. But you know what? Just because I can explain what happened, and because I can see she was not evil or malicious, doesn't mean I didn't get hurt.

Why was she physically abusive? First, there was the fact that she believed physical discipline was an appropriate tool. Ironically, for all her vociferous support of it, when she was parenting with enough resources, she didn't tend to use physical discipline. But she could justify its use, because she did believe it was okay.

She was abusive because she got overwhelmed. She had taken on too much, and didn't have appropriate sources of support. She lashed out because she had no other outlets. And what's even worse was, I know she looked for support. When I was a kid, her apparent choices for a partner were either my abusive, alcoholic stepfather, or no one at all. When she went to her church for advice, or her family, they told her she should find a way to support him so he didn't "have to" drink. When she went to a therapist, after leaving him, the therapist's response to hearing her lay out her situation was, "I have no idea how you can handle all of that." And left it at that.

So she had no support. She was overwhelmed. And so she would reach her boiling point and, inevitably, one of us kids would push her over the edge. She didn't know how to take care of her own emotional needs. She didn't know how to step back, or insist on receiving support. But she knew how to erupt.

I can even see how my mother could be emotionally incestuous with each oldest child in turn. She was lonely, overwhelmed, had no one to turn to. And then, here is this person who can listen, offer support, stand in for a partner.

I'm not saying it was right. I'm saying I can empathize.

But, I am my mother's daughter, and not my mother. I did not have my first child when I was eighteen. I did not have eight children by the time I was thirty-eight (given that I'm almost 33, with no children as yet, I think I can say this with confidence).

Instead of having babies, I went to college. Instead of being married three times, I spent years in therapy working through my childhood. Instead of behaving as though what I experienced wasn't abuse, I have accepted that people I love, and who love me, could do horrible things at the same time. I have worked on healing, and I have taken time to learn new ways to live. I may not be perfect, but I am a work in progress.

So I'll close with this quotation from an old Nike ad:

You do not have to be
your mother unless she is
who you want to be. You do not have
to be your mother's mother, or your
mother's mother's mother, or even
your grandmother's mother on your
father's side. You may inherit their
chins or their hips or their eyes, but
you are not destined to become the
women who came before you, you are
not destined to live their lives. So if
you inherit something, inherit their
strength. If you inherit something,
inherit their resilience. Because the only
person you are destined to become is
the person you decide to be.

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summer vacation

This is Teller and Mandy. We are writing about our trip this summer. We are going on a very long trip this summer like 8 weeks long. We are going to ride in the car all the way from New York to Portland and then we will come back.

These are some good things about the trip. One is we will see lots of animals and stars. We will eat marshmallows maybe every singel day. Michelle is happy and Amanda too cause we will get to see stuff about pioneers and they will like that super much. And Jamie is happy about the binoculars. And Ellis will take pictures with the camera.

But Mandy is sad cause we will not go to Disney land because it is too far and maybe we will get to go on zero roller coasters the whole summer. She is sad about that. Maybe we will get to go on some.

We are worried cause we will not have things like our very own room instead we will be in a tent or somewhere, and then we will not get to go somewhere safe maybe. And we will not get to see susan, she is the nice lady we talk to. I talked to her today and we played a game it was with cards where you match them together and she almost won but then on my last turn i matched all the rest of the cards so I won. This is Mandy.

one good thing is W got her driving thing i cannot spell it and i do NOT want a grown up to help it is her lisens so i will spell it and you will know what i said. it is ok to do that i don't care if someone else does not like that way.

W will drive the car sometimes so i do not have to be big all day long i can be little. and i can ride in the front seat even though i am littel cause my body is big and that is why i can ride in the front seat. plus the back seat will probably be all filled up with things so there will be not one bit of room to ride back there.

we will live in a tent but that does not mean we do not have a home to go to just that we are on a trip cause we will go back home after the trip is over.

one other bad thing about the trip is we will see someone who we do not want to see. he will be there and he will probably say things like he loves J who is the one who is the body. but he does not. we do not have to be his frend but probably we will have to say something to him. but we do not have to hug him or something like that.

but mostly i think we will not see him, just one time or two times.

another thing bad about the trip is i cannot bring every singel toy i have. i have to only take some. i will take the paper dolls caues we can share those. and Horatio he is my tiger he is cuddely. i sleep with him and he will ride in the car with us. but i do not know what other toys i will take and maybe they will get lost if i bring too many.

i am also worried about this. we will see lots of people but they do not know i am there they think i am a grown up all the time and maybe they will not like to see a little kid.

also maybe susan will not like me any more when i come back. they say inside that she will but maybe they are wrong. i am worried about that.

this is one important thing. just caues we are going to see people like the family it does not mean that nothing bad happened. even if we pretend like nothing bad happened when we are there it does not mean that we are lieing it means that we are making a safe choice it is ok to do that. we did not make up bad things, those things happened, but also some good things happened. we can see peopel and that is ok and we do not have to say about the bad things to them caues they will not be nice. those people will not hit us or do soemthing like that but they will say mean things if we say about the bad stuff. that is why we will not say about it. it does not mean we are telling lies. everybody inside knows that. we made a plan that we will not tell about that stuff when we are there. but it is ok and it does not mean we made up the bad stuff. that is all.

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Long time, no post

It's been a while since I posted. Lots, this is because some part doesn't really seem to want me to write. Some, because I've been busy with lots of stuff. And some... okay, it goes back to parts not agreeing on what to write, or what to write first.

So I'm just gonna say what I want to. This is Jamie. I got a pair of binoculars, partly cause I've been wanting some, and partly right now because we're about to go on cross country road trip this summer, and I'll get a good chance to look at the stars (which is why I wanted binoculars in the first place).

I tested them out tonight, and they are really, really cool. I looked at Jupiter, off of our front porch. Given that we live in Brooklyn, with a lot of light pollution, the fact that I saw this:

is really neat. I was just kind of looking, and then I realized I could see Jupiter's moons, or at least I thought that was what I saw. So I checked it out online, and found that set of images, which is pretty much what I saw!

So that's cool.

There's more stuff going on, but no one wants to write about it right now. The trip is exciting and good, but it's also got some parts worried, for different reasons. And there's a lot to be done before then. I'm happy about the road trip part, and I figure it won't be too bad with my family, since we won't actually be spending a ton of time with them. Maybe someone else will write more about all of that later.

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Coney Island

We gotta go to the coney island yesterday. it is a place at the beach with food and games and rides and stuff. here is what we did. this is us and our friend k. she is nice sometimes but she likes teenagers better than littel kids but she likes me too. i am mandy.

we got food. it was a hamburger and fries. we ate those. then we went to the beach and we flew the pirate kite. it is a pirate ship and it is very big. it flies very good. but then it would not go back in its box. then k went to look for shells caues that is her favorite thing to get shells. then we went back to the car and put our kite away.

we went to the arcade place. we played skee ball where you rol the balls and you get tickets to buy prizes. then my thing ran out of tickets and the guy said to try this other game. at the other game, i got FIVE HUNDRED tickets. that is a lot caues usually you just get five or ten tickets for a gam. five hundred is way more then that.

then we played skee ball more. then we had ice cream. then k. bought a prize she likes very much, caues i gave her my tickets caues it was her birthday and that was a present. she got a dolphin. it is glas. she named it hungerdunger caues that is what i said the captain of the pirate ship was nammed and she liked that name that i made she knew i made that name and she liked it.

we had a lot of fun. it was good. lots of us inside went. it was me and teller and jamie and ellis a little bit and hip chyck. and then rynn was also there a littel bit too. we like to be with people where lots of us can go and spend time. it is more fun that way.

i am not gonna fix the spelling caues it is easy to read it it does not have to be perfect. i am a good writer. this is mandy.

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trying to cope

It's one of the annoying things I've had to deal with in the past year and more. I try to do basic things, and find myself overwhelmed with panic. I'm not talking about trying to do things that are that difficult, like say, sorting out my finances or writing the dissertation. I'm talking about things like basic, ordinary household chores. I put away half a dozen dishes, and find my vision going dim and my heart pounding.

So I'm admitting I have a problem, and I actually forced myself to put up some ads looking for some help getting the apartment organized. It's frustrating for me, because none of these things is actually that difficult. I used to be able to do them with ease. I used to be able to do so many things with ease; or, at least, I could just work through the panic attacks, rather than getting wiped out by them.

But between the fibro, which makes me so easily fatigued, and the issues so many of my parts have with me being a "grown up" or working too hard or whatever reasons they have for wanting me to be doing less.... Between all of that, I am finding myself falling further and further behind.

Some of it doesn't really matter, at least in the short term. I'm keeping up with the absolutely necessary bills; we generally have basic groceries in the house; I'm eating and sleeping and bathing (at least occasionally).

But W. and I are leaving for the summer, and paying the bills will be far easier if we can get someone to sublet our share of the apartment. This requires that the apartment be clean, and that we actually look seriously for someone to take the space. The summer trip requires deciding where we're going, and making reservations at least for the first week of it. It also requires getting the car set up for a long trip (getting everything checked, getting a full-size spare, getting a tire gauge). And it requires getting ourselves organized in terms of setting up how the car is packed so it's not constantly descending into chaos.

Oh, yeah, and I need to get my system to a point of enough stability that I can cope with travelling for eight weeks without seeing my therapist or checking in with online sources of support that often.

One of the problems is that when I start to try to cope with any one part of what I need to cope with, I get flooded with all of the other things that need to be dealt with as well; it's like those tasks have their own voices, and if I walk into the space in my head where "tasks" live, then they all wake up and start shouting. Another part of the problem is that if I start a task, it feels like I have to do it "properly," or I get even more stressed out about it.

I miss how things used to be. Sometimes, I'm not entirely convinced that it wasn't worth those occasional descents into really suicidal behavior, just to have the other times when I was able to cope with far more than most people try to do. I miss being really good at lots of things. I miss being able to ignore my discomfort and get lots of work done. I miss getting things done so much it sometimes makes me want to scream.

I know that it was the right choice to stop putting up the "walls" around my parts, and to give myself the room to heal. I do know that. But I didn't expect it to take so long to get stable, and I didn't realize I was going to lose so much more of my capacity to cope.

I guess it's just kind of whining, but what they hey, this is my blog, I'll whine if I want to.

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Camping and general update

I haven't been writing for a few days, it seems. In part, it's because we were away for the weekend. We went camping with friends, and it was good. In part, that is because camping is fun (at least for some of us parts!). Jamie and Ellis both got to make fires, which they enjoy. Mandy and Teller got to play with a dog and get attention from a bunch of different people. And since W. was doing a lot of the driving (she needs to practice for her driver's exam), it meant the adults got a good break.

But the thing that made this weekend really special was that the friends we were camping with all knew about me having DID, and were very happy to meet and interact with my different parts. It was pretty casual--not so much formal introductions as different parts coming in and out, and all of them being welcome to be there. So that was quite nice. It really makes me appreciate my friends even more.

Then, after coming back, I spent several days wiped out, either by allergies or by a cold (it can be difficult to tell the difference). So Tuesday and yesterday were both spent pretty much napping and wiped out in bed. Today is a little better, but only because I've been able to breathe through my nose 90% of the time.


I (Cleo) had today's therapy session almost entirely to myself. I think Rynn was there in the beginning, but that's just a guess. We were talking mostly about the difficulties the adult parts (perhaps me in particular, but I think I'm not the only one of the adult parts who has trouble with this) have in identifying ourselves, and being self-aware.

There are a lot of things that go into it. For one, it's just that we're not really in the habit of thinking, "Hm. Who am I?" So we operate within the general framework, as though we are interchangeable. This would be fine if we were interchangeable, but it doesn't quite work that way. It's become more of a problem lately (as in, over the past three years or so) because the things that used to trigger a switch to the "right" part for a job aren't there so much any more. So without deadlines or other pressures, things are a little more chaotic. But I guess that without deadlines or other pressures, we might never have noticed the DID in the first place, so I can't exactly say I regret that.

Another problem is that we don't like to have to acknowledge we're different parts. At least, I don't. And since the other parts are less inclined to be self-aware, and don't even really have names they can be called as though they were people, I think it's a pretty general issue.

Tied into that is the fact that we (I) feel guilty for not being able to do things that the other parts can do. The Mama can cook, clean, sew, do all the things that make a house into a really pleasant place. She lives in my body and shares my brain, so it seems like I should be able to do these things as easily as she can. The Smart One is, well, smart. She can answer questions and has a lot of factual information; she is good at being academic; she is pretty social (within academic settings, anyhow). So I should be able to do all of that, too. And so on, through the parts.

Add to that the fact that the teenagers don't have the fatigue, or even a lot of the pain of fibromyalgia, and that they have a great deal of stamina. So I should be able to do that, and not spend all of this time sitting around feeling exhausted and aching.

It's frustrating enough for me when other people (outside) don't put as much importance on being efficient and orderly as I do. It's incredibly aggravating for me that there are people inside of me who also don't place as much importance on this as I do. I like to be efficient, organized, responsible. I like to take care of things, to get things done. And I have parts who are not allowing it to happen.

Okay, so my therapist thinks it's okay to not be efficient and responsible. So W. thinks this, too. So do most of my friends. It still drives me crazy. I feel guilty about all of the things I'm not doing. I feel guilty about not being responsible, not having a job, not getting my dissertation written.

And yet, I also am realizing that I, the part, am not the one who is really able to do most of these things. I guess I'm mostly the one who keeps on top of other parts to get the things done. Or something like that. I can kind of accept that this is a long process, and I'm only at the beginning of it. But it's annoying that, given that I know what should be happening, that I can't just decide it's going to happen, when I want it to, as quickly as I would like it to happen.

One example is co-consciousness and all of the parts working together. Using a little bit of insight, I can see that some of the resistance is coming because, deep down, I don't want to really listen to what the other parts have to say. I want them to do things my way, because I feel like I know what's best. Certainly, my way would get more things done, and make me happier. But I guess that isn't what the other parts want.

And if it's hard to accept that other people won't do that, just imagine how difficult it is to cope with the fact that other parts can take over my body and keep things from happening on my terms.

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miscellany

I've been realizing lately how often parts switch in and out, without announcing who they are. Most specifically, this would be an issue in therapy. On Tuesday, after therapy, I realized that the person who had been "out" at the beginning was Rynn, who is 17. I don't really remember the session too clearly, so I can't really say what she talked about, or whether it was a problem for her to be the one in front, but it's something to keep track of.

Mandy also went, for the last bit. Don't much remember what she talked about, either, but I know she took the monster puppet, so I assume there was some talking about that.

I've been frustrated lately by the fact that I do have to behave as though there are other people inside the head with me. I mean, sure, it's all well and good if they're showing up in therapy, but to have to compromise with such a group of people over things like what we're going to do over the course of the day, or what we're going to do with our life. That's hard, because most of them just aren't as focused and driven as I am.

I was in therapy yesterday. We talked about that, among other things. S. (the therapist) asked what feelings I have. I had said mostly frustration or calm. I guess the frustration gets tied in with guilt, and the guilt is tied in with fear. I'm afraid of being exposed as not worthy of any of the positive things I've got in my life. I'm afraid of losing out on the good things I want to get. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm afraid of being insulted. Lots of fear.

I can remember feeling very overwhelmed when I was still a teenager. I would walk to and from school, just feeling overwhelmed with all the things I was trying to cope with at the same time. I would be frustrated with myself for not managing my time better, for not getting things done far enough in advance. Now I realize that a big problem there was that the parts who did things like schoolwork really only showed up at the last minute, when the deadline was right on top of me. At the time, it just seemed like I was being bizarrely irresponsible.

The clearest visual I had from that time was of trying to build a really large building, but without a foundation, and without knowing what the plans were. I could only hold it together by maintaining absolute focus, and not letting any part of what I was trying to do slip. It was exhausting.

Seems like I'm not one of the better typists in here, and my head is very achey, so I'll end this for now. I'm getting really tired of using the delete key.

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Changing

So, there I was, listening to music as I was washing dishes, and this song came up on my MP3 player. Even though I listen to a lot of songs by this group, and have had this one on my computer for years, I never noticed it until last night.

The song is "Changing," by The Four Bitchin' Babes. I believe you can listen to it (or a long sample of it) by clicking this link.

The lyrics are behind the cut (because I'm posting a lot today, and I figure that will make it easier for people to see all the new ones!).


I guess it’s time for me to introduce myself
I would like to be polite and offer to shake your hand
But I’m not quite sure who I am any more
I’m always changing, changing,
changing, changing

I’m in the car and there in the square rear view
Is a lady, I say “Hey! Who the hell are you?”
Cause I don’t recognize that old soul behind my eyes
She’s always changing, changing (changing)
changing, changing (changing)

Once I was a daughter, then I was a mother
and I’ve been a sister, never was a brother though.
People I used to be don’t even say hello to me
I’d like to introduce my selves to each other,
but they keep….

One of these days, I wish I would just stay put
And be this too, too solid flesh from head to foot.
But like a pink, purple, blue sunrise, or a cloud that cries,
I’m always changing, changing (changing)
changing, changing (changing)

So my friend, oh, it’s been fun to meet,
if you wanna go ahead and press my button, press delete
because though I’m really, really, really here,
it won’t be long, I fear,
till I’m changing, changing (changing)
changing, changing (changing)


So am I projecting my own issues or does it seem like this song is really about DID?

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Dreams, part one: The Third Way

Usually, my dreams are random bits and pieces, the clutter of my subconscious. But every so often, I have a dream that is really coherent, and that seems likely to stick with me for life. They don't require a lot of analysis to understand them, because the meaning of them is really pretty clear.

This is one of those dreams. I had it when I was eight or nine years old.



Background:

We had been studying the book of Revelation in Sunday school. I remember sitting in the class, in the basement of the church. The teacher was describing all of the horrible things that would happen, and explaining how Godly Christians would suffer along with everyone else. She talked for a while about the Mark of the Beast, and how people wouldn't be able to buy anything or get anything without having it, but that having it meant going along with Satan, and thus, being sent to hell.

I asked whether God would really send people to hell simply because of getting the Mark of the Beast. My example was someone who was willing to sacrifice their own chance at salvation so they could take care of their children. The teacher sternly informed me that it didn't matter what your reasons, if you got the mark, you were damned, end of story. This simply didn't make sense to me, in the context of my believe that God is loving. The teacher said I was being disrespectful and too argumentative, and should accept that she knew what would happen.

So, a week or two later, while all of this was still stewing in my head, I had this dream:

The tribulation was happening. Horrible things were going on all over the world. Christians were suffering even more, because they couldn't pay for anything and didn't have anywhere safe to live, and no way of getting food. People were running around in terror.

Then I noticed there was a space ship. I started telling people, "You don't have to follow either the Antichrist or old Christian rules. God sent this space ship, and if you get on it, you can go to a new world. You just have to make the choice.

Everyone from my church denounced me as a tool of the Antichrist. The people who were following the Antichrist thought I was being silly and said what they were doing was too important. Only a very few people went with me on the spaceship.


Obviously, there is more to the dream than the immediate context. It's emblematic of the way that I do usually try to see a third option when I'm presented with an either/or kind of choice. It's always seemed to me that there is more to the world than binary divisions. Of course, this isn't how I interpreted it at the time, at least not in these words. But I couldn't help but believe that the loving God I believed in would provide an option that didn't require quite so much suffering and despair as my Sunday School teachers predicted. In the context of that church, I did worry that there was something wrong with me, that perhaps my soul was tainted in some way so that I would rather go into space than suffer on Earth. But I wasn't willing to give up my belief in the third option, the one where people were accepted based on whether or not they chose to be saved, instead of whether they followed some rules that had been written down.

I could swear I've posted about how fairy tales and fantasy novels saved my life, but I can't find the post, so I won't put a link to it. Anyhow, I think they did help immensely in allowing me to continue to see myself as Christian, without having to force myself to believe the things that the church we attended insisted were required beliefs. I am so grateful that I was able to maintain the faith that I think I really was blessed to receive, rather than having it tarnished by the warped beliefs of my childhood religious training.

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Memory: early signs of DID

I've been thinking about this subject a lot, and I guess it counts as a memory.

It begins when I was fourteen. There was an incident that I don't feel like writing about right now, but it really triggered me badly (although I didn't know what a trigger was, I did know that it made me upset in ways that weren't wholly related to what had happened). I headed out of the apartment about half an hour earlier than I had planned to, and I remember thinking quite clearly, and in a mental voice that I hadn't heard before, "You're really going to need to get therapy as soon as you turn 18 and leave home." I think that's the birth of the part currently known as the Analyst.

Given how few options I had, I just went ahead and went on with my life. But the Analyst began to be there in the background, keeping track of things, figuring out why the adults in my life behaved as they did, figuring out strategies to make my own life different.

A few months later, we'd moved, and I pretty much hated the new school. The classes weren't challenging, and I didn't have a group of close friends to make things more lively. At this point, I discovered that I could make places inside my head to alleviate boredom. I had a place where, as I thought of it, "the part of me who would rather be asleep can curl up and go to sleep." As the next year or so passed, I also made places inside where my essential person-hood, in all its forms, could be safer. Looking back, knowing I have DID, it makes a lot more sense that there were quite a few different "safe places," because different parts wanted different things in a hiding space. And it helped various parts to be able to consciously remove themselves from situations that might not be triggering, but where they would not be the best part to be present.

Around the same time, I was also getting frustrated with the fact that I seemed to be forgetting things all the time, and losing track of conversations I was having. So, being the Star Trek fan that I was, I decided to make a "computer" in my brain to keep track of things I needed to know. This is where I kept information about my schedule, when assignments and such were due, all of the various bits and pieces of information that make up daily life. I also used it to get a 30-second replay, so that when I had spaced out in a conversation, I could repeat the last 30 seconds or so of what had been said. I used this "computer" to store information I learned, random facts I wanted to be able to retrieve easily, pretty much anything that was information, with very little (or no) emotional content.

By the next year, when I was fifteen, I had also discovered a lot of little "tricks" I could do by concentrating. I paid attention, and realized that I could think several distinct things at the same time. It's hard to describe what I mean; basically, I'd noticed that there's thinking that is articulated into words, and then just thinking that is the bit before that. I noticed I could do thinking-in-words about multiple things at the same time (such as memorizing my locker combination, running through a list of French verbs, and holding a conversation). And, in the nerdy way I had, I put this trick to good use by also realizing that I could write two different things at the same time (one with each hand).

I've been interrupted too many times while trying to write this, and totally lost my train of thought, so I'll leave it at this for now.

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no title

I don't feel much like writing about memories today. Yesterday was frantically reading to block out flashbacks, or having flashbacks and anxiety so badly I felt like puking most of the day.

Today was bad too. One good thing is my friend K. had a big event at work she's been very worried wasn't going to be good, and it ended up rocking (which we all knew would happen, but K. didn't, because she always worries about these things beforehand).

Mostly, I tried to be out of the house, because being at home just left me wanting to hurt myself really badly. Trying not to do that. Trying not to just walk away and stay away, too. Having some issues with W., but really don't want to go into those right now, because every time I start writing about it, I start ranting, and that's not useful here.

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memory: books

What I remember is libraries. Bookshelves. Stories. I can still see the libraries and the bookstores I went to when I was growing up. I can remember the bookshelves in the houses where I lived. I can't remember much else of anywhere growing up, but I can remember all of the places with books.

The only librarian I remember very clearly is the school librarian from my grade school. I spent a lot of time with her. I would go to the library instead of the gym at recess when it was raining. I went to the library almost every day after school when I was in the fourth and fifth grades. The library was a safe place for me.

I used to love summer, because it meant I could read as long as I wanted to. I remember the first time I stayed up past midnight reading a book. It was "Little House on the Prairie."

I used to read walking to and from school. I read every chance I could get. I could escape into a book. If I was reading, everything around me would get quiet, it was like I wasn't there any more.

Then I got older, and sometimes the stories in a book weren't enough. So I made my own stories. I made stories so I could fall asleep. Those were the first stories I made, when I was still little. Then I made stories that I wrote down, but mostly, they were just a way to keep notes for the stories I told in my head. Writing them down helped to keep the stories more real.

I still read. When I read a book, I can remember the other times I read the book. I can remember holding the books; I love the feel of books. I love the smell of books. Nothing feels so safe as to have a whole stack of books I haven't read yet, plus another stack of books I have read over and over. A book is the safest place I can think to be. Sure, sometimes bad things happen in books. But the ones that I like to read, the ones where I can really escape, nothing STAYS bad. It's always all right in the end. Even when things are hard in the middle, mostly the people I care about in the books make it through all right.

Other people might remember other things, but all I remember is reading.

I don't really have a name, but the little kids call me the story girl, because that's what I do. I don't even really have an age; sometimes I'm pretty little, like about nine, and other times, I'm a teenager. I guess it depends on who needs to get away the most. The others read, too, but I'm the one who lets them really escape between the covers of a book.

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Good things

This is Michelle. I am writing about some good things that happened, because my mommy was not a bad person she just sometimes didn't do a super good job, but lots of times, she did good things.

Like one good thing I remember is this. She used to bake very beautiful cakes for the school carnival. They were yummy and they looked very pretty, too. She did not get a store bought cake to send, she made it herself. And when they had the cake walk, where you walk around and when the music stops you land on a number, and if they pick that number, you get to choose a cake, her cake was always the very first one someone would pick. One year, one of us kids won the cake walk, and we took the cake she made, because we knew it was the yummiest one there. My mommy was a good baker.

And when I was in second grade, she made cupcakes for my pretend birthday at school. They were pretty and pink and they had roses inside of them, real rose petals. They were delicious. She brought those to school, and the kids liked them a lot.

And another time, after the rose show at school, she picked me up at school with the car. It was just her and me, and no little kids at all. I was seven. We went on some errands, and she gave me a special present. The special present was a book that she liked when she was little, and she thought I would like it too. It was the Secret Garden. I like that book a lot, and also the Little Princess. I do not like Little Lord Fauntleroy so well, but I like the other two books a lot because they are about girls.

My mommy also used to make me clothes. She sewed very nice clothes. I had a really good sailor dress, and it was made out of sail cloth, even. I went to the fabric store and picked out the cloth myself. And it had a tie with it. It was a very nice dress. Also, there were a lot of other dresses she made for me. I liked all of the different things she could make. She made me a dress like Little House on the Prairie, too, because she knew I liked those books a whole lot.

Another good thing my mommy did was we always had lots of paper and glue and crayons to use. We could use just as much paper or glue as we wanted, and it was okay if we made things and colored and drew. Also, we would go to the library and get lots of books, and it was okay if we read lots of books.

I know that sometimes she was not nice and she sometimes did things that hurt, but I think maybe that is because she had too many kids and nobody could help her, and she would forget a lot of the time that we were just little kids, and not grown ups, and we could not do all of the things she wanted. And sometimes, we would forget and do something that made her mad. But when she was not mad, she was very nice and she tried to take good care of us. I am writing about this because I do not want people to think she was not nice or good, because she was, but not all the time, just when she could be. She did lots of good things that I did not write about here, too.

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What I saw

I saw a lady she was driving a garbage truck. She had a pony tail in her hair and she was smiling. She likes to drive the garbage truck. Maybe one day I will drive the garbage truck. This is Mandy. I know I probably will not drive a garbage truck but I can imagine I am that lady who is driving a garbage truck. That is what I saw today.

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