Some exciting developments

Nothing on the Danny Jr front, unfortunately, but some other things related to the Novare Project which I'm really thrilled to report!!!

October 9th (was that Tuesday?) saw the release of Frank Warren's fourth PostSecret book, "A Lifetime of Secrets". I've read all the books and visit the website far more regularly than church, and want to report that as far as I'm concerned this is the best one to date. The secrets are arranged fairly chronologically and it makes for an incredibly powerful read, as earlier secrets are echoed by total strangers later in life, others are refuted, others repeated. As far as anyone (except the submitter) knows, all these secrets are sent in by totally different people who've never met each other, may never meet... Yet so many of us share the same thoughts and experiences even while we feel totally alone.

I'm rambling a little, but point being: the book is really, truly awesome. I'd highly recommend you go buy it if possible.

The way this connects to Novare is that Frank has continued to be an awesome support to it, continually helping provide me with media opportunities and suggestions for ways to continue building on the project. Thursday he appeared on the Today Show to discuss his book... And, as Laurie pointed out to me in an e-mail, he gave a shout-out to the Novare Project! The above links to the video (I haven't succeeded in finding a way to embed it here) and the shout-out is in the last ten seconds or so of the interview. (The rest is super awesome, though, so don't skip it.)

Something really exciting about this... I was actually contacted by Frank's publisher earlier this week... She e-mailed me to ask if I'd be interested in flying out to New York to appear on the Today Show for that interview which you saw above. How freaking exciting is that?? I mean, as you can see, the logistics didn't work out for me to go to NY this week...

But in further communications with the publisher, I was able to tell her how seriously interested I am in doing something like that and she said that I'd be 'at the top of her list' for some upcoming media opportunities. One of them will be with a pretty major talk show next month... And I really, really, really hope that it'll be able to work out. I don't really want to say which show it'll be, in case it doesn't work, but I'm super seriously hoping. Of course, if anything does pan out, I will let you all know first of all.

Wish me luck!

Report from the negligent blogger

It's been difficult to write lately, for a couple reasons.

Primarily, depression's been rendering me verbally and intellectually useless. Actually, for that matter, I've pretty much been worthless for any sort of activity, either... I've been sleeping ten, eleven, twelve hours a night, taking naps when possible, and otherwise lying on the couch all day like some random inanimate object.

The other night I woke in the middle of the night screaming... I tried to explain to Crystal that I felt like all the sorrow of the world was seeping into me, that I could feel all the horrible things that were happening (particularly to children) in every part of the planet and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I still feel this way to some extent, only less...dare I say, less narcissistically? I know that there is no possible way I can beging to understand all the suffering in all the world. There are a ton of things I've never experienced or seen or heard, and hope not to. But still... What I do know is enough to make me feel miserable.

My eating has gone to shit lately, the worst part of which being that I have really, truly, honestly been trying so, so hard. The problem is that every bite now takes an effort the likes of which I've not experienced in several years. I chew and chew not because I'm counting but because all my muscles feel exhausted and my throat refuses to accept the food unless it's down to almost nothingness. If anything, all this battling to eat makes it feel as though I've been eating significantly more than usual, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A couple people are pressuring me to go to the doctor, if for no other reason than to prove to me that my weight is getting dangerous again. (I haven't owned a scale in about ten months, haven't been on one in a month and a half.)

It's so hard to write about this subject honestly and yet withhold as many triggers as I can. Ugh.

I'm seriously left trying to understand where my eating has gone so wrong as to cause this weight loss. I guess it's hard to notice such things when weight loss doesn't immediately trigger a warning light for me... At first it feels like a nice reprieve, becoming something comfortable and easily ignored before it becomes a serious concern. I could stop worrying about how I'd afford new clothes when I outgrew the ones I've worn for years. Worry less about affording food. Continue for hours and hours at work without becoming distracted by hunger.

Starvation habits are just so damned familiar to me that even when I'm trying to eat well and take care of my body, it is beyond simple to slip back into them without even realizing. I guess that's what it boils down to.

Returning to restricting habits has, I suppose, been more of a comfort and an anxiety alleviant than an active fear of food/weight/body or a conscious war against it. Toss in the long hours at work, financial concerns, and stress over the secondary issue I'm about to bring up... And it would appear that the result is me, quietly disappearing.

To abruptly transition... A huge factor in my recent stress levels has been a little kid called Danny Jr.

This four year old is Crystal's half brother, who lives relatively close to us with Crystal's dad and stepmom. He is freaking adorable, super sweet, loving, silly, intelligent, creative, curious, imaginative, and generally awesome. He's also been subject to a serious amount of neglect over his lifetime and, increasingly, physical abuse. (God, I feel like some sponsor-a-child ad.)

Jr's dad, D., has been a severe alcoholic since (if I remember correctly) he was about thirteen. He was abandoned at a young age and taken in to a foster family who housed kids for the government money; all in all two foster parents and five foster kids living in a trailer park. I've heard stories of how D.'s 'parents' would regularly dose him and his siblings with Nyquil when they wouldn't quiet down fast enough. One of D's siblings is currently 19 and has three children. Another is a cocaine addict. The others I don't know about entirely... D's foster parents still live in Illinois, although his mother is close to her end now from a wide variety of health issues, many of which have been brought on by negligence in personal care (i.e. extreme obesity, diabetes, lung problems, cirrhosis of the liver, etc).

Jr's mom, S., also abuses alcohol. I don't know very much about her beyond that she dropped out of school sometime around or before highschool, ran away at some point, and has been surviving by waitressing at Denny's and filling odd jobs for years.

Currently, D., S., and Jr all live in the back room of a skeevy dog kennel and grooming shop right off the highway. It's one of those run-down rows of brick buildings, glass windows held together with tape, iron bars, parking lot paved maybe twenty years ago, only ever frequented by people who've been going there for twenty years. Also in the lot are a liquor store, a nail salon, and a sign for an architectural firm filling a dusty, empty window.

When you walk into the front door (which I was glad to see finally got its glass replaced; every time I've been there before it was splintered like a brick had been thrown against it) you're first accosted by the noise of the dogs. I've never been there without seeing at least a half dozen of them.

A split second after the noise comes the smell... The dogs all run loose over the rippled linoleum, shitting and pissing as god wills it. One wall of the kennel is floor to ceiling dog crates in a sort of wood and steel frame, a few lucky crates lined with pillows. (There is a hand-printed sign encouraging patrons to donate pillows for the dogs to use... The few that have been given are a motley collection of worn out throw pillows and lurid couch cushions.) Even the stainless steel grooming tables are encrusted with dried out filth, gradually flaking off to join the rest of the mess on the floor or settle beneath curls of torn linoleum. It's hard to determine what color the floor is supposed to be... Perhaps needless to say, it's a grimy shade of yellow-brown, accented by rugs in each corner resultant from dozens of doggy haircuts.

Jr isn't really allowed into the shop, though. The owner, B, understood that the conditions of hiring D and S to work there meant that he'd give them room and board and allow Jr to live there as well, but he wants him neither seen nor heard. Jr pretty much stays in the back room unless B is out, the shop is closed, or someone comes to see him. They get paid now and then, under the table, a couple bucks in cash so that they're off the books because D owes so much money in back child support to two ex-wives and four ex-children.

The other day, in explaining how she defended their home to a social worker who recently visited, S described their home as being "just like a studio apartment". When Crystal and I lived in a crappy Washington DC studio, it was a lot bigger than the place the three of them live. Additionally, it had a kitchen. And a bathroom. With a shower and bathtub. This place has none of the above, except for a small toilet room and the shower heads used for grooming the dogs. D and S have a small, electric stove which rests on a table in their room, making up the kitchen. When we went to visit for Christmas this stove was actually out on one of the grooming tables in the shop to allow more room for cooking.

I'm not afraid of filth, let me make that clear. Normally, smells and mess and years of accumulated dust won't phase me. Bother me, yes, some, but I can deal. I've had many friends and several relatives over the years whose houses have been several miles below what you might come across in Home and Garden. My grandma smoked copious numbers of cigarettes and probably hadn't cleaned her house in a good forty years despite generations of labrador retrievers and all that smoke and the usual dirt of living. I'm relatively accustomed to uncomfortably dirty environments. B's shop really, really bothers me. It is truly hard to stay there more than a minute. When we go to get Jr I try to stay in the car if and when at all possible.

When you enter the family's room, you first notice the oversized flatscreen TV in the corner. It's always on. You see shelves with a few food stuffs and the range stove I described earlier, along with a few Broncos memorabilia and a dart board. You see discarded wrappers and crumbs of varying sizes and colors littering the 'kitchen'. To the left is a double bed which D and S share. In the middle is a faded floral couch which looks either to have come with the place or been dragged in off the side of the highway. The couch is the focal point of the place, the center of activity, the throne for the sedentary rulers. It typically is adorned with over-filled ashtrays and sour, empty beer cans. To the far right is a toddler mattress on the floor for Jr. The kennel dogs come and go.

I don't doubt that D and S love Jr. My quarrel is that love is NOT enough. They DO NOT know how to treat or care for or raise a child. Whenever we're over there, D and S try to chat with Crystal and I while yelling at Jr to be quiet and go sit on his bed. He's learned the art of crying in silence.

Jr adored me from very early on... My guess is that I was one of the only people he's ever known who got down on his level and talked with him seriously about whatever he wanted to - even if that meant a two hour discussion/game of what if your eyeball fell out and you had to look for it on the floor and put it back in. He's a four year old, and beyond that he's a very active little boy, so when he tries to play rough with me I don't mind it. He's not trying to hurt me, anyway... When he throws a little punch it's to see me groan and throw myself back in an exaggerated parody of defeat. When D or S see this behavior, though, they scream at him to not play rough with girls and to go to his bed for time out. It doesn't matter that I explain it's my fault, I encouraged the game.

As Jr's gotten older, it seems that D and S have found him increasingly difficult to deal with. He went from baby to mobile toddler to opinionated, rapid, excitable little boy. I don't think they know what to do with him, don't know how to respond when he doesn't behave calmly and quietly like an adult. Over the last few months, spankings have progressed to beatings, sometimes and sometimes not alcohol inspired. He always has new bruises on his head and arms when we go to pick him up, which he explains with shrugs and avoided glances. One recent beating sent him to the hospital.

Connected to the fact that they don't know what to do with him anymore, D has now announced that he plans on shuttling Jr off to live with his foster parents in Illinois. (Do you remember these foster parents? If not, please see the above description.) Initially he said the family would go live in Illinois... Now the plan is to find a car, make the drive up, dump Jr and leave. In some twisted, morbidly ironic twist of fate, living with the foster grandparents might actually be WORSE than the environment he's in now.

Crystal and I have been trying to take him for a day or two frequently over the last few weeks. It's never much... Just take him to a park or let him play with our cats or read some stories or play some games. Just socialize with him. Love him. Whenever we have to take him back, he doesn't tantrum or cry but becomes sullen, obviously upset, distressed, anxious, starts telling wilder and wilder lies about why he can't go back. Something which upsets me in a seriously visceral way is that he doesn't even call it going home... He just says over and over not to take him back to B's. Last week he said, "I don't want to go back because mommy and daddy don't love me anymore, and so I don't love them neither."

So now, the source of my distress. We love this little boy. He's tied to Crystal by blood and me by marriage, albeit future and pending on legality. It's bad enough to watch his present situation deteriorate, but the thought of him being sucked into that trailer home in Illinois is worse. Right now, Crystal and I are very seriously contemplating the long, arduous, emotionally wrenching, financially draining, exhausting concept of a custody battle for Danny Jr.

For many reasons, Crystal's and my home would really be the only readily available place to take him in which could care for him and give him the love and nurturing he needs and deserves. Also for many reasons, I'm scared shitless. Crystal and I are still trying to get financially stable, just the two of us; what the hell would we do with a four year old? Even with government aid we're looking at a seriously low socio-economic level for the forseeable future. And besides, I'm only twenty-one years old. Crystal is only nineteen. Are we prepared to raise a child? Maybe. But beyond that, are we prepared to fight for, adopt, and raise an emotionally damaged four year old?

We keep going back and forth and up and down and inside out and sideways over the same questions and the same answers. Maybe, I don't know, probably not, we could try, what other options do we have. The truth is, both of us really do want to raise Danny. We love him and know him enough to see so much potential, so much worth fighting for and nurturing. We would love nothing better than to be the ones to give him the care and love he needs.

But how the hell can we do this???

And now we return full-circle, as life is wont to do, to the subject of my not eating. Maybe it's got to do with the ENORMOUS FREAKING ULCERS that all this stress is causing. (Okay, so maybe they're figurative ulcers. Mental ulcers?) When I eat it's not even just eating dollar bills anymore... It's eating dollar bills that should be going to help this little kid. ....God, yes, I know I'm talking crazy. I'm good at that. It's a talent, perhaps a hobby.

Does anyone have advice to chip in on this one? Please, this is an open request and plea. Send me a website, tell me an anecdote, give me some phone numbers, whatever you've got. Even just an, 'I'm thinking of you.' Something tells me I'm in over my head on this one.

Picture post!!!

My mummy and dad sent me a digital camera for my birthday! I've been wanting one for ages and now, finally, can document my life in more than just words. How awesome is that?

Now you can finally see my babiez! This is Frankie, the soft and squishy one who loves cuddles and love and dry kibble more than anything else in the world. He does not chew. Just tips it back and gulps. For some reason we don't have any pictures of Tallulah on the camera just yet (probably because she never stays still long enough, for one thing) but I'll make sure to get some to you soon.

What could fit more naturally together? A soft, fuzzy ball of yarn and a chubby, furry ball of kitten. He is SUCH a lover. And his squooshy belly is so awesome for snergling. I loves my kitties.


Random picture taken on my birthday; me in a bookstore in Boulder, looking at random books. It was a seriously cool bookstore, btw... It had once been a big old ballroom with a dance floor and stage and all, into which they at some point put some arm chairs and bookshelves and such and turned it into a bookshop. It was an awesomely neat little place. If Boulder weren't so far away, I'd probably just move in and live there somewhere between Poetry and Psychology.

Yes, I did have a couple drinks on my birthday. (I was extremely disappointed that the waitress didn't card me, either! I mean, come on, of all days not to card... LAME.) I've tasted peach bellinis before and they're always my favorite (at least so far). I mean, we're basically talking a slightly alcoholic Slurpee. Oh, and on the left in the picture is my bestest friend from forever, Shannon, who flew in just for the weekend, because she is THAT AWESOME.

You guys won't care much about these, but hey, it's my blog and I want to have the photos in it for later. These are from tonight: we went to BDs Mongolian BBQ with a bunch of friends from work to celebrate my birthday. On the left is Larken and on the right is Nate/Keanu, doing something weird with his tongue and a strawberry. Because he is Nate.

Makeda and Eric, lovebirds and both too gorgeous for their own good. Although, in this picture, they just look high. For some reason almost everyone who came tonight was stoned out of his or her respective mind. Geh?

Awful picture, but I realized that most of you have never seen a picture of Crystal's and my roommate, Daniel. So this would be it.

For some reason, after a good dinner and a couple beers, an ass-slapping war seemed like a really fun idea. I've included this picture mainly because it just turned out so freaking cool...

Obligatory group shot. ^.^ Left to right: Nate, Daniel, Crystal, Larken, me (in awesomely obnoxious tights), Emily, Makeda, Eric, John, and John's girlfriend Sarah whom I just met tonight.

Sooo, that about sums it up. Yay pictures!

Titles are lame. -shrug-

Hey guys, sorry for the long lapse. T hasn't really felt like updating, for a wide variety of reasons, so I've decided to take it upon myself to give the readers what they want. i.e, an update. (What the hell does 'i.e.' stand for, anyway? Some Latin crap would be my guess, but I never exactly payed attention when we took Latin classes. What's the point in learning a useless, outdated language?)

My name is Claire, and you may call me The Awesome One. Muahaha. No, but seriously, I'm basically the person who does the most and is out most and rocks the world the most beside T. Chances are, if you've known us for any period of time really, you've met me at least once. People at work have, Shannon has, family has many many times, random people at the grocery store or on the street. Others vied for the position of First Alter To Post but in the end all agreed (even if grudgingly) that I had the right to it. So nyah!

So basically here's what's been happening over the last couple of weeks.

We went to the women's health center and got the titties ultrasound-ed only to be told that everything is fine and we should drink less caffeine. I guess technically we don't drink as much as most people since we hate those freaking energy drink things, but we drink soda like it's heroin. (You know, if you drank heroin.) We really haven't cut back much but we've been trying to limit soda to when we're at work, and it seems to be helping. Still, it could also just be the time of month, though, since the lumps fluctuate with our cycle.

I don't think she mentioned this before but we also had this nasty mole that was supposed to get removed like a year ago and we finally went to a dermatologist and got it biopsied. They didn't really remove it, I guess, but they still sliced it off over the top for the biopsy and so you basically can't see it anymore. The doctor said it'll probably grow back after a while, though. Anyway, the biopsy came back negative, so it doesn't really matter one way or another. Yay.

Our birthday itself passed pretty quietly. God knows T's not exactly a big party animal, right? We drove up to Boulder for the day with Crystal and Shannon, who flew all the way from Maryland to the freakish boredom of Colorado just for her stupid birthday. Awwwwwwww. Boulder was all right I guess, but it was a bunch of lame-ass hippies. So in other words, Shannon and T had a fabulous time while I basically retched all day because hippies are so stupidly annoying. Seriously, hippies are all full of sh-t.

Mostly though in the last few weeks we've just been working for way, way, way too many hours and too little pay. Several people in the bakery have either been fired or voluntarily quit or transferred from the bakery to other parts of the restaurant and so they've been working the rest of us into the ground. On the plus side, the paychecks are big.

OH YEAH. I completely forgot to discuss the therapist sitch. Essentially, she sucks. I mean, she's really nice and I'm sure she's good in her own way and within her own realms of expertise. Problem of course being that she has absolutely no effing clue what to do with a crazy multiple with some eating disorders, some self-mutilation issues, some OCD, some of a little of a lot of things. In discussing her views on treatment goals she danced around it to try to appease us but couldn't fool me with how she was just trying to hide that she feels integration is the only ultimate treatment goal. I seriously about lost it on her withered old british ass.

T called and cancelled with her tomorrow but just did so with an excuse instead of calling the whole thing off. She's all upset because every one of the four different people she's seen in Colorado have had no clue what to do with us, said they'd help us, and ultimately sent us on to another worthless person. I mean seriously, they just keep shuttling us around, insisting that they're "helping" us and that they just want to send us to somebody more equipped to deal with us but they really just send us to someone else who has no effing clue. Maybe we'd have better luck just opening the phone book and pointing at random. Ann though thinks we should contact Doc M, our last therapist, and ask if she knows of anyone in Colorado and that's probably the best idea. Ann basically isn't good for much more than clever and practical ideas like that. :-P

Oh, so last thing before I go, because I fail at remembering important things to report on... Frank Warren contacted us a couple weeks ago to let us know that a reporter for the Boston Globe was interested in interviewing T about the Novare Project thing and we basically said hells yes, so tomorrow we're doing a phone interview with them tomorrow! T will probably make sure to let you know all the random glitzy details about which I really don't much give a sh-t.

Also, her parents sent her a digital camera for her birthday, so picture posts should be coming again soon. There are a couple from when Shannon was here, a few of the freaking kittens, and I know she wants to take pictures of her thread crochet stuff so she can sell them so we're not always so damn poor. I don't think we're used to having a camera yet, so there aren't many pictures because we keep not remembering to take any.

Well, I guess that's about all there is to say for now. We've got a stomach flu thing so we've been not moving all day and plan on doing so again tomorrow so we can feel better. Talk about putting a kink in the whole recovery thing... Effing stomach flus.

I'm sure you'll hear from me again before too long. Ciao kids.

--*---Claire---*--

Not much of an entry, but something

pWhat to write? Today, any update feels like an obligatory post more than an enjoyment. Not sure why...

In the past week, I have been to get my titties ultrasound-ed, the dermatologist to get a mole biopsied, and the new therapist for an intake. Item one went fine, item two was probably fine but am still waiting to hear back, and item three was also fine. I wasn't particularly impressed with this therapist, but neither did I have anything negative to say, really. It was an intake anyway so it was more me talking and answering standard questions than anything. I'll go back for another appointment and see how it goes from there.

On a side note, it's cold and grey and drizzly, Tallulah is draped across my lap/forearms, and Frankie is curled up next to me. Both of them are warm, furry, and purring, and precious. I don't know how I have survived depression without kittens for so long.

I'm starting to feel the effexor a smidge. Although my writing is stilted and sucky today, I'm sure it's not the fault of the medication... I'm sleepy and lazy and don't feel like writing is all. The effexor is contributing to life by making me feel a little more human and a little less hysterical on an average daily basis. It's pretty cool, actually. Scratch that: thank god for medication. I've needed it so badly for so long. I'm still getting to a maintenance dosage on it, and as such haven't started the Wellbutrin yet... Probably next week for that one. I do have both prescriptions filled, just haven't started taking them both.

Really, all that's been going on lately has been work. One person in the bakery transferred out to a different work station and another was fired last week, so we've got a lot of holes to fill. This actually works out well for me, as it's the slowest time of the year serving-wise (much better to be paid by the hour and have lots of hours, even if they're boring) and in addition to that, Crystal and I came upon an unexpected $800 bill. It is throwing quite a kink into an already struggling machine. We've gone from chicken, rice and the occasional salad to easy mac and peanut butter and jelly. It especially sucks that this should come right when it did... Just before my birthday and our three year anniversary. ::wibble:: What little I'd saved for the occasions now has to go to this damned bill. Well, not all... I'm still going to make sure something nice happens for each. Just, it won't be as nice.

Le sigh. At this point, I've actually got to be headed back in to work... I've got a server shift from 11:30 to 3ish, then have to be back at 7 to close the bakery. Lame!

So where do we go from here?

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that it might be best for me to answer some common misconceptions about DID. It feels lame, but there ya go. It's sometimes hard to realize that most people really don't have a clue about what DID is, and those who do probably don't understand it at all beyond a confused sort of basic concept. I hate Q&As, though, so I'm going to kind of do this as a cohesive entry, just sort of answering unasked questions.

I'm not demon possessed. For one thing, my alters aren't tormentors - at least, no more than any people can be when they feel like being irritating, and that's only some of the time. They don't suggest that I do things, they don't make me miserable, they don't urge me to behave badly or whatever. One important thing to note, too, is that I don't perceive my alters as coming from somewhere else, some outside source - they're as much a part of my body and mind as I am, and have been for pretty much as long as I can remember. For me, being alone in my head, having only one set of thoughts, is as weird a concept as the idea of having more than one person is to you.

Also, to say that DID is a therapy-induced phenomena is just bullshit. Pardon my French, but there it is. If nothing else, I've known about my alters long before I had a term for what they were called, years and years before I ever started therapy or took a psychology course or in any way knew what DID even was. The best way I've thought to describe it is that when I talk to myself, my selves talk back. It's always been that way. I don't even have to be a part of the conversation; there have always been other people there chatting away. (Yes. It can be extremely distracting.) I guess it's like being in a chat room, to a certain extent.

I first remember being distinctly aware of alters when I was about thirteen. Still though, as with most people with DID, thirteen is about when I first start having any memories of my childhood... I know that the whole reason I started keeping a daily journal when I was eleven was because I was so freaked out that I often couldn't remember what had happened to me the day before. (This is called dissociative amnesia - the reason I don't have memories of some things is that other alters were 'fronting' and therefore are the ones who experienced the events. Those times when I've been blanked out and unaware of what was going on because someone else was fronting are called dissociative fugues.) It's incredibly interesting to look over some of my earliest journals, especially... There are several very distinct handwriting patterns, one for each person who was writing. We're not even all right-handed.

Contrary to media portrayals, very few multiples have just two personalities. I certainly don't. If you want to get technical and statistical, the average number you'll see in most authoritative sources is actually sixteen alters; or seventeen people, altogether. The main person is usually called the 'host'. We have all agreed that every single one of us HATES that term. It makes it sound like we're freaking parasites or something, perpetuating that idea that DID is demon possession. We've had a hard time thinking of some better term, though. We tossed around the idea of saying the 'original' for a while, but that's not accurate, either... Often the person who is out most in adult life was NOT the original person. We've loosely decided to call Tina the front-runner, but Crystal doesn't like that term and not everyone agrees... For lack of a better one, it works.

Everybody has a name. Probably you'll know most, maybe all of them, eventually... Some of us are really shy. Most are younger than Tina, a couple are older, a couple are the same age. Some get older as the body does, some don't; some have ages that fluctuate depending on the day and how they're feeling. Everybody picked their own names, but we kinda more just felt like they were supposed to be our names... They were just the names that felt most right. They fit best.

The alters DON'T all have specific 'jobs'. Nobody's specifically the angry alter, the sad alter, the dangerous alter, the sex alter. Yes, some could sort of be classed into things... But no more than you, based on your personality, could be classified an angry person or a happy person or a playful person. You're not always happy all the time and it isn't your JOB to be happy. Make sense?

Sometimes, when the system is having a really really hard time functioning because of depression or whatever, we do have specific alters with specific tasks. They come and go, though, and don't have names. They're not full-fledged people, just jobs. That's all they exist for - somebody to make sure the laundry gets done or the bills get paid or whatever, like robots. They're called fragments, or splinter personalities: we just call them frags. Like I said, though, they don't always exist. In an ideal world, we're able to function well enough that we can be responsible for our own things. When times get really tough, though, they are certainly helpful. Wouldn't everybody like a robot who always made sure the dishes got done? :-P

The reason DID is still a disorder is that it can be pretty damned hard to get everyone to cooperate and function well together. You've seen reality TV shows, where a bunch of people get tossed into a house, told to live together, share common goals, whatever... Imagine they were all tossed into the same body. And that they all had some sort of psychological disorder before that happened.

In particular, DID can be dangerous when one or more alters are suicidal. One of ours in particular has had lots of serious bouts of suicidality. She understands that killing herself kills everybody, but when she is really depressed she tends to be convinced that it would be something of a mercy killing. That even though not all the alters want to die, they'd still be better off in the long run if they did. Similarly, when one of the non-recovery oriented anorexic alters wants to fast, or an alter wants to cut, or one of the young ones gets frightened and hides somewhere without warning, that can put everyone in jeopardy.

Some people believe the goal of therapy should be integration; all alters merging into one cohesive person. We solidly disagree. To us, that feels like murder. A lot of multiples feel that way about integration... Why sacrifice the lives of beautiful and unique people because some cultural idea of normal says there should only be one mind in one brain? Having more than one person in a body is not necessarily harmful. Often, it can be beneficial. Our goal in therapy is to have a working, cooperating sort of family system.

I think that's about all for now? It seems like we're running out of things to say, so I guess it'll have to do. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to look at some of the links we posted... They really are good. The Significant Other's Guide is helpful for anyone who knows an alter, not just SOs.

Multiple Confessions

It's so hard to write when your hands are shaking...

Perhaps as long as the science of psychology has been around, people have prescribed art and writing assignments as ways of healing damaged minds. I've always used my writing to help me cope with painful emotional and mental difficulties that have come up throughout my life. Especially lately, as I've been preparing to re-enter therapy for real and seriously this time, I've been increasingly aware of the fact that I can neither be fair to you, as readers, nor fair to myself without being completely honest in this blog.

It isn't fair to YOU because you've come to read a truthful, raw, sincere blog. It isn't fair not to give you the complete picture, to skate over aspects of my life which I'm too frightened to discuss. For one thing, it may well leave you lost since you'll only be getting fractured glimpses. Beyond that this incomplete, bullet-style relation is boring, if nothing else. It's all the reasons for which I hate abridged books... and yet that's what I'm doing to my blog, for fear of the consequences of honesty.

Granted, whoever first said honesty was the best policy must have led a pretty damned sheltered existence at best. Complete honesty is only an occasionally wise move, subject to factors variable and diverse as the audience and the weather. I'm not endorsing a life lived entirely in lies, but discretionary disclosure and carefully tainted perspectives can still get you out of a hell of a lot of trouble. How many thousands of people would have survived over the years had they only told a small lie when pressed by the man with the sword?

So now you see a bit of the dilemma I face. Honesty for the sake of true, quality writing? Honesty for the sake of my recovery?

Lies for the sake of face, humiliation, security, friends...family?

As I've known since the first of my livejournals to this, my most recent and current blog, there are more than faceless strangers reading the words I type. Even through those periods in my life when I've tried to hide my words, I knew that if someone really wanted to, they'd find a way to read them (and often did). I'm sure of many who read this and suspect many more, ranging from lovers to best friends to siblings and parents, uncles and aunts and therapists, cousins, former teachers, coworkers, casual acquaintances, schoolmates, god knows whom else. That's a whole lot of an audience. I've now way of knowing if they read daily or when the fancy hits them, if they care about me as a person or find this an interesting read. I've had people find my blog by googling random subjects or being referred from and recommended by well-known sites.

...All that makes this blog seem a lot more impressive than it is, and the stakes much higher than they are.

In the end it boils down to me being aware that the confession I want to make is controversial even in some of the best of academic and psychiatric circles. Media portrayals, which adore any slightly comical, novel idea, love to misconstrue the realities of it to fit into their needs, to the detriment of anyone trying to come out about their situation. Popular opinion loves to snatch quickly at what they understand, add a liberal helping of speculation, a portion of doubt and ridicule, and a heaping of false facts and gossip to everything they hear and see.

All these things said, I wish to discuss a couple more disclaimers before continuing.

To my friends: please comment with your support, but don't do so without being informed. While this is an entry about something I'm frightened to reveal, I'm actually quite happy with it in many ways. It's not nearly as shameful as outsiders think. It's complicated, yes, and can be quite embarrassing, awkward, even dangerous, but this is neither a death sentence nor a mark of disability. Just an aspect of who I am.

To my family: you are the biggest reason I've hesitated; not gonna lie. Your religious views in particular make this an especially complicated thing to discuss because as much as you learn and are willing to research, many churches remain way behind the times on psychiatric issues, leaving you in an unfortunate position of being subtly or blatantly misinformed and not aware of it. I ask you now to show me the respect of not talking to me about this until I give you the okay. I encourage you to learn more; if you want, I'm happy to recommend books and websites and Crystal probably can show you even more resources than I can. But please, don't send me a long letter/email/phone call telling me you're praying for me and recommending resources of your own and encouraging me to talk to a pastor and that you understand/have answers etc, etc. Please don't be offended, but I don't want your resources. This is something I've been aware of for years, and I've done tons of research on my own. I've talked to doctors with specialties and degrees you probably don't know exist. Especially when I lived in DC I went to institutes with 'National' in front of the title to make sure I could get the best care possible.

...God, that makes it sound like I'm dying! Okay. Before I go any farther and make you think I've got some rare, bizarre brain dementia or fungus or am infested by sentient, parasitic slugs (Animorphs, anyone?), let me state first and foremost that aside from any previously mentioned health issues, I am fine. There is NOTHING organically or physiologically or otherwise physically wrong with me. This is completely mental, and even then I hesitate to use the common nomenclature 'disorder'.

My name is Tina Malament. I'm twenty-almost-one years old. I'm a waitress. I have major depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, obsessive compulsive tendencies, various other diagnoses....

And dissociative identity disorder.

Commonly misinformed, many people call it multiple personality disorder (which is an outdated term).

I don't have a good side and an evil side. (Please do me the courtesy of not relegating me to a coin or a comic book villain!) I'm not demon possessed. I'm not bipolar, I don't alternate between highs and lows born from a chemical imballance.

To clarify on my pet peeve, I DON'T HAVE F-ING SCHIZOPHRENIA! I don't hear voices the way you might think; I don't have a false perception of reality or hallucinations or a savior complex. Dissociative Identity Disorder (hereby: DID) is often portrayed/labelled in mass media events as schizophrenia. See also: Heroes, Me, Myself, and Irene, Fight Club, etc. Some of those have elements of DID which are pretty accurate.... Others are completely bullshit off the mark. (Actually, I really liked a lot of the way it was portrayed in Heroes, beyond the artistic licenses taken... The way she looked when switching personalities and the way she described the amnesia are pretty good. Fight Club, on the other hand, sucked. Great movie, but sucked.)

If you've seen/read Sybill, you should know that I have no desire to be hypnotized and integrated. It would probably not help, for one thing. That book, while seen as a sort of media authority on DID, is roughly fifty years out of date when it comes to the actual assessment and treatment of the disorder.

Yes, I have more than one 'personality part'. They're called alters. Yes, they have names, genders, age ranges, complete memories and life histories and very diverse opinions on life, the universe, and everything. Some of them often appear more harmful than others; some are sweet, some tend to be very angry, some exist for very specific purposes and can seem simplistic because of this. Many are good at things which I'm bad at, or vice versa. We have different opinions about freaking everything, speak differently, have different typing and spelling errors, different tastes in foods, even different health problems. We hold our body differently depending on who's out. We like different clothes and colors and activities.

Probably you'll get introduced to everybody as they see fit. Several have already written the entries in this blog; you may or may not have noticed when writing styles shift, vocabularies and sentence styles vary. Maybe you'll notice now that you're looking for it; who knows. Maybe when you expect someone to be a single, cohesive person it's harder to realize when they aren't.

I think we're going to cut it off now. That's probably enough to think about for one day, right?

Here are a couple of websites for you to look at since we barely covered the basics of what DID is... We've been over it so many times with so many people that it gets really tiresome to discuss after a while, particularly when there are so many valuable resources on the internet!
--->Merck - fairly awesome for overview purposes, except for the treatment goals part.
--->Religious perspectives and misperceptions answered. Sort of.
--->Surprisingly good FAQ section on a random AOL-sponsored information site.
--->The Significant Others' Guide to coping with DID

Oh yeah, one final thing... Please, please, do me a personal favor and DO NOT go to wikipedia for information about this. Their entry on the subject was so inflammatory and ill-informed that it made me write a nasty letter to wikipedia about it and create an account so that I could try to go in and edit the entry. (Which I never got done, but still, I worked on it. The entry is so riddled with error that it needs to be completely rewritten and we haven't had the energy for it.)

Shannon, thank you for all the support you've given us since we told you. Probably if you hadn't taken the news so well we wouldn't be able to come out here and now... (Are you proud?)

Readers... We now humbly await your thoughts.

Status overview

Well, at long last, we have internet in the apartment. Hooray! Commence celebrating!

Essentially what happened is that the modem arrived Monday but, when we tried to set it up, it quickly became apparent that the little plastic bundle of wires and microchips was completely worthless. (When all lights stand solid red it's never a good sign.) I called Qwest and scheduled for a technician to come over today, on the first day off I've had in a week. Quickly, painlessly, in the course of half an hour, a new modem was slipped in and set up and now all is well.

Otherwise, there's little to report from Colorado. I've been working close to constantly and fighting off a cold/sinus infection/thing with about as much of a respite. Today being the first day I've had off since last Saturday, I plan on parking my ass on the couch with South Park, movies, what-have-you, trying to find something to eat in the bare-bones kitchen, and otherwise resting and allowing my respiratory system to heal. Ideally I should be picking up shifts and trying to bulk up my hours and income, but at the moment I think healing needs to take priority to allow for the rest.

Money, money, money. Cursed money. It feels as though we live in a perpetually broke state of existence though, in reality, it's probably not as bad as it seems. Granted, things are tight. Nevertheless, we are meeting our bills, paying for our groceries, and even affording some nice perk now and then (see also: internet access). Funds will undoubtedly be getting tighter as we come upon the hurdles of Crystal's books for the semester and the newly acquired doctor's bills...

I saw a doctor last week and now have prescriptions for both Effexor and Welbutrin. Started on the Effexor starter pack several days ago - as such, have yet to see any effects or benefits, really. Plan on starting the Wellbutrin after reaching a maintenance dosage for the Effexor so as to pre-empt any conflict between the two while upping the levels. I figure that if there will be negative side effects from one or both, it'd be best to watch them one at a time so I know which medication is causing the detriment.

In addition to the prescriptions, I got a couple of referrals. I suppose I'll be honest about what the one is for: my breasts have lumps.

Dr. Schimke gave me a referral for a women's health clinic to do an ultrasound... There's a large one in the left breast which I noticed about a month ago, and a smaller one in the right, about the size of a marble. They vary in size depending on the day (and, I'm guessing, my cycle) and are also very tender - the doctor thinks they are cystic. Still, though, she's referred me out to a specialist to have them checked out and make sure there's nothing seriously wrong. I'm trying not to grow alarmed. As she said, I'm twenty years old, relatively healthy, there's not a history of breast cancer in my family... Everything ought to be fine... The appointment is September 4th, and I'll let you know as soon as I know anything else.

I'll also update you on the therapist situation as soon as I've met with her... When I called Aurora Mental Health, they told me it would likely be forty-five to sixty days before I received a call back to schedule an intake. Instead, they called me two days later. I've got an intake scheduled on September 5th. I'm rather apprehensive about it, as the therapist they've got me slated to see doesn't have the specialties I'm looking for, exactly. She's experienced in trauma and dissociative disorders but not eating disorders... Still, though, she's been in practice for many many years so I'm sure she's come across them before. Her main areas of expertise are couples counseling and drug/alcohol addiction - I'm really not sure how d.ds and trauma counseling fit in there. We'll see.

With that little overview complete, I'm off to rest more and read more. I finally finished Atlas Shrugged last week and started on Les Miserables. I'm already three hundred pages in to the unabridged version, surprising no one more than myself. Who would have thought I'd charge through Les Mis with such voracity? It's comforting at least to read great works when I'm out of school... I feel less lazy and ignorant.

I wish all of you the best as you start back in to school for the fall. Remember to take care of yourselves in the midst of the chaos.

Still alive and still kicking that dead horse

Jesus H. Is this REALLY the FIRST chance I've had to update my blog since returning from MD on the 2nd? Answer: Yes. Yes it is. Suck.

Our piggy-backed internet officially decided to give us the boot at home, so that greatly limits my ability to update. Then too, working 40+ hours since the first morning I was back doesn't help at all in the free time department... I've been making a lot of money, but, god am I tired.

Today would have been my fifth double shift in a row but for the fact that a friend offered to pick up the AM shift so that I don't have to be in until 5:45 tonight, allowing me time to settle my ass at It's A Grind (BEST COFFEE SHOP EVER), with an iced chai (I've recently become a fan: finally, I'm a true lesbian!), a checkbook to be ballanced (hooray internet banking; I don't want to begin to think about how snarled it is), a blog to be updated (at this point I feel the need for a parenthesis after each statement), and a doctor to be found (I suppose I'm trusting to fate and location since I know no one here). (Parentheses: the new black. Or comma.) Damn but that was the longest sentence ever.

Oh yeah! And also, I have a birthday party to plan if I have time! Old as I may feel, I still am only partially legal. Isn't that lame? It's not even as though I drink, but the mere fact that I can buy and own a car, rent an apartment, join the military, what-the-f-ever, but not get a glass of wine at a restaurant pisses me off. All this will change on September 16th when my last Big Birthday for twenty years will occur. It's weird, planning my twenty-first... Honestly, I've felt so old for so long that it seems trite.

...Wow. What do I have to say? This is nothing but a tangle of rambles, all frustrated before the point of meaning. This is actually how I've been feeling lately about my life in general, though whether or not the two are in any way connected is debatable.

Lately, waitressing has felt even more thankless and dead-end than it already has... Though I'm still bringing in a fair amount, enough at least to pay the bills, I get off a shift feeling more as though I've been begging for change or turning tricks than legitimately being paid for a job well done. Every 5$ tip on a 90$ check (see also: last night) makes perfectly executed service feel like a joke. If the person will pretty much tip what they're going to tip regardless of the service I give or the check they run, why bother? I ruin myself every night trying to make sure each table receives exemplary service but whether or not I'll be paid for that effort is a crap shoot.

My shoulder has been bothering me again, too, increasing with the hours I work. Hell, it's only been about eight months since my surgery and I'm back to double shifts pretty much every day I work... At this pace, the healthy, whole parts of my body won't stay such for long. People don't realize that waitressing takes an incredible toll on your body. Although I've been eating more I can't gain any weight or keep on what I've got because of waitressing so much... I may be eating Cheesecake Factory food every day, but the calories are all offset by the loaded plates I cart all over the restaurant, the trays of drinks, and constant speed-walking. I'm solid muscle, knots, and strains.

Yucky part is, I've got no clue where I'd rather work or what I'd rather do. What job can I get with a year's worth of college that has adequate pay, benefits, and satisfaction? That I'd enjoy? I have no clue. Especially with working in a mall, it seems that everyone here is older than I and stuck working too many hours in a dead end job because it's the best option they got. So many people here in Colorado are working to pay for the homes, cars, and KIDS on minimum wage, yet I'm making at least twice that and complaining about it. Why does it feel like that makes me a terrible person? I don't think it does...

Last night I was mourning my complete lack of connections here. I didn't exactly have the most outrageous network in DC, but I still new enough people that I could know where to go if I had a question about something, needed help. I had a Pulitzer prize winning author, senior literary professor at George Washington U offering to mentor me and help me become a better writer. I had opportunities. Now that I'm half a country away perhaps I'm not completely cut off from any way to improve but I certainly feel the disconnect. I don't know where to go or who to talk to. I've got no school, no professors, no friends outside my dead-end job. The only way up at Cheesecake is to step into management and I'll be damned before I become THAT much of a corporate whore.

...Of course, then I look at complete complete train wreck entries like this one and think that I ought to have learned better by now than to still have literary aspirations. I can't even keep a blog in one piece.

Well, my thought are trickling out at this point and I'm having a hard time sifting through the silt that remains. I'm going to now return to my doctor search... I've finally got health insurance now through Cheesecake, meaning that I can at long last find a therapist to stick with, a psychiatrist, and get back on some medication. With any luck, maybe my thoughts will be a little more cohesive and I'll have a better time trying to plan and think and do anything with some cocktail to temper my crazy thoughts. It's about time, I can tell you that much. I'm tired of crying myself to sleep at night with absolutely no provocation.

For those who so love to complain about the infrequent updates

Shannon, this one's for you. :-P

It's come to my attention that my picture(s?) may be circulating the nets, specifically certain livejournal comms, as thinspiration. ...No, screw it, no, I don't want to write this update right now. I'm too tired and still way too conflicted about this issue to think it through clearly. I guess, can I leave the subject with the words 'cognitive dissonance'? Because that epitomizes and summarizes how I'm feeling right now. I feel guilty, hypocritical, flattered, guilty again, jealous and triggered by the thought of my own image as thinspo. It's doing quite a work on my head.

The rest of my body is sunburned.

The rest of my thoughts are tired.

And all of me is going to bed now...