Depression Learning

cry cry cry *sigh*

Question:

I’ll cry with you, friend.  I wish with all my heart there were something I could do to help.  But I’m limited to words. The thing with the presents – I did that this year.  It wasn’t so much that I went out of my way to buy gifts for my kids, but I ended up with several things that *could* be wrapped up for the me’s, so I wrapped them.  Even though we all knew what they were, it was still great opening them. open it right away – cuz I wasn’t Sunshine.  I can’t insta-switch to her.  So I looked at the present for a moment or two, until I felt the changeover to Sun, and opened it with delight.  That was fun. Another one I’d bought for my mthr, but it’s a game I really really like.  Hey, what’m I doing typing when I could be playing my game???  ;)  So Blue wrapped it "To: Dyenths Love: Blue", and I didn’t open it before my family got here, and my sister hands out the presents every year, and she came to that one and said "hmm..who’s this? ‘To dye-enths’?" and I said "Oh! That one’s for me.  :)  Ith *dyenths*.  Ith fer dyenths! *definitive head nod* "  My sister … looked at me a little funny…  Was cool. Anyways, I think it’s a really good idea to buy something for lilrainy even if it’s belated, and even though she’s gonna know what it is.  Doesn’t matter.  The deal is, though, that she has to be the one to open it. This is just a thought, but maybe what lilrainy needs from you is three-fold: one, there has to be a way you can become what she needs.  I recall your mentioning trying to read to her yourself, but it’s difficult trying to read and have her feel the enjoyment at the same time.  Perhaps more practice would make it easier.  And what you’d be practicing is increasing the coconsciousness.  It’s worth it.  Besides, reading to her, like buying her a gift and wrapping it (gotta wrap it, btw.  Get some WtP paper.  :) ) is a way of showing that you care, that you respect her, that you totally accept her and her right to exist.  You’re validating her. Plus, another part of becoming what she needs might be taking a more active role in playing with her.  Like, not just letting her play, or suggesting things she could do to play, but metaphorically getting down on the floor with her and squishing playdoh between your fingers, not just hers. Take turns.  She wants a playmate.  Be a playmate.  Use the fact that youse are 2 different ppl to your advantage.  You may already be doing some of this.  My suggestion is to do it more.  She needs desperately for someone to love her and make her feel more important. Oh!  I just got an inkling of what the problem might be. It’s possible that you don’t think you *are* capable of meeting her needs – that playing with her or whatever, trying the things I’ve described, won’t be good enough because "it’s just you".  But you are the most important person in her world.  Please don’t underestimate your own importance here.  I so much want to help, and I know I’m starting to get pushy and I’m trying not to…but this is all I can do. We all send hugs and warm thoughts and warm wishes and caring and affection and stuff, to both you, Rainstar, and lilrainy too.  Blue especially opens his arms to lilrainy and hugs her tight to his chest, putting his hand to the back of her head to guide it to his shoulder.  Then he rocks her back and forth with all the love that’s in him.  Cuz she’s "one of his" now – someone he cares about.  And she’s hurting.  And of *course* she can cry when she comes over here!  The only rule for coming to visit here is to be exactly who you are – who you need to be, even if that means crying or throwing a temper tantrum or anything like that. Gloriana says "Heck, you can even break stuff.  Cuz I can fix it in the blink of an eye.  :) " The second thing that occurs to me that you could do to help her would be to identify people in your life who might be ok with having lilrainy come out on occasion.  If you make this a mission, something that’s important *to you*, it might be a lot easier than you think.  I’ve discovered lots of people in my life who are ok with me being little around them.  And I don’t have to tell them anymore – I can just "be myself", that is, just switch when it feels natural, and be little for awhile and switch out when it feels like I’m "done".  To get to that point, I went thru several months of awkwardness because the kids had to *know* it was ok for them to be out, and to do this they came out for extended amounts of time per person, which could be a bit of a trial on them…but that was sorta the point?  We had to know whether they were gonna get angry with us being little and tell us to knock it off.  All-in-all it was a positive experience. So – no defeatist attitude here, with regards to finding someone(s) safe for lilrainy to come out around.  Be militant.  This is something important, and requires an adult, objective eye.  Everyone has a "child within", whether they acknowledge it or not.  Even the jerk in my gaming group turned into a little kid when he saw my playdoh keychain.  He played with it for almost 10 minutes, chuckling gleefully, eyes lit up.  It was an amazing transformation.  BTW: he’s "the jerk" cuz he doesn’t "believe" the DID – he thinks I’m just trying to get attention.  I asked him why that was so bad.  ;)  But anyways…  The thing is that I could be dyenths around him cuz he was little right then.  And he doesn’t have DID. So most people, in my experience, if they care about you, will understand your need to be lilrainy around them.  If there are people who know about her already (your ch*rch group?), start with them.  Let them know that maybe it’s a little weird, but you need their help (people love being asked for help, especially when it doesn’t cost them a dime or any effort) and tell them that you don’t have anyone it’s ok to be lilrainy around, and would it be ok if she came out around them occasionally?  If they get skittish or something, assure them that you, Rainstar, will always be there too, and can come back out whenever it’s needed (I think ppl get nervous when I’m little if they think I won’t be able to "snap out of it" – which is silly, cuz why would I want to snap out of being who I am?  But big people don’t understand things that way, cuz they’re not like us.).  You might want to explain a little of what it’d be like: maybe say something about your speaking voice changing, and maybe wanting to play or something, or have a conversation that’d be a little weird coming from an adult *lips quirk*.  Let them know what you need – what lilrainy might need. The third thing is this: maybe lilrainy needs some encouragement to try to trust someone again.  You might need to do this step before you do the 2nd thing above.  It sounds like maybe she’s too scared of getting hurt again to want to risk coming out around anyone – but she seems to need a RL friend rather desperately.  She probably feels hopeless because she’s trapped by her fear.  Just a guess on my part.  But the sadness that accompanies that kind of hopelessness *can* feel limitless and unending, and can make it impossible for the person feeling it to be "on first" for fear of being swamped by the pain.  The only option there is to feel it by proxy, which she’s doing, which is exhausting for both parties, as you’ve noted.  :(  *hug hug hug*  So maybe start by asking her if she’s scared of trusting someone again, and have a nice conversation about not everybody’s gonna react the same way and the only way to find out, blah blah blah…sorry, Blue switching in here…Rainstar, read the next bit first if possible, and make sure it’s something you want lilrainy to hear before letting her read it herself, k?  I don’t wanna cause any problems for you. Hey lilrainy – you can come over here and be sad and cry on my shoulder anytime you want to, kiddo.  But if you’re sad cuz you need a real life friend, there’s only one way to fix that – to go and make a RL friend for yourself.  Cuz Rainstar can only do so much for you.  And maybe something you can do for her would be to try to make a friend so she doesn’t worry about you so much.  Chin up, there, kiddo – you can do it.  And I’ll always be here to give you hugs and make you feel safe as best I can.  And Rainstar will always be there for you to do the same thing, plus try to help you in lotsa ways that I can’t.  But lilrainy?  You’re lovable, and precious, and a lot of fun to be around.  Things with Mikko didn’t work out like you wanted them to, but that might have been because Mikko was really your friend more than Rainstar’s, and he might have realized that marrying you two would have been wrong because that wasn’t the way he loved you.  it doesn’t mean you’re bad or unworthy.  Maybe he had too much respect for you to be in a relationship that felt wrong to him.  I don’t know.  But I *do* know that you’re lovable, and worth being friends with.  So go make some friends – ok, kiddo?  You deserve them. k.  gotta go.  HTH.  Take what you can use and leave the rest.  Please don’t let anything I said make things worse!! I only wanna help however I can.  Be well, friends.  We’ll be here for ya to help as much as we’re able. *warm thoughts* *hug, hug, hug* yer friends, the dyenths – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – ugh.. it seems like that’s all we do these days is just cry cry cry. <Disclaimer – don’t think there’s anything in here that should be spoilered.. just talk of incredible amounts of sadness… tried to be happy during the day so as not to ruin everyone else’s day but not working… well we did manage to at least appear semi-happy through dinner.. so guess we were semi-successful. lilrainy’s hurting *SO* bad right now… she won’t even totally come out.. just does her feeling through me.. which i must admit is very

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Response:

rainstar writes… is it so wrong to want to be l*ved for everything you are instead of just pieces of you? *sigh*

Hope you’s tell us what you T says Thursday but, wanted to say that this issue of just pieces of you’s being l*ved hit us hard inside. That really is what happens isn’t it. No one on this earth can do this; l*ve all our parts. A hard reality. A sad reality, even for ‘me’. *I* am not totally void of feeling and I recognize that this must be very hard for our little ones. I am terrible about taking care of them. I just am not cut out for that. Then I lack 90% of the guilt that maybe I should have for stuffing them down during treeday and ignoring their big eyes and hopes. Someone else inside is ganna have to b*by them. But on some level,  I know it needs and should be done. Hope you’s share on what advise T has. There’s gotta be an answer. I wish I understood how to nurture. I wish I understood that there’s a need to. I wish I could h*g the daughter. But then I say… "Na, why." and walk away. I can feel others inside wanting to reach out to her. She’s a great kid here for the week. She deserves h*gs. Am afraid if I do, I will be pretending to perform and not being true. I think I can tell that I am cutting off the nurturers! Ohhhhh boy! I pr*y that her mthr comes out before she leaves, and that her mthr nurtures her. I pr*y I have the strength to step aside and allow that to happen. It’s as unfair to the daughter as it is to our little ones. I do see that. I can’t help it. I am not a me*n person! I am just EMPTY, (and this was not where I meant to go. rainstar, thank you. Your experience is helping ‘me’ to recognize some things that I need to face.). Dayzie.

Response:

Thinking of the thought that always comes to me when I hear this difficulty that some peoples have w/having little ones who need connections – is it possible to get yourselves in situations where there are outside littles who can play?  Like being an asst. S*nday School teacher or something (you wouldn’t want to have to be the main one, because you want to be the one to be able to get down there w/the little ones and play), or doing asst. work w/children doing crafts or stuff in the library or something?  It isn’t the answer to every part of what you need, but it might help just a bit, maybe, to let lilrainy do stuff like cut and paste and color??? Beauty. — To email me, remove "nospam" from my address. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – ugh.. it seems like that’s all we do these days is just cry cry cry. <Disclaimer – don’t think there’s anything in here that should be spoilered.. just talk of incredible amounts of sadness… tried to be happy during the day so as not to ruin everyone else’s day but not working… well we did manage to at least appear semi-happy through dinner.. so guess we were semi-successful. lilrainy’s hurting *SO* bad right now… she won’t even totally come out.. just does her feeling through me.. which i must admit is very tiring for me and makes for having to come up with creative answers for why we’re so incoherent when people talk to us. she’s so sad though.. it breaks my heart cause i can’t seem to do anything to help her.  she’s missing mikko *BIG* time right now.  i sorta miss him but she just seems so.. grief-stricken.. i don’t know how to help her. she misses the fact that she actually had someone here in our everyday world who cared about her and wanted her around and did things for her.   he always got us at least one pr*s*nt that was basically for her… and she’s so sad that she didn’t have anything today.  i told her that i’d take her out tomorrow and get something for her and even wr*p it.. but it’s not the same and it’s not helping her.  i wish i had thought of it sooner but honestly.. as i think about it.. i’m not sure that would’ve helped either because we’re co-conscious.. she woulda known what it was even if i had wr*pped it and stuff.. it wouldn’t have been the same as a surprise.. *sigh* she misses being able to come out and be out and play.. and i don’t know how to help her with that either cause there’s just no one in our everyday life that’s okay with that.. there are certain people who know she exists but she’s yet to be *out* with them.. i don’t think she feels safe around others anymore since mikko left.. she misses feeling s*fe.. she hasn’t felt s*fe in the entire time it’s been since he left.. she’s always afr**d that b*d ppl will come… i can’t seem to help her in that either. digging deeper i find there is some sadness and h*rt over the fact that the m*mmy doesn’t like her at all… she wonders why the m*mmy doesn’t like her… wonders if she’s b*d because of it… i feel some h*rt over it too… wishing that for once.. just once.. i could come home with a true toy for her to play with (like she really really wants the Ernie that holds his rubber ducky and sings when you press his hand) and my mother not throw a hissy fit over it.. or scoff at it or get all annoyed that i bought it… part of me says s*ck it up and deal with it but is it so wrong to want to be l*ved for everything you are instead of just pieces of you? *sigh*  why can’t i just get over the fact that she never will?  why does it have to h*rt so much… just a big ball of h*rt sitting in my stomach area… *sigh*  why can’t i just *gn*re m*m’s remarks and do what i know is best for US?  we’re never going to get her full approval anyway.. why do i feel like i must keep trying to attain that unreachable goal? i feel awful cause i feel helpless… nothing i do seems to matter.. she’s so incredibly sad and it just feels like there’s a wall between me and the actual sadness.. so i can’t help her deal with it or comfort her or anything.  sometimes i actually wish that we had more parts.. then maybe she’d at least have someone to play with inside.. another kid… cause i can’t seem to meet her needs. *sigh* even being on here makes her sad these days cause she l*ves her friends here but is sad that she doesn’t have any in our everyday life.  i don’t know what to do.. our eyes h*rt from crying so much.. kinda like your nose h*rts after having a cold.. irritated from the tissue rubbing against it. we see t. on thursday.. maybe he’ll have some idea of what to do for her.. til then i guess we just get to continue with our cry cry cry. thanx for listening/reading, rainstar — To e-mail remove extra from address

Response:

Dayzie I wish I understood how to nurture. I wish I understood that there’s a need to. I wish I could h*g the daughter. But then I say… "Na, why." and walk away. I can feel others inside wanting to reach out to her. She’s a great kid here for the week. She deserves h*gs. Am afraid if I do, I will be pretending to perform and not being true. I think I can tell that I am cutting off the nurturers! dyenths writes… For me the mode you’ve described is a highly self-protective mode, and I could never figure out a way to switch out of it when I was in it.

Self-protective. Hmmmm. Didn’t think of it that way. Voila! "I" am a protector! Hhahahahahaa!!!!! <bats eyes It’s pretty cool how T identifies protectors when we think the ones she ID’s as such are simply trouble-makers. Not to mention what it does for them! One of u/s has even quit c*tt*ng since he was ID’ed as such. Then we realize that YES! She (T) is SO right. Anyway…. Thank you dyenths for not judging me. I got kinda wierd after sending that post ’cause thought I sent too much when all yo/u’s and you’s is so cuddly and sweet and nice. Maybe yo/u’s and you’s have parts like Thomas and I who are similar and so I don’t have ta try to make up for what I said the way I have to cover myself ‘out there’. Womens is generally so warm and fuzzy ’bout their kids and I think I must come across as cold but I’m not cold, just indifferent. But, it’s a relief to see the daughter’s mthr come out and h*g and chat and do the mthr/daughter stuff. (Hasn’t happened yet on this visit though.) I stand way clear when situations pull her (d’s mthr) out ’cause I know d. needs that. Again, HOW did I ever understand this before dx! Can you say ‘confusion’? Dayzie

Response:

ugh.. it seems like that’s all we do these days is just cry cry cry. <Disclaimer – don’t think there’s anything in here that should be spoilered.. just talk of incredible amounts of sadness… tried to be happy during the day so as not to ruin everyone else’s day but not working… well we did manage to at least appear semi-happy through dinner.. so guess we were semi-successful. lilrainy’s hurting *SO* bad right now… she won’t even totally come out.. just does her feeling through me.. which i must admit is very tiring for me and makes for having to come up with creative answers for why we’re so incoherent when people talk to us. she’s so sad though.. it breaks my heart cause i can’t seem to do anything to help her.  she’s missing mikko *BIG* time right now.  i sorta miss him but she just seems so.. grief-stricken.. i don’t know how to help her. she misses the fact that she actually had someone here in our everyday world who cared about her and wanted her around and did things for her.   he always got us at least one pr*s*nt that was basically for her… and she’s so sad that she didn’t have anything today.  i told her that i’d take her out tomorrow and get something for her and even wr*p it.. but it’s not the same and it’s not helping her.  i wish i had thought of it sooner but honestly.. as i think about it.. i’m not sure that would’ve helped either because we’re co-conscious.. she woulda known what it was even if i had wr*pped it and stuff.. it wouldn’t have been the same as a surprise.. *sigh* she misses being able to come out and be out and play.. and i don’t know how to help her with that either cause there’s just no one in our everyday life that’s okay with that.. there are certain people who know she exists but she’s yet to be *out* with them.. i don’t think she feels safe around others anymore since mikko left.. she misses feeling s*fe.. she hasn’t felt s*fe in the entire time it’s been since he left.. she’s always afr**d that b*d ppl will come… i can’t seem to help her in that either. digging deeper i find there is some sadness and h*rt over the fact that the m*mmy doesn’t like her at all… she wonders why the m*mmy doesn’t like her… wonders if she’s b*d because of it… i feel some h*rt over it too… wishing that for once.. just once.. i could come home with a true toy for her to play with (like she really really wants the Ernie that holds his rubber ducky and sings when you press his hand) and my mother not throw a hissy fit over it.. or scoff at it or get all annoyed that i bought it… part of me says s*ck it up and deal with it but is it so wrong to want to be l*ved for everything you are instead of just pieces of you? *sigh*  why can’t i just get over the fact that she never will?  why does it have to h*rt so much… just a big ball of h*rt sitting in my stomach area… *sigh*  why can’t i just *gn*re m*m’s remarks and do what i know is best for US?  we’re never going to get her full approval anyway.. why do i feel like i must keep trying to attain that unreachable goal? i feel awful cause i feel helpless… nothing i do seems to matter.. she’s so incredibly sad and it just feels like there’s a wall between me and the actual sadness.. so i can’t help her deal with it or comfort her or anything.  sometimes i actually wish that we had more parts.. then maybe she’d at least have someone to play with inside.. another kid… cause i can’t seem to meet her needs. *sigh* even being on here makes her sad these days cause she l*ves her friends here but is sad that she doesn’t have any in our everyday life.  i don’t know what to do.. our eyes h*rt from crying so much.. kinda like your nose h*rts after having a cold.. irritated from the tissue rubbing against it. we see t. on thursday.. maybe he’ll have some idea of what to do for her.. til then i guess we just get to continue with our cry cry cry. thanx for listening/reading, rainstar — To e-mail remove extra from address

Response:

i feel for ya. *doh*  didn’t realize how ironic that was with what you expressed. For me the mode you’ve described is a highly self-protective mode, and I could never figure out a way to switch out of it when I was in it.  Somebody inside has to work pretty hard at being insistent about wanting to come out before that part of me *can* give up the front.  Made for a lot of frustrating thpy sessions and lots else.  I wish I could offer some suggestions, but right now I can’t remember anything that worked.  I’ll probably come up with something eventually. For right now though, I feel for ya.  *lightly buffets shoulder, in lieu of a hug* dyenths

rainstar writes… is it so wrong to want to be l*ved for everything you are instead of just pieces of you? *sigh* Hope you’s tell us what you T says Thursday but, wanted to say that this issue of just pieces of you’s being l*ved hit us hard inside. That really is what happens isn’t it. No one on this earth can do this; l*ve

all our parts. A hard reality. A sad reality, even for ‘me’. *I* am not totally

void of feeling and I – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – recognize that this must be very hard for our little ones. I am terrible about taking care of them. I just am not cut out for that. Then I lack 90% of the guilt that maybe I should have for stuffing them down during treeday and ignoring their big eyes and hopes. Someone else inside is ganna have to b*by them. But on some level,  I know it needs and should be done. Hope you’s share on what advise T has. There’s gotta be an answer. I wish I understood how to nurture. I wish I understood

that there’s a need to. I wish I could h*g the daughter. But then I say… "Na,

why." and walk away. I can feel others inside wanting to reach out to her. She’s

a great kid here for the week. She deserves h*gs. Am afraid if I do, I will be

pretending to perform and not being true. I think I can tell that I am cutting off the nurturers! Ohhhhh boy! I pr*y that her mthr comes out before she

leaves, and that her mthr nurtures her. I pr*y I have the strength to step aside and allow that to happen. It’s as unfair to the daughter as it is to our

little ones. I do see that. I can’t help it. I am not a me*n person! I am just EMPTY, (and this was not where I meant to go. rainstar, thank

you. Your experience is – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – helping ‘me’ to recognize some things that I need to face.). Dayzie.

Response:

dear Rainstar and dear lilrainy….. i’m glad this may have helped some.  it’s so hard for me to know what’s too much to say, and what’s not enough, and, and, and…and to say it in such a way that I don’t come across as too timid or too authoritative, and…and it’s tough when I have only my *words* to work with, because you can’t hear my *voice* – and my *voice* is trained!  I mean, if I say something out loud it’s so so so so so much easier to understand where I’m coming from, and I don’t have to …but words are all I have to work with here, and you guys are worth my best.  so I try.  sounds like I did ok.  I’m really glad. I’m wiped out right now…been switching instead of shifting today, and losing time, then finding it again only to have lost other time, and it’s weird, and i can’t seem to focus on stuff for very long, otherwise I’d respond point by point… but i’m really really glad that you asked your friend abt doing xms for lilrainy at their house.  I think it’ll be really good for both of you. Something that I found regarding guilt between parts is that if it’s hard to communicate inside because of uncertainty abt the other’s feelings and guilt and hurt and resentment, and all kindsa stuff like that, is that it gets easier to deal with sometimes if you write a letter to that part. I’ve done this mostly thru writing posts, but then, I have no shame…;)  and I have a colossal ego that says that *clearly* anything I write is worth reading, and so….*ugh* sorry, Gloriana’s been popping in and out today.  Whoa, just shifted again.  What was I talking about? Oh, writing a letter.  Rainstar, you might be able to write a letter to lilrainy where you tell *her* that you feel bad because you think maybe she’s mad at you for not protecting her from the icky ppl, and you’re uncertain how to treat her or even if she wants you around because you don’t know exactly what she thinks about that.  I don’t actually know off the top of my head how old lilrainy is, though she sounds 4-ish to me (mainly because dyenths and sun are around 4-ish, so of *course* lilrainy is too…*self-deprecating sigh* ).  That’s not terribly important, though. Another thing is that my T asks me, anytime one part’s feeling guilty abt how it treated another part is "Did you apologize yet?"  Usually I have.  Apologizing inside is hard sometimes for several reasons: One because "I’m sorry" is a vastly overused phrase in our society, and it takes word to make it sincere, and we’re not used to working at it.  But that’s not too big of an issue, just the first one that came out cuz it’s a pet peeve of mine.  Two is because…what was I talking about?  I’m spacy beyond belief.  Oh, there were 2 main reasons, besides my pet peeve.  One was something … (darn, forgot it again.  Ok, gonna stop externalizing everything if I can’t type fast enough to hold my thoughts.) … not thinking the other part’s gonna forgive or maybe even will take the opportunity to yell at the penitent (-tant?) one, which hurts, cuz my ‘rents did that, but they made me pologize anyway, even though they were gonna yell at me again for being bad after i pologized.  so it’s really hard for me to pologize sometimes.  other parts of me can pologize better, but it’s really hard for me.  i get scared. um, ok….where’s a switch when you need one???  (wait 5 minutes and it’ll change…*sigh*) Ok, the other one is…feeling silly?  nah…it was, um… Huh.  it’s well gone at this point.  I probably already covered it somehow…..*sigh*  Sorry.  Well, if nothing else, it hurts.  Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt.  Cuz often I don’t feel like it’s ok for me to be hurt if another part hurts me cuz I don’t feel like I’m allowed to make them feel guilty, but then I don’t feel like I can make anyone feel guilty for hurting me.  can = am allowed to, btw.  so if someone apologizes inside for hurting me, it makes it ok for me to admit how much it hurt. That’s it, I guess.  I’m not allowed to add anything to that.  Hope it made sense.  :) Anyways, so it might be good, even if it seems redundant cuz yer coconscious, to lay things out for lilrainy – lay yer soul bare, as much as you can, and be honest with her.  It kinda requires that you be willing to sit and listen to her response, which can be unnerving, since I’ve found for myself that it really really reinforces the fact that I really am split into different parts with different thoughts and memories and experiences and attitudes and assumptions, and, and, and…..*sheesh* But the guys here have found a certain nobility in being man enough to handle reactions to stuff like that.  *rolls eyes* So, whatever…;) There was something else….why *do* I feel like I have to keep up a real time commentary of every thought that flickers through my head?  I mean, isn’t it terribly distracting to sift thru this much dreck to find the 17 words out of 3000 that are actually pertinent to something???  *sheesh* Oh, then you can give lilrainy the option to do the same in return, lay things out, etc.  If communication is the problem, there’s an easy (ok, it’s not easy.  but it’s easy to *find* the answer to give to someone else…;) ) solution: practice. My T said, when I got started with this, that the coconsciousness I had would be really useful after I got farther along in figuring this stuff out, but it was gonna make the beginning work really hard.  The beginning work was hard because I had to learn to *be* separate folk, instead of working so hard at being the same person.  Cuz my parts are good enough at being codependent that if I need them to push their needs under for the good of the system, they’ll do it for as long as they can, as long as they believe it’s for the good of the system.  But it wasn’t until I started seeing them as separate entities with needs of their own, different from mine, that I was able to start working on their *issues*, which are different from mine.  And once I started doing that, it got a *lot* easier for me to tell when a particular reaction was coming from one of my parts (gonna be easier for you with just 2 of you!), rather than from *me*.  So if I were scared of somebody, I could look at the fear, tell it was from someone inside, look at that person inside, see that they were "seeing" through (hard to explain) gh0sts of flshback images – it’s kinda like a filter effect.  Hard to see what’s *actually* there because the flshback memories are …oh, fogging the lens right then.  It’s a slightly different metaphor than what i use, but what I use is too hard to explain (it looks like gh0st images on an old tv set with bad reception), but the net effect is that if someone inside is feeling fear, but it stems from something outside of what’s actually going on in the present, I’m able to deal with that and get back to interacting with the person in the *present* with my mind and reactions unclouded by the fear that previously I understood to be *real*.  Not that the fear isn’t real – it’s just an insider’s fear, not "mine" (whoever’s on first) and it has nothing to do with the person I’m talking to. Makes life easier. Anyways, the impression I get is maybe you and lilrainy are both sorta trying not to make too many waves with the other, but in doing so, it’s impossible to see the boundaries clearly, so you’re both miserable if one’s miserable.  I’ve developed the interesting ability to switch to someone who isn’t sad if I don’t *need* to be sad right that second (there’s an awful lot of sad to go around) and it makes sense to try to milk every bit of enjoyment out of the current experience, rather than getting more sad cuz i’m sad during something that otherwise would be enjoyable. Ok.  I’m just gonna stop typing, cuz I’m losing the threads of what I’m trying to say.  Take what you can use and *chuck* the rest, please! warmth and affection. *hug hug hug* dyenths

Our friends,

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I’ll cry with you, friend.  I wish with all my heart there were something I could do to help.  But I’m limited to words. We appreciate the words though. The thing with the presents – I did that this year.  It wasn’t so much that I went out of my way to buy gifts for my kids, but I ended up with several things that *could* be wrapped up for the me’s, so I wrapped them.  Even though we all knew what they were, it was still great opening them. couldn’t open it right away – cuz I wasn’t Sunshine.  I can’t insta-switch to her.  So I looked at the present for a moment or two, until I felt the changeover to Sun, and opened it with delight.  That was fun. That’s always how it was before.  I mean, Mikko never put on the tags that they were specifically for lilrainy, but he knew and we knew.  So I could sort’ve change over to her and still make it look like it was me who was excited about the gift. Another one I’d bought for my mthr, but it’s a game I really really like.  Hey, what’m I doing typing when I could be playing my game???  ;)  So Blue wrapped it "To: Dyenths Love: Blue", and I didn’t open it before my family got here, and my sister hands out the presents every year, and she came to that one and said "hmm..who’s this? ‘To dye-enths’?" and I said "Oh! That one’s for me.  :)  Ith *dyenths*. Ith fer dyenths! *definitive head nod* "  My sister … looked at me a little funny…  Was cool. *giggle*  I bet that was fun. Anyways, I think it’s a really good idea to buy something for

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We are doing somewhat better today though we are anxious to see our t. tonight and discuss all of this with him. We will definitely post about how that goes.

Hope you’s don’t mind but, w/e are learning right along with ya’s. We are very interested in how things go. Dayzie

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Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt.

Whew! You’s come up with some doozies! Now I’m glad we were able to apologize to the (outside) kids as much as we did through the years because of what you just said… that it made it ok for them to feel the h*rt (and that means we acknowledged their h*rt). And yes, I too can see how that would help insiders. Hope you’s don’t mind us butting in, again.  :/ Dayzie

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Our friends, I’ll cry with you, friend.  I wish with all my heart there were something I could do to help.  But I’m limited to words.

We appreciate the words though. The thing with the presents – I did that this year.  It wasn’t so much that I went out of my way to buy gifts for my kids, but I ended up with several things that *could* be wrapped up for the me’s, so I wrapped them.  Even though we all knew what they were, it was still great opening them. open it right away – cuz I wasn’t Sunshine.  I can’t insta-switch to her.  So I looked at the present for a moment or two, until I felt the changeover to Sun, and opened it with delight.  That was fun.

That’s always how it was before.  I mean, Mikko never put on the tags that they were specifically for lilrainy, but he knew and we knew.  So I could sort’ve change over to her and still make it look like it was me who was excited about the gift. Another one I’d bought for my mthr, but it’s a game I really really like.  Hey, what’m I doing typing when I could be playing my game???  ;)  So Blue wrapped it "To: Dyenths Love: Blue", and I didn’t open it before my family got here, and my sister hands out the presents every year, and she came to that one and said "hmm..who’s this? ‘To dye-enths’?" and I said "Oh! That one’s for me.  :)  Ith *dyenths*.  Ith fer dyenths! *definitive head nod* "  My sister … looked at me a little funny…  Was cool.

*giggle*  I bet that was fun.   Anyways, I think it’s a really good idea to buy something for lilrainy even if it’s belated, and even though she’s gonna know what it is.  Doesn’t matter.  The deal is, though, that she has to be the one to open it.

I did go out and buy a few things for her last night actually.  I just emailed my friend about doing Christmas for lilrainy while I’m at their place for New Year’s Eve (cause no matter what I can’t convince myself that it’d be safe to do it at home).  So we’ll see what she says.  She and her husband know about lilrainy but she’s never actually been fully out with them so we’ll see.  I don’t know if they’d be able to put up with her or not.  We’ll see.  If they say no I’m not sure where I’ll have Christmas for her.  We’ll figure something out I guess. This is just a thought, but maybe what lilrainy needs from you is three-fold: one, there has to be a way you can become what she needs.  I recall your mentioning trying to read to her yourself, but it’s difficult trying to read and have her feel the enjoyment at the same time.  Perhaps more practice would make it easier.  And what you’d be practicing is increasing the coconsciousness.  It’s worth it.  Besides, reading to her, like buying her a gift and wrapping it (gotta wrap it, btw.  Get some WtP paper.  :) ) is a way of showing that you care, that you respect her, that you totally accept her and her right to exist.  You’re validating her.

*nod* I gotta remember things ain’t gonna be perfect right off the bat.  Unfortunately, I have a nasty habit of degrading myself when things aren’t perfect by the second or third time I’ve done them.  I’m working on changing that mentality, but when I’m already depressed it just snowballs quicker. I did take some time to read her a story yesterday and tried to listen to what she thought I was doing wrong.  Her chief complaint was that I go to quickly.  I read the words but then I don’t give her time to look at the pictures.  So at least I have someplace to start on that issue. Oh and I have LOTS of WtP paper to wrap her stuff in. Plus, another part of becoming what she needs might be taking a more active role in playing with her.  Like, not just letting her play, or suggesting things she could do to play, but metaphorically getting down on the floor with her and squishing playdoh between your fingers, not just hers. Take turns.  She wants a playmate.  Be a playmate.  Use the fact that youse are 2 different ppl to your advantage.  You may already be doing some of this.  My suggestion is to do it more.  She needs desperately for someone to love her and make her feel more important.

Hmmm.. never really thought of that.  We’ll try that with the new game that I got her (Sesame Street).  I looked for one of those cool little minature playdoh things but couldn’t find one.  It just sounded like so much fun to play with. Oh!  I just got an inkling of what the problem might be. It’s possible that you don’t think you *are* capable of meeting her needs – that playing with her or whatever, trying the things I’ve described, won’t be good enough because "it’s just you".  But you are the most important person in her world.  Please don’t underestimate your own importance here.  I so much want to help, and I know I’m starting to get pushy and I’m trying not to…but this is all I can do.

*nod*  That IS part of it.  Even though we’re always coconscious we really need to work on communication between us.  I feel inadequate when it comes to helping her with stuff cause there’s a lot of guilt there on both sides.  I feel guilty because I ignored her existence for so long and because I haven’t exactly been the best caregiver for her.  I get the feeling from her vibes that she kinda blames me for not protecting her from the icky people.  But we don’t communicate very well so I always feel awkward when I try to play with her cause I’m not sure she wants me around.  And since we don’t have good communication right now – I feel like I should start with simpler issues in our discussions. We all send hugs and warm thoughts and warm wishes and caring and affection and stuff, to both you, Rainstar, and lilrainy too.  Blue especially opens his arms to lilrainy and hugs her tight to his chest, putting his hand to the back of her head to guide it to his shoulder.  Then he rocks her back and forth with all the love that’s in him.  Cuz she’s "one of his" now – someone he cares about.  And she’s hurting.  And of *course* she can cry when she comes over here!  The only rule for coming to visit here is to be exactly who you are – who you need to be, even if that means crying or throwing a temper tantrum or anything like that. Gloriana says "Heck, you can even break stuff.  Cuz I can fix it in the blink of an eye.  :) "

Thanks.  All of you are a great comfort to us.  I think lilrainy was afraid of crying with Blue cause in the past she’s seen posts where he’s vented about not liking the crying and feeling helpless and stuff.  She cares lots about him too and didn’t wanna cause him undue pain.  And we appreciate the permission to even break stuff, but we try really really REALLY hard not to do that cause that’s what the m*mmy does when she’s mad – she throws stuff and it often breaks so we don’t want to be like her. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The second thing that occurs to me that you could do to help her would be to identify people in your life who might be ok with having lilrainy come out on occasion.  If you make this a mission, something that’s important *to you*, it might be a lot easier than you think.  I’ve discovered lots of people in my life who are ok with me being little around them.  And I don’t have to tell them anymore – I can just "be myself", that is, just switch when it feels natural, and be little for awhile and switch out when it feels like I’m "done".  To get to that point, I went thru several months of awkwardness because the kids had to *know* it was ok for them to be out, and to do this they came out for extended amounts of time per person, which could be a bit of a trial on them…but that was sorta the point?  We had to know whether they were gonna get angry with us being little and tell us to knock it off.  All-in-all it was a positive experience.

*nod* Took this piece of advice to heart and tried this morning by asking our friends if we can have her Christmas there.  They’re some of my oldest and dearest friends so I hope they’ll be okay with her. I think I will ask my B*ble study group when we start meeting again in January.  Must admit that I’m scared to death to ask them cause that means having to explain and am always afraid that people are going to think we’re crazy or that I imagine her or something. So – no defeatist attitude here, with regards to finding someone(s) safe for lilrainy to come out around.  Be militant.  This is something important, and requires an adult, objective eye.  Everyone has a "child within", whether they acknowledge it or not.  Even the jerk in my gaming group turned into a little kid when he saw my playdoh keychain.  He played with it for almost 10 minutes, chuckling gleefully, eyes lit up.  It was an amazing transformation.  BTW: he’s "the jerk" cuz he doesn’t "believe" the DID – he thinks I’m just trying to get attention.  I asked him why that was so bad.  ;)  But anyways…  The thing is that I could be dyenths around him cuz he was little right then.  And he doesn’t have DID.

Thanks. We needed this "kick in the rear" to get us thinking straight again.  Seriously.  We appreciate someone telling us to snap out of it.  Sometimes we need that extra push to get us back into reality and out of the funk.  Once we start going down it’s hard to swim outta the depression. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – So most people, in my experience, if they care about you, will understand your need to be lilrainy around them.  If there are people who know about her already (your ch*rch group?), start with them.  Let them know that maybe it’s a little weird, but you need their help (people love being asked for help, especially when it doesn’t cost them a dime or any effort) and tell them that you don’t have anyone

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<snipping all my old stuff Okay.. here’s the follow up now that we’ve had our session with t. Which went absolutely, remarkably well.  BUT, we’re going to spoiler this because my t. is also my p*st*r which means this is going to entail a lot of talk about r*l*g*on and issues related to r*l*gion. But there’s some psychological stuff too cause my t. does have a degree in counseling – not just as a p*st*r.  I’ll try to remember splats below but I’m not always too good at that. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 a b c d e f g h i j k l Okay.. think that should be enough.  We went to counseling and things went really well though it was a tough session cause it was a lot of work.  Mainly because I was trying to communicate for two of us as for some reason lilrainy still won’t come out and talk to t. by herself. Our f*ith means a lot to us and is a large part of our life. Consequently, with seeing our p*stor as our t a lot of the ways we work through things are through pr*y*r and stuff.  Just so ya know and it’s not a surprise when I’m talking about it below. When we got there we started talking about Chr*stm*s and how each other’s was and that was a nice lead-in for me because it allowed me a little segue into talking about the pain and hurt there so I didn’t like just dump this whole big thing right off the bat.  If that makes sense. I’m happy to say that lilrainy was easy to talk to last night but I’m not positive that it will apply to our one-on-one conversations.  I think some of the reason I had an easy time getting her to talk was because our t. was asking the questions and not me.  But she wouldn’t come right out and talk to him… haven’t gotten an answer on why yet.  *shrug*  Not that important right now. Anyways.  We talked a lot about how lilrainy feels that it’s her fault that Mikko left and how she feels hurt that he left.  T. asked lilrainy to just listen to him for a minute, so we relaxed to listen (I already had my eyes closed to help me "see" inside and "see" us talking).  He went on for like a full minute or two talking about how it was not her fault that Mikko left, that he’s the one who made the decision to leave and he’s the one who betrayed her, that it wasn’t anything *she* did to make him go away.  Then she was worried that he just got tired of her being around, so t. talked to her about how she’ll really never be able to know that cause she doesn’t know what was going on inside Mikko’s mind, but it was still his choice to leave and she wasn’t to blame.  He wondered if perhaps she could forgive Mikko for leaving her, to give some closure.  He explained that forgiving didn’t mean she couldn’t feel the hurt or sadness or anger, that it just meant that she was letting go of the idea that he had to come back and fix the mess he made – that it was more like saying a goodbye to him – accepting that it was *his* choice that he left and not expecting him to come back.  She agreed to do it and felt *SO* much better about it.  Now we can think of him and at least today, our heart doesn’t wrench at just the thought of him. T. had me apologize to lilrainy for inadvertently hurting her by not paying attention to her and not making her feel important.  All I really got out of her was a shoulder shrug and a "it’s okay." like you get from little kids when they’ve already forgotten about what they were supposed to be mad at.  Ya know what I mean?  So that was a plus. T. talked to her about wanting a friend and what type of friend she wanted.  He wondered what she thought about J*s*s being her friend. They talked a bit how she was a little afraid that J*s*s might leave her like Mikko did.  T. gently talked to her about how J*s*s loves her and that He wouldn’t leave her and that there was nothing she could do bad enough to push J*s*s away from her.  She thought that was okay but she wanted a real life friend that she could touch and go places with and even though she knew J*s*s was real, it wasn’t the same since he didn’t have a physical body.  T. thought this was cute and said that he thought J*s*s could understand that. T. talked to me about perhaps finding a friend for her.  He came up with a name and we’re thinking and pr*ying about it cause it’s not someone either one of us have actually met, so we’ll see.  He told me to be thinking about the people in our kinships who we’ve become friends with and see if there’s anyone there that perhaps we could try.  After counseling we went out with a bunch of our friends from kinship to celebrate a b*rthd*y and we have some ideas of who might be good, but haven’t actually approached anyone yet.  T. liked the idea that I got a couple of presents for lilrainy since she didn’t get anything this year because of no Mikko. That’s pretty much it.  He told us to really practice on talking to each other – finding quiet places to go just to get together and talk with no distractions.  So we’ll see. Dayzie, I don’t know if any of that will help you or not because I don’t know what role, if any, f*ith plays in your life.  But I hope it helps at least a little. Rainstar

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butt in all ya like.  just glad i’m making connections possible for people. analyzing myself is my favorite hobby.  i indulge it a lot. on thinking abt this some more, wanna spoiler for memories of phys abs stuff – not too much, just can’t talk abt what i wanna say without referencing phys abs. add-on – spoiler amended for lotsa cussin.  & emot abs.  & rush lyrics.  just gotta be careful with those rush lyrics…..;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . there’s something I’ve had problems getting my mind to wrap itself around for awhile.  My fthr used to apologize to me after he’d "lose his temper" and hit me.  I’ve never quite been sure what effect this had on me. Because I *don’t* feel like it made it ok for me to *express* my hurt – that wasn’t safe in my house.  Maybe it made it safe for me to feel it inside some?  Like, more than I would have if he hadn’t apologized? Or maybe (warning, I’ve tied myself up in some pretty complicated knots trying to make my world make sense.  knots coming up…) maybe that’s what made me feel guilty about "making" (or causing) other people (to) do things to hurt me that they’ll feel badly about. Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me. how i felt when he apologized, it’s just….weird. There was a pattern.  yell, yell, yell, hit for awhile, me escape to my room, trying desperately not to start crying before I left his presence.  It was so important that he not know he’d hurt me.  Like somehow my silence was supposed to be condemnation or something.  Cuz he’d apologized before…so I knew that he hit because he lost control…… maybe i’ll come back to that. it was like…what i’d done wrong was to make him angry, to make him lose control.  "wrong" – stuff like staying out after curfew, getting bad grades, whatever – those things were handled thru punishments like being grounded – no tv, no phone, grounded to my room after dinner, whatever.  But those things weren’t a big deal.  They were in an entirely different category from "wrong" being making dad mad. Heck, I got arrested for shoplifting when I was 15, and I don’t even remember what his punishment was – probably grounded for awhile.  *shrugs*  But he didn’t hit me. No, he’d hit me for stuff like sticking to my guns and saying "Yes, I *did* clean the kitchen!  That speck of dust on the otherwise spotless floor just now blew in from the living room because the window’s open!"  That was talking back, you see.  Oh, and he’d call me a liar for that, too. Cuz *clearly* the kitchen wasn’t clean.  There was a speck of dust on the floor.  Never mind the fact that I’d washed down the fronts of the cupboards and cleaned the teapot, too, just for completeness sake.  Doesn’t hit me for breaking the law.  Pummelled me good for daring to defy him when he was being fucking totally irrational. And then he’d fucking apologize to me, the son of a bitch. What the fuck is this bullshit???  If you’re so fucking sorry you hit me, don’t fucking hit me again, you bastard! Like I’m not even allowed to hate you now, cuz you apologized, so now I’m supposed to forgive you??  That’s not gonna make the fucking bruises go away, asshole!  That’s not gonna make the pain go away. <And I felt so guilty for not being good.  That’s bullshit, Jen.  You didn’t do anything wrong. <I made him angry. Bullshit.  <I didn’t mean to make him angry.  I just couldn’t …*do* whatever he needed me to do…I couldn’t tell what it was he was gonna get mad about!  I didn’t know!!!  And then I’d feel so stupid for not being able to keep him from getting angry…but he *said* it wasn’t my fault!  He’d *tell* me it wasn’t when he’d apologize…but then when he was yelling at me the next time, he’d tell me it *was* my fault.  It was like…..he’d say things because he was supposed to say them, but then he’d do whatever he wanted to do.  No connection between words and deeds.  So I’m supposed to know the truth – that it wasn’t my fault, yet continue to act like I believed it was my fault, because otherwise if I acted like it *wasn’t* my fault, if I believed him, I’d get hit again.  He lied to me. (go on, Jen.  You can keep talking.) That’s what hurt so much was that he’d tell me it wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t matter.  I wasn’t worth the effort it took him to keep from losing control.  That’s not even it. Because it just really seemed like he *couldn’t* keep his cool.  I knew he wasn’t rational.  But he wasn’t always *ir*rational, so I couldn’t assume he was one or the other. It was intolerable, but I had to tolerate it.  I had no choices.  No options.  I couldn’t get away from him.  I knew was something wrong with him.  But I had to act like he was perfect because it wasn’t safe for me to do otherwise.  But he’s smart enough to know that what he was doing would have an effect on me, and he did the things he was "supposed" to do to fix what he was doing wrong – that’s where apologizing came in.  So I couldn’t "wallow" in the hurt, because that would mean that he didn’t do what he was supposed to do good enough, and he would yell at me for …for showing any signs that he’d hurt me.  Because it made him feel guilty.  And he couldn’t live with that knowledge, because he *did* love me. I know that, too.  I know he loved me.  It was *so hard*! I had to lie to myself constantly, had to decide which set of lies to believe that day.  Did I believe the "Dad’s just an asshole" mindset, which could get me hit because I would stick up for myself if he were irrational, or did I go with "there’s something wrong with me" mindset that could get me hit because I’d cringe from him in fear, making him feel guilty, which he couldn’t handle, so he’d strike out at whatever was closest to stop the pain inside of him? I couldn’t win.  All I could do was the best I could, and hope I lived long enough that sufficient thpy could fix the damage. Somewhere, sometime in the last 6 months or so, I started believing again.  I started hoping again.  Believing that I’m the equal of any other person on this earth.  I started hoping that …"hoping that tomorrow we’ll all be free" – Rush  "Sickness to insanity.  Prayer to profanity.  Days and years and months go by.  Don’t feel the hunger; too weak to cry. …  All that we can do is just survive.  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." *sigh*  Got that album in my early teens (on record, no less).  I think it gave some definition – that song especially – to how I needed to proceed in life. It was all just so hard…  "Mother did it need to be so…high?" -Pink Floyd, The Wall not sure what purpose that all served, what i wrote…if nothing else i got some crying done.  and, since we’re totally snowed in here in Buffalo, I gotta spend my time doing something.  :)  Besides make snow angels.  :) later, dyenths

Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt. Whew! You’s come up with some doozies! Now I’m glad we

were able to apologize to the (outside) kids as much as we did through the years because of what you just said… that it made it ok for them to feel the h*rt (and that means we acknowledged their h*rt). And yes, I too can see how that

would help insiders. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hope you’s don’t mind us butting in, again.  :/ Dayzie

Response:

One ringy-dingy.  sniff sniff snort.  Two ringy-dingy.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – butt in all ya like.  just glad i’m making connections possible for people. analyzing myself is my favorite hobby.  i indulge it a lot. on thinking abt this some more, wanna spoiler for memories of phys abs stuff – not too much, just can’t talk abt what i wanna say without referencing phys abs. add-on – spoiler amended for lotsa cussin.  & emot abs.  & rush lyrics.  just gotta be careful with those rush lyrics…..;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . there’s something I’ve had problems getting my mind to wrap itself around for awhile.  My fthr used to apologize to me after he’d "lose his temper" and hit me.  I’ve never quite been sure what effect this had on me. Because I *don’t* feel like it made it ok for me to *express* my hurt – that wasn’t safe in my house.  Maybe it made it safe for me to feel it inside some?  Like, more than I would have if he hadn’t apologized? Or maybe (warning, I’ve tied myself up in some pretty complicated knots trying to make my world make sense.  knots coming up…) maybe that’s what made me feel guilty about "making" (or causing) other people (to) do things to hurt me that they’ll feel badly about. Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me. how i felt when he apologized, it’s just….weird. There was a pattern.  yell, yell, yell, hit for awhile, me escape to my room, trying desperately not to start crying before I left his presence.  It was so important that he not know he’d hurt me.  Like somehow my silence was supposed to be condemnation or something.  Cuz he’d apologized before…so I knew that he hit because he lost control…… maybe i’ll come back to that. it was like…what i’d done wrong was to make him angry, to make him lose control.  "wrong" – stuff like staying out after curfew, getting bad grades, whatever – those things were handled thru punishments like being grounded – no tv, no phone, grounded to my room after dinner, whatever.  But those things weren’t a big deal.  They were in an entirely different category from "wrong" being making dad mad. Heck, I got arrested for shoplifting when I was 15, and I don’t even remember what his punishment was – probably grounded for awhile.  *shrugs*  But he didn’t hit me. No, he’d hit me for stuff like sticking to my guns and saying "Yes, I *did* clean the kitchen!  That speck of dust on the otherwise spotless floor just now blew in from the living room because the window’s open!"  That was talking back, you see.  Oh, and he’d call me a liar for that, too. Cuz *clearly* the kitchen wasn’t clean.  There was a speck of dust on the floor.  Never mind the fact that I’d washed down the fronts of the cupboards and cleaned the teapot, too, just for completeness sake.  Doesn’t hit me for breaking the law.  Pummelled me good for daring to defy him when he was being fucking totally irrational. And then he’d fucking apologize to me, the son of a bitch. What the fuck is this bullshit???  If you’re so fucking sorry you hit me, don’t fucking hit me again, you bastard! Like I’m not even allowed to hate you now, cuz you apologized, so now I’m supposed to forgive you??  That’s not gonna make the fucking bruises go away, asshole!  That’s not gonna make the pain go away. <And I felt so guilty for not being good.  That’s bullshit, Jen.  You didn’t do anything wrong. <I made him angry. Bullshit.  <I didn’t mean to make him angry.  I just couldn’t …*do* whatever he needed me to do…I couldn’t tell what it was he was gonna get mad about!  I didn’t know!!!  And then I’d feel so stupid for not being able to keep him from getting angry…but he *said* it wasn’t my fault!  He’d *tell* me it wasn’t when he’d apologize…but then when he was yelling at me the next time, he’d tell me it *was* my fault.  It was like…..he’d say things because he was supposed to say them, but then he’d do whatever he wanted to do.  No connection between words and deeds.  So I’m supposed to know the truth – that it wasn’t my fault, yet continue to act like I believed it was my fault, because otherwise if I acted like it *wasn’t* my fault, if I believed him, I’d get hit again.  He lied to me. (go on, Jen.  You can keep talking.) That’s what hurt so much was that he’d tell me it wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t matter.  I wasn’t worth the effort it took him to keep from losing control.  That’s not even it. Because it just really seemed like he *couldn’t* keep his cool.  I knew he wasn’t rational.  But he wasn’t always *ir*rational, so I couldn’t assume he was one or the other. It was intolerable, but I had to tolerate it.  I had no choices.  No options.  I couldn’t get away from him.  I knew was something wrong with him.  But I had to act like he was perfect because it wasn’t safe for me to do otherwise.  But he’s smart enough to know that what he was doing would have an effect on me, and he did the things he was "supposed" to do to fix what he was doing wrong – that’s where apologizing came in.  So I couldn’t "wallow" in the hurt, because that would mean that he didn’t do what he was supposed to do good enough, and he would yell at me for …for showing any signs that he’d hurt me.  Because it made him feel guilty.  And he couldn’t live with that knowledge, because he *did* love me. I know that, too.  I know he loved me.  It was *so hard*! I had to lie to myself constantly, had to decide which set of lies to believe that day.  Did I believe the "Dad’s just an asshole" mindset, which could get me hit because I would stick up for myself if he were irrational, or did I go with "there’s something wrong with me" mindset that could get me hit because I’d cringe from him in fear, making him feel guilty, which he couldn’t handle, so he’d strike out at whatever was closest to stop the pain inside of him? I couldn’t win.  All I could do was the best I could, and hope I lived long enough that sufficient thpy could fix the damage. Somewhere, sometime in the last 6 months or so, I started believing again.  I started hoping again.  Believing that I’m the equal of any other person on this earth.  I started hoping that …"hoping that tomorrow we’ll all be free" – Rush  "Sickness to insanity.  Prayer to profanity.  Days and years and months go by.  Don’t feel the hunger; too weak to cry. …  All that we can do is just survive.  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." *sigh*  Got that album in my early teens (on record, no less).  I think it gave some definition – that song especially – to how I needed to proceed in life. It was all just so hard…  "Mother did it need to be so…high?" -Pink Floyd, The Wall not sure what purpose that all served, what i wrote…if nothing else i got some crying done.  and, since we’re totally snowed in here in Buffalo, I gotta spend my time doing something.  :)  Besides make snow angels.  :) later, dyenths Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt. Whew! You’s come up with some doozies! Now I’m glad we were able to apologize to the (outside) kids as much as we did through the years because of what you just said… that it made it ok for them to feel the h*rt (and that means we acknowledged their h*rt). And yes, I too can see how that would help insiders. Hope you’s don’t mind us butting in, again.  :/ Dayzie

Response:

Rainstar writes… When we got there we started talking about

Chr*stm*s and how each other’s was and that was a nice lead-in for me because it allowed me a

little segue into talking about the pain and hurt there so I didn’t like just dump this whole big thing right

off the bat.  If that makes sense. Oh yes it makes sense. A lead-in into what’s been on your heart(s) lately. That worked out good!  :D) Okay, ganna spoiler for talk of r*lg*n too… * * * * * * * * I tried to talk to you’s about where we are with fa*th but it got way too complicated. So, just deleted and ganna keep this easy and let ya’s know that everything you’s T said and suggested was VERY good and sweet, thoughtful, insightful, caring (all the things you and lilrainy need too!) We have yet to tell ANYone else about our dx and it gives me shudders just thinking of having to think of having to ‘pick’ someone to help with the littles. You sure can pr*y about that. If this ever comes up for us, we/ll TRY to remember to tell ya about it, k? *I* am so afraid that if I take mine to the park, for instance, and let them ‘out’ to play, that I will ‘come to’ with someone asking me if I’m okay. Maybe hubby could take them sometime. I guess the privacy of the h*me is the best place for u/s to start. They having such a hard time being co*ped up inside and are so SO SO SO easily triggered when we see outsider littles and THAT is when I can tell most that mine are in need of time out to play and express and be. Thank you for sharing you’s session on this issue. Lotsa good advise that I can ponder now too.  :D) Dayzie

Response:

dyenths writes… Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that

they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me.

Well, I read you’s post on guilt/apologies. Yes, kinda hard to follow but did follow most of it. I was at WalMart the other day and saw a boy sitting in the * * * * * and he accidently knocked something off a shelf and the mthr started sl*pp*ng him all over his head, y*lling at him for the item falling and the boy yelled several times "I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" INSTA panic inside. The store got dark and the stomach ground into a knot and the sound tried to close off. And after this ’scene’ ended, and we moved on with our shopping, I thought a bit about the boy’s reaction. (One of these days we’re ganna knock mthr on her ass!) For us, we have someone inside who CONSTANTLY apologizes. This is yet another issue which *I* haven’t begun to explore but I know that apologizing is very important to whomever inside to keep them calm and like other traits from other parts, I carry a lot of that (need to apologize) in *me* now too. "I’m sorry" is a protective form of submission and one we don’t need to use so much anymore. (But try explaining THAT inside.) Maybe when I’m less dissy I can reread your post on how you break it down (the roots of your need to apologize) and see if we can find any experiential clues to our similar need to do the same. Thank you dyenths, Dayzie

Response:

yeah, what you described does sound like how Gloriana used to be. sorry my stuff gets so involved.  it’s a labyrinth inside my head.  i like wandering around in there, but it’s *so* easy to get lost with only my descriptions as a guide.  makes perfect sense to *me*, of course!  :) be well… dyenths

dyenths writes… Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me. Well, I read you’s post on guilt/apologies. Yes, kinda

hard to follow but did follow most of it. I was at WalMart the other day and saw

a boy sitting in the cart seat, too big imo but….    better spoiler for talk * * * * * and he accidently knocked something off a shelf and the

mthr started sl*pp*ng him all over his head, y*lling at him for the item falling and the boy yelled several times "I’m sorry! I’m sorry!" INSTA panic inside. The store got dark and the stomach ground into a knot and the sound tried to

close off. And after this ’scene’ ended, and we moved on with our shopping, I thought a bit about the boy’s reaction. (One of these days we’re ganna knock mthr on her ass!) For us, we have someone inside who CONSTANTLY apologizes. This is yet another issue which *I* haven’t begun to explore but I know that apologizing is very important to whomever inside to keep them calm and like

other traits from other parts, I carry a lot of that (need to apologize) in *me*

now too. "I’m sorry" is a protective form of submission and one we don’t need to use so much anymore. (But try explaining THAT inside.) Maybe when I’m less dissy I can reread your post on how you break it down (the roots of

your need to apologize) and see if we can find any experiential clues to our

similar need to do the – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – same. Thank you dyenths, Dayzie

Response:

I am sorry you/s bes afraid to play in the park.  I did go sliding in the park lots and no one ever ask me if I am okay, and swinging, too, and skipping and stuff.  But I am just a kind of person who wears anything like long scarves and shawls and skirts and lots of jewelry and make-ups and whatevers for hair stuffs and things and I just like to have funs in whatever ways I can, and it works for me.  I wish it could be not so scary for everyones, because I think *everyones* in the whole world needs to have a whole lots more fun and that way maybe we wouldn’t h*rts each other so muchs. Beauty. — To email me, remove "nospam" from my address. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Rainstar writes… When we got there we started talking about Chr*stm*s and how each other’s was and that was a nice lead-in for me because it allowed me a little segue into talking about the pain and hurt there so I didn’t like just dump this whole big thing right off the bat.  If that makes sense. Oh yes it makes sense. A lead-in into what’s been on your heart(s) lately. That worked out good!  :D) Okay, ganna spoiler for talk of r*lg*n too… * * * * * * * * I tried to talk to you’s about where we are with fa*th but it got way too complicated. So, just deleted and ganna keep this easy and let ya’s know that everything you’s T said and suggested was VERY good and sweet, thoughtful, insightful, caring (all the things you and lilrainy need too!) We have yet to tell ANYone else about our dx and it gives me shudders just thinking of having to think of having to ‘pick’ someone to help with the littles. You sure can pr*y about that. If this ever comes up for us, we/ll TRY to remember to tell ya about it, k? *I* am so afraid that if I take mine to the park, for instance, and let them ‘out’ to play, that I will ‘come to’ with someone asking me if I’m okay. Maybe hubby could take them sometime. I guess the privacy of the h*me is the best place for u/s to start. They having such a hard time being co*ped up inside and are so SO SO SO easily triggered when we see outsider littles and THAT is when I can tell most that mine are in need of time out to play and express and be. Thank you for sharing you’s session on this issue. Lotsa good advise that I can ponder now too.  :D) Dayzie

Response:

Connections —  Telephone Operators –  Lily Tomblin

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – ? One ringy-dingy.  sniff sniff snort.  Two ringy-dingy. butt in all ya like.  just glad i’m making connections possible for people. analyzing myself is my favorite hobby.  i indulge it a lot. on thinking abt this some more, wanna spoiler for memories of phys abs stuff – not too much, just can’t talk abt what i wanna say without referencing phys abs. add-on – spoiler amended for lotsa cussin.  & emot abs. & rush lyrics.  just gotta be careful with those rush lyrics…..;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . there’s something I’ve had problems getting my mind to wrap itself around for awhile.  My fthr used to apologize to me after he’d "lose his temper" and hit me.  I’ve never quite been sure what effect this had on me. Because I *don’t* feel like it made it ok for me to *express* my hurt – that wasn’t safe in my house.  Maybe it made it safe for me to feel it inside some?  Like, more than I would have if he hadn’t apologized? Or maybe (warning, I’ve tied myself up in some pretty complicated knots trying to make my world make sense. knots coming up…) maybe that’s what made me feel guilty about "making" (or causing) other people (to) do things to hurt me that they’ll feel badly about. Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me. of how i felt when he apologized, it’s just….weird. There was a pattern.  yell, yell, yell, hit for awhile, me escape to my room, trying desperately not to start crying before I left his presence.  It was so important that he not know he’d hurt me.  Like somehow my silence was supposed to be condemnation or something.  Cuz he’d apologized before…so I knew that he hit because he lost control…… maybe i’ll come back to that. it was like…what i’d done wrong was to make him angry, to make him lose control.  "wrong" – stuff like staying out after curfew, getting bad grades, whatever – those things were handled thru punishments like being grounded – no tv, no phone, grounded to my room after dinner, whatever. But those things weren’t a big deal.  They were in an entirely different category from "wrong" being making dad mad. Heck, I got arrested for shoplifting when I was 15, and I don’t even remember what his punishment was – probably grounded for awhile.  *shrugs*  But he didn’t hit me. No, he’d hit me for stuff like sticking to my guns and saying "Yes, I *did* clean the kitchen!  That speck of dust on the otherwise spotless floor just now blew in from the living room because the window’s open!"  That was talking back, you see.  Oh, and he’d call me a liar for that, too. Cuz *clearly* the kitchen wasn’t clean.  There was a speck of dust on the floor.  Never mind the fact that I’d washed down the fronts of the cupboards and cleaned the teapot, too, just for completeness sake.  Doesn’t hit me for breaking the law.  Pummelled me good for daring to defy him when he was being fucking totally irrational. And then he’d fucking apologize to me, the son of a bitch. What the fuck is this bullshit???  If you’re so fucking sorry you hit me, don’t fucking hit me again, you bastard! Like I’m not even allowed to hate you now, cuz you apologized, so now I’m supposed to forgive you??  That’s not gonna make the fucking bruises go away, asshole!  That’s not gonna make the pain go away. <And I felt so guilty for not being good.  That’s bullshit, Jen.  You didn’t do anything wrong. <I made him angry. Bullshit.  <I didn’t mean to make him angry.  I just couldn’t …*do* whatever he needed me to do…I couldn’t tell what it was he was gonna get mad about!  I didn’t know!!!  And then I’d feel so stupid for not being able to keep him from getting angry…but he *said* it wasn’t my fault!  He’d *tell* me it wasn’t when he’d apologize…but then when he was yelling at me the next time, he’d tell me it *was* my fault.  It was like…..he’d say things because he was supposed to say them, but then he’d do whatever he wanted to do.  No connection between words and deeds. So I’m supposed to know the truth – that it wasn’t my fault, yet continue to act like I believed it was my fault, because otherwise if I acted like it *wasn’t* my fault, if I believed him, I’d get hit again.  He lied to me. (go on, Jen.  You can keep talking.) That’s what hurt so much was that he’d tell me it wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t matter.  I wasn’t worth the effort it took him to keep from losing control.  That’s not even it. Because it just really seemed like he *couldn’t* keep his cool.  I knew he wasn’t rational.  But he wasn’t always *ir*rational, so I couldn’t assume he was one or the other. It was intolerable, but I had to tolerate it.  I had no choices.  No options.  I couldn’t get away from him.  I knew there was something wrong with him.  But I had to act like he was perfect because it wasn’t safe for me to do otherwise. But he’s smart enough to know that what he was doing would have an effect on me, and he did the things he was "supposed" to do to fix what he was doing wrong – that’s where apologizing came in.  So I couldn’t "wallow" in the hurt, because that would mean that he didn’t do what he was supposed to do good enough, and he would yell at me for …for showing any signs that he’d hurt me.  Because it made him feel guilty. And he couldn’t live with that knowledge, because he *did* love me. I know that, too.  I know he loved me.  It was *so hard*! I had to lie to myself constantly, had to decide which set of lies to believe that day.  Did I believe the "Dad’s just an asshole" mindset, which could get me hit because I would stick up for myself if he were irrational, or did I go with "there’s something wrong with me" mindset that could get me hit because I’d cringe from him in fear, making him feel guilty, which he couldn’t handle, so he’d strike out at whatever was closest to stop the pain inside of him? I couldn’t win.  All I could do was the best I could, and hope I lived long enough that sufficient thpy could fix the damage. Somewhere, sometime in the last 6 months or so, I started believing again.  I started hoping again.  Believing that I’m the equal of any other person on this earth.  I started hoping that …"hoping that tomorrow we’ll all be free" – Rush  "Sickness to insanity.  Prayer to profanity.  Days and years and months go by.  Don’t feel the hunger; too weak to cry. …  All that we can do is just survive.  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." *sigh*  Got that album in my early teens (on record, no less).  I think it gave some definition – that song especially – to how I needed to proceed in life. It was all just so hard…  "Mother did it need to be so…high?" -Pink Floyd, The Wall not sure what purpose that all served, what i wrote…if nothing else i got some crying done.  and, since we’re totally snowed in here in Buffalo, I gotta spend my time doing something.  :)  Besides make snow angels.  :) later, dyenths Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt. Whew! You’s come up with some doozies! Now I’m glad we were able to apologize to the (outside) kids as much as we did through the years because of what you just said… that it made it ok for them to feel the h*rt (and that means we acknowledged their h*rt). And yes, I too can see how that would help insiders. Hope you’s don’t mind us butting in, again.  :/ Dayzie

Response:

Wish we could go play with yous. don’t got a park by my house and no slide i miss shcool

Response:

Hiya, Dayzie.  just a thing before I finish reading the rest of your response. I … am … *NOT*  "sweet" OR "cuddly" OR "nice".  -Blue *glower, glower* <Gloriana, stop teasing blue. {But he’s so *easy* to tease!!!  *Gloriana stomps around inside world imitating Blue* "Oh, I’m a mean one – Mr. Blue!  My heart’s an empty cage!"  *growl, growl, gruff-uff-uff!*  Careful! Don’t look at me crosseyed!!  You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry….."*fierce frown*} <Ok, Gloriana, that’s enough. {But, but, but!!!  I was just getting warmed up!  *pout*} Dayzie, I sincerely apologize if we’ve given you the mistaken impression that all is sweetness and light on this side of the keyboard.  Perhaps our ways have gotten a touch more refined this year, but I assure you that there is no lack of crassness or other vices available here.  -Luc Do I *really* come across as a goody-two-shoes?  I mean, I *am*, I suppose…..*sigh*  Perhaps I should have a Pollyanna, instead of a Gloriana.  Hey, G, you sure you didn’t just get your name wrong? {uh, oh…..Blue just shifted fully onto first} d*mn.  There’s not a d*mned thing I can say to "defend" myself, cuz if I say I’m mean and nasty, the kids here get upset.  I h8 caring about people…..*grr*  But if I *don’t* expose my true nature, I look like a creampuff…*sneers at screen* [ed. note: Blue gets twitchy (ie: triggery, scared) when people think he's not tough as nails.  He can't "do his job" if he's nice.  Never mind the fact that neither he nor anyone else in the system wants him ever to have to do his job.  It hurts him to do it.]  <ok, yup…he’s triggered pretty good.  This huge pit of sadness just opened up, from thinking about Blue having had to do his job, which was to be the tough guy, to yell at the ones inside to get them to "behave" so we could function well enough to survive spoilered for unsplatted cussing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . dammit!  It’s no fucking fair that i had to be hard as nails!  I should never have had to learn how to do that! I just felt so fucking trapped, and…ok, I’m deleting this… fk it… I’m gonna go work out my aggressions on the dirty dishes.  this is bullshit. blue for dyenths ps: you haven’t met Bryan yet, either.  He doesn’t come out much.  Nor do we talk about him much.  But he’s the hardest and toughest of the guys.  We’re almost superstitious about talking about him, cuz it makes him come out, then he does stuff that we wouldn’t want him to do, and he doesn’t listen to *anybody* inside.  he’s the "In case of extreme emergency" part.  Thomas is "in case of emergency" where I still want to be socially acceptable, and Blue is more the "get up and go" part of me.  Socrates (to round out the complement of guys here) is the "sit down and wait" part of me – very depressed and dissy, and Luc isn’t butch at all. He’s the brain.

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Dayzie I wish I understood how to nurture. I wish I understood that there’s a need to. I wish I could h*g the daughter. But then I say… "Na, why." and walk away. I can feel others inside wanting to reach out to her. She’s a great kid here for the week. She deserves h*gs. Am afraid if I do, I will be pretending to perform and not being true. I think I can tell that I am cutting off the nurturers! dyenths writes… For me the mode you’ve described is a highly self-protective mode, and I could never figure out a way to switch out of it when I was in it. Self-protective. Hmmmm. Didn’t think of it that way.

Voila! "I" am a protector! Hhahahahahaa!!!!! <bats eyes It’s pretty cool how T identifies protectors when we think

the ones she ID’s as such are simply trouble-makers. Not to mention what it

does for them! One of u/s has even quit c*tt*ng since he was ID’ed as such. Then we realize that YES! She (T) is SO right. Anyway…. Thank you dyenths for not judging me. I got kinda wierd after sending that post ’cause thought I sent too much when all yo/u’s and you’s is so cuddly and sweet and nice. Maybe yo/u’s and you’s have

parts like Thomas and I who are similar and so I don’t have ta try to make up

for what I said the way I have to cover myself ‘out there’. Womens is generally so

warm and fuzzy ’bout their kids and I think I must come across as cold but I’m not cold, just indifferent. But, it’s a relief to see the daughter’s mthr

come out and h*g and – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – chat and do the mthr/daughter stuff. (Hasn’t happened yet on this visit though.) I stand way clear when situations pull her (d’s mthr) out ’cause I know d. needs that. Again, HOW did I ever understand this before dx! Can you say ‘confusion’? Dayzie

Response:

sorry my stuff gets so involved.  it’s a labyrinth inside my head.  i like wandering around in there, but it’s *so* easy to get lost with only my descriptions as a guide.  makes perfect sense to *me*, of course!  :)

dont pologise we like reading all you stuffs

Response:

Dear dyenths, – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – dear Rainstar and dear lilrainy….. i’m glad this may have helped some.  it’s so hard for me to know what’s too much to say, and what’s not enough, and, and, and…and to say it in such a way that I don’t come across as too timid or too authoritative, and…and it’s tough when I have only my *words* to work with, because you can’t hear my *voice* – and my *voice* is trained!  I mean, if I say something out loud it’s so so so so so much easier to understand where I’m coming from, and I don’t have to …but words are all I have to work with here, and you guys are worth my best.  so I try.  sounds like I did ok.  I’m really glad.

*nod* Ya did fine. I think over the last several months we’ve also gotten to know you some through reading your posts and therefore have some idea of the context/feeling of the words even though we can’t actually *hear* them.  If that makes sense. I’m wiped out right now…been switching instead of shifting today, and losing time, then finding it again only to have lost other time, and it’s weird, and i can’t seem to focus on stuff for very long, otherwise I’d respond point by point…

We hope that you are doing a bit better today.  *hug*  It must be exhausting.  I know what it’s like just to try and be both of us at once so I can only imagine what it must be like to switch back and forth between many. but i’m really really glad that you asked your friend abt doing xms for lilrainy at their house.  I think it’ll be really good for both of you.

I must admit that I’m pretty nervous about this.  Only because I don’t know how they will react and I’m always so afraid of her getting hurt.  Sometimes I think that I’m more afraid than she is really.  But it’ll be a good experiment.  I hope I can coax her to come out – sometimes it’s like she’s in a closet trying to peer out and see if it’s safe to come out. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Something that I found regarding guilt between parts is that if it’s hard to communicate inside because of uncertainty abt the other’s feelings and guilt and hurt and resentment, and all kindsa stuff like that, is that it gets easier to deal with sometimes if you write a letter to that part. I’ve done this mostly thru writing posts, but then, I have no shame…;)  and I have a colossal ego that says that *clearly* anything I write is worth reading, and so….*ugh* sorry, Gloriana’s been popping in and out today.  Whoa, just shifted again.  What was I talking about? Oh, writing a letter.  Rainstar, you might be able to write a letter to lilrainy where you tell *her* that you feel bad because you think maybe she’s mad at you for not protecting her from the icky ppl, and you’re uncertain how to treat her or even if she wants you around because you don’t know exactly what she thinks about that.  I don’t actually know off the top of my head how old lilrainy is, though she sounds 4-ish to me (mainly because dyenths and sun are around 4-ish, so of *course* lilrainy is too…*self-deprecating sigh* ).  That’s not terribly important, though.

We’ll try that!  Don’t know why I didn’t think of it before now since I find writing my feelings out always makes me feel so much better (hence why I post here a lot to get my emotions on paper and have some idea of what’s really going on in my head *grin*). – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Another thing is that my T asks me, anytime one part’s feeling guilty abt how it treated another part is "Did you apologize yet?"  Usually I have.  Apologizing inside is hard sometimes for several reasons: One because "I’m sorry" is a vastly overused phrase in our society, and it takes word to make it sincere, and we’re not used to working at it.  But that’s not too big of an issue, just the first one that came out cuz it’s a pet peeve of mine.  Two is because…what was I talking about?  I’m spacy beyond belief.  Oh, there were 2 main reasons, besides my pet peeve.  One was something … (darn, forgot it again.  Ok, gonna stop externalizing everything if I can’t type fast enough to hold my thoughts.) … not thinking the other part’s gonna forgive or maybe even will take the opportunity to yell at the penitent (-tant?) one, which hurts, cuz my ‘rents did that, but they made me pologize anyway, even though they were gonna yell at me again for being bad after i pologized.  so it’s really hard for me to pologize sometimes.  other parts of me can pologize better, but it’s really hard for me.  i get scared. um, ok….where’s a switch when you need one???  (wait 5 minutes and it’ll change…*sigh*)

*nod* It was like that in our house too – apologize and you still got punished.  I’ve tried apologizing for some stuff and I get that little kid *shrug* of the shoulders like she’s forgotten about the incident. So I don’t know how effective it’s going to be but we’re going to try it some more. Ok, the other one is…feeling silly?  nah…it was, um… Huh.  it’s well gone at this point.  I probably already covered it somehow…..*sigh*  Sorry.  Well, if nothing else, it hurts.  Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt.  Cuz often I don’t feel like it’s ok for me to be hurt if another part hurts me cuz I don’t feel like I’m allowed to make them feel guilty, but then I don’t feel like I can make anyone feel guilty for hurting me.  can = am allowed to, btw.  so if someone apologizes inside for hurting me, it makes it ok for me to admit how much it hurt.

*nod* That’s it, I guess.  I’m not allowed to add anything to that.  Hope it made sense.  :) Anyways, so it might be good, even if it seems redundant cuz yer coconscious, to lay things out for lilrainy – lay yer soul bare, as much as you can, and be honest with her.  It kinda requires that you be willing to sit and listen to her response, which can be unnerving, since I’ve found for myself that it really really reinforces the fact that I really am split into different parts with different thoughts and memories and experiences and attitudes and assumptions, and, and, and…..*sheesh*

Yeah I’m not too good about doing this so it’ll be an interesting exercise.  Maybe we’ll find someplace quiet to go tomorrow or Wednesday to kinda have some time alone to talk. But the guys here have found a certain nobility in being man enough to handle reactions to stuff like that.  *rolls eyes* So, whatever…;) There was something else….why *do* I feel like I have to keep up a real time commentary of every thought that flickers through my head?  I mean, isn’t it terribly distracting to sift thru this much dreck to find the 17 words out of 3000 that are actually pertinent to something???  *sheesh*

*grin* Actually I kinda like it.  It’s an open, honest display of what’s going on in your head, so it doesn’t bother me. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Oh, then you can give lilrainy the option to do the same in return, lay things out, etc.  If communication is the problem, there’s an easy (ok, it’s not easy.  but it’s easy to *find* the answer to give to someone else…;) ) solution: practice. My T said, when I got started with this, that the coconsciousness I had would be really useful after I got farther along in figuring this stuff out, but it was gonna make the beginning work really hard.  The beginning work was hard because I had to learn to *be* separate folk, instead of working so hard at being the same person.  Cuz my parts are good enough at being codependent that if I need them to push their needs under for the good of the system, they’ll do it for as long as they can, as long as they believe it’s for the good of the system.  But it wasn’t until I started seeing them as separate entities with needs of their own, different from mine, that I was able to start working on their *issues*, which are different from mine.  And once I started doing that, it got a *lot* easier for me to tell when a particular reaction was coming from one of my parts (gonna be easier for you with just 2 of you!), rather than from *me*.  So if I were scared of somebody, I could look at the fear, tell it was from someone inside, look at that person inside, see that they were "seeing" through (hard to explain) gh0sts of flshback images – it’s kinda like a filter effect.  Hard to see what’s *actually* there because the flshback memories are …oh, fogging the lens right then.  It’s a slightly different metaphor than what i use, but what I use is too hard to explain (it looks like gh0st images on an old tv set with bad reception), but the net effect is that if someone inside is feeling fear, but it stems from something outside of what’s actually going on in the present, I’m able to deal with that and get back to interacting with the person in the *present* with my mind and reactions unclouded by the fear that previously I understood to be *real*.  Not that the fear isn’t real – it’s just an insider’s fear, not "mine" (whoever’s on first) and it has nothing to do with the person I’m talking to.

That’s where I am right now – trying to realize myself that lilrainy really is separate from me even though we’re always coconscious.  I’m doing better but still have a ways to go. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Makes life easier. Anyways, the impression I get is maybe you and lilrainy are both sorta trying not to make too many waves with the other, but in doing so, it’s impossible to see the boundaries clearly, so you’re both miserable if one’s miserable.  I’ve developed the interesting ability to switch to someone who isn’t sad if I don’t *need* to be sad right that second (there’s an awful lot of sad to

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Response:

Blue and dyenths writes… I … am … *NOT*  "sweet" OR "cuddly" OR "nice".  -Blue *glower, glower* <Gloriana, stop teasing blue. {But he’s so *easy* to tease!!!  *Gloriana stomps around inside world imitating Blue*

Yo Blue, Wasn’t talkin bout you. Or Thomas. WAs talking bout all these nice womens and littles… Dayzieyo/u’s and you’s is so cuddly and sweet and nice. Maybe yo/u’s and you’s have parts like Thomas and I who are similar and so I don’t have ta try to make up for what I said the way I have to cover myself ‘out there’.

…. who talks nice and warm fuzzys and stuff (I think it was about lilrainy needing a friend and many offering her warm fuzzys but could be wrong). I have warm fuzzys parts too but that’s not ‘me’. But, I think it’s nice. Maybe a bit jeal*us that *I* aint that way. WHAT?! Was that a feeling? hehehehe NO way!  ;D) Dayzie

Response:

Ooooh, we wish you could play w/us, too – we would play, for sure.  What kinds of things would you like to do?  Sometimes we get to play ball w/our son – but we are pretty bad at aiming, unfortunately.  We like it okay, but it is hard for us to stand up for a long time, just stand kind of in one spot, like you have to do to play pitch and catch.  So we like to do playing that is more like going on slides and stuff.  Or we like to do coloring playing (bright colors on paper), and stringing beads – now we do make jewelry that adults like, but still it can be playing for us.  What would you like to do? Beauty. — To email me, remove "nospam" from my address. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Wish we could go play with yous. don’t got a park by my house and no slide i miss shcool

Response:

?

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – One ringy-dingy.  sniff sniff snort.  Two ringy-dingy. butt in all ya like.  just glad i’m making connections possible for people. analyzing myself is my favorite hobby.  i indulge it a lot. on thinking abt this some more, wanna spoiler for memories of phys abs stuff – not too much, just can’t talk abt what i wanna say without referencing phys abs. add-on – spoiler amended for lotsa cussin.  & emot abs. & rush lyrics.  just gotta be careful with those rush lyrics…..;) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . there’s something I’ve had problems getting my mind to wrap itself around for awhile.  My fthr used to apologize to me after he’d "lose his temper" and hit me.  I’ve never quite been sure what effect this had on me. Because I *don’t* feel like it made it ok for me to *express* my hurt – that wasn’t safe in my house.  Maybe it made it safe for me to feel it inside some?  Like, more than I would have if he hadn’t apologized? Or maybe (warning, I’ve tied myself up in some pretty complicated knots trying to make my world make sense. knots coming up…) maybe that’s what made me feel guilty about "making" (or causing) other people (to) do things to hurt me that they’ll feel badly about. Like, I feel like I have to keep people from knowing that they’ve hurt me so that they won’t feel guilty for hurting me. of how i felt when he apologized, it’s just….weird. There was a pattern.  yell, yell, yell, hit for awhile, me escape to my room, trying desperately not to start crying before I left his presence.  It was so important that he not know he’d hurt me.  Like somehow my silence was supposed to be condemnation or something.  Cuz he’d apologized before…so I knew that he hit because he lost control…… maybe i’ll come back to that. it was like…what i’d done wrong was to make him angry, to make him lose control.  "wrong" – stuff like staying out after curfew, getting bad grades, whatever – those things were handled thru punishments like being grounded – no tv, no phone, grounded to my room after dinner, whatever. But those things weren’t a big deal.  They were in an entirely different category from "wrong" being making dad mad. Heck, I got arrested for shoplifting when I was 15, and I don’t even remember what his punishment was – probably grounded for awhile.  *shrugs*  But he didn’t hit me. No, he’d hit me for stuff like sticking to my guns and saying "Yes, I *did* clean the kitchen!  That speck of dust on the otherwise spotless floor just now blew in from the living room because the window’s open!"  That was talking back, you see.  Oh, and he’d call me a liar for that, too. Cuz *clearly* the kitchen wasn’t clean.  There was a speck of dust on the floor.  Never mind the fact that I’d washed down the fronts of the cupboards and cleaned the teapot, too, just for completeness sake.  Doesn’t hit me for breaking the law.  Pummelled me good for daring to defy him when he was being fucking totally irrational. And then he’d fucking apologize to me, the son of a bitch. What the fuck is this bullshit???  If you’re so fucking sorry you hit me, don’t fucking hit me again, you bastard! Like I’m not even allowed to hate you now, cuz you apologized, so now I’m supposed to forgive you??  That’s not gonna make the fucking bruises go away, asshole!  That’s not gonna make the pain go away. <And I felt so guilty for not being good.  That’s bullshit, Jen.  You didn’t do anything wrong. <I made him angry. Bullshit.  <I didn’t mean to make him angry.  I just couldn’t …*do* whatever he needed me to do…I couldn’t tell what it was he was gonna get mad about!  I didn’t know!!!  And then I’d feel so stupid for not being able to keep him from getting angry…but he *said* it wasn’t my fault!  He’d *tell* me it wasn’t when he’d apologize…but then when he was yelling at me the next time, he’d tell me it *was* my fault.  It was like…..he’d say things because he was supposed to say them, but then he’d do whatever he wanted to do.  No connection between words and deeds. So I’m supposed to know the truth – that it wasn’t my fault, yet continue to act like I believed it was my fault, because otherwise if I acted like it *wasn’t* my fault, if I believed him, I’d get hit again.  He lied to me. (go on, Jen.  You can keep talking.) That’s what hurt so much was that he’d tell me it wasn’t my fault, but it didn’t matter.  I wasn’t worth the effort it took him to keep from losing control.  That’s not even it. Because it just really seemed like he *couldn’t* keep his cool.  I knew he wasn’t rational.  But he wasn’t always *ir*rational, so I couldn’t assume he was one or the other. It was intolerable, but I had to tolerate it.  I had no choices.  No options.  I couldn’t get away from him.  I knew there was something wrong with him.  But I had to act like he was perfect because it wasn’t safe for me to do otherwise. But he’s smart enough to know that what he was doing would have an effect on me, and he did the things he was "supposed" to do to fix what he was doing wrong – that’s where apologizing came in.  So I couldn’t "wallow" in the hurt, because that would mean that he didn’t do what he was supposed to do good enough, and he would yell at me for …for showing any signs that he’d hurt me.  Because it made him feel guilty. And he couldn’t live with that knowledge, because he *did* love me. I know that, too.  I know he loved me.  It was *so hard*! I had to lie to myself constantly, had to decide which set of lies to believe that day.  Did I believe the "Dad’s just an asshole" mindset, which could get me hit because I would stick up for myself if he were irrational, or did I go with "there’s something wrong with me" mindset that could get me hit because I’d cringe from him in fear, making him feel guilty, which he couldn’t handle, so he’d strike out at whatever was closest to stop the pain inside of him? I couldn’t win.  All I could do was the best I could, and hope I lived long enough that sufficient thpy could fix the damage. Somewhere, sometime in the last 6 months or so, I started believing again.  I started hoping again.  Believing that I’m the equal of any other person on this earth.  I started hoping that …"hoping that tomorrow we’ll all be free" – Rush  "Sickness to insanity.  Prayer to profanity.  Days and years and months go by.  Don’t feel the hunger; too weak to cry. …  All that we can do is just survive.  All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive." *sigh*  Got that album in my early teens (on record, no less).  I think it gave some definition – that song especially – to how I needed to proceed in life. It was all just so hard…  "Mother did it need to be so…high?" -Pink Floyd, The Wall not sure what purpose that all served, what i wrote…if nothing else i got some crying done.  and, since we’re totally snowed in here in Buffalo, I gotta spend my time doing something.  :)  Besides make snow angels.  :) later, dyenths Cuz apologizing makes it ok for the other part to feel hurt. Whew! You’s come up with some doozies! Now I’m glad we were able to apologize to the (outside) kids as much as we did through the years because of what you just said… that it made it ok for them to feel the h*rt (and that means we acknowledged their h*rt). And yes, I too can see how that would help insiders. Hope you’s don’t mind us butting in, again.  :/ Dayzie

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