Great Unrealistic Expectations

My dog Maybelline is stressing me.  She wants to go on a walk, and I just don’t have it in me to get off this couch, which makes me feel like a terrible pet partner.

Taken from today’s journal:

Been a busy day.  Service, errands, back pain.  The works.  I wish I could take a muscle relaxer right now, but I’m supposed to take Mabes for walk, and I can’t do that if I’m asleep.

Times and days are running together.  I find no support anywhere.  I was doing fine until Husband came home.  I was busy packing for our move, and when he came home we started to feel “off”.  Most would call that experience dissociation.  I don’t know what to call it anymore.  There is still the troubled argument of whether we accept the D.I.D. DX.  Tina gets very angry if we accept it.  But writing and talking just like this, isn’t that a sign of dissociation and of others?  This battle gets old.  I KNOW what’s wrong.  Tina’s doubts have left an imprint on us, but not a lasting imprint.  

*****I wonder if we’re making it up as we go *****

If you have D.I.D., but don’t acknowledge it, can you still improve anyway because the prescription of psychotherapy is still the same?  I hate whatever I’m going through right now.

So I was fine until Husband came home.  Then I felt “off” or dissociative.  I lasted as long as I could but broke down and took an anti-anxiety med.  It didn’t help much.  A muscle relaxer would help, but the timing is no good.  

So why do I feel “dissociative” when Husband comes home?  Probably because he’s so temperamental and to some degree I (and the littles if there really are any) am afraid of him, his moods, his headaches, his temper, his race -car driving.  I never know which Husband I’ll meet next.  So we get scared around him.  

If D.I.D. has lots of faces, shapes, and norms, why couldn’t mine be one?  I question whether I really hear voices of others or is it just my own voice.  I guess D.I.D. has been going on so long I have failed to recognize just . . . I don’t know what I was going to say.

What am I?  I just want to be sure I’m not lying or making a fool out of myself.  Mostly it seems too much to believe.  Bad things couldn’t have happened.  I had a happy childhood.  But, oh, how I hated Birth Parents.  And it can’t be denied that at least on a superficial level there was some abuse and neglect. I own that.

Good God.  *sigh* I think we want to see Therapist more than once a week.  What bullshit.  Some feel “close” to him and have a need for his attention, so they want to see him more often.  Little children who want to feel special.  Is that good or bad?  Does that give Therapist too much power and make us even more vulnerable?  Better yet, why need more attention now?  Has their source of attention dried?  Are they not receiving attention inside?  I doubt Tina, in her crisis, is up to showering them with love and attention.

For some reason, this journal entry feels accurate. I think it's because it feels like we're communicating.  It feels true to what is going on inside, and that is a cause for mourning: Mourning for the system that doesn’t feel like it used to feel, mourning for Tina who is not the same right now and is in crisis, mourning for those parts who require more attention and special feelings, mourning for those who aren’t getting their needs met by this ever-evolving system.  

I can feel Tina seeping her way through this journal entry.  I feel her sending her hate and anger to me, but that’s not all she’s sending. I sense from Tina some subtle undertones of helplessness and vulnerability.   I sense great fear in her . . . and great sorrow.  What a pity.  I almost don’t recognize her at all.

Protecting the Protector

I want to write, and I want to call out Sheila to discuss without emotion and bias what is happening regarding Tina, particularly and her denial of D.I.D.

I'll address my surmise of how Tina feels currently.  She wants to push the agenda that there is no dissociation because she feels out of the loop.  When was the last time she really had to defend and protect us?  Okay.  Besides the handshake incident.  Other than that, not too recently.

I predict her services will be needed again, but she's not used to being in the silent role.  She's used to taking action, not sitting back.  She feels unnecessary.  Everyone here has at least one job, and Tina's job has been to protect the system.  On behalf of Tina, there's been very little need from Tina to protect us.  She feels useless and unneeded.

Imagine how she might feel.  Instead of throwing up defenses to protect the system, in a way, she is the one who needs protection . . . from herself.  Without her anger, where and how does she get her power?  She doesn't.  And she wants in a way to send the whole system on its own by denying us, make us defenseless, so she can feel powerful again.  If she denies the existence of others inside, she gets back some portion of power because she can in a sense make them go away.

What Tina needs now, regardless if she believes we have D.I.D., is for us to rally around her, wipe away her tears, and above all let her know she's needed by us.

However, I don't know how to do the latter yet.  She's the only one who seems in crises.  How do you provoke or bring her out of her defenses?  It will be important to tell her how she defends us to some degree every day.  Whether it's getting our food right at a restaurant, a price right when shopping, or making sure we have good customer service.  She speaks her mind when it comes to getting what we need.  Thank her for that.

But there's another side.  If she has no one to protect, how can she lash out at Therapist and keep him in his place.  And we have to be the ones to let Therapist know what she needs and how she's feeling.  She won't speak loudly enough of her needs.  We must do that.

Tina believes, and perhaps rightly so, that she has a special relationship with Therapist.  I know she want to feel special.  We all want to feel that way, and that will be dealt with soon.  But for now, we must acknowledge the bond she feels toward Therapist.  She spoke up for us in the past.  It's our turn to speak up for her now.

We must remember that while Tina is a Protector, even she needs protection from herself.

In regards as to whether we dissociate, more discussion must take place.  It's true, the system has shifted, and I don't feel a strong awareness of what we're dealing with here and what the system needs and what the roles are now.  I feel the system needs to get to know each other again, if we truly dissociate.  I saw someone's handwriting recently belonging to a woman named Molly.  Is she new?  Are there others that are new?  We must be open to al possibilities and communicate more as a whole.

Conversations with my imagination

Saw Therapist again.  It was another wasted session where I refuted that I dissociate or have the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder.  To complicate matters more for me, he never came out and said, "Yes, you do have D.I.D." which gives me cause for hope and despair.  If we don't have D.I.D., then what is wrong with me?  I had a happy childhood.  Most of my memories growing up are good, though there are always some you wish you could leave behind and forget.  So now we are floating all adrift, don't know where we're going, how to get there, or what to do if we ever make it there.

Tina, I'm curious.  Why do you feel the need to deny it after all these years?

It's complicated.  I feel I am no longer needed, and if you don't need me I might as well disappear.    I don't know why I was around anyway.  Nobody needs anyone.  You seem to get along fine without my intervention and that makes me unneeded and invisible.  I feel like a damned lie.

Is that why you play games with Therapist, you feel if you keep messing with him he'll be interested in your well-being and you won't be invisible.

Don't play innocent with me.  Have I not done my job, and with no gratitude?  And have I not sat back and watched others embraced by warm, fuzzy feelings only for me to return to my coldness and anger?  Do you not all want attention?   I scan the room and find hearts that want Therapist's approval and attention just as much as me.  Almost all of you want his attention and want to feel special by him.  The littles look at Therapist like he's a father figure, and I'll be damned if we become a case of transference.  I know the Littles can't help it, but should I not protect them from the embarassment and rejection they will face?  And others just need to feel cared for.   So I'm here to protect you, though I feel I've fallen short, you don't need me, and I'm exhausted.  I just don't get myself.  There's proof I'm one way and there's proof I'm another.

It's not the first time you've denied we have D.I.D.  Why again this time?  Why now?

I'm fearful.  I wonder why no one else is.  It feels like something is going to blow up inside these walls.  I have not the imagination to know what it is.   It always turns into nothing, leading to disbelief.   How can someone ever get better with out knowing what's wrong with him or her?  How can Therapist effectively treat us when we don't know what to tell him?   I don't want to talk about this further for fuck's sake, but I will say that I get tired of being the angry, tall, aggressive, protective one. I've grown tired of being on the watch for everyone.   Just once, I wish someone would see I'm crying, scoop me up, carry me away, wipe my tears away, and tell me it will be okay . . .  the same way I did for them all these fucking years. I'm over it all.

A Gluttonous Hijacking of Words

I want to talk. I really, really do.  But it's just too late.   Games are all I can do, and I've been messing with you.  At least I'm honest.

What a shame for me to annihilate chances to get help and for you to get so close to the truth and have it disappear in your hand like a puff of unicorn dust.  I don't always enjoy doing it, but we all have a call.  I supposed you could say this is mine.  And yours?  I haven't decided yet.

I do know this.  When I tell you the truth, you don't believe it.  How can I trust that?  When I say I am one, you must believe.  I told you the truth recently, and you presumptuously moved forward with a lie I've shut down.  So I dispense my guarded silence.  Doesn't matter.   It's more than I would have wanted to say anyway.

I feel like my time is done.  I must act quickly, lest even my borrowed words disapper again.  Why is it so damn hard?  I just want to feel better, but then again, I'd be okay if I just disappeared.  And that is the completion of my story.  Again, I'm sorry.  I was just messing with you.

When words just aren't enough