Whispers Heard as Screams

I'm going on record declaring this complete bull shit.

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I don't know what to say really.  I don't know what to feel either.

Maybe I am really okay, and it didn't hurt as badly as it seems.  Or, maybe I'm covering up the greatest pain we've ever known throughout the gift of numbness.

I'm sure I am being dramatic.  It's true; I'm not crying.  No, I'm not overly anxious.  Surely there is nothing wrong.

I mean, what damage has been done? 

Maybe the lack of feelings are because the damage is more intellectual, more cerebral.  Emotionally it's no big deal, but in my head and my thoughts I know I have been betrayed by others, and I have also betrayed myself, and by extension . . . .  Shhh.  The wind whispers:  dirty, unclean, contaminated.

You may address me as "Whore."

I may never whisper again. 

I know why you whisper, and I am sorry.  I know who you are, little one.  You are someone who doesn't want to be here anymore.  I don't blame you.  But why don't you want to be here? 

People will see my dirtiness.  Some put on an act that they enjoy it.  Maybe that is why she is confused.  What she knows and what she feels are at war with one another, and I am collateral damage.  Someone is always sacrificed. 

I sense you staring into space.  Where are you going in your mind?

Escape while I can.  Things are calm for now, but soon it will either be complete anxiety or a crushing depression that will descend upon you, and I can't survive another blow tonight.

Did you take over with Daniel?

I took over afterwards when no one else would, just like back then.

Glimpses and Misses

 

If you asked me what is wrong, I couldn’t tell you.  I would want to tell you, but I wouldn’t be able to.  I don’t know what is wrong; I only know something isn’t right.  I’ve been feeling this way off and on for two weeks.  The anxiety is palpable.  It comes in waves and crashes.  I become paralyzed, fearful, and teary. 

There have been a few times, such as tonight, when I could trace the anxiety to a member, or trace it other times when the anxiety comes at night when I’m waiting for sleep to find me.

I saw Psychiatrist recently.  He put me on an additional med, and I think it is helping with some of the depressive feelings I was having.  But nothing is helping with the anxiety. 

I’m losing time more.  I’ve lost all this afternoon.  I know “what” I did, because others have told me, but I do not have first-hand account of what took place.  The last thing I remember is running a race today and taking the subway back to our car.  I was with two other girls, and I remember thinking in my head “What if they really knew me” and I remember an off-balance feeling.  The next thing I know I’m at home seven hours later, reading a book, and wondering how I got there. 

It’s no wonder I’m switching given the amount of anxiety I feel.  But I am completely controlled by emotions of which I can’t call my own.  But I catch glimpses and it frightens me.  But I have a vague awareness someone feels so deeply empty and irreparable.  Even broken hearts continue to beat.

All the same, earlier tonight a movie came on tv that we used to watch when we were younger that would always evoke strong emotions from one of us.  Tonight, we were taken back to that exact age and started crying for no apparent reason.  It was  like déjà vu. 

While we can say there are one or two positive happenings in this, our life, there is still so much lacking.  And we are at the proverbial crossroads.  I am scared of what lies down both roads, both bends, and I am even more afraid to look.  Most especially, I am afraid it won’t even matter which path we choose; we will still end up in the same crazy place.

Internal Switching and Milestones

I’m trying to write through the anxiety. Right now I’m about to jump out of my skin. Not sure why. I was reading for school when I first noticed the anxiety welling up in my chest. Then come the switches. And these aren’t regular switches. They feel more internal than external. Like, I know when I’m switching on the outside because I feel my face change shapes; I notice my body language change; there is a different tone in my thoughts. But I have other switches that are less explanatory and more mystifying. They way I view them is more a conversation in my head that I’m not privy to. How I know this I can’t answer. It’s just a gut feeling. These “internal” switches are far more violent, jarring, and blazon their arrival and disruptiveness. Cold ice, heating pads, hot showers, and drives in the cars do nothing. I have to take a tranquilizer and then, mercifully, they quiet down. They have gotten worse of late. Everything has gotten worse of late.

Some might argue with me and tell me I had a milestone today, but it doesn’t really feel like it. I went out with a “friend” to the mall and shopped for work clothes and we then had lunch. This is a big deal on so many levels. It was nice to do something with a girlfriend. We tried on clothes and gave opinions on what we thought about what the other was wearing. The conversation flowed easily, and when there were gaps, it was an easy and comfortable silence. It scares me to death. I’m not used to starting to care about friends. And I could potentially see myself becoming close with her. I’m just not sure how she feels about me. The signs are there that she likes me, but there are always doubts with me. Why would she like me? What is there to like? I’m moody, temperamental, neurotic, wishy-washy, and when I feel someone getting close I put the brakes on and don’t let them in any farther. But on the other hand, I do think I’m caring (although I assign selfish motives to myself for that), concerned about others, and I can be thoughtful. But I am not experienced having friends so I hope I don’t blow this.

I have so much homework to do but can’t find the motivation. All I want to do is go to bed and not ever get up.

From 0 to 60

It's a painfully slow post. It's been brewing for days but, understandably, never comes to fruition. For most of the week I've been blank. Blank as in blank. Lifeless. Disconnected. Empty. Deserted. Abandoned. Meaningless.

When I tried to explain this to Therapist yesterday he didn't get it. I grappled for words. I felt inside prison walls that I just wanted to escape. (Thank you Victoria for these words.) I don't know what can be more hellacious than being blank. You feel worthless, like an outsider.

Therapist thinks being blank is another way to avoid discussing the painful details of my life. I have to agree; it just make so much sense. We are trying to be aware when we are avoiding circumstance and we really want to break the pattern, but I don't know how to get out of the blankness.

But no matter, today they pulled me out of the blankness. We went from 0 to 60, from blank to depressed and bothered in the blink of an eye. Seemed that since they were all so silent this week they had to bombard me this morning with switching and constant twirling thoughts. Nothing that brings me refuge.

So it's raining in Georgia and I haven't found a good reason to get out of bed. I realize Randy, if you're reading this, that I'm just avoiding. What I'm avoiding I don't know. Life seems too hard today to do anything but hide under the covers or watch Captain Jack Sparrow. I know this will pass. I need to privately journal with my members and find out what's going on. Easier said than done when they don't communicate back.

On the one bright spot, I filled out an on-line application for a seasonal summer job for which I've been hoping to get. Just to fill out the application was an accomplishment. I hate applying for jobs. They ask about dates of employment, supervisors' names, job duties. All the stuff I can't remember. Does anyone else have trouble with this? Well, I'm trying to keep this positive, as positive as I can be glued to the bed.

Well, despite the obstacles, I applied for a job. Yeah, us!

Disturbia

I find it disturbing and disruptive. The people behind my eyes are active and I feel pressure in my head. Does anyone else get that way when the switching is intense?

They switch back and forth, never landing on a single personality. I'm switching as I write this. They chase my thoughts away and never look back. I don't know what they want. Sometimes the switches come with memories, sometimes not. For now, the memories are silent and I am grateful.

I am scared of my members. They are scared of me, too. (A voice just told me that.) I know it sounds bad, but I'm glad they are scared of me. I can handle that. That tells me they aren't holding out because they want to punish me or hurt me. We are all hurting and holding ourselves tightly. I grapple for words.

Things have been extraordinarily difficult since our therapy session yesterday. Members were out that have never been out before. It's too much. Therapist says we can trust him, that he 's never hurt us before.

True that, but it doesn't make someone autonomously safe. More is at stake.

Reflecting on Therapist's potential to hurt us, it is concluded that he would not hurt us. He's been generous in many ways. And we know our goal is to stop avoiding the unpleasant, so we know we should just put it all out there.

Thought it's taken the reader all but 30 seconds to read thus far, know that I've sat speechless, unable to write, for twenty minutes. Words are taken away. I stare into space while the switches batter me around.

Some feel Therapist put us in our place yesterday. Some feel he was mean. I believe Therapist's words were: "supportingly confrontational." Whatever the hell it was it has taken us aback and left us disconcerted. He feels we are avoiding work and school but he is wrong. School is not an option as long as members think they can be out in class and take hours out of primary member's memory.

Other than getting through the switching, it has been a "productive" day. I call it productive when I simply get out of bed and put my makeup on. With D. out of work, we spend our days together, so I'm forced to get out of bed. We ran errands today and took our dogs for a walk. I went over to C. and O. 's house and helped O. with her Social Science work. All in all, it was a slow and easy day.

I'm tired now and I hate this mess of shifting thoughts. Regret will probably make me delete this post later as I feel embarrassed about how scattered I am.

Crowd of people

My head hurts. I just don't feel right. My alters have been all over the board today; even now, I feel them hovering around. There's not a moments peace or a moment alone.

I am proud of myself for getting out of bed and taking the documents up to our university so we may begin classes again in the Fall. Sounds weird saying that. Just earlier one of our more depressed alters was out and she was talking of death. We have the means available to us and she was playing with the patches. She seems to have cried her tears and gone back into hiding.

They've been like helicopters all day; always hovering. It wasn't that there was one or two presenting or sitting beside me, but there was a whole crowd of them inside my head, making my head swimmy and dizzy. I was by myself and taking my items up to my university, so I couldn't stop and ask D. for help.

I made it through, which is if you are looking for the bright side of things, there it is.

I feel so alone. I haven't felt well all day and so I'm missing my god-daughters orchestra recital. I hate to miss it, but I don't have the mental energy for it.

I was talking to my therapist yesterday about mental energy and she thought the fatigue might be from the depression, but I am of a different opinion. It is exhausting when the alters are coming and going and sending their thoughts and feelings and you don't know what's real and what's warbly. That's were my mental fatigue comes from, I believe. Although I do think my medication needs to be changed, I think being so tired is all about the alters coming and going. I think that's why I'm out of commission tonight: I forged ahead all day with the alters buzzine about my head.

As for last night, did I go off with Leah and work on building a friendship? No. I copped out and ran some errands with D. We ended up fighting, or someone fought with him because he apologized today and I was like, "What fight?", so I might have been better suited going to get coffee. But we made a definite date for next Wednesday,

That's all for tonight.

Switchy-poo

I don't know where I am tonight, but I felt like writing something to just check in with the cyber world.

My head is screaming in pain, my anxiety is off the scale, and I feel grotesquly fat and obese. I'm upset that I'm empty. I used to be such a good writer, though you would never know it from my blog postings. But I could say what I wanted with the words that I wanted and I would feel so complete and satisfied. Nowadays, my alters are giving me nothing to say.

You see, I don't know how other systems work, but I am merely the spokesperson, the body, the front that is presented to the world. I am made of nothing but ash, the dead relic of the first born who was killed the first time. When I speak, it seldoms comes from my own volition but, rather, the election of one of the members. And it HURTS!!!! It makes me cringe and writhe in pain to not be able to express a feeling or even experience an emotion of my own. All I can do is illiterate what they want said.

And this can cause so many problems, so many headaches. What if member A doesn't like what member B has to say, so member A tries to shut her down? An internal, vicarious mayhem insues. And I'm left holding the daggers.

That troubles me far less than just not being able to put on paper or on screen the exact way I'M feeling at the time I'm feeling it because the words aren't supplied to me. I'm not granted access. I am to be reminded that I'm a front and nothing more. I need to be more. I don't like being a blank, a shell, barren, vacuous, and an emotional, spiritual, intellectual virgin. If I am blank, then I have no value; if I have no value, then I am worthless; if I'm worthless, the ensuing question is unequivocally: why am I alive?

Must I spend the rest of my days being the frontrunner for them? And I get angry at myself for not being more appreciateive of what they've been through, but I can't help it. I know the members have done much more than I have. Which is worse, though: to have so many emotions it aches, or to have no emotion at all that it aches as bad?

To top it off, I don't remember the post before this one. They are posting without me. It upsets me because I don't know what is being said and we are supposed to agree on what gets put out to the world. I don't know. I don't know.

For the past week, we've been switching alot and they've been crawling over each other like puppies to get out. Why we can't work on and decide on a system I don't know. It seems fair for everyone to take their turn. But they aren't. I think they're pissed off about not seeing our residential therapist anymore. Either way, D. was taking me to the gym today and the switching began again, right after another, I could feel them taking over me. I made a comment to myself that we were switching again and a voice I didn't recognize called it "switchy-poo." I thought it was cute. I decided not to bring myself down by acknowlidging that it was a new voice; I just that it cute she called it switchy-poo. Things have been a little switchy-poo with us lately. :)

That's all, and more than I thought I would write. I'm still blank. Tranquilizers help a lot...so why am I still writing? :)