So Tired

Weary.

Today is a selfish day. It's a day I can't think clearly, and all I want to do is hide. I want to just pretend DID doesn't exist, that there aren't thousands of people suffering because of it.

I want to be selfish. I want to be controlling and say: "listen!! you WILL check yourself in somewhere safe. You WILL cut off your internet and by the way, phone. You will own up to reality and stop pretending. You will stop driving and putting other people at risk. You WILL seek help."

I realize that sounds terribly selfish. I realize I'm asking her to lock herself up and have pretty much no contact with reality. But she doesn't, anyway. This is just me asking her to protect others while she's out there affecting people who ARE in reality. Most of her others shouldn't drive - can't drive, don't know how. They think they're in other states. They are re-living their horrors in her mind, and goodness-knows-where in "reality".

I want to be selfish.

So instead, I isolate myself. I avoid this reality. I don't know how to BE around her, and I'm too tired to find ideas.

God, I'm lost.

So Much To Say

Okay, it's been a while. In fact, were there any "regular" readers already, they would have noticed two things, and probably neither has happened into anyone's mind.
1. I nearly took down this blog. Instead, I hid all of the posts for the last couple of months. So there was just a skeleton - a blank page with a title and profile on it. And now it's suddenly back.
2. It's been two months since my last post. Surely, anyone who might have conceivably following this would have already given up on me, right?

At any rate, things have been up and down and all around. Several paradigms have been in control of life, including a period of what might be called "normal". We're back to abnormal again (if it's "back", does that mean it's actually normal?).

There are many, many reasons I paused, and I doubt they'll ever be public for the most part. Briefly... I don't want this to control my life as well. Call me selfish, I am a bit. But I'm earnest. Also, my sister wasn't ready for this [blog]. I don't know that anyone could ever be ready, but I suppose that's life in general (this is just life in concentrate). Plenty of other thoughts and reasons and whatnot.

And I don't know where to begin again. Giving a summary would take forever to do any justice to the story (stories?). Where I'm at right now is this: switching is frustrating. Call me ridiculous for saying that, but there you have it. Of course it's ridiculously frustrating, that's just a step away from calling the sky, blue. My sister appears, or maybe appears, or someone does a good job of pretending, and then someone else doesn't, or doesn't even try...

Our phone bill... I don't even know where to begin with that one. Where do I draw a line? I fear it will be a selfish one. I don't want to be selfish and yet, I do. I want to protect myself and draw all these lines. And there you have that. I'm selfish, more than I anticipated being possible. I thought I was all "you before me" selfless, but I see lines now. I earnestly do put her well-being above my own, in philosphy, and you may know if you've dealt with such things that there are plenty of opportunities to do this. But when I get by myself, when I'm isolated, I get selfish. I want to protect myself. That's not life, but it is my human-reality.

And I fear being honest with her because SO MANY, in fact, pretty much all of her Others don't get it, and can twist things and warp them to their own "satisfaction". And I don't even know who I'm telling, or if they'll share the information or what good it might do, because everything is so messed up, well, hopefully your head is starting to swim and you sort-of "get" what I'm saying, here.

I think THAT is the great tragedy, or at least what I'm identifying as the tragedy, today. That we did lose our relationship. I tell her we haven't lost it, really. And I guess what I mean is that we haven't lost each other. Her greatest fear, she keeps saying, is losing the relationship, or her greatest aggravation is that it's lost (one of my great aggravations is hearing the same messages, such as this one, over and over and over and over, many times from each personality, so I've heard it all a bajillion times already). But we have lost our ability to be totally honest. We used to be that way - honest to a fault. But the fault is so much greater now. And I'm still honest, but definitely not totally honest. I hope she can understand why, but sometimes I doubt she can, or chooses not to.

So, much to say, but not much said. Isn't that life, anyway?

Rapid Switching & Conversations

This weekend was long and difficult. When "they" say that DID affects your sense of time, it's not just in relation to the multiple themselves (how does grammar work with that one?). When you're a support person, and experience a lot of this stuff secondhand, it's pretty affected for you as well.

Things were stirring toward the end of last week, but nothing like the level they reached starting Saturday afternoon and stretching through at least 1:00 a.m. last night/this morning. Constant switching, great internal wars, and my text message inbox was filled up TWICE this weekend with threats to me, to my sister, pleas for help, and other more "meaningless" drivel. Less-so with the voicemail, but as it's linked to text messaging it was affected. One alter seriously called me 50 times. A great part of that was 'testing' me to see if I would answer. About every 8th call she left a message saying something like, "GOOD!! I'm glad you are being obedient" and other such things in a voice dripping with so much loathing and hatred and what might be described as pure evil that I can't really portray it in words on a blog. All that because she had threatened me to never again answer a call, and if I do, my sister would be hurt. That alter doesn't get logic but does understand in black and white. She is inherently deceptive. And last night when we finally did talk (we have had a couple of discussions over the last few months, but she generally avoids me and doesn't like me, of course) I gathered that she also doesn't understand money (a problem as my sister has limited finances) and has trouble with any emotional situations - friendship, love, laughter. She self-medicates because she is stronger when she doesn't feel, and also prevents my sister from taking an anti-depressant because it makes it easier for her to take over. She definitely is all about control, and is so caught up in being in control, keeping control, and other control battles she can't see past it. Last night we discussed, among so many other things, that even if you're "in control" of the body, if everyone is yelling and fighting and preventing anything from happening, is that really being in control? Other highlights include: the ongoing discussion of the importance of figuring out how to work together, whether having a job at this point is a good idea, the importance (and difficulty) of learning to trust and be trusted, that wanting everyone else to just go away, while understandable, is unrealistic, how hurting one person's body affects everyone's body, and a lot of those type issues. What was encouraging to me is that after a bit of discussion this later, M, said, "hold on a minute" and then my sister was saying "uh, how long have we been talking". M LET my sister come out!

Now, I'm sure some of you are confused of course (not unlike me and most of us, most of the time), and some may don't agree with my limited understanding or philosophy. But to me, that is progress. I don't think they're ready to move on to real therapy (right now they're doing patchwork-ish consultations with a therapist who has some experience with DID but self-admits she will need someone with more training and experience in the long run).

My struggles: I don't know how to be supportive. I'm NO expert. If there are any absolutes, I certainly don't know them, and I suspect rather than absolutes there are preferences and philosophies. I'm doing my best to not let this consume me (good thing since my sister isn't my whole life, but a significant piece, and formerly more-personally-involved). One problem is how to explain some of this. I'm not out to control her or her life, but it's affecting to her when she's around my friends and is acting "strangely". She wouldn't want to be like that - would be embarrassed and concerned about her privacy which is understandably important to her after a life lived mostly with everyone around her in her business. Mostly I suggest she's having "personal problems" and has some memory issues. That doesn't explain childlike or aggressive or other particular behaviors. But it does keep people at bay, especially because I can always add (when/if they ask) that it's not my "story" to talk about, it's her life.

We live in a relatively small town, and I don't know about any significant support groups for multiples or places she can plug in. Granted, that's not my expertise and her therapist/consultant is helping her with that. But she's feeling alone, isolated, unproductive, and so much else. Understandable. But how do you be supportive in that situation?

What a Day

Something tells me I'll be using this title again.

Who knew the prospect of incredibly inquisitive friends-of-a-friend coming over for dinner would be a blessed relief.

Now if I can only come up with small talk and answers that don't have to involve my sister, or why I look worn out or stressed.

"Think about your pets, your job, a recent [light] movie, and something anecdotal... you have one hour, starting...now."

Another Day

I'm not sure what I want to say at this point, other than to acknowledge that another day has passed, and I wanted to acknowledge that.

Since yesterday, B-Day (beginning day) for this blog, I've taken just a few moments to briefly look around and notice other blogs dealing with DID. I have to say, I'm impressed and encouraged. I'm not sure my sister would concur. She's still (understandably) caught up in the whole tumult and overwhelmingly long road. Sometimes I worry she'll decide to cut that road short, because I can completely understand where you would feel hopeless, distraught, overwhelmed, and so much else, yet, indescribable. Hearing that other people share her struggle pretty commonly would be both encouraging, and I can see it being discouraging to her.

In my opinion (yes, this is just an opinion from someone NOT living it all firsthand and NOT an expert), she's still in denial. Yes, at some level she "acknowledges" this is happening, but she's still completely caught up in wishing it will just be "fixed", will "go away", or that if she isn't noticing alters, then they must not be a real problem to deal with because it's her life/body. It seems obvious to me that isn't gonna happen. But I can understand where she's coming from. I just wish she'd come on out of there.

Until that happens I'm getting all kinds of notes stuck in my mailbox, voice mails, text messages (one alter in particular prefers that type of communication, she seems afraid of vocal interaction as she knows she can't disguise herself, yet is brazenly "herself" when she texts)... Particularly when someone is adamently claiming to be having no contact or switching going on, it is apparent that an alter has taken over for a couple of weeks. Not necessarily the same alter. And with her, that's often a sign that a new alter has come out. The last few weeks are one example. This new alter was living as if it WERE my sister, and in some complicated form, thought it was. I say "it" because as near as I can understand, it's a he who has been living as a she since birth, and beyond that, sexual orientation and pronouns and such get confusing, especially when it's living as if it were my sister. You know, it gets confusing.

Next weekend we're scheduled to have a birthday party for a younger alter who has never had a birthday, at the suggestion of the therapist. This alter is VERY excited! Only 8 years old, BJ has experienced some of the seriously ritualistic trauma. I'm actually not sure if BJ is male, female, or neither, or some combination like Gable (the one I mentioned above). BJ is pretty anxious, and gets very upset at anger, loudness, violence, and other things. A lot like most child alters, from what I understand so far. BJ trusts me more than she does my sister at this point, I've heard, because while Gable was first manifesting and assuming my sister's life, it portrayed itself to be my sister. I'm getting confusing, sorry. Anyway, Gable was calling itself my sister, and everyone thought it was my sister (maybe even Gable at some level, I think) and so now there is some mistrust. I've heard this from my sister, and suspected it would be true of BJ. Bee is the older, caretaking one. Bee brought them all to my house last weekend because she was concerned for their safety. Somebody was being harmful and having suicidal thoughts, and she wasn't sure what to do. Influencing all of that is that my sister has health issues and is currently receiving monthly shots of high-hormones, which would make anyone a little "crazy".

So for now, allow me to get on with another day in real life, instead of the blogosphere. With all this going on, it's always nice to just live a bit, instead of talking, analyzing, considering, learning, and wearing my head out.

You're Wondering about the age-thing

I'm sure many of you noticed that in the first post, I referred to knowing my sister a lot less time than she's been alive (although the percentage is going up as time passes, I suppose). I didn't want this to be a stumbling block, but also didn't want the explanation to interfere too much with the previous post.

My sister is mine in spirit and truth, but not by blood or the law. 8 years ago we met through our roommate. That is, the roommate and I were her "foster parents". Over the years she (the sister, not the roommate) has been absorbed into my family. She is sister to my brother. She is Aunt to my nephew. She has been embarrassed by our parents, though mostly she's in love with the idea, if not a little guarded against them, as she is most people.

Legally, she still has a mother, well, that whole mess takes some time to tell. For now, let's just stick with this brief aside.

Somewhere in the Early-Middle

My sister and I have been talking for a while about this blog. If you think about it, it's been coming for well, somewhere between 8 years (as long as I've known her, and said she should write her story down) and 24 years (how old she is, physically-speaking).

But, a couple of months ago we were hit with a curveball that (unfortunately) makes a lot of sense. She was diagnosed with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). We've been thinking of late (if you are familiar with DID, you understand how time is relative) that we could use the format of a blog to share our story - with each other, and with others.

I guess our hopes include the following:

• a chance to share with others, that they feel less-alone.
• a medium to share with each other, as talking, words, and virtually every form of communication has come into question with this diagnosis.
• a repository for our feelings, thoughts, questions, struggles, joys, and all that other stuff.
  

There are probably more, but those will develop along with this thing, and with us.

I'll leave a lot of the explanation of things to later posts, and we will both be adding to this.

We exist as your neighbors, the person who waits on you at the restaurant, the woman you wonder about when you jog by her, the girl you pity down the hall in another cube... The logistics of our story are both important (in that they shape us) and unimportant (in that we aren't the only ones living this "story", generally speaking).

We're going to try to maintain some anonymity, as you can tell. But, things may get specific, especially as alters join in, and especially the mean ones. They get to share their voice too. And be warned, they can be profane, hateful, vindictive, hopeless, scared, deceptive, and hundreds of other things. I don't think we've met them all, yet. My sister worries about what if so-and-so gets on here and is hateful. Well, I say, that's part of the story, isn't it? It can be affecting to your spirit, your own reactions, and so much else. But it's truth at some level, in that it's part of the story.

Welcome to our "world". It is in habited by two bodies, along with our family, friends, neighbors, social workers, doctors, therapists, co-workers, church, and well, you.