'Who's Here Today?' James' Blog Post

Just a brief intro for those who land here first, rather than anywhere else on this blog...read the banner at the top for starters...and if you're still curious read our writing we have a page of recommendations, weeded from the copious amounts of crap that gets written here on this blog:

Our Recommendations - Weeded From Our...Feeded?

Our new boyfriend, James, is helping us raise awareness and such by sharing what it's like staying with us, to read how we met James you can read this blog entry:

50,000 Tweets and All We Got Was...

This is his most recent entry, and as usual he said we can carry it over to here to share with our readers...

[wanna see a picture of our cute boyfriend? Hop over to our Tumblr account:)

http://jstcallmefrank.tumblr.com/post/8227890269/see-hes-still-alive-we-know-theres-no-date]

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Who's here today?

I should probably start writing these posts earlier as once I again so many details escape me though to be honest I can not guarantee it would be much better...

Today (Saturday 30th July) was a good day; a long day but a good one. I can't remember much about the time at the appartment before we went out, certainly not anything about their mood first thing so I'll jump ahead.

I have to admit that one thing I do remember about the morning, the walk to the museum and the first half hour maybe was that I was feeling very cautious. I couldn't help but feel they were stressed or upset and my fear was that just below the surface (for want of a better term) was an angry alter. I was quiet. I was careful about what I said on the few occasions I did speak. Trouble is I know that that in itself isn't the best way to behave and trying to force myself to be more vocal, more myself was on;y adding to the anxiety.

But like I said, moods were good for the most part and the trip to one of the local museums was a nice one. Weather again was scorching and even though there was a wind it was just as warm. [snip] Ok, so I was going to describe the entire day but it's not necessary and really detracts from what I'm trying to write about.

They seemed different today. I may have mentioned it but we have rules and some of them include I don't ask about specific alters and I certainly never ask to speak to a specific alter though for these entries I am allowed to write about them in context, to a point. This entry is about my belief that I may be starting to recognise some of the alters.

I recently had a talk with Frank (et al) about my take on these rules and how there is one aspect I am curious about. I have a very black and white view of the alters in so much as it's a very specific set of traits for each personality (alter). For example, when they are playful is that another side to say Frank or is it another alter? I was curious to get to know more about each alter, gain a better understanding of them. Unfortunately that breaks the rules, both theirs and mine.

This lack of a full understanding is possibly why I suspect quite strongly that I spent today and maybe a bit of yesterday with Ivy and/or Melody. This is purely based on the impression that there seemed to be a child like quality to them and I am certain it wasn't the twins (Cassandra and Catherine). Bethany has been missing a while though I think she is close by; the odd action of comment stirring thoughts / making me wonder but not "here" enough to make me think it was her.

Like I said, I have to be careful how I approach such subjects so have not questioned them about it. As I will mention when I get around to what should have been the first two posts, as far as I am concerned (in how I "treat" them) they are one person both physically (of course) and mentally. They've never had to tell me that (though I was reminded recently) as it's how I've always thought of them (I'm already labouring this point, it will be discussed later).

Anyhoo, back to today... It was a fantastic day, we had a lot of fun; we spent a lot of time talking about how best to dispose of annoying kids (all of them) and their parents and laughing about the exhibits (some of which you got to see on Twitter). The second half of the trip to the museum was spent trying to find descreet locations where we could erm... I believe the signs in public pools calls it "heavy petting". I'm sure we raised a lot of eyebrows and became the topic of many conversations as numerous times we'd all but get caught and have to exit what ever exhibit we were at / in completely failing to look calm and collected.

We moved to a part of the museum where we could get a more hands-on with the exhibits, a learning section designed for kids to see how things worked. Their eyes lit up when we arrived here and they were practically skipping about. They spotted an exhibit with water running through it where you can play and building dams and they ran to it, immediately grabbing small scoops and pushing the sand up the "river". Another exhibit involving lifting things and they were off again, the only adult to play on it. And they spotted a low table with colouring crayons and drawings on it and that really made them happy. They skipped over to it sitting down and immediately started to colour in one of the drawings. It was a fantastically silly sight as the table and chairs were designed for 5-10 year olds and there is this nigh on 6' woman all legs and arms perched on a seat. I watched them and took photos (I may be able to edit one enough that I can post it). And I knew. I knew instantly Bethany was there. No question about it. I desperately wanted to talk to them and whilst I could never be too specific or obvious about things I was so curious. But I just watched, occasionally leaving them to check out an exhibit but never leaving them for long. I still don't know, I haven't asked if I'm right. I am aware they a have posted a blog and I promised not to read it till this one was finished so shortly I will know. But I'm sure I'm right. And at that moment I was sure enough to be so happy. For if it was Bethany then I can finally stop worrying about her disappearance.

We had to leave the museum as soon as the colouring was done as it was shutting. I took photos of the drawing (the shading was perfect!!) and asked if they wanted to keep it but someone else had coloured the back in so they opted to leave it.

When we got outside they spotted an dropped toy, a little matchbox type car that they bent down and pushed along the pavement for a bit before placing it their bag "it's mine now" they said and again I smiled at the prospect of Bethany emerging once more. The rest of the walk home was ... for want of a better phrase, back to normal. We were both hungry and talked about what we wanted to eat and where. I spotted a British style pub so we shared a burger and proper chips. Later that evening we would have a late dinner at an Indian restaurant.

The rest of the evening was uneventful but wonderful (bar their new shoes causing blisters / sores on their feet). We ate far too much (which seems to make them a bit cranky) and we had an early night.

I hope I'm right, I hope it was Bethany. That's not to imply of course any preference but just because I have been concerned that she hasn't been able to or unwilling to come out / to the front.

Oh, one final thought about yesterday, I wasn't entirely sure that Frank was around but I haven't thought about that enough, just an impression...

[copied from the original location http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/ - he says he edited since we carried it over to here]

Other entries from this week that James has shared:

"A Rough Night, Not The Good Kind" James' Blog Post

"I meet Cassandra, It doesn't go well" - James' Blog Post

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Some helpful terminology imported from our public blog where we do our mapping therapy (http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/) which is currently not being worked on as we try to find a job, and contemplate moving...again:

DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER A.K.A MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER: TERMINOLOGY

Personality Specifics

Alter: alter states, selves, parts (a subjective term); distinct personalities; fragments alternate personality, personality state, ego state or identity with its own unique perspectives, abilities, memories or other traits that differ from the Host or Executive personality.

The Core: The original birth personality.

Host: is the alter personality who dominates the control of the body most of the time and is often unaware of the other personalities. The host is usually the alter personality who will initiate after experiencing symptoms of mental distress, such as, anxiety, triggers or recovered memories.

Executive: When a personality (alter ego) has control of the body.

Switch: To switch from one personality to another. The process of an alter coming out from the subconscious mind into the consciousness mind while the other alter (who was already in the consciousness mind) slips back into the subconscious mind.

Who's out? A common question used to determine which personality is executive or host.

Co-conscious(ness): (The Core) A state of being aware of what the other personalities are doing and saying.

Other Terms:

Acquired: Anything that is not present at birth but develops some time later. In medicine, the word "acquired" implies "new" or "added." An acquired condition is "new" in the sense that it is not genetic (inherited) and "added" in the sense that was not present at birth.

Triggers: Hysterical conversion symptoms or body memories. Physical phenomenon such as pain, smells, tastes, etc.; re-experienced again.

Dissociation: In psychology and psychiatry, a perceived detachment of the mind from the emotional state or even from the body. Dissociation is characterized by a sense of the world as a dreamlike or unreal place and may be accompanied by poor memory of the specific events, which in severe form is known as dissociative amnesia.

Re-live: A total memory recall (includes visual, emotional, physical and all other senses).

Losing time: Also known as a Dissociative Fugue, is the period of which an alter personality is in the subconscious mind and has no recollection of the time that is being utilized by the alter personality who is occupying the conscious mind. Therefore when the alter switches into the conscious mind they realize that minutes, hours, days, or even months and years have passed since they were last aware of time.

System: is the structure of relationships between the alter personalities who live within the internal world of a survivor with D.I.D.! Every system is created and operates in it's own unique way, just like every family living in their own homes run their households different from the next door neighbor.

Inner (Self) Helper: is usually the alter personality who has a good understanding of the system and how it works. The I.S.H. is also among the typical group of helpers or protector personalities.

Grounding: is the process of disrupting a dissociative episode and is accomplished by tugging on an earlobe, rubbing the hands together, or shuffling the feet back and forth. This type of physical stimuli can bring the survivors mind back to awareness of their surroundings, and helps to make them feel less animated.

(these terms are pulled from a wide array of sources throughout the internet and are ones we choose to use in writing, on occasion, to talk about the things that happen in our lives)

It's Our Birthday Post!

(This entry may seem to have little direction - we've been feeling a bot out of sorts the last 18 hours or so)

Yep, it’s our birthday.

We’re pretty sure at least half of us thought by the time we got to this age we’d have accomplished a lot more, somehow. Of course there is also those among us who thought we’d never see this age, or maybe it was more of a hope than it was a thought.

Last year for our birthday we went to Vegas for the weekend, worked a couple of days, then went to the lake with friends for the next weekend. It was probably one of the most enjoyable birthdays we had ever had that we can remember (we don't really remember any more than the last two or three, other than visits to the zoo for some of them). Towards the end of the week-long celebration last year the relationships with everyone (us and our inner working, friends, that with Significant Other) got strained and it wasn’t long before all of the connections began to unravel. But it was a fantastic birthday week.

Guess the icing on our birthday cake THIS year is losing our job (two weeks ago tomorrow) for seemingly bullshit reasons (mental illness, and some other stuff that they have no real validation for); and now being in a position where we are feeling like we are not qualified to do much and feeling very vulnerable, it’s proving difficult to find work in the city where we live.

“It’s gonna suck and be hard having to step back in skill level to find a job” we told The Father on the phone with morning when he called to wish us a Happy Birthday.

“Well, a lot of people are having to that now, honey” he replied.

“Yes, but we have just gotten to the skill level one up from being a cashier…” we said. (though we might make more money as a cashier, our end wage at the previous job was $11.85 an hour, as a manager, and we'd only been making that for about a month or so - it was a required wage increase after a year of employment)

It’s true, we do have a lot of skills, some of us are just not good at using them sometimes, which really makes us as a whole feel inadequate these days.

We have had awards for customer service in jobs we have had in the past; but then we got fired for our lack of them at this one (allegedly).

We’ve been commended on our ability to multitask and complete things- we’ve organized catering jobs and owned our own business for two year whose only downfall was its lack of funding for adequate advertising and a stable kitchen rental - but then in this last job, the one we got fired from, they stated our performance was poor. (There is no proof of this, or the performance stadards we apparently did not comply with, however)

When we brought this up with The Father, feeling like we lack people skills now, among other skills, sobbing into the phone the day we got canned, he defended us by saying that of course we did/do, that’s it’s just that this year has been a lot of stress, and confusion and difficulty for us, and that it’s made it hard.

He’s right, we know he is. Despite the fact we have disliked most people our whole life, we were better at covering it up like all the people who have to do it on a day to day basis (and we know they exist, they are among a huge percentage of our Twitter followers). This year without the skilled mask of The Other Girl it became hard for us to find the balance.

Like we told James the other night, The Other Girl was much better at stress management and many other things. I recognize she had a lifetime of dealing with everything, of learning skills to manage our situation, and I have just become fully in charge the last 6-7 months. He agreed and said that it’s not surprising that there is a learning curve.

The unfortunate side is that we were starting to hit our stride at work, have gotten so much better at overcoming the learning curve; even Important Boss agreed we had been improving, right before we got shit-canned. Too little too late…that’s the story of our life most of the time.

So, The Father offered us a place in his house today, when he called to wish us a happy birthday (and met James on Skype!), for a couple of months at least, while we try to sort things out, as an alternative to going to live with The Mother…and option we are still considering, at least for a couple of months, or through the winter, depending on how long it takes us to find a job in a nearby big Metropolitan city.

Living with The Father has its disadvantages, as much as living with The Mother. There are too many to state here, but James is helping us formulate a plan, a couple of directions we can take, as alternatives and if we indeed decide to live with one of our parents again.

It’s not New York (where we’d really love to move), but some day it could be - so this next week James and us are talking about taking a trip to the city where Baby Brother lives, so that we can check out the area, see if they have a neighbourhoods where we would feel comfortable, and check out job prospects.

It would be easier to write in more detail about where we plan to go, if we could talk about where we are located geographically, but for obvious reasons (especially given the recent unemployment) we still have to keep our real life name/ location/face secret, because despite what people who follow us think, and despite what people who know us think, it’s still scary to a potential employer to hire a person with mental illness, and it’s also harder to find a job if you’ve been as public as we are with our life and illness.

We really don’t blame them, employers and people, because it’s the lack of knowledge and understanding of mental illness in general that causes the fear, and one of the things we are attempting here with our writing in this blog is to help people understand that mental illness does not mean you are unemployable, it only means that to an employer. Mental illness does not mean you are scary, it only means that to people who refuse to understand. Mental illness doesn’t have to be hidden, it shouldn’t be.

It would probably be easy for us, in this next move, to be put on disability. Who are we kidding, it would be super easy. We’re just not willing to take that route, at least not in a permanent capacity, because we ARE capable of working, we’re even capable of management (which is what we used to do) – we DO have skills…it just takes an employer who is willing to be understanding.

It’s just a shitty time to be unemployed, no matter what country you live in, we know that. We only wish we could be eligible for unemployment/benefits of some sort so the stress of finding a job was just a little more decreased, because we want to work…we’re going mad over here with all this extra time that has to be devoted to tapping a dry job market.

Alright, enough about that…

On a note about us and our day with James yesterday at the museum, we didn’t mention it to him, even though he knows our Bethany has been missing (we have discussed, and others have agreed that he missing presence among us has probably been due to high levels of drinking) but she did make an appearance yesterday, twice…so she’s around again. We know he knows when she was here, he videoed her colouring at a table in the hands on science portion of the museum we went to.

It’s probably the curiosity over this new person in our life that made her finally show herself again. She was mostly uncomfortable and quiet during the time she decided to make an appearance, and then we were a bit uncomfortable when she left if…maybe she was here because usually we take her to the zoo on the birthday, and so she’s waiting to find out if we get to go this year.

Yes, we know the zoo is a sad place, she loves it though…

We’ll talk more about this and other things in a blog post, it’s our birthday and we are hungry and have things to do…like paint, watch a movie, play on Twitter, have James make us brunch and enjoy the day, and try to plan a trip to a secret location in the states for later next week….first order of business though is trying to figure out our mobile Tweeting options for when we leave the city we are in!

~Frank

Our 5th Birthday?

Who Are The Twitter Elite? ...And Of Course We Ramble.

Twitter Elite.

What is Twitter Elite?

First off, you know how when you have tons of important things to do and all of a sudden you’re cleaning your refrigerator with a toothbrush? That’s this blog entry…kind of.

Not that we don’t love writing an entry about Twitter…we love that place and we spend most of our time there reading the Timeline(s), posting Tweets and talking to people…as well as listing people and ReTweeting people and spending time on Favstar (yeah, that’s a link to our Favstar page, what of it? We don’t link to it in our bio like most others), which is Twitter adjacent.

We’ve had requests to write about what Twittercide is, means, how to find out about it…but we’ll save the post for the next time we are trying to avoid writing about our new relationship, therapy, mental health, DID/MPD and all shit related to our lives. For now we’re going to discuss ‘The Twitter Elite’, if only because it’s been Tweeted about so much, and who the hell really knows what accounts those people are supposed to be talking about? Not us, entirely, so we decided to look into it a little.

So when people on Twitter refer to the Twitter Elite, or the Twitteratti, who the fuck are they supposedly talking about?

From our observations some seem to be referring to accounts that have
a) a disproportionate number of followers to following
b) accounts where the holder in reference does not respond to all, or any, of their @ mentions
or
c) a celebrity account

Breaking it down with our opinion(s) on each:

A) Disproportionate number of followers to following
Yes, people who have a huge percentage difference between their following/followers can sometimes be seen as jerks/snobs, or appear as “elites”; we mostly agree. However, since we have a fairly high follower/followback ratio we do know that by following everyone who follows you, you do open up your DMs to every single person you are following, so if you follow every person (like our account does) it can mean loads of inbox spam, and DM’s that you just don’t always have time to answer. (and if you are us this makes most of us feel bad, sometimes)

Now, given that, we know from our own account that there are more than a couple thousand interesting people on Twitter, so to be a dick and only follow back, like, 5%, makes the account holder look a bit like a dick (and totally not willing to meet cool new people). You can follow back more people! Help a brother/sister out and use lists so you don’t have a TL full of stuff you might not want to read. It’s not difficult to follow back a large majority of your followers and still keep up on individual groups.

However, once the following back get in to the 5000 range it get’s hard to be able to do things like list people properly (something we are a HUGE fan of, not for us, but to help people get found) because twitter only allows 20 lists, with 500 people assigned per list (see our recent posting on listing people) – so if someone is already following back over 10,000 people, just know that they've hit the limit, or near the limit, of accounts that they can pay attention to…and you all (we all) want people to pay attention, at least sometimes, right?!

B) Accounts where the holder in reference doesn’t respond to all, or any, of their @ mentionsIn a perfect world a “popular” account should be able to respond to every Tom, Dick and HarryDick that @’s them, for instance, on Follow Friday (#FF) it would be nice to be able to thank each person individually (we’d love to be able to do it), but a little known fact is that

Twitter has a Tweet limit, and unless you’re a “conversationalist” jabber-jaw like our account, some never find out about this (we, and others, call it TwitterJail when they lock down your account and block your Tweeting ability).

We imported a little info from an older post we did that provids some tips on Twitter, to explain a little more about Tweet limits:

“Twitter Matrix/Twitter Jail/TweetBlocking
Okay, the Twitter Matrix. Did you know that you can only follow 2000 people before Twitter says you have to wait until you have an undetermined amount of people following you back? It’s true.

And it doesn't get better after the 2000 follow mark. Don’t believe us?

Read more...

http://support.twitter.com/articles/15364-about-twitter-limits-update-api-dm-and-following”

So you see, sometimes it’s just not possible to respond to everyone because of limits….and as you see above, some accounts just can’t follow you back…yet…but yes, sometimes they are just being an Elitistist dick. (Twitter Elite)

C) A celebrity account.
This is probably not who all the people are moaning about because really, do you think most of them are even the real people behind that account? Yes, Kirsti Alley (@kirstiealley) is a known Tweet-a-holic, Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) does his own Tweets, even Charlie Sheen (@CharlieSheen) probably used to do some of his own right after he was canned from ‘Two and a Half Men’…but it’s likely most other celebrity/verified accounts are handled by publicists/agents/representatives of those celebrities, and you really shouldn't piss and moan if you consider those accounts “Elite”, because in popular society they ARE “Elite”…and they don’t have time to talk to you, your neighbor, us…or anyone…the fucking bastards.

Back to those Elitist pricks.

Urban Dictionary has a few different opinions on what The Twitter Elite/Twitterati are, or WHO they are, of the three descriptions only one really makes sense (as is the case with most definitions on Urban Dictionary, you’re go-to place to define fucking every single fucking stupid thing possible)

And TweetGrader rates the most powerful people on Twitter…(is THAT who the Twitterati/Twitter Elite are? Who knows…) – they are ”check the power of your twitter profile compared to millions of other users that have been graded.”

*Our account is in the top 6% of “powerful users”, according to this website…which means absolutely fucking nothing*

We tried to find user statistics (ask @mr_jmm, who had to listen to us curse, call a woman a bitch because she blogged about Twitter dying because she could “grasp the concept fully”, and generally swear up a mini storm because, for fucks sake, where are all the damn user stats we saw a month ago?! – P.S. Happy 5^th fucking birthday Twitter…) that would give a better indication of who exactly the Twitteratti are, so we could break it down further than some targeting some obscure top percentage of celebrity accounts - but let’s face it, if you know us you know by the time we’ve gotten this far into our writing we’ve almost finished off a bottle of wine (okay, we have, and why hasn’t he opened the second bottle and replenished the glass?!)…not to mention we’re ravenous…and we need a shower.

Okay, wrap this shit up already.

Someone not following you back? Do you think you deserve to be followed back? (of course we do, how else do we talk to people and meet people and make connections if we don’t?!).

You think people are “Elite” because they have a lot of followers in general? Think about the listing problem, and how hard it is to pay attention to your Timeline if you actually expect a life off of Twitter…which of course we don’t. Well, maybe they have been on Twitter for a lot longer so they have a high follower count, or they pour their fucking soul into 140 characters at least once a day, and provide content for others to humour others with so they’ve bled to get their following.

So. The Twitter Elite…if you’re fucking butt-sore because some person is not responding to your every @ and you want to call them out as being “Twitter Elite” then do so, you’re probably the same person who’s going to tell others that they “ aren't doing Twitter right”…but first sit back and start by thinking about the Twitter limits (we won’t even TOUCH on how to do Twitter “right”)…and not worrying about what other people are doing, whether or not they are elite or now, be entertained, be the entertainment, find friends, connect with people, hate people…do whatever you want…but for the love of god…tell us who YOU think is the Twitter Elite already…we still have no f-ing clue.

In any event, we probably didn’t answer the fucking “who is the Twitter Elite?!” question (of course we didn’t), but it’ll give you some things to chew on.

We like to provide some gnawing material to our "Tweeple", and some info on Twitter practices.

We live on Twitter like so many before us, and so many after us, because we’re tired of living life where there are trees (though we do like to look at them from our apartment window) and around people whose sweaty existence gets near us (fucking public transit), and people who feel the need to talk at us (mostly we don’t give a fuck what you have to say these days); or people talking around us (we don’t care to overhear stupid lame shit about someone else’s life that you are spreading rumors about); and people who lie, because say what you will about people who lie on Twitter, there is still more truth in those 140 character Tweets than you will find in the spew some of your friends/neighbors/colleges/acquaintances feed you in an endless verbal stream - so we live (read our very first entry about Twitter…and the reasons to be there Birds of a Feather, on Twitter, CAN Flock Together) on Twitter.

We've learned most of the ins and outs of Twitter, thanks to people who answered our questions in our humble beginning - and aside from writing about our daily life and mental illness on this blog, and our philosophies, and about things that interest us, we write about Twitter, because it’s where we live, where the people we care about the most reside (as lame as that may sound to people who think there is a “right way” to do Twitter, or who have lives in the “fleshie world”), and where we are comfortable to express ourselves, most of us anyway.

We need food. More wine. And a shower.

<3 From the Us, Frank et al <3

-- A link of interest….maybe: ‘All Hail The (New) Twitter Elite List’ http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4496/All-Hail-The-New-Twitter-Elite-List.aspx

"A Rough Night, Not The Good Kind" James' Blog Post

We haven't written today, we very well may not; we'd really like to scroll through our followers list on Twitter and unearth some musical talent to write about this weekend.

James wrote about yesterday and for the sake of our sharing we imported his post here, so you can continue to get a view of what life is like for those not in our system, instead of just hearing shit from our perspective.

It's Friday, if your landing on this page because of suggestions on who to follow on Twitter (#FF) then you're maybe a little lost. Feel free to poke around here and check out the Recommendations tab, it'll help you weed through the hundreds of posts we are amassing and find things that are relevant.

We'll be able to talk more about yesterday later...maybe...we're still working on the entry we started almost 4 days ago. The going is tough, we hurt him so much without writing that we feel apprehensive. We know we have to though, and so soon...soon, we will write more about him, and us, and how we are feeling.
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A rough night, not the good kind

Not quite sure what happened last night. We had a good day albeit long and came home not a minute too soon. Shopping is not an activity liked by anyone, public transport less so. The anger was just under the surface, literally, you can almost see it through the few layers of skin that contained it but we had a good evening. We got back and after a quick recovery from the day I popped out to the liquor store to get them some wine. In a sweet moment (I'm not apologising for that baby) they stopped me going earlier "don't go yet"...

I got back with the wine and after checking it was the right one (comparing to empty bottles in the kitchen, which by the way number all of two - down from 30ish at the peak). I was feeling very chuffed with myself as not only was it right I also found a chilled bottle. This pleased them greatly :) I have my moments.

Evening was typical, we ate late, they drank wine, tweeted, wrote a blog entry etc. Exhausted from the day we had an early night.

Not entirely sure what happened next, they came out of the shower and it was immediately apparent something wasn't quite right. I tried to talk to them but they withdraw into themselves. A few words were spoken about the future and I once again was left feeling like there wasn't one. I can't remember the exact words sorry.

I know this is so hard for them. They are so torn. The twins are hurt, upset and angry.

[our link, for clarification on what James is talking about http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/07/cassandra-writes-about-special-someone.html]

There are some that want me to be part of their future but last night I wondered if the price was too high. It wasn't my place to question but my fear is that the others, those that do like me, that do want a relationship might give it up for the sake of the twins.

The night was a long one. Neither of us slept much. They were restless, constantly changing positions. I kept a hand on them, stroked a shoulder and wondered if the shifting was to get away from me. At some point something changed though and they came to me, wrapped themselves around me and let me do the same. And that's how we spent the rest of the night.

I felt better in the morning and they were smiling. Then just as suddenly that switch. We were back to where we were last night. It's rare, from what I've seen of them to switch that quickly. I talked. They were non-committal. Eventually they started talking to me. Eventually I was able to ask questions and get answers. By the time we got up we had been able to talk about a future again and they were able to tell me, convincingly that they did still want a future with me, they wanted an "us". Of course who "they" are is not who "they" were but at least it gives me hope again.

I know this can work. I know it's not easy and there will be more days like this. It's becoming more frequent and more sudden which I can only guess means the conflict going on is getting more... heated. I can't begin to imagine.

I'm sorry I let my emotions get the better of me. I know you need me to be stronger.

They say today is a "two bottle of wine day"... I suspect this won't be the only post I write today.

It's a week now. I have 3 more left. So little time...

Today... we're about to head out. Moods are good at present. Enough sulking for the moment, time to go play. Oh, and you should see the dress they're wearing...

[copied from the original location http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/]

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We have to go out for a couple of hours...we'll write or something later.

Ain't We Inspiring? ...or Something.

Going out in public zaps our brain pretty quickly, four hours of no music, having to listen to traffic, and people yammering…fries us to the core.

It’s different, being out in public, not being able to jam the ear buds in our ears and tune out the entire world. It’s not a pleasant feeling. We told James on the walk home that if we could just listen to our iPod and telepathically communicate with him that life would be prefect outside of the apartment.

Back in the day, what, less than a month ago, we could actually sit down and write, and it was much easier to do with nothing but going to work and coming home to do, and the odd dance at the grocery store with our music and relative solitude. With nobody here when we got home except Twitter and the cats, it was much easier to communicate with each other…all this extra leaving the house, being in public with no music and having to communicate verbally, having to answer questions and think outside of our system, is really taxing on us. It’s so hard to write, to bring us together.

We haven’t written about the couple of years between culinary school and starting work at the place we were just fired from, but in those two years we had copious amounts of time to ourselves, even though we were in a relationship, because we were self employed and that meant at least 8 hours a day with ourselves…but we’ll write more about that in the next entry of the history of us.

Today was much better; we went to a doctor appointment in the early afternoon and then took a bus to a big grocery store in the area that we are never okay with going to by ourselves. We’ve been there once this year when we had to take the work vehicle home for a week.

We never really leave the mile or so vicinity around our apartment by ourselves unless absolutely necessary, so having James with us helped to a certain degree.

We know he can read most of us pretty well, and he is sensitive to the fact that in a moment while in public we can switch and it can become very noticeable to anyone who is aware of our particular problems, but then we can switch back and it can be fine; but in the switch can be overwhelming confusion, anger, sadness…panic. Most of us agree he has been able to adapt well to us, but it’s mostly in part to the hours and hours and HOURS of Skyping, no matter our moods, no matter who we were, no matter what…that we knew he has to witness before booking a flight to see us.

Other things that makes leaving the house and being far away from the apartment is food. Eating when leaving the house becomes an issue because we lose some time on occasion and before we know it we’ve surpassed the time frame in which we should have eaten something, an apple at least, and then no matter who is alert in our system we get agitated, more angry than is usual for some of us and for a lack of a better work, extra stabby. It happens so much when we are not at home that it’s just another reason we don’t like to leave the house much anymore.

We don’t have much to say today, other than we guess we did, so we guess we didn’t have anything specific to say.

We’re working on the entry that’s been in the process for days now, the entry that Cassandra mentioned yesterday in her post, the post she did mandated by all who could convince her she needed to write it out and stop fucking torturing us all.

We know it’s odd for people to read our writing sometimes and they probably ask themselves, and probably want to ask us why the hell we share so much with everyone; but as stated over and over in our blog, other than raising awareness and trying to connect with others who struggle with what we do, we want to help people see that there are alternatives to medication, and spending tons on therapy…there is writing as therapy, and there is art as therapy…there are healthy and inexpensive alternatives to at least try in a time when so  many are jobless and stuck in a low income cycle but are also struggling with mental health issues, or mental strain – and we want to be able to show others how we do it, so that they can do it too.

Since starting on Twitter we have inspired dozens of people to start their own blogs to deal with many issues, some that have kept them private and shared their links with us, some that have made them public to share with the world. Whether or not they continue for a week, a month, a year…or stop and come back to it years from now, at least they know that it’s an option. That’s why we do this…to help people find options.

We know that on Twitter we come off sometimes as very hateful, bitter, angry people, and you know what? We are, sometimes. People who get to know us get to know other parts of us, and we’ve been told we are also caring, and kind, and all other things human (though we’ll deny it to our deaths! *wink*). Being angry and bitter, or even hateful doesn’t mean we don’t care about some people. We care about people who struggle with illness, mental, physical, otherwise…we care about people who acknowledge the fact that you can think freely and you don’t have to like everyone…and life is serious, but in life you have to find the humour in the serious to survive – at least we’ve had to. We care about people who respect others for their individuality, and do not expect everyone to be a cookie created from a cutter of life…because it’s the closest to peace you can achieve, to respect differences in people.

Every year we have been alive, individually and together, we see the world change, just like those people before us, and it’s scary, probably as scary as it was for them, and it’s going to get scarier…and without a little humour, and a little skill on ways to cope when it all comes crashing down, we’ve got nothing, we’ve all got nothing.

Now, hopefully the end of this blog entry didn’t make you gag and roll your eyes as much as it made one of us…

"I meet Cassandra, It doesn't go well" - James' Blog Post

Not a guest blogger, but we/I asked James if we could copy his post to here. He said yes, so...how he felt about today...

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I meet Cassandra, It doesn't go well

This shouldn't be my first post but it is. I make no apology.

You should probably all start by reading Cassandra's blog post at http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/07/cassandra-writes-about-special-someone.html

This will be a kind of retort and randomness about my take on the day.

Today has been one of tender hooks from the moment they woke up. I didn't realise till about an hour ago why. Credit where it's due, I was fooled. No, that's harsh, no one was out to fool anyone, I should say I had no clue.

I knew this wasn't going to be easy, I knew not all of them particularly liked me or at least liked the idea of me being here. I knew the twins were in love with someone else. That doesn't make it any easier when I actually see it in black and white.

They were upset earlier, I wrapped my arms around them and held them. They didn't reciprocate. I asked them what was wrong and was told to leave them alone. I had to go to the grocery store so left.

I got back and they went out to get wine. I read the blog. I burst into tears. It hurt to read the words. It hurt to see them (Cassandra) reach out to this other person. It hurt to see that they think I would dislike them. How could I dislike any of them? Will break a rule now and ask a question to a specific alter: Cassandra, why would you think I would I dislike you? Nothing could be further from the truth. You know how I feel about you all and there are no exceptions. I'm sorry you hurt. I'm sorry I have got between you and "Someone Special". I'm sorry you think I would dislike you.

But thank you for making this day a great one. Despite everything you were feeling you made today fun and I have really enjoyed it. Thank you for doing that.

Sorry honey, but I need to clarify a point you made - Emmie - Yes, I did single them out and that was wrong of me but I didn't mean it like that. The reference was just an easy way of getting a point across. Of course I think of you all.

I still want to cry. It's weak and pathetic but I do. They'll hate it. I stayed in the bedroom earlier and cried; was accused of hiding. Maybe I was but some situations I don't know how to handle and I doubt I'd get sympathy. Maybe that's wrong I don't know but I needed time out. Time to gather my thoughts (have a cry) and work out the best way of handling this. Normally I'd just have it out with someone but not this time. Again, maybe I should I don't know yet.

As it stands the evening is better. Helped in no small way by a bottle of wine each.

I  keep getting up to hug them. Each time preceded with a "sorry". They tolerate my physical affection, just. I hope over time the twins will forgive me and learn to learn to love me as they love this other.

[copied from the original location http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/]

Cassandra Writes About 'Special Someone'

I am not having a good day.

For some of us it is hard to write when we feel like our space is being invaded, which I feel like today. We sent James out to get some ingredients so we can make him banana bread and so that I would have time to write because I guess some feel like I have things I need to say, and I don’t want to say them to James because I don’t like sharing my feelings with him. I don’t want him to know me, even though I know he has to.

There has been a certain level of sharing of feelings this past week, with James and the others, more so James sharing with us about how he feels. Frank is working on an entry about that but I keep not letting her finish it.

Almost all the others, that is to say all but Catherine and I, really like James, they like him to do things for them, and they like that he enjoys doing things for them, they like that he is nice and sweet and they like that knows when not to be nice and sweet to us. I don’t want him to do things for us, I can do things myself and I don’t want to be treated like a child.

I just want to disappear. I have been being stubborn and difficult and trying to push him away, which makes the rest of them angry.

The others figure the only way to work through this is to write about how I am feeling because it’s the only thing that works for us. So this will be the entry I write full of nonsense because I only have so long to sit here and cry and write my feelings down before he gets back. I know it worries him when he sees tears in the eyes.

I am one of the only two that don’t like James like the rest of them like him, not to say we don’t like him…just not like-like him…like they do.

I have been sitting on the sidelines for almost a week now while those who’ve bothered to enjoy James’ company have, so far they have not all decided to be in representation; I’ve had a keen interest only because the outcome of this visit effects me and Catherine so much, and I’ve been thinking about the boy that I love, Special Someone.

Frank wrote about how Catherine and I love someone else, and for days whenever I have been “around” and happen upon Special Someone’s presence on Twitter it causes me to be upset, and causes me to try to make us withdraw and be mean; and now that I have gotten a day to myself, a day with the body, I have been nothing but sassy and mean to James, mostly...but striving to maintain happiness on account of the others.

James is nice enough and I don’t want his feelings hurt, most of us don’t like hurting people’s feelings. He knows that Catherine and I love someone else, he read about it in one of our recent blog entries about how we were all feeling about his visit; Someone Special knows that we love him, and we think he loves us, based on things he has said to us and time we have spent together with him. Catherine and I miss him and have not seen him in a couple of weeks.

We are, I am, upset that the rest of the others have decided to be in a relationship with James because this means we don’t get to be with Special Someone and it makes me mad and makes me want to destroy the relationship the rest of them are forming with James.

He wants me to talk to him, James does, and I don’t want to. I don’t want him to know me, to know who he is talking to specifically. None of us like that anyway. But he’ll read this entry and he’ll know exactly who he has been spending the day with and then he’ll know the name to put to the person he doesn’t like, who has been mean and Tweeting mean things about him today. He’ll know who to like better, like when he told us stuff about Emmie and being worried about pleasing her, and some of us thought that it wasn’t fair that he should be so concerned about her and not the rest of us, and Emmie is always the one the boys like the best because she is dirty and fun and likes to be extra fun in bed.

I know it is my responsibility, like it is the rest of us, to let him be nice to us, to try to be nice to him, to allow him to put his arms around us like he was just doing when we laid in bed…because that’s how we are supposed to work together, because we don’t know how not to work that way.

I don’t know, none of this will make sense to most of you reading, mostly because it’s hard to explain how we work…but we’ve written stuff about it, and if you have questions just ask, we've answered them for people before. It makes sense to us, to have laid down ground rules this year, what with all the changes that have happened in our lives…I just hope that it’s okay that I wrote all of this.

James will be back soon. Hopefully he gets a bottle of wine, because I know some of them would like to have a drink so they can maybe get me to stop crying or pass out – we tried to take a nap earlier but it didn’t work so well.

~Cassandra

(To Special Someone, if you are reading, and I hope you are reading this entry…the clovers have lost their Christmas – I think the bees chased then away. #subtweet. I miss you.)

Not Interesting Enough For A Title

We're planning on posting a little something about James' (@mr_jmm) first five days with us, it's almost done. It hasn't been a complete bed of roses for anyone involved, but it hasn't been too terrible...yet. It all still has that "new car" smell about it.

Yesterday was spent writing a four page account for the Human Rights board on why we feel we were discriminated against by the people who fired us at work due to mental illness. If they hadn't mentioned out Twitter account which is tied to this blog...and there was a way to even ascertain our identity without reading the contents of our writing...in conjunction with out firing we never would have concluded, just remained confused, as to the various reasons they stated they shit-canned us.

So, we have the paperwork to fill out, which shouldn't take long, it's mostly check boxes, and the four page account of our employment there, which is basically a condensed and more lucid/detailed complication of the posts we have written about getting fired.

It was a week on Monday. We still feel lost; we don't know where to even start. Luckily James used to help people with their resumes/CV as part of employment so he has told us he will help us fine-tune our resume this week. All is good and well as long as someone posts a job we can do. There are many physical labour jobs we wish we could do but with our back problems from the car accident we are unable to even withstand working in kitchens for long, and culinary arts/food related job positions are about the only ones we are eligible for, and we probably don't have enough management job experience from the last one to be eligible for a restaurant management position  and given their bullshit claims about performance we are feeling less than capable to do the job of a manager again at all.

So, all that to say that yesterday we didn't do a blog post because we spent our writing energy on that other thing, and we started a 5 day overview which should be posted today, but we have a doctor appointment across town and we figure we should probably show James something other than a small portion of the city and the inside of our apartment...we all just might go stir crazy.