We Can't Always Disappear

Some people have been asking how things are going living with The Mother.

For those of you unaware of what we’re talking about, (or why people might be concerned) we’ve been living with her for a month now, after a year of hell and additional circumstances, we were forced with no option. So, we are staying in her basement, The Boyfriend/James in accompaniment, for the meantime.

We have mentioned her in Tweets often (I’m guessing it’s often, and enough) and if people don’t know much about her then we’re sure she sounds fun, maybe even interesting. * shakes head*
The people who are concerned about how we are doing living here are generally those that have been reading our blog all year, people who have read the stories of abuse, among other things she allowed to let happen to us as a kid (which is only part of the reasons for us); and so, these people are concerned about our mental stability while living with her.

The thing is, some of our existences are meant to be able to deal with co-existence with her (as we now understand). We’ve lived with her a few times over our lifetimes, some before the age of 12, and then some of us a couple of times after the age of 21. (the body we share is 32 years old)

The only real problem is some of us don’t like being around her; and not in the same “I hate my mother” way like men and women who have caring types of mothers that are nagging all the time and worrying about their well being. The kind of mom who calls more than twice a year to see how you are, and, we don’t know, asks about how you are doing, and what’s new in your life…because, yeah, that must be really shitty, to have that type of mother. #sarcasm

So, while we are here some of us disappear for large chunks of time. This makes James, our boyfriend, sad – because he likes all of us (okay, he’s not the biggest fan of Brooke…but…none of us are) for some reason. He even likes those of us (me) that don’t like kissing him! He's strange.

Anywhozitz. What does it mean to disappear for a person with DID/MPD? Generally, for us anyway, it is time that when you come back from you need some information about, a way to figure out what has gone on, and the thoughts and feelings, desires, interests…the person…is just not present, OR sharing co-consciousness* – some of us call it “being in our bedroom”. It can be fairly normal in DID/MPD for a person to be absent for chunks of time, sometimes months and years, particularly in the situation where we are – living with a formerly abusive parent. We don't get to choose when we get to/have to be out* - though some of us fight to try and sometimes it works, it depends on many different factors.

Some of us love our mother; some of tolerate her; some of us can’t stand the sight of her, and/or the sound of her voice; some of us drink heavily even before she comes home from work to deal with what is going on inside our head; for some of us her presence makes us not able to drink at all; sometimes her mere presence will drive us to drink. When she is around we can be visually agitated, as James/The Boyfriend would tell you, and sometimes the yelling in our head is just too much.

So, how are we, really? Depends on who is out*.

We want to thank the people, friends, who have been asking us how we are doing. While those questions make us a little uncomfortable, causing us to shrug and type “you know, we’re okay”…we know we should probably work on people really caring. It’s just, sometimes, it’s hard to tell…from our experiences.

~”Ten” & et als

Have a super duper day!

(if you're interested...the blog post we wrote for Mothers Day this year: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/why-most-of-us-dislike-our-mother.html)