Out of Orbit

Our personal universe is out of orbit. It's been for over a month. Mind and body out of sync.

Last semester we nailed it out, ended with great grades, felt on-task most of the semester, the small struggles had little impact. Now. Now there's no focus. A lot of the time it feels like there's no control. Waking up has gotten harder, but for the physical pain we'd stay in bed all day, most days. It feels like something is pressing down, smothering our will.

The many experiences with adult education (college/university) have always been our more stable years, mentally. This semester...feels full of ambiguity, and like being slowly swallowed whole. It does not feel stable.

For instance, having a six year old try to take over your body so she can play with 3D jungle gummies peeking from the backpack, and prance the elephants across the table...takes exhaustive mental control and we resorted to laying our head on the table and twirling our hair to talk her down from all the pleading...and that's not really something fun to do, nor does the body language that it portrays speak of much stability in a classroom full of young adults.

Next time we leave the gummies hidden.

It's not often she's around these days...we've missed her. I've missed her. She hasn't been around since before we had to move back to the states and live with Mother...it was obvious why she hid, but she cannot be here...not now, there's too much to do.

There was a brief time where it felt like we'd been contained by a magnet, but now...it feels like a scrambled magnetic field again.

We need to remember to breath.

Random Memory On Replay

We've been having a random nice memory play in our head, flashes of two images of a single day, like a broken record, skipping, playing over and over. Like we're trying to copy it into our memory. Figured might as well release it onto "paper", so it might stop.

We are standing in the library of the private Christian school we were attending (from first to fifth grade), it was small, and the shape of a circle, with one window facing the parking lot. We can recall the smell of books (old books, we love the smell of books), silence, no thoughts. I imagine we were feeling excited, it seems like the only feeling we could have been having.

Standing, watching, waiting for The Father to pick us up. It was the day Baby Brother was born (our second brother, youngest brother).

Later, on a stretch of road during the forty-two mile trip to the hospital (it was twice the distance that home was, from the school), where there was an old heritage site, with a church and a playground, we can see ourselves sitting in the backseat of a blue Ford Escort. <not sure why we would be sitting in the back>

We don't remember anything else, no feelings we might have had, no conversation with The Father, nothing before, nothing after. Not usual, we're sure.

We see that little girl, such a pretty little girl, from outside of our body, like we're watching someone else. We want to hold her, and hug her, and tell her that she has to keep being strong for a long, long time.

It was 1987*. We were seven and a half years old*. None of us remember a time before Baby Brother, except maybe Bethany...and she's apprehensive to share anything, ever. So far I have no access to most memories before our physical age of about 12, other than this and vague portions of the bad ones; at least this is a happy one, even if it is, collectively, less than 30 seconds.

~ C & C

[*corrected after The Father read the blog entry, we were a year off, thinking baby brother was born in 1986, and thinking we were six and a half. He says he remembers us being very excited, and that Angry Brother (who would have been about five and a half) was less so. (we don't remember him being there, maybe he wasn't)]

Non-Memory Memory

Some of us have had this obsessive memory of a non-memory in our mind ever since the day it happened, it scares us even though we know these kinds of things have happened to us always, but we've never had clear confirmation through confrontation of it until this past summer. In reality most people shrug off other people's memory lapses, at least from our experience. Obviously "lost time" is something we are accustomed to (common in Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder), but unless you have someone close to you who immediately notices something "off", and confronts you about it, then it's likely to go unnoticed by the average person. It's what makes many symptoms of DID/MPD easy to mask, most people are not observant, and don't care.

A day this past summer, when James was visiting us (of course now he lives with us), we were hugging at the dining room table, being affectionate and touchy, ect, We were planning on leaving the apartment so we decided to go to the bedroom to change clothes. As soon as we turned away form the table to go change, apparently James slapped us on the butt. We kept walking, and just as we got to the bedroom door we turned and said "Booooo" in a disapproving manor to him, and then disappeared around the corner.

We do remember getting changed into an outfit and coming out of the bedroom, back to the table where James was sitting and waiting for us. We rubbed up against him and he acted apprehensive to touch us. Obviously confused about this we asked what was wrong.

"When I slapped you on the ass you turned and Booooed at me, you sounded upset...?" he said, looking at us questioningly, with a puzzled look on his face.

"When did you slap us on the ass?" we asked.

"Just now, when you went in the bedroom to change", he said.

We didn't believe him, we asked him what he was talking about.

He recounted the event that had just transpired, and we had no recollection of it, and after discussing it with him we still didn't know...but that day stayed in our head for months.

We've talked to James about it and he says it was a child voice, and since knowing us all he can only assume it was Bethany. 

It's not secret that Bethany is holding some of our past, memories that we can't recall...she is one of the only ones whose purpose/presence we are entirely unsure of since starting our mapping therapy, other than her being a splinter from Frank and The Other Girl at an early age; she is repressive and withholding in her memories, aside from a brief flashback this past late-summer when we had a switch mid-dream.

We're not sure why it took so long to record this memory of a non-memory, but it's been passing around to each of us and I wanted to get it out so it can stop, so we can try to stop being concerned about it.

This recounting of something we have no real memory of scares us, not because we don't know there are things we cannot recall, collectively...but because it's such a recent, and minor thing...that makes us scared about what Bethany is hiding from us...or if it should really matter. And what else the rest of us might be hiding.

James says he is scared for the day, if it happens, that Bethany is willing to share/reveal/whatever you call it, to us, the memories that she has...we can't say we're not scared, but also we don't know how much it matters. (though some therapist, somewhere, would likely say it does)

Uggg.

We've had a tough relationship day. We choose not to write about the things, for now, that go on in our relationship, to much extent...one day we will share more, but for now...for now it's a "kid gloves" approach...mostly because it's all very new, sensitive, and as James stated today "I didn't think it would be this hard...", of course he's talking about being in a relationship with us.

It's not easy being us, so why he thought a relationship with us would be anything less than a hard...well...who knows.

We can only hope that love can endure anything...even if some of us question it's existence.

Look at that, two blog posts today...we should get a trophy for that.

~Ivy (a sad version of me)

Notes to Selves

(<<<< if you're not us you can read the previous post, or if there is a newer posts than that [because we have to come back later and write] then read those >>>>)

Dear us,

Please get Bethany a new colouring book today for goodness sake (she's only been asking for months); also…she wants those footy pajamas you saw yesterday when you were out shopping.

I was instructed to relay this…apparently Bethany was being irritating about it while Catherine and James were being intimate (ick) last night; in addition to some of you being generally distracting...you know who you are, and you know what you were saying.

You made her cry, jerks.

~ Joy

Who Lives In Your Head? Mapping Therapy and DID/MPD.

Obviously we write a lot about Dissociative Identity Disorder here. [formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the manual used by the American Psyciatric Association]. Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder is not a a personality disorder, such as antisocial, avoidant, borderline, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive and/or schizotypal type of disorders are classified; DID/MPD is a dissociative disorder (for more on that read a previous entry we wrote: 'The D in DID: Dissociation' http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/08/d-in-did-dissociation.html) which is grouped with other disorders such as depersonalization disorder, dissociative fugu and dissociative amnesia. It often gets confused with personality disorders, most commonly, amoung them, Borderline Personality Disorder.

Wait. What is MPD/DID? More info here: http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/p/dissociative-identity-disorder-what-is.html

We write about MPD/DID because we "suffer" from this "disability". Obviously if this is not your first time here, and you've read the header of this blog, you know this...you'd be surprised how many people don't read it.

So. You might be asking, why the quotations on those words? In ours, and other people's, opinion using words like "suffer", "disability", and others such as "survivor", indicates a weakness.

DID/MPD is not a weakness. People with MDP/DID lead relatively normal lives, it does not mean they are disabled; they date, they get married, they have jobs, they have children and grandchildren. It's a disorder that is easily masked to strangers and family members; even to the alters themselves.

However many times, in order to be successful at living a "normal" life, some sort of therapy is needed (though generally a person with the disorder has already seen 7-8 years of therapy and undergone several mis-diagnoses, like us, before they reach the diagnoses of MPD/DID1); and the drive to not be labeled a "victim" and let negative alters keep them down, as also essential to living "normal". Yes, there may be some suffering without help, without support from friends, family and loved ones...and it varies from peoples to peoples, but that doesn't mean they have to "suffer from the disorder" from what we can tell, pain and suffering happens to everyone, and it's probably the most "normal" part of the disorder.

Having said that, without the proper mental health professional to guide them, or the will to work with themselves, in the event there is no therapist/psychotherapist who deals with the disorder, such as in our case, it can be a terribly destructive disorder for the people experiencing it, and sometimes for the people in their lives. Sometimes it can lead to self-harm, depression...even suicide.

One of the therapies used for DID/MPD is called mapping, and is not hard to work on independent of a therapist. Mapping is a technique used to learn about an individual's internal personality system. The client is asked to draw a map or diagram of his or her personality states. As therapy progresses, the client is asked to update the map. Also known as personality mapping or system mapping. [source: http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?print=true]

You (assuming you are a singular, and not a plural) probably don't wake up in the morning wondering "Who am I" (though, to be fair here, we don't usually do that either, unless questioned); you likely go through the day doing things you do the same every day, probably rarely looking back at the them, having vague memories (or sometimes no memory) of events and actions and think..."Why did I do that?", "What the hell is my problem"...or maybe you do (HaHa!).

Your thoughts and feelings likely match, and you have a lot of control over them one way or another (i.e. letting them, or not letting them, visibly match on the outside), your opinion on a subject doesn't vary wildly from one day, one minute, to another, as far as outsiders can tell at least. It's probably safe to say your thoughts and opinions are fairly congruent.

Side note: This description is not to be confused with people who have a "public" them and a "private" them, which people like to joke about by misusing the term "multiple personalities" and the "their other personality" to describe, lets say...being a sluttier. meaner, etc. version of their self. [P.S. It's also disrespectful, one lying about having any other health issue would piss any rational person off. Imagine you make jokes about having cancer when you don't actually have it? While most of the time it makes us roll our eyes when we see those (MPD) jokes, on occasion it pisses one of us off, when he happens to be around he'll be confrontational about it, though usually we send him to write, if we can maintain control. For example: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/sam-gets-set-off.html]

Holy crap, veer off track much? Goodness.

So, back to the mapping.

Mapping, as well as the writing of this blog, is what we do for therapy. The purpose of mapping is to attain a general sense of our Others (Alters), I am sure some of us have written about it a time or two, added little bits at the end of a post on occasion and mentioned we have a whole other blog dedicated to it - though it's been on hiatus for some time now, because of the many changes in our life. http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/ is where we use words and pictures to communicate to each other who we are, in addition to this blog. (Why we do it publicly at all? To help others who live with similar disorders, and people who have a loved one dealing with these things; which we have, and we know this because of e-mails and Twitter DM's of thanks). When you have a system that disagrees on many things, it's nice to map, and write, and figure out who is who.

We started this blog a year and a half ago, out of a need to write, it took a long time to start writing what we needed to, nearly 5 or 6 months, though the one of us that is no longer part of us (The Other Girl, our core*) wrote a journal on a separate page of this website, she did not want to face, fully, all that was happening; mostly we used the entries in the early days, as we do now, as a line of communication, because we were wildly confused; we're a bit better now. Part of the writing therapy was to write about our past abuse, the goal was to process it so we could lead to a sort of "healing".

Now that we've used writing therapy to write about the multiple abuses we can collectively recall (though there is some questions remaining about Bethany's memories, and other missing pieces) from our past, we realize that taking this endeavor unassisted, writing about our past, could have been potentially dangerous. And so we want to make sure to convey to others who may be attempting this, that it should be monitored by at least one person who knows what is going on. In the time it took to come to terms with us, and write about the abuse, we got to a severely low weight (by some standards, though we do have some food related issues), we were not eating or drinking much of anything, we were barely holding on during the work week, and crying and screaming all the time (even AT work sometimes), we were just a fucking mess. Thankfully we had Fabulous Person, our only real life friend remaining (aside from occasional correspondences with Fuck Face). Fabulous Person (and her daughter) were there for us when one of us would call, scared, crying, sometimes yelling, screaming and ranting, and to ask to be put on "suicide watch" by her. We trusted her, as we do today...but that's more of the story for the final chapter(s) of what we started writing at the start of the year, our life, complete (as it can be). It wasn't all bad. Emmie managed to get us involved in some crazy shit last Spring...stuff that makes some of us blush, and others wish her ass wasn't our own so we could kick it.

The point is, getting back to that, because yeah, we have a point; mapping therapy is a legitimate form of therapy for people dealing with DID/MPD. It's a fluid journey that is not always constant, but we recommend it for people living with the disorder because it leads to strength and understanding, and if you so choose...integration (not the route we want to take, and not the route James, The Boyfriend, wants us to take). Today we woke up and we know we are 10. Earlier this year we woke up and Frank only knew herself, and two others. It's not uncommon, the fluidity, it is growth. It's also not easy. But it's a journey we never want to take back, that we wish for others like us, and now that we know the mapping, we can uncover the fragments in our system, if there are any, and work together as a team.

Huh. That wasn't supposed to sounds quite so uplifting.

Boobs.

~ Frank et al (minus Frank) or as we like to call a blending of us: Frankie------------------------Interesting Resources:

We recommend reading here, another blogger writes about mapping therapy: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/dissociativeliving/2010/11/dissociative-identity-disorder-mapping-the-system/, though Holly has since left HealthyPlace.com, her new blog can be found here: http://dontcallmesybil.com/.

PODS (Partners of Dissociative Survivors): http://www.dissociation.org.uk/newsletter.html (September 2011 http://www.dissociation.org.uk/multipleparts1-1.pdf - some interesting information on 'What’s it like? — Alters/Parts', we skimmed it, mostly because we've written a few times on the subject here, as requested by readers/friends: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/we-answer-some-follower-questions.html and http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/11/we-answer-some-follower-questions-part.html

*Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder common terminology

Personality Specific Terms

Alter: alter states, selves, parts (a subjective term); distinct personalities; fragments alternate personality, personality 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): A state of being aware of what the other personalities are doing and saying.

Other Common 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 neighbour.

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.

__________________________________
Other Sources:
Literature Review of Effective Treatment for Dissociative Identity Disorder - Matt Lucariello, B.A., Rider University

Yeah, it's WebMD...we used it to locate the number of years before getting anaccurate diagnoses of MPD. People should always be cautious with things like WebMD and Wikipedia

1 http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?page=3

We Answer Some Follower Questions: Part II

When @MentalErrorist sent us a series of DM’s this past week, asking us questions about our Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, we decided after several exchanges that 140 characters was no way to get some of our answers to his questions across adequately, and asked him if we could answer his questions in a blog post (because he reads our blog, as well as follows us on Twitter), like we had with some of our other followers back in May (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/we-answer-some-follower-questions.html). It's easier than having to ask these questions, should they arise again in the future from someone else, all over again.

One of the questions @MentalErrorist asked us about was whether or not we “share a common sense of humour? Or [if it’s] coloured by [our] different experiences.” He also asked about The Other Girl, and who Frank is and whether or not she is a spokesperson, or just what we call our collective - collective being what many people refer to our system*, these days.

We are each different, we are individuals, and have different characteristics, as far as we, people who are close to us, and James (The Boyfriend) are concerned, and as such, the easy answer would be to simply say "yes", our senses of humour are coloured by our different experiences, and memories.

We don’t always agree with each other, those among our system, sometimes in extreme ways, as we have written about a few times here in the blog. In addition to not agreeing with each other there are definitely differences in our senses of humour, although more often than not our milder styles of humour is something we all enjoy about each other, it’s where it starts to deviate that some of us are less entertained by each other, and sometimes appalled; for instance, some us do not think it’s funny to make jokes about turning people into sleds using their flesh, kicking puppies, stabbing annoying spoiled children, jokes about sex…and some of us actually make jokes about these things, but also 98% of the things we joke about on Twitter are not made-up jokes, they are things in our mind that we are trying to deal with through humour, trying to remove from our brain in the form of words - and some of the things in our mind disturb some of our alters*. There are currently** ten alters in our system that we know of.

On occasion we joke about things that later make one of us uncomfortable, for example, for some of us sex commentary (or jokes, if you will) makes us uncomfortable; or, like for our youngest alter…kicking puppies, makes he upset; same when The Boyfriend says something mean about the cats (her "kitties") - but just like when any number of our followers makes a joke one us may not find particularly funny, we shrug and in our case talk to each other about it. It tends to be difficult to do/say something to most of us that would offend us, but then…everyone has their one weak spot, we’ve offended ourselves on occasion.

Like other people who claim to not be offended by anything, there’s always something that will do it, it's part of being human, and have sensitivities.

Our differences actually extend into all facets of our life, not just our humour, from food, tastes in movies, sometimes things that interest us on a recreational level, even things like drinking and…sex.

We could write an entire blog entry on how we each differ in how we handle intimate relationship activities (sex stuff), and just like our sense of humour, our differences are coloured by experiences we’ve had, and sometimes we are not sure what those experiences are, for some of us anyway.

For example, just a short one, one of us (“Ten”, [since has been named Joy] who the boyfriend has written about: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/10/perfect-ten-james-blog-post.html) hates kissing, and she calls it “gross”, she tells James, to his face, that kissing is gross; it’s not the she thinks it is gross, or he is gross; she says it makes her feel gross, sometimes it makes her want to cry being “intimate” which makes her uncomfortable, because she feels “dirty” (she doesn't like to feel that way at all)…and not in the way some of us like to feel dirty, because between you and me? I like things a little dirty sometimes...but not like our Emmie.

Now that I feel we have answered that question (and if not, please let us know where we can clarify), let’s move on to @MentalErrorist’s other question.“You mention "The Other Girl"...was she the first? It wasn't really clear on who "Frank" was either, other than...is "Frank" your spokesperson? Or just a collective?”

The Other Girl…we wrote about her about five months ago, most of what you need to know about her can be found in this entry: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/06/other-girl.html. She was what is known as our core*, as far as we understand, and we have since “eliminated” her.

We have come to find out that eliminating a core is not a common thing to do, but thanks to one of our followers who is a psychotherapist; who is also our internet friend (who we hope to meet someday), who reads our blog, who sometimes offers e-mail support when James needs someone to talk to, who works with, and has worked with, patience “suffering” from DID/MPD; we know it has been done, and successfully, with very positive results.

Frank (me) is one of our Others, I am the second known personality (as far as we understand), and until this past year (March?) I had only known about one of our other alters, Bethany, who is the youngest alter in our system – some professionals may refer to her as our “Little” (which is a term used in Dissociative Identity Disorder to describe a personality aged about 1 years old to 9 years old…Bethany is 6). It became clearer, since I knew how old she was, that some of the behaviors I was attributing to her were not possible for a six year old.

There has been a lot written about me (Frank) this year, maybe it hasn’t been clear who I am, but there will be even more written about me in the next story (story twelve) written about our lives (this one being the eleventh and most recent one: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/11/dawn-of-something-different.html), so maybe it will become easier to understand.

I guess I can be considered a spokesperson, however I am an alter* and my main function, in the past, as it is now, is to try to organize all of the personalities to work together, sometimes to organize/motivate us to survive, cope and/or escape bad/negative life situations; in the past I have worked to make sure The Other Girl could take care of her situations, not knowing that each time I had helped her I was helping other alters, it’s not something I understood until this past year, when I got tired of not having my own life, and got tired of her negatively impacting our lives, and worked to “eliminate” her and found out about the other alters...and in eliminating her have to be the responsible replacement-core, because none of us can actually be the core.

We have, I have, learned this year that alters are not usually aware of each other early in life, and in some cases, they never come to that point unless there are circumstances which force it to happen. Circumstances like therapy, from the right therapist (we have had many therapists and mis-diagnoses), in a mental health situation; or events that finally…for a lack of a word…set it all on fire.

~ Frank

*Dissociative Identity/Multiple Personality Disorder common terminology

Personality Specific Terms

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 Common 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 neighbour.

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.

** When we say that we know of it’s because DID/MPD Mapping is a process, a process that for us had been interrupted by many stressful life events this past summer (all of which have been written about). More on what mapping is…

Mapping is a technique used to learn about an individual's internal personality system. The client is asked to draw a map or diagram of his or her personality states. As therapy progresses, the client is asked to update the map; also known as personality mapping or system mapping. [source: http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder?print=true]

Information on mapping Dissicoiative Identity Disorder: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/dissociativeliving/2010/11/dissociative-identity-disorder-mapping-the-system/ (Written November 4th, 2010 / by Holly Gray)

A 'State of the Union' Re: The Boyfriend Moving In

This is the state of the union in regards to what we thought about James’ (The Boyfriend) visit, about him leaving, and now what we think about him coming back to live with us…tomorrow. TOMORROW. As of tomorrow we lose our alone time…:-/

It’s been a stressful week, for everyone involved, we’ve been having issues, some of us and James, and he’s been hoping for awhile that we would finish writing this, and post it, to ease his concerns about how we all feel, because he is feeling less than positive/apprehensive about how we feel. It also helps us to sort it out. Much like our  

'State of the Union' Re: The Visit of Our Twittercrush James back in July right before he came to meet us in person for the first time.

This has been entirely difficult to complete, mainly because it takes team work in its entirety to write, and the added stress of our life lately has made it difficult to focus and work as a team. So much this last week, from saying goodbye to Special Someone, and unexpectedly to Fuck Face…to putting in our three week notice at work so we can prepare to move, because we have to. But James will be here soon, and maybe we won’t be as stressed…maybe.

We are putting everybody in alphabetical order for the ‘state of the union’, as to not indicate anyone has more or less feelings, one way or another, regarding James.

Bethany – It was confusing for us to decipher how Bethany feels, about James, at first. Bethany really doesn’t talk much, or rather she goes through “quiet but there” periods.  James and she spent some time together on and off, a short period at the museum when she was unintentionally triggered* at the hands-on science museum in our city, (James wrote about that day) an evening watching ‘X-Men: First Class’, a then another night where James read her a story, though it could have been the same night as the movie (Sorry, I don`t have all the details, but we do know a switch happened in the middle of the night that night, during a bad dream/flashback she had)

There has been some uncomfortable conversation with Bethany about James, and this will sound strange…and it’s rather embarrassing for us – and straight off we will tell you this is not a perversion, or sexual in the very least. At some point she started referring to him as “dad”…now we know what some might be thinking, but like we said, this is not a perversion, or a sexual thing. (When he is unfortunate enough to have to share the bed with her he wears shorts, and she wears her favourite nightgown that is white, knee length and has little pink flowers on it).

We’ve explained to her that James is not her dad…that she knows who dad (daddy, a.k.a. The Father) is…our father. It made our stomach churn until we realized that it all comes down to love feelings.

Bethany is 6 years old. The only equation to love she knows, has ever really known, in male form, is the love she feels for our father. Once we figured this out we relaxed a bit…but not completely.

It seriously makes my head hurt thinking of her calling him that accidentally…for now we’ll just let her call him “teddy bear”, or pick a different nickname, because for some reason she also thinks he is that, her teddy bear.

Bethany is happy and excited for James to come home.

Brooke – Honestly, she’ll be angry about it, but we don’t give a fuck one way or another about what she thinks, or how she feels. The only way it matters is when she’s persuading us to be angry, or mean, to James…and then we have to apologize, and then she wins - except for the apology part, and it only matters insofar as she feels like she wins.

We know from messages she’s left both to, and entries regarding James, on this blog and on Tumblr, that she hates him; probably as much or more than she hates us, for whatever reasons she does (she thinks us stupid, and worthless, and untalented, amoung other things). We won’t get too much into things about her, or her personality – we don’t know much about her yet (though we have been mapping her on our therapy mapping project) other than she is mean, and she tortures us…and we have to learn more about why she is part of us, and what her purpose is.

She never directly spent time with James, until briefly, recently, on video chats, but she’s been in co-consciousness many times. James has written about her in his blog; I am not sure if she has been mentioned in our entries much, though she has written one or two recently.

Catherine – Catherine had a really good time with James, she loves him very much, but she is also fairly young. She spent more time, in the last week or so of his visit, with James then he had anticipated. Towards the end it was a fight for who got to spend time with him. She’s excited for our boyfriend to be living with us, especially since he knows about her (and can tell when she is here more and more each time they talk, and this makes her pretty happy).

All that matters is James knows Catherine loves him, and she feels safe going out into public with him when she has “an episode” (she has paranoia & social anxiety issues).

She is happy, James…to have you coming home tomorrow.

Cassandra – Cassandra and James had a rough start, James wrote about spending time with Cassandra, as he did write about a few of us, however I think he wrote more than one entry about her.

While not a fan at first, because of her love for Someone Special, Cassandra now is okay with the fact James will be our boyfriend, and thinks James is going to be a neat friend to hang out with and watch movies with, plus he likes to eat, just like her. Thankfully James knows about her penchant for eating and hopefully will be a good influence on her, or they are liable to dine on pizza, pudding (more than she is supposed to), donuts and other assorted things that she is technically not allowed.

She doesn’t love James…and he knows that and is okay with it. They can be good friends and maybe someday that will change.

The only concern I have is that her depressive moods and his depressive moods will feed off of each other and send us all into a downward spiral. James is aware of this concern, however, because we have really good communication with him, and we hope we can all be strong for each other.

Emmie – What can we say, Emmie? She doesn’t fall in love easy, and she is still has residual “feelings”/thoughts for Fuck Face, so …we’ll wait and see about the “L” word.

She says she is pretty happy with the conversations she’s had with James about sex, and the things he is willing to do, and let her do (read: everything and anything her dirty little heart desires). She’s exceedingly happy with…the equipment…that is being provided to her.

It is interesting though, the last day she spent some time with James and he wanted to know what other things she liked, besides sex, because he wants to spend additional time with her, apparently. She didn’t have too many answers for him that weren’t in the realm of sex, but after he left she put some thought into is, and realized no man has ever wanted to know more about her, or know the things she likes to do that aren’t in relation to being naked. She’s curious to find out if James likes some of the things that interest her, outside of the bedroom.

As a note, for Bethany’s sake, and further clarrification: The one “sick” games Emmie doesn’t play, is the daddy-child role-playing, our stomach collectively churns at the thought of it, though everything else is open for experimentation with Emmie.

Frank – What can I say? James is my love. I had a wonderful time with him while he was here, despite everyone else fighting for a chance to spend time with him (meaning become Executive*, or be “out”, which means massive headaches for me, and for some of the others) but, just as he doesn’t ever seem to have the right words to say in e-mail, when it comes time to say something to me, (he writes us letters, and addresses us separately, on occasion) it’s hard for me to put into words my feelings for him.

He is so supportive of us all, and honestly I never thought we’d find someone we could all be ourselves with, all of us (Bethany being the biggest concern, always). He is patient (but not always and that’s good because I don’t want him to be a doormat), he is not afraid to address us each in the way he feels we should each be addressed; he is handsome, intelligent, sensitive, stabby, witty, honest. He knows that I love him, and would do anything for him, as he would us.

My concerns fall into the areas about his ability to withstand…everything/everyone that is us, but it’s nice to know we can have a relationship with someone and not be afraid about being entirely honest, and though sometimes he hurts because of our frank honesty, we know he would have it no other way, because he has told us so.

I would be stupid not to be honest about still having some sort of feelings for Fuck Face, but he was a very important person, and without him what we had to do this past year, to become separate, but whole, would likely not have transpired as quickly as it did. He will always hold a special place in my heart, in our hearts…we know James can understand this.

I love you, James…with my whole stabby insane heart. I can’t wait to see you tomorrow.

Ivy – Ivy didn’t get to spend a massive amount of time one-on-one with James…a bit in the art museum, a bit here and there, but she was present enough to fall in love with him. Of course, she is our lover of many things, and happy and giggly and a smart ass (James like to call her a “sarcastic moo”). She is very excited for James to come back, even though she appears to disappears for some lengths at times (we hope this changes), lately, however, she’s been more here. She likes to poke fun at James. She never had a chance to be intimate with James while he was here, so she’s pretty excited for that day to come. (no pun intended).

Melody – Melody spent some time with James, not a lot, but she enjoyed it as much as she could. She likes that he knows to let her be and work on the computer, write or do whatever. She likes to be alone a lot. She is a little fearful of having someone around 27/7 again, but luckily for her, and the rest of us…for most of us it’s never 24/7…

She doesn’t love James, and James knows why (to not love is part of her function in our system*)…and that’s all that matters.

Sam – didn’t spend ANY time with James one on one…but is very excited at the prospect of having a guy to hang out with, and play video games with (word is the boys are going to buy a game counsel, probably a Wii…and will probably be looking for people to race Mario Kart with online…if you know some people); most of us are terrible TERRIBLE, at video games, and find them a waste of time. Sam is also excited to have a guy to check out girls with (though he and Emmie enjoy doing that together, as well as some of the rest of us who like girls…which we all do not) we’re sure it’ll be different with an “outside” person, the checking out “the ladies”, he used to have fun doing it with Fuck Face.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

That’s us, the 9 we can account for. We’ll be working on mapping through the winter (that’s a form of therapy for DID)…we hope there are no more than 9, but sometimes none of us know who we are…and that scares us…so we’re going to look into that, once we get some peace and quiet…and now that we have someone who can support us, emotionally, when we freak out a bit, like we did when we first started the therapy process  back in (roughly) March of this year (2011).

DID mapping is not something generally done quickly, is something usually assisted by a therapist (there are none in our current city who “treat” DID patience), and is discovering, and refining personalities is an evolving process…you can read more about it on our mapping therapy blog: (http://wearejcmf.blogspot.com/

One thing we want James to know, collectively, is that we can take care of ourselves, we have for 32 years. Some of us want to say that we don’t need you. We don’t in fact need you, or anyone, except us…but we want you.

I hope, James, that this somehow eases your mind. You know you are important to us, we would not be giving up so much for you, if you were not.

~Frank (et al)

_______________________

*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 due to massive life stress.

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 neighbour.

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)