Mama, We're Comin' Home

Part of what we were waiting for came to fruition yesterday morning and it being fiscally impossible to stay in England any longer to wait for the other things we've been waiting for, we can't continue any longer.

There hasn't been enough contract work in order for James to able to keep affording places for us to stay while we wait for more of them (contracts), let alone funds to eat much of anything the last couple of weeks (except when we stayed with James' aunt last weekend). Cup of soup, crackers and sandwiches, the occasional bagged salad, do not a lunch and dinner make every day for a month (we went our three times, at the most, for a hot and nutritionally balanced meal). When one mental health issues, and food-related health issues...food becomes even more important to staying happy and healthy.

As fun as it might sound living in hotels, when you can't afford much in the way food, or entertainment, which also requires gasoline (it's equivalent to approximately $8.50 a gallon here as of this writing), it is not wonderful.
[almost forgot, we went to Bletchley Park, the tickets we're £27 total (for two), but good for a year, and since we have to come back two more times in that time, and the place is huge...that's an investment]
Thankfully we had one last month on our wireless plan (cheap as dirt in the UK for what we needed) and many of the hotels had free wireless (except for that damn Holiday Inn Express) when the mobile signal was nowhere to be found, so that kept us entertained, plus the wonderful people of Twitter.

Add having had to keep moving to hotels with lower rates AND vacancies regularly, because we booked mostly on a night-by-night basis so we could leave at any time in the event James got a contract, or even a few hours of work...spread that over a month and we are exhausted.

Spending an entire month in a hotel with anybody will drive you mad, don't care how much you love them or like them. It's not a romantic situation. The toilets are not that far away from the living area, where you are together constantly...bitch, bitch, moan, at least we had a roof over our head, and Cup of Soup to eat.

It could have been worse.

James is almost recovered completely from the vasectomy he had last Tuesday, (an event which sadly removed one of our *clears throat* forms of entertainment for awhile) and so yesterday and today we had tough decisions to make about how and when to leave England, and some stress to try to rid that was eating him, and us, to pieces.

The car we bought and had planned on storing needs too much work and the MOT (vehicle road worthy certificate) is due, and that little puppy (a Ford Mondeo) is not going to make it, (the wheel barring is shot and the catalytic converter is crumbled, almost tragically) and we can't afford to fix it, so before we fly out this week the scrapyard will come collect it for a cool £160 or so.

We're excited and not about returning to the states right now. Anybody that knows us well knows our mixed feelings, together, on living with The Mother, but it's all about staying strong, and once again trying to repair the relationship and for some of us learn to completely forgive her. In addition we, well, James at least, will only be able to stay in the United States for three months at the most, again...which means we will be returning to England/Europe either when he gets a good long-term contract or whatever the United States Government says...which we will find out when we land at the airport and go through customs...whichever comes first.

The funny thing about all this is,,,if we hadn't lost our wallet right before the flat sold and had nowhere for The Mother to send the new bank card when she finally got it in the mail to forward on to us, we wouldn't have has any of these problems.

If the first paperwork to the tax agency in the country where we sold the house we owned (in January) hadn't been lost, and then been a month late being replaced, we'd have had the funds from the sale to work with.

Luckily once we get back to the states we'll have some cash to work with, which is lucky because when James is in the states with us it is our responsibility to take care of him financially.

At least we'll get to see the "kitties" (Catherine is the most excited), and get to our paints and easel (Ivy is thrilled) and finish writing and posting pictures on our other blog (the travel one) about the foods, and sights and experiences we've had...we're all exited about that. Oh, and "real American coffee", none of that two shots of espresso and hot water Cafe Americano bullshit. And we'll get to cook meals again. And we can drive again (once we replace our lost drivers license). And our bicycle is there. Once the funds from the house sale clear we'll be looking at houses to buy. We really shouldn't complain at all. Some of us are apparently spolied brats.

Luckily the first thing James did with the job he got when we arrived in England back in January was save money for the flight home for each of us, just enough...and the increase in ticket prices meant we had to leave even earlier than planned, so...

We'll be touching ground in the United States on Monday.

Four months after arriving in England...mama (and daddy...and everyone)...we're comin' home...again...again.



<writing to you from an airport hotel until Monday, beneath the landing flight path of British Airways>

Anchor, Ship, Sinking, Clown

Who's the anchor, who's the ship.
An anchor is no good to a sinking clown.
A ship with no anchor floats adrift.
All we need is to buck the dips.
Getting pulled down, down, down.
Overboard is no option.

Well.

Another chance to patch the hull tomorrow.

~~ Time ~~ To ~~ Put ~~ On ~~ The ~~ Happy ~~ Face.

Look

At

All

The

Cracks.

More

To

Patch.

Guest Matt Blogs For Mental Health: 'Doors'

A guest blog entry for Mental Health Month 2012. If you would like to submit a story for the month of May please contact us. Thanks. Mental Health Awareness Month: 2012 http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/mental-health-awareness-month-2012.html

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Doors

Since this is a guest blog, I'm not going to try to talk about how depression affects my everyday life. I'm just gonna choose one aspect of it and discuss how it has affected me through the years.

Since I was quite young (teens I think though my memory of those days is not great) I have had a problem walking through doors. Sound odd? Maybe it is. I remember as a teen if I ever had to go to the shop, I would walk down there, no problem, but when I got outside I would pause. If the door was transparent, I'd spend some time looking through it to see who was in the shop, whether I could see the thing that I wanted, whether the guy behind the counter was in a good mood, that kind of thing. The thought of having to spend time looking for what I wanted in a strange room, or worse, having to ask for it, horrified me. That was just me being shy of course, many teens experience that I think. What was worse was the idea that I might have to walk into the shop when there were people already in there. The instant I walked through the door, I thought, everyone would turn and look at me. An instant judgment would take place and the poor hapless creature that had the temerity to walk into a shop to buy something would be mocked, ridiculed and have missiles thrown at him. It sounds ridiculous I know, and I think I knew it then but head was incapable of overruling heart in such matters. 

At the time parents had written this behaviour off as teen shyness, and I think I did too. Fast forward a few years then. I'm beginning my 2nd year at college. I am required to go to one of the computer rooms (no, not every room, this was back when you could still hand in essays in your own handwriting) to register for my 2nd year. The room is on the 3rd floor of one of the university buildings, it is behind a thick wooden fire door. There are 5 days in which to register, today is Monday. "Let's get this out the way then" I say to myself. I walk into college, up the stairs, right up to the door and I can't see through it. I almost made it up to the door but at the last minute turned on my heel and walked on past the door, down the next flight of stairs and out of the building. As I'm walking I think "what happened there then?" Confused I try again, circling around back to where I started, up the stairs, to the door, and just keep going on and out the building again. What the Fuck?

A couple more tries at this and I give up and rationalize to myself that I have another 4 days to register. This happens again on Tuesday and Wednesday. By Thursday I'm starting to worry that I may have to quite the course because I can't register. Now I'm weighing up this consequence against telling my folks that I wasted all that money they saved up to help me through college. I considered it, I actually considered it. I registered on the Friday afternoon, just before the deadline. The feelings of nausea and dread before I walked into the room were astonishing. I'm not sure I can describe them here but I was very nearly physically paralyzed. Once in the room I relaxed. Very few people in there, all too preoccupied to even look at me. The guy who worked for the college came over and asked me if I needed help immediately, we talked, I got registered, I went home feeling pretty relieved and pleased with myself.

This was not an isolated incident by any means, just the one I remember the most. I actually missed a whole term of seminars because, having arrived at the 1st one late, it had already started, and the door was closed. That was the end of that module for me, how could I explain my absence at the 1st seminar if I went to the 2nd. How ridiculous would I look then? I did the reading and passed anyway of course.

So what's going on here? Well as I said earlier it seems to be the assumption that, once you've entered a room, everyone will look, judge, and mock. Does that sound self-absorbed? It really isn't. It is based on the assumption that I look (and am) so pathetic, so obviously inadequate that few can glance at me for the first time and not be horrified by what they see. Of course, what people think of you is more important when you're young; this effect has lessened with time. Appearing at least adequate is nowhere near as important to me as it was back then and I now get by, walking through closed doors almost at will. These thoughts are still there, but I can ignore them.

There are far more crippling aspects of depression that would have a far greater effect on me if It were not for my medication and other help from family and friends. I just wanted to share this relatively small but often seemingly insurmountable aspect of it. Also, because of this article here. [Sorry, but Christianity Doesn't Cure Depression  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2012/apr/26/god-cure-depression-malcolm-bowden?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038 ]

• Visit Matt's Blog: 'I Have No Idea: A Blog About Life With Depression...and a Big Family' http://matted42.blogspot.co.uk/ - We particularly enjoyed Medication oooh Medication http://matted42.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/medication-oooh-medication.html medications come with side effects, most of them not fun at all...
  
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Thank you Matt, for your guest entry, and sharing your story.

~F et al

Mental Health Awareness Month: 2012

All entries for the next
month that are specific to
mental health will bare this
badge, as will guest entries.

Another year in blogging, our second year "celebrating" Mental Health Awareness Month.

(This was what we wrote for last years mental health month: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/mental-health-awareness-month-our.html)

We're a day late with this entry of course, because we had other things to write about yesterday. When we have to write about something to clear our mind and find a spot of peace, we have to write. It's a drive some of us try to fight, but in the end we do it, and we feel better.

I'm not so sure how to proceed with the rest of this. I really don't want to be the one responsible for writing this intro.

We blog for so many reasons. One is writing therapy, another is journaling to track our life, and make it easier to remember in the future. We also love to write, and to share with people and to help others; but some of us don't do it for others, some of us do it purely for us, some of us dislike other people (hate is too strong a word, 'disgusted by' is a better way to say it).

Also, our parents have access to this blog (all of our blogs, and all of our social media presences) so they can check in on us whenever they want - we don't like talking on the phone - and we tend to move about a lot, currently we're in England, we used to be in Canada...and who knows where we will go from here, maybe mainland Europe - we are American. We like to share our life with them in writing, especially now that we are older. We have had checkered past with them, some of us way more than others.

We write about our life and make it public to the world to share the many normal things that people with issues in mental health go through, to show that while the mind of the mentally "ill" may be considered different, it's really not that different from a non-mentally "ill" person; and sometimes what is labeled a mental illness these days is a completely normal experience that pharmacological companies exploit by making people insecure about who they are (another day, another many blog entries for that).

We write to demystify mental illness, particularly DID/MPD and in turn reduce the stigma created by news, films, books and other media.

We write to help others who struggle, as an example to show that it's possible to have a "normal" life, to overcome and move past abuse from the past and not to use it as a crutch, and that a "normal" and successful life is how one defines it for themselves, not how other people define it.

Experiences are what makes people different, makes them who they are; but at the end of the day no matter who you are, the color of your skin, your religion, your level of education, your job, your mental health, everything. We, you, us...everyone are all just people. And to quote the title of the famous book "Everybody poops".

We could go on. But I'd prefer to end it there.

Our hope for mental health month is that people learn about the issues, instead of confusing them from one to another and continuing the spread of ignorance.

We want people to learn and understand what they make jokes about, because people do. We want them to understand pretending you have a mental illness for the sake of a joke, to someone who is mentally ill, is not funny - ESPECIALLY if you mix several illnesses/get the symptoms wrong. It would be akin to pretending you have cancer for the sake of a joke, but mixing up the symptoms of two completely specific and unrelated cancers. Also, how rude would it be to pretend you have an life-threatening illness just for a joke? Mental health can be a life-threatening illness. People die due to mental illness every year by the tens of thousands.

We hope:
That people learn the difference between schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder.
That people learn what autism actually is.
That people understand real depression, not just feeling "blue" or "disappointed with life" or "lonely"...but understand what it means to be depressed.
That people choose knowledge over ignorant stereotyping. That they learn the facts.

Those are just a few of them.

New hopes for a new year of positive mental health advocacy.

~ Catherine et al

_________________________________________________________________

• Interested in guest blogging for the month of May here on this blog? Or on our main advocacy blog, Frank Mental Health? OR taking part in the American Psychological Association Mental Health Month Blog Party, please visit: http://www.yourmindyourbody.org/mental-health-month-blog-day/ ?
  Read this entry from last week: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/upcoming.html

What we know about multiple personality disorder from media, books and blogs:

• Multiple Personality Disorder in the Movies
  http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/multiple-personality-disorder-in-movies.html
• We Don't Read Your Blogs
  http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/we-dont-read-your-blogs.html

Mentally "ill", and functional.

10 Things You Should Know About US That MIGHT Surprise YOU: (this list was originally written in the Spring of 2011...some things have changed and notation has been made as to changes]

1. We used to be a Baptist missionary (yeah, can you fucking believe that shit?!) [we are NOT religious]
2. We were once married (didn’t last long) [some of our stories talks about him]
3. We have had nearly 30 physical addresses in 30 years, mostly as an adult (nothing could contain us in the early days) {we even owned a house for two years, and will again}
4. We’ve lived in 2 countries: 1 province, 6-7 different states (running much); {and now England for three months}
5. We have lost 120 pounds since the age of 24 (100 of it when we were 24) [and it's close to 140 pounds now)
6. We have a full time job. {we got fired after a year, one of the longest jobs we've held in July of 2011}
7. We deal with social anxiety type symptoms nearly every day.
8. We have multiple “mental illness” diagnoses (doesn't everybody?) [p.s. all misdiagnosed]
9. We have two beautiful cats, who piss us off every day (but they are special, because they put up with us) [though one of us hates them beyond belief] {one of us misses them terribly while we are abroad}

We have struggled to survive, over and over, defeating the odds thrown against us (read our stories) [seriously, how are we not dead yet?]

The following are mental health entries we are willing to share by making them easily accessible, we've culled the more focused entries out of our archive page, in no particular order.

*Please note, some are disordered, as far as the understanding the person who is writing has of our system, particularly in the beginning. As we have grown to know each other things have become clearer, as is the point with writing therapy in dissociative identity disorder.

2012

• A Peek Into Id, Ego and Super-Ego
• Sleepless Nights and a Hateful Personality
• Dissociating Happy Memories
• Treating and Curing Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Personality Vs. Dissociative Disorder
• Associating With Dissociation
• Slow Burn In The Switch (written by Melody & Brooke - they tend to dislike each other)
• Slow Burn In The Switch: Part II (written by Cassandra - about good switching)
• Overcoming To Get To Your “O” ADULT RATED
• A Non-Memory Memory (Written by Ivy) 
• Random Memory on Replay (Written by Cassandra & Catherine) 
• A Face Full of Emotion: A Journal Entry
• Comfort In Animal Companions: A Journal Entry (Written by Ivy)  

2011

• We Chat With The Father About DID (this post contains information on what DID is)
• Frank Gets Candid (We talk about Catherine, one of our alters)
• **We Freak Out** (this was a very important day, the day we met Marisa, recoverer of DID)
• We Are Fragments
• We / We Get Random / We Have Questions
• Marisa Answers Our Questions
• Frank Gets Candid, About Memories...and Bethany (we talk about one of our alters)
• Our Ears May Be Burning (we talk about what people we recently knew might be saying over Easter)
• We Just Need A Good Map (Mental Health Awareness Month Post - Frank talks about DID mapping)
• We Don't Do A Blog Post (we talk a little about mapping, Bethany, unicorns & stuff)
• We Discuss Three Mis-Diagnosed Mental Illnesses
• The D in DID: Dissociation (written by Cassandra)
• Bethany Has A Flashback?
• We Can't Always Disappear
• Who Lives In Your Head? Mapping Therapy and DID/MPD
• A Day In The Room (Writing done by those other than Frank et al)
• We Have Nothing To Lose (Cassandra talks about the death of a mentally ill "friend")
• Frank Lets You Know Bitch (me!) (Bethany got to write her very own entry about herself)
• Sam Gets Angry About Ignorance (Written by Sam)
• A Little Bit Of Emmie (Written by Emmie)
• Sam Gets Set-Off (Written by Sam)
• We Answer Some Follower Questions 
• We Answer Some Follower Questions: Part II
• One of Us Has Sociopathic Tendencies (Written by Melody) 

• When Anxiety Attacks 
• Stress and Expediential Weight Loss
• New Pain and Old Fear
• Anxiety, Revisited

V is for Very-Big-Decisions

The deed is done.

It was such a big decision.

We realize for him it was way more giant, infinitely more giant. The fact that we want this to be a forever relationship with James means it was a big decision for us too. It feels surreal. We're having waves of...strange feelings.

We love him (most of us)...and as of today...we will never have children with him.

This weekend we stayed at his cousins house. Friday night, while we slept soundly (tried), she kept him up until 5:30am drinking trying to talk him out of it.

Last night she plied us with alcohol following a dinner we, and James, cooked for her and her family. As family members dropped off to go to bed, bellies full of good food and wine, it was down to her, James, and us.

Eventually the conversation turned to today's event. The big decision. James' vasectomy.

We wrote a bit more about it three weeks ago in To Baby, Or Not To Baby...There Is No Question (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/to-baby-or-not-to-babythere-is-no.html) we won't rehash the details.

Sitting across from a woman in her 50's, who has had four healthy, happy, seemingly well-adjusted children, now all adults, it's easy to see where she is coming from.

She talks about how great children are, says that we would make great parents (though she has only known us for four days) and what a great thing it is.

We try to give her reasons without disclosing so much. It's funny, reasons are only reasons if people agree...if they don't reasons just look like excuses.

James cites our bad childhood, we cite mental illness that runs in the family. The words of what we live with do not cross our lips.

She had given us so much wine, and we became sensitive about her insistence in trying to change ours and James' mind about the following days (today) operation. Tears form and we lower our head so she can't see them. James comes to our side of the table and rubs our back...lets her know it'd be better if the subject was dropped.

As she is also quite inebriated she agrees, but then begins to talk about it again.

We retire to the bedroom and James stays with her for awhile. Later he comes back to say she asked him if he knew how happy having children can be. He simply responded with "But I'm already happy."

We go to the bedroom, take out our contacts, sit on the edge of the bed and with Twitter in our hands, ball our eyes out and do the only thing we know to do. Tweet about it. Reach out. Vent. With snot running down our face, sobbing, giant tears rolling down our cheeks, drunk.

Eventually he comes to bed, he says we fell asleep crying.

His cousin took her mother to a doctor appointment this morning and we were a bit hungover so chose not to say goodbye. She was apologetic to James about the previous night.

This afternoon, mere weeks after going to the doctor to talk about a vasectomy we find ourselves sitting in chairs outside of the room where one of the biggest decisions some people make comes to a head.

James went to put some cream on his..."junk"...to numb the area they would be making an incision and we exchanged a DM with a friend. With a small tear in our eye, we write how we know it's the responsible thing to do. But we are human. And there is always the "what if".

Over the past days we've made sure to let James know he can back out at any time. That this is an amazing sacrifice he is making for us, and we understand that. We know he is doing it for us, because he loves us. We are sure that had he fallen in love with any other woman, a healthy one, he would have had children if she desired.

We feel guilty. We're not really sure why. It has nothing to do with the future of our relationship. We are secure in that completely.

As we held his hand, whispering words of encouragement (he is needle shy, and especially around that area) as they pulled out each vas deferens through a tiny quarter inch hole in his scrotum, and cauterized them with a small laser, as sweat beaded on his forehead and the threat of tears reached his eyes...we just kept hoping we are making the right decision. (they let us watch, it was pretty neat)

The doctor keeps James talking, you can tell she likes her work. She actually does seminars teaching◊ doctors this new procedure called a "No Scalpel Vasectomy" that they are using on him, she mentions the cost of raising a baby to the age of 18 has recently reached £218,000 in the UK (about $200,000 in the USA). Quick calculations show that as an adult (14 years) we've not come anywhere close to making that much money, so not close it's laughable - we don't have that kind of income capability (though James does, but that's not really the point). More things that wouldn't be fair if we (our system) had children.

We made the right decision, from a mental health perspective, from a financial perspective, from an ethical perspective. This is not us trying to convince ourselves, this is us reiterating the valid reasons for being baby free...for life.

So, now we sit for a couple of days in a hotel while James waits to hear on some contracts for work, crossing our fingers.

He's doing quite well. No ice needed, he's taking some over the counter Ibuprofen and aside from a funny walk...all seems well. Sixteen weeks from now he'll bring in a...specimen...to make sure the sterility is complete...and we can go off of the birth control pill (which we've been on for 16 years*)

At the end of all of this we wonder what drives people to think they can/should try to influence people's decisions about reproduction. This woman, while she has known James his whole life, knows nothing of us, or our relationship with him. And though she has known him his whole life, it doesn't mean she really knows him.

People know what the right decision is for them, based on their life experiences. So frequently people forget that. Trusting people to make decisions on their own is why we are pro-choice. We would never choose abortion as a personal decision...but we also have no right to make that decision for anybody else.

We really can't blame his cousin though, we and James would have the most beautiful children, and smart...but man, they would be totally fucked up.

Just another frank day.

~ et al
------------------
◊ lucky day for James, the doctor has a seminar coming up and her digital photos of a vascetomy she had got deleted from her hard drive, so when she asked, James said she could take pictures during the procedure, and now his vasectomy pictures will be used in teaching seminars all over the UK. He also made a much needed £20.
*we're curious to find out if the change in hormones, by going off of our Ortho Cyclen (because the pill is a forced hormone regiment) will have an effect on our mental health. ADVENTURE!

[If you're interested in knowing more about the no scalpel (laser) method: http://www.vasectomy-clinic.co.uk/]

Interesting, things we learned today:
- The procedure has a 1 in 2000 fail rate (meaning if we end up getting pregnant after his clearance test, clearly we were meant to reproduce).
- It can be reversed but the success rate varies (while a vasectomy in the UK is free, covered under their NHS, a reversal is not, and can cost around £5000).