Tuesday, May 3, 2011

We Just Need A Good Map

~ May is Mental Health Awareness Month ~
Yesterdays Post: Mental Health Awareness Month: Our Introductionhttp://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/05/mental-health-awareness-month-our.html
We need to be able to laugh, okay? And we wish we could use name tags.

This is one of those days that it’s hard to write.

It’s so hard.

What’s making today difficult is a combination of many things, the combination of too many of us trying to share space at the same time, for one. Our head is a bundle of contradictory thoughts and feelings today, all wanting to have their say things, all distracting me from properly doing my job, from feeling functional. It's why we're attempting mapping, other than it's what those with Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder do on the road the recovery and/or management. We've been attempting mapping for about a month, ever since we met Marisa (we've written about her, check out our archives, she's a recovered DID "sufferer").

I stepped out for a bit this last week, took a backseat, and let them be whoever they wanted to be for a few days, I was having a hard time dealing with Cassandra's feelings, she was feeling blue and it's just not something I have been accustomed to, The Other Girl, she apparently knew how to handle it better. You'll have to ask Cassandra about that though.

They all want a say some days, especially today, to do what they want, to have fun, or in some of their cases, not have fun. It’s so overwhelming. I am staring to realize what made The Other Girl never want to do anything, except get high and shut them all up; unfortunately she’s gone, and now I’m responsible, and smoking pot makes me feel really strange.

So, here I’ll site, later trying to enjoy Twitter and stop them from talking by getting them into some word games. Hopefully we can find a good #hashtag game, or other word distraction, because the chatter is driving me mad.

“Can we please paint tonight? It would be nice if we painted more, or at least we could work on some poetry.” - “I want to sleep, until tomorrow, can’t we just sleep. I don’t want to wake up for days – I’m so sad again I don’t want to ever wake up; you are never tired. Let me sleep!!!” - “I don’t want to be sad anymore, tell Catherine to stop telling us we won’t be loved, tell Sam to stop being so angry, it’s making me tired, everybody is making me tired, I wanna play.”- “Look at our body, we look disgusting, your letting Cassandra eat too much again.” - “We’re going to lose our job if you keep letting Bethany play on the computer all day with you. You keep forgetting to do part of your job that [the employee] needs you to do, you are disappointing to her, you're disappointing me.” - “Can you tell Catherine to shut up about not being understood, and can we go buy pretty things or naughty things – let’s go buy another outfit to wear for him. When can we have fun with him again?”- “Tell Esmeralda to stop sleeping with him, he’s never going to love us, no matter how much we love him and it’s just making Cassandra get sad again.” - “But why can’t we go to the park? I want candy! I want to buy new toys! You still haven’t gotten me a new blanky! Let’s watch cartoons and play with the cats.” - “Why the hell are you always on Twitter, I hate Twitter – let’s just watch a damn movie – and tell that cat I’m going to kill it next chance I get if it doesn’t stop crying.” - "He's never going to love us, nobody is ever going to love us - they'll just use us; why do we love him anymore? He's not nice to us. Stop writing about me, please. I don't want them to know me - nobody cares anyway" - “Don’t listen to anyone, you don’t need anyone. Stop trying to help people, you only need me – forget about everybody else, it will help you not feel pain, trust me, I don’t care about anyone except you and me, and us; I'll take care of us” - “What you’re doing is stupid, you are worthless, that’s why the men you love never love us back, and all the others are chumps because they want to use us. Did I forget to tell you you’re not talented and you’re never going to accomplish anything? Why don’t we just stop with all this writing and painting, throw in the towel already, you can’t handle all of us” - “Look how beautiful we are, we better not eat anything today just to make sure we stay this thin. Don’t let us get fat again like The Other Girl” - “It’s nice out, can we please go for a walk to somewhere besides the grocery store? Isn’t it nice enough to go to the park yet? Bethany wants to go to the park, let’s take her to the park.” - “I just want to eat, why won’t you let me eat!”…

All of them different and distinct (I colour coded them as much as I could, they just keep fucking talking), and some days they go on and on with the chatter, others they are silent; and other days they take over. Some of them have told me their names, some of them I have been trying to ignore because whenever we start working on mapping* them it gets scary for us, confusing and exhausting. I've been able to find 6, and there are at least two more...those are just the ones I have an inkling of.

I’m so exhausted, dizzy, with all the things they want from me, and they don’t seem to care what I want.

And right now I just want someone to hold me.


~Frank

This video is not ours, it portrays someones experience...we do not have what is referred to as "littles" (very young alters); though we do have Bethany, she is somewhat a little, and is six years old, but always wants to remind people she is "very grown up" for her age.
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*DID/MPD Mapping

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 in Dissicoiative Indentity Disorder:

A description by us, about what it's like:

We were trying to come up with a way to describe what it’s like, the We that is us, how that works. Imagine living in a two story house, and you are usually on the main floor hanging out. There are other people who are on the second floor. Sometimes you can hear them like they are yelling down to you from upstairs, or the top of the stairs and you can see them; sometimes you cannot hear them at all. On occasion they come down to the first floor to hang out with you (in DID called co-consciousness), to see the things you are seeing, to talk to you more, to “hang out” with you (which is what Bethany likes to do, a lot). Sometimes more than one comes downstairs to hang out and it gets noisy, and then other times you go upstairs and somebody takes your place on the main floor, and you have to yell down to them, or watch from the top of the stairs. When you are not on the main floor someone has to tell you what went on when you were not there, and sometimes they won’t tell you right away, sometimes they tell you later, sometimes they won't tell you at all. Sometimes you are all by yourself on the main floor, and you can't hear anyone on the second floor, and if you are us, or me, you get lonely. (from one of our posts on April 19, 2011: Frank Gets Candid, About Memories...and Bethany http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/04/bethanys-picture.html
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For the month of May, Mental Health Awareness Month, we will be posting this at he bottom of each of our entries, to help provide additional information about us, and about DID/MPD

10 Things You Should Know About US That MIGHT Surprise YOU:
  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) [one 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 actually own a house, but choose not to live in it]
  4. We’ve lived in 2 countries: 1 province and 6-7 different states (running much)
  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 (well, now it's 32 hours a week - but they actually let us work around the other humans!) [it get's harder everyday, and this is the longest we've ever had a single job since we were 17. We've been there almost a year]
  7. We deal with social anxiety type symptoms every day (and these days we choose not to leave home much, but for going to work) [there are about three people we feel comfortable with being in public with and sometimes we have to be out there alone]
  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]
  10. We have struggled to survive, over and over, defeating the odds thrown against us (read our stories) [seriously, how are we not dead yet?]

    We've copied the stories written here that are specifically about our past (mostly abuse) and moved them to our other blog, called:
Addressing The Issue of Frank: The Origins, History and Life Story of Frank, from "Just Call Me Frank: One Womans Endeavour At Being Frank"  
Some of our writing on this blog we like to promote, these are those entries. There are bits of writing in this blog that we do not actually promote due to embarrassment over things that some have written - they are here for our own tracking - they are angry, mean, scary things. If you feel like it you can find them on your own. Here are the highlights of what we have written so far this year:

The Mental Health Entries: 
Dissociative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder
Health:
Relationships/Friendships:
Life:
Opinion:
Art/Poetry:
Humour/Random Fun:

If you have any questions for us we are very open and will answer to our best ability - this is totally the month to ask us questions. You can either ask us on Twitter, in the comment section of a blog entry here, or e-mail us at justcallmefrank2010 (at) gmail.com.

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Resources for You - facts, figures and personal stories of other people can be found on these sites:
National Institute of Mental Health: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/index.shtml
American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/index.aspx
Canadian Mental Health Association: http://www.cmha.ca/bins/index.asp
Mental Health Europe: http://www.mhe-sme.org/
World Psychiatric Association: http://www.wpanet.org/

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