Slow Burn In The Switch: Part II

Some of us felt the need to write about our better switches.

Sometimes a transition, which is also called a switch* in Dissociative Identity Disorder isn't always burning anger, or much discomfort. For some of us it's an ebb and flow, like a river. That's usually when those involved actually like each other. When "we" wrote last time about switching I am not sure we made it clear that the severe discomfort was because of who was sharing space/struggling for control with each other. It's not always the same for all of us. We don't always make sense. sigh

Most of the time switches are because of triggers*, from what we understand; smells, sounds, the way something is said, things we encounter, people, almost anything can be a trigger...not all of us are aware of each others triggers yet...we're still getting used to everyone having free reign - without our core* (The Other Girl) it's much harder from some us to keep under control, she was always so good at it, control. Everyone wants to have a chance to play now, when they can...and others not so much, sometimes. Most of the times switches happen suddenly for us, sometimes there is a struggle for control...either way, they are hardly ever noticeable unless they manifest into a a sudden shift from someone who is nice and happy, into someone who is generally hateful. Or if we are struggling with it. Otherwise most of us have so many similarities that it's almost undetectable to the average person who wouldn't be able to pick up on voice changes, demeanor changes, sometimes facial changes.

I won't do a roll call for everyone that has been around, but myself, and Catherine are the out the most these days, with massive influence from Sam (he's our male alter), and occasional flits of the others. Frank comes out here and there, but she has never been the alter functioned past sort of "saving" us. Sometimes we feel bad that James is largely hanging out with teenage girls, but we're pretty grown up...

There are 10 of us, a possible 11th that we've known about for a couple of weeks, but we are apprehensive to confront, acknowledge she's older though, older than me and Catherine...younger than Frank - we don't want to have more. We stopped working on mapping right before James came to visit, and we're not so sure we had enough time with it - it being at integral part of our therapy. We know we should though, because even with a therapists help, mapping can take months, sometimes years.

Since coming to England a few of our alters have stayed in the background, wanting to watch, but not take any control, and some not even be here. Joy hasn't been around much, we miss her a lot, as does James. She doesn't like James' flat, so she can't be bothered with coming out. Emmie has been MIA since about the time we moved in with The Mother, before leaving to England. (Emmie hates her) and she also doesn't like James' flat, she likes nice things, and fancy stuff, nice beds and showers. The rest probably have their own good reasons.

I know for some of you this sounds insane...that's okay; all that we care about it that we understand it.

~ Cassandra

Tomorrow's post will be from Kerry, our friend from Twitter who spent the weekend with a few of us. Apparently she's been asked by people in her life outside of Twitter, and people on Twitter, what we're like (like we're a freak show or something)...so check back tomorrow when we post what she had to say about us...or at least some of us...

*Dissociative Identity 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): 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: Conversion symptoms or body memories. Physical phenomenon such as pain, smells, tastes, etc.;  reaction to stimuli; sometimes causing a re-experience.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mild Travel Anxiety

*As usual, all text links are to our blogs, unless noted otherwise, this is an Ad Free blog...*

Twelve days and roughly four hours until we take off to England. We have a countdown ticker on the travel blog dedicated to this years travel adventures, so it's not like we sit here and manually figure that out all the time...but we have to keep trying to remember that we're leaving soon, though we try to forget to ward off the anxiety...it's only slight so far.

We started packing this morning. trying to figure our how to pack three months of clothes, etc. in under 50 pounds (23kg).Yes, we started packing twelve days in advance, out of necessity, it's not the easiest thing to get ourselves packed if whoever ends up out* the last few days before the flight is a procrastinator, and a couple of of us are HORRIBLE procrastinators. The packing is not easy, packing never is, because we all have different tastes in clothing style, and preferred colors and fabrics. So this morning I had to take in account what I know of everyone's favorite outfits and pack those first, the rest is filler, which is basically plain t-shirts that dry quickly and are a range of colors acceptable to most of us. Then there was weather variant considerations (especially if we travel to Spain) and shoes...shoes, shoes, shoes...(we settled on three pairs to pack, and one to wear).

We don't all love fashion or shoes, and most of us hate shopping, so don't fucking dare call us girly. Cassandra is the most girly of them all...and she loves to shop.

It's sort of scary to think we will be in another country for three months, honestly we still don't know where we will be staying, mostly because we don't have the funds right now, but that just makes it more adventurous, right? Right?!

Most of us are accustomed to not having a lot of funds, and making do with very little, as well as "couch surfing" out of necessity. A few years ago when we were living in the country where we were going to school (where we just moved from the end of october), but not allowed to work, we ended up having to compromise our comfort many times after we ended a relationship that was providing us shelter right before our first year of culinary school started. For several months all of our belongings traveled with us back and forth to school in our car, we lived in 4 different places in under seven months.

So we know we can do this, or at least we think we can, even though the idea of staying with anybody is already making us anxious. so I'm not saying James won't hear at least one of us whine on occasion,  but he'd hear that no matter the situation anyway.

Not to mention he's told a few of his family members about our mental "illness"...and that alone makes us uncomfortable and anxious.

So, we'll be off on the start of our adventure soon. I started assembling the art supplies I can put in a carry on, mostly mechanical and sketching pencils and one of my sketch books - just to make sure they get included.

We're borrowing a digital camera from The Mother, and started working on streamlining the music on our iPod (we have over 85 GB...it needs to be organized), some of us have also started downloading digital books (primarily non-fiction) to our HTC smartphone...James will be working a lot (with any luck) when we are in England, and so we'll need entertainment and creative outlets in order to make it through the day - most of our Twitter followers are in the states, and we'll be 6 hours ahead of the game there...meaning...we'll be spending more Twitter time with our European followers, which we don't have many of.

While in the UK we'll be meeting Kerry Stott (@kerrystott) our guest blogger, as well as @serenity_x and Tom Foolery (he keeps changing his @ so we're not linking to him), as well as some of the followers we trust more (hopefully our friend wubanger5). Yes, some of us are nervous and apprehensive about this.

It's been awhile since I've been around (out*)...third day now (though not consistently)...and I am pretty sure I am not in agreement with this new sobriety kick the rest have put us on. So far so good...though I really want a nice bottle of wine...not even a nice bottle, any bottle will do.

*sigh*.
Mostly it's because of regular joint and muscle pain, but also pain from stretching canvas. Last time I stretched canvases, about 7 months ago) I was drinking scotch, which made it easier to ignore the pain it causes in our hands, and the rawness in them from yanking on canvas and gripping the steel stretcher pliers and staple gun, that we experienced yesterday. Oh well. It's for the best, right?

Oh, we've got info on the upcoming podcast interview airing time that was recorded Thursday with Last Podcaster Standing ((http://thelastpodcasterstanding.com/), it'll go live on Wednesday, but I'm not sure what time yet.

~Ivy

------------------------------------------------------------

*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.

Insane Ramblings

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’ve had a couple of bad days and we feel like a string that was unravelling is getting to the short end of the spool and it’s faster and faster.

Insane ramblings.

We tried to pretend like the 10 pounds we’ve put on the last few months isn’t noticeable.

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’re trying to pretend we don’t hate our body, despite the fact that rationally we know we shouldn't.

Insane ramblings.

Insane.

We’re trying to pretend out body wasn’t more aesthetically pleasing when we were sick and not eating, 10 pounds or more lighter, earlier this year.

It was.

Insane ramblings.

We’re trying to overcome what the covers of magazines and the internet trying to portray what they think beauty should look like, what society says women should look like, what people convey about what real beauty is, and should look like.

Insane ramblings.

Insane ramblings.

We’re happy with who we are.

We’re not happy with who we are.

We hate our body.

Our body is beautiful.

Insane ramblings.

We’re not insane.

That was just a free form writing exercise for us (Ivy and I) we did it to try to work through some issues. We're struggling with some things this holiday season.

We want to thank all our readers and our Twitter followers for being there for us, to provide a laugh when needed, and inspire us to make them laugh when we can. It's "just Twitter" to some people, but it's more than that to us, and many other people of the world.

We would never say we have an eating disorder...but we do have issues with our body and food (which, we're guessing some doctors would label an eating disorder...we hate labels). We're thinner than we were in high school, and more than 100 pounds lighter than we were 7 years ago. We’re 5’11” and 173 pounds, a size 10, that's a 30" waist, the average size of an American woman is 5'4" 167 pounds...and a 37" waist.

See. It's not rational. We know we shouldn't dislike our body.

But we do.

We struggle. We have been making desperate attempts to take off the extra pound we're gained since moving back in with The Mother. It feel like we are digging the hole deeper. It's compounding with the other issues we are struggling with on a daily basis...and the thread is unraveling.

~Cassandra & Ivy

Loving yourself is not conceited, it is not narcissism - it is healthy. How can you expect someone to love you, if you don't love yourself?

There are those of us in our system (that's DID/MPD terminology) that try to convince us otherwise, that both inside and out we are ugly and bad people. That image and final paragraph is for us, but it applies to you, if you want it to.

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)

Fatty Fatty Four Eyes

Because his nickname for
me is Princess

I was going to Tumblr this, but since we've been deficient in our blog posts, what with the moving and stuff, I decided to just put it here.

It was a day. Terrible day.

James (The Boyfriend) was upset all day, most of it anyway, and so just as he and "Ten" woke up she "ran"/switched out, sensing she was not going to want to deal with whatever what was going to happen today, and so she switched with Melody who spent the better part of two hours skillfully dealing with The Boyfriends issues (and tantrum, and tears), then later, after a brief switch with Ivy I got the rest of the day...which turned out to be shitty.

Like yesterday, we waited too long to have our first meal of the day...yesterday was about 4pm before we ate our first  meal, which was fine for whoever was here yesterday...but today we didn't get to eat until about 6pm, and so I wanted more food after...because as Brooke will tell you, I am a "fat piggy pig", because I love food so much, and when I am sad, or stressed, I tend to want to eat more...unlike the rest of them, like Catherine, who when stressed/paranoid doesn't like to eat at all, or Emmie, who doesn't like to eat no matter what, unless it's cantaloupe, pineapple or salad...we know why that is, but I don't feel comfortable talking about why that is.

So today sucked because...well...it's too hard to explain, but it was food related this evening...and there was a lot of crying, and me telling The Boyfriend about how it was easier before him because we had a system, which was salads, small amounts of food, and wine until Friday night - then Friday dinner, Saturday dinner and Sunday meals I got to eat what I wanted; And I was okay with that, even if it meant we go to the grocery store other nights of the week and I cry because I want things I can't have. Now we eat regular meals, which means even if the one of us out front/executive. doesn't want to eat, they do, because it's what we are "supposed" to do, particularly now that we are living with The Mother again, and then I don't ever get the food I like/want.Guess I am also a spoiled brat or something.

The real problem is that me saying so often (often being about once half the time I am here) that things were easier before him (The Boyfriend), or talking about how things used to be before him, makes him feel...sad. Then he cries, and unlike Melody, who is not affected by his crying, it makes me sad, and makes me cry, then whoever is in our co-consciousness is mean to me, and calls me names, and tells me to stop being mean, OR  laughing at me because I made The Boyfriend upset, and then she calls me a fat pig, and other mean things, and says he is a wimp and he's not going to stick around because we will never be the kind of girlfriend he is looking for because we are a mess, and he's not going to be able to deal with us, like he says he wants to, "forever".

I can't help it. I am sad because I don't love him (but I do like him, and like to spend time with him), and I don't want to mess up our relationship for the others, because they love him, some of them dearly...and I know what can happen if you mess things up around here for the rest of us...and The Other Girl is gone...but you know what? What happens to personlities when they are made to go away? It's not like normal death...and who knows what that is like...but what happened to The Other Girl when we elimated her from us? I don't want to find out first hand.

Anyway...stress does weird things to me, I guess...or not so weird because I know that when people are stressed sometimes they eat. I've/We've managed to put on some weight in the last few months (The Mother thinks it a good thing, and Angry Brother hasn't seen us in awhile, but he said the weight loss is making us age faster, which is fine because even though we are physically 32, we can easily pass for 26), and almost none of us happy about that, so we're on a diet...and so far we have six and a half pounds to lose, which probably doesn't seem like a lot to most people...but to us it's a slippery slope bewtween that and gaining 30 (or the amount we gained and didn't realize we had gained before we went on a diet and lost 100 pounds). During culianry school we had put on over 30 pounds and didn't even resalize it, and while we lost it all, plus more...we still know...and we still feel like crap, and we can feel when we have gained a couple of pounds, and often I get blamed. I hate us all being so in touch with our body...I want to be happy just the way I am.
I'm very sad tonight, and I wish I could go on Twitter, but none of my Tweets will be any good, and  I will probably make James sad if I play online more tonight.

~Cassandra


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------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...but hopefully soon we will, because "Ten" hasn't been added yet, even though we know a lot about her already, thanks to James/The Boyfriend.

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)

"Nine of Nine", The Responsibility of One

We’re answering the question James posted to us on his blog entry, published recently on his blog, and imported today to ours ('One or Nine? I say Nine' http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-or-nine-i-say-nine-james-blog-post.html, about why we want to be viewed as one.

He does have a good question, after all, and last night we read his entry for the first time, despite the fact he has posted it days ago. We got a little upset about some of the things he wrote, even though he's not wrong.

We sat down yesterday evening with him, some of us, to discuss this post. He had some things he wanted to talk to us about, things about treating us individually (his desire to do so); and some concerns over Fuck Face, some of our feelings for him, and our continuing friendship with him, despite that the last time we saw him was supposed to be the last time, as agreed by himself (Fuck Face) and us, because of his admission, finally, of what we had always known. We remain his friend, we send each other e-mails on occasion, and he stopped by to say ‘hi’ while we waited for the bus after work this week. We have tentative plans to have lunch with him, us and James, before we move at the end of the month.

James one long standing concern is about treating us as individuals, and why we want to be treated as one, and how difficult it is for him to do so, because we're all different, and as such, he feels, should be treated differently. This has been something we have discussed with him on more than one occasion, though never having a full answer past “why does it matter?” It is certainly something that has been vexing him. For the most part we have understood treating Bethany (our youngest alter*, 6 years old) differently, and also Sam (our male alter*, who he doesn’t deal with very much, yet). ..but as far as the others?

Well, for us, because we share one body we are always seen as one, one crazy, fucking lovely, horrid, wonderful, funny, loving, witty, contradicting, bitch...apparently (if you read James blog post that we are responding too, apparently that’s a view of us as one).

We believe that because we are all fully aware of our condition now, though possibly not fully aware of us all (mapping therapy still in progress), we cannot “blame” each other, though we try sometimes, but only for little things…like making us gain weight, etc. We have written about how we feel about taking responsibility for our actions as a whole (in ‘One Of Us Has Sociopathic Tendencies’ http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2011/08/one-of-us-has-sociopathic-tendencies.html), because that’s the proper thing to do – because DID/MPD is not an excuse for bad behaviour, anymore than being human is an excuse. It shouldn't be a reason for bad behaviour either.

So, because we can’t really say, “Cassandra (one of our alters) made us fat (she’s a piggy eater), it’s not our/my fault we/I got fat” in the event we got fat again (we’ve been obese, we lost over 100 pounds about eight years ago...we struggle with food issues almost every day)…when we are supposed to work as a team/collective, to get "better", meaning learn to function and all be able to enjoy life, individually, and together...and be successful at it, somehow. Being treated separately would only give us an “excuse” for bad behaviour…or at least an opening to try, in our opinion anyway.

Another example, just as we were explaining this to James. The subject of Emmie (another alter*) came up, and her lingering sexual feelings for Fuck Face. As we tried to explain to him that he, James, is our boyfriend…we chose him, he admitted that he does not trust her (Emmie) with him. At this point he asked us to please, try not to let her do anything with Fuck Face. We said we would try. He was visibly upset. We told him he would have to tell her these things himself, because we cannot answer for her; though we have to take responsibility for her actions.

“Do you see why you can’t always treat us individually? Because if she did something, say she had an affair with Fuck Face, you can’t separate her…it’s not like having nine separate bodies and you can say ‘no, I don’t like you anymore, I don’t trust you…please leave’. So, if Emmie were to be…inappropriate...with Fuck Face (or any other man) for example…she, alone, cannot be punished. We are all punished…because we have to know the pain, every day, of her action in your face, because when you look at us, you see all of us, and you see us as one body.”

We don’t know if this helped him understand, we don’t know if it helps anyone understand, but he asked the question. Our goal is to use our ability to write, and our personal struggles with mental health issues, to help others who desire to understand Dissociative Identity Disorder (Multiple Personality Disorder); and in addition, help those who deal with life on a day-to-day basis as "a" multiple feel less “alone” (because we’re never alone…but sometimes it can feel like it), all we can do is try our best.

We’ve made an agreement with James/The Boyfriend, because some of us he knows far better than others, and honestly, you can't always treat us as one, anymore than you can always treat us as individuals...he is free to use our names when he wants, as long as he knows who he is talking to, as long as he is sure…because the disappointment of being confused for another, for some of us, leads to tears and sadness, and we don’t want it to lead to resentment of him, or each other. (He’s gotten us mixed up before, and he knew as soon as he did it, and as usual it was dealt with, but repeating is not advisable)

Responsibility, singular or plural. It’s just one reason why we want to be treated as one, because we have to live as one, in a world that sees us as one.

~Frank et al

Update: 10/16/11

Being that we are working on some mapping, with the help of the boyfriend (but only a little because of all the current stress), a tenth has been mapped. She has no name (she is just called "Ten" when James talks to us about her. James (The Boyfriend) wrote about her in his blog last week (http://frank-from-the-outside.blogspot.com/2011/10/perfect-ten.html).

Mapping is stressful. Being us is stressful. Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking "I am So-and-So today"...but when you map you have to think about it, talk to each other about it... analyze feelings, thoughts, desires...with the people sharing co-consciousness. None of that will make much sense to most people...hopefully one day we will write about, more clearly, what mapping is like...for us.

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[*A distinction, if not yet made in this blog is, in the mental illness of Dissociative Identity Disorder, alter is not a reference to alter ego; while similar in some ways, it is not to be confused with the part of a person they hide from society. An alter is a separate personality unto itself, and often does not share the same viewpoints, feelings, thoughts, or beliefs as other alters in the system]

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)