Any advice for a homesick little?

Hi. I'm a newb to this forum but I've found it very helpful already. So thanks to everyone for making this site a great place to be.
However, aside from being new to the forum, I'm new to my current living place, which is cramped. I'm used to living in apartments either by myself or with a boyfriend, so there's space and rooms and privacy. I lost my job recently due to a switch after a trigger, and my little alter Cassie (she's eight) actually got stuck in control. I couldn't work my shift, and was laid off until I could get a note stating I was mentally stable to work. With it being a stressful job that was only getting worse, (the job was half the reason I was so stressed and was triggered), I decided to just quit.

Anyway, because of that I couldn't afford my apartment. So now I'm job searching and living with my current boyfriend, who shares a house with 3 other male roommates. Granted, it's a house. But we share a bedroom, so that's cramped, and hardly any of our things can fit in it. The house is awkward, because no one really socializes. The roommates all just kinda dwell in their rooms until they need food or something, then they venture out into the house. There's almost always someone else home, so we're never alone, and we're used to being alone or at least having alone time. We're not used to this type of environment and often feel cramped.

My little, Cassie, is having the worst time adjusting. She's been as fussy as a 2 year old lately. She cries and throws her stuffed toys and isn't pleased by anything. She's been needing to sleep with a stuffed animal (something we haven't done in a long time) and has been asking for sippy cups and bottles to drink out of lately, even though she's 8 years old. If she gets a regular cup she'll pout and/or cry. She stays awake at night and cries and keeps saying she wants to go home. I'm not sure where home is, (we've had to move around a bit in the past couple years) but I think she just means she wants a place that's our own place. Where we have our own room and stuff.

Myself and my older alters, Rain and Kat, have had our hands full with trying to calm Cassie down and trying to make her happy. I was just wondering if anyone had any advice or ideas of things I could do to help her adjust. I know it's not the best housing situation but it's better than being homeless. It's just getting too hard to filter her emotions and impulses (like when in public), and I'm getting run down from staying up so late crying.

Thanks for reading! Sorry it was so long.
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Sandra, host, 20
Kat, 23
Rain, 22
L.C., 16
Cassie, 8
Ray, 10
"Hannibal", ?

Welcome to the group. I have to run for a bit but I will get back to you and I am sure many others will as well!

If she really wants a sippie cup, give it to her. You don't have to drink out of it in front of anyone. Just go into your room and let her have her time. Little ones really need that comfort, I think. And I think after she drinks out of it for a little while, she will realize that she is a big girl and doesn't need it anymore. Once she realizes she is a big girl, maybe it won't be so hard for her to adjust to the new home. Then congratulate her for being a big girl and being brave.

Sharing like that does not sound all that fun for anyone there, but it pays the bills. I would be very uncomfortable too! For me it would not be so much the tiny space, but the strangers around! If you are not close to someone and live in their house they are still strangers and it's worse if they are there first! I would be crying to go home too!!!!!!! I lived with a roommate for a while and it was horrible! I would only come out when he was gone which was actually rare, so I found a friend where I hung out at his house a lot of the time instead.

The best advice I can give is to try and fit in instead of trying to make it your own. That goes against everything in me, but living in that kind of environment - doing anything else will just be worse in the end. I hope you are at least young so you adapt a bit better.

As for your littles, if you feel more at home they will as well. Try and show them your best side. Give them the little things they need to feel safe. There are strangers in the house!!!! Make them less strange! I'm not saying that will be easy, but give it a shot.

I liked sleeping with my dolls, but finally my hubby said something so I hide them better.

Thanks for the welcome and advice, tylas and dividedtruth89!

dividedtruth89- I'll see if giving her the sippie cup will help. She's been extra fussy today so I'll fill it with her favorite drink. Since I don't really have an extra sippie cup laying around, maybe letting her pick out which one we buy will help too.

tylas- I'll do my best to make the roommates less strange and try to at least say hi more often. They're quiet unless my boyfriend is around because they don't know me, and I'm shy so I don't really say anything around them. Maybe my boyfriend and I can play board games at the kitchen table like we used to, (Cassie loves games). That way we're not in the room all the time and it's something fun/familiar. Hopefully I can find the box they're packed in.

Thanks for the ideas! They're really appreciated.
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Sandra, host, 20
Kat, 23
Rain, 22
L.C., 16
Cassie, 8
Ray, 10
"Hannibal", ?

I would suggest buying a journal that Cassie can write and draw in. Get her some pretty pens and maybe stickers, and let her keep the journal private or she can write to you or the others for comfort or if she wants to say something.

The following message is specifically for Cassie:
Hi Cassie. I know you have been feeling upset lately, but I promise that your current place to live won't be your home forever. Please try your best to be brave, but everyone understands that you are sad and upset right now and that's OK. If you need a friend, I have lots and lots of Littles your age that you can write to or PM. We understand your pain, I promise. Here is a joke you might like-
Knock, knock!
Who's there?
Interrupting cow.
Interrupting cow wh-
MOO!

I don't really have any advice, but I do have a joke like he told.

So Cassie. :3 Hopefully you like this:
How many alters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

* one to freak out about the darkness
* one to call the first one a baby
* one to tell the second one to shut up
* one to say it's not their job
* one to say everybody's too noisy
* one to say they should go to sleep and forget about it.

At some point during all of this arguing, the light bulb gets changed, but nobody knows who did it.

Hopefully you found that funny. ^_^ We found it a while back and altered it a bit. [Look, an "alter" "altered" it! Unintended pun! xD ~giggles~ ]

~serious face, but not mean face~ So Cassie. I know it's hard but you gotta be brave, ok? Bein too temperamental will only make you feel worse so if you can find good ways to feel better about everything that'd be really good, like maybe letting them buy something that's cheap but really really really fun. Tylas and I were talking about clay. Maybe you'd like to make some animals or something out of clay? =D

Or even just squish it into a ball and take out all of that unhappiness and nervousness on it. Nobody likes to be in a strange place with strange people who aren't easy to get to know. Maybe you can squeeze a ball of clay and get out your anxiety on that while someone else is trying to be friendly or something. I know it helps us. Or just find something that makes nice noises or feels nice.

I hope you feel better.

Great joke Aecy! LOL!

Thank you for your advice, Toast and Acey! I think I will get her a new journal with some gel pens or markers or something. She's very creative, but lately with the move and everything getting packed she hasn't had much opportunity to write or draw. The sippie cup we got her seems to help a bit, especially to help her calm down for bed. I hope the journal will help even more. And she loves play-doh, so I'll probably look into getting some of that as well, even if it is just to squish it.


hi. um, i'm cassie, and i don't realy know what to say. i like the jokes! they make me laugh. moo cow liked the cow one. he's my stuffed animal buddy. i've been trying to be a good girl but sumtimes I just get so sad. i miss my room and having space. and sumtimes i get mad becuse i just want things to be like they were. rain says i'm frusterated. i like my sippy cup but i can't allways drink it cuz sumtimes i'm too full. sumtimes i feel so sad that i get mad. i wuld like sumone to talk to on here. rain says PMing wuld be fine. i don't have many frends exept for the others like ray and the people cassandra lets me meet. i like cassandras boyfrend and his best frend, but they're her age not mine. they're still fun but i can't always talk to them. i don't know what we would talk about but i gess that's ok. thank you for the jokes and mesages. they made me feel better. i'll try to be braver.


Thanks again for the advice, and thanks for making Cassie laugh. It made her night. (Normally, she wouldn't be up this late but we had a long nap earlier so everyone's still wide awake). Thank you for the PM invite, Toast. Cassie's a bit shy at first but I'm sure she'd like someone close to her age to talk to every so often.

Hi Cassie,

I just wanted to see how you were doing. One of my Littles feels close by so I thought I would tell you about her. Kally is 7 or 8, and has straight red hair and green eyes. She's athletic, silly and playful. We just learned that her middle name is Tallulah. She is very nice and a lot of fun, and you could write to her any time.