It has been a long month + extra time.

We've realized... I don't know who I am when I talk. I know who's talking to me, and who I'm communicating for, but I don't usually know who I am. There are more than one like me.

We've learned more about Timothy and how to rely on him, and some old selves that were labeled as "not persistent alters" have turned out to be just that, they just weren't interested in making themselves known and coming under scrutiny.

Vinny plays out scenarios, mimics people's voices, attitudes, what they might think, say, what might happen, etc. and even other insiders in response to desires and fears; he has agreed to try to monitor it and do better at not just doing what he does but, instead, picking out things that are hurtful and refraining from showing them.

The creepy one/nickolause is another "dead" alter; he's obsessed with/there for wraith as a protector, but has become seriously messed up along the way.

Wraith seems to have brought forth some childhood memories of the park across the street, and nobody, Wraith included, knows what the significance is.

We had someone wake up in the middle of the night and give a sense of impending doom/night terror that we named lull, though it hasn't shown since the night we talked to it. We had someone wake up in the middle of the night, show us the house we grew up in from across the street, and say they just wanted to go home.

Wraith has been writing but stopped when she felt pressured.

This whole "trying to just be what we are" instead of trying to be what we think we should be thing is seriously... letting a lot of things change very quickly, and it's unnerving.

I apologize for haunting the forum. We apologize. We're feeling very unsafe, and this forum makes us feel less unsafe, less alone. Hopefully you all can understand.

So we finally decided to watch "The United States of Tara."

Everybody was really nervous but, at the same time, hyper-fixated on it as we started watching the first episode. We looked for things to identify with, we looked for what within ourself we could use to imitate it, to "become" her, like we used to do back in the day. Anxiety was forthcoming as we realized we COULDN'T be her/like her, because our parts simply did not match up, and in fact, were so different that I couldn't really relate, though I could appreciate her alters.

Then, it hit me. For literally my entire known life, I have been forcing myself to be someone else. For attachment issues, for escapism issues, etc. I feel I have to be someone else, something else, anything but who and what I am in order to be accepted, loved, appreciated, in order to have any sort of relationship at all, only to find that I still feel horrid because it's not a real relationship because I...

Aecy left. Long story short?
We finally decided to stop forcing ourself/ourselves to splice together whatever mix would bring about the best results and instead to just "Be." Someone started saying "My name is [birth name], I am not dead, and I'm living my life whether I feel like it or not."

And...
Timothy: She got lost for words too.
I got angry. It's not right. She can't say we don't exist because we do and we started being mean to her and telling her things like she doesn't exist and it wasn't nice. But she knows we exist now.

I'm gonna talk now.
I came because I have to protect. She can't say we don't exist because that's wrong. We proved it to her. She isn't [birth name] and she never will be because we don't know who [birth name] is because [birth name] doesn't exist. [birth name] thinks she doesn't exist, that she's not human, that she's already dead and isn't able to be out because she hurts too much.

So saying that she was [birth name] hurt [birth name] and caused her to come out and act weird so we know we have DID because nobody expected that.

Anyhow. This forum makes us want to conform to try to be like others instead of letting us be who we are which isn't good so we need a break so we don't get tempted to be who we are not because we are afraid to be who we are.

Sorry.
Bye.
Timothy.

~Triggering possibly~
You forgot to say hurt.
We get hurt when we aren't what we're supposed to be.
We're never what we're supposed to be.
Therefore, to not get hurt, we have to not exist.
We aren't getting hurt.
So we must not exist.

We wrote this long ago when Vie, with some malice, I think it must have been, came out and wrote this way back while we were in community college, probably in 2007, though we can't be sure. But it was before we had ANY knowledge of DID or what we had, we just tried to get through and live with things, yah know? I read it last night and I'm kinda stunned by how... well, specific and clear the terminology was, even, despite the fact that we'd never heard about Dissociative Identity Disorder.

It's hard to read because it's so... charged... and brings us right back to it, and what's worse, it really shows us exactly what was going on but, of course, we pushed it off and ignored the communication. ~Sighs~

Also, be aware that the perspective also switches between the two "characters" illustrated in the poem. Hopefully it's not too confusing for yah.

Anyhow. I thought you folks might be interested in it.
Enjoy!

~~~Major trigger warning. Majorly intense. Be on guard and careful while reading~~~
[for me/us at least, or anyone who has had denied/cut-off/waring alters, or an alter/alters who have been labeled as "evil/bad" etc. or for those who have been tried to killed internally.
But yeah. I figure chances are, it'll be triggering for others, so yep. Just be responsible. ^_^; ]

Me, her, I, We... a poem about myself.


I walk down a glass path, misty fingers strum a tune upon the strings that bind hearts whereby we drag our kin to doom...
Softly tread all hearts upon a spider's nest, twisted branches leading mine into a shattered field...
Reflections blink from all the shards, the blood flows freely now, a broken path, a jolting pain, a million me's stoop, staring back.
I draw my blood slow streaming out and call them all to life... the single face, that silent sneer, a cackle through the air... like the ice they shatter now, all fragments, dust but one.
"You." she laughs, and calls to mind the things that I do hate, doubt and guilt and fear, my hatred, anger, coldness, shame... Now my mind does shudder back through memory I do fear...
Now I laugh, a gleeful jeer like a madman at his prey, basking in my dismayed face.I the mocker, I the hate, I the darkness, I the fear, i the mocker I the one who in the dark now leers and taunts...
"What are you? Darkness, faulty, hateful, spiteful, wrong... nothing worth a bit of light, stupid girl, pretending ..." Then I laughed, the darkness flared, dark I laugh as I consume myself in thousands of glassy flames, flickering, thickening, filling, surrounding, reflected off of every facet of a trillion shards of fragmented silicon... All around, I crouch and crow and speak defeat, hate, darkness, death, all around myself as I devour my own heart.

I look back upon that patch, walking, remembering the tiny match, reflected into such a flame... I return now to that broken path, the shards of glass do wink and scowl as I approach my ancient foe... myself... I come upon her, face her, look into her eyes, fear quickening the blood within my veins, speeding the flow as I tread again upon the glass, giving life to my vicious foe... I look into her eyes and am her.
I see her, leering at me, and I see the pain... the pool of darkness at her feet, eternal life upon sharp points only serves to sharpen her hate. She takes a step... she lives... I turn to run. A thousand fears clamor for precedence as all within me cries to escape, escape from it, from her, from the thing that is me... from the darkness... A quickening tune plays upon the sounding air, singing with the tune of a thousand bits of glass crying for my blood... I race after her. I cannot let her escape... my blood sings for hers, I live... I am denied life for she fears me... I cannot let her escape, for as long as I remain, I will slowly devour her from the inside out... I am hurt. I hate. I seek something.. anything... to fill my emptiness... I am hated. I am despised... Even by myself... After her I...

[ Continued ]

Stuff's been hard. Shouldn't talk. Not good to talk too much. Talk too much and nobody listens.

Shouldn't get nice things; should get used nice things so less lost when lost or broken, I lose or break things because I'm me. I don't wanna cry.

I know we shouldn't have gotten a new bike but we really wanted it and now we lost it. Next time we'll listen to the smart ones instead of what we want and what our brother in law says, because we know better than him.

Spending less money is good because we'll probably mess it up and if we do it won't hurt as much if it's not new or not what we really wanted. Next time we'll do that.

[ADULT POST-POSTING EDIT: It's "mad world". We can't remember if she used the Gary Jules or the Adam Lambert version, but it doesn't matter much either way.
We're not sure if lyrics are triggering,, but just in case,

~~~POSSIBLE TRIGGER~~~
They might be. Here is a link to the lyrics if you'd like to check before listening: http://www.metrolyrics.com/mad-world-lyrics-gary-jules.html
We thought we should be responsible and give anyone who wants to listen a head's up about that.]

I like this song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxGd0g-wpXA&NR=1
[ ~~~~~End possible trigger~~~~~ ]

It's pretty and makes me think of life. I really like it. I keep listening to it today because it makes me feel better, less sad. maybe other people will like it.

Vie.

If anybody notices me reply-bombing/obsessively responding to anything I think I feel I COULD reasonably respond to, I apologize.

I'm having some anxiety issues. one coping method is to obsessively fixate on something that seems to be helping; I'm not controlling that impulse particularly well at the moment. To be honest, I'm all out of whack because I finally worked up the courage to call the T and schedule things and write out this long email giving the basics of our situation and... and I'm drained.

I NEEDED to get it out to feel safe going to see her, but it was absolutely heart-wrenchingly nerve-wracking to call her up, talk to her, and ask for her email address. We had to write out the whole damned thing while it was still close to the surface, before everything slid back out of "actually remembering" into the "Remembering only the basic tale without feeling anything or actually going back and REMEMBERING.

But I did it, and I'm proud of those in here who were brave enough to let us do what we needed to do, even though they were afraid and very much against it. I will be buying them something nice.

But the other problem is that I'm also lonely. Nobody I feel like talking to is online. I want some interaction, damnit! D<