It has been quite a while since I was on the forum. I stopped when I started with my new therapist, I felt that all my stuff should be going in one direction. That has changed a little now as we are a little further in our journey and working on specific things with T. We do have a fascination with time though. I have lived in my current house for over 3 years and still have the feeling we have just moved in. We still wake in the morning wondering where we are, and I am beginning to think this is because we are permanently in a state of flux. We keep buying furniture, selling it again, changing rooms round and as notes kept getting lost we now communicate by writing on the walls.

Some of the things that we used to find difficult are not so frightening any more. The arguing and telling off has almost stopped when someone is out front and someone else is unhappy about it but is unable to take charge. We are no longer getting all consumed by one person going on a mission, I hesitate to say we have integrated because we have not but we have kind of integrated ourselves into a way of (for the most part) managing. We are learning what to avoid and just beginning to tackle some triggers. In a way because we are more stable it feels like the difficult stuff is just beginning. After 2 years in my sessions with T, once we have got over the how was the week she can now say are you ready to work on some of the psychological stuff? I am more scared now than I was in the first place because I can sense some real emotions beginning to bubble under the surface.

We are all stuck in different places, all doing reruns of the same things over and over but things are changing. I found a note yesterday written some years ago, it says 'leave the big plans alone you don't have to do everything all at once' we still write similar notes to our selves, it has taken a long time but I think we are finally getting to understand what it means. It is as if every now and than one of us finds the solution to life and goes hell bent on some crazy plan and all else goes out the window. What works is getting the little stuff in order, remembering to wash. Eating, brushing hair and tidying up. These things are important. We are working on this now, how to just look after ourselves. Nothing fancy just that. Looking after selves. It is slow because the home is chaos. But it is our home and we need to feel safe here. Maybe that is a big think. Just having something simple that gives us an anchor. It seems tat we have been tidying up for ever.

I am not very well. I have not properly eaten for a week and am very wobbly on my feet. So apologies if this doesn't string together too well. As I sit on my bed this morning it is a bit frightening to find I have the following words written in pain on my sitting room walls (I sleep in the sitting room) 'Mr W is the Devil and not welcome in this house' on another wall is 'we are good children and shall not be made into crumpet pudding'. These statements both scare me yet also make me feel empowered. Some of the internals want the statements removed. They are the deniars and the persecutors disguised as 'responsible adults'. Today we are going to formulate our emergency plan. This will include and connect all those who are currently worried about us because we have been a little out of control and I now know that I cannot predict from one day to the next how we are going to be. A safety plan is not just about keeping you safe it is also about enabling people who support you to feel safe and help them. To have supportive people you need to acknowledge that you do need help and this is huge. Acknowledging things are not ok or that in fact your DID does actually exist. This is not attention seeking this is coping. It is hard to not see things as attention seeking when the internal persecutors permanently tell you that is what is happening.These persecutors are disguised as protectors. I can now see that those that you think are the persecutors are really just trying to get the help to sort out the problems and get help. Those that want us to starve those that want us to cut they have just been saying wake up and listen. We have been more unwell in the last 12 months than we ever have before but I hope that right now we are getting somewhere near the bottom. We will rise.

The last few weeks have been awful. It seems that since we started on this antidepressant things have felt like they have been under cotton wool or something and communication has been dreadful. Shortly after this we started seeing new T. We have been functioning really badly. We have been dreaming. We have three recurring dreams when things are messy. They happen in sequence and we have now had all three. Don't know why but maybe that is why this morning we woke up and the body was still sleeping and we suddenly felt the need for a roll call. We are more in number now and there is someone lurking in the shadows we haven't addressed yet. I think body has been too tired to deal with all this. The last time we did a roll call it helped. Don't know why we haven't thought to do it before. I think it is because it seems like nobody is in charge.

I sometimes wish all this made more sense then I suppose if it did then it wouldn't be 'this'. Then again I still sometimes wonder what 'this' is. So much self doubt prompted in the main because I do not have amnesia (and here is the rub) that I am aware of. I have spent most of this week feeling like a singleton. I sit here now feeling like a singleton and yet I know that on Wednesday I had a meeting with a psychiatrist and as soon as the personal questions start and the focus is on 'me' that what seems to be solid fragments very quickly and I wonder why 'I' cannot control it. The plan for the first interview with this new psychiatrist was for me to request some ongoing anxiolytic medication or maybe some night medication and that was about it really. Whilst I cannot recall the total content of the meeting I am aware that it was a little person that began speaking at one point someone was standing in the corner of the room shouting very loudly, and when former T was mentioned we melted into total doe eyed euphoria and followed up with 'internal therapist' explaining in the third person where 'she' went to school. We came out with a prescription for an SSRI antidepressants and instructions to inform the DVLA that we have a dissociative disorder. Back in three months for a meds review. Now I am not sure whether it is worse being able to remember some of this or not. If I could remember nothing I would feel less responsible. Because I can remember some of it, it feels like I should have some control and that I am a fraud. Is it so difficult to just sit in a room with someone and say I think, or I feel, or this is my opinion - I suppose what I think and feel is chaos. It seems everyone else in here thinks and feels things maybe so I don't have to? So whilst I sit here convincing myself that I am a singleton I realise I do have feelings of shame for not being. I can 'see' Little Mie and Annie and hear the words 'don't leave us' I can hear the teens 'Alex and Sean' saying 'she is xxxxxxx off again' and the 'adults' trying to work out how to go forward. I know that when I go to bed this evening the only way to stop the static/tinitus will be to do a check. Meanwhile as if on cue the DVLA medical form has dropped through the door. Do I surrender by license or not? Its a big price to pay if I am making this all up. Why am I inflicting all this on myself?

After a couple of rather vague days I have emerged this morning with the prospect of going to see some psychiatric nurses on Wednesday. These are always difficult meetings, we need them at the moment because T hasn't started and with no point of offload things have just been deteriorating. However these meetings are a mixed blessing because whilst it is a point of contact with some people who want to be helpful, the general internal consensus is they have no idea what to do with us or how to respond to us. So today we have woken up with the bright idea of writing down all the stuff that is bothering us at the moment and maybe trying to map some triggers out. It would seem today (or at least at the moment) we are all on board with this with various bargains made to keep people engaged. I see this as a having a two fold benefit. Firstly I think it might help the psychiatric nursing staff have some understanding of what is going on and secondly it feels like possible good prep for starting T. In the past we have filled life up with doing things to avoid things. We are now in a position where we don't have a job and due to the inner state cannot imagine how we might ever be employed again we are also are becoming increasingly isolated. We are now no longer able to do busy external stuff to avoid anything. It feels a bit like living in a very dangerous crumbling building. SH is increasing along with an increasingly restricted diet. We have ongoing critical voices that apart from all the usual telling us what a useless failure we are also now tells us that all would be well if we just got a job. Am beginning to challenge this I want to take the bull by the horns and make a job out of getting 'better'. I don't know what better might mean but at least getting functional again and that means working at it. I also have a fear of getting 'better', things have been like this for so long now the distress of this somehow seems safe (that is how I feel about it right now, can't speak for anybody else). The endless paradox of this condition never ceases to amaze me. I am pleased I have written this on here because I can make a note to refer back to it when I have more than likely forgotten what I am supposed to be doing in a couple of hours. Hope it still all makes sense then because it seems a mighty fine idea at the moment. Let the journey commence.