We have been exhausted of late. Been doing a lot of thinking that I want to be 'well' whatever that means. When I look back over the years I can view periods in my life where I have seemed to have functioned somewhat better than right now. I can never make sense of backwards memory it seems like a jumble of stuff with a few facts thrown in, punctuated by periods of fragmentation. It has only just occurred to me now that periods of total breakdown have been almost a relief as if by holding it together some of our parts are being starved of oxygen. We break down they breathe again and then we have to get everyone back into status quo before we can function properly again.

So yesterday I got to thinking I want to be well, complete, whole not a lot of different bits and pieces and began to embrace the idea that I could perhaps be a malingerer. Sounds a shameful thing but for a few hours last night it seemed that the most excellent thing to be. Perhaps all this stuff does not really happen to me I am making it all up. Searched around my brain frantically trying to find out what my secondary gain was and that perhaps if I could tackle that then I would not have to have all these other issues. It reminded me of the time when one of my difficult memories emerged and all the associated stuff that came with it and how on some mornings I would wake believing it had never happened and would experience immense relief before the black bombshell would drop again.

The last 6 months my awareness of my dissociation has increased and I wish I could say that this has made things easier but it hasn't because I still don't want it to be true. I want to get up in the morning and know who I am and what I am feeling and that that is going to be the same person who gets up the following day and that I will remember things and that I will feel things. In moments of clarity life will not be a vacuum. It feels that increasing awareness causes self doubt. There is now another 'me' that exists, the one that goes 'steady on don't spend all that money on wood carving materials - we are not collectively going to be making a living as a print maker', 'you said you were going to buy a picture you must honour that promise and not buy something bigger for yourself'. There are other benefits to this mediator, self awareness guru. When we are awake at night and the darker parts are suggesting things or someone is feeling desperate we are beginning to understand that while it doesn't take away the thought or feeling we do know these things does not mean bad things are going to happen. We are are also more aware of our weariness. We have been tired for as long as I can remember, I consider now that this is because these dissociated parts have always been or have been coming into being and the effort to manage this even when I didn't know I was doing it has been immense. We are tired of moving endlessly. We are tired of always being on alert. We are tired of always running.

On my last session with my T. He said he would write to my new doctor and glibly said it will note Complex Trauma with DID. I wondered if this was a challenge and he wanted me to contradict him because I can't really have DID, maybe I've been making things up. Back to malingering again. I don't know if I have DID. Maybe these others are just ego states with personalities, normal people have ego states so why can I not cope with mine? I doubt myself endlessly. I am unsure how important diagnosis is, all I know is life is difficult and we have to get through whatever is thrown at us. What I want desperately to do is walk away from this, shut down this world in my head and get on. It isn't that easy. The left hand is now beginning to see what the right is doing and whilst they are perhaps starting to work together neither hand performs in a way that feels comfortable and we don't like it. The desire to start running is huge.

Of all the things to blog about why this?? This should be a nothing but it isn't. We stopped seeing T in July. Up until today we have been coping with it fine. When we left we sent him a letter - well 3 letters all in one envelope. Two weeks ago I found some postcards from the area he works so I chucked them in an envelope. Little Mie wrote on one. Little Mie has been the only one really to acknowledge she feels sad about leaving T although I have been aware of some feelings of longing to see him and re-connect with him. In no small way this is probably because we left suddenly. The week prior to leaving had been quite upsetting although I can't recall what happened. I know Little Mie was there and I can recall Antionette getting annoyed which is usual if Little Mie gets upset. Other than that I have zip all.

We had known since March that therapy would be ending but were in denial. Due to family stuff we had moved away to the tune of 150 miles. When we went to see T we stayed with SO who was also preparing to move. We had a date we knew it was coming. The only other person nearby was the mother who we can't stay with. I had ideas that I could maybe stay in my camper van but realistically this was never going to happen - I am aware enough to know that being totally isolated with nothing but the open road would not have been good for us immediately after seeing T.

The last time we saw T his opening statement was 'I think I upset you last week' to which I replied 'yes you did but I need to tell you that we can't come back' he then asked me if it was because he had upset me. I reassured him that it was not. The majority of the rest of the time was spent trying to tie up any loose ends. He said that I could email. He also said 'think of me sitting in this tiny room with a strip light'. I think the rest of the session was spent not trying to open up anything else. My overriding memory of the meeting was 5 minutes before what would normally be the end he suddenly said 'well don't let me keep you' and showed us to the door. I wanted to give him a hug but we deem that as highly inappropriate. I just said thank you and left. It felt wrong, it felt unfinished.

We have internal dialogue stating that email is inappropriate and also it is a sign of being needy so we avoided it. It was a fight just to get the Thank You letter sent, more of a fight to send the post cards. I think things were settling down considerably until this week when we got the email from him. It was a something and nothing email accidentally sent but internally we have had a field day with it and now we are heavily chastising because we responded to it more or less to say don't worry about it have deleted it. We have read all sorts of things into what he might have thought about our response when in all probability he will have glanced at it then pressed the delete button not giving it a second thought.

We are waiting for an assessment meeting to see if another T will take us on in our new place. There is a waiting list. Don't know why today this has become so much at the forefront of our thoughts the email was last Monday. I have read up on attachment/erotic attachment in therapy and that some of the process involves developing attachment then moving on to develop healthy attachments outside of T. Maybe that is part of the issue here because we don't usually attach. We don't have people who we phone if we are struggling. Struggling members of the system certainly don't go round to other people's houses for coffee and an offload. Getting attached and then having that attachment cut off is a repeat....and there it is. Now I have written all this I can see who is hurting and why it is so big. This is exhausting. Think we need to sleep now.