Too many options

Hi Collective,

OK so I'm probably not the best one to explain this but I'll try. When we were going to school teachers always told us to concentrate, stop daydreaming, and pay attention. But we couldn't pay attention. Somebody inside was checking the teacher to see if she was mad at us, someone else was checking exit routes to make sure we weren't trapped, someone else was making sure we didn't cry or scream or cut or anything. We were busy. We weren't daydreaming we were dissociating. Nobody got that and we couldn't explain without giving away secrets so we were stuck.

OK so then we went to college. We had a scholarship and we didn't want to mess it up because we didn't have anywhere else to go except back out on the street. Host tried to pay attention in every class, write notes, read, take tests. Only the harder he tried the worse everything got. Grades were falling, advisors were calling, papers were overdue. Host decided we were doomed anyway so he gave up and just daydreamed in class.

Then this weird thing happened. Our grades got better. You see for us the problem isn't paying attention it's getting the right person in class. Host can't do it all. He doesn't know how and anyway that's not his job. When he relaxed, the right person came to class. And we made a rule that whoever goes to class has to show up for the test. We also have a writer inside for papers.

I don't know if any of this helps. It's just that we knew how to study all along. We were just tense and trying to do it like non-multiple people. Anyway we graduated college then grad school - twice! It worked for us.

Be safe.

Iain

The thought of having to switch to be fully functional in daily life is not appealing. For years we've been trying to eliminate switching cause it's so destabilizing. Our hosts? (the persons that are able to handle daily life) are very different.
I guess you're right though, and I really recognize the part of your post that describes the 'daydreaming'. This was life for us during our entire elementary school for as far as we remember that. Can't remember how we pulled through high school.
Yes Teatime, we're hoping to go in that direction. This education poses many tough challenges for us though, and the outcome would be a completely different person if we are able to rise to the challenges. So it's gonna be a rough ride. Psychology has officially become plan B. Thanks for helping out everyone.