For the teenagers!

How about too old to like what they talk about on the Littles thread and too young to be comfortable on the Teen thread? I think people will sort themselves out. Just as long as it's safe.

Colin

Makes sense. Some of us are very literal, so please bear with us.

Our middles (older kids) are cautiously optimistic. They feel like they fit in with the Littles thread, but they don't like being considered "littles." They want to interact with other kids their age, but they want to be recognized as being neither little nor big/teen - hence "middles."

We work in the youth development field. Experts in the field define "tweens" as the same age range that we define "middles," although we came to our understanding on our own. It's why we now refer to our 8-11-year-olds as "middles/tweens."

We know that we've digressed here. We just wanted to get our thoughts out.

MDs

In our system it's ok if I drive. Iain can drive in an emergency. Host knows how but I'm better at it so I usually drive. The rest aren't allowed because they're too young, too angry, or don't know how. What's the deal in your system? Do you have to be a certain age or what?

Colin

Hi, Colin! Good question.

Whoever drives for us is quite circumstantial, depending on who is out when we need to go somewhere, although we prefer teens and adults to drive. With our OSDD, it's not a matter of training either because everyone who fronts magically knows how to drive. Mostly, what we really care about is skill, caution, attention, and all that other stuff that makes for a good driver.

For example, we've had someone as young as 8 drive us home (safely) out of necessity, although he was quite scared. A couple of times, some kids (11 and 12) drove us to our therapist's office (long drive) just because they were out when it came time to leave for our appointment and didn't want to switch. (The 12-year-old was smart enough to use our cruise control so she could focus on other things than our speed. The 11-year-old had no problems that we can recall.)

As for our usual drivers, Imre was our official chauffeur before he became our honorary host. Other people who front frenquently are permitted to drive if they do well enough. I drive when I'm out and Pip drives, too, since he fronts every day now. (I'm 14, he's 12.) One person that is starting to front a lot is a teenager, but he's kind of reckless, so we prefer that he only co-fronts when we go places while he's out.

Things can be different when we go to and from work, though. David (20-something) drives us home from work most of the time since he's usually the one who comes out and does our first job. Mom (alter, 60) does our second job and so she drives herself there and back ... but it's only a quick drive across town.

PS: Can you tell we've be waiting for the chance to talk about this?

PPS: I wonder who will drive us to work today ...

- Cullen

Another person tries to push me around I'm going to explode! Got to cool off. Too many mistakes already. Leave it to Iain. He's the diplomat. Got to stay home. Pacing. Need some action. Going out in the backyard and break some sh*t.

Colin

Hi,

Colin's better now. He cleaned up the backyard broke some stuff up and threw it all away. Then watched action movies until really late. The whole time we took care of Evan because he gets seriously triggered when Colin's angry. I don't think Colin would ever hurt Evan but it's pretty awesome when he gets angry.

We've been working on staying hidden so long and Colin's anger feels like kind of a threat to that. But it's WAY better for him to do anger on the outside instead of all on the inside like he used to. THAT was scary! We're trying to get used to Colin making the body angry and have that be ok. Working on it.

Iain

Glad Colin's better. And that you're all doing better. We need to learn to be better at dealing with anger.

MDs

Just wondering how other people deal with anger. I get pretty angry and want to fight and break things. I can't stand to be stuck inside. I need to DO things. If I could do anger better Host would maybe back off trying to control me so much.

Colin

man, I have been working on this for years now.
first thing i learned was to go away. when i was close to exploding i had to change rooms immediately.
next step is to make yourself think different thoughts. therapists always say that thoughts cause feelings. dunno, but they totally increase them.
if we are home i make a knot in a towel and hit the bed. 5 times. hard. (where the feet are so the littles dont get scared about using the bed. its difficult) while breathing and counting. the focus has to be on breathing out when you hit and count. nothing else in your mind. and not trying to think of hitting anyone!!
i always have the angry energy in the arms, like i want to hit and rip and all that.
so i have to do something with my arms that takes engergy. i like doing push-ups. kickbox training if there is time. but it has to be controlled. and when i am somewhere i just try to push away the wall as hard as i can. and think of nothing else. that is really important ith it all. mindful action and no thoughts.
it keeps me from exploding like i used to. at home they called me the vulcano, cause you never saw it coming and then there was lava everywhere.

there will still be anger later but its not that strong anymore so i can deal with it easier.
gotta look at where it came from. sometimes its really fear that started a fight response. i start to talk like Mike there.... we work with these concepts a lot...
sometimes its totally righteous anger. then we see if we can confront something in a self-controlled way. often i write letters. they help me the most and D is doing them too. not to send. just to put it into words, like spitting it out. letters are my best tool to deal with what is left of the anger.
and then we discuss actions. but only when calm and thinking is sober.

Annett - Thanks for answering. Sometimes it's hard to know if I'm protecting or just being an as*hole. Host is no help. He just wants nobody to notice. Sometimes I really need to get someone to back off. But that messes up the system. Littles cry and Host goes into denial. It's frustrating as hell.

Colin