Need Support

We called our T about half an hour ago. She was unable to talk then because she was at somebody else's house. It seems strange to think of her being in the company of other people on a Saturday night, especially since she's in her late 70s and has said that she's content when she's alone. But we digress.

It's been a horrible week. Aside from everything else we've been dealing with, we started having hot flashes again. Often. Mind you, we completed menopause three and a half years ago. Our T says that the hot flashes never stop completely, but we wish they'd not show up with such a vengeance.

No doubt the hormones, our natural serotonin imbalance, and our unavoidable trauma issues all operate in a vicious cycle. But we still feel worse than we've ever felt, if that's possible. Pessimist's mantra: Things Can Always Get Worse.

We googled emotional regulation. We googled containment. We're not ready to deal with abstract concepts. When we're in the midst of a severe emotional crisis, no matter how prolonged, the last thing we want to hear is someone telling us to change our thoughts.

In making the rounds of familiar MH websites, we came upon discussions about darks. How to help them into the light. We don't have RA, but we definitely have darks. We've always hesitated to identify them as such, for fear of offending those who do have an RA history. But our darks are still our darks, even though they have a different kind of past.

***TW***

arianna is 2.5. She's having fantasies of doing things to our mother that we won't even attempt to describe. arianna feels intense pain and wants to return it to an infinite degree. She's shredded the superhero costume that she'd accepted from us with such enthusiasm. She turns back and forth from a little girl to a dangerous wild tiger, and back again.

***END TW***

We've spent much of this week in bed, doing our best to shut down completely. We feel an intense loneliness. But we can't push ourselves to do much of anything.

We feel like our life is ruined, and that we'll never be able to get rid of the pain. The pain makes us think of that 1970s song "Killing Me Softly." Except our pain is loud, pulling us to the precipice and taunting us with the edge, nonstop.

Back to darks. I/Charity used to think that I was the source of light and comfort in our system. I've written many times about my complex efforts at denial and delusion, so I won't do so now. I feel darker and darker as time goes by. I cannot remove myself from my place in the center of our system. When I refuse to function, the system refuses to function.

I hate our life.

Charity and others

It sounds like a very stuck place to be, and very difficult and painful. I'm sorry you're going through this.

Thank you, Gang. We've had a little of our dinner (grilled chicken salad, a staple of ours) and are watching the Dr. Oakley marathon. Twelve is watching arianna.

Charity and others

it sounds really tough and i don't know what to say. because I always only have the theoretical answers, eg that emotional regulation doesn't have to happen thru working with thoughts, but then I sense that this is not what you need right now, not another lecture on how to do things better and how to put more effort in fixing all this. you have done so much already, for so long. I understand what that can be like. I hope you feel supported here

Thank you, Asti. We appreciate hearing this from you. We will be Skyping with our T any moment now.

Charity and others

Copying our posts to here from elsewhere on the forum:

MakersDozn wrote:We are female-bodied. We have a strong ability to separate the body's gender from our individual genders. We see the body as a vehicle, which is a completely separate issue from how we see ourselves as individuals.

Our system consists of five males and 42 females. These include a yin/yang non-corporeal tandem -- two beings, one of "male" energy and one of "female" energy. For this reason, we include them in the gender count mentioned here.

The four corporeal males are age 16, 8.5, five, and four. The 16-year-old is straight.

The 41 corporeal females include:
1 age 25 - identifies as a feminine lesbian attracted to feminine women
Nine identifying as straight: One age 23, two age 17, two age 16, two age 14, one age 13.5-14, one age 10.
Eleven identifying as asexual: Three age 23, one age 17.5, one age 17, one age 16.5, one age 15, one age 13, one age 12, one age 11, one age 10.5-11.

The remaining 20 females are too young for this to be relevant: Two age 9, one age 8.5, two age 8, two age 7, two age ~6.5, one age 6, one age 5.5, two age 5, three age 3, one age 2.5, one age 2, one age 1.5, and one age 6 months.

***TW for Gender Issues and Resentment Toward Family***

I am one of the three adult females indicated above in purple and who identify as asexual. The 44 other corporeal members all identify as binary. I should be able to consider myself among them, but one or more of the members of our mother's system decided when we were about eight or nine that it was "easier" to buy us boys' clothing because girls' clothing "didn't fit you as well." This was despite the fact that the opposite was actually true.

So, because of our mother's incompetent parenting, even though I identify as female, I will never be binary.

***End TW***

Drew

MakersDozn wrote:Hello, Floralie. Thank you for responding.

Floralie wrote:it's more about now that I have my own identity too, and not just identity of different parts', it doesn't confuse me. But it still does. And doesn't.

We identify with seemingly conflicting truths, and not just as they apply to gender. These conflicting truths affect such a significant part of our journey that perhaps it should not surprise us when our progress is slow. Perhaps.

Floralie wrote:I don't identify as trans, neither do any of "my boys". I have female body but most of the known system is male (but the system is mostly unknown). They do all kind of passive influencing things.. and I don't know if they mean to do that, or if that just happens.[...]Non of them feel they are trans, they have their own bodies and the fact they can't interact with outside world with their own bodies is just inconvenience.

We too experience a great deal of passive influence. We've always referred to it as "shadowing," because to us the influence seems far from passive. We experience it more as the shadower intentionally yet secretly influencing the person being shadowed.

Our males experience themselves in a manner similar to what you describe. Joseph is eight and a half. He says that the one thing that he misses is....not being able to use the bathroom in the way that male-bodied people do. But he reaps the benefits of the body as well, which include a short haircut that is not too different from his own.

Floralie wrote:Fourteen suffers dysphoria when talking to outside people. I think it's mostly his voice, or actually that he can't speak with his own voice here (outside), which is why he decides not to speak out loud. He doesn't wanna practice it either. I think he is confused about it now. He doesn't wanna be trans or feel trans, he has his own body inside he identifies with, but he still has same kind of issues with our outside body than trans people have. That is more than just very confusing to him.

Twelve is a girl but has a rather low-pitched voice. She refuses to come out in therapy because even though we were told as a pre-schooler that our voice was low-pitched, it's more in normal range now, but Twelve's voice is different from the body's voice, and she can't reproduce it on the outside.

Floralie wrote:I have identified sexually as gay male, with female body. I know it comes from the parts and I don't know my own sexuality. I maybe don't have one?

This could be true, as we mentioned earlier that about half of us are asexual.

Floralie wrote:Trying to transform our body into male would mean non of us could identify with it anymore.[...]I hope therapy will give answers. Before getting them, I won't change anything.

We see the value in this reasoning. While we are aware that gender transition is a carefully thought-out process, we wonder how many people considering transition are multiple, rather than transgender in the "traditional" sense.

Again, thank you for your response. I greatly appreciate it and am more encouraged than I was when I originally posted.

Drew

MakersDozn wrote:Hello Menagerie,

Thank you for responding.

We feel a great deal of empathy for the person that you mention in your first paragraph. Whenever we have raised this issue elsewhere, or thought about raising it, we have been wary of offending people who might think that we are minimizing the magnitude of those who decide to transition for the usual reason. We do not take any identity-related matters lightly, nor do we wish to be seen as disrespectful. But your anecdote is confirmation that such things do happen, and we thank you for validating our concern.

Regarding the bathroom issue: We have been told that there is a device available for female-bodied people who wish to use the bathroom in a standing position. We have made it clear to Joseph that we do not wish to use such a device, but you may wish to consider it.

Drew

We've been emailing brother number one back and forth because of routine holiday stuff, and we told him that we weren't doing well.

He responded with a cryptic message: "Call me."

Gak! Was something wrong on his end?

No, he said, he was simply having technical problems with his phone, and he was offering us the chance to call if we needed.

So we left it so that we'd call him when we got home from work. "As long as it doesn't stop me from watching Life Below Zero on NatGeo," we said.

MDs

Our week so far:

Realize that we're running low on BuSpar. Order refill using CVS automated phone system.

Go to CVS to pick up refill only to be told that no BuSpar is available because there is a shortage at all CVS distributors. Regular CVS refers me to CVS location 2 and transfers the Rx there by computer without actually talking to anyone there.

Drive 20 minutes in the opposite direction from our home only to find out that CVS location 2 doesn't actually have any BuSpar either, for the same reason. CVS location 2 suggests that we go to Walgreens, which uses different distributors.

Spend part the next day doing online research on the BuSpar shortage. Find repeated instances of "unexpected increase in demand" and one instance of a manufacturer discontinuing because of a "business decision."

Call Walgreens and ask them to contact CVS to transfer the Rx. Pick up Rx at Walgreens.

Go home and transfer pills to a smaller bottle and affix the original label to it. Make sure to count all the pills. Determine that the number of pills is correct.

Prepare to take our dose the next morning. Re-count the pills and discover that 10 are missing after we place them on our dresser to complete the recount. Quadruple-check that entire area of the bedroom and then give up, nearly overcome by feelings of shame at our mishap, but moving forward because we have to get to work.



MDs

Sounds like a huge hassle MDs, sorry you all had to go through that stuff.

Maybe the missing pills will turn up later? I hope they're not expensive.

No, not expensive. We're certain that the pills are somewhere in the bedroom, perhaps hiding in the bed linens, since we first counted them on the bed.

The bigger issue is that we're so stuck in a shame loop, highly disproportionate to the circumstances. We don't have children or pets, so nobody will be harmed if the pills turn up. We just need to deal with the shame and other related feelings.

Charity, Mary, and others