The Road Goes Ever, Ever On (Theta's Journey)

Thank you, and our friend came through surgery without any real issue. She's recovering well.

The medication we started has been helping with nightmares.

Several of our Littles and Teens have come forward lately. We bought them a new game and they are loving it. I realized yesterday that we have to make decisions not only together, but also as if the adults in the system are co-parenting seven children because we, effectively, are. It feels surreal sometimes. At the same time, it can be joyous to have to deal with them when they are happy. Next month, we're buying some coloring books for them. I'm finding that having activities they want to engage in helps draw them out.

Trigger Warning Beyond Here

I've also started talking to our T about the more bad things like craving abuse and even fantasizing about it. This seems to be a situation held onto by only a few of us, but it permeates a lot of how we see sex and relationships. We're trying to unravel this knot of self-hatred which says that we should be punished for having sexual desires and that we should feel shame for even wanting to be with someone. It does not help that this is also tied into the need for sex change surgeries.

We're also starting to see how hard it is for us to deal with triggering things. It doesn't hurt in the moment quite as often, but seems to just drain the batteries too quickly.

Warning ends

We've hit a mood where we don't feel like talking to a lot of people lately. We've been talking to our close friends because they understand what is going on, but we feel like it's hard to put words into the right order and not have them come out mean, hostile or just awful.

Thank you for reading,
Take care,
Vi

It's been a few days...

One thing that seems to cause panic attacks for us is people arguing. For some reason, even online, people arguing outright seems to be a trigger. It doesn't matter what the argument is, if it sounds like it is raised voices then it triggers. This is both in writing and in voice. It's almost as if we are triggered by anger/hate from people. This was highlighted by two arguments that were had on social media. One was an argument about Harry Potter and one over the word 'queer'.

Our youngest alters with one exception (Ghost) like or love Harry Potter. We are aware of the awful stuff around the creator of the series, but we also don't want to destroy it for those who need it in our system (and in the wider world). But people arguing about it and claiming that all trans people should hate it is just triggering.

We think it has to do with our parents fighting when we were younger. The period from age 3 to age 12 was awful and included fights between our parents who nearly divorced repeatedly until about the time we turned 12. This picked up again when we were much older and we would start exhibiting trauma behavior. Their fights didn't spill into physical abuse but to an autistic child it had to be frightening. We see it when we read things too. We crave harmony between people we know because we don't want them to hurt each other.

Sometimes it feels like a little bit of information leads to uncovering a lot of trauma we didn't even think about as traumatic.

That's about it for now. Take care,
Vi

It's a shame people don't think about the consequence of their behaviour towards others that may affect them for years after. The bullying and rejection we endured made us nervous & untrusting of people that has stayed with us all our life. I don't think we've had it as bad as some but the autism has stopped us from 'getting over it' as easily because we didn't understand their behaviour or intentions. It explains why many of us prefer and feel safer in the inner world or will only 'come out' when no-one else is present.

I think it may not have been clear, but I don't think our parents actually knew we knew about the fights. Truth is, we don't really have memories shared yet of the fights. Marcie hasn't exactly shared what she knows and neither have the others. Usually when there's fights going on, it's Gia and Marcie who react the worst. When they are ready to share, they will.

I do know that our parents had fights, and often bad ones, but not from within. Our late aunt mentioned several times how our parents had fights and often sent us away so they could work things out. One of these incidents actually saw whoever was fronting at the time leave our grandmother's house and walk home in the middle of the night. But we've been told from outside about these and haven't shared inside yet.

Vi

Veronica came out and talked to our T today. It went well. She seems to feel better. She also spent some time drawing flowers. One take away is that Veronica is really looking forward to a game on Switch.

She's being very brave.

We've been stressed a lot lately, but hopefully things will get better.

Take care
Vi

Right now, the biggest issue for me (Violette) is the question 'who am I?'. Truth is, I'm not sure. There are days I find myself struggling to figure out what my identity is in relation to the others, and that concerns me sometimes. I've been wondering a lot of things. I've started to sort that out a bit here and there, but there have been days lately where I've felt hollow inside because I'm not sure what I like or what I want to do.

But it's a work in progress. At least I know who I am in relation to the others.

Take care,
Vi

I've had times I felt like that too. Some of the others have such strong personalities and I feel they affect me when they are near the front.

Kathy is a quieter gentle personality and we work well together. I feel more like we're deciding jointly rather than me following what someone else has decided will happen.

I think some of it is that, as we've worked on system cohesion, we've had less passive influence going on. This has impacted what I thought I loved and enjoyed because it turns out that it was another alter coming to the surface to enjoy what they liked. I'm finding myself enjoying some of the things that I have branched into, though, and that helps a lot. It's just taken time to find what I love and enjoy.

Take care,
Vi

So...yesterday was the followup appointment with our doctor and it went a little strangely. I didn't piece it together until today that she actually figured out the DID as soon as I told her about the trauma, or at least she figured it out after the visit where we accompanied our father to see her since Beth was out that time.

This is good, overall. It means that we're safe talking to her and she knows what is going on. She seemed pleased that our T was knowledgeable about DID even if she isn't a specialist, and agreed that our work coping with the autism was also something that was helping the trauma.

All together, positive.

The negatives we're dealing with are with our friends, and our friend LR may have bipolar disorder. We talked to her last night and hopefully she feels better today.

Vi