How are you today thread (trigger warning)

ArbreMonde wrote:[...]Victims become rarely abusers, but abusers rarely start abusing others out of the blue. (With the exception of systemic abuse such as racism or homophobia, because these are taught. They do not appear out of the blue and they are not pattern repetition either.)

After all, our family abuse stems from a history of abuse. Pattern repetition, once again. I am unsure how dissociative they were though because they did not show any explicit symptoms.

[..."R]elapse" happened to us a few times, then we realized, we were not "becoming worse than before". We were "coming into contact again with traumatic material we had forgotten about". Which means we were technically becoming "better" because the dissociative amnesia was easing up, even though it hurt.

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Isaïa

Insightful as usual, and we thank you. We appreciate it. In our case we'd characterize the family part as "trauma and abuse," because even though the abuse history goes back at least three generations on our mother's side, and the trauma history goes back at least three generations on both sides....Our parents weren't abusive; they were clueless, especially our mother, who was emotionally and verbally abused by her mother during her entire life. We don't even what to think about what the male authority figuress in our mother's life may have done.

Remembering more trauma and starting to process it may be progress, but that part of the journey sucks royally.

MDs

Nothing has worked with Tank. We cannot group trauma together and try to deal with similar memories all at once using exposure therapy or whatever else we may come up with to try. We just have to do the usual trauma work that takes a long time, dealing with each memory individually, even if there are hundreds of them, maybe thousands. No matter how alike they may seem, each memory is different, and that is the catch. That's why we weren't here yesterday. We had a lot of trauma work to do. Alters keep splitting off of our Memory Keepers one-by-one and we feel awful until their trauma has been properly dealt with. Today will be the same, watch. A split is already standing next to me waiting to go to work.

*** Trigger Warning: Rape, Violence, Threats ***



Needless to say, I'm not happy about the memories that are coming forward. For example, I'm getting really frustrated by how many times in our 31 years of life that we've been raped. It's so stupid. People are so stupidly evil. I mean, by strangers, friends, family and caretakers. In public and in broad daylight as well as in "a dark, mysterious room." At gun point and at knife point or simply, "...or I'll kill you".

I'm so upset about it all. Once, I realized that I believed I could be raped by any one at any time in any setting. I thought, "Wow, I believe in such a big lie!" I told myself it was untrue. I think I lied to myself then. I have been raped by any one, any place, any time. It's not a lie, it's a real thing! How do I keep it from happening again???!!!



*** End Trigger Warning ***


So, I'm reading posts but I'm not thinking of much things to say in support today. Hope you all do well without me.

'Bye for now.

- Marcella

I understand where you're coming from Marcella. It's hard to offer support when things are stressful. We're kind of in that place right now, although not because of trauma memories.

I'm not even up to describing what's going on. It's just been really hard.

We're going to Disneyland tomorrow, so hopefully that will be a nice break from things. It's not exactly relaxing, but it's a chance for the littles to be out or near the front for most of the day, and for each of them to get to do things they enjoy.

Disneyland sounds awesome! hope the weather cooperates! say hi to Pixie Hollow for us!

Many of our Hosts do not have trauma memories. It stops them from being able to function.

'going deaf' set Susan free, due to extreme noise phobia's, they triggered 'Bobby' and Susan found them difficult to suppress. People bullying us triggered 'Bobby' lashing out.

'Thea' was very much needed at that point, Susan didn't understand why she had to actually legally change the name today there was a breakthrough, Thea shared with her why she changed 'the birth name'. It was a painful memory for Susan but she has at last accepted the reason for it.

On a side note CA Susie also revealed that she feels she is 'who mummy wanted her to be' when she was 'trying her best to be a good girl' and wasn't being overwhelmed by noises that triggered 'Bobby' out.

We think Bobby who is still non-verbal and entirely sensory-driven despite appearing at an older age now (10) must have been the 'original autistic child' at the point where the autism was at it most severe and there was no awareness of the rest of the world or a desire to conform, only to exist in the moment of getting lost in staring at the bits in the air (like when sun streams in a line and you can see like bits of dust particles etc),rocking, hand flapping or staring at light bulbs (particuarly one's that changed colour).

If they were the original autistic baby we don't know how they got to 10, whether they've consciously chosen to 'be that age' because something happened that year that was their favourite moment of their life or whether they're stuck there due to a trauma that happened at that age that only they have the memories for? Been non-verbal they don't communicate anything with the rest of the system other than sending images of 'Link' if they want to come out to play Breath of the wild then once out of what food they want to eat. (which was originally only chips, chicken nuggets, quavers crisps or white bread with only butter on).

Kit originally only came out to play video games and was a younger teen at first, but she came out into the body fully and did stuff in the real world and i`guess learned stuff to take back inside to process. Kit now presents as an older adult (now older than me) who through their research is fast developing the skills to 'host'.

I'm still 19!

Jody

Jody@KitMcDaydream wrote:We think Bobby who is still non-verbal and entirely sensory-driven despite appearing at an older age now (10) must have been the 'original autistic child' at the point where the autism was at it most severe and there was no awareness of the rest of the world or a desire to conform, only to exist in the moment of getting lost in staring at the bits in the air (like when sun streams in a line and you can see like bits of dust particles etc),rocking, hand flapping or staring at light bulbs (particuarly one's that changed colour).

I still love sensory stuff xD SENSORY GAMES ARE BEST GAMES -- Zami

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In a darker note, our cat has chronic renal failure stage 2. Which means that his average lifespan starting from now is, three years.

Of course, if we take a very good care of him, give him the medicine he needs and so on, he can keep on living for way longer than that.

But it also means that, if things go wrong, he could have a much shorter time left.

We planned screening exams in fall to see how things evolve. We are going to pay extra attention to his food and water, and bombarded the vet with questions about things that can be given, things that cannot be given, what to switch them for, and so on.

Apparently, he was very cuddly with the vets and very calm and quiet. We are happy to see how safe he feels compared of when we adopted him way back (he has PTSD, just like us).

We hope that we will be able to provide enough care so that he will have many more happy years to live.

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David.

ArbreMonde wrote:
I still love sensory stuff xD SENSORY GAMES ARE BEST GAMES -- Zami

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In a darker note, our cat has chronic renal failure stage 2. Which means that his average lifespan starting from now is, three years.

Of course, if we take a very good care of him, give him the medicine he needs and so on, he can keep on living for way longer than that.

But it also means that, if things go wrong, he could have a much shorter time left.

We planned screening exams in fall to see how things evolve. We are going to pay extra attention to his food and water, and bombarded the vet with questions about things that can be given, things that cannot be given, what to switch them for, and so on.

Apparently, he was very cuddly with the vets and very calm and quiet. We are happy to see how safe he feels compared of when we adopted him way back (he has PTSD, just like us).

We hope that we will be able to provide enough care so that he will have many more happy years to live.

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David.

Hi David and Zami, We are all really sorry to hear about your cat. We know how important our dogs are to us.

Vet medicines have advanced over the years, they even have bionic limbs for animals these days! Though of course they can be very expensive.

We hope your cat gets to be with you for many years yet.

Jody, Phoenix, Susie

p.s Kit says she's got to Chapter 10, she's going to try and read more this weekend!

littleDaria wrote:Disneyland sounds awesome! hope the weather cooperates! say hi to Pixie Hollow for us!

We didn't know where Pixie Hollow was--now I see from the map that you have to know about it because it's kind of hidden. Next time we'll try to go there! We'll write more about our Disneyland trip on the Littles thread.

It was a really nice day and a good escape from all the stress in our life right now. Also, today we didn't have anything scheduled except therapy at 9 am, so we're just taking it easy. There were plans to get a lot done today, but there's nothing very urgent, and it feels like we need to stay in un-stressed mode for as long as possible.

Pixie Hollow, that sounds like cute fun.

Anyway ... (Sighs.) Wow, only one split came off with a memory today (we've processed 21 in four days now) , but I'm still reeling over the implications of what happened in it.

*** Trigger Warning: Vague Account of Traumatic Event, Mention of Violence ***


Basically, I've learned there are like four or more basic responses to traumatic events/abuse: fight, flight, freeze or submit. In today's memory, I chose to fight, but, when I did, my dissociative abuser threw out one of the few alters of his that actually loved me and I ended up beating her up and cussing her out instead of the abusive alter. I loved her, and I made her cry. She did not abuse me. She did not deserve that.


*** End Trigger Warning ***

I'm trying to tell myself that there was no right or wrong response. It seems only somewhat accurate based on what I've seen because "fight" always seemed to have made things worse and the above was just one horrible example of that.

Otherwise, it was a good day. This was our second day on an antidepressant that my insurance company would not pay for until now. Hoping it works like it did before I switched to my current insurance company and they forced me to go off of it for I-don't-know-how-long. So far, I've seen no difference, but it's early yet.

- Marcella

You did what you could when the situation showed up.

Remember that if one alter in the system is abusive towards another outisde person, it's the whole system who is held responsible for it.

Yes, it is unfair that the punishment falls on one alter for the behavior of another. But, let the system deal with it and sort things within themself. You do the best you can to survive in traumatic situations by using one of the four Fs (fight flight freeze fawn) or all of them one after the other or any other combination.

You do what you can given the situation.

You are NOT responsible for the switches within another system and the consequences it has for this system.

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Urielles.