How are you today thread (trigger warning)

We're good..Jess has finally decided on her 'human form' (what she feels her 'inner body' looks like). She's had a bit of body dysphoria (she usually presented in animal form) so struggled with things like walking on 2 legs if fronting. She prefers to be blended enough to be able to feel and experience what I'm doing as if she's doing it too eg typing....she's used to having 'clumsy paws' and having fingers and toes still feel 'weird' to her! She's finding our voicebox difficult to use too so communicates with us telepathically.

We realise she found 'seeing things' differently too, she has restrictive colour vision but much better night vision. We created some special 'contact lenses' for her to put on inside that allows her to see through our eyes in colour as we do..so she's fascinated by the colours of everything at the minute!

I can tell when she's blended as my night vision is suddenly amazing but outside seems really bright during the day and had to dig out the dark sunglasses! Even in the room when the sun is shining in (and even though we have vertical blinds - closed) I find I have to either go into another room where sun hasnt got round there yet or draw the curtains too.

After a few lessons with Phoenix (much more experienced changeling) Jess is feeling a bit more confident and little less disorientated by it all. I'm sure the longer she stays in this form with us at the front, things will feel less weird for her. She's a great source of emotional support and good at keeping our mood stable and fun, she lifts our depression too with her funny (as in comical) thoughts!

Lily

we're kind of okay and yet not. so much happening today that we weren't prepared for. trying to make the evening somewhat bearable. hope you all have a good day!

Jen

Hi

I'm Jess..Bobby says I can come and say hello. It does feel weird having so many fingers and typing but we've been playing video games so I'm getting used to using the hands though I'm rubbish at driving (in game) so not allowed to steer the real scooter we use to walk our dog!

Mainly I see my role as a co-host sharing my strength with the hosts and giving emotional support in the background when they are doing the daily tasks, but the games consoles are a fun way to practice better control without getting us injured!

Jess

A first for us yesterday in a long time ...we went out for a meal it was myself (Lily) and Kate co-hosting. we had been practising speaking the same so we could share speaking and sounding the same without been seen to visibly switch.

As a system other than walking our dog when no-one was about we hadn't been out in public (busy places like restaurants and shops) since before the pandemic started and of course i wasn't about then so for me it was a first hosting in a public place.

Kate started as I was nervous about it at first but once we'd got the ordering out of the way and just sat chatting with family I took over some of the talking and now looking back I can't remember when it was me or when it was Kate, it was so seamless!

Feeling exhausted this morning and will probably take a couple of days to recover energy levels but we enjoyed it

Lily.

We're okay. Still looking for a job and I hate job hunting, especially in this economy.

Ever since we graduated in mid April, things have been in a very uncomfortable limbo. We fall apart when we have nothing to do, nothing to look forward to. No set plan or schedule. I don't know why, I have to assume it's related to trauma.

When we have a schedule, as grueling and stressful as it may be, we know what we're doing day to day at the very least. But when there's nothing there, we don't have something to anchor ourselves to and the floodgates open for constant dissociation. It's been bad. I'm trying to keep things intact, and Christ has it been a pain in my ass wrangling a bunch of traumatized 20-30-somethings together.

Maybe I should be a little more gentle. I only don't want things to get worse. We'll be alright as always, after all.

I keep coming here, meaning to write, but then I leave again...
I feel like I am just repeating myself. Life is fast and furious, well, there has been an unpleasant conflict that is tricky to resolve... We are doing a lot of big things all at once and it will continue into July. When we slow down we get overwhelmed by too much quiet and not enough to do. So it will continue to be a walk on the wild side I guess. I just also want to complain because its so hard!

Hi I'm Kat and it feels strange to be more cohesive in my thoughts than I'm used to. Since the merging of the K system (just the Ks merged. Also some alters have chosen dormancy). It's been an exhausting few days and I'm trying to rest up but I have a noisy neighbor (nest of birds in the ceiling) that's been screeching all hours of the night keeping me up.

Does anyone stll use this post for shorter updates?

Just been reading through some of our past posts by the last fronting team trying to work out where we had got up to. They still all feel seperate to me and not a past version of me (Ellie) personally ...more like ..'oh these ones previously had my current job and maybe I can learn something from their memories/experience' ... However, between us 3 currently at the front we seem to have enough of their memories now to know about the past and feel more prepared for what the future may bring.

I still kind of feel a bit of 'new girl on the block', though Mila feels a connection to ones who called themselves Kit and Bobby. She does feel more connected to the body and the overall life as hers.

I do feel there's a part in Mila that I really feel connected to though and know Jess feels the same...kind of like finding your soulmate who you instantly connect with but not quite sure why or what it is about them! ... I think Jess and I feel more like 'the helpers'/support system' though rather than the a core part that idenitifies wth the body and legal name as 'them'


Ellie

We're having a really bad day, and it's supposed to be a fun, good, happy day today. But I don't care. I'm not going to pretend to be happy just because people expect it. Our life sucks right now except for being in a show. And even that is going to end in a few weeks and we won't even have that.

All our stuff is gone--all our journals from when we found out about each other, and wrote to each other and to our T about everything we were discovering. All our clothes that we've had for so many years--our favorite sweatshirts from the 80s that we still wore, all the t-shirts we collected. All of our books that we had since childhood and all the books that our kids liked us to read to them. All their baby clothes that we saved. All the baby books that we wrote in to remember their first words and cute things they did. All the photos until we went digital in the early 2000s. Stupid fire burned them all up and we can't even REMEMBER all the stuff that we lost.

Decades of having a life and collecting things to remember it with, and it's all gone and we'll never recover from this because it's not something you recover from. It will always be a hole in us and in our life.

The good things about holes is sometimes they can be filled. That sounds trite but there may be a way to recover some of what you have lost. If you guys have family that weren't also caught in the fire ask if you can go through their photo albums. It won't be the same as the mountain of photos that you did yourselves but there might be photos of the kids from a visit to an aunts etc. Enquire at the local newspaper where they keep their archives, the school may have sent in an article with your kids picture. Ask your therapist for copies of any notes you sent him explain that you have lost your system history in the fire. Ebay it's a great source for of shirts, no it's not the same but it's something..

Hope you start to heal soon xxx