Need Support

Update on the bigs:

Charity and I are working on our relationship and how it affects the system at large. The two of us see ourselves as first cousins and are very close. We know that both of us need to do the internal work, both as individuals and as a team. All five of us adults do.

Rachel is learning how to manage her anger, which is a long-term process that involves all of us managing our expectations. But she is making some progress.

Drew has emerged from self-imposed isolation for brief periods. She has an interest in gender issues and is very private. She considers herself a binary asexual female and prefers all female pronouns, but she draws a sharp distinction between her gender identity and the way that she presents to others. She believes that for the purposes of dealing with other people, gender should be irrelevant in any situation except medical care. And for this reason, even with the female pronouns, she prefers the title Mx.

Deborah is very quiet and also isolates. For years she hid behind a haughty, upper-crust persona, but she gradually revealed herself to be shy and anxious with very little sense of self. She wants to contribute to the system's well-being, but she's not ready yet.

Well, this is a little more than I intended to write as an update. But the point is that we're finally starting to work together.

Mary and others

Had a couple of bad days this weekend. Basically stayed in bed the whole time, except to go to a family gathering. Didn't eat much if anything on Saturday evening or Sunday. Went back to work this morning after one-week staycation, and almost fainted on the train. Then almost fainted in the train station. Got some breakfast and doing better physically, but need some encouragement.

We're going through a difficult time in therapy. The adults in our system have the most issues, and we're dealing with stuff that we hadn't uncovered earlier but need to process in order to move forward.

Kind words for Deborah (age 23) in particular would be much appreciated.

PS: I should say that I'm not one who personally gets depressed, but when others do, I get pushed back from the front and am sometimes unable to get out and get us moving.

Allegra and others

Hi Allegra,

Thanks for letting us know. Sounds like a seriously depressed weekend. We've had those too. Just got to eat though.

Hi Deborah,

I heard you need some kind words so I thought I'd try. This stuff is super hard and some T sessions really really s*ck! The deal is YOU are still worth a lot whatever happened. You deserved a lot better but the world is sh*tty sometimes.

Iain

Thank you, Iain.

I know I need to work on staying in the present. The pain is overwhelming. I do not want to hurt our system. I feel powerless.

Deborah

Hey MDs. thinking of you today. good luck with getting back to work today. I always have a #######5 hard time after a chunk of time off.

let us know how you're doing.

We're hanging in. It's hard for us to get used to the fact that processing some things takes time, and we can't just automatically act healthy.

Thanks.

MDs

It's hard to be grounded in the here-and-now when you don't want to be in the anywhere.



Charity and Deborah

Yeah. It's hard to be sometimes. "To be or not to be?" No sh*t! The big question. Hope it's going better.

Colin

Hi Colin,

Yes, it's hard. We're working through deep-seated trauma and have no idea when we'll feel noticeably better.

The two of us were just noticing how odd it feels to feel connected by mutual pain. The adults in our system all tend to isolate, and this sets a tone for the system as a whole and for the collective person. We don't want to have relationships based on pain.

Of course, we value our friends here and in other places online. Pain is a common factor in our lives, but we also share positive moments here. It doesn't seem like our (adults') internal relationships consist of anything but pain.

We hope that Evan is feeling better.

Charity and Deborah

Feeling very alone and devoid of support. Needing to connect with others on the outside, but no one understands. Being many and hurting so profoundly is beyond most people's ability to understand or even care.

People want us to fit into their reality. Our reality is never acceptable, never good enough.

Going to watch My Cat From Hell. We identify with the cats.

MDs