keep on keeping on

catastrophe feels drawn to me
tooth grinding led to an emergency dentist visit. more doctors, we have been avoiding dentists...
so full of triggers.

but its getting christmassy and an angel appeared, taking the shape of a friend. i am so at my limit, i dont know if i would have been able to arrange everything. i sat at home weeping. i. was weeping. so at my limit...
obviously i lost some body sensation over the stress. no sense of hunger or feeling for my legs, but the tooth was saved.

so in the end... a saved tooth. a wonderful friend. a new female dentist who is very mindful. trying to ignore the thought of bills... staying positive.

making pancakes for dinner for Maya for being so good today. maybe i also need a little loving pancake feeling...

the week was wild. tooth ache the smallest problem...
A got really angry about the custodians unprofessional behavior, (basically abusing Mike.)
she picked a futile fight with our T about getting rid of the custodian and then almost drowned in self-hatred and despair.
i checked with Mike and he said he wasnt hurt at all, he is proud of what he does. what have we been fighting about if he likes doing that stuff? the fact that its not right. that maybe he should find something else to be proud of.
he is the oldest in our system and it feels weird to confront him, the one who always sees thru every one of us, that parts of his behavior are harmful. he does listen and i think he understands but it didnt feel like he would stop. can i make him stop?

he is "creating" peace by allowing needy and controlling and manipulative people to come and get help, he will counsel them and give advice and explain their situation and their options, it all looks like he is a nice guy who wants to help. what he is really trying is to keep these people away from us by creating distance and a position of power over them. its subtle but very powerful. they become like puppets. it scares me a little bit to see how much power he has over people and i wonder if this is what he is really doing in the system, manipulate everyone while looking like he cares...
i dont know what to think about all this. who is manipulating whom?

but i decorated the christmas tree and put up the little decoration we have and everything seems more manageable than last week.

Gotta keep on keeping on... ohoohohoohoooo hoohohoo hoo hoo
Woke up in a hotel room, my worries as big as the moon
But there's hope, there's a silver lining
Show me my silver lining

the week has been easier. Annett and Maya have been very helpful. we are in this together, creating a good christmas time. its the first time i experience so much support and the first time i remember that we are working together for a common goal. it feels good. i am close to crying cause i didnt expect that to happen and i realize how lonely it has felt do push thru everything alone. we can do this. together.
L has said a few words when we discussed christmas preparations. she is communicating again. things are starting to work out a little better and i wont beg her to come back. i hope that gives her the freedom to decide if she wants to be host again. maybe it is a relief for her to know that we as a system can learn to manage without her taking care of everything. i am learning a lot and i am humbled by the experience. all this works so much better when we are working together, helping each other out instead of fighting to get our own life somehow. maybe we can find things we agree on and move toward that...
feeling hope.

birdsong87 wrote:he is "creating" peace by allowing needy and controlling and manipulative people to come and get help, he will counsel them and give advice and explain their situation and their options, it all looks like he is a nice guy who wants to help. what he is really trying is to keep these people away from us by creating distance and a position of power over them. its subtle but very powerful. they become like puppets. it scares me a little bit to see how much power he has over people and i wonder if this is what he is really doing in the system, manipulate everyone while looking like he cares...
i dont know what to think about all this. who is manipulating whom?

Well, this sure sounds familiar. Johnny gains influence at work and virtually creates needy allies by doing all the things you mention. But it seems clear to me that he learned to do all that to survive the unhealthy environment we grew up in. And he simultaneously feels real empathy for and a comfortable distance from these people.

Johnny-Jack wrote:Well, this sure sounds familiar. Johnny gains influence at work and virtually creates needy allies by doing all the things you mention. But it seems clear to me that he learned to do all that to survive the unhealthy environment we grew up in. And he simultaneously feels real empathy for and a comfortable distance from these people.

i am not sure what to do or even who should do anything... the interaction Mike is having with needy people is not just contrary to our core values we all try to follow as best we can, it also triggers the teens in the system really badly and some of the kids as well. what Mike is doing is like a reenactment of abuse that has happened, only he is showing that he can handle it. ya, with other parts present who DONT handle it well...
i dont really understand what is going on. but it FEELS like he is allowing us to be emotionally abused again and like he is taking pride in being able to handle it.

teamwork!

we struggle with the other thing too....

some days are just hard. dentist again. i see our dentist more often than our T. freaking painful root canal, trying to hold still and breathe thru it while kids were screaming inside, halfway stuck in completely different scenes.

where is this caregiver when i need him?! i am angry with Mike for not being around. someone should have taken the kids. maybe i should have thought of it before. not good with this stuff. i remember appointments and i go there and i get thru it. that used to be enough. is it my job now to organize a kids programm and think for everyone?

i am weeping and boiling with anger at the same time. dont want to feel like a failure. sometimes things go so well for days in a row and sometimes its just a messy mess. its easy to be wise after the event. really. struggling with guilt, i could have known better. but i am thinking of so much all the time to keep everything running well, all the christmas preparations, everything without a car, i really do a good job. its hard to admit that over and over again my best is not enough.

i long for someone adult to come up and help. the kids are trying to stay out of the way. teens focus on being difficult or making a protection plan in case family shows up over the holidays. i wish i had someone adult around who could share some of the burden.

looking back, i had some adult help before christmas. Elle took over the cleaning. i hope to see her more often...
and Annetts protection plans in case family shows up... they pretty much all showed up. like a parade of people ignoring boundaries...

so much action... D is trying to keep me from therapy. she says these people will kill us if we keep talking to them. i have known her for a while. long enough to know that she simply doesnt trust women and she is trying to protect us.

her actions and a whole lot of serious triggers woke Thamara.
now this is a mess. she is hurting real bad, trying to share all her pain and memories with me. i dont want to know about that stuff. i am busy keeping things going. nobody around to listen... she keeps pushing to the front real hard to get some time outside. she has been in the black for weeks, maybe even months. feeling a little helpless, i dont know what to do about her.

she is bulimic and caused a lot of over-eating and throwing up to the point that the body was just exhausted and in pain. barely able to keep fluids inside. de-hydration is serious... so i asked D to take care of the eating. she is anorexic. doesnt sound like a great improvement, but at least the binging and puking stopped and the body had some time to calm down again.

and i sat down with Thamara and we went thru everything that had triggered her or confused her and made her feel insecure... i hate that. i dont have a lot of patience and she struggled to find words for what is going on. took me hours and some serious headache to walk her into a safer place...

meanwhile i adviced D to take over and do what she does, some serious workout to burn even more calories, cause she thinks the body is too fat. all i wanted was to cause the body to get really hungry. D is strong. really strong and often when she takes over its hard to get back control. except that Maya can be strong too. she is my sweet darling and very easy-going compared to everyone else... goal was to have her take over when it was time to eat again.

and it worked!! i feel like a pro! its been a while since i have felt so good. it worked and i got this whole mess back into order. so amazed. in the end D, who is never helpful on purpose, helped to give me enough time to take care of this.

so Thamara is back. it makes my life harder. she needs a lot of attention. but that means that its only Mike and Bunch missing from the core team that has been around before the breakdown. that means things are getting better?

i could really use some advice on how to deal with others inside who struggle with an eating disorder. there is a good chance that Thamara will be triggered again soon and i am not sure how often i can trick D into helping...

great work keeping things together for all.

We have a bulimic, and self starver, in our collective as well. The bulumia tends to be a trigger reaction by one who is dark and uses self punishment and self degradation as her "coping" response. It can last a few days, and can get pretty messy, but she can usually be reasoned with to not hurt the body too extensively. The one who starves is harder to negotiate with when she is determined to have her way, and she would like for none of us to ever eat. Sometimes she can freeze the mouth of whoever is fronting, this can be scary, and she can be very strong.

To manage, we try and keep record of food consumed, so the main outsiders can keep tabs on when it's time to eat. It is not working so well at the moment, because our collective has fallen into a bit of disarray, depression, unable to coordinate working together too well. But once it has gone on for longer than a day or two (either the bulimia or the starvation) our admin/watcher will reach out to a trusted outsider for help. Usually having someone from outside remind or assist the one fronting to eat properly, helps things settle again for awhile.