keep on keeping on

I'm sorry reading this back the kids' song sounded a bit creepy so I am sorry. It is meant to be a big fuzzy friendly cartoon spider that is a friend.

Sorry.

its ok. Maya liked it. she does like stories of monsters under the bed and stuff like that too

how's it going L and crew? Thinking of you.

slowly, very slowly sleep is improving. we even had one full night of sleep this year.
with it there are stressful dreams. like working with the police to find signs of what happened and the police is very willing to catch the abusers but its too long ago, not a hint of what happened and fights with family...
not real. just a dream. pretty discouraging, but just a dream.

we have had a few well balanced days. i am always very proud of those.
Asti did important things for everyday life. she is preparing to teach a private cooking class.
she also tried the "yoga with Adriene", just a few days behind with the challenge, and found great value in it. it helped her slow down. we are all thankful for that.

Mike and Elle and Maya are working on a creative project. it takes a lot of time but it is like therapy to do this. everyone has been happier. i just felt slightly jealous.
Maya also made a song out of the spider rhyme. its about a spider spinning a web over the bed, than all kinds of things get caught in the net and in the end its a dreamcatcher.

Annett gets her workouts, Asti gets to feel needed, Elle gets to be creative, Mike gets to help the young ones thru a tough time....
if we would all feel so useful and important every day, that would be awesome.
its so fragile and even a bad night can mess with it.
we are practicing how to do this life together. some day it looks good, others its obvious that we are still practicing.

it wont be long and the insurance office will call us to discuss a work programm.
i feel so discouraged. while we did so well for a few days all this is taking up all of the day. there is no way we could do their 25 hour work week programm.
we discussed it with the assistant T. he agreed that we shouldnt even try before we found a main T.
we found one who is specialized. with about a year long waiting list.
everyone else we have talked to either said no right away or they agreed to talk to us and we soon found out they just wanted money without being able to offer good therapy.

there has been a plan for 2017. but it is becoming clear that we will not be able to stick to it. so i am taking one day after the other, not worrying about long-term goals right now. we will get somewhere.

maybe i want to write something concerning mindfulness later. there is something that has been confusing.

we are in an uncomfortable position.
things have settled with Danielle. she is a different person. actually very positive and pursuing happiness above everything else. we get along really well and will integrate as soon as we have found out how that works.

but Danielle has been like a gate to a different level of alters, people who are not co-con, people we would consider dark, or dangerous.

someone we used to call the "good girl" has been coming up a lot more often. she is sharing memories that are too cruel to share here, even with a trigger warning. she has witnessed some strange and gruesome things, among the darkest things anyone in our system has shared so far.

it doesnt seem like she is carrying any physical pain but she is messed up mentally for sure.
she also seems to be partly an introject of the sister, who has been acting under the command of the abuser, doing terrible stuff herself. somehow the "good girl" is showing extreme cruelty towards others, believing that this gives her power over others.
"there is no good or bad. just power and those too weak to seek it". that sums her up very well.
while Danielle was all about control she seems to believe in power thru violence.

i am trying to move thru the steps. H has seen "today", she has looked in the mirror. she understands that i am not scared of her threats, not even when she is cutting symbols into the skin. trying to make her feel safe. because i seem to be more powerful she expects cruelty from me... this is worse than working with a wild animal. she is constantly trying to scare and subdue me. at the same time she is sharing sickening and unbearable memories that indicate that she really needs some love and security...
L



this is getting us nowhere. this whole life and all these stupid struggles mean nothing. i dont want to live anymore. i have done everything possible to keep our T, i have worked my butt off to find us a new one but those Ts are good for nothing. 2 more weeks and our doctor leaves as well. everyone is just leaving, going on with their happy life and we are left behind and nobody gives a damn. its just not fair. then we go struggle to find a way to deal with all that $#%^ and nobody is helping. we are always ######6 alone out here and nobody even cares. those Ts all just send us away and tell us we could still go to the psych ward if we need help. ya, thats not the kind of help we would need. i am so sick of it all and just so tired of keeping us going. somehow i quit life. we eat and shower and exercise and i still do that yoga challenge. but everything else seems so... pointless. its absolutely pointless. no matter how hard i try, i am not able to get us a better life. to hell with that work programm! who is supposed to get thru that without a T? and its a ######6 year of waiting to get a qualified T. i will just waste away for a year, shower, eat, exercise, keep the body alive and see if 2018 has anything to give? this world sucks. big time. in the end we are always alone. we struggle thru this ######6 cruel stuff alone. i dont have hope. i dont have any more energy to waste on trying to make this work. why should i? what is the point? i keep doing my ######6 best but it never turns out to make any difference.
mostly Asti (with Annett who is also frustrated with losing someone else soon)

thinking of you L.

I can't offer a lot of supportive words atm but wanted to say I hear you. I feel your hopelessness.

We believe there is still something interesting left to experience in this life. In your life. Maybe your book, maybe something else entirely. Doesn't mean it won't be painful.

you are not alone in your experiences. Though limited in how we can help you, we know exactly how you feel.

we also feel we have opened to a different level of alters. It must mean we are ready. Meeting Danielle must mean you are ready. You can do this.

Hi Asti and Annette,

Sounds hard. Kind of like you're doing the right things but nobody's helping. You're seriously brave. I'm glad because I want you to make it all the way to a happy life.

We had some good stuff happen yesterday but some of us are already trying to take that away. Su*KS!

Iain

i am feeling really hurt. there is stuff going on that is confusing. i felt some of what that new girl Hannah was sharing and it overwhelmed me.

and it really hit me hard that this one T we talked to made fun of me.
i am pretty confused about myself. if you take away my functioning and my achieving, what is left of me?
cause i am facing a few dead ends right now. i have made plans a-z and nothing works and i am running out of letters on the alphabet. it gets harder and harder to find stuff i could try, harder to stay active.
its like i am running down the hallway, checking every door but they are all looked.
who am i when i am not the person who makes everything work?
it makes me realize that my self esteem is really not that good. i feel worthless when i cant handle the situation. it doesnt seem to matter that in this case it is really the situation that sucks and not me.

i keep having these thoughts that i am not good enough. never good enough. and that all i do is just wrong. there have been people who have critized my style lately. and i really cant handle critical voices right now. i am doing the best i can. i didnt know that survival gets marked by strangers and points taken for looking stupid.

somehow i have to figure things out for myself. Mike and L are both busy with tough stuff. somehow i need to learn how to live with myself. most of the time i dont feel it because everything works out well, but when it doesnt i loathe myself.

3 weeks until i can talk to someone at the treatment center. we have little hope.
then all that is left is to talk to the insurance and apply for our next visit at that clinic we just came from.

a friend really helped me with some unconditional acceptance and affirmation. i am not as severely depressed as i was a few weeks back. we did work on some projects that add value to other peoples lives. we are back to a better sleeping pattern. small things are getting better. i wish i could feel better about myself.

i feel stressed.

the kids have created an indoor playground where they can be safe, have fun and also rest in their own little tree houses. Maya had wanted to do that for weeks. And we need Mike to give more attention to the new girl.

Hannah seems to be living in an alternate reality, trauma-land with trauma time-zone. her view of the world is that you have to be ruthless and cruel to stay at the top of the pecking order.
she has been putting a lot of pressure on Asti, who wasnt prepared for any of this.

Asti is strongly avoiding a lot of stuff so she can function in every day life. she is avoiding trauma memory and traumatized kids. she is avoiding all kinds of pain. that makes her vulnerable to blackmail from a mere child who is cruel enough to push her memories, or what could even be fantasies, into Astis awareness. avoidance makes her really vulnerable.

she has worked thru a lot of shame.
sometimes people hold on to shame or guilt because that still feels better than the real emotions behind it. one of these emotions was sadness and grief for the loss of our long-time assistant T. another one is helplessness. she rather felt ashamed than feeling helpless.
another problem with shame is that it is self-centered. it completely ignores what other people, loved ones, think about you. i think she can accept that nobody is demanding as much of her as she is herself.

there is something that is called the pain paradox:
"Suppression, rejection, or avoidance of pain = increased suffering and decreased awareness
Nonjudgmental acceptance of pain = decreased suffering and increased awarenes
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”

so we carefully trying to help Asti not to be so afraid of pain. that is just increasing the suffering. we have agreed to work together in case that this means that she will not be able to function as usual. all this is pretty tough. its the only way to make her less vulnerable to blackmailing. it needs a lot of courage but i believe that it will be easier to deal with Hannah when we are not that afraid of what she could do.

Mike is observing Hannah. the easiest way is to keep her in a seperate place inside and just watch her thru a small window.
she has not realized that the world has changed. some weeks ago she saw that we live in a different place and that the face in the mirror looks very different. but she still expects a world that is ruled by the most powerful and powerful somehow equals brutal and cruel.

the problem of dissociation is very much a problem of "non-realization". Asti doesnt realize that its "our" pain as one person. Hannah doesnt realize that the world is different, the rules are different and that quite a lot of what she is doing is not needed anymore.

pecking order is the word that comes to my mind. she strongly believes in that.
we have had our first success of "realization" when she couldnt find anyone to peck. she was looking around to find someone to torment and the outside world people were all so different. many of our friends are in their 40s. all she saw was middle aged guys and it confused her. they didnt look like good victims to her. but neither did they look like cruel people who would peck her.

Mike is trying to find more cognitive errors and small things that could lead to more "realization" to get her out of trauma-land step by step.

i have contacted more Ts out of town to see if someone would be willing to help us. waiting for responses makes me go crazy. i am stressing out about doing all this stuff alone. we should really have the help of a T here.

Asti doesnt feel that suicidal anymore. we are doing good for today. i just wish i could share responsibility with someone. even with an inner helper who knows so much about therapy...
things should be different.

i feel like i am losing it. and i dont feel like myself anymore. dont know what is going on.

Mike is staying with H. we have tried a few things to be nice, like letting her choose the food, but she is just trying to be nasty in return. she seems unable to build her own safe place. nobody knows if she just doesnt know what safe means or if she is scared of letting go or whatever.

we have had something come up that was about to split the system.
attachment needs.
we are preparing to say goodbye to a long term assistant T, one the kids liked.
they show emotions and some dependency needs. Asti and Annett go crazy about not needing anyone and being afraid of being too close. everyone close to panic about what the other one needs.

i realized that we are in a season of change. somehow it seems easier to look at is as change that needs to be grieved. we have been reaching out to other organisations and possible helpers. kind of hard, to focus on creating the future instead of going crazy with anger and fear and devastation.

we have been avoiding workout for a while now. it was meant to keep Asti from feeling the body and emotions. we thought that we wouldnt be able to take it if she connected more. now i am going crazy over gained weight. i hate this body. who did this to us? i am struggling with ED mindset again. that goes along well with D who is obsessing about finances and not spending more money. the prices for fresh produce have gone up... we gotta pay for a few extra things this month... Annett is angry that we even think about restricting again because we will make the body weak and we wont be able to protect ourselves anymore.

we have done some reading and i am wondering how helpful it is to let Maya write in the littles thread. we dont want to support dissociation or let anyone get too individual. i think.... i think i am going crazy with some thoughts and ideas. all this is not going well.

we are not standing together. someone urges to self-harm.
i dont know what i am feeling or thinking or doing anymore. its just all drifting apart. and i believe i can do it. just to realize that i cant cover more than the basics of self-care.

i am sorry, this is a confused and pretty helpless post.