Flocking, Nesting, Migrating (journey thread)

I/we have that too. I don't have it personally but I know the feeling of "inanimate objects might have feelings" Sort of programmed it out ourselves for the most part.

I think it's because of things being taken, I had that too. Things, pets, hobbies... So as a kid there was no natural letting go. The letting go was forced by the parent and always whilst most attached. So there's Alot of feeling tearing away every time something is taken. That then gets confused with the memory of that object that may be positive. So instead of then having feelings of loss because that's too dangerous and exploitable the feeling is put onto the object ie the object has the feelings and doesn't want to be thrown out.

I was looking at photos earlier today and I felt nothing towards them. I kept them. I was throwing stuff out, Alot of stuff, and while I was I realised the picture memories I keep in my mind are mean more than the photos. I still kept the photos beca they're photos, I threw out Alot of unneeded stuff.

We deliberated over it for weeks if not months and sons of it years we have thought about throwing it out. Today I kept saying "what's inside is more important than this stuff" it helped. There wasn't dilemma like yesterday when I first tried and felt I wanted to keep everything. My place is clearer for it and I can remember that stuff, I let go in my own time not on someone else's and we did a practice run yesterday. Today was easier. Also have another area to clear and I mentally checked that out and what I want to keep still...paintings and poems I did. Years ago they would of gone first. Now I hold more weight to things I've done than I do to handbags. I have no stuff from my childhood, even I dolls house I have is my sisters. My stuff was never kept. I had some encyclopedias but I threw them today, I realised they had a negative energy to me...I was hanging on to a lie and that last remnent of the lie had to go. I create my life now.

Anyway I get where you're coming from. You have to take care and plan throwing things and it's all caught up in childhood and how things were taken then and this thinking things has feelings I do think comes from projecting own feelings we were unable to own at the time onto the objects.

Much luck and blessings,

Sarah

We're having a hard time with being avoidant and slipping into self-neglect.

When we start to get positive connective feedback from people we have a really hard time continuing to keep it up. We want to respond but it's like we have an internal traffic jam and just stop doing anything. We try to just send off a quick email reply but fiddle with it for hours, dissociating between. Try to do something else and get preoccupied with needing to reply and feeling bad for not. Why can't we just reply to say a nice thank you and return positive feeling and then go about day?

Did a thing at work and got good feedback during and immediately after. We were receptive to the nice feedback, and whoever was fronting felt good about how it went. Two hours later there were a lot of different negative takes on the situation, inside. Someone wanted to run away and tried to suggest we quit the job. Someone was talking up how stupid we came off and someone else was talking about how we came off arrogant. Then in the evening we got an email from another coworker with a compliment on the work. We decided to respond to the email today, not yesterday, and it took hours to reply, even though we only wrote three sentences.

This isn't functional. Can't afford to spend hours trying to respond to kindness and not be able to do anything else. There is work to do! This is so hard.

We also noticed last night that we have been putting off buying basic body care products that we use regularly and need. We used to always put it off, every time we had to buy new stuff, sometimes going without for too long between because we struggled to believe we deserved it. Hasn't been a problem for a long time. This morning we made ourselves buy the two items first thing, even before breakfast. Wrote it down to tell our T about too.

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Replies

MakersDozn wrote:Our mother was a hoarder during the last decade of her life. Our father was a saver. We tend to be a saver as well, but one of our main goals in life has been to not end up like our mother. For the most part we've far surpassed her on the mental and physical health scale, but we tend to not give ourselves credit in the presence of even the smallest iota of similarity.

Thank you for sharing your experiences. We also don't give ourselves credit for avoiding becoming like our mother when we see slight similarities. The father holds onto everything without noticing it and the mother gets rid of stuff at alarming speed and describes herself as entirely unsentimental. She also got rid of our stuff and siblings' stuff without permission often when we were kids. Her getting rid of stuff to us as adults is very confusing and distressing now, I think both because of the neglect to get us needed things and her taking away things we weren't ready to let go of.

Sarandipity wrote:I think it's because of things being taken, I had that too. Things, pets, hobbies... So as a kid there was no natural letting go. The letting go was forced by the parent and always whilst most attached.

Thank you for sharing your experiences too. There was no teaching of how to let go of things either. It wasn't just forced, but often done without knowing until not being able to find things later. Sometimes she admitted it. Sometimes she didn't.

We didn't even learn about letting go when people died. No one talked us through that.

I used to believe it was just that items from family were a stand-in for the love we didn't receive, because it was the only thing we got from them. I still think that was true, but I think I've mostly dealt with that problem and am now seeing it's more complicated.

Sarandipity wrote:Today I kept saying "what's inside is more important than this stuff" it helped.

We had a necklace we received from someone very important that we got rid of many many years ago. A few weeks ago we noticed how all of the strong memories and feelings from that relationship were still with us even though we got rid of all of the physical items from that time. In some ways, that memory set is stronger, better, than the stuff that gets muddied up by continuing to stay in our space long past the point of being positive.

Sarandipity wrote:I realised they had a negative energy to me...I was hanging on to a lie and that last remnent of the lie had to go. I create my life now.

We have been trying to get here for awhile now. We notice how bad it is to have this stuff in the home. We notice how much it brings up negative triggers and sad experiences and anger and it isn't good for us. That's why I want to get rid of it all. We can have a new life if we just let it go. I hope figuring out how to let things go to the next part of their journey or to have a funeral for objects will help the struggling little.

Thanks, Crows, for letting us know that you relate to what we said about our experiences with saving. The fact that you relate is helpful to us too.

MDs

I'm debating about throwing out paintings I did in therapy 12 years ago or putt them on the wall. They're a bit weird and under my bed at the moment. It's a tough one because I think am I throwing out a piece of myself. I might try them hung up for a bit and see how it feels. They are all people made out of broken hearts. And dark shadows and weirdness.

I'm glad you're working through what to do yourself about the stuff issue. It's ok I think to replace the bad memory stuff, make new memories and have that stuff. So it's good feeling stuff. It's ok to do that.

Funerals for stuff is a good idea. I literally thought everything had a soul when I was a kid, I still sort of do. But I used to hold funerals for bathroom toiletries when their "blood ran out" and then think how sad it was that their heaven was a dump - thank god for recycling.

Anyway the funeral idea is great.

Sarah

Funerals for stuff. What an amazing idea. Would help with closure I bet.

We do better when we picture the next "life" the things are going to. We needed to give away 5 or 6 bags of kids' art supplies, and while we kept a few things that littles really wanted, we were able to give them away by posting them as free on a neighborhood social media app, and then giving them directly to people. One guy came with his little son, and we were able to tell the boy some of the cool things that were in the bags he was getting. And the mom who came was really looking forward to giving those things to her kids and was really grateful for them.

If we're less attached to things, we can put them in bags to go to Goodwill, but stuff we're kind of attached to, or have a lot of history with, is easier to give away if we meet who it's going to.

At this point we're only throwing away absolute junk--things that are broken, pens that don't work, etc. If we think of going through a closet as "organizing" it rather than cleaning it out, we make much more progress. It's still something if we don't give much away but what's left is organized into bins and put away to look at sometime in the future.

A lot has been going on, and I would like to reply to everyone and talk more about how we've been handling this issue and other new things in the life. I do not have time right at this moment, however a thing just occurred which is very related to the discussion and I would like to record that. We will return to reply later.

Less than an hour ago I accidentally dropped one of our favorite cups. It is a hand-crafted item and was entirely one of a kind. It is beautiful. I plan to glue it together and use it for different purposes, as it will no longer be suitable for tea.

What is interesting is that no one is anguished. I was immediately disappointed - dropping it is really unfortunate and arose from being a little clumsy - and there was a little brief sadness. No one is aching. It is okay that this happened and there will be other beautiful things that come into our life and we really enjoyed this particular item for as long as we were able. We got a lot of use out of it.

It is an item we chose for ourselves. It suits our tastes as a collective very well, from shape to color to size. There was no mixed feeling about it, we liked it. It was good.

I don't know if the reaction is so okay today because of growing in general, the context of ownership and relationship with the object, or just who has been out this morning. I want to explore this more later, because I think it will help us to move forward with parting ways with other items that we have more mixed feelings about.

I must return my attention to work now.

We have been undergoing a fusion recently. At least three parts are trying to fuse together. We have also been experiencing more passive influence instead of clear switching. We still switch, just less.

We started this thread 2 years ago. I have tried to write and abandoned many follow-up posts.

SeveralCrows wrote:Some agreed-upon system goals, for our mental health:
- finish mapping the system - we're close, I think?
- improve system communication
- live more in corporeal world
- develop healthy sense of entitlement
- continue seeing T regularly, possibly get referral to dissociation specialist but current T is good right now
- partial integration, towards total integration

We have made progress on all of this. We need to draw a new system map because of the partial fusions and personal growth of individual alters.

SeveralCrows wrote:Some agreed-upon system goals, for our life:
- get treatment for chronic illnesses and medical problems
- get routine medical care - keeping up with this is exhausting, but we're doing okay at it
- find a new job ...chronic illnesses have had us too disabled to work for awhile, we keep thinking we're well enough to look and then end up not functional for 2 weeks straight again...trying yet another new medication for most disruptive illness in the next week.
- figure out what kind of work to pursue, system is not in agreement
- move to a new place, current one is poorly-maintained and frequently surrounded by construction, yelling, noise

Additional treatment for chronic illnesses was fruitless. We got a job and have kept it. Recently we have started thinking about being more ambitious with our career, because we are doing well. We also moved and the new place is peaceful and well-maintained.

SeveralCrows wrote:Goals not everyone agrees on:
- lose another 20-30 lbs ...a dormant-but-slowly-resurfacing part wants us to regain the 15 lbs we've lost because she is uncomfortable with how noticeably different the body is, and others don't care because they won't relate to the body at any weight
- get physically stronger
- find love or date or get laid? Very little consensus, some don't even care about any of those
- meet new people, make some new friends

We have lost 5 lbs and gained muscle. We went to the gym for awhile and now work out at home. We tried dating and want to again, and we are meeting new friends online.

We achieved most of our goals. It is time to make new ones.

Switchy week.

Week has been switchy because communications are bad.

Communications are bad because we have not wanted to acknowledge the existence of a part who usually operates in the background but who has been very active at front. If we don't communicate, we don't have to see her.

She feels antithetical to most of the system. Last time we experienced that feeling this strongly was with Blanca. It took a long time to accept her. I hope it doesn't take as long to accept this one. Many of us are uncomfortable.

Talking to T this afternoon.

Crows