Flocking, Nesting, Migrating (journey thread)

We have a phone consultation with the prospective new T in about an hour. I was doing alright until about 40 minutes ago, and now I'm a little dissociated and someone inside is restless. I think it's one of the littles.

Concerned we don't really know what to say. We made some notes this morning about things we want to achieve in therapy and would like help with. Think it would have been easier to do this call before fighting with current T this week.

-some of the Crows

I hope the call goes ok for you all!

Maybe late for this suggestion, but for us we made a list of, I think it was about a half dozen questions. We used the same questions when we met with a couple potential new Ts, and just wrote down all their answers, so we could review it and think it over later.

That way it's not so much a problem if you're dissociated during the consult, and stuff will hopefully not get forgotten.

V2

Thanks V2! We saw your post just before the call. We couldn't really think of anything to ask, but it went okay anyway.


We have an appointment the new T on Monday. We felt really self-conscious at first about talking about having parts on the phone, but her responding positively and like it's extremely normal and not at all confusing helped us to feel less uncomfortable about it. I'm tentatively hopeful.

Also, we had a hard cry after hanging up and I don't know why. We did explain some circumstances of ours that made us tear up on the phone.

That sounds very promising!

The crying could be relief from some of the parts who weren't expecting to be accepted and validated.

I think that was part of it, Gangs. There was also a lot of sadness. I think this makes it very real, like there's no option of denial anymore. There is also a struggle with the idea of being bad, for being so angry with the old T, for fighting her about decisions she made in our treatment.


Had the first appointment with new T today. We knew going in that it was going to be a review of family history and we went hard. T barely said anything the whole session because Sev3 just talked continuously. I liked her energy though. We have another appointment next week.

I need to decide when to next see my old T to wrap up. We didn't get to discuss therapy history today as originally planned because Sev3 talked about family history so extensively.

On the way home there was mild derealization. We went grocery shopping a while after getting home and were dissociating in the store. Slept for a chunk of the afternoon and felt drained upon waking up.

**Trigger Warning: self-loathing, black-and-white thinking**
I'm having a hard time right now not viewing myself as bad. I have a hard time feeling like it's okay to say critical things of the old T or acknowledging that it is time to move on. New T is gently and firmly encouraging me to not just burn a bridge, which is right and good, but I feel like a bad person for even having that impulse. Even though I haven't acted on it. I feel like any time I have ever had a problem with someone else I am bad for being angry with them or viewing them negatively or being critical of them for mistreating me. I feel dumb if I do not speak up. It is only acceptable if I am perfectly virtuous in my interactions, gently walking away and not experiencing any emotional reaction, never interacting with someone who wrongs me. I feel like it is all my fault that I have ever been mistreated, that I have ever been angry or wounded by this, that I am unlovable because I experience hurt in these ways instead of just walking away.
**End Trigger Warning**

I am allowed to be imperfect.

-some Crows

I wish good, honest compliments would feel like anything.

When abusive people trying to manipulate us compliment us, and really heap it on, we believe it and eat it up, even if we know what they're doing. It still feels really good and we get high on that.

We just had the final session with our old T today. She gave us some very kind compliments and I know that she meant them sincerely, but they barely stick and don't feel warm in the heart the way that manipulative compliments do, even the ones that overlap in substance. Crying hard because those words barely connect with us. We wrote down some of what she said while waiting for the train home, so maybe we can feel something from them later. I had put up dissociative barriers against the inside before the session so M wouldn't suffer if things went poorly again, so maybe that is part of it. My heart just feels like a gaping hole, incapable of holding genuine warmth, and that really hurts.

We discussed the argument from last session and got it sorted out. The miscommunication hadn't happened a month prior to last session like I'd previously thought, but instead she said something that wasn't accurate to what she meant last session. This makes more sense to our experience of the conversations we had had up to that point. She took responsibility for having misspoken too. I'm grateful that she took that responsibility and that we got to have a better closing session than the fight that happened the previous time.

I saw my new T for a second time last week and I think we're going to get along well. She's out of the office until the second week of June. I don't expect this to be a problem.

-Sev3

**Trigger Warning: brief mention of mild self-harm, self-harm ideation**

This week has been really hard, but we're making important progress figuring things out in our system. Today M was triggered into a rage and shapeshifted, but she was really brave and felt her feelings and talked about them out loud to us instead of fixating on the desire to self-injure. She still talked about it and did slap the body for a sting, but that was it. Not a bruising amount. I hope someday she won't even do that much and that eventually she won't even want to do any amount, but she has still come a long way.

**End Trigger Warning**

We have a part who is always asleep and dreaming. Two other parts were fueling this for her, we realized, and we've gotten one to stop and the other doesn't want to. This would be less of a problem were it not for the fact that this part fronts while dreaming and we essentially get stuck in a daydream that we can't leave even if we're aware of it. The part who is still fueling this is blocking our attempts to communicate with the one who is dreaming. We plan to bring this up to our T when we see her next week. We did realize that she gets triggered to front in a way similar to Blanca, and while our communication with her used to be poor as well, she at least was awake and no one was blocking us from her. We'll likely have to work with the part who is blocking communication, but she is distant herself.

The part who usually shows up as an abuser and reenacts abuse has chosen a non-limiting name and is trying out being a herding dog now, after a few months of trying to communicate and work with her. She has fallen back on her usual methods a few times, but the initial trial is mostly going okay.

A few nights ago we injured our toe and I actually took us to the doctor the next morning instead of neglecting the body and ignoring it. I'm relieved to say it isn't broken and the experience was neutral to almost pleasant. I felt silly for getting it looked at, because who do I think I am actually asking for medical attention? We have a regular doctor appointment next week, too, and we went to the dentist two months ago. There are still things which need tending, but I am starting to get into taking care of this body instead of thinking of it as abstract and less important than inside experiences.

-Sev3 and probably some other Crows

I'm feeling incredibly agitated right now. If you have had success in dealing with this issue or similar, I welcome input.

I can successfully prepare meals for myself and eat, keep hydrated, wash daily, brush teeth and wash face twice daily, get exercise, maintain something of a sleep schedule (it has been less-good this week, but isn't too far off from normal), buy groceries and run other errands, wash dishes, do laundry, change sheets. I am making efforts to be more proactive about social contact, even though my inclination is to let others come to me (am not fearful, I just tell myself I don't need it).

I am struggling to start, stay with, and complete other tasks. This includes a variety of projects in passion areas, more stressful tasks like fixing up resume and online spaces hiring managers might inspect, buying needed non-food items, getting rid of items I no longer want, and keeping my home tidy.

There is paper everywhere. I have stuff out for everything we have been working on recently, or trying to work on. I sit down to work on a passion project and another part is talking about how this relates to something they want to work on, then another checks the forum, another comments to that part about a post they want to read, another checks the weather forecast because a storm woke us up last night and we just heard more thunder and there might be more dangerous weather, then we're up getting water, then another part starts cleaning because everything is a mess but someone else doesn't want to put things away because we might forget to get back to working on it.

I feel as scattered as I used to be when I was younger and all parts were active but we weren't aware of how to communicate. The last time we were able to stay focused on a larger project for a period of time and consistent with work output was when most parts were dormant.

There is a part of this experience that feels more genuine, because everyone is active and we're acknowledging everyone. It also feels just as unstable as it did then even though we know about everyone, because we still aren't negotiating well. I also feel ashamed, and feel like it's just a reflection of my undisciplined and terrible character. It's not though, I am capable of focus, we're just struggling right now.

I have had a small amount of success with choosing to go to a place to do some work (library, coffee shop) for a specific frame of time, but it has to be well-contained. If I go to the library for the whole day it doesn't work. In the past when we were self-employed we kept a much tidier home and that kept us from getting distracted with stuff to get rid of or purchase. I feel like I'm perpetually days or months behind, but with everything, and everyone is trying to catch up. I think everyone is trying to take care of their part, fulfill their responsibilities, but all of us feel like we need to do it immediately and using the body, and then we stop and talk to each other while no one is doing anything with the body.

Maybe if I write out what everyone is trying to accomplish and discuss what is or isn't urgent and relative levels of importance (both to the system and to the specific alter) that will help? I can also plan to go out for specific small time blocks every day, with specific goals assigned to each time.

-Sev3 [edited just to sign that this was me]

We're not great at this either, but one thing that has helped is making a list of what each part wants/needs to do, including the littles, and then using that as a guide. I don't really do that for long-range things--it's more of a to-do list for that day, or the next couple of days.

We're able to keep our house fairly tidy, but getting rid of things is nearly impossible right now, so I'm just letting it slide.

It sounds like you're able to accomplish a lot, so maybe putting less pressure on yourselves would be a good idea at this point. I am definitely not as productive as I was before I knew about the parts, but I have to keep reminding myself that it was because I was ignoring important needs in order to be that productive.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:I am definitely not as productive as I was before I knew about the parts, but I have to keep reminding myself that it was because I was ignoring important needs in order to be that productive.

I really needed to read that part especially. Thank you for reminding me too.

I should also remind myself that the sense of constantly being behind and needing to catch up is from so many parts having been dormant for so long. Of course we can't make up for lost years overnight. It takes that much time, and we still need to rest in the now, and we have new things to do. Some things we will just have to let go of not having done now. We can get back to things later if it's important.

I really hate that we haven't been able to even apply for work yet, due to internal disruption and exhaustion. We've made inching progress at least. Keeping a house and maintaining my body is dull work and it doesn't feel like an accomplishment, even though it's an important baseline. It takes more effort than other things because of trauma, so I need to learn not to minimize it.

-some Crows