New journey (thread)

Just realized something this morning.

I wrote about Nico as being this overprotective protector that doesn't want us to have any kind of intimate relationship since ever.

Thinking about that, seemingly out of nowhere, I realized that it might not be like that at all. It's not like he doesn't want us or me (host) to have a relationship. It's that probably he doesn't want one, and so doesn't want us to have one. That could explain why I felt so alienated from myself and disgusted whenever I engaged in even slightly intimate acts. Because he could have been there, simply not wanting it. That would cause the feeling of being violated, and of not having wanted it from the beginning, while I may have wanted it.

Don't know why I never thought about this. I feel pretty stupid right now. He never talked about this either.

(Adding to the therapy thread: last session Xavier talked almost autonomously with T. He never did that with any of the previous ones, but it was useful. She noticed something different, and kept on asking me questions about them. She now seems way more open than before. It's sort of validating, but also pretty scary, knowing that she now knows Xavier. Still a weird feeling.)

*possible TW* / family topics

We came back home few days ago on a small break from uni. Host sort of fell into denial yesterday, and something else happened. We found out the body's dad's wife is pregnant. This means there will be many problems in the family. The body's mom will not take it in a good way. We, and especially I, don't know about the body's brother, but we hope it won't affect him that much. He grew up well, differently from us. He received the attention that wasn't given to us, and we are grateful for that. At least the host is, he loves him very much. I had to be there with host to soothe him cause he didn't seem very ready to accept the whole thing. Think he was dissociating when he found out. Now he has to keep the secret, but I don't find it fair. That man, I don't like him. Like the rest of the family. I just hope we'll be able to be back in our home soon. Host feels like he doesn't want to. But I know what's best for him, and us especially. It's probably the littles that want to stay here with mom and dad. Xavier also seems to like the body's brother very much. That's because they're the same age, probably. Cannot blame him. I just wish these things would never happen. And I hope we won't have to be in the middle of the whole thing, again.

Nico.

*possible tw* / family topics again

Went to a family lunch today. Something happened and host as usual did what he shouldn't do, in my opinion. He still did. (Don't know why he doesn't like it) He'll write the rest.

I went to take a nap in my aunt's bedroom because I was just so tired after eating so much and I had to study later. I just laid in bed and closed my eyes, and that feeling suddently came back. Extremely strong, like sometimes it does. The feeling of disgust and uncomfortableness. But that time I was alone, and had the time to process it, or at least try to. I remained with my eyes closed, and though it was really unpleasant, I really tried to keep it there. I started thinking and trying to find the trigger. I tried thinking about determined people, determined places, and times. Nothing came to my mind, except that house. I started feeling small, and I suspect Ari (the little girl) came forward. She's very very similar to me in appearance, when I was around her age. She's just way more feminine than me. I felt I had long hair and a dress on. I tried to think hard to find what exactly triggered it all. All that came to my mind was, as I said, that house, and family gatherings. The huge table and the chatter I could hear from the room, and the smell of the house, everything was managing to keep the bad feeling there. I actively was trying to activate it, just to study it a bit more. I tried thinking about a time, a person, but couldn't find anything. I just felt smaller, like Ari. Thinking even harder, I remembered that that feeling is usually connected to my body. And so again, I thought about my body. Especially my chest. And it came back again, full force. Didn't find anything else. Just gave up and finally went to sleep. I don't remember what I dreamed, but I was relaxed. It all just seems strange, and unreal, and confused.

We just thought we put this here to keep it. Like a diary, or something like that. We still don't know how repressed memories work, or if these are even memories at all. I keep on not liking it. It's not that I remember something, but I know for sure that I don't want them to remember. We'll see how it goes.
I'm also often here at night, I'm liking the rhythm. Hope we'll go home soon. This is not good.

Nico.

Today I had 5 bad feeling moments. All seemingly random, but was always with my family. Not in the house I talked about, but always with relatives.

It's stronger than yesterday. My dad asked me something when we were eating, while I was having that bad sensation, and I couldn't speak even if I tried. I had to come back to the present first, and it took a few seconds. But before, I wasn't able to speak or almost move. It was so uncomfortable, and I really don't know what triggers it. For now it seemed completely at random. But I hope it'll go away soon, cause I never felt it this much.

I don't even know what this is.

Things happened since we came back home.
The bad feeling sort of went away, like we suspected. Nothing abnormal happened.

Apart from this, T did something for which we are very grateful. From when Xavier managed to talk to her, she contacted other therapists that are experts in dealing with dissociative disorders and, especially, DID. We really didn't expect that, and it's so surreal to us that somebody would put so much effort in helping us. We really like her at this point, and I feel like we also need to thank Xavier for talking to her and maybe making her realize that there's really something there.

In May we should have our diagnostic interview, and we'll see what happens.

The problem is that, a few days after the last T session, host fell into denial once again. The few people that are seemingly still active on the outside are JR's system and Jason. Nico is here right now, but he wasn't here for a long time (for our standards), and isn't even fully out yet. We really hope this'll go away when we'll have to see the other psychologist for the assessment.

This is all for now.

- Nico & host

So, it appears I'm stuck as a primary protector again or whatever that means in my system. Found out stuff about Hades, our former persecutor. Protector or whatever you canna call him. The stuff we found out had to do with him pretending to be JR in a variety of contexts and
behaving like the sick person he is. Don't care if the host and some of the others are against calling him like that. Some of his behaviours are still now unacceptable for me.
Anyway, this to say that he might be the key to find out where we may come from. Not because we want to remember or stuff like that, but only because if we can get to the root of the problem then there's some way we can start to heal in some way.
I did't see or hear from Leo in a while, I sort of miss him. He probably raised dissociative barriers for us especially for some reason.
Hope he reads this and decides to come back.
JR is doing fine. Nothing changed I think.
Still waiting to be assessed by that psychologist, host is still in denial. They're probably scared. Can understand that, yea. We'll probably arrange something so that he doesn't have to go and talk, probably even cause he'll forget stuff we want to tell. Jason is better at explaining. Nico is too, but he doesn't talk. Ugh.
I'm not doing well either. I feel pretty stuck and lonely as ###$. The only nights I get to go out without having to work are nights with our work colleagues, but they don't even know I exist. And host doesn't let me go out too much cause of fear they'll suspect something. I hate this.
Well. This is all.

Nathan

We have an appointment for an assessment in 2 weeks. With someone we know is an expert in DID. this feels sort of surreal and sort of scary, but for this reason we don't know what we should do or say when we go to her.

Should we tell her our symptoms? What if they're too many? What if we don't dissociate that much anymore and we don't have any memories of trauma? What if we're sort of functional and she expects us to be less functional to actually consider us? What if we don't manage to say everything we need to say?

What is it that we need to say?

We really don't know.

I think it is great you have an actual assessment scheduled with a DID specialist as they are hard to find where we live. I also hear your anxiousness and get it. Hopefully the fact she is an expert in DID will enable her to help you feel a little calmer. It is her job to ask the questions and IMO I would guess your job to answer them as honestly as you can and the "do" - just be yourselves. I am guessing she has seen lots of different systems and can bring some empathy to how you are feeling.

We look forward to hearing the follow up after you go.

Thank you hbodhi.
We really hope she'll be the one asking all the questions she needs because we're awful at explaining how we feel/our experiences in a coherent manner.

We'll keep posting on this thread when we'll have had the session.

Went to the session. Very brief summary of the thing, cause I don't have time:

Said that, to her, I don't seem neither autistic neither dissociative. Started asking questions with the SCID-D, and told me that my recent episodes of dissociation around parts of my body are very common in adolescence. After the other questions about amnesia, she mentioned it could be stress, sometimes anxiety, and then she stopped saying stuff about it. She didn't finish the SCID-D, cause we talked a lot. Told me she'll have to see me another time to rule out some stuff. Mentioned it could be a fact of personality, but don't know what she meant.
I didn't talk to her about everything, but I will next time. But honestly, I'm terrified of what she'll say. The most horrible thing would be her sending us home with basically nothing we can work on, because "it's just how you are", like it happened before.
She's an expert in Dissociative Disorders, so I have to trust her. But if we'll find ourselves back at the starting point again, I don't think I'll be able to take it. I've been suicidal for too long to still hang on when nothing's changing.
We really just want answers through which we can change something.

I don't even know why I'm writing with the plural person. Whatever.