[life journey thread]Tales from the WorldTree

Thank you for the support, it means a lot to us.
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David.

I think we made nice progress in learning how to be better and more anchored in the here and now while setting boundaries.

During yesterday's outing with the disability association, one of the members asked us out after only one hour of meeting her (to our knowledge; we might have met her before but not remember her because it was too many months ago). Instead of freaking out and ghosting her for the rest of the day, the way we would have done not so long ago, OR just fawning to her demand and agreeing and submitting to her because, hey, if we oppose her bad things are going to happen so we must obey - well instead of the usuall misadapted behaviors, we just smiled, thanked her for her interest, and calmly told her we were not interested. And resumed chatting like nothing happened.

So, that was our first "we did it we were assertive in a proper, well adapted way" of the day.

Situation number two: we were sharing our sunscreen with L... who did not have any and has a skintype that just cannot tan at all. Smiling, we suggested that next time he brings his own so he is less dependent on others. He just burst into yelling agressively, and instead of freezing on the spot, we said we were sorry that his present situation did not allow him for the money freedom to get his own and that we sincerely hoped that his issues get solved soon because it will be so much better for him this way when the money problems are solved.

*********************CONTENT WARNING: mention of agressive behavior and fistfight*********************

A bit later, as L... was becoming more and more worked up and angry because of an accumulation of stuff, we managed to stay calm enough to realize he was not angry at us therefore we were safe. Even when he had a short fistfight with one of the ... I guess the equivalent would be "youth worker"? ... well L... had a short fistfight with him because L... had just reached the "breaking a fuse" point. This happend like 3 feet from us. We managed to stay calm without freezing because he was not attacking us. (Plus, L... is like 1 feet smaller than the worker, for half his weight...)

************************END WARNING**************************************

We did have some flashbacks because of it though, but we managed to avoid being overwhelmed. It was like, happening in the background. Yes, this and that happened to us. Yes, it was a similar situation because this and that. Yes, it means we need to pay attention and stay alert just in case. But we managed to NOT get overwhelmed and that was pretty nice!

It kept building up during the drive back though, because L...'s stabilizing meds were more and more wearing off (he takes them in the evening, we discussed our treatments at some point) so he was being more and more worked up and, small flashback after small flaskback were piling up for us and we were being exhausted by it all. At some point we learnt he had planned to go to same outing than us next week so we discussed inside and came to the conclusion that, between the outing's exhaustion, the social overload, the flashbacks... It would not be reasonable to go if he goes too.

So we waited until everybody was heading home, stayed back at the administration building because, bathroom break, and wait I need to switch my mask for a clean one because I have one more bus hour to be home... until we could have a chat with the worker from the CW part.

We told said worker calmly that, well, we know L... is not responsible for his material situation nor his health, that it is not L...'s fault if we are triggered, but that we do not feel like going in an outing where he goes too. Worker answered that it was mature of us to realize it was not L...'s fault, and that it was sad to give up on an outing because of circumstances, and to wait until the day before the next outing we are subscribed to and call on the phone and ask because, if L... is unstable enough, he might be in the hospital rather than at the outing - and if he is stable enough for the outing, we can then cancell the day before, no problem, some people cancel the morning of the outing, there is enough waiting list to fill in the cancelled places.

It's kinda sad in a way that the way the worker soothed us was by telling us L...'s health was bad enough he might not make it for the next outing we are part of too. It was nice we acted mature and were given kudos for acting mature, but it was sad that the solution was "L... is in bad enough a place so that he might be in the psych yard by next week". As if it was something just... casual.

We almost felt guilty for asking to cancell because of L...'s symptoms triggering us. Almost feeling guilty for being triggered. We also feel guilty for talking about him to the worker because of the many instances in the past when we were accused of lying and making up stories each time we were reporting a bad behavior of somebody else towards us.

We are very conflicted. Proud of having stood our ground in an assertive and calm and rational way, and yet, guilty because we were "conditionned" in the past to feel that way when we tried to ask for help or protect ourselves.

Healing is rough.
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G/Hosties.

Thank you for the support and affirmation, Gang. It means a lot.
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David.

Remember the "Alter Ego" game we spent some time going through again and again and again? We finally took some time to analyze all results! Including... a "phylogenetic tree" based upon the similarities of our test results (the *results* to the tests, not the *answers* given to the tests!)

Note that the Mirror did not participate because he was not yet fully formed (and we keep learning about him every day, too) and Trisha was too faded out to participate, too.

The phylogenetic tree of our answers to the Alter Ego tests

I know it looks... Bad. Try to draw a tree using a forum board ^.^; Each line is a different "level" of the tree, the parenthesis etc. show the links at each "level".

Lust---(Zami - David)---(Ulysses - Hohenheim)---Envy---(Urielles - Pride)---(Wrath - Reyna)---(Isaïa - G/Hosties)

[Lust - (Zami-David)]--(Ulysses - Hohenheim)--[Envy - (Urielles-Pride)]--(Wrath - Reyna)--(Isaïa - G/Hosties)

[Lust - (Zami-David)]--{(Ulysses-Hohenheim)-[Envy-(Urielles-Pride)]}--(Wrath - Reyna)--(Isaïa - G/Hosties)

<[Lust-(Zami-David)]-{(Ulysses-Hohenheim)-[Envy-(Urielles-Pride)]}>--<(Wrath-Reyna)-(Isaïa-G/Hosties)>

All of this linked to the same "root".

Hope it is "readable"!

What Lust's individual results shed light upon.
How she relates to others in a dependent dynamic, how she hyper-performs what she thinks others want her to perform (such as hyper-performing feminity for our exes despite the system being transmasc as a whole), the way she tends to re-enact trauma in order to be in control of it, her denial of the past and traumatic projection into an optimistic future, how she tries to escape abuse by submitting (if she does it properly, *this time* it will turn out good) (she is a maladapted protector in her way, like many trauma holders it seems), the way she tunes down past and future to exist only in an everlasting present, how she tried to escape our parents by submitting to our ex, how she is lost in what a "family" really is.
This confirmed what we thought about how she came into existence.

What Zami's individual results shed light upon.
Their anxiety, their "borderline" functionning, their depression, their fear of the molds, their instinctive way of functionning, their pessimism due to holding traumatic material, their perfectionnism leading to "black and white thinking" at times, their desire to escape their (abusive) parents, their strong intellectual curiosity, their inner conflicts regarding what family really is and the expectations society puts on us.
Nothing new was discovered.

What David's individual results shed light upon.
His seriousness, his strictness, his tendency not to trust others at first (through the process of taking up the role of "adapted protector" as opposed to Zami's and other's maladapted protective behaviors), his pro-active tendencies in everyday life, his need to learn to rest, his desire for peace, his tendency to deny the traumas (he is the most separate from our traumas), his perfectionnism, his antipathy towards unethical things (as an adapted protector in training), his tendency to look for an outside reason to anything bad happening to us (protector in training, again), his desire for love and ideals.
Nothing new was discovered - though he felt exposed by all these revelations gathered in the same place.

What Ulysses' individual results shed light upon.
Their perfectionnism, their trauma denial (they deny *some* traumatic events even though they contain others), their feelings of alienation, their impulsive character, their independant and un-submissive nature, their depression, their stringency, their self-hatred and feelings of unworthyness, their antipathy towards unethical things, how they see everything bad happening to us as coming from abusive people, their lonelyness, self-absorption and self-destructive tendencies too.
WOW. They are even more canonically Mewtwo-like than we thought at first since they tend to hide it all behind a bubbly facade. We knew something was going on. Well, we cannot deny it.

What Hohenheim's individual results shed light upon.
How he is an "apparently normal part" (denying trauma), his perfectionnism, his need for stable structures and for things to go according to plan, his strong will when it comes to taking decisions (he is our "administration guy" after all), how he wants to see the past as happy (denying trauma), his confidence in the future, his intellectual curiousity, his desire for fairness regarding how bad things are punished (denying some aspects of our trauma).
Nothing new was discovered.

What Envy's individual results shed light upon.
Their trauma denial, their impulsive nature, their hatred of molds, their independance, their search for peace by running away from negativity, their bubbly character, their eccentricity (though a bit less than Urielles'), how they are the "rebellious teenager" of the system, their hatred of working just for the sake of working (and their love of having fun).
Nothing new was discovered.

What Urielles' individual results shed light upon.
Their tendency to see themself as being the best, their anxiety, their queerness/uniqueness, their impulsive nature, how they enjoy having fun, their independance, their desire to be at peace, how they run away from everything negative, their bubbly character, how they enjoy setting themselves appart from the social norms, as well as the trauma elements they keep (feeling alone around others, fascination for what is "wrong"...)
The trauma elements were a new discovery - they really hide things well.

What Pride's individual results shed light upon.
His deep emotional wounds and childish emotional development: black and white thinking, easily disappointed, attachment disorders, impulsivity. He is also very independant (which is a trauma thing for us especially for him), running away from negativity trying to focus on positivity, he is focused on what he feels at any given time trying to run away from the past emotions, fascinated by unethical things (true crime shows anyone?), believing that bad things can only happen from the act of other people, torn between "bad people need to be punished" and "bad people are never punished and always get what they want" (emotional traumas among other things), his depressive state and loneliness even in company of other people.
This shed a lot of light regarding the trauma he holds and hides the best he can.

What Wrath's individual results shed light upon.
His strict, "black and white" thinking, his lack of trust, how he does his best to adapt to any situation especially by obeying rules, his depression bordering "learnt helplessness", his overthinking, how he feels torn between his impulsive nature and his desire to follow the rules.
This shed light to his connexion with Pride and how they both hide traumatic elements.

What Reyna's individual results shed light upon.
Her maladapted defense behaviors (traumatic defense mechanisms), her desires to be the best (traumatic over-performing of "good behaviors" for our ex) and her perfectionnism, her submissive tendencies to people and to rules, how she adapts to what people wants from her, her depressive and anxious states, her pessimism to the verge of "learnt helplessness", how she is trapped in her traumatic past, her traumatic fascination for unethical things, her intellectual curiosity, her bad mental health overall (not surprising due to the amount of trauma she holds...).
This confirmed what we thought about how she came into existence.

What Isaïa's individual results shed light upon.
His almos inflexible black and white thinking, his tendency to not trust others, his independance, how he constantly projects himself into the future to the point of unrealistic expectations especially regarding a love partner (this was very prominent when we were living with the ex who triggered Isaïa's and Reyna's coming into existence), his tendency to overthink, his tendency to sacrifice himself for others (prompted by self-hatred), his intellectual curiousity.
This confirmed what we thought about how he came into existence.

What G/Hosties' individual results shed light upon.
Their tendency to deny the trauma (hence the split between them and Zami), the way they try hard to fit in and hide the trauma, their perfectionnism, their submission to authority (to fit in and hide the trauma), the way they are bound to the memories of childhood (being fragments mostly from ages 3-17) while being aware of how negative it was, their tendency to overthink, their autistic traits (solitary, routine-driven...), their self-hatred, their intellectual curiosity, how they feel their world is very small, how they have trouble setting themselves appart (another "trying hard to fit in" symptom).
It helped us become more aware of how they used to function as a "host hiding things" up untill circa age 17.

Additionally, new informations regarding the Mirror.
He seems NOT to contain our Sherlock Holmes introjection, but to contain introjections of a lot of soft masc characters. He also seems to be tied to (or fused with? or be exactly him?) our local "Lucifer" who is in charge of a big manor house in the Innerworld. I mean, since early teenagehood we have more or less contacts with this "Lucifer" guy, he is a soft masc person (picture Aragorn from the movies living at Louis XIV's court) and has a lot of symbolisms tied to mirrors, having different faces/costumes/roles, his manor is a shapeshifting manor... I mean, it kinda matches.

Ulysses seems to be part of him, too, or maybe another Mewtwo introjection? (Ulysses seems to be more like the first Pokémon movie, and the Mirror's a bit more similar to *Detective Pikachu*'s version).
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Post written by G/Hosties.

Okay, we've been at another DID therapy appointment!

We got congratulations for how well we progressed in such a short amount of time, and also on how well we manage our boundaries regarding the exercises she gave us (not pushing ourselves farther than what we are comfortable doing at any given time/day).

She gave us additional exercises to do. A LOT of them are similar to autistic behaviors but the difference is that here we need to do them slowly and mindfully, experience how we react to them in body and mind and emotions and memories and switches, etc. Some movements can be triggering, it is important NOT to push farther than what is confortable doing, and always interesting to note why it is triggering, who is triggered, etc.

Since it might help others, here are the exercises she gave us:
- curling the toes (especially to be done in stressful situations, in order to anchor in the here and now and gain a feeling of inner safety due to how it is tied to primal reflexes)
- "wall push ups" (to be done using maximum 10-20% of muscle strenght, the aim is to re-learn to push obstacles away and protect oneself physically, not to get pecs xD)
- rocking the body (trying many different varieties: on all four, kneeling, sideways, using one hip, using one shoulder, feet and hands on the floor butt in the air...)
- hold-pinching the calve muscle hard and moving the foot up and down (doing this a few times for each level of holding, starting at the heel and moving upwards, noting the places that are painful, how it feels to walk afterwards, etc.) (doing it on BOTH LEGS!)

So, we will add them to the "Moro flower" exercise and do them at least once a day, twice if can be, never more than what we can manage since it moves A LOT our inner structure, brings back a LOT of painful emotions, etc. I mean, we still have not intellectually processed some of the stuff brought back last month especially regarding Ulysses. Heck, it feels so ridiculous that they of all alters are the one containing it (in regard to the fact they are a Mewtwo introjection and they expressed some of the stuff by quoting the first Pokémon movie almost word per word)... This is another thing we need to process, too.

So, all in all, she was very satisfied of our pro-active way of engaging in therapy, proud of our progress, on how we are searching for stuff ourselves, applying properly her exercises, diligently noting stuff and keeping records, I mean, WHO takes note of how integration helps recovering smell and taste and gives more "brain power" to process noise and light, making it easier to deal with sensory inputs and lowering the frequency of sensory overloads? We have almost doubled our tolerance regarding the amount of sensory inputs we can "load" with! IN A MERE MONTH!

We are better able to deal with emotional stuff, too. A few months ago we tried to read a french psycho-analysis book about "Childhood autism" trying to make sense of what psychoanalysis thinks of it in order to better be able to "debunk" it. Two pages were enough to make us cringe to the point of unbearability. Well, we've read half of it today, with only a slight amount of cringe (I mean, the same amount of cringe but since our "emotional container" is bigger, the cringiness percentage was more bearable. It's like the difference between putting a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water, or in a gallon of water: not the same saltiness level.)

We might need to ask for the psychiatrist to lower our antidepressant dosage because, between the DID therapy and the transition euphoria, the level of happiness is so high that we do not realize it when we skip an antidepressant pill (until next day when we realize that, hey, yesterday's one was not taken!) - a few months ago, skipping a pill lead to unbearably uncomfortable levels of unhappiness. Heck, even with the ton of bullshirt that happens with the appartment (kitchen etc.) we still are euphoric. That might be our cue to lower the antidepressant dosage even if only temporarily, coz it might be too high at the moment. Adjusting the meds to our needs, needs be done in both directions, not only when we need more.

We also became aware, while chatting with the T about our "phylogenetic tree" that our sub-systems, usual co-presences etc. happen often between alters who have different action/reaction mechanisms. Which is very interesting, it really feels like becoming aware of how the system is doing its best to compensate the dissociation by putting complementary parts at work together.

We are more and more becoming aware of what it might be, feel like, to integrate / fuse completely. And strangely, it feels good. It is not so scary anymore. It no longer feels like "Stopping to exist". It feels more like how fusion happens in "Steven Universe". It feels like (self) love. It feels like working together. It feels like "being together as one". It feels like "Hey it really would be nice to keep switching identity because it feels good and pleasant, but it would feel better to be integrated and having "otherkin shifts" rather than dissociative switches where we have limited access to our inner ressources". It feels powerful, empowering.

We are more and more often using "I" talking about autobiographic memories, even without hiding behind the social mask. The trauma memories are still talked about in third person, because it feels less painful: "the body's parents"; "this happened to the body" or "this happeend to us". Yet, it is different than when we were using the same words not so long ago. It feels more like "I refuse to identify as a victim/their child while aknowleding it happened" and less like "I cannot accept it happened to me therefore it did not happen to me".

It also helps a lot that the DID friend we almost broke up with a bit less than a year ago, is more stable now. More anchored. It is way more pleasant to talk about our inner symbolisms, our "background stories" now that we are less lost in them (both of us) and more in a process of trying to understand what they mean, what difficult emotions they express, taking note of the symbols etc. that are present many times (example: in here, none of us identify as having a family, even the introjections who are canonically supposed to have one - the best we can do is a romantic relationship, and it more often than not turns out to be queerplatonic; of course it is important in relation with our physical life and traumas).

It feels like we finally found the compass to help us navigate our relationship together, as well as our own minds. We are able to talk about our beliefs in a respectful way, more balanced than what we used to less than a year ago.

Life is good.
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G/Hosties.