We feel like quitting.

I'm not sure where this is coming from, but woke up this morning with a thought in our head, that we should just quit therapy and stuff.

We're tired. It feels like we're not getting anywhere. We're feeling some doubt in our T.

Maybe its just more of this hopelessness we're feeling now. I don't know.

Maybe its a lot of things.

Next month it'll be 2 years since all this started. Our life as previous-host ended and everything got turned upsidedown and now it feels like its just been a long slow process of everything falling apart one piece at a time. Bit by bit, everything seems to just be getting worse.

V1

That sounds tough. Sometimes when I struggle to make a decision like this I pretend in my head I’ve done one thing and then journal how I feel. So you could pretend you’ve quit and then tune in to how how you feel. It might help gauge whether you feel better or worse.

Of course you should probably discuss this with your T too, but I know that can be hard.

Hi, V1. We're sorry you're struggling.

Please tell your T what you're feeling. It won't make things get better right away, of course, but at least it gives her a chance to help. That's what she's there for.

We care.

MDs

PS from the longshot department....might any of these feelings be coming from the new person that's been talking to Viola?

I think AlwaysRachel has a brilliant idea there. Journal how you feel quitting and it might help.

Talk to the therapist too is definitely a good thing too.

For us lately with all the trauma memory it's been horrible. Horrible. No therapist and we knew it was stupid but because that part called the police we felt like we had to do it.

As much as it's caused a really bad mess internally, usually functioning parts not to be able to function, off from work for months now. Personally I think it's better. We're not hiding from anything, we're facing it.

So could it be that you're getting close to the centre of things, the centre of yourself and not only are you tired from the long journey but you're also frightened of what you'll find?

I think everyone has offered some really good options. Just wanted you to know we are sorry you are struggling.

Hi V1, you're certainly going through a patch but it may help to get it all out of your head, I'd say onto paper, so you can make sure you have all the details and thoughts about what isn't working in a place you can look at relatively more objectively, when you're not in the middle of the feelings about it all.

Your frustration sounds very real and a lot of us can relate. Yesterday in therapy the mix of us who were out said a lot of things like "I don't want to do this anymore, I want to go home, I want to go to sleep, I don't want to come here anymore." That's never happened before but we said it to our T because one of us felt it so strongly it had to be said out loud.

Amythyst wrote:We're feeling some doubt in our T.

Amythyst wrote:Bit by bit, everything seems to just be getting worse.

Although they can, things shouldn't necessarily keep getting worse over two years, so it's worth looking at whether the two are connected in some way. I'm not saying they are but it's possible.

Everytime I've written down, outside my head, the most negative thoughts about our T and our therapy, it helps. We don't end up telling everything to the T. Some of it on reflection is frustrated grumpiness and not useful or accurate, but some of it ends up making it into our conversations with T, either the next session or sometime later.

Even though our T works well with us, there are things that happen and have happened there that don't work, specifically ways she approaches certain things. I'm sure they help other clients but they work against our healing. So you owe it to your system to identify and communicate the specifics and try to fix them. It's not always that the T is doing anything wrong, it might just be wrong for your therapy. Therapists need to be coached by us, our therapy needs to be customized based on the needs of our unique systems and may change a lot from year to year as our system's needs change.

I'll give an example. My T used to jump in to tell me "that wasn't your fault." But we experienced her speedy "help" as cutting off the expression of the guilt we were feeling. In fact, we felt invalidated and wrong for having and speaking that feeling of guilt. What we needed and what she now does, is to let one of us put out there to be heard and affirm hearing it. We know intellectually it's not our fault. But some of our feelings run counter to that. I can think of several others things we asked her to change and she has. Just an idea.

Thanks everyone, for all the suggestions and the support.

Stuff with our T, is like lots of little things I think? Its difficult because it'll be some little thing during a session and we don't want to derail whatever we're doing to focus on some other thing because that'll waste the rest of the session. And then we sort of forget what exactly it was but just remember there's something that bothered us. Till it happens again then we remember.

I know we need to really write stuff down and then maybe dedicate a whole session to dealing with it. But then we resist that, because it feels like we're wasting our precious time to talk about her, and we have to pay for it too.

It's not just the T , it's everything. Our life in general. It wasn't a great life but our previous host was doing ok with work, and we didn't have a lot of money problems and stuff. We weren't like rich or anything, but managing to stay afloat kind of thing. It wasn't a happy life either, we stayed isolated, were frequently depressed & suicidal, and self-medicated with booze and food. But at least we were able to work, and pay our bills.

Now we're struggling to work and a huge chunk of our income goes to medical stuff, therapy. So, making less money, but spending more, which puts us in a really difficult place. We're staying away from the booze, but food is a problem again cos a few of us self-medicate with food. Coping mechanism or whatever.

The thing with this new headmate... its possible these feelings are coming from her, but I think its also possible that Viola's experience with her has just inspired these feelings in others?

Basically her 'imaginary' life isn't perfect, she had trouble with her parents too, kicked out at 16 and stuff, and more recent bad things happened to her. But she's young, healthy, smart, she has friends, has an education, and she doesn't have DID. She has lots of opportunity for a bright future... but only in her 'imaginary' world.

Out here, she's just another alter, where her whole life is a 'lie' and in reality we have little opportunity, no prospect, no bright future, almost no friends, just health problems, money problems, and not much else.

I guess it's part of us having to accept that we'll never have the life we would have chosen? We never had the chance to choose. Another alter was here before and she made choices based on her own desires and fears and stuff. Or some choices were based on lies and misinformation, our parents took advantage of us and exploited us. Either way we can't wind the clock back 35 years or whatever and 'fix' it.

Maybe that's why we're hurting so much right now. The new alter's 'imaginary' life is a life many of us desperately want for ourselves and we'd pick that in a heartbeat if we could. But we can't have it, it's 'not real' and nothing can change that. And right now everything feels kind of pointless.

What's therapy going to accomplish, if we keep going and maybe another 5 or 10 years down the road we're 'fixed', whatever that means. We'll just be that much older, that much poorer, and that much closer to whatever our final chapter will be.

Sorry for rambling on about this stuff. I just don't know what to do. It's been quiet inside all day, and I'm just sitting here crying on and off and feeling like everything's pointless and futile.

V1

ps. I should stress this - we are not suicidal. We do not want to die. We just don't want to live this life any more.

It doesn't sound like a waste to jot something down and use a whole session on it if it's causing you problems, it sounds like a really good use of a session.

Your life sounds similar to mine, getting by with money just about, isolated, worse than useless parents and so focused on sorting out this disorder that there's little space for anything else.

There is pain and frustration at life because of "life just happens" or seems to and having alters makes it worse due to different preferences and what seems like a good idea. That can be very depressing for me too and most other parts.

Alot of parts in my system have internal lives that are mostly mundane and it doesn't reflect negatively on our outside life.

But the twins have these fantastical stories of making alot of money, I'm talking billions, online. They have power because of it. They can make or break companies, governments, not just people. They use the dark web and can do really shady deals, blackmail politicians and everything else you can think of. But nothing that involves actually doing anything and sometimes insist they actually do these things, at night when we're all asleep. Because it's all online it's impossible to disprove to them and they say they just "refuse to prove it" so it's a stale mate and it does cause problems.

When I last went into hospital after reporting my parents they speed up the whole thing going on and on that we were wanted for some kind of stuff they did online, that added to the stress, we started saying their nonsense which usually we keep to ourselves and then we sounded crazy because saying in a doctor's office "I'm wanted by the CIA" after saying literally nothing for a good few hours is crazy. It felt like falling into a pit, the pit of my own mind I suppose. Then there's the annoyingly weird coincidences. They kept telling me I was wanted by Trident, me specifically as an alter, which is a police section to do with gang violance. They went on and on and then as I walked back to work from lunch there was a van outside of a company called Trident and they said "see and we sent that van there to prove it" or watching a film once they said they paid for it to be made and on a board in the film was written "twins conference room" or something. Another time they said they had satellites watching the body to keep us safe, again something to do with government agency threats, and we pulled into a car park and a van with a satellite dish on top of it had "twins communication" written on the side. The coincidence of what they say to outside life is awful.

The general consensus of other alters is that the twins are delusional. Sometimes they're fine but often delusional. Would we all rather the twins delusions were real, hell yes because we'd be minted and could buy a house and pay for specialist therapy, could go to America to get therapy if their delusions were real.

Convincing them that they're delusional is impossible. Getting them to accept outside life, impossible.

How would it work with your recently discovered alter to try to slowly introduce them to life now? Maybe because they're homeless they will be glad to have a home? I don't know but maybe their enthusiasm could bring something to your life?

And now I woke them slightly talking about them and they insist I say "we will never set foot on US soil due to what happened in Saudi Arabia and they will continue to back Iran and that for the Chinese it's definitely worth it" I read the news occasionally when I'm not avoiding it but I dunno what they mean..they said it's like when I bought a dishwasher from a catalogue company, they delivered it to the wrong address and picked it up from that address then claimed they didn't and then I had to fight to get my money back and I refused to use that company for three years even though it was convenient. I can't see how a dishwasher has anything to do with those countries..

Sorry I have to post this or they won't shut up and go back to sleep. Please excuse my butting in on your post with this nonsense.

Thanks Sarandipity.

I realize I was unclear on one thing, or rather, I said half a thing and not the other half. The new headmate isn't homeless - she was kicked out as a teen but now she's got an apartment and a roommate, she's attending university working on phd in biochemistry, she's smart, educated, and has a future.

There's literally not one single thing in our 'real' life that I can think of, that is better than what she has in her own reality.

She's not delusional though - when she was coconsious with Viola, she understood that this is a different reality - here, her stuff is all just a dream or something. But from the inside, it's real to her.

I think our T yesterday was trying to say that the new alter needed to accept that 'this is real' and the other stuff isn't, but a) she understood that when she was here the other day, but still went back to her own reality, and b) Viola couldn't understand why it was important. Like, why would anyone want to choose sharing a bit of our life, when they already have a better one all to themselves?

If she comes back here again, she's not going to have her education, or her friends, her health, her future. All stuff she has there, that we've never had in our life, in our reality.

Anyways. I don't even know if all this is what's got to us lately. Or just coincidence. Or its just like the thousandth thing and we've just hit our limit and its all falling apart.

After being quiet all day I heard from V2 and we got into an argument over some stuff. And it reminded me that despite how mature she can act, she's still just 16 and isn't always very responsible. Same goes for Viola. Not saying I'm perfect or anything, just, in some ways they're still kids and not entirely responsible.

V1