For Littles/Teens coping with a Disabled Host

Truly_happy wrote:Grant: Do you suffer from depression and/or anxiety? We're disabled by those things, too. For example, we almost didn't go outside and walk today because it is cloudy and that aggravates our depression. (Don't get me started on how bad the anxiety can get ...)

Hello Grant

We have had depression bad these last 5 years as our beloved old dog passed who had been our assistance dog for 15 years. We'd also felt badly betrayed by a friend who hadn't included us in her list of besties to be told they were getting married before they announced it to everyone else on SM. We left SM after that. 'Maddie' who was our host then and was the 'social media persona' felt she couldn't exist without the dog because she was a huge part of her identity and if she had no RL friends either there was no point in her being 'out', so she went back inside. Nobody has seen her since.

Anxiety we get alot of that when having to deal with people cos of the autism too. Yes I understand the connection between the weather, we have arthritis in the knees and back and when its damp or very cold we have higher pain levels and stiffness.

The body is going through its 'menopause phase' of life too so that is also triggering and amplifying many old autistic sensory issues that we had previously got under (better) control. Many of us are teens so its kind of like going through puberty again! (emotionally)!

The original host (Adult S) is severely agoraphobic and has Selective Mutism too. Kit (16) and Bobby (10) are the most autistic - behaviour wise with more of a need to stim Kit has been out around the house and even taken the dog out very early hours when there was no chance of having to talk to anyone! but usually she does not front when other real people are about cos it makes our autism obvious. Bobby only co-hosts with KIt and is only interested in coming out if Zelda is being played on the big screen TV. They are non-verbal, they communicate by sending images but Kit is working on expanding Bobby's ability to communicate on the inside.

Thea and Maddie were the ANP's in our younger years the 'social masks' who dealt with college, work etc and interacting with most people outside the immediate family. They were more socially confident. Thea also went dormant years ago and disappeared.

Little Susie is 6, she is very shy and will only whisper though she is getting braver indoors when she knows she's safe she's never present when we have to interact with RL others.

There are others who don't want to be named and prefer to stay deep within the system. Some I think are just fragments of memories from alters that existed briefly in the past but never stayed around or developed into full identities. I think we could do with a mass fusion of the fragments! but I don't know how to do this.

Jody

No idea how to get a mass-fusion of fragments, either, but we used to have several thousand or so alters with bits and pieces of memories each. I know we must have this written down in our journal somewhere. Try looking under the "integration" tag if you have time. We've fused and unused a lot over the years.

- Grant

-- Thu Jun 03, 2021 8:30 am --

Oh, and don't bother to read the entries where the writer says "all the alters integrated into Marcella!" That was not true. We all got lost somewhere in the inner-world but Marcella.

- Grant

We arnt disabled but our ex used to portray us as disabled. We now know he would deliberately trigger our smallest little and tell him it was ok to play with kids in the park so that to the outside world we appeared learning disabled, he scammed a lot of free holidays and stuff based on the "fact" that he was having to care for his simpleton autistic wife. I've had folk ask how we "cured" our autism because now we are a functional adult with a job who doesn't go running around with preschoolers pretending to be a dinosaur.

It's hard on our little that we now are adulting most of the time but I'd say we are better off as a system. I'm gonna sign us up to roller disco once things open up and that can be their "with other real people" play time.

Wow, Eli! I am shocked by what your ex did. I'm glad you're not with him anymore.

By the way, are you really autistic?

- Marcella

Yes but we are high functioning. Not the low functioning that our ex portrayed us as.

I suppose we wrote about it to show that just because the world sees you as disabled doesn't mean you have to keep up appearances. Conditions fluctuate. Just because Maddie was wheelchair bound doesn't mean the rest of them have to be. Get a walker with a seet or crutches and use those when you are feeling more able. People will be genuinely pleased that you are improving. As for the deafness things like meniers produce fluctuations in hearing or you could just say you used lockdown to learn lip reading. Lip reading is only 60pc effective and requires a lot of mental energy so there will be days an actual deaf person doesn't have the energy to lip read. so on Maddie days you are too exhausted/in pain to lip read/walk on non Maddie days you are feeling determined/energetic enough to "lip read" and walk. That way hearing alters don't have to pretend to be deaf just remember to stair at their chin when they talk.

Eliseahorse wrote:Yes but we are high functioning. Not the low functioning that our ex portrayed us as.

I suppose we wrote about it to show that just because the world sees you as disabled doesn't mean you have to keep up appearances. Conditions fluctuate. Just because Maddie was wheelchair bound doesn't mean the rest of them have to be. Get a walker with a seet or crutches and use those when you are feeling more able. People will be genuinely pleased that you are improving. As for the deafness things like meniers produce fluctuations in hearing or you could just say you used lockdown to learn lip reading. Lip reading is only 60pc effective and requires a lot of mental energy so there will be days an actual deaf person doesn't have the energy to lip read. so on Maddie days you are too exhausted/in pain to lip read/walk on non Maddie days you are feeling determined/energetic enough to "lip read" and walk. That way hearing alters don't have to pretend to be deaf just remember to stair at their chin when they talk.

Thank you for your kind reply. Most people just do not 'get it'. I notice you're also high functioning autistic!

The body really did experience deafness when the original was a teen(due to a medication change) but what they did not realise because of our autism (and we were unable to explain at the time) that we've always had auditory processing problems. That is the reason we can her sounds but not make sense of speech its called Auditory Neuropathy and we have since found others who have it. Some noises are painful which is why we often wore hearing aids but had them switched off as it blocked more sound, but the newer digital ones do actually help in some situations eg there is a Tinnitus program on the new ones and that really helps drown out the tinnitus and makes it easier for us to work out speech.

They also have a bluetooth setting so we can use our bluetooth headphones instead of needing a 'special neck loop'.

'Maddie' is/was complex. There was confusion over her symptoms and diagnosis. The Dr's were looking for something that caused all the symptoms she had, things like MS, but some were due to other issues emotional and conversion to physical symptoms. Maddie was actually told to 'get used to the wheelchair' giving the impression (certainly to a very logical literal thinker) that we were going to be in it for life. (all the time).

It was Kit slipping out triggered when a physio recommended the New (as it was then) Wi fit that had lots of games and exercises specifically for balance and co-ordination who got the body back to the point it could walk round the house without aids (at one point, though since had further complications)

Maddie also didn't know she was a multiple at the time until the very last few months before she disappeared, so had no memory of Kit 'coming out' and being more physically able. It was only brief anyway cos we suffered a blood clot and was in agony for months (leg was double its size and triggered sciatica) that worsened the arthritis symptoms on that side as it was previously up till then quite mild equally on both sides. Also got a fractured achilles on that side! which get really painful if we over do trying to walk on it even just round the house.

The struggle I had (as the original who was last fronting in my teens) I felt severely disconnected from the body, this wasn't the body I left due to physical differences and because one alter had actually changed the legal name. I was still stuck in the 80's, a young fit teen, the birth name was 'my name'.
'Maddie' was not me! Neither did I want to share my body with others originally.

It's taken a long time to understand a concept such as 'Multiplicity' for a very literal mind but now I understand this is why my mind is so young and why I still like video games and stuff. I don't have severe learning difficulties (I've been to university and got a degree) so the 'child-like' side of me didn't make sense, but it does now I understand better.

Adult Host S (the original child host)

Our symptoms fluctuate, but not because of DID. Fibro can "flare up" and then later get better. We had a flare-up in 2018 and could barely leave the couch or even cross the room to get something we needed. That's when we went on disability. We think we caused the flare-up with a stressful lifestyle, though, and since we changed things, we've not had another flare-up, though another may occur at any time I guess.

- Grant

Truly_happy wrote:Our symptoms fluctuate, but not because of DID. Fibro can "flare up" and then later get better. We had a flare-up in 2018 and could barely leave the couch or even cross the room to get something we needed. That's when we went on disability. We think we caused the flare-up with a stressful lifestyle, though, and since we changed things, we've not had another flare-up, though another may occur at any time I guess.

- Grant

For us it was a bit different because Thea continued to believe she was deaf even after the body had recovered the 'volume loss' that was due to the medication but she wasn't aware she was a multiple. She 'left' still not knowing. Maddie didn't know Kit existed either and that Kit had discovered the body could walk, because again she had no awareness of being a multiple.

Any RL people would only see the hosts who genuinely had no idea anyone else was 'coming out' and sharing the same body when no-one else was around!

It's taken us years to piece everything together and see the body's life as one life. But still I (the original) do not see 'me' and the 'legal name for this body' as the same thing. Thea changed the name legally back in the 80's so no-one in my life now knows me by my birth name. They know this body under a different legal name and nickname which even family calls me.

It would be a nightmare to change it back now in this digital age as everything - work records, qualifications, benefits medical records are all in the new legal name. All I have is my original birth certificate from the 60's with my unchanged birth name on.

To me it feels like I was the original child until my late teens then I went to live elsewhere, (the inner world), returned 40+ yrs later to find someone else had continued living my life as 'me' but changed my name, who I was, and everything! ..so I can no longer relate to 'my name' or 'my body'.

That sounds awful, Adult S (right?). It would be perplexing for anyone to go through that. Our old host, Jada, had an experience something like that I guess: she came out months after new hosts took over and was amazed by how the life outside had changed. By then, we had a new job and I don't remember what else was different, but, yeah, a new host can do a lot, given enough time! But 40+ years ...

- Grant

Truly_happy wrote:That sounds awful, Adult S (right?). It would be perplexing for anyone to go through that. Our old host, Jada, had an experience something like that I guess: she came out months after new hosts took over and was amazed by how the life outside had changed. By then, we had a new job and I don't remember what else was different, but, yeah, a new host can do a lot, given enough time! But 40+ years ...

- Grant

sorry that should say 30 + years,..can't count lol! no idea who went to maths class!