A New Start (the way forwards)

LS was disappointed in her new game because according to Kit..to say its aimed at 5-8yr old little girls there's some parts in that need quite a bit of co-ordination and skill to pull off and there seems to be no accessibility settings at all! The settings menu brings up only a page to set vibration level on the joycons. It has simple controls but it seems to basically be a side scrolling platform game basically with a lot of timed jumps and repeated button bashing and need quick reactions in some parts with a 'level boss'....quite difficult for 'a little' trying to control an adult body with Ataxia!

None of us mind trying to get her past the difficult bits even if it takes us a while too...but I think for LS it was the fact she doesn't come out for long with control of the body so obviously especially when she's been looking forwards to something for weeks to find out when she eventually comes out to play she can't do it herself and has to let older alters take over to do it for her...its naturally disappointing & frustrating for her. She's happy with her pink joycons though. Animal Crossing is the only game she can play without needing any help at all (unless she wants one of us to control a second player)

Disappointing for us too as we had wanted her to focus on the benefits of us being able to switch to different roles to deal with life to teaching her about co-hosting but now all she's focused on is the fact that she can't do most of it herself so now doesn't want to play it anymore.

She's very aware that if someone else has to blend with her to help her that its 'not her doing it' so she didn't get her 'full time out front' working the body like we all do when we're out individually.

I mean Bobby could probably play the game through and recreate it on the inside in an holodeck for her but it was about learning to be 'up front' too and blending and co-operation to try and encourage her to 'grow'.

Lily

Not sure whats wrong with this board today!..It keeps telling me its unavailable then next time I refresh it works then next page it doesn't??? ..so hope this goes on!

Anyway...

We are still trying to work out a more stable way of fronting (at least appearing more stable to the outside world). Everyone who fronts finds it difficult to stay up front 24/7 due to the bodies issues - constant Tinnitus and the pain/fatigue levels. It's not fair to ask to expect ONE to endure that 24/7 whilst the others (due to the size of our inner world) have much more freedom and escape from it inside.

We have decided that to be consistent there should be one team that covers 'working hours mon-fri '...where we can't predict how safe it would be to allow some insiders out (the littles or ones that choose not to be known to the outside world) and when 'outside world' stuff gets dealt with bills, communication with business ..chemist, vet, GP etc. (not incl unplanned emergencies)

Co-hosting works well for us and as Kit prefers weekends and so does Bobby we decided I will continue to do work hours mon-fri but my co-host will change depending on who wants to come out to help for the day. ..except for when we go out for sunday dinner with family occasionally (then it will Kate and Yuna with someone else...maybe me or Sue)

That gives Sue opportunity to have a day or two off from taking care of the littles and to come out and do some cooking, art or read or just get an afternoon out etc. Sue tends to prefer the summer months she likes to sit in the garden and read or draw.

We have decided we will stick with no more than 3 being at the front at once (if coming out individually) so if Yuna or LS want to come out front with Kate (or Sue) then either Kit stays out and I go in for a break or Kit goes in for a break and I stay out front with them. ..if however they blend on the inside before coming to the front they count as one!

We have been working on the meditation alot to 'fine tune' the level of control we have over blends so alters can blend enough to be able to experience activities simultaneously but still keep seperate consciousness so can communicate with each other telepathically.

So far only Jay and some smaller past parts/fragments have fully integrated within me and are no longer a 'seperate alter'. I can remember their memories as if it was my memory but there's no emotion attached to them.

I think Sue would like to fully integrate but LS is still really attached to her and would become depressed if she was not inside with her so for now Sue and I do meditation sesssions so she can temporarily blend enough to transfer useful memories or skills to me then return inside to LS.

Kit, Jess and Bobby tend to flit about doing multiple jobs either internally or as Gatekeeper at the front.

LS seems happier on the inside she described the outside as 'frustrating and lonely' cos she can't do anything independantly in the body but she doesn't seem to want to age up either to see if it would be easier for her to host/control the body as an older alter. Inside she can run and play and do anything in the inner world and has a family and best friend so she wishes to remain inside with them. She keeps telling us she wants to be a Tulpa like her inside family.

Bobby says if thats what she wants ..let her, she seems to be going through sone kind of phase but may change her mind eventually.

We're not yet past peri stage so still get the emotional mood swings (though no where near as severe) when TOTM is due though there's no actual period, these swings of emotion could be affecting her...Yuna and Sue still experience feelings of depression during these fluctuations, though not as severely....so it is 'easing off' and they've been less severe and less frequent.

With only 2 more months to go to achieve 'official menopause ' we don't want to risk triggering them coming back so daren't risk taking any extra estrogen/progesterone to see if it relieved symptoms further. ..but the goalposts are in sight!....just have to hope no-one moves them before we get to them now!


Lily

Well surprising and busy weekend here! ..both internally and externally!

Easter seems a time of rebirth for our system though we basically knew what some of us wanted, it seems they prefer to do these permenant blendings on a day of significance!

Firstly 'Kate'

Kate has been torn between being her old self as we knew her (ie presenting in the image of our mum internally) and wanting to move into the future and us to move into the future with her since she first 'arrived' in the system as 'Juno' after the last stroke.

Kit is strictly speaking 'a past version of me' (host) but she has a strong desire to remain seperate. They decided if Kit & Kate integrated with each other, they could remain a seperate self to 'me' and continue with guardian duties. Kate integrated with her also blocks trauma memories from anyone else doing a temporary blend with them when needed.

However LS also still wanted her mummy figure on the inside even though she has always seen 'Sue' as her caretaker. so Kate split and working with Bobby and Kit they created a new Tulpa internal body for 'Mummy Kate' (MK) who will stay on the inside with LS, Sue, Kenny, LP & Jody. They will run the sanctuary farm and look after the remaining early trauma fragments that can't communicate and have remained as baby animals on the inside for over 50 years now.

The part of Kate that wants to help 'this me' stay in the present and try and improve our life has done a full integration with Kit, they have become 'Kitty' (a new and seperate co-host).


Yuna

Yuna basically wants to be wherever she believes Kate's real spirit is but wants to be able to feel her as seperate from her, so Yuna has integrated with me. Kitty doing a specific level of temporary blend (that they practised while meditating) will trigger 'Yuna-me' to the front for them to be able to spend some time together at the front.


Bobby

Bobby wishes to remain seperate and mostly inside, they will be visiting when Baldurs Gate 3 comes out to 'see the world' so they can then recreate it in the internal holosuite. They want to be the 'Holosuite manager' so we have given them that job title!


Jess

Jess is also one torn between maintaining the form that we remember her the most fondly and wanting to become a new version of themselves to be of more help to us. She is changeling so can take either animal or human form. Though system rules are that she must remain in human form if blending with any hosts. For now she has remained a changeling so she can divide her time between being both!


External host (as outsiders see us in person)

As we no longer have a permanent External Host (EH) that is unaware of the rest of the system and 'officially' see's the legal name/life as theirs, Kitty and I (Lily) will blend fully (but temporarily) to be EH on a 'as and when needed' basis for appointments and social visits with family.


So thats it for now..have to go get Mr Woof out and get back for delivery of his food!


Lily

As an experiment this weekend Sue blended within LS instead of the other way around, this allowed LS to age up to a much older age. memories that would have been too adult or traumatic for her were blocked by Jody (also taking part in the temporary blend).

It was basically to give LS the experience of feeling older to see our situation from a different perspective but still being able to feel and communicate with the others inside her. I co-hosted with her and we did some calming yoga and meditation visualising blending in and out of each other and switching places to take control of the front. She said it felt different to fronting as 6, the body didn't feel 'too big for her', she enjoyed sitting on the floor playing with our dog and cuddling him cos she wanted to know what that felt like as an adult (if cuddles still felt the same).

We played on the switch, she said she could feel Yuna inside me and she (Yuna) wanted to visit her old beach farm (on Stardew Valley) so we spent some time playing on that too.

We're hoping that now she understands that the others are still there even if they are inside someone else , this will help her to allow Sue to integrate as she has been desperate to integrate or go dormant for quite a while now but LS has not been ready to 'let go' of her as her caretaker.

We suggested why doesnt' she be Sue's caretaker if she loves her so much and let Sue integrate within her then they will always be bonded. They returned inside to discuss it further and think about it.

Lily

I had one of those weirdly intense dreams where you remember every detail (usually awake remembering only the last bit and wondering what it was about) and it felt more like 'a message' than a 'random vague dream'. I feel like I know where we're heading and what the goal is!

I feel like Kate has helped most of the smaller fragments (that all identified with the birth name) see that they are one so have all started to re-integrate with me.

I do think its because Kate (rightly or wrongly) see's herself as our mothers spirit and so identifies all who see the birth name (that she originally chose) and more importantly existed when she was our mother (in her past life) as 'her daughter.' Consequently they have all begun to see themselves as 'the same person' (ie.. part of the same self that existed before our mums death). LS & Sue still remain seperate inside and have not yet made a decision on what they intend to do.

Bobby never identified with the birth name though and Kit didn't come into being until years after our mums passing (a direct split from Bobby at a time when only Bobby was present, in the autism unit)...Bobby actually chose the legal name that people in the outside world know us by and Kit also always identified with that name rather than the original name. I don't know if that has any relevance as to why they remained seperate, although Kit has very recently integrated with a part of Kate and become 'Kitty', they remain seperate to 'this-me'

Jess see's herself as the spirit of our last dog and therefore Kit. Bobby and 'Maddie' were 'her owners'. Maddie has since disintegrated and we're not sure which parts originally made up 'Maddie', how many they split into or where they all are!

Jess rarely takes human form but if we have an official appointment where 'Maddie' was the last person who attended it, Jess blending with hosts gives them instant ability to emulate 'Maddie' for the appointment. Most of the time Jess lives on the inside helping Bobby & the other insiders with the care of the trauma fragments that have remained baby animals on the inside.. I'm not sure they will ever re-integrate or how we would communicate with them to do that as they have never had any ability to understand language.

The other Tulpa's Bobby created will remain seperate inside.... their job is to take care of those fragments inside, so others capable of re-integrating to become part of 'Host Lily' can do so to take care of external life.

I think we may reach some level of partial integration but the inside world is too important to Bobby so they would never abandon it and besides who would look after the fragments that can't be re-integrated?

Bobby recognises that they (the animal fragments) came about because they themselves had no undertsanding of life in the early days and everything felt terrifying, animals were the only thing they understood that gave them a feeling of comfort and that they felt they could relate to. ...B feels responsible for those fragments being the way they are! .....that in itself is amazing progress for Bobby!

It seems LS was the first to develop the bond with 'mummy' and recognise our parents and sibling as 'family'...which maybe behind her desire to stay the little girl so she can remain inside with them for ever. ..whether she will be able to 'let go' of Sue so she can re-integrate with the front is not yet known.

Its possible we would create a 'positive trigger' so that LS coming to the front brings 'Sue-me' to the front for her so she can spend some time with her when she comes to visit.... or they may decide to remain inside together.

Kate-part within 'Kitty' has done that with Yuna-part thats currently inside me so they can also have time playing as 'Yuna & Juno'.

I think the thing is now we've all discovered each other and the ways we can interact with each other and the inside world no-one wants to return to having to pretend to be NT 24/7 for the sake of people who have mostly abandoned at us in our greatest hour of need (many times throughout life).

'Faking NT' serves only one purpose now - to keep 'outside world' people off our backs so we have as much time as possible to be ourselves and live the life we want to!

Lily

**TW ..brief mention of physical illness and depressive thoughts**


We picked up a bug or something from somewhere, spent several days in and out of damn loo with those weird 'cold sweats' too ... wasn't actually sweating though but just felt like had freezing cold water running through our veins, so like was even cold laying under an electric blanket and still felt 'frozen inside' and shivering.

It also seems to make the Tinnitus worse and stiffness as spending alot of time laid in bed, couldn't eat as stomach was feeling 'queasy' constantly and no enjoys experience of 'being sick' so daren't risk eating, which in turn tends to mean mood drops significantly and triggers out the ones more affected by depression to start questioning our own existence and whether its worth us being here.

Our dear Mr Woof is our greatest ally in reminding us someone loves us unconditionally and would have no-one without us, as he snuggles up to try and make us feel better. The fact that he see's 'all of us' as 'his mummy', helps unite the team inside to get us through it.

Feeling a bit better today, still feel a bit cold but the weathers not that warm considering we're in April and last year was having mini heatwaves by now yesterday was horrible ..storms.. (lashing rain, thunder, gale force winds) so we have to make the effort to get Mr Woof out for a nice long walk today and make sure he gets a decent free run over the fields (if we can get the scooter on one without getting stuck in mud) as damn garden is flooded also from yesterday so he can't play ball in the garden either until that dries out.

Sometimes we just have to do a longer pavement walk to a small woodland area a couple of villages away with proper paths around it for the scooter but it makes a nice outing for an hour or two.

so bit fed up too but other than that we trundle on hoping for better weather soon and a bit of sunshine to lift our spirits!


p.s 'I' feel like the Lily that was previously posting is not currently at the front with 'me' but I'm not sure which 'me' this is

Kit here today just a brief update.

Lily is 'inside' helping with the littles as some older ones had a bt of a meltdown, but will be back soon. I'm just holding the fort as someone needs to be in the driving seat and taking care of Mr Woof's needs out here!

After several temporary blends we're starting to see who now has the most proficient skill sets to be able to cope with daily life and move forwards It seems not all have been able to relearn or readjust to life after the stroke despite attempts to share info and skills with everyone. Some seem stuck in the past due to no fault of thier own it seems.

We have discovered there are still damaged pathways that have not healed and seem to affect some in particular more than others. So some seem genuinely unable to change their ability to learn new things or behave in a specific way...just as some individuals may have more damage from a stroke in the outside world than others.

Our ability to split from damaged parts and reblend parts that aren't as damaged to compensate each other does seem to have been the key for us to be able to make any progress at all and despite us having ideas about who would work inside and who could work at the front it seems not all selected have the skills needed or the ability to re-learn their 'pre-destined role' in the system.


The external life hosts are now myself, Lily & Jess working together. Others now have internal roles, we have tried to make sure everyone feels useful and important to the system in some way by giving them new roles and taking care of parts less able than themselves.


We now know which ones are unable to cope with dealing with outside life stuff at all and which are ok visting for a short time as long as things are calm. (both themselves and stuff calm out here).

When Lily returns to front she will again be the main communicator.

Kit

I'm back this morning!

I see Kit already did some explaining so I won't repeat it.

But basically we're going to try a new way of working. I will (try to) stay in control of the body but Kit and Jess will advise, we'll be blended enough to feel like we are both/all doing the activity simultaneously. Sometimes either Kit or Jess will take a break and sometimes it will be all 3 of us depending on task and who has the memories/skills I need to complete the task.

We have decided some of what made everything seem so overwhelming for a new/temporary host was all the memories they had to try to relearn 'to be the host' when parts were coming out individually and taking turns to host.

Working with what memories Kit also has naturally and which ones I've managed to relearn, Jess will 'fill in the gaps' with memories that are needed in some situations but we don't need to actively remember all the time eg medical reviews...see someone different every time here so everytime have to go over what did in past...work, college etc, disabilities, when they happened etc. ..this is not stuff we need to be constantly trying to remember everyday just to get through a day when the reviews are happening much less frequently now.

Jess retrieving those memories on an 'as needed basis' and carrying those memories for me (whilst we're temporarily blended) free's up my own 'brain space' to hopefully function better in each situation. same applies to Kit.

I think both the head space and the house needs a really good sort out! ...Maybe if we start on the physical house working together the head space will also 'declutter itself' somewhere along the way!
The others inside have been put to task working from the inside out to 'declutter' the inner farm.
This will be a long term project at least over summer (there's so much to get through) but if we tried to do a little bit everyday for at least an hour or a couple of hours every other day, we should be able to make some progress!

Lily

We feel we are noticing a split more and more in the DID community towards not encouraging people to see their alters as individuals, even from people on here who once had diverse systems themselves when Kit first joined here.

I do not feel I am the person that first came on here

I do not feel I am any of the past hosts that have hosted other periods of 'this bodies life'.

I liken what I personally feel as to more like the Trill (from Star Trek) like Jadzia or Ezri Dax who have become host and have memories of the previous hosts lives, whilst still trying to make a life for themselves! ..and sometimes they had to deal with people who still treated them as if they were the past host (eg Sisko referring to Jadzia as 'old man' as he was close friends with her past host who was male) ..just as I find myself sometimes having to deal with people who knew a past host and expect us to still be them behaviour wise.

I feel I relate more to 'a walk-in' in that sense, except the past hosts are still here but right now unable to cope with being up front. I don't know how permenant that situation is, they may at a future date wish to return for now they are 'inside' ...some wanting to create a different life for themselves inside and others feeling they just need to rest because they feel 'beyond exhausted' so have gone into stasis (or dormancy) for an unspecified time - I'm not sure if they had decided how long they needed before going to sleep.

Very recently I feel only Jess and Kit seperately... sometimes Kit and Bobby swap places when we're exploring a new (video game) world for the first time though it depends what kind of game it is as to whether Bobby is interested in it. Sometimes I swap places with Bobby so they can play with Kit and Jess. B always wants to return inside after a couple of hours though, they seem to have lost interest in ever being full time host again, they see their role as caretaker of the inside world to keep it alive for those that need it to be there.

Even Kit has changed alot since we first joined here having blended with several others (temporarily) to pass skills and memories between us after the stroke, she seems no longer the same person that joined. We all have different relationships with the body and different levels of control when others aren't around in the front. having the social mask ones near the front seems to dictate our body will always respond in a specific way, with them deep inside ..control feels different!

Myself and 'adult Bobby' are very close in level of ability and 'sense of self' if they blend with me in adult form I sometimes cannot tell if I'm Bobby or Lily, but if they return inside and send me visions of them back in their 'inner child body' they feel more like 'me at 10/11/12' etc. Neither Jess nor Kit trigger those memories or feelings as neither is a 'version of me'. I can see 'little Susie' as a very young version of me though I don't remember much from the age she presents at.

As I was originally around for a limited time period between 10-13 I don't see any of the hosts after me as 'a version of me'. (I think this is why I feel more like a walk-in or 'Trill' for some memories)....I only have Jay's memories (from 14+ and some later life periods when they fronted for specific events) because they have remained fully integrated within me. ..Yuna has since split from me and returned inside with Kate...neither have fronted since the incident with sibling.


So thats where we're up to..we have about a month to go before we hit 'official menopause'. ..maybe the hormone levels reaching their final base levels is influencing the systems feelings & decisions? ..and may dictate who ends up being 'the host' ..post-menopause?


Lily

TheTriForce wrote:We feel we are noticing a split more and more in the DID community towards not encouraging people to see their alters as individuals, even from people on here who once had diverse systems themselves when Kit first joined here.

We're not entirely certain what you mean. However, we aren't all that part of the wider community and we've pulled back a lot from posting or reading here after Octavia and Charlie got upset. We certainly see each other as individuals still. We actually struggle with not seeing each other as individuals.

Violette