The Road Goes Ever, Ever On (Theta's Journey)

Hope Vi feels better soon- J

I'm a bit better. Just needed downtime and that meant retreating into the inner world for a bit. I was not expecting someone new to come out.

Mostly, we've come to the conclusion that part of why we are a system comes from some major issues with our mother. Basically, she was caught up in a major sibling rivalry with her younger sister, the only one still alive, btw. She pushed for us to be the best we could and trying to be the best 'son' possible kind of lead to us ripping ourselves apart to a certain degree. This happened because she wanted to be better than our aunt as well as obtain the love of our grandfather, who died a year before our birth.

This was not something we really had figured out, but now it makes sense.

Take care,
Vi

Last night was 'fun'. Our friends have been showing us the ropes of a new game and one of our friends said 'yeah, we fought these guys last night'. The problem? I (Vi) was not out at all Saturday night. I had no idea who they were, but it was okay. Aurora was out, and that was good. We had to set up a cane for her earlier in the day so she would be able to walk more stably.

I've started to realize how little we remember between switches. I'm trying to get things a bit more stable on that front so that we keep important notes. At least our friends are understanding because they know that it can impact how we play video games and how we behave.

Vi

Trigger Warning For Mentions of Ongoing Abuse

Today we realized that the abuse never ended. That it is still on going, but coming to an end finally. We had never understood what constituted abuse. That it can be our mother's constant taking of resources and time to our father's never ending sudden need for us to do something. That never giving someone space to live can be a form of abuse. That love can be abusive and that it can be unintentional.

In what I've been writing, my main character's mother is constantly trying to make her the 'best', make her all kinds of things all the while not wanting her to be with someone, not wanting her to be herself. But I have that character's mother a partner who was the voice of reason. I didn't realize that I was writing our abuse and how this would end.

Our mother constantly took any money we made and not just what we had agreed on. The same with our father. He agreed to pay for some of his own food and such but then made us pay for it. Our mother took almost all the money we would get for our student loans. We gave without thought because we believed we needed to. Unfortunately, that often left us very little. Our mother would constantly interfere with what we wanted to do as well. She would make constant and sometimes guilt-tripping comments about the posters we would put up because we shouldn't find this woman or that woman attractive. She made us reluctant to put posters up at all after a while.

Just because abuse is not intended, it can still be abuse. We've realized that we don't have any attachment to so many things in the house, and that we need not feel embarrassed or ashamed of so much. It will take a long time for the trauma to be healed.

In the last month, we've ended up with something we don't know how to quantify. This person we have been talking to has made us realize that we had internalized the abuse to a greater point than we expected.

I realized that I'm the host not because I can handle things, but because I was the first of us to do something away from the abuse. I wrote a story that no one else had a hand in. Yes, Octavia, Bri, Beth, all of us have contributed in some manner, but I wrote it. We wrote it without interference. But I'm also the only one of us who holds the earliest memories untainted by all the eventual abuse. I can also make room and let the others out too without ego or being upset.

We're scared. We're terrified even. But we have a path forward. We can make it together.

Maybe this person we've been talking to will prove to be something more, but she knows we're a system. She knows a lot about who we are and isn't afraid or objectifying. She is also patient. She made it clear that we were perpetuating the abuse inside and that we have to work towards balance. At the very least, she is a good friend.

We have found a family too, and they are one who treats me as a person, not a crutch. They are loving. They give as much as they take. This is something we're not used to that.

We feel stronger. We feel better. There's a long road ahead, but at least we know that things can be better. I doubt that we'll ever be a single personality, but we will integrate and be more cohesive.

And when Marcus or any other bad thoughts come back, all I have to remember is 'you have no power over me.' Honestly, I sometimes thing that Labyrinth is a really good metaphor for DID and the struggle against the inner abuser.

Vi

I'm exhausted. It has been a long, emotional 24hrs, and that included Pippa taking over for quite a chunk of yesterday. Simply put, we're in a bit of a better place now. Talked to our sister and our friends.

We are going to have to start culling out all the extra stuff in the household, including things we don't have any emotional connection to. Eventually, this will include replacing a lot of things like the dishes. To a certain degree, we are literally going to be recrafting our living space to be our own. Eventually, we'll move away from here.

It also occurred to me that there is likely no conceivable way for us to have a relationship with anyone our own physical age. Our average age is 20, and the older alters don't come out very often. We aren't going to be mature enough to deal with a more adult relationship.

Trigger Warning For Eating Disorder

One thing that came out yesterday is that we have an eating disorder and that was brought on by our father. He would always give us more and more food. Our eating habits are screwed up because of it. It didn't help that our mother contributed to it by constant attempts at dieting. Now, we have to learn to eat properly so we can lose weight and have surgeries.

Trigger Warning Over

It is going to take a lot to get better, but we are stronger together and we can manage this.

Vi

ViTheta wrote:
It also occurred to me that there is likely no conceivable way for us to have a relationship with anyone our own physical age. Our average age is 20, and the older alters don't come out very often. We aren't going to be mature enough to deal with a more adult relationship.

Vi

We have this issue too, we have always been much younger than the physical body. Although I can feel closer to a 'middle aged woman' when Kate blends with me for official appointments and the rare social event with family, when we are home alone and unblended I still feel a lot younger.
We have never had any desire to be in an intimate relationship with anyone else in our life. I guess the closest to that would be our twins functioning as if they were conjoined twins and always being together but it is not an 'adult relationship' I wondered if we were asexual and/or aromantic but not sure as don't really understand what they mean or whether its just because of the autism and Bobby's early medical trauma.

Hope things feel easier for you soon..you're a strong team you can do this! - Jay

Pardon if this term is offensive to anyone, but we don't feel it is. It isn't uncommon for a lot of autistic people to be queer in some fashion. Asexual (ace) is where you really don't have any interest in physically intimate relationships; someone who is aromantic (aro) is someone who has no interest in romantic relationships, and someone who is ace/aro has no real interest in relationships at all. It is quite possible that you are ace/aro and that's fine. There are a lot of autistic people who are. We aren't, and that makes things difficult. We're sapphic (a term used more frequently to be more inclusive when it comes to women who love women [wlw] relationships. It indicates somenoe who may be bisexual, pansexual, and open to relationships with trans people). We're also intersex, which falls under this umbrella.

One of our friends is more ace than anything as is her fiance. They're very happy together though.

On the other side...things will be what they are with regards to our other friend. If she really is interested in something a bit more than friendship...well, that's going to be a negotiation in and of itself. She's a system as well and we don't always know when we're talking to her or the other active alter in the system. As for us, it's just freeing to be able to start saying 'I don't have to keep X because mom loved it'.

Vi

Adults come in all shapes and size, maturity-wise. I've met people in their 40s and 50s who had the emotional and relationship maturity of a 20 y old, and the other way around. Physical (body) age and subjective (alter) age are indications of the level of maturity we can assume from someone, but they are NOT an absolute measurement.

Moreover, autistic and ADHD people tend to have social brain circuits maturing slower than neurotypical people, which can lead to similar situations to yours. Same with traumatic experiences and dissociation.

There is always hope. It is not easy but there is always hope. You have the right to tell potential dates that you need/want to take it slow.

Thank you, Arbremonde, and thank you Jay.

I feel as if the DID just makes everything more complicated, but that is life at this point. Right now, I'm having to try and deal with some of the issues involved with realizing our mother was abusive. The Littles are upset at the idea that mommy was a Bad Person. Well, except for Aurora. She's very upset because she feels the opposite. Maybe it's not surprising that Aurora's emergence is tied into all of those traumas resurfacing. I seem to carry more of the adult trauma of the abuse while she holds the earlier traumas.

On a different side of things, I suspect that we're going to slowly lose the 'functional alters'. Those who exist more to hold knowledge than anything else. This will probably halve the system. These are the alters who don't seem to have much depth or personality. They really are there for just a function. The other twelve of us will probably keep going for a long time.

We haven't talked to our friend in a day or two (time is hard), but that isn't uncommon either. Sometimes we go through lots of conversations and then they go silent for a little bit.

Thank you again,
Vi

The thing is, nobody is 100% bad or 100% good. IT DOES NOT MEAN WE CAN EXCUSE THE BAD. It means it makes things super complicated because we WILL remember at least one happy thing with our abusers, when said abusers were part of our daily life.

It is very difficult for a child to balance these ideas and points of view about their parents, so it's easier to dissociate between parts who only see the good and parts who only see the bad. They are both right at the same time. Both these things happened.

It takes a lot of therapy and work to be able to reconcile both together, even more to reconcile this with our own hurt. It's perfectly normal to be confused by it all, perfectly normal to need to feel Big Feelings like anger for a while before moving to the next step. This is part of the healing process, too, being able to finally feel the Big Feelings before moving to healing.

When an alter integrates it's never a loss because they are still here, differently. But it's okay to miss them still. After all we grew used to seeing them around.