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

So...I (Vi) spent about two days 'in the wings' resting. Pippa switched in Monday night and didn't switch out until this morning. I can still feel her sitting off to the side. Sometimes it amazes me how the system actually functions. I'm still worn down, but Pippa hit her ends last night. Being sick is draining.

I'm still amazed at the level of co-consciousness that exists between the 'social alters', but it makes sense given that we've had to mask having DID for so long, but it also appears that the less social alters are only aware of the local dynamic and not the wider world or our friends. Some aren't even really aware that the world is different unless we bring them 'on stage'.

I've probably gone over this topic before, but I needed to go over it again.

Last night, I had something of a meltdown on my friends. My friends are wonderful people and we often don't mask around them. They've met quite a few of us either intentionally or unintentionally, but sometimes they ask questions and then they try to get overly supportive. Last night, they were trying to spare my feelings regarding having DID. I think I'd just had enough, and I think it echoes throughout the system. I told them that this is awful. Having DID isn't nice. It isn't 'fun'. I'd had someone else I talked to say it sounded 'fun'. I know she was meaning in a negative manner, but it still rubbed us the wrong way and we didn't really call her out on it because of our instinct to not get into conflicts.

But I told my friends that having DID is awful. It means bad things. It's hard not always knowing who's here and who isn't. It's just...I won't say that I hate having DID as none of us have any reference for what life is like without the others, but it can be awful a lot of the time. Sometimes it's nice to not be alone or have to deal with everything on my own. Beth has to fix a window today, and I'm greatful that she is able to do that as I don't know how. I created a temporary fix, but...I don't know how to do that. But for the little bits of 'good', there's all the bad, and I didn't realize how much it got to me.

Thanks for reading this. I just wanted to share it and get it out before therapy today because I'm going to have to hide and we're going to have to mask.

Pippa.

I totally understand how you feel, Pipa. Most often people only see the "I" in DID and think it is fun to have many identities. They miss the point about the dissociative and trauma aspects of the disorder. My guess is that pop culture tends to focus so much on the funky "identity" aspect while ignoring the bad, dissociation and trauma aspects, that people end up believing it is some sort of constant theatre impro.

It has "disorder" in its name for a reason. Because it has more unpleasant sides than pleasant ones.

If I can allow a cooking metaphor: people tend to see DID has having many piles of pancakes each with a different flavor. In reality, DID means, having all the ingredients for pancakes separated from each-other and no pancake at all. So, of course you have different flavors - because egg, sugar, flour... taste different from each-other. But you don't have any pancake. There never was any pancake. It's not fun for breakfast.

(Feel free to use my pancake metaphor in the future if it can help integrated people understand you!)

Thank you Arbremonde.

I talked to my friend last night for a bit. She wasn't trying to be dismissive or anything about the trauma. She was trying to see the 'positive', and I think she just got caught up in how stressful things have been lately for us all. It's a little hard to explain all of what's going on, but she acknowledged understanding the trauma and the bad. I explained about the balances that have to be struck sometimes because, to use your metaphor, the eggs are arguing with the butter. Gia hates having the house unlocked but Marcie hates having the house locked up.

A lot of us are stressed lately. We've been answering questions about DID with regards to writing and most people don't get the trauma aspect. We've been working on our own book. And I say we because it's been more of a group effort. The main character has DID and we've been working on showing the traumatic origins and the negative things too. We've even rewritten some things to be closer to actual conversations we've had internally.

But you're right. So many people see the 'identities' and don't see the trauma. They don't see the effort it takes to mask. Sometimes my friends don't even know who is out, though they can guess more often than not.

Thank you for listening.
I hope your day goes well,
Pippa.

Thank you, and good luck for your writing. Hope your day goes well too.

We had to get through having someone check our bipap machine (it's a cpap machine that does two different pressures so that we don't panic and try to rip the mask off). That was stressful and at one point we grabbed our cat and held her. She didn't struggle the way she normally does, meaning she knew we needed her.

It was hard because strange men scare so many of us. I blabbed too much too. I'm not as used to being out lately as the others, but I'm the one who first set all of this up, so I needed to be the one to talk.

At least the machine is in good shape. Just making a weird sound that is normal for the machine as it gets older.

Bri

That sounds awful. I'm glad your cat was a comfort.

Thank you.

Our cats are wonderful, and Jane loves to sit with us. She's been very supportive. Her brother is also with us, but he was Mother's before she passed.

We've set things up so that most of our doctors are women. We hate being in enclosed rooms with men who aren't relatives. We're also still working out who is out fully when we have our doctor's visits.

So, I thought I'd post this here. Two things have come up. One bothers me a little, but the other doesn't.

I don't know if this will make sense. I've struggled with some of my alters hiding behind our more social voices. If sometimes feels like a struggle to let them know that it's ok to have their own voices and let others know that they exist. I know that Lilith and Lily have both assumed Pippa's voice to talk to our friends. I've had a few alters do it with my voice as well. It's just annoying. I can usually tell because of slight differences or the feeling of not being in control. I've had whole therapy sessions where Beth took over to talk, but did it in my voice.

The other thing was just the whole idea of public and private memory. It's like, we have a pool of memories that we all share, a pool of memories that only some of us share, and memories that are individual. When someone co-fronts with me, I may get glimpses of those private memories, but struggle to hold onto them. Most of the time, I get a 'report' if something is there and important enough to share, and social media and writing things down has been a huge help in terms of remember things, but still, it feels strange at times.

Okay...I hope that all makes sense,
Vi.

ViTheta wrote:So, I thought I'd post this here. Two things have come up. One bothers me a little, but the other doesn't.

I don't know if this will make sense. I've struggled with some of my alters hiding behind our more social voices. If sometimes feels like a struggle to let them know that it's ok to have their own voices and let others know that they exist. I know that Lilith and Lily have both assumed Pippa's voice to talk to our friends. I've had a few alters do it with my voice as well. It's just annoying. I can usually tell because of slight differences or the feeling of not being in control. I've had whole therapy sessions where Beth took over to talk, but did it in my voice.

The other thing was just the whole idea of public and private memory. It's like, we have a pool of memories that we all share, a pool of memories that only some of us share, and memories that are individual. When someone co-fronts with me, I may get glimpses of those private memories, but struggle to hold onto them. Most of the time, I get a 'report' if something is there and important enough to share, and social media and writing things down has been a huge help in terms of remember things, but still, it feels strange at times.

Okay...I hope that all makes sense,
Vi.

Hi....I (Jay) have some memories from years ago that some of the one's who only came out recently or 'before my time' do not have, but I have been seperated from the others for much of the bodies life.

I have blended with a few different ones to get to know them, especially over the 'birthday weekend' when many more than usual were near the front. Some are more 'open' and I have access to their memories for the duration of us being close,whilst others can block or control somehow how much I can access when blended with them. I don't know if it's because they are a 'trauma holder' and are trying to 'spare me the details' but some are very elusive and hard to get-to-know.

For our system I think the 'changelings' act as protectors and that includes blocking access to some memories ..maybe you have a similar protective system of sorts in place?

Jay