Monthly Archive for September, 2007

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Hair Despair Conspiracy Theory

Published on September 24, 2007 in Humor. 2 Comments Tags: .

You think you know people. You call them a friend then they go behind your back and register you for a product designed for people with bad hair. There I was on my computer whistling innocent tune (dee, dee, dee, dee, dee) and what happens? I get an email from someone I thought was a friend. They sent me an email telling me they are aware of my “hair despair” and that they’d like to help. Let me just go ahead and quote this email okay.

Hey there!

You have a friend who cares. (Enter friend’s name) is well aware of your hair despair. It’s time to get hairapy and actually do something about that ‘do!

No matter what problem your hair may have, (enter friend’s name) wants you to know that Sunsilk is here to help and has the solution. Learn about our hair care products and get your free sample at gethairapy.com. Then be sure to thank your friend for putting you on the path to beautiful hair.

Sincerely,
Sunsilk

SunSilk Hair Therapy

I was in such despair I could no longer whistle. My “friend” was not able to keep my secret. She had to go and put me on a website for people who suffer with bad hair. Now everyone knows my problem. She can’t keep a secret and I, well, I can’t whistle a happy tune knowing this Sunsilk intervention is set in motion despite me being perfectly satisfied going about in hairy denial. I’ve tried to whistle again. I followed the age old instructions, “Just put your lips together and blow” but I don’t know if I have the wind in me left. I may never whistle again.

If it’s not bad enough that one friend decided I needed hair therapy another actually went out and purchased this item for me. Is this some sort of hairy conspiracy? The other “friend” said they were free samples …talkin’ ’bout she some extras…..and she thought she’d share them with me. Now I know the truth.

Hair Despair Conspiracy Theory
Monday, September 24, 2007-2:21AM EST

An Open Invitation To Complain Freely

Published on September 23, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Letters Home, Mental Health, PTSD, Soapbox and Therapy. 4 Comments

Self respect is hidden in the phrase “Why me.” I hope you can see it.
I hope you one day find the strength to say it.

Pity MeFor a few days there was a graphic displayed on my sidebar that said, “Pity Me.” Are you wondering what that was about? The graphic you see here links to Enola’s site where a blog pity party will take place. To participate in this party only one thing is required, talk openly about how you feel without adding coping skills or reasoning. You do not have to be a survivor to join the pity party. All you have to do is be willing to give yourself permission to openly talk about whatever without resorting to the “pull up your boot straps” mentality. You don’t have to explain why you feel a certain way to justify your actions, just let it hang out. You don’t have to show strength, write a perfect entry or anything like that. Just write, write about your issues, about what might be going wrong right now, about whatever.

With that said let me say that I feel two ways about self pity. I think self pity can be both validating as well as slow down the one who wears pity as shoes. If every step you take is dedicated to letting people know how you’ve been done wrong then self pity can slow down progress and growth. On the other hand, if a person can say to themselves, “I was done wrong. That shouldn’t have happened” then it shows a measure of self respect. If a person can say, “Why me?” it shows they understand they aren’t wicked at heart, worthless and always destined for bad things.

Continue reading ‘An Open Invitation To Complain Freely’

Now That I Have Your Attention

Published on September 23, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Health, PTSD, Relationships, Soapbox and Therapy. 1 Comment

In response to Beautiful Dreamer:

I so admire how well you seem to know and understand your system. Just knowing each part’s function is something I haven’t quite managed. My parts probably have different physical symptoms, as yours do, but I just don’t pay enough attention to have a clue.

I need to know what they do in order to help them. They need to understand why they do what they do in order to help themselves. Being an insider doesn’t make you helpless so self care for each alter of age is important. We want to know who we are, have to know so we can decide what characteristics we want to encourage and what characteristics need better understanding. Understanding motivates change and/or tolerance.

Probably part of my not knowing my system better is my reticence about making my world all about DID. It would take more time and concentration for me to really get to know them all, and it seems like most of my focus would be on my disorder, which is not what I want.

Sometimes people take the whole DID thing too far and make their entire world about their disorder for the purpose of bringing attention not to the cause of the disorder but to themselves. It takes a lot of courage to say you have DID because it means someone stole from you, someone ravaged childhood like a wolf in a sheep shop. It’s a painful thing to admit and often times when you do people think you’re going to go “Sybil” or “Three Eve” on ‘em as they say. Coming out as DID is kind of tricky because many find the support is limited and the understanding of it is even less, the teasing incessant.

I don’t want to be focused on either. To me, if I’m focused on then it puts me at greater risk of being hurt. My need to blend in, not be seen as different is strong. I need understanding because of the disorder but what I don’t need is everything changed for me because of the disorder. I live in a world with others who should have their feelings considered too. (One of the reasons I go off on my blog about stupid stuff is so I get it off my chest and don’t let it fume and spill over into real world stuff. Half the crap I complain about on my blog doesn’t get brought up in my 3-D life.)

My entire blog and many other blogs are dedicated to the healing process but one thing I don’t think I’ve mentioned before is that outside of therapy you won’t hear me bring up DID in the 3-D world too often. It’s not part of my regular conversation. I don’t tell many people about my diagnosis 1) because it’s none of their business and 2) because it’s none of their business. I may be very, very open on this blog about symptoms but in my personal life issues with PTSD and things along that line don’t find themselves at the center of conversation. For the most part in private non-cyber space life I’m in the closet about my DID, Lupus and all that other stuff.

Focusing on self- many times understanding the inside helps us live in the world but there is a point when a person has to realize everything in the entire world is not about their disorder. Even though many of my responses in life are DID and PTSD related I try and strike a balance between my issues and the issues of those around me. Let me say too that there is a difference between talking about issues to heal and talking about issues so that others will say, “poor pitiful you. it must be so hard to be you. i couldn’t suffer so gracefully.” I try not to put myself in a position where “you poor thang, how do you keep going” is a response. I’ve never seen you put yourself in the “poor me, can’t you see how pitiful I am” position. As a matter of fact I don’t see it that often on survivor’s blogs but when I do see it I think of it as a snag in their personal fight to move away from their injustices. Still, on my blog I worry others will think I want to wallow in sorrow and keep myself stuck which is the way many people see self pity. I hope I’m not seen as one who lives for trauma and drama with the purpose of seeking attention. (That’s a whole ‘nother entry)

Anyway, just wanted to say that I do admire how you relate to your system. You seem to have a genuine concern for them, and a deep affection.

One of the things I didn’t ever think I’d hear myself say is that I have the luxury of therapy and healing. What I mean by that is, there are many with a full time job, a family and a ton of responsibilities that can’t stop to go, “Why am I reacting this way? Let me go blog about it.” Not everyone can take a day off from responsibilities, toss aside housework or eat out of a peanut butter jar for dinner “just cause” they don’t feel up to taking care of themselves that day. I have that option. The “option” means I don’t have basic necessities (ya know, money due to fixed income) but truthfully, having time to heal is priceless.

I apologize if this is a very flat response to such a serious subject. It might even seen choppy or like some of what I’ve said it out of place for your response. I’ve been thinking about this subject (of making DID a focal point of every step I take and making life all about me ).

Thanks for giving me an avenue to vent and thank you for commenting,
Austin of Sundrip

Now That I Have Your Attention
Sunday, September 23, 2007-3:20PM EST

Jumpy

Published on September 23, 2007 in Art, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Mental Health and PTSD. 2 Comments

I’ve been all over the map this week. I feel out of control at times, shut down at times and rather lost most of the time.

The therapy office called and told us that we’ll see the new therapist Dr. D the first of next month. I’m not that thrilled about it. Someone inside just said, “What’s wrong now? You’re never satisfied.” They say that not because they personally believe it but to prepare us for what they feel is to come from others who might think we are never satisfied with anything. I talked about that awhile ago, about how sometimes an alter will say or do something to offend the others inside for the purpose of getting their guard up so they don’t get hurt like before. That’s why that alter does that to us. She says offensive stuff like that, calls us names, talks down to us so we get our guard up, so we callus just a bit and protect ourselves from others who might actually vocalize this belief about us. It’s protection her way, still hurts though.

Maureen has been out more than usual, maybe 80% of the time. Being co-conscious lets me see out from behind a light fog where my friends give me the, “Somethings different about you but I can’t quite put my finger on it” look. Shoot, I feel different.

One of the things that I don’t think I’ve talked about much on the blog is how some of the alters have more physical symptoms than others. Maureen has a lot of physical exhaustion and pain relating to the Lupus and Fibromyalgia. She can have a burst of energy but she tires easily which might explain why we’ve spent more time in bed lately. I know we’ve also been very down but physically we’ve been down too. With Maureen at the helm stamina decreases but what we do get done is done well. She’s been on a flower kick again. Part of her name includes the word “flower.” As a matter of fact when drawing pictures of insiders Maureen is depicted as a flower.

I think I miss Aussie hanging around. She’s a younger alter, maybe 15, a bit older than Milwaukee (who is 12 ) definitely not as serious as Milwaukee. Milwaukee is a younger version of Maureen quiet but on paper explodes. Maureen paints with color, Milwaukee with words. Those two are pretty much inseparable like Morton and his little one are.

I try really hard to understand different parts of the system so that I know not just who is who but why they exist, what they exist to do and everything. When one particular alter is forward instead of our front person Joan then the rest of the system can take that as a flag that something isn’t quite right. Maybe this change in dealing with life issues isn’t that bad but it is change, something we’ll have to try and get use to. Instead of always joking about things, performing, putting Joan out there for the world to see, we are actually letting the comedian side slide a bit. We’ve removed the smile when that’s not how we really feel. We really feel jumpy, alarmed easily, open to anxiety, slow in speech and quick to tire.

Although they said we could slum today/yesterday we ended up showering and doing laundry and that. We made a pork chop dinner and never made it back to bed. Of course there was artwork. This is Maureen’s newest flower which started as a bow. I think she could see a flower in just about anything.
bow flower

Me for Morton’s Pride
September 23, 2007- 6:40AM EST

Abandon Reason For Today

Published on September 22, 2007 in Borderline Personality Disorder, PTSD and Soapbox. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I’m not in the least a happy camper, not with what I discovered on the net the other day. There’s a blatant copyright theft of mine on the net and it’s got my head going in circles. Well, had my head going in circles. All I want to do right now is go to sleep. My basic coping skills say stay up, eat something, take care of yourself, etc but my mind says, no, I’d rather crawl under the covers and abandon all the things I know work in self care. Right now my roommate has a cold of some kind which isn’t great for him or his OCD inflicted roommate. See, I can at this point make his cold a direct assault against me because as I said I’m abandoning all reason today. Continue reading ‘Abandon Reason For Today’

Hard Rain – Dream Therapy

Published on September 22, 2007 in Art, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dream Therapy, Dreams, Mental Health, PTSD, Segments, Soapbox, Therapy and Therapy Assignments. 0 Comments

The rain was barely noticeable with the force of the wind overshadowing each drop. The shutters shook and the house nearly lost its roof. All night it rained. At sun up I went to check for damage and saw none but what I did see was curious and strange. That’s how it would start off if I were writing a book but this was a dream, a strange and curious dream.

In the dream after the hard rain I went to check for damage but what I saw was every door in the house open and unlocked. I went to check the other buildings on the grounds. The doors to them all stood open, even the garage door had been blown open. I moved through the living room and out the front door which lead to a small porch with yet another door you had to go through to get to the outside. In all there were three doors you had to exit to get outside. I was on my way to the green house and rock garden to close the doors when I noticed that I needed to lock the guest house doors as well. Twelve doors in all needed to be locked but I was getting physically tired so I stopped at nine. Just as a I stopped two people walked up to me saying they were from a Jewish Charity Center looking for people who would participate in an art project they had. I walked with them back up to the main house discussing their business opportunity. The young boy that accompanied the middle age lady was quite, shy almost. He didn’t say anything at all. He let the lady talk. I noticed his shyness right off but didn’t comment on it. The walk back to the main house was a long one so we stopped at the small guest house to rest where we saw Cappy Crunch and a small stray dog waiting for us on the bed. After a short rest we walked back to the main house where we saw two Mormon’s who turned into Jehovah’s Witnesses waiting for me at my door. I told the Jewish people they’d have to go because I really wanted to get a few Watchtowers. They seemed rather irritated about it but said they could wait until the Witnesses left and then we’d talk more about their business deal. I woke up.

Picking back up pretty much where I left off I found myself back in the house with the doors locked but I smelled fire. I went to investigate and saw my plants on fire at the front door. I tried to put them out with baking soda but they just blew up. I left the mess on the floor because I was so tired. I went to take a nap on the sofa but before I saw Captain sitting in my Lazy Boy eating a bowl of cereal with one paw/hand and digging into a jar of pecans and almonds with the other. He also had a PayDay candy bar the size of a brick that he was munching on. I asked him what the heck he was doing and he said he just wanted a snack. I scolded him saying that he was eating a rather expensive snack. You don’t break out a huge bucket size jar of almonds and pecans and eat them like they’re saltine crackers. I was upset because he chose the expensive items to munch on. He apologized and said all we had was dog food in the house and he was tired of that. With much attitude I told him to make a peanut butter sandwich or get a job. He stormed off and made a sandwich. I woke up to the phone ringing. How fitting for it to be my therapists office calling me. This was one wacky dream.

Hard Rain Dream Therapy
Saturday, September 22, 2007-12:39 midnight EST

Hard Rain- Dream Therapy: Commentary

Published on September 22, 2007 in Art, Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dream Therapy, Dreams, Mental Health, PTSD, Segments, Therapy and Therapy Assignments. 1 Comment

Commentary:

Dream FlowerFirst let me say that I watched Without A Trace last night and they had a man and a young child approach houses saying they were from a religious group. Later the people came back and robbed the house. That might be why there were Jews, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses in the dream but there may also be a little bit more to it than that.

I thought it was interesting that the doors were open all over the compound and that there were so many doors I had to go through to get to the outside in order to close all the doors.

I rarely dream new things, this dream isn’t entirely new. The house itself isn’t new, the rock garden and the green house aren’t new and neither is Captain turning into a human boy. The accompanying art piece is a flower that was in the yard of the compound/estate.

Fire, rain, wind, religion all in the same dream I think might have to do with the alter that’s been forward quite a bit lately. Maureen has a strong need for spiritual things, the Bible in particular. She has a lot of guilt over the lifestyle that the others lead. Since we are single now and since we stopped smoking two weeks ago she feels more at ease praying or thinking on Bible subjects. The guilt is eased a bit but it’s still there for her. Ya know, MacBlue wasted all that time talking about race and all that crap. He expected me to be uncomfortable with being black. Had he for one second left his own agenda alone we could have spent some time talking about how uncomfortable we are being gay.

Hard Rain Dream Therapy: Commentary
Saturday, September 22, 2007-12:39 midnight EST