Update on Life & Switches

We just started back to work a couple weeks ago and this time of year is difficult in that we are transitioning between the group that is out in the summer and back into the group that is out through the fall and winter (spring we begin a slower transition back into the summer group again).

Our job has truly sucked since we came back and it’s been a real struggle to stick it out. We work for a school district as an Interpreter for the Deaf and there is a team of 4 of us this year. Our team gets along for the most part, but the principals do not understand what we do and couldn’t if their life depended on it. I swear it is so upsetting and frustrating. They did not return our computers this year and told us it’s because they “break too easily” which I believe is a load of crap plus they thought we only used them to check our work email and clock in (NOT). Part of us understands that it is our boss that is supposed to supply us with computers and the ones we had were given to us by the school we work in. So, that is most likely the reason although why they didn’t just say that, we don’t know. We feel we’ve been lied to and mistreated and disrespected. We heard they were even wanting to take away our office space. I’m sure they don’t realize the preparation that Intepreters have to do in order to be ready to interpret the daily lessons which is the reason for us having an office and computers. ::sighs:: (we have to look up signs for specialized vocabulary that aren’t in a regular sign language book…..there are websites that I get those signs from).

We realized on Friday that our system has been switching between 3 groups of insiders at work. Group A (let’s call them) wants to fight and get the respect and understanding we deserve. They have written a letter that they are still working on revising to give to the administration and cc’s our boss explaining our role and the reasons behind the accommodations we require. They honestly have no clue. Group B is partly made up of one of our professional parts who was created to get along with our coworkers, teachers, and parents in a professional manner. She feels that this is just one of those bumps in the road that will smooth out given time and is handling talking to the people at work that Group A would probably tell to go to hell. Group C is partly made up of our 14 year old who we are referring to as the “runaway beach girl”. She decided last Friday that we could just quit and move to the beach and get an interpreting job there which gave some inside hope that we do have a way to escape if we absolutely had to. We have always dreamt of moving to the beach and someday we will, but she was ready to do it all on Friday.

Another reason I can tell we’ve been switching lots at work is cuz someone always comments on my hair color thinking I have dyed it recently. It happened on Friday and when I told the person that I hadn’t dyed it since the summer break, they looked confused. I quickly added that my hair tends to tint different colors depending on “what I am wearing”. Really it is depending on who is out, but yanno I can’t really tell them that.

We had a T appointment on Friday and she pointed out that the 3 groups represent “fight”, “flight” and distancing. She said they were all normal reactions to something like this only more pronounced with the DID as they are separate groups. We are I am sure confusing to our coworkers and are trying to figure out a way to show more cohesiveness. Our T is encouraging the 3 groups to communicate. Group B is aware of Group A. Group C is aware of Group B. I think I explained that right. Anyway, we have had a little bit of communication, but maybe I’ll need to bring a journal or something to work for them to write in at lunchtime or something. Maybe that will help?

So, it’s pretty chaotic here . *I* am just hoping that things will smooth out soon and we will be given at least ONE computer for the four of us to use (although that will make parts of us feel disrespected as all the other interpreters on the other campuses as well as the other faculty at our school site all have their own computer to work on). Still, one is better than none which is what we have currently and I feel so unproductive without having my technology to work with in my job.

We’ve been trying to remember to eat, but money is extremely tight once again. I think this may be the last hurdle we will have to get past financially for a while before we can get some stability. We owed the bank $500 which was a direct deposit advance thing that we had been doing for 12 months straight, just kept borrowing it back after it was paid back (automatically upon direct deposits). Well, starting now since we have borrowed for a full 12 months we have to go one month without borrowing ANY and while in the past we have worked our way down to only borrowing 100 or 200 dollars, we didn’t manage to this time. So, start of the month with both rent and car payment due as well as utilities and we are $500 down. I think we will scrape by but it will be oh so close. That’s why we’re having troubles eating cuz we are afraid that when we run out of food we won’t be able to buy more. It’s cuz it’s a trigger. We do the same thing with hoarding our meds when we worry about money. Ah well. Anyway, moral of this story is “Direct Deposit Advance”: DON’T start it unless you absolutely need to cuz it’s a vicious cycle.

Hubby is still looking for another job while he is still employed at his awful job. I can’t even tell you what he has to do at his job cuz it is so gross cleaning up after those truckers (it’s a truck stop). He hates it and is still looking for a replacement job. At least he is only working 4 to midnight rather than overnight currently cuz we wouldn’t be able to sleep here alone. The only way we can do it is fall asleep on the couch cuz it feels safer.

Hoping things will calm down soon……

“Identifying Your Multiple Intelligences”

We took a test at school last week that was kinda fun. It was “Identifying Your Multiple Intelligences” test. It was interesting and the results made sense for us as a whole for the most part.

We mainly wanted to write this post because of the statements we labeled as FALSE and how we realize it is due to the effect the abuse had on us. Here are some of the ones we labeled FALSE:

• I pick up new dance steps quickly. – My body and I do not coordinate well due to the many years to disconnecting from the body to escape the pain of abuse. We have a difficult time figuring out where our body stops and the outside starts often resulting in tripping, falling, knocking over things, etc. We are known to others as “accident prone”.
• It’s easy for me to say what I think in an argument or debate. – Now, this was a hard one cuz it really depends on who is out in our system and how co-coconscious they are with others inside. Cuz the range of opinions varies greatly with us and then we also have many who just don’t have the confidence to speak up about what they think/feel.
• I always know north from south no matter where I am. – Now I dunno if this would be related in any way to our past trauma and depersonalization stuff, but we do NOT know our directions at all. We do well with take a right or left. If someone starts talking cardinal directions, we are lost.
• I like to gather together groups of people for parties or special events. – Now, this used to be true, but not for several years. The more we have gotten to know each other inside and the more we have learned about our past, the less we are able to trust people enough to have them in our life and not hurt us. Hopefully we will get back to the more social aspects in time.
• My sense of balance and coordination is good. – NOT!
• I’m good at athletics. – Again with the body coordination issue.
• I have a good sense of what others think of me. – This is a VERY difficult one for us as we tend to think others don’t like us or have a hidden agenda. I realize though that this is because we have such low self-esteem and will improve as we feel better about ourselves.

And for fun, here are some of the statements that we labeled TRUE:

• If I am angry or happy, I usually know why.  – We put this was true because even though “I” may not know, I can usually ask inside and eventually find out the answer. I find that lots of people don’t look into the reasons behind their feelings very much.
• I help friends deal with feelings because I deal with my own feelings well. – This may sound funny to put as true cuz we do struggle with feelings a lot, but compared to people I have known, we have a lot more tools on how to work with our feelings than they do.
• I like to sit quietly and reflect on my feelings. – It does help for me to do that, although it’s more reflecting on my inside family and asking what they need.
• I enjoy writing detailed letters to friends. – Yep.
• I’m usually aware of the expression on my face. – now I labeled that true, but I’m not sure if I agree with it now. But, I guess the key word is “usually”.
• I’m sensitive to the expressions on other people’s faces. – MOST DEFINITELY, but this is common for abuse survivors such as myselves.
• I stay in touch with my moods. I have no trouble identifying them. – with help in therapy and reminding myself to check in, I do.
• I am sensitive to the moods of others. – Another common one for DID’ers and survivors in general, I am sure, and a definite YES for me.
• I can play (or used to play) a musical instrument. – Piano & Guitar
• I compose songs or raps and perform them. – We do have song writers in our system, both writing lyrics and music, and we used to sing them for others all the time.
• I like to work with calculators and computers. – Well, computers, anyway.
• I listen to music for much of the day, on the radio, CDs, or other media. – LOVE MUSIC! If it’s not playing on the outside, someone is playing it in my head!
• I like to work puzzles and play games.
• I can identify when there is a key change in a song. – Yeah.
• Just looking at the shapes of buildings and structures is pleasurable to me. – We love looking at buildings downtown cuz they are so cool.
• I like to hum, whistle, and sing in the shower or when I’m alone. – Yeppers.

Anyway, we scored highest in the Musical and Intrapersonal categories. Visual came next in line. Didn’t do too well on the interpersonal one, but again that is due to our distorted views on how others may perceive us. We used to be very social and we are trying to do better in that area. It’s just difficult when trust is an issue.

We did a search online and did find a similar test for Identifying your Multiple Intelligence at: http://aaweb.gallaudet.edu/Documents/Academic/CAPSS/MIChecklist.pdf So, if you are interested, you can try it, too!  🙂

We just did the one at the link above and our results were Musical Learner 10 (10 is the highest), Intrapersonal Learner 8, Spatial Learner 8, Linguistic Learner 6, Logical and Kinesthetic Learner were both 4, Interpersonal Learner 3, and Naturalistic Learner as 2.  According to this site, our top three were 1) The Music Lover, 2) the Individual, and 3) the Visualizer. Pretty kewl!

How to Handle Badness

Crises are so difficult and often times lead us to thoughts of self-harm and worse. We immediately believe that we are the cause for what happened and it’s because we are bad. I realize that it’s because growing up whenever anything went wrong our perps would put the blame on us and so we internalized it believing even to this day that we are the cause for bad things. I remember the mom “spanking” us and in the process popped a blood vessel in her hand/arm(?) and she shook it in our direction saying, “LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!!”  I also remember hearing someone inside say, internally not out loud, “I didn’t MAKE you beat me, stupid!”

Recently, I’ve been struggling with not having 3D friends that live in our area. We have one that we see at work and have become friends with….we talk on the phone occasionally and stuff. Then, last year we made a friend in Timberlawn who actually lives on the other side of our city. We have spoken on the phone several times and it’s always a comfort to know that she lives here, still she lives all the way on the other side of the city and for whatever reason in the past year we have found it difficult to get together. We cried and cried in T session yesterday every time the subject of not having friends in the area came up. We did have 2 dear friends that lived here, but they both moved away and we miss having that so very much. We explored reasons why we don’t have 3D friends here and the first and only reason we had to give her was that it was our fault, we are bad, no one likes us. But, we couldn’t figure out why in the past we had many friends that seemed to really enjoy our company and wanted to hang out with us. The only answer we could come up with is that we have become even more bad and unlikable. As we talked with T, we realized that it’s not that we are unlikable but rather it’s situational. We don’t go out ANYwhere where we can meet people.  So we are going to try to find places that we can go like join a class or something where we can meet people. But, the point of writing about this is that we automatically believed that our lack of 3D friends here is due to us being bad or unlikable. We realized yesterday that is what the mom always would say. We had many friends at church and also had formed a bond with the youth leader at the church (a very caring woman). The mom would tell us that if they only knew what we were REALLY like at home, they wouldn’t like me at all. So, hence, the tendency to point the finger at me rather than the situation. So, when bad things happen, we automatically are hard on ourselves and feel it is our fault and we must be punished. Sound familiar?

Last year in Timberlawn we really tried to figure it out as we had been struggling lots with it like when hubby and us have even as much as a disagreement or whatever, bells and whistles go off. The main thing we found that helps is Distraction. If upset and having bad thoughts, we will do something, ANYthing that will get our mind off the current situation. Video Games on our XBox has been a favorite. One of those mindless games that you can just zone into and do over and over again, like a puzzler game which is one of our favorite kinds of games. Since getting back into therapy last year, T has also talked about self-soothing. Even though quite the opposite of what our bad thoughts are telling us to do, if you can do something self-soothing it can be very good because really that’s what you (and us) deserve. In reality, those situations were NOT our fault and we are not the root of badness. We deserve to be loved and soothed rather than blamed and punished.

What can you do that is self-soothing? We’ve been looking around for ideas to share. Keep in mind that if the idea is triggering, then that one isn’t for you. What we are finding, and have learned in dealing with triggers, is to think of the 5 senses and what you can do to effect them in a positive way. For example, putting on some lotions – the softness on your skin plus if it has a pleasant scent (we love vanilla and coconut) then it has 2 positives for you.

We will list ideas of self-soothing and distraction:

• Journaling – get those thoughts out onto paper and later you can tear them up and flush the pieces down the toilet or if in a safe place you can burn them.
• Email a friend or your therapist
• Post on a supportive forum online or email your support group
• Call a friend – hearing a friendly voice
• Lotion – if it’s scented it’s even better
• Look at pretty pictures
• Light a candle and watch the flame (littles may need assistance with this one!)
• Listen to soothing music – if a strong supportive/protector insider has a favorite kind of music, try playing their music to bring them closer to the front!
• Pet an animal (have any pets?)
• Drink a cold soda – may sound weird, but we’ve found that things like carbonated caffeinated beverages on ICE helps in many ways – the bubbly and the cold of the ice plus the caffeine to uplift, all of those can change the senses which is what you try to do when triggered or in a bad place
• Crunch Ice – can be quite grounding
• Drink something soothing – like chocolate or strawberry milk or hot chocolate, hot tea
• Take a bubble bath – found this suggestion online but it may be triggering for some so if it is I’d suggest not doing it
• Go Swimming
• Sit or float in a hot tub – we love to float in a hot tub and let the water jets push us around in the water. haha! Doesn’t sound as poetic, but it’s bliss! Looking up at the clouds as we float…..
• Meditate and/or pray
• Rocking – either in a chair or not – rocking can be quite self-soothing as we see kids do it all the time.
• Flowing Water – we have recordings of flowing water on our computer, the only problem is we can’t always get to our computer when distressed – maybe put recordings of flowing water onto your mp3 player or ipod
• Hug a stuffed animal
• Sing your favorite songs
• Put a cold washcloth on your forehead
• BREATHE
• Cook cinnamon toast (a favorite for us as a kid) – smell the cinnamon and it tastes so good!
• Put on your favorite perfume (or the perfume of a strong insider to help bring them closer)

Here are links to other sites that have more great ideas:

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/self-sooth.html

http://www.psyke.org/coping/self_soothing/

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/quick_stress_relief.htm

Hopes for August 2011

Our Hopes for next year

Soon, our summer crew will be going inside for several months. The next time they are out, they are hoping for better days and even more recovery. As our summer vacation comes to a close, we are looking to the future. We found ourselves today having hopes for improvement when this time next year rolls around.

Here are some of our hopes and prayers for next year:

• Please let next year find us much improved.
• Let us be richer in health.
• Please let it find us lighter with much of this weight we are trying to lose gone. We want to be wearing smaller sized clothes!!
• Please let next year find us still eating healthy foods and not starving ourselves anymore.
• Please let next year find us more physically fit.
• We hope next year finds us better off financially with hubby having a MUCH better job both better pay than the minimum wage he gets now as well as having much better management and duties required.
• We hope next year finds us in better emotional health, able to handle situations better without as much panic.
• We hope next year will find us in a calmer state of mind without as much chaos and turmoil.
• We hope next year we will have more friends as currently we have very few that live in our city (3D friends).
• We hope next year we will have a better grip on household chores and be able to keep a cleaner home.
• We hope next year we will be able to have friends over to visit without being embarrassed at what might not be clean or neat enough.
• We hope next year we will be improved mentally and much further along in our recovery.
• We hope next summer that we will be able to sleep at night with some ease as this summer has been such a struggle in that area.
• We hope next year we will have better understanding of our system and hopefully be able to identify more of the insiders who remain hidden.
• We hope next year we will be able to chat with our sisters and niece & nephew online on video chat.
• We hope next year will find us having been able to visit our family, for we miss the good family members lots.
• We hope next year that we will be able to have more solid thoughts without things getting lost in the internal chaos.
• We hope for next year that our system is more co-conscious.

After the Dust Settled….

Well, after finding out hubby may be switched to night-shift very soon, first thing I freaked out about how it was going to effect ME and my system. Kind of selfish and I am rather embarrassed by it. After the dust settled, I was able to see it in a different light. Hubby has always hated the idea of working the night shift cuz he most likely will be the only one there (a SMALL truck stop – like a truck gas station that also serves cars. LOL!) and he hates to work alone, plus he’ll be stuck on cash register rather than doing side duties which will make his back hurt more (standing in the one place on a hard floor for hours), plus he has bipolar and fucking with his nights and days like that is going to get his sleep patterns out of whack and that’s NOT GOOD for mania/depression stuffs. All of a sudden, I found myselves more worried about him than us. He simply should NOT do this.

I thought that we were dealing well as you can notice in our post “It’s NOT the end of the world”, but there were still parts who hadn’t dealt with it. We were on quite a roller coaster ride yesterday all throughout the night, too. We had parts out who were crying and couldn’t stop last night. We had started on fear’s roller coaster full of loop-d-loops and sharp zig zags sending parts of us into an emotional tail spin.

*****Possible Trigger Warning for below content – TRIGGER for talk of death and illnesses*****

Fear of Abandonment – flavor of the month – fear of losing someone to a death…. Last night, we were thinking all kinds of scary things on this roller coaster. We thought about how just before his old boss quit, the store had been robbed and it was DURING NIGHT SHIFT. So, what if they get a repeat performance and hubby is smack in the middle of it! And even if it happens and he gets through it okay, the stress will wreak havoc with his bipolar so he may not be able to recover well. But……what if he gets shot? There it is. The fear of abandonment cropping up…. Then, once we got past that loopDloop, then we started listening to his breathing. It’s quite strained as he has a really bad cold and “feels fluey”. He mentioned a few days ago that earlier the past week he had been coughing up phlem that was dark greens and other colors that were not good. He didn’t tell me until then because it had gone back to normal – light green and lighter stuff. Still, pneumonia seems to be an easy catch for him and his siblings so we worry. Also, we knew a guy back right after college who had walking pneumonia. He was sick for a long time and when he finally went to get it checked, he was put into the hospital with walking pneumonia and died 3 days later. That has always stuck in my mind and the FEAR is overwhelming. I don’t remember the rest of the roller coaster ride as I was finally able to drift off to sleep sometime after 4 AM. It was a very difficult night.

Today, gonna help hubby apply at Home Depot online. Think I’ll encourage him to apply at Lowe’s, too, online.

Eating Well on a Budget book

We are considering getting this book, although being on a budget not sure if we can spare the money for it. ROFL! How’s that logic? Anyway, it does look like it would be very good! We hear from so many friends and acquaintances that it costs too much to eat healthy. Well, this book seems to be the answer to helping figure that out! Check it out!

EatingWell on a Budget

Foods to Help You Lose Weight

We no longer believe in fad diets. We believe in eating healthy, making sure to have your fruits, veggies, plenty of water, etc. Eating healthy has definitely helped us as we have currently lost 15+ pounds and counting since starting this. We used to do starvation diets, low-carb diets (which to us was counting down as low as possible on the carbs), and did the bulimia thing. Ending up where we only ate like one meal per day if that. We no longer felt hungry as we had turned off that body signal by ignoring it for so long. We started eating small meals every 3 to 4 hours (often times having to set our phone alarm to remind us to eat), but in doing so we are experiencing the stomach growling again and all of the things associated with it that we so successfully ignored in the past. This has all been a good thing tho as we have kick started the metabolism and are starting to lose much needed weight.

The following foods that we got from eatingwell’s site are said to help in losing weight. So, we are not saying to cut way down on your foods, but just maybe to consider adding some of these foods, as well  🙂

List below taken from  8 Secret-Weapon Foods for Weight Loss

1. Mushrooms

2. Eggs

3. Apples

4. Low calorie desserts (to help curb the urge to overdo a sweets binge)

5. Soup

6. Oatmeal or Bran Cereal

7. Hot Chile Peppers

8. Almonds

The next food list taken from 7 Foods That Do the Weight-Loss Work for You

The key here seems to be adding fiber to your diet.

1. Apples

2. Green Beans

3. Sweet Potatoes

4. Raspberries

5. Strawberries

6. Chickpeas

7. Pumpkin

See also:  6 Secrets to Losing Weight for great tips on meal planning, bouncing back from slip ups, and more.

And definitely look at 3 Weight-Loss Myths Debunked

Social Stuff

Someone who I consider a dear friend from work has brought up the idea that a bunch of us from work plan to go on a cruise together this next summer. It automatically caused us to be very nervous and have butterflies in our stomach. It’s the tug-of-war between wanting so badly to connect with our coworkers and form stronger bonds dare I say friendships in the 3D world and the humongous fears of being rejected, avoided, and ignored which would make the trip miserable. Then, there is the cost and could I even save up that much money for a trip? On top of that is the fact that I am fairly certain my friend was indicating this would be a girls thing (no spouses), not that mine would want to go because the thought of being on a cruise to him is like “being in a giant sardine can sitting on top of miles deep of water….enough water that if you go down far enough it will crush your skull not to mention the things in the water just waiting for a chance to eat you.”  So, yeah, he’s not a cruise fan. But, the fact that he and I haven’t even been able to have a honeymoon, yet, after almost 3 years of marriage and if I was to go on this girls cruise, just doesn’t feel right because the first exotic vacation I have after we get married, we feel, should be on a honeymoon with our spouse.

I suppose I would be more excited about the thought if we had already had that exotic vacation with our hubby. Then, we would deal with if we could afford to save up for it and the worries about being rejected by folks after we get on the cruise….

I just dunno what to do. If I tell my friend that I cannot or do not wish to go, I am afraid she will take it the wrong way. ::sighs::  I am so anxious about this whole thing, but I feel I should take one side or the other before I let it go too far and she believes I will go. Confused and worried…..

Short Vacation :)

Well, we are off to visit our sister-in-law & her gf both of whom are our bestest friends. We’re gonna stay for a few days and it will be so very nice and a much needed break for hubby and us to get away from the house for a bit. Although, him being an even bigger “homebody” than I am, not so sure he would agree about HOW good it is. lol! He does enjoy going to visit his sister and SIL (so to speak) and so I anticipate having a good time.

Wanted to write a post today just to let everybody know (if anyone new might be reading) that we will be gone a few days so you may not see any new posts while we’re gone. They do have internet access there so if any of us get the urge to write, well I’ll have Myriad Musings to post on for your viewing pleasure  🙂

Gotta go. Take care and have a wonderful rest of the week and weekend!!

INSOMNIA you no my friend

I hate this not being able to sleep. Ever since we switched from the winter/spring crew into the spring/summer crew our sleep has been all messed up. I’m used to it as I’m out year round and so I know it’s nothing new for our nights and days to flip……I guess it’s that this is the first summer in a long time that we’ve PAID ATTENTION to it and tried to figure out the why’s and what-fors (is that even a word?).

What I’m learning so far is that Summer Crew does NOT like to sleep at night cuz that’s when a lot of bad shit happened over the summers while the body was growing up. There is also an elevated energy level amongst the summer parts. Lots of energy. But it’s making us ill this year with the erratic sleep patterns for some reason when it hasn’t necessarily before. Maybe it’s just the simple fact that the body is getting older. I dunno.

There is also this vague fear that is around at night. I’m not aware of everything that went down in childhood, in fact not aware of most of it, so not real sure exactly what the fears are……I’m supposed to try to talk with the summer group this weekend about it and see if I can learn anything. They are so closed mouth about what they are experiencing, tho, that I’m not sure if I will learn anything. ::sighs::

Signing off…..a part of the cetcetera system (may share my name l8r……..okay okay so I’m a bit closed mouth about more personal matters, too. Bah!)