Ayn's Multiple World

Looking for Solutions

Good morning this is me. We’re at the computer writing pretty late this morning. It’s almost 11:30 pm. We’re trying to convince our friend that we should be eating our leftover Chinese dinner for lunch since he put out some other kind of meat for dinner. We had a great dinner. We tried something different and got a combination of seafoods that includes lobster, shrimp, crab, and I forget the last one. It was good. It was nice to have a change.

We’re playing 60’s music now for at least another ½ hour. Then Rich is more than likely going to want to put on the football games which is ok by me. I think Chicago is playing V’s Philly people today at 3:15 pm. We’ll for sure be watching or at least listening to that.

Rich is behind me in the living room part … we both are working on our computers.

By the way he looks; I think that he is doing his mileage reports. It’s a good thing because he gets his money back for traveling and that makes him happy. Money is a good thing. I really like working with him like this. It feels like a very comfortable lifestyle. Just me and him and the sounds from the keyboards and music.

Hmm, we keep going back to the facebook page. I think we told you about that yesterday. I keep thinking of little things to tweek it. If you would like to take a look go to - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=630373393
I’d be happy if you create your own account and we could link as friends. I don’t think we really talk to anybody often, but I like to know that you are around. Keep coming back … and umm, forgot, but for that person concerned with my credit card … we didn’t give them a credit card number, so we are safe. I told Rich about it yesterday … and I said if we don’t change our mind before now and then, we would like the program for our Christmas present.

We only paid some of the bills – the most important ones and the doctor bills, but we only had $50 left and we couldn’t pay for our medicine. Rich helped us out, but the situation still isn’t good, but I can’t talk any more about it … it’s too depressing. I felt good though that I played bills instead of spending on stuff I shouldn’t have. We need to stack up some positives.

Ahh Rich decided it was football time … we’re listening to the FOX crew with *heart throb* Howie!!

Hmm, the computer is bogging down over on the Internet side. Ahh, we got our screens set up. We’re looking over on the AOL side at both the blogger account and the facebook. I don’t know why we like the picture on that page so much, but we do. It makes us feel as if we are beautiful. And, it doesn’t show how big we actually are. That part makes us feel not so beautiful. But, we’re trying.

We tried to work on friends a bit, but our leads have been disappointing. There are a few multiples sites, but they are made from the same person I think and they don’t have an active community where people are really talking. In her intro section she has a whole lot on the formal definition of the disorder part, making it seem pretty clinical. There are no warm and fuzzy feelings. Some of the individuals that actually have pages are like way strung out with themselves. It’s f(&*(* this f()&_)(&_ that. I can’t really deal with all that … it’s such a load on emotions to think this is as far as people get.

Best to say … God bless them, and be moving on.

I got a response back from the person that structured the Sugarcane site. It was welcoming – cordial. This is his note.

Hi Ann

I'm very glad you like the application. I'm fairly happy with it, especially some of the cool areas that have been described. There aren't any limitations as far as what you want to write about. It may be anything, though the better the split from an existing story it is the less obvious it will that it was done by someone else. That said, some of the surrealist areas are quite fun to wander through.

There are no limitations as far as numbers of locations or links into/out of locations. The only thing that I could think of which will need re-working one day is the map. It will grow into a huge size eventually and take some time to be displayed.

I hope you find the interface straight-forward for editing. I've tried to keep it as simple as possible to anyone to alter.

As for the writing quality, the only way to improve is to start writing something! Others may edit to correct errors or make meanings more coherent. (That was done to some of the locations I started, some of which were poorly written.)

Thanks
Patrick

This is Patrick





He is very smart and good looking … as a side … so is his father :)

They are from Australia, which is kinda cool. I will have to read over his letter a couple of more times just to get the gist of it by several of our parts. I think I would like to do a little more thought or structuring of something I would like to write. I think Patrick is looking for something that is more seamless – though he’s given the project leeway. This is a good quality point. He seems very conscientious, but we’re thinking this might only be one of many hobbies that he has. I still have trouble matching intelligence factors. I feel like I’m not as good as others, and that is something that I have to work out on my own or with Dr. Marvin. I know its left-overs of being abused. At times like this when wanting to strike a relationship with someone who has qualities I would like in a friend. One other thing that is intimidating is that the schooling in other countries is sometimes more formal – so again a little intimidating in the worries that I won’t match up.

There are some positive factors though. Out of all the millions of people in life – we have sometimes found Patrick and his other two co-writers. There aren’t more than the three and a few passer-byes that have found the site and thought to contribute. That’s a good sign. I would like to think that certain things are meant to be. Of course, too … you know us enough to realize that some things stick with us and others don’t. Everything as a multiple competes for time and space out. You never really know in advance which parts are going to be able to follow through. It works in dimension I think. Not only does one part have to compete with other parts for time and space, they compete against their own interests.
I think this is why the writing is so important, especially over the weekend. Given enough time we are able to get through an abundance of thoughts. Yesterday was a hard day for the writing in that we spent most of the time playing (being on the computer with varying interests other than writing). Part of what we liked about Facebook is that Maury was involved. We did send out queries to his brothers to find if we can be invited on their sites as well, but we’ll have to see. There is a balance of trying to please others and ourselves that we have to be careful about.

I don’t want to play to them, I want to be our own person, but then there is a desire to want to have them pleased with us.

Hmm, this seems like a circular argument centered on poor self-esteem.

Unfortunately, this is my part … so we have a choice. I either work on it or try to pass the time to someone else who knows they can do what ever is challenged before her. Hmm, let’s try a new paragraph and see what happens.

It doesn’t seem to be that we’re into anything real serious. Like I think we should be discussing whatever we went through this last week in not wanting to do work.

That’s probably a danger sign, but I don’t know what it is warning against. Why is it that we got of the tested road of just doing what we are supposed to be doing when we get to work? I don’t know where we got sidetracked. Hmm, maybe if we go back over a few blog entries? Ok, let’s try that. Let’s see first how we were doing last weekend.

It seemed we were doing ok as far back as watching Joe’s match. It seemed we were doing work … we had written about a week and a half ago about client goals. There was an entry then that included one of our clients needing to be taken away by ambulance when I wasn’t at work. Ok, then we were talking about the meetings that we were organizing. Beside we’re writing at work, nothing here real unusual though it seems like the groups got harder as we went around. We didn’t plan as well for them as we had the weeks before. So, we let go just a little. Then we had a Dr. Marvin’s appointment. We were having trouble because we had figured something was going on, but we couldn’t remember what. They key point seemed to be that we’d experienced again that nobody would talk to us or care about us and that hurt and Dr. Marvin probably wanted to go more into that … to take care of some of the deep hurting.

A week ago Saturday, we’d written that long entry. It concluded us putting on the mask, which reflects maybe more the parts of us that are sick. We seemed to have quite a long time thinking about Sir Smoochie Face. Then we went out with him to take care of some tasks. Not much there really. The next entry wasn’t really much of one. We had taken out excerpts from something we’d read on standardized tests.

It discussed aspects of thinking and actual learning. I know we were really impressed with what we saw and there were markers that it would be useful information. So, really nothing here that seems dangerous – though with this work we sometimes have feelings we will never get it all down to make it useful enough to us in the manner we govern our life. This is a bit threatening. It’s like, ok narrow it down, narrow it down. What contribution are we going to actually make?!

A week ago we were again watching the Bears with mushy face. We were then as am today happy with that all situation. Oh man … I remember that … we went grocery shopping with him … we were really stunned with that experience. Hmm, just asked Rich … he said he wasn’t planning to go shopping today, Drat! I would have gone out for that! HAH! We are supposed to be cleaning out the closets too. I just checked with Rich because we’d gone all the way downtown last weekend to pick up boxes.

But, now he is saying remember we’re relaxing and I’ve been sick. He’s got a cold.

So, he wouldn’t schedule anything. He said, we’ll see, but I don’t think odds are in our favor. One of the things we accomplished last night – well mostly Rich, but I helped! We did clothes. I help with the folding part. I also help with the drinks … seems when Rich is home we do that each time. It’s about 2/3rds lemonade (15 calories) and 1/3 Margarita mix. It’s very good! We only make 2 glasses at a time – takes one tray of cubes. Ok, I’m like an expert there.

Hmm, sucking-up here … ok, next what happens?

More cuddly stuff with bunny friend. Didn’t seem anything really happened on Monday. Some focus on work, but it doesn’t seem like much. I know that we thought at one point that Candice wasn’t in so we weren’t being watched all the way through Wednesday. And, then Thursday and Friday we had off. By Wednesday we were saying that we were flopping loosely … we went through the day without remembering what happened. That was the day we might have gotten overwhelmed because we were going through the weight loss stuff and mostly thought and registration for the bariatric surgery. Ahh that’s probably key. We thought we were going to die because of all the things going wrong with us. We were trying to hold it together by focusing on Rich and the boys.

Then there was Thursday. There was a long blog entry. But it started out ok. We were worried though by the second paragraph about seeing Dr. Marvin. That isn’t a good sign. We had acknowledged we’d been feeling depressed. We had mentioned feeling helpless because of it. We first let go of the physical therapy, we complained over our messing around with our music station. We were into celebrity viewing. We’d been to bed real early the night before. And, we knew that we didn’t want to go to work. We were scared what Rich might think. Part of the funk that came over us is that we listened to Enya continually loop loudly in our ears. But, that is just an aside. We’d been off our regular medicines too – we were out of the anxiety one. Then we got put out with the weather tht was listed in the newspaper and warning service. We knew for sure we didn’t want to get stuck out in the elements. That’s about when we canceled Dr. Marvin. I think the weather gave us our excuse not to do the harder things, which would have meant going to therapy, work, and Dr. M.

It seemed we felt a little better after we let go of those things. We also let go the thought that we could go get our medicine. I don’t know, but I don’t think we realized at that point there wouldn’t be enough money to get the medicine. That came later. At the time it seemed very difficult to manage. We couldn’t understand what the medicine was for. We then had a thought that we weren’t very important to Dr. M. That sounds like another dangerous marker as things turn out. We were still not remembering what we talked about in the sessions. We were worried about money, because Rich’s extra money in his book had been spent and we were feeling hard pressed not enough for fun or for bills. We then did some research Rich had asked about with the Icy Hot Patches. That led to finding a couple of other products, but again more money and untouchable. We searched out gym membership again like we had done the day before while at work.

I didn’t feel like I could leave the house to get membership … I think we were holding on to they gym ideals as perhaps a way out as if having the gym with Rich would magically make us better. We’d searched for a gym with a pool and yoga – we were told that a Pilates effort would be a good place to start. We were also impressed that there was a group of 15 to 18 which would be able to work on diet and exercise.

We again started to worry over Dr. Marvin. We had wished that he would call, but we understand the consequences of discontinuing the appointment. At least some of us did. I think others weren’t so well accepting. But that is the point things started happening. We were feeling an impending sense that we had to do something bad. That’s when we had taken the case cutter out – our knife. We made a switch from Dr. M. not calling to hoping that Rich at least could take care of us if Dr. Marvin wouldn’t. Not couldn’t, but willfully wouldn’t. We were trying to work things through in our mind, but we were unbalanced. Our diversion was that we felt hurting ourselves would make Dr. M. or Rich mad. We captured a picture of the part having a problem and then found a picture of us being happy and safe. We tried to be in that person who was safe. We tried contacting Dr. Marvin by email, but he did not respond, might have left work for the day. We associated the next face we saw as the one of my father going through suicidal ideations with us during one of our visits. We figured out that our behavior was just us asking for attention, so we figured we better at least call Rich – We didn’t want to tell him about the unsafe stuff, but by then the door opened with his phone ringing and he just walked in and then after a while the evening calmed down.

We spent yesterday morning again obsessed with videos. There were three things that might have been us running around trying to avoid this dark space that came with talking to Dr. Marvin. We found the New York Times had a deep easy to access video section with good stories, environmentally bent. Then we learned about another deep section of videos with the Daily Show. The other thing that happened over those last few days is that we were introduced to the facebook blogs. All those things took thinking time away from thinking about hard stuff. Dr. Marvin had called on Friday, but by that time we were just thinking that we wanted attention … now I added that we wanted Dr. Marvin, but we were avoidant of the harder stuff that we’d been dealing with. We went deeper into self-destruction and are still there as to not calling into Sister to tell her we weren’t coming in.

Ok, that’s better … I told Rich about not calling in and he said to write her a note saying that we’d be there Monday and apologize for not calling on Friday. We did that. I really do feel bad about that. I’ve had a system with sister that we’d call if more than 15 minutes late. I wish this wouldn’t have happened, but by now I’m thinking more seriously that this involved Dr. Marvin and what’s happening in therapy. I think its getting mixed in with our depression over the weight and medical conditions that we also feel helpless about. The part with the physical therapy was the bad feelings we were dealing with about being just cut off with a ring of the bell like Tony, and then thoughtlessly the services and people that we still need would be gone. I couldn’t get over that kind of coldness. Money is gone … see you later … not!

We veered from a spending spree by paying out the money in our account to bills both medical and our utility life. We wanted badly to get the screenwriter’s program, we had thoughts of writing out our life in a format that was acceptable. That might have been encouraged by the PT person saying we should write a life series something. We didn’t like that idea at all, but there was something about being able to convert our story properly so that we could learn to understand ourselves.

It gave us a sense of hope, which contradicted the sense of hopelessness we get with our health and therapy. We’d stretched the suicidal thoughts far enough to know that if Dr. Marvin called we would most likely have parts that would tell him what was going on and if we physically hurt ourselves he would call 911. We didn’t want to be taken away from our computer … our lifeblood. We again got angry for not being able to remember things. This was something we felt that showed in our writing. Things just don’t always make sense.

We concluded the previous written part about being entangled in a relationship with Rich where he wants to keep us in the present. He wants us to unload dishes, or fold clothes, or clean up after the cat … these kind of things seem sometimes very impossible. But, this is where the review ends. We do eventually come back to do “our fair share.” And, usually we’re happy to be doing things, because it feels like we are getting closer to Rich by being in his space. Just like everything else … it’s a balance of time, thought, and energy.

Ok, breather here. Rich had come by a little bit ago. He said that he would do something for me – put away some of those dishes, if I would do something for him, which was emptying the dishwasher before dinner. I think that’s actually a pretty good deal. We just have to will ourselves to be doing it. Take a deep breath, ok … let’s give it a try, k?

Ok, good, good. We got a bonus in that we put out a small box of raisons that we get now because we did the work. Woo Hoo

Ok, taking a moment to finish the raisons. They are good. We teased Rich before going in about him being worried if we went in to do the dishes, because he might look over and find our chair vacant. But, we did it! Can move on now.

Fortunately, Rich is preoccupied in the computer and football enough to know we
don’t have to jump to my requested task of taking down those crystal dishes in the closet. I think we said about a million times we brought home boxes and newspapers to get them wrapped up and put away. Just want to clear closet space.

We haven’t gotten into our home projects for a while. It is something to pull back the idea of clearing that back bedroom. I guess we’re not going there, just wanted to say that the idea is to give Rich some space. After all the stuff we have in the living room – especially books, it’s a good idea to give him space. Ok, just a little thinking. Where are we at with that project. I think we had emptied the top of two closets and Rich through the week has taken things down with him. Now we have to do the last closet. We should probably then next work on the bottom part of the closet in the back bedroom, back closet. We need to get that electronics box sorted out and brought down to a reasonable size. That means though figuring out which parts we actually don’t need anymore. We’re not sure of that. Maybe then the next project after that closet is cleaned up and leftovers place in the front closet, back bedroom – with the dishes, then we should clean out the dressers and desk in the back room. There’s not a whole lot there, but there is some and it has to be better put away outside the dresser and desk, but it has to fit in that one closet. We concede that we might need the upper shelve for that last bunch of stuff. BUT, we need to get out of this other space of closets and furniture.

Hopefully, that will open things up … such as getting rid of the desk and dresser.

Hmm, maybe we have to talk to Rich again. We want to make sure he’ll move something into that space before going through all the effort to clean it out.

Ok, we made progress. We talked to Rich again … just about the length of a commercial break. He can’t tolerate much more. He says he appreciates what we’re trying to do for him in giving him a room, but he said that if I empty the room, then he’ll feel pressured to do something with it. Hmm, just sent a note to Maury asking about the white furniture again. He could keep it, give it away, or sell it, or just take a pass and I will place it on the curb. I know someone would take it.

It’s a great set. It would be gone in no time flat. I like the thought of a family coming by … seeing it for their daughter and swooping by with a pick-up to take it away. I think we could also tell the lady downstairs we have a bed. She seems to know of some people who need beds who would come by for it. Hmm, I wonder if they could use the dresser and desk too. Maybe we should try talking to her tomorrow.

Anyway the place that we’d gotten with Rich was that he would think a smidge about what he could do with that room. I was really pressing him though. He just doesn’t understand his wife wants her own space, and keeping his stuff there or not dealing with it is just something that has to be irritating her. He really doesn’t need that. I think she was short on space anyway. I don’t know if she’s closer to getting another place. If she were smart she’d try to come up with a condominium.

Her son is going to move out and my understanding is that she’s never even emptied the garbage on her own. She’s certainly not going to want to mow the lawn! *Sigh*
This is like a woman trying to organize someone else’s life. Better stop … BUT, for the Rich side … I think he’s going to feel better when he has some of his things about him. I know, I know … it’s a process. He’ll probably wait until he’s rushed. Hmm, that’s something too. Dave’s moving says no job to small. Maybe we could have him come bye to move out the furniture. Ok, more expense, but a thought. I think they’d charge us like $100 though … three guys an hour. Maybe it only take him 15 minutes and we’d be charged $25-30. Ok, maybe $50. Just a simple trip for him. It’s a thought. I don’t think that Rich could or should move that furniture on his own. Maybe I will have to wait until next month and put some money on that. Ok, it’s between the mover then or getting a couple guys to come up from the lady downstairs … that avenue should be tried first because it serves both the moving function and the carrying it down the stairs. Hmm, that’s after Maury signs off on it. No one without a desparate need for the furniture is going to want to deal with it. I wouldn’t want to go through the trouble of placing an ad in the
paper. Yeeks. That be terrible.

Ok, simplify? Glasses shelve in closet, back back closet, empty desks and dresser, get rid of the furniture. Should be done in next week or two, right? Ok, that’s
enough of that.

Hmm, watched a few moments of football. Rich is pretty much watching it with his brother. They’re both watching the game from their separate places and there’s calls going on in between. There’s no reason to believe that won’t continue after 3 pm when the Bears game starts.

I think we’re a far ways away from earlier worries. Maybe I’m cleared up now to review the summary and see if I can pull it together in one clear paragraph. Hmm?

Think there is about three pages of information – pages 5, 6 and 7. We’re on 9 now.

Hmm, little break. Rich rolled the dishwasher into the bedroom and he brought down the dishes and put them on top the dishwasher, and we put them inside. We set it on light wash. I hope they will be ok. Rich thought they needed to be cleaned before packing them away. I worry about them breaking in the dishwasher, but then we couldn’t clean them by hand, so it was the only way … we’ll just have to see.

Ok, back to the other … what is coming out is an outline of what’s been happening.

Mushy face
Bears
Grocery shopping
Cleaning closets
Rich gaining a cold
Cuddly bear
Lost focus at work
Physical problems – weight/health
Bariatric Surgery
Not wanting to see Dr. M.
Feeling depressed
Feeling helpless
Feeling pressured
Hiding with videos, music, celebrities, and new blog
Out of medicine not able to pick-it up or pay cost
Not wanting to go out in elements (therapy, work, Dr. M.)
Not remembering what happened in the therapy
Not understanding medicine we were on
Worrying over money and cost
Planning another situation to gain gym membership with Rich
Worried over Dr. Marvin calling and having cancelled appointment
Understanding consequence of our behavior that he wouldn’t call
Impending sense of having done something bad
Case cutter – our knife
Wanting someone to take care of us
Realizing that we were thinking unbalanced
Not wanting to make anyone mad
Capturing picture of us
Trying to be safer effort through pictures
Trying to contact Dr. Marvin
Thinking we were begging for attention
Associating faces matched to fathers
Made effort to call Rich, but he walked in the door
A lot of avoidance behaviors since.

Ok, now we need to take it down to a paragraph. We’re getting there.

Dr. Marvin,

The following is a summary of what I think happened to us last week, or at least where we are at today.

First it seemed that we were doing exceptionally well. We love Rich being here and we were doing fun things with him like the Bears, grocery shopping, and making space for him at the apartment. It is a worrisome thing when Rich gets sick, because it implies that he won’t be able to take care of us. We then lost focus at work due to worry over physical situation in pain, through weight including the bariatric surgery and thinking we are breaking down and am going to die. We felt depressed about seeing Dr. Marvin. Situations explained above or other were making us feel helpless while being pressured to go on. We felt resistive to making these changes. We began hiding with our videos, music, celebrities and the new blog. We just played and tried not to think. The weather became our excuse not to leave the house for work, therapy, Dr. Marvin and prescriptions. It didn’t help that we couldn’t remember why we didn’t want to go to Dr. M’s nor could we remember what the medicine was for.

We continued our worries over money and thinking that Rich had run out of money, while thinking the next progressive step was for us to both join the gym, which would cost more money.

We worried about hearing from Dr. M. though we knew the consequences of canceling an appointment would be that he wouldn’t talk to us. We had an impending sense that we were very bad. That’s when we got the case cutter. In the back of our thoughts, we wanted someone, I think, to be taking care of us. We were afraid that would make someone mad. We took a picture of us the way we were looking and compared it to a picture that we would like to look like (of ourselves). We were trying to be safe on our own, but called Dr. Marvin anyway. He didn’t respond and we felt we were begging for attention. We associated the next face we posted in the blog to the way my father looked when he was self-destructive. We made an effort to call Rich, but then he walked in the door. We’ve had a lot of avoidance behaviors since and have felt both frustration and gratefulness of being pushed by Rich to remain in the present through all the tasks he was proposing.

Looking back at it now, I think things are in general progressing and good, but we had a regression in trying to get through positively with the physical problems, which might be tying themselves to some body memories of pain now to pain then. I think most of our weight is behavioral in that we (ourselves as an "it") needs attention, and if not we'll just be in voidance too. I think often we live a live in "the void." I see more now the acting out then before. As probably then in olden days we felt like we were going to die. We felt depression, helpless and pressured to be going on when all we wanted was to die. We wanted things to stop. Our avoidance of everything included avoiding Dr. Marvin, which seems associated to both pain and safety. I'm not sure how concerns of money work in, but it brings fear at a survival level. If I know taking care of my body or taking medicine is good for me, but can't be afforded it adds to the depression, helplessness, and pressure - stress.

Although, we canceled appointments, work, therapy, going out of the house, etc. we felt a sense of being safer, but destitute. At the worst of it we tried to contact Dr. Marvin, but he did not respond. This got translated to "we are bad," especially if we make someone mad. If we don't please my grandfather, then there is always that sense of abandonment. When we are acting out we're back to doubling actions now to behavior and feelings of then.

At this point. we want to take our life. We just want to be dead. But, this time we communicated to other parts that look different or more able then the parts who were out. We didn't like seeing our father in our facial reactions. Rich came in at the right time, but we put pressure on that situation. Although we're grateful for his structure; it also frustrates the system to break our private space by needing to do "take care of self tasks." It's a constant struggle and we worry over not being fair to him by being resistive. Bottom line most likely is that we love Rich to pieces and want to share an equal relationship to him - considerate of our physical and psyche, but being in our body (trying to do things to take care) brings ramifications of the past brought into the present. There was a lot of failure. Or at least it seems like it now. There is a question of feeling safe. Going on and doing what's right and wanting to be alive is a contradiction of the past where we have to go on rather than our all-time preoccupation of being so close to our own death.

posted by Ann Marie @ 10/21/2007 04:13:00 PM Comments: 1