Ayn's Multiple World

Let's Get it Organized, Hmm?

By Check: Mail your payment and include your student id 1087117, to Capella University, NW 5408, P.O. Box 1450, Minneapolis, MN 55485-5408. Please note: This address if for payments only.

Ok, Good morning … AND don’t forget to check this address … I’m not sure if my school payment got to the right place last time. We want not to get in trouble with these people, right?

So otherwise is all fine with you? Good good … all’s good with me. AND, it’s a Saturday morning!

We started a new blog yesterday … can I show you? I won’t double post, normally because it would defy the purpose, but this is what we’re doing:



We have two or more distinct identities. To be exact we have twenty. We each have our own way of perceiving, relating to and thinking about our world. We are unable to recall some information. Over the years we’ve put through our own mythology of being. I say this with tongue in cheek, because I believe that even singletons make a mythology of their being. I believe in what I remember or have pieced together of our past. But, I acknowledge that history through recall or recall through other people is transient. We believe each of us sensor our history through reworking personal dilemmas and excitations.

We are unable to recall all the information of what happens to us, such as day to day life or our doctor's office though we make a point to try and capture what has happened to us. I never forget our relationships with others, but sometimes we forget what those others are dealing with or how they dealt with us. This happens even when we are paying attention. We have what is considered co-consciousness. This means that sometimes we know what is happening with some of our other internal others, but sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we are blocked. We don’t often call our parts by their name unless we are trying to explain to someone something that happened that would be easier explained by naming a particular part.

We are not under the influence of alcohol or street drugs. We have drunk in the past and concluded that it was too dangerous for us. We’ve set rules so that we can have up to two drinks WHEN with a friend or family member. We did a few light drugs when we were younger, but we can safely say it’s been about 20-25 years. We aren't allured by drunkenness or having been drugged. We did have a long history of smoking. We stopped smoking about 2 ½ years ago.

We do take prescription drugs, but not many. We take anti-depressants for depression and we take one medicine for psychosis, one for anxiety, and one to help us with the clarity that is lacking from sleep apnea. Perhaps later I will look again for the names of these medicines. Many people that take medicine like to discuss such things, but it doesn't interest us. We would recognize them if we heard their names. If we don’t take the medicine, things become a little more confusing and there is more aptitude to regress. I don't know of a medicine for multiplicity - just symptoms of our various other diagnoses.

The other diagnoses we have besides multiplicity and sleep apnea are depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, hypothyroidism, ulner neuropathy, high cholesterol and arthritis. We have had diabetes, but that now seems to be gone since we’ve undergone surgery for weight loss. We also have been diagnosed for having a moderate impairment in our ability to recall. The most bothersome of these problems is that because of our still being overweight and because of the arthritis, we have problems walking or standing for long efforts. In our recent past we could not walk or stand longer than three minutes, but we can now walk and stand up to 30 minutes. We’ve lost about 90 pounds. We try to get to our gym to walk, bike, swim, or do weights.

We work at a full-time position as a QMRP, which is a counselor-social worker type position for adults with developmental disabilities. We work on the south side of Chicago and have held this position for almost ten years. I am good at what we do. Our problem with work is sometimes paying attention to the things we are supposed to be doing. Sometimes we pay too much time and sometimes we pay too little time to the various tasks. We do extra work with groups, and am the staff trainer, program developer and accreditation specialist.

We are in a regular relationship and we have three sons from another relationship to our ex-husband. We have two daughter-in-laws and three grandchildren. These relationships are fairly normal. They know of our multiplicity, but it doesn’t present anyone with special responsibilities or relationships to us. We also have a psychiatrist. We’ve been with the current doctor from the University of Illinois for almost ten years. We have had other therapists and one long-term 7 year relationship with another doctor from the Univ ersity of Illinois. We’ve known of the multiple diagnoses for nearly 20 years. We believe the most striking aspect of multiplicity is our abilities or desire to communicate.

Our First Take on Multiplicity

I don’t think of personality identities or states taking control of our behavior though I do believe that parts switch us from one mindset to another. I don’t think about which parts are going to come next. Almost always the switches come without notice or forethought. We behave however it is appropriate to behave for that part. We watched the new show on television, “United States of Tara.” We have only watched one show so we aren’t sure of that whole situation, but I know that her switches have been dramatized to entertain audiences. The switches can happen as quickly as they do for the Tara character, but our switches are all more similar to us.

I am more confused on the question of memory. I was tested at the University of Illinois psychology department and they concluded we had the moderate impairment to recall. I don’t know how this affects our multiplicity. Some of our parts have a harder time trying to remember than others. The doctors explained to us that it was as if our brain was a map, but someone had pulled out all the street signs. All the information that we’ve learned is in our brain, we just have an extremely difficult time accessing it.

Due to this unless I have something immediately in front of me cuing me to one part of a conversation or another, I most often won’t recall it. At best we remember a key cue word or thought and we hope to regain information by retracing those paths. I don’t know for a lot of things how I would be very different from anyone else. Each of us has memories triggered by “tags." We think that while some parts share information or consciousness with others, it is not a given that this will happen. For example, a younger part may not remember how to do procedural things that an older part knows. Sometimes we have parts out that don’t recall how to hold meetings we’ve had for nearly ten years. This is very confusing and builds a lot of tension when we need to schedule something to happen at a specific time, and it might seem ok for some of the times, but we might make only 6-7 meetings before needing some kind of break.

I am not sure how the brain is affected physiologically. I know in general about neurons transmitting impulses. I believe that certain shocks to our system has created different neural pathways, so when our brain is triggered it might go to sections of in which holds only a specific set of memories or repository of knowledge, abilities and skills. I don’t know20enough about the brain to know more realistically what happens to ours that might be different from others. Some of our younger parts have drastic differences such as startling, convulsing, choking, or stiffening. These all seem to be immature reflexes.

The parts have separate thoughts, memories, feelings, actions and identities during the dissociative states. Associating seems to happen in clusters of being that are not always available to us. It seems though that we can become triggered into a state of something that has happened in the past. It is said that this is caused by previous traumas. I like to think that God is giving us a do-over. Until those responses are worked out, they repeat at inappropriate times. Dissociation does seem to be a mental process, but it is unconscious or preconscious. We have been in situations where it seemed you were in an open field and there was an electrical storm happening and you find your arms up in the air yelling please come take me out of here. There is at these times a wish to dissociate without the knowledge of how to get another part to take over for you as a release.

I’ve heard it explained that during trauma a person will switch “out of his mind” to avoid being hurt or damaged from the fear or pain of trauma. The jump will then occur again later when they are triggered by fear or pain. The jump is a mental escape. We tend to say we have one brain, but many minds. I’ve also heard of multiplicity being a continuum. I am not well versed in the Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-4) to understand the differences between neurosis, psychosis or anywhere in between. I think of the continuum as being somewhere between forgetfulness and daydreaming to total dissociation. I also believe that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is on that continuum and I understand that people who dissociate are easily hypnotizable. I know that I was able to be hypnotized to help me stop smoking, but I was not able to be hypnotized to lose weight although both were performed by the same specialist.

The disability part seems to come in when you are impaired from doing the regular things others do. I see myself as multiple dealing with multiplicity rather than having a disorder like multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. I am a multiple who has a responsible position in the community; we are intelligent, creative and usually appear to function normally to most people. People that know us well, see the discrepancies of being. We are very careful not to expose our child parts around people we don’t know or trust. We don’t like the stage show of calling parts out. It would leave us to being unprotected to be this vulnerable or manipulated to outsiders.

I don’t know multiples very well, but from what I’ve seen most have other issues other than just multiplicity. I’ve expressed our other diagnosis previously. We usually consider ourselves part s. I know other words are used to describe us, but these aren’t used by us. Those terms include alternate personalities, alters, state of consciousness, ego states, manifestations or identities. There is no particular reason I don’t use these terms. I think some of them are pretty sterile. Yeeks!

Ok, we’re back again … this is the end point of the Quite Frankly Orderly Ann (QFOA) entries. We’ll consider the above a teaser, but if you want to keep up with the other blog it is located at QFOA.blogspot.com

Hmm, we just made some more coffee. Sweetie Pie is up and he’s watching his fishing show … he’s such a dear heart! We had woken up about 3:30 am and stayed up for a couple of hours, but we’d gone back to bed about 5:30 and slept until 7 am. We had gotten a call from Maury just to say hi and to give us some information on Comcast updating the speed of downloads. Maury knew that I was hooked up into that so he wanted to make sure I was fully updated to the change. He didn’t think so much of the advertising for it. Pretty much it means that I’m going to need to turn off the Comcast box wait about 5 minutes and then turn it on again.

I’ll try to remember that a little later down the line, but right now it’s enough that I remember that I’ve got to do it. In general, he seemed to be ok with his life in general. There wasn’t so much time to be chatting, because he had gotten to work. He’s still doing overtime and he seemed happy that he was going to be getting a very nice check the next time.

Hmm, kitty just decided that he needed to be held. I don’t know what’s up with that, but it seems that holding him and typing is taking a little more effort. I think he’s feeling better though so we’ll let that go.

Ok, where are we now?

Ok, it’s about 8 am. We took our medicine an hour ago so that’s alright. I’m not sure of Rich’s schedule for the day and I’m not sure what we’re going to be doing.

I just asked him and he wasn’t sure what he was going to be doing except maybe washing a couple of loads of clothes. He has a couple of games midday, so that means he’ll be gone. I think he’s going to be leaving a little early to stop by at the hitch place where he’s going to get that added to his car. I’m still not in favor of him getting a hitch on his car rather than him getting a new vehicle to be towing the boat, but I think there are other practical considerations like doing anything before the divorce finalizes and making sure there is enough money to go around.

I just asked him how that was going … he seems to be working through something on taxes. He’s not sure if he’ll get tax deductions on the house that he’s paying for as part of the alimony. I’m not sure how that all goes, but I think something new is being written up. I don’t think there’s another court date until March, but that’s all to be seen. I’m not really very much up on all that. Rich isn’t sharing the information precisely on what’s happening like I don’t read the documents. He just gives me the briefest details and only if I ask. It’s a little frustrating not knowing what’s going on, but I know that it’s not really my business. It’s all his inner life and that part really doesn’t include me. *Sigh*

So, we go on.

Not sure where to go here next. I suppose by practicality sake we should see if there is anything in particular we want to remember of yesterday before we go on with today.

We had a couple of groups and I lost time to be working on the new blog. I couldn’t concentrate on the real work well. I did have to spend a tiny amount of time planning for the group, but I think for the most part that just lost time. It really was a disappointment, but I think part of it is because we lost the day before to teaching in the group and then doing two groups that we had gotten ourselves a little burned out. We weren’t in a place all week where we could be doing the work we wanted to get done. It really was a bummer of a week there with the exception that it could have been expected by only having a 3-day week.

The groups yesterday were the Leadership CIRCLES group and the Thinking Group. We did the same kinds of things for the CIRCLES as we’d been doing all week and that seemed to work out good for the group. It was a pretty big group and there was some distraction in that one of the clients is not into real work. He kept trying to distract his peers and he did the same during the Thinking Group, so at that point I separated him a big from his peers. I don’t like to mess with interruptions especially if it’s breaking into my concentration or others being heard. They really do have to focus in my groups.

I don’t think that there was anything spectacular about the group … they seemed fine and did the best when things got competitive. I really don’t have much tolerance for them not listening to others getting through their obstacles. I’m much better when they get excited for their peers. This sometimes happens and sometime doesn’t and it seems sometimes it depends on the other person’s general popularity. We try to break this all the time by making sure they ooh and Ahh and clap for everyone in the group even if I have to initiate it first and slow them down until they are all participating.

We’re listening a little to Rich’s fishy show in the background … one of the famous guys Jimmy Houston he watches brought his wife and Rich seems to want to point this out to me and especially because she got up before dawn. Hmm, what’s up with that?

But, we’re pretty down on all that, because he’s so competitive with her and is tearing into her fish as not being as good as his. I figure that’s terrible. He better be treating her nice, especially after kissing all those silly fish!

As to the Thinking Group, we did an exercise where we got into social support. We borrowed the thinking from one of the exercises we’d had them working social support. We made little slips of paper with everyone’s name on it and we passed them out so everyone had one other person’s name. Then we went down the line and asked everyone who there person was and then they had to say something nice about the person – besides she or he was “nice.” That was just too generic. The second question was how could you make that person happier, and then we asked the person whose turn it was if he or she had any needs that could be met by others.

It worked out pretty good … I think they listened for the most part, but like the other time sometimes they veered and had to be brought back on track. People in that group are leaving all the time so it’s a bit distracting with all that … but we got through the hour – most likely 5 minutes early. Sister keeps switching up whether or not the chairs go up or down, so that part was figured out and we finally headed back to our office. It was a tiring session because I remained on my feet the entire time going to the person who was speaking so that I could assure which person he or she’d gotten and also so at the end of each person’s turn, I could give out a reward. This was pretty simple. I gave them a 4” version of my angel with blue wings. I know it’s silly, but once we get into something we like to play it out.

Hmm, we just got some more coffee for Rich and us and in the making distracted the kitty - poor thing. He absorbs most of my attention when I get home moving from place to place with me every time I sit or lay down. Missy’s time to catch me is the first 5-10 minutes after lying down on the chair for the night. She likes to climb up on my chest as she had as a baby and she curls under my chin and lets me pet her until Chief comes and pushes her out of the nest. Rich says that he has about a half hour left. So, he’s going to watch one more fishy show and then be getting on with his day. He seems pretty relaxed.

I did want to say too that Karla was back again yesterday. That was real nice. We gave her a hug and made sure she was ok. She’d been held under the weather and was then going to do double duty catching up. I felt bad for her because I know she’s real good about getting into work as much as possible.

WooHOO! I just got another site for Rich. He wanted to have me write down the name of a Wisconsin Lodge that he would look at for later maybe. So, I went to his blog site and hooked him up there. I made an entry that said click here – and then that took him right to the fishy spot. I just love doing that kind of stuff for him. I think he’s getting used to having a site, but I should be catching him more often when he wants to take notes on one thing or another. It’s really a handy thing to have.

Hmm, in the back to work stuff … there was something also about Sr. Florine. She’s trying to get me interested in her – breaking into my concentration to center on her by giving me a lead in sentence on something I might be interested in like the news site or the music. Yesterday I softened a little. I gave her some information and then got her a link to a catalogue that she wanted to order. I also had been playing Charlotte Church and she knew him to sing with Josh Groben so I then pulled that up for her to listen to.

We’ve really got to hold the line or we won’t be able to concentrate on anything.

She remarked it wouldn’t be long because Sr. was getting whatever was necessary to be using her computer in her room in the convent. This is going to be ideal for all. I do like Sr. Florine, just she has some really bad work habits, and we have enough trouble with our work habits, we don’t need to be getting worse.

We left about the same time just after 4 pm. When I came home we had some leftovers, but then pretty much fell asleep until 10:30 pm. We woke up worrying over where Rich might be even though we knew it was going to be a late night for him. He’d been out doing games. God Bless him. A call out to him indicated that he would be home in a half hour. We were ready for him with smooches as he came in the door. We watched him get dressed in his pajamas and then we massaged him on the couch as he listened to one of his Star Treks. We followed, but weren’t heavily invested because I think the stories are simple-minded. My baby isn’t simple-minded, but I know he uses the shows to relax a bit … I don’t think his game went well. He said he pointed several times down the wrong direction. I felt bad for him. 

After that we were going to go to our computer and actually might have, but then I think we were detoured to the freezer to get the fudgsicles. After that it was pretty much straight to bed. I don’t think we made it to Rich’s bed before he finished watching TV. He might have stayed up for a little, but I don’t think he stayed up long. He was very tired.

So that was the day. Time to be moving on.

WooHOO!! Rich said he’s going to be home about 2:30-3:00 pm and that we can go out to a movie and dinner. We barely EVER do that! We were giving him trouble at first. Forgot altogether then what he had recommended, but was less resistant the next time. He said I could pick out the movie, but I didn’t know too much about movies, so I went to the reviews and decided pretty quickly that I’d like to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with Brad Pitt. This is the show where he starts of old and then gets younger as time goes on. Now I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m glad we didn’t get TOO difficult.

He says we can leave about 5 or so and do dinner or theatre first I think we’ll do dinner first … well maybe. I’m not sure … it seems romantic to do dinner after a show. It be really interesting to do dinner, see the movie and then go out for a couple of drinks after. We never go out to drink. I don’t know why today, but it does seem a think that other people do. I really liked those couple of sport’s bars he’d taken us to. Usually what happens though is that we get tired and want to catch a late night … you know. Rich and I have never gone to a regular bar so I don’t know what that be like. 9 times out of 10 when we go out he has a diet coke to whatever liquor I might get. Usually it’s a Bloody Mary, Amaretto Stone Sour or a glass of wine.

Ok, so there is that much of a plan … from 5 pm on … we’re off the self-schedule and onto the Rich schedule. If I were being real good, we’d plan to go to the gym too, but I’m not sure if we are THAT good. We’ll try to plan for it though. Maybe we could think of going about 2 pm? That would give us at least the next 5 hours to do something. It doesn’t sound like too much of a Saturday toward writing or editing though. Shoot. How can we then make the best use of that kinda time?

It’s probably what we want to do most, right? Let’s narrow down our options.

First, we didn’t bring home any work. So that much is OUT! We still have tomorrow too, so that should be balanced now as well.

Yeeks … tomorrow is going to be an OUR day too. Rich says he’ll be gone from about 11:30 am to 8 pm. He’s got a couple of things going tomorrow … First he’s going with Bob to one of his fishy shows. He says he’s going to be buying lures and such. I know that he wants to get double the number of boxes he owns and he has to arrange all that. I don’t know, but he might also get stuff for the boat. I don’t think it’s really about that though. And, then he’s going out to his annual fishy club meeting where they do a really nice dinner out. They are supposed to bring their wife’s too, but I guess it’s not time yet that I can go to that. He says that not many are bringing their girls, but I think he’s just in that awkward stage of me being with him around people.

We just reminded him it was a week later and we were supposed to double date with Bob and his girl. I commented just a couple of things and then he cut me off from the top. He says we’re done with that. It might be because we said something like … this arranging a date with you and Bob is like going as fast as his divorce.

*Sigh*

Ok, guess we’re out of that social loop for the weekend. But, as to the general planning - we’ll probably have to spend some of that time helping with laundry either this morning or tomorrow, but other than that I have a lot of free time, especially tomorrow.

Ok, then it’s back to our planning … we’ve narrowed down a few things now what are our options? 1) Write in the blog, 2) edit the blog for the second book, 3) write entries for the new blog, 4) read from the publishing and agent books, and 5) continue the work on the tag cloud words. Is this the main stuff?

We had a little run-in with the guy trying to sell us on the eBay thing. He doesn’t want us to base our decision on the web site they are giving with the eBay deal. I told him it was a package decision and that seemed to frustrate him. For the second time he wouldn’t just email me the links. He didn’t have enough time at the end of the day so he said he’d call me on Monday and we would walk through it. We agreed to being called on Monday about 5 pm. We played tag with him yesterday because he kept getting back to us after the times we gave him so I was needing to do other things when he called like being with a group or going home or not yet being at the home computer.

He wasn’t as frustrated sounding with us as he was before, but you can tell he doesn’t like being put off, spending so much time selling to us, or the odds that I might walk out on “the deal.” He started his conversation with saying something like here I am and you agreed we would sign the deal. Well like no that’s not actually where we are. He’s a high-pressured kind of guy most likely working on commission.

Can’t help him there and we’re feeling less empathetic.

I think that we’re going to walk away from that opportunity. Dr. Marvin was right in that he had to give me more information and I don’t like him not being forthright. He was trying to tell us that the web site wasn’t important. I did call him back at one point and I think the machine said something about Omni business so we’re going to try looking that up now after we get our Internet to unfreeze. Maybe it was like Omni Business Solutions?

AHA … that was a good idea. We checked it out and it turns out that most likely it’s a scam too. There were a couple of things noted. One was that they sold for a lotta money services and education, and then scraped by with giving a lot of nothing. They said that they have high pressured sales people who get you to sign up and then to progress you have to buy more and more services and that if you get into their contract you have a real hard time getting out of it. I feel a little unnerved to think how close we were to going into this with this company … that’s all I need is to get into something there was no getting out of … especially for $80 a month. I talked to Rich about it before he left a few minutes ago. It’s almost 10:30 am now. I feel a bit of a let-down, but then again there is relief. I know when he asked for our credit card before getting the services it would be a big deal. We didn’t give him the card, but we easily could have. He’s still going to call back on Monday, but we’ll tell him we want off his list. If I’m not giving him money there’s no reason to think he might want to keep me on the list - right?

In the meantime … because Rich did such a good job of cleaning our closet last week, we now have our old fashioned fleece slippers. WooHOO!! Really happy about that!

We’ve got toasty toes again.

So priorities … let’s look at that list again, hmm?

1) Write in the blog
2) Edit the blog for the second book
3) Write entries for the new blog
4) Read from the publishing and agent books
5) Continue the work on the tag cloud words

How do we prioritize these? I guess the first one is natural. We chose to write in our blog first. This is what we’re doing now. The short one of the remaining tasks would be writing entries for the new blog. This could be a longer one depending on how much we chose to write though. It’s funny … everything I want to do has something to do with writing our books. I guess although we’ve started many paths we’re on the same track.

Well, one thing would be to read the books after we get more tired toward the end of the day. I don’t know if we’d read after we got back with Rich, but that is definitely something more toward the evening. If we don’t do it tonight, we could plan on it for tomorrow. Maybe we could shoot for a goal of 6 pm. That would give us a couple hours into it before Rich got home and we could continue if he wanted to relax instead of talk. We’d have to avoid getting into West Wing. That would be its natural competition. I’d like to watch United States of Tara, but that’s on Showtime. For the sake of records it shows at 9 pm on Sunday night.

So, that one is timed out. The writing one is too … at least if we give ourselves a cutting off point to be doing some work. Is there any other that could be done more easily at night? What about difficulty ratings?

We could decide to do an entry for the new blog and just do one maybe each today and tomorrow. That would put that one in fine shape. Best not to rush through it – maybe we could do that 30-60 minutes from now.

That would leave us with deciding between the tag clouds and the editing. I’m thinking we’ll have time for one of these 1-5 pm, so that’s 4 hours. So, do we do one of those things and get into it … or will we break them up by doing only 2 hours of each? Each are long and onerous work that I would like to complete, but whatever I do it will just be a little of the whole getting done.

Hmm, it seems that we’ve written out going to the gym? Shoot, we gotta get somewhere progressed? Hmm, forgot about tomorrow …

Let’s see writing Blog #1 until 10:30 am, Blog #2 10:30-12:00, tag clouds noon – 5 pm, and then reading from 5 pm to bedtime. That would mean that today’s 4 hours could go to the editing and if that became a hard priority there would be time for it too tomorrow. I think we’re going that direction.

Saturday

7-12:00 Write Blog #1
12- 1:30 Write Blog #2
1:30 – 5:30 Edit book #2
5:30-8:30 Dinner and movie with Rich
8:30 – 10 Read publishing book

Sunday

6-11 Write Blog #1
11-12:30 Write Blog #2
12:30 – 4:30 Tag Clouds
4:30-6:30 Edit book #2
6:30-10 Read publishing book
Rich get’s home at 11 pm.

Ok, that seems cool … It’s almost 11 am now so that would give me one more scrumptious hour of writing here. Again as to our normality … we don’t know what we’ll write, just love that we can be here doing it because it feels so good and natural to us.

We’ve taken care of the schedules for the week past and future. So, maybe there’s a little time to talk about the writing projects? This seems to be the center of attention in our world. Sr. Florine and sometimes others ask us what we’re going to do over the weekend. The clients asked yesterday. We tell them the same thing we do almost every weekend. We’re going to be home writing. If that’s what you want to do … it then has to get done.

We see the new book as having come up yesterday after it had become clear that we didn’t want to do the work of a store, where our true interest is in writing. That’s about when the other blog was open. As its preface we wrote:



We haven't concluded our decision to open an On-line store under this title, but we wanted to create a site to explore thoughts about our multiplicity on a more professional basis. It is our goal to contrast our experience with that which we understand of others. I would like us to generate new truths and realities that might be shared out loud.

There are several other reasons in coming to this idea besides having been natural from the progressions of thinking of a shopping place for multiples. One simple reason was because of the United States of Tara. Maybe it’s going to turn out to be a great show, but the thing is that it seems very unreal to us … as well our sons, doctor and best buddy. Even when we go out to the Internet to look-up information on multiplicity, we find a lot of information that we don’t agree with nor does it match our life in the least.

We figured that since we’re in the book writing business already, it would be a nice compliment to our work to write something more centered on the multiplicity, but done in a more organized manner somewhat as people in general talk about multiplicity. It’s not that I think we have the only or the last word on the subject, but it would seem like I could present a fair picture of it on a more normal scale. We still do strange things, but I think the strangest of that is the mistress part. Spread out over so many years though it doesn’t seem to be a really big deal.

There have been some suicidal ideations, but not nearly as much as there had been in the past. So, I think we’re doing pretty well there. We raise normal boys which is cool … though of course as a Mom we think they are exceptional kids! I hold a regular job and continue with doctor appointments … see nothing special hear as to really exciting someone … but the thing is I REALLY think it’s more honest than I hear with the dramatized stories. I also hear people talking a lot more about their abuses. We seem to bring these up as they come up, but perhaps after so many years … there’s no reason for them to come up often. Usually it’s because Dr. Marvin has made one 1-2 sentence observation on why we might be doing something today as related to an old feeling or memory. We go through this in discussion and it might come up several times because different parts pick it up and others do at a different pace.

But, we don’t find a need to start from scratch and write out our life. There are just too many blank holes in it. At one point … I think it’s captured in the blog somewhere, we wrote out a short paragraph synapse of what we think happened to different parts and their present characteristics. But, it’s been many years since we’ve revisited that arena. Hmm, I’ve pulled out an old copy where we’d sketched out our personalities when writing with Dr. Woollcott. I think I’m going to read through that now and see how it appears. It’s probably been a couple of years since doing this. BRB.

Wow … it’s already 11:45 am. We’re going to be running into the first difficulty of breaking from one world into another … just in the switching of tasks. It means giving up something you love doing and handing it over to another with interests and intent just as strong as yours. Maybe they would allow just a few more minutes.

Basically, we just read the chapter written by Dr. Woollcott. I felt it was pretty intense. There was quite a bit of material that we’d written and I was surprised by the strangeness of our voice. There was too much information to take in all at one time. I think we will include the chapter as an appendix in book #2.

I’m not sure when it was written in that it might have been closer to when we first started with Dr. Marvin and before we’d been blogging. We went from July of 1999 to October 2003 without having a lot of written documentation. We had been writing, but it was done in long emails to Rich and Dr. Marvin. I think I explained just a short while ago that I no longer had those documents.

I’d be really surprised to learn if Dr. Marvin had them. It is pretty cool if he saved them though. He’s switched computer systems, but I have a feeling he does save stuff, just not sure if by now he hasn’t purged some of it. I know that Dr. Woollcott still has the pages and pages typed with him and the long journal type entries I used to write him. I’m not sure if we have anything left from Winona. I know we were writing journals there too, but at one point we’d made a point of throwing away things that were old – especially to do with being married. That was a part of our life we wanted nothing to do with.

We should probably think of collecting the work out there. I like the idea though of Dr. Woollcott holding it safely. I know we’ve mentioned it before, but we’re pretty sure he’d let his wife Trish know that if something happened to him he should pass it on. I think we hold onto the idea or dream that one day one or both of our doctor’s from UIC would write with us in mind.

I never got anything back to check if both Dr.’s Luttmers and Woollcott had received the books I’d sent. I have no doubt they reached their destination, but I didn’t really set it up in our mind to follow through any further. It was important that they know that we still think of them and think highly of them. We didn’t want to hold them responsible for anything including reading what we wrote, though there is that hope too. I know they both read pretty fast, but they both have other agendas. I don’t want to make me bigger than we are. I think given a chance though, I would send them a copy of the next books as well.

Hmm, we just watched the tail end of a fishy show. It had turned to record … but it was these guys who’d caught their first sword fish. I gotta admit that be a thrill to connect with a wild beasty that was that big! I’m glad they didn’t keep him though. They had a underwater camera that showed the fish on release swimming straight down another 2000 feet to the depths he normally lives. Pretty darn cool!

But, other than that … we opened some soup, added hot sauce and are back to watching CNN - Pswhoo. Can’t go long without that! They are talking about the economy and the stimulus plans again. Ali Belcher and their lady finance person. They are both good and they’ve been interviewing others so having a nice conversation. There’s nothing new about it though. Basically people are saying that the systems have to change, but aren’t. The next guy is arguing against infrastructure as not getting money to people fast enough. Another guy has added suspending the payroll tax.

That is a good idea! People in general are afraid though to spend their money because they are afraid of losing their jobs. We’re supposed to be patient in general, but that’s hard if you’re not working or bringing in an income.

Ok, enough of that … I think I’m going to need finishing here … maybe in the next 12 minutes. That way I can go onto the next writing project. Maybe we could do a slide over while we’re doing both at the same time. That seems to work usually.

Hmm, that’s pretty forthright. One resource states that switching is due to stress. I could see arguing out that point, but it’s a pretty general statement.

They also said basically that the part waiting is aware of losing time when another part is out. I could agree with you to some point … in that there is sometimes a feeling like just now in letting go of the writing rights in this blog that time is passing and you know there has to be a switch because some other part is losing time, but then it’s you against the other - bad dilemma.

I think we will have one entry where we’ll just stack up the symptoms. These are the ones stated by the first resource:

• Multiple personalities, on average 10 though there can be as few as two and as many as 100
• Exhibits different personalities, behavior and even physical characteristics
• Episodes of amnesia or time loss (i.e.: don't remember people, places, etc.)
• Often they are depressed or suicidal
• Self-mutilation is common
• 1/3 of patients experience visual or auditory hallucinations
• The average age for the development of alters is 5.9 years
• Depressive symptoms
• An inability to focus in school (in childhood)
• Conduct problems (in childhood)

To be clinically diagnosed with DID, the following symptoms must be identified:

• The presence of at least two distinct personalities with their own relatively enduring pattern of sensing, thinking about, and relating to self and environment
• At least two of these personalities assume control of behavior repeatedly
• Extensive inability to recall major personal information cannot be attributed to common forgetfulness
• This behavior is not caused directly by substance abuse or a general medical condition

(American Psychiatric Association, 1994; Morrison, 1995)

Ok, that’s about as far as I want to go here … best get over to the other site … feel were already progressing.

posted by Ann Marie @ 1/24/2009 12:25:00 PM Comments: 0