February 2, 2005

I'm here again.
I have a really bad headache tonight, like there is too much pressure in my head.
Sorry... right now I dont have the words to explain what's been going on. Will try later. Will try to write my way out of this fog.

Posted by pilgrim at 4:41 PM | Comments (3)

February 4, 2005

A while ago Paul asked Does Mae experience time passing? This is one point I've never figured out... whether a personality feels time unless it is fronting?. (I'm sorry it took me this long to get back to this question; I hope you're still reading.

I dont quite understand how Mae experiences time passing.
I know she mainly lives in the 1970's. She says things like "you know how the other day we went to the park"... and it turns out she is talking about something that happened in 1977. But then at times she will say, "Oh a long long time ago I did _____"... and it turns out she's talking about last Wednesday.
She just seems to have no sense of time at all.
Mae does seem to have a better sense of things when she's around consistently for several days at a time, then things begin to make more sense to her. But as things work, most of the time Mae just gets bits and pieces of the day, or sometimes just time out a couple days a week. Life is probably pretty inconsistent for her, as much as I try to make things reliable and consistent and routine.
Time is a very tricky subject for everyone inside, actually. But thats such a complicated topic, I wouldn't even know where to start. Its like it doesn't even exist.

Posted by pilgrim at 10:02 PM | Comments (2)

February 5, 2005

I was wondering about Mae and time too. I was wondering if she just doesn't see calenders or things with dates on them. For instance the posts here are dated and she has posted here before, right? Perhaps it's a preconditioned response to not look at calendars or dates on things.--Judy

Well...actually... hm. Never even noticed that the posts here are dated, actually. So I doubt that Mae has noticed it either.
*bonk on head*
--duh--
None of us actually ever looks at calendars, dates, or times much.
We have clocks all over our house-- in every room. In fact for many years we had THREE clocks on the dresser beside my bed. Trying to hold onto time for lots of different reasons. Because time skips around so much... and moves around at different rates... and sometimes stands still and sometimes skips ahead... time has just been too complicated. Its always been this way ever since I was little.
Some of us wear a watch. Some of us refuse to. Some of us check the clocks all the time. Some of us dont even know how to tell time. Some of us can't ever remember what day it is. It just varies on who's fronting and what's important to them.

Posted by pilgrim at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

February 10, 2005

This week I worked so hard in therapy.
I went to see my therapist 3 times. We were working on something sort of specific. I worked real hard on it. My therapist would give me homework too each day and all of us would work together at night on it to get it done.
It makes me feel better inside to know that I can work really hard on something and not have it kill me.
Today though it was a little harder. I was talking to T and Missy took over. My T said Missy was there for 40 minutes talking to her. And I don't even know what about. That makes me nervous... I wish I knew what Missy said. My Therapist didn't even seem to mind that Missy had been there, almost like she even LIKED talking to her! What did that girl SAY? T said it had to do with what we had been talking about, and something about Missy changing, but that's all I know. I can't imagine Missy ever changing. And all I know was that today it went from 2:10 to almost 3:00 in the blink of an eye.
Last night I had a nightmare that woke me up, gasping for breath and sitting straight up in bed. I had dreams that I was working on artwork on the computer-- working on it in layers, like I do when I used Paint Shop Pro-- and someone kept tryng to save the layers of the artwork with the wrong names. Each piece of the artwork kept getting called the wrong name, and it was messing up the entire program, the entire piece! It was, for some reason, very terrifying in my dream. All the parts need to be called the right name and be saved or the artwork isnt going to turn out right. I woke up this morning practically screaming.

nobody.

p.s. i'm sorry this isn't written very good. i am all strung out on cold & sinus medicine. Since I'm the size of a kid, taking adult cold medicine really knocks me out. This stuff was supposed to be non-drowsy. But I still fell asleep and I feel like I got kicked in the head anyway. I'll try to write better when my head clears.
Next time I want to tell you guys what therapy has been about this week.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:25 PM | Comments (1)

February 13, 2005

This weekend went better inside. Less fighting and more cooperation, trying to figure out how to do things to get along a little better.
Well, except for Missy, who seemed to have her say with T on Thursday and hasn't lowered herself to talk to any of us about what she and our T talked about.
I'll try to find out on Tuesday what she said. T will usually tell me, at least give me a rough idea of what they talked about. Confidentiality is sort of inbetween "telling nothing" and "telling everything". My T balances it well. She might not tell me everything that they say (and there isn't time for that anyway) but gives us all a rough estimate of what others have said, what they're working on, what they're thinking and saying and wanting to do, what they need and want. I'm happy with how my T handles it. It must be really complicated for her to have me for a client.

This is something funny. I went to the doctor the other day, and she gave me a bunch of really powerful medications. I don’t usually take adult doses—I take kid doses, for safety reasons. But I have to laugh because THIS is what happens when I take too much medicine: I thought all I was doing was sitting around staring into space last night (sometimes medicine makes me just space out). I could not stop staring. I kept seeing Tuck swinging from vines in my head (weird, I know.) I found THIS posted on my message board from the same time I thought I was just sitting there staring:
i am Tuck and i am 8 and i have too much medisisn in side me and it makes me feel funny and those girls cant control me
HA HA!
I AM A BOY I AM A BOY I AM A BOY :)

I just thought that was kind of funny. He sort of broke loose the other night. I guess he needed to.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:29 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2005

It used to be called only multiple personality disorder--MPD.
Lately its been called dissociative identity disorder--DID.
But I'd prefer the term going away....
or disappearing...
or spacing out...
or even that thing.

What if it was given a name where it didn't sound so BAD? So... looming and large and difficult? And why isn't there a Single Person Disorder? I've met enough people who have plenty of problems being a single person, moreso than multiples have being several people.

Just some random thoughts tonight.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:07 PM | Comments (0)

February 26, 2005

I just learned that my (Pilgrim) voice sounds just like Mae's.
(She is 5... i am in my 30's... but we sound alike!). Yesterday on the phone with Judy, apparently she was talking to the 5 year old and asked for me. The 5 year old called my name inside and I came to talk to Judy, but Judy didn't believe it was me at first! Or even for a while, I think, because my voice sounds just like hers. Judy didn't believe it was me because that's not the voice that says "Hi, this is Pilgrim" on my voice mail whe you leave a message. I had to explain that THAT is actually Caroline!! Just pretending to be me!! Then Judy said that Nobody's voice sounds different than all of ours, she sounds just like a teenager, intbetween Mae and Caroline. I don't even actually know how Nobody's voice sounds, actually. I've never heard it on the outside.
Confused now?
Imagine hearing them all in your head.
I remember when I was little,perhaps 9, my mom told me about how peoples' voices sound different internally than they do externally. That really threw me for a loop. I always wondered what my voices sounded like outside.
I am going to try to get a tape recording of everyone's voices. Its really scary, but I think I want to hear what everyone sounds like.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:52 PM | Comments (1)

February 27, 2005

I think I have mostly just slept for the past 3 days. Its hard for me to get to sleep, but once I do, I just sleep and sleep and sleep for hours. 11 hours a night. 13 hours a night. I'm exhausted. When I get up, I'm still exhausted and want to sleep more. I want to take naps. Yesterday I took a 2 hour nap and then was still exhausted.
Something is going on in my mind.
It feels like a shift is trying to take place.
Internal people are trying to work things out... trying to find different perspectives on life.
Was it all my fault? Or maybe only partially? Was I as bad as they said I was?
Was it all Mae's fault? Is she as bad as she thinks?
Was there really MAYBE something a little bit "off" about my family and the way we were raised?
Was something possibley not quite right with my mom and dad?

I dont know. I just dont know. All of these memories, flashbacks, hints, old tapes, are running themselves inside, over and over again. I can't deal with it. Thus I sleep and sleep and sleep. I dont want to face it myself!! But I think that the 5 year old is thinking about this, trying to figure things out for herself.
Help, I can't deal with this. I have to go.

Posted by pilgrim at 11:56 AM | Comments (3)

Goldfish crackers are a big deal in our house.
We have to have them every day for a snack. Either for lunch or before bed, it doesn't matter. One of us likes the parmesagne flavor. One of us likes the pizza flavor. One of us likes the original cheddar flavor. Goldfish crackers are LOTS of fun, especially the rainbow ones. You can count them, divide them up by color, you can eat them in rainbow order or one color at a time (this is what you do when you don't have a social life; you sort your goldfish crackers by color.) Then of course, you can bite their heads or their tails off, and make up little dramas between the fish. This can take up a lot of time, just having snack.

Right now we are out of Goldfish.
And forgot to get some at the store.
Normally, this would have meant that the 5 year old begin to whine and complain and go quickly into panic-mode-- Somewhere along the lines of "but we always have goldfish and i have to have some and we have to go back now and get some because we dont have any and lets go get some we dnt have any i need my goldfish PLEASE i need them i cant have a different cracker it has to be goldfish it HAS to be PLEASE go get some PLEASE i dont want any other cracker it has to be goldfish!"
What can I say? We like routines. Routines and rituals keep us safe in this world.

Today, however... a sign of progress.
She told my husband this:
"We forgot to get goldfish.... but thats okay... I can eat the round crackers or the square crackers or the rectangle crackers for snack tonight instead, huh? It doesnt always HAVE to be goldfish, right?"
"Right."
"And thats ok, right?"
"Right."
"Ok."

(Only 4 years and a bazillion dollars worth of therapy to get her to to learn to cope with the situation of handling something different for snack).

Posted by pilgrim at 5:50 PM | Comments (8)