September 3, 2007

My parents sold their house.

They moved out this month.
We moved a lot.
It was something I was used to.
But this was the house they promised to stay in.
It was the last house I lived in, before we moved away.
My mom threw out a bunch of my things when they left.
Now they're in a new house, one my sister and I will never live in.
I know this sounds really silly. I know it does... but I feel like I have no home anymore.
I keep having bad dreams about going back into our old houses, and trying to find my things, trying to find my parents, but all the houses are all empty, and I'm lost.
jo

Posted by pilgrim at 8:39 AM | Comments (1)

September 6, 2007

Big things are going on and I'm not handling it well at all.

I knew this new superintendent would stir things up.
People are complaining. And bosses and department heads are acting like they're beaten down. She has changed all sorts of programs, changed peoples jobs around.
Now I face some big changes that could happen and change my job, and I'm not doing so well with it. Why do people have to change things that are working really well to begin with? I work in one of the best districts in the entire United States. I am proud to work there. And I LOVE my school. I love my bosses. And now I might have to leave my school, right here in the beginning of the year. It could happen at any time.
I feel like I have no control over my life,and it feels like my future is falling apart.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:32 PM | Comments (2)

September 8, 2007

i havent cut in a long time, but i want to so much tonight.

i'm fat and gross, and i hate my body. i saw pictures of me in my bathing suit from today, and I look disgusting. People keep making comments about how I'm getting too skinny, but I'm not, I'm still so gross. I want to cut and get all this bad stuff out... all these bad feelings that are stuck inside.
Tonight is the anniversary of when 1 of my friends died in a terrible fiery car accident. I know, I write about it every year. I can't seem to get over it. I'm having all these horrible flashbacks of what happened, and that night when I found out. And memories going through my head of when we were little-- playing with kittens in her barn, jumping on her bed, playing hide and seek, things like that. I keeping hearing "Why?!?" in my head over and over, and too many voices talking, everyone inside trying to figure out what happened and having memories of my friend at different ages. We had been friends ever since Kindergarten.
And then she died. And that was it. And my entire life changed in that one night.
Tonight I made one of those garden stones with the stained glass pieces in it out of cement, in her memory. I'm going to put it in the front yard by my rose bushes.
But it isn't enough. I want her back. It really,really bothers me that I can barely remember her voice any more. I had several friends die that year. Either by suicide or in accidents. But her's... it just about killed me. I can remember all those nights, for weeks and months and years afterwards, that I would be too afraid to go to sleep, and I'd sit upright in my bed, crying so hard I would start to choke, terrified that when my sister turned 18 she would die too, or when my favorite cousin turned 18 she would die too just like my friend, every September 8, every July ___ (her birthday), every time I got in my car, every time my sister was out on a date and might not make it back okay, every Christmas when I knew she wasn't with her family because she was dead, every time I saw her older sister, and every time I felt guilty for being alive when she wasn't.
Its so many years later...16 now, and I'm still not over it.
Hopefully, by making the garden stone, that will help. I think she would like that better than me crying.
this isnt a very well written post.there's not even a good ending to it or anything philosophical in it from caroline. i'm sorry. i'm not up for much tonight.
jo

Posted by pilgrim at 9:09 PM | Comments (1)

September 9, 2007

I just remembered something.
The other day I downloaded some new songs to my iPod…60’s and 70’s stuff. I was just listening to them while I was exercising, and the last song was Simon & Garfunkel—“I am a Rock”.
Oh my gosh, I can’t believe we had forgotten all about this.
When we were…well, it was Junior high, so probably 14. .. that was like Missy’s own personal theme song. She was around ALL the time in 8th grade. It was…a really hard year…we had gotten messed with by this boy, and stopped talking for a year, and then after that Missy came around, and threw herself into books and studying and being all intellectual and (I personally thought she was being a snob, but, I guess no one else thought so, or at least said it to her face, because she had friends…of course, everyone in our Gifted class was just like her, so of course that’s who her friends were, so they were all these little intellectual snobs together, who read poetry and talked about world politics and history, and for “fun” played the violin and the piano in recitals. This was their whole life. They were not kids. They were little adults.) So Missy… I think we had a cassette tape…no, it was Mom’s old record, and Mom’s old piano book, of Simon and Garfunkel songs, from when she was a teenager. And Missy would play “I am a Rock” over and over again. I can picture her at the piano. It’s like watching from down a long tunnel.
I can remember Missy sitting there, memorizing the words, repeating them in her head over and over, these phrases especially: I’ve built walls/ A fortress deep and mighty/That none may penetrate/I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain/Its laughter and its loving I disdain./ I have my books/And my poetry to protect me/ I touch no one and no one touches me/I am a rock/I am an island
And I remember her saying it over and over to herself, and making her heart harder. Like…making herself into a colder, meaner person by listening to that song and picturing her heart get colder and blacker. Only I was watching from so, so far away, you know, it’s like watching someone else do something, that you have no control over, because it really is a different person, so you just have to sit back and watch and let them do it.
I just don’t remember WHY she had to do all that. I don’t know any of her reasoning behind it. Missy HAD friends—lots of them. So why would she be memorizing some of that? I don’t understand at all. (Now I can’t get that song out of my head.)
It bothers me that I don’t have a clue what would have gone on with Missy that would have made her that way or given her that attitude. I don’t. Caroline either. None of us really know Missy at all actually, which is fine with her and fine with us. She doesn’t want us to know her, and there’s obviously no love lost there. It’s just kind of weird that all of a sudden I can remember this, but no one has any idea what might have gone on with Missy, especially back then, like that year, or even ever at all. I’ve been wracking my brain, and I just don’t know.

Posted by pilgrim at 12:53 PM | Comments (1)

September 16, 2007

It has been a while since I posted a reminder about our forum for dissociative disorders.
It is at: http://s3.invisionfree.com/A_Minds_Journey/index.php
In the past few months we have added new forums. There are places for littles, teens, adults,Internal self helpers, and others. We have support forums for the holidays, crises, therapy, people who love someone with a dissociative disorder, member journals, and much more. We also have a chat room. If you are someone who has problems with dissociation, please come join the board and get support from nearly 500 members who can listen and talk with you and offer support.

Posted by pilgrim at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2007

I'm just in a bad mood today. One of my kids didn't get picked up, and so I lost my lunch time because I had to stay with him. With my kids, I can't just send them to a corner to play with something. They require my undivided attention. So there went lunch, I had to eat while we played. I didn't have any time to get out of my classroom today, no time to talk to friends in the teacher's lounge. Then I had to rush around all afternoon. Then go see my dietitian. I was supposed to have an hour appointment-- the only reason I'd fight the traffic, drive 45 minutes to get there. Turned out they had me down for only 30. That's not even worth the stress, the drive, or the gas to get there. It was very frustrating. This, on top of everything going on at work, the autism team, dealing with some of the kids in my class, no time to myself at home, the inside kids, blah blah blah. And some big stress going on at work that I'm not handling too well.
I feel like I was very snarky and moody with my dietitian today and I shouldn't have been.The good news is that I'm eating well.
I need to be perfect and smiley all the time.
I need to fix myself, and fast.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:37 PM | Comments (2)

September 18, 2007

Someone's birthday is in a few days.
once again i did something wrong.
i thought i would make this person a cake. i haven't before. its always been caroline or Pilgrim or mae. since i am around more lately i thought i would be nice and do it. i'm trying more stuff, you know? to see what i can learn to do. since i can't fold t-shirt right even, maybe i can do something nice to make a cake. ha ha ha ha ha. My self-esteem is rock bottom, and I keep trying things, and I keep failing, and I wonder why I try anymore.
i made the mistake of asking what kind he wanted. he said something like "the kind i always have- the usual."
So... i've never been out front for one of this guy's birthdays, because i've never wanted cake or to be around a happy celebration. so i dont know, i really don't know, what kind of cake is "the usual". I can think of 3 different kinds of cake my friend likes. I made the mistake of asking. I think I was supposed to just know, because he took offense. He got mad at me because I didn't think it was important enough to remember his favorite kind of cake. So he told me, and was really disappointed that I didn't know.
I didn't know what to do. I wanted to still make his cake, because its important to me. I'm trying to learn to do things RIGHT for a change. So I can't do laundry right or fold shirts right or get the dishes right. God there's got to be something. I wanted to do something to make him happy. So I offered to go to the store. But he said he doesn't want any cake on his birthday now. He decided it's not important. I tried telling him it IS important. He said its not, and to forget it.

I dont know what to do. I think he doesn't like us... so if I tell him that its me, jo, and that i'm only 17 and I've never made him a cake before or been at one of his birthdays before, he might just think I'm stupid and think that Pilgrim is using DID as an excuse for not remembering. Because we're always forgetting stuff. And we're not allowed to use DID as an excuse. We have to just say "I'm sorry" and move on, and not try to tell a reason for what happened.
I feel so stupid and bad and foolish. I just wanted to do something nice and fun for him and make a cake for his birthday. Even when I try to do something good, I screw it up! What am I ever going to do with my life? What about when I get older? How am I ever going to have a job or do anything if I can't get the simplest things right as a teenager?
jo
p.s. i hope this doesn't sound like a "oh poor me" post. i am so angry at myself that i want to bang my head into a wall. i want to do something RIGHT for a change and I am so sick of screwing things up.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:13 PM | Comments (6)

September 22, 2007

Someone asked us this. Thought we'd post our response here.

As far as what DID is like....wow. Its sort of like,
being stuck in a cell with a lot of people at one
time, all trying to share the same place, some of them
you like and some of them you might hate, but being
told you all have to figure out a way to get along
because you're all stuck with each other. Everyone is
different ages, different personality types, at
different intelligence levels, with different senses
of humor, with different friends, and different
abilities. And you can all decide to do only one
activity at a time, so you've got to work together as
a team to figure out what you're going to do with
yourself-- the thing is, everyone in your cell has
very different ideas on what is fun and what is not
fun. Someone likes to read, someone likes to drive
fast, someone likes to paint, someone likes to chat on
IM, someone likes to do research, someone likes to
play Sims for all hours, etc. And for every one that
likes something, 1 or 2 or 5 other people think its a
stupid idea. But you're there together, so you HAVE to
figure out how to get along and how to make friends
with each other, because you're going to be together
for life.

Posted by pilgrim at 8:36 PM | Comments (2)