We are Distraida

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

Hello to everyone.

Our system name is Distraida. Unfortunately, that lj username was already taken when we got our account. We have all kinds of people in here, and a lot of them. I found the group info page interesting, because it refers to "classical trauma-splitting MPD/DID." We are abuse survivors, but our MPD/DID isn't "classical" by any means. We don't fit some pre-conceived textbook definition. We have walk-ins and move-ins, even physically and/or mentally disabled others, and sometimes they front.

Our therapist, who we are not sure actually believes we exist, says that our disabled others should "be able to use all the resources of the body," but when a disabled person fronts, whatever they can't do inside, they can't do outside either (ie: read, write, walk, talk, see, hear, use one or both arms/hands, move, feel.) And since our therapist said that, none of our disabled others have been willing to even entertain the idea of speaking with her. On the other hand we have some people who can push the body too hard, and do more than the body can really do/should do. (This body should not be moving railroad ties, believe me.) We don't think our psychiatrist believes we exist either, as he has a "rule-out" on "did" for a "possible diagnosis."

We've applied for social security disability and were denied, and we are appealing. We are mostly applying based on mental health (or the lack thereof) but we have some physical issues as well, mostly dealing with chronic pain and trouble breathing.

Anyway, that might have been too much personal information included in an introductory post, but we are looking for people with experiences similar to ours. We have yet to find anyone. We are also looking for otherkin, but not like furries. Does anyone know a good community to join for talking to other Fae?

Distraida-Thamron (h is silent)

Comments

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

With practice there's no reason why the people in your system shouldn't be able to use all of the body's resources. It may take a lot of practice, but they *should* be able to manage.


Otherkin, yes, I suppose technically that would be us. Lu (my host) is a dragon, and depending on your point of view I am apparently a vampire.

Communities for fae... Any otherkin community is fine, but for fae specific, try http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=fae

Good luck on finding a fae otherkin community though. Mostly it seems to be people who like faeries, and people who think they're faerie kin because they like glitter.

[bizamoogie.livejournal.com]

half of my system is made up of mentally-disabled people.

Lori is obviously autistic but she's really smart. she can take care of herself and even type full sentences, but she can only say one or two words at a time.

Kami is severely disabled. She's more or less comatose. She can't feed herself, talk or show any signs of understanding anything. she moves occasionally and moves her eyes sometimes but she more or elss just sits there.

Sarena is perfectly functional, but is mute.

Analese is perfectly functional

Heather (me) is the host. ive got my own mental things going on.

[divine-sinners.livejournal.com]

Both of us are otherkin as well. I am an angelkin, and Niz is a therianthrope. A good community is, well, "otherkin", of which I am a member of.

Afiel

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

We've applied for social security disability and were denied, and we are appealing. We are mostly applying based on mental health (or the lack thereof) but we have some physical issues as well, mostly dealing with chronic pain and trouble breathing.

It's difficult anyway to get social security disability, but it's especially hard to get it for mental health, from what I understand. I've known people who had to give up any chance they had for an independent life (financially or otherwise) in order to get S.S. disability for psychological reasons. You might be better off trying to base it on chronic pain-- do you have a diagnosis for that?

If it's not too personal to ask, what mental health issues were you trying to get disability for? It doesn't sound from your post like your multiplicity per se is a problem for you, so I was just wondering.

mental health issues

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

Our multiplicity is extremely problematic as the switching is most of the time uncontrolled. Patrick has said before that "we switch like a chaotic evil broken rolodex." We're trying to get better on that front, also there are some memory issues and trouble with losing time. But MPD may not be our biggest problem. We're also bipolar, have an axiety disorder (I don't remember which one), borderline, have an eating disorder ... I forget what else the doctor said the day we asked him about our diagnoses, but he was up front with us and answered the question, which we thought was really cool.

[shadowechoes.livejournal.com]

Hello and welcome. We've got some things in common with you guys - like that We've been diagnosed DID/MPD but 1) aren't sure if Our therapist actually believes in it, and 2) don't consider Ourselves DID/disordered. I'm also disabled on the inside - I can't speak. When I use the body, I still can't speak. With practice, I've been able to start making small sounds, but that's all. I'm working on learning sign language instead. The majority of Us are also therian/otherkin or just plain animal. I see you've already found the fuzzymultiples community, I'll go accept your application now. :) (Our system and Our SO's system are maintainers/moderators; the community was created by a RL friend of Ours who is Totemist and a furry-lifestyler - but most of the members are otherkin/therian I believe. It's a little quiet there now though sorry to say.)

~Mute

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

hi

hmm.... new therapist time? (i don't know what your means are though)
kinda hard to get help with an issue when your therapist is in denial that you have it, huh?

When we did the disability process, we didn't completely focus on 'we are split so..'
we played it up like any interview and may have **cough** exaggerated **cough-cough** some of our more disabled sounding features.
like, we didn't say 'i cant work because im split'.
We said 'i can't work because i black out, and employers don't like it when you missed several days without calling in'.
We got accepted for disability first try, which our counselor said is unheard of, but we also had a 'diagnosed-did' letter from him in our hand.
we also, during the one hour eval with a doc we had to do. we didnt let her lure us into speaking in singlese. it was almost insulting. "do you ever hear voices in your head?" uhh, yeah always. sometimes i hang with them and yak at the frontrunner too. "what makes you feel u are split?" well actually the personalities that dug me up out of comatose told me thats what was going on so I've just kinda always gone with it.

we got disabled'd too. lotta blind people, one of em learned how to use the eyes through some teamed up dissociating something-something(got someone else to use them for him while he fronted, it took some practice apparently). we got alotta not-so physical stuff... anxiety attacks around ppl, we got a paranoid claustrophobic somewhere in here. stuff like that.

If your therapist thinks your ppl are 'faking' disabilities just because your others can use whatever just fine, then maybe you should tell him the wonders of paying attention in class, so that in his next life, he'll know two things about his profession and won't be a complete ignoramous.

good luck?
Candy of Changelyng

our therapist

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

Our therapist has supposedly been working with multiples for many years, we think she said 20, but we might have mis-heard. Regardless of how long she's been working with multiples, it was our third session when she said that we were parts ... and would not accept our view that we are complete people who just happen to share this body. We're parts and we have to use her terms ... she told us that in almost those words.

Distraida-Melinda

Re: our therapist

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

*eyeroll* $#% doctors who won't listen to the clients or take the clients' word for something.

On the other hand she probably would get her ass handed to her by her superiors if she did listen to you about that and dared to depart from the holy sacred guidelines. Multiplicity as individuals who share a body is very much of a no-no in today's psychiatric world. Doctors can't discuss it either in an academic or clinical way without losing their rep and possibly their job.

[egyptian-spider.livejournal.com]

We have people in here in wheelchairs and people who are slightly autistic. The way our system is set up anyone who fronts is able to use all the body's abilities. switchboardgirl could go more into that, as she's the one who set things up. But, our disabled people rarely front. It's a bit disconcerting and uncomfortable for them..

As far as the otherkin issue... We have 'kin of all types here. *chuckles* We have a few fae, some winged elves, a couple high elves, a couple dragons, and a metric buttload of vampires. (Including myself. *curtsey*).. Feel free to ask anything you want and we'll answer it if we can.

We are on SSI disability for various mental illnesses and physical illnesses. It took us almost two years to get on it. They very rarely approve anyone on the first or second try. I could go on a whole rant about how much I hate the disability system here, but.. I won't. *laughs*

[egyptian-spider.livejournal.com]

Oh. And don't even get us started on the whole therapists not believing in our being multiple thing.... Again, that's a whole other rant.

hihi sihrenna

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

we gotsa qustin ... uhm .. how much a metric butload? heehee tee hee bibi

distraida-lils

Re: hihi sihrenna

[egyptian-spider.livejournal.com]

*giggles* a lot bigger than a standard American buttload. *grin*

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"I found the group info page interesting, because it refers to "classical trauma-splitting MPD/DID." We are abuse survivors, but our MPD/DID isn't "classical" by any means. We don't fit some pre-conceived textbook definition. We have walk-ins and move-ins, even physically and/or mentally disabled others, and sometimes they front."

Well, I had to call it something -- I was thinking of Sybil. What I was trying to describe in the info is that how you got to be multiple and whether or not you perceive multiplicity to be a mental disorder, a coping strategy, or just something that is the way you are, don't matter on this community; that all are welcome regardless of origins, views, etc.

We'll be tweeking it some more and see if we can make it more clear what we mean.

As far as we know there are walk-ins, move-ins, extraterrestrials and all sorts of people in all sorts of multiple households... according to some things we've read, even "textbook" trauma-split groups often acquire an outsourced guest or two, giving rise to Ralph Allison's notion of angels coming in and being "inner self-helpers" et all.

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

Ralph Allison?
pardon me for asking, but whats your opinion of his credibility?
we found his writing early on, and his explanations served as a foundation for what we understand about it all (face/function/operator, etc). but we got a little nervous in light of some of his 'odder' works.

we really like 'life of a type V hypnotizable' and 'sapping and zapping' as we relate on both. but between those two, 'how reincarnation really works' and other ones like that, is he taken seriously in the psychiatric community?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Allison's a flake, and he is not taken seriously in the psychiatric community. In fact, he probably did more to discredit multiplicity with the mainstream than even Colin Ross. The fact that his website is called "All About Multiple Personality" has always amused us -- how can a singlet possibly know all about multiplicity even with consultation?

He has always been unduly fascinated by multiplicity and by his multiple clients. His interviews with D. Scott Rogo for Infinite Boundary illustrate his tendency to get enmeshed to the point that he actually believes his clients are having a psychic draining effect on him, rather than attributing his exhaustion simply to lack of sufficient boundaries on his part when dealing with extremely high-maintenance clients. Ex-preachers who become psychoanalysts may tend toward this kind of will-to-believe behaviour; Robert Phillips, who is still Truddi Chase's therapist, manager and handler, fell prey to the same fascination.

Apparently he became infatuated with one of his clients to the point that he took every word she said about her operating system as gospel for all systems.

Allison is responsible for the urban legend that multiples are by nature or on average more psychic than singlets. He said somewhere he'd never met a multiple who wasn't highly psychic. Some people believe that this means it has been "scientifically documented" or that a formal study was done. It wasn't, and I doubt it ever will be. For a while, it was almost de rigeur for therapists to ask to talk to the "inner self-helper" as if all systems had one and as if it were always possible to talk to that one. It's very possible that some clients who were genuinely multiple made up angels or ISHs or whatever in order to please an Allison-like therapist.

Hypnosis and the idea that multiples are "more hypnotizable" than singlets are also controversial notions. We believe personally that these labels have more to do with the singlet doctors trying to explain to themselves things they cannot understand about their multiple clients. I won't go into what I think of hypnosis here.

One thing he did do was explain the real reason MPD was changed to DID, and why you shouldn't call yourself DID if you actually have coexisting selves who are persons in their own right and not just parts of one person. What he doesn't tell you is that he is one of the reasons the academics didn't want to acknowledge multiplicity.

http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/allison.html

Current mood: resigned, the cat barfed again
Current music: Steve Miller - Wild Mountain Honey.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

It's very possible that some clients who were genuinely multiple made up angels or ISHs or whatever in order to please an Allison-like therapist.

We didn't exactly do that, but we once tried to make out that someone in our system had that kind of role, when they were actually nothing of the sort. The Books said there was someone in every system who knew Everything, and so we ended up thinking that if we couldn't find someone like that we weren't 'real'... bah.

[sunshinegod.livejournal.com]

"when a disabled person fronts, whatever they can't do inside, they can't do outside either "

My predecessor's ex is like that as well. Some of her Krew are deaf, and when they surface, they can't hear.

Social Security disability is almost always denied the first time. I've been told it's a security measure to weed out some of the scammers.

[tir-nan-og.livejournal.com]

We are applying for Disability for autism, with which we were diagnosed last fall, after a long struggle to find someone to diagnose an adult.

The most major frontrunner is autistic, the other I think is more Aspergers, and the rest are not so obviously autistic, but make a point of not coming out very often, or in challenging circumstances, as they don't feel, or our frontrunners don't feel, that they would raise our child very consistently.

We are trying to keep multiplicity out of our disability claim, as the multiplicity isn't really a problem..the biggest problem would probably be in appearing too wierd from shifting often, and people asking questions. I say 'trying to keep it out of the claim', because some old therapists know, so it's kind of a sticky wicket.

We love the fae, definitely have one or two Otherkin of some sort in here. Don't know where to find a good community, though. Those of us who are like that, aren't particularly community oriented.

Oh..and if it's not grotesquely innapropriate to say, we looked up your user info, and aren't very far away from you.

Well okay where are you?

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

No, saying you are close to us is not grotesquely inappropriate, nor is looking up our user info. Some of us would enjoy possibly meeting at some time when and if you ever feel comfortable with that. It's a conspiracy to get me out of the house ...

Distraida-Melinda

Re: Well okay where are you?

[tir-nan-og.livejournal.com]

Difficult to get us out of the house too! It's funny...a few days ago, everyone came out one by one, and now it's a strangely monolithic one self out and no one else sort of thing. I hope we wouldn't be dissapointing as a multiple.

Okay..I'll pop over to your journal and tell you where the heck I am.

Morpho/Roman

Re: Well okay where are you?

[reinahada.livejournal.com]

tir_nan_og

Nah, hang out with me/us long enough and we'll have you switching like a crazy person.

Distraida

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"We don't think our psychiatrist believes we exist either, as he has a "rule-out" on "did" for a "possible diagnosis.""

Rule out means "be sure it isn't". It means he thinks it might be, and he wants to wait and observe you a bit more before deciding whether or not you should be diagnosed with DID.

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

I got the impression from my counselor that it's considered a 'bold' diagnosis to call someone DID. dunno. could be he just isn't confident around his peers or something.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Most likely he's worried about getting his ass canned.

DID is on the outs with a lot of mental health professionals. They'll claim it doesn't exist and shouldn't be used as a diagnosis even though it's still in the books.

Academics who have corresponded with us say they cannot bring it up at all -- if their superiors find out they believe there is such a thing, it could ruin their career.

One guy who wrote to had some operating system stuff going on, he told his therapist about it so they could work on it, and she put in a DID diagnosis so insurance would pay for the sessions, and the next day her clinic fired her. She was told there was no such diagnosis.

We're talking even textbook DID here by the modern definition, not multiplicity in the sense that there are actually separate individuals and so on, and not multiplicity as healthy and not a disorder.