rambling...no ranting, just confused rambling

[mrshannibal.livejournal.com]

in a response to a post, cirape said:
I view nonfunctional multiplicity as something with missing time and system members being unable to communicate and the like.

conveying in words i could not find, exactly what i have been going through...
talked w/my psychologist this week about it and he's suggesting we keep track of this and asked about letters written, emails sent, things bought, places gone w/out my forefront knowledge...
i told him this had been happening for years, but i blew it off as "forgetting" because people DO forget things from time to time...i mean, after all, don't most people talk to themselves in their head, right?
heh, it's only when my daughter tells me "you know you have a british accent, right?" and "umm, when did you forget to know how to make coffee?"
cuz that happens to everyone, right?
uh, no...
it's only been within the past 3 years that it has become more and more prevelant, which confuses and scares me to no end...people at work have said things of concern and i brush that off as having a bad day, or i'm feeling emotional or whatever comes out of my mouth that makes sense to them and they walk away - satisified w/the answer they've been given only to leave me befuddled as to just exactly what was said...

system members being unable to communicate and the like.
i read this and thought - oh yeah, well, THE LIKE part got me in the emergency ward w/about 3 stitches on one wrist and bandages on the other because apparently there is a sullen 16 yr. old boy that gets angry quite easily and then gets self destructive...most of the time it's contained and curtailed, but sometimes - well, sometimes it just happens...
i was there in the hospital all day...then i saw my psychologist that afternoon...

so he asked for copies of things that had been written and/or sent and such and i asked my friend to help me w/that because the last time i thought to do that - the paperwork got lost and my friend said,
"maybe there's someone who DOESN'T want anyone to know at all"
and i brushed it off as "forgetting"...

i've come to find that when i "go" somewhere else or however that can be explained, i get this bone-chilling cold shiver, and it's slightly numbing and not all that pleasant...usually happens when i feel stressed and/or threatened...
what happens to you when you "change"?

i've taken a break from posting in my personal journal because every time i put in the attempt, it's gone...nothing gets posted, not even jokes or pics or whatever - so i took a break...someone wrote a nice note and that was that...sometimes it bothers me, but i'm going with it for now...i've been in other communities and lj's of friends, but nothing like being here where i feel better...well, as good as i can feel...

anyhow, i don't know where i'm going w/this - but thanks for letting me ramble...

Comments

[vacillate.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. Not the exact circumstances, but...yes. Yes, I understand, and I've wanted to rant like this here before but felt...odd. I dunno.

I miss time. I don't necessarily communicate with my others. When we want to communicate, apparently we go through the fiance, who passes on messages occasionally. Journals created, posts written, people talked to, emails sent, blah blah blah, even pictures taken that I don't remember and it's scary. I was afraid to really speak up here, because so many here are very functional systems, and here I am going WTF? How do I get there?

Anyway, rambly comment to say I understand.

(Random funny about the journal that was created that I didn't know about. It used my usual password, my email, all that. So I knew it was "me", but not. So I totally stole layout ideas from myself. LOL)

[mrshannibal.livejournal.com]

thank you for the validation - i really appreciate it...

yeah, the time missing thing bothers me...at first i wanted to blame my friend and all the time i spend w/him and the issues we discuss and me walking away...he "talks" to them and they "respond" to him and sometimes i "remember", but most of the time i don't...
i hear my voice and the words, but for the life of me, i can't recall the conversation to save my life...
i write my friend a lot and he tells me he's gotten emails from someone who "uses" my email address and my name, but the letters are far from how i write...apparently this individual is british and is very urbane (we had to look that one up)...

and yeah - in this community people are very comfortable using the term "we this" and i'm barely able to get around using "him" and "her" and "them"...i simply applaud the folks here for their bravery and courageousness in dealing with this type of situation...

and yeah, how do I get there?, too...

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

Well, I am confident and comfortable because, in my experience, it was much harder being alone and walled off from the others than being connected to them.

When I was cut off, I had depression, anxiety, 'ghosting', and had wierd reactions to anything that reminded me of the others...like the reverse of the classic splitting model, almost.

Now I'm plagued by anxiety and uncertainty, but am much healthier than I was a few months ago. The fears will pass, and we are learning to work together. We are lucky in that none of us have any complications - no one here is really depressive, or has any serious issues beyond the normal life stuff, and we support each other as much as we can. All members will keep up to date on each other, and we sort out any fights/disagreements before they get out of hand. We resolved to do this from the get-go, pretty much.

I would say that communication is the first piece of learning to live together and cooperate. I think the reason we were able to get off to a good start is because we immediately started talking, writing, drawing and expressing ourselves to each other. If you are too frightened to talk to them, then in my experience, you get anxious and depressed. Writing to someone who you keep feeling and not understanding for the first time is exhilerating, imo. I remember writing to Tahl the first time, and finding that he was left-handed...he wrote pages with the off hand when I couldn't write my own name left-handed. Since then, we have conciously built connections and bridges to each other so that we can talk easily and clearly, but it has taken a lot of effort.

If you want to know how we do it, I can go into a bit. I'm a horrible analyst/academic writer, so I've kept very detailed notes on the mechanics of us building our system into what it is now. I think every person's experience is unique, but asking and talking to others about how they got working is probably a useful way to go, no matter what your goal is in the long run.

I'm on msn if you need to chat ^_^ Hopefully I'm not being too happyhappy and misuderstanding what you mean...

[mrshannibal.livejournal.com]

I don’t know that it’s so much being walled off from the others, but I kind of know what’s going on, but not really and it’s gone from “my” mind…yet whatever was sadi, or agreed upon - usually gets done…
Did that make sense?

Cut off? I don’t know what that means…I deal with bipolar/borderline personality disorder and I cut...i'm also a diabetic, and must take a handful of pills on a daily basis in order not become incredibly ill…I don’t know if that is a part of the “central” me, or of “someone” or “something” else…scary not knowing…what does GHOSTING means?

Apparently there is much to be said for communicating to those within…everyone has said something like that here and there…my friend has been getting emails from MY email address w/my name, and knows it is not me…
I suppose that is a form of it…could it be that “they” feel he is someone they can talk to w/out directly dealing w/me? Who knows…I won’t guess…

Thank you for the offer, at this point in time - every little bit helps…

thank you for all of this...
and friended you back...

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

Well, by 'walled off', I mean that I was stuck in control of the body, and able to only see and use a smallish part of the collective mind. It sounds like you might be a bit blocked off, but possibly not as much as I was.

Being 'cut off' had nothing to do with physical harm. It was just my words for describing how I couldn't feel the others. I also have a chronic illness, so I sympathise with the anxiety of that...I would think that any physical illness is affecting the body. The stress of being ill belongs to whoever is in the body at the time, I'd think. I wouldn't worry about it being 'not of you'.

'Ghosting' was what I use to describe the feelings of the others trying to contact me. I would get tactile hallucinations (hands touching hair, etc), sometimes hearing voices, or getting flashes of imagery, particularly in the dark. Just the presence of people. It was rather scarey and drove me to panic more than once.

If one of your group has been emailing your friends, then I'd say they probably do want to talk to someone. Maybe try leaving notes out for them, or starting a communal book or computer file? I agree with Gharveyn that resisting what's happening isn't really worth it. If they're there, then they're there. I had to learn that one myself. It helped a lot, for me and everyone else in the group.

[mrshannibal.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ok…I like your term “ghosting” because I’ve been getting flashes of imagery and hearing voices…not so much a physical presence, but of being crowded in my head - no breathing room…

my friend has been great about it - really, he's kept the emails, and will say something if significant...

thanks again

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

How are you judging whether someone is a very functional system, and what are you defining as functional? I'm curious.

-Lilac

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

Maybe functional means everything works the way it's supposed to? I think of being functional as meaning being able to get to the front and leave the front since that's all I'm able to think about. I can't leave the front and I don't know if I ever can or not. The group I'm with may be mostly functional because they can do it, but I'm not functional because I can't do it. :( So I'm a disfunctional individual within a mostly functional group? Though there are other problems too like depression or anxiety that some of them go through and I've experienced too. So that doesn't make things too functional. Maybe this entire group I'm with isn't functional. :( It's probably my fault too because I'm broken.

-Butterfly

[vacillate.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't say for sure if someone is a 'very functional system'. What I can guess is that they're more 'functional' than I am within this ...situation. I won't call it a disorder out of respect for those that don't think it is.

I read, and I envy those that can talk about 'us', and 'we', and 'this is what so-and-so thinks and feels', and all of that. That, to me, is functional, at least on some level. From what I gather, there are several here that don't suffer from time lapses. I do. I feel I am less functional because damnit, if I can't remember half a day, and I don't know what I did in that time lost, I don't really find that "functional". It might be for someone else, but for me it is not.

On another post, in a comment, people were talking about fragmentedminds, and I've joined there as well. I do really, really like reading this community, I just don't get the feeling that trauma based multiplicity is the norm here. That's why I don't post. I just glean wisdom from others.

Hope that answered your question. :) It's more or less a perceived functionality. I see in others what I'd like to be able to do with the Others that are with me, and I feel that if I was able to, we would be more functional.

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

I hope this is okay to ask, but how does a person know they are trauma based? If there were traumas that did happen to some individuals within a group does that just mean that some groups might not have come into existance because of trauma, but still had trauma happen to them?

-Butterfly

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

I understand. Thank you.

-Butterfly