September 1, 2006

Hi everyone this is Carolineine.
I'm sorry we haven't had much time to update our journals the past few weeks. We've been back to work for around 3-4 weeks, and since I'm mentoring some new teachers and on some committees plus trying to help out with some other things, I feel like I'm running around all day long.
I'm ready to have my nervous breakdown right about NOW. I practically live on my computer. I've been busy doing all kinds of things, including school projects for others, and my own classroom things on my workstation at school. Well the other day my computer decided it needed to die. I talked nice to it. I threatened it. I offered it stickers. I hit it a few times. I gave it choices. Its choice was to begin dying.
So I have been trying to back up all my files. The past 2 days I've spent several hours taking & fixing up pictures for school webpages. Today, some "computer expert" came to "FIX" my computer. I told her it didn't need fixing, It needs a new hard drive. She decided to "fix" it anyway. I told her, I really don't think its going to work. I was trying to stick up for my computer.
WELL. She fixed it alright. It is now in the throes of death. AND EVERYTHING-- EVERYTHING-ALL OF MY WORK IS GONE. Everything I have been doing for 3 weeks at school. EVERY DOCUMENT. Every lesson plan. Every picture. Every plan and schedule. Its GONE.
Now I have to re-do EVERYTHING. And spend all those hours and hours retyping, and re-inventing, and re-doing, and re-loading, and re-writing. The kids aren't going to like this much. This is vital assessment things, required paperwork, required lesson plans, etc that we HAVE to have for school, and the things that HAVE to get back up on the webpages, etc. I feel like my hands are tied. As I was trying to deal with this, 2 other teachers came up and told me they needed my help too. Then someone called who needed my help. I feel like I'm under a lot of pressure. I'm handling it though. Its just a lot at the moment now that my computer crashed
On the bright side, I have a terrific class this year. They make me laugh a lot, and we have a good time in my classroom. Some moments are pretty hard, but the days are so busy that they go by fairly quickly. At night I work on things for school.
In therapy I think the kids have been working hard. We're trying to get Pilgrim to be more aware of the things that are going on around her-- something she's not too keen on. Jo has had a little bit of time to talk to our therapist, and Mae got a little bit of time a couple weeks ago. Our school has corporal punishment, and I had to be a witness for a paddling the other day--- that caused some pretty difficult flashbacks for everyone inside. I think we're going to need to talk about that with our T.
We are also still working on making friends. Offered to take someone to dinner-- hopefully they will take me up on it. I hope that the friendships I'm trying to form with 2 of the new teachers at our school will pan out.

Posted by pilgrim at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)

September 8, 2006

The past couple of weeks in therapy, my therapist has been talking about how she doesn't know very much about me. Me--Pilgrim,me. The supposedly "core" person, the original. She was saying how it seems like everyone else-- Mae, Jo, Carolineine, etc-- is well defined. She knows all about them. They have things they like, things they don't, things they do, things they don't do. But I am rather foggy and shadowy. Its really unclear what I like and don't like. Not really sure what I do or don't do. Its hard to tell if I have any sort of identity at all.
When she said that, I hid my eyes.
Dammit.
She found out my secret.
As she always does.
That, my foggy-not-really-here-ness thing I've got going, is just about the only thing I've ever had to keep me safe.
Anything that ever happened-- it didn't happen to me. Because I'm just this ghostgirl, this invisible sort of...non-presence... it's safer. Its easier and faster for me to fade away and dissociate when I was barely here to begin with.
She asked me if I'd like to be more real-- more defined--more like the others. I did say yes. That would be nice. Now that honestly, the dissociating trick isn't REALLY necessary anymore (I just THINK it is), it would be rather good to be a really person, to be like everyone else.
But how?
How do I figure out who I am? Anything I've ever liked, from what I want for dinner to what movie I watch, is because of what someone inside wants. IE: "What do you want to eat for supper?" Well... Mae says she wants macaroni and cheese; the boys are hungry for hamburgers. What do I want? I dont know. I dont even really taste food. Its just sort of there. So I say, "Either macaroni and cheese or hamburgers sound good." or, "What do you want to do tonight?" Well I know Carolineine is really tired, Mae needs to play, Jo needs to do something quiet. Probably staying home and playing a game with our DH would be a good idea. What do I want to do? I just want to stay out of trouble and try to keep everyone happy.
I have filled out dozens of those memes and survery forms, and even the MMPI one summer. Taking that was a challenge. We were switching so much that the test was finished by 4 of us. The same goes with quizzes and online personality tests, things like that. We all answer. If it were up to just me to answer questions, I don't think I could do it-- the answers would elude me.
How do I figure this out?

Posted by pilgrim at 9:20 PM | Comments (1)

September 9, 2006

I just wanted to let readers know that I have updated A Mind's Journey, our online community for people with dissociative disorders. Recently we've added some new forums, such as a place for members to share their story with other members; an extra place for members to get to know each other through games, quizzes, and questions, and just tonight we added a special spot just for Tweens ages 9-12 as an addition to the other forums we have for Child alters, Teen alters, and adults. In the past few years A Mind's Journey has grown from just a handful of members to a few hundred but it still remains a safe and close community. I hope that more people people with DID and dissociative disorders will come check us out.
A Mind's Journey

Posted by pilgrim at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)

September 10, 2006

Is there anyone on Earth who doesn't know that tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center? Its everywhere. All weekend long on television there are programs. Its in the newspaper and in magazinesand on the radio. Everyone talking about where they were. What they were doing. Who they were with.
There's no escaping it. If you try to talk about it, everyone tries to one up you: oh yah, you heard _____? Well I was doing _____ and so-and-so knows _______ and THEY DIED! And my tragedy is greater than yours!
I need to escape it. I'm so afraid to go to work tomorrow. What if something happens? I'm terrified. I feel like I need to cut, to hide in my house, to spend the day on the couch with my blanket pulled over my head.
I wish I could e-mail my therapist. I wish I could call her. Usually I would, but I e-mailed her 2 or 3 times last week, and I just feel so dumb and intrusive that I don't want to bother her again. And besides, what is there to say? I CANT TALK ABOUT IT. I haven't EVER talked about it with ANYONE. And I dont know if I ever will be able to.
I can't talk about what happened inside of me that day. No, I didn't know anyone who died. No, I wasn't there.
What happened inside was...different. i cant talk about it. i cant.
What I can say is this: before September 11, I was doing really good. That fall, I was pulling myself together. We have videos-- my best friend and I playing in the park. I LAUGHED. I did cartwheels in the park. At NIGHT. I goofed around. I was eating. i laughed back then.
i laughed.
And then, the world came tumbling down.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:19 PM | Comments (4)

September 26, 2006

Therapy has been intense lately.
Tonight I came home and I'm exhausted.
Mae tried to take our T some new crayons that she bought her but they melted in the car :( But they did open the box in therapy today and look at all the pretty colors blended together.
Then Mae talked about this thing that we used to see... this video... that someone in the family had. We would see it sometimes. It was terrible and showed terrible things. I'm not going to ever, ever talk about it with anyone besides our T. We still have the nightmare images in front of our eyes.
Our T talked to her about how she can imagine the images or on a TV, and Mae can turn the knob on the TV herself until the tv picture fades to all white. Then she can imagine herself taking the tv outside, filling it up with helium, and it turns into a balloon. Then the balloon goes up,up,up in the air, floats away, with all the bad pictures, and in a little bit she hears a POP, and all the memories pop into a billion little pieces and go away. I think it will help Mae. Mae was so tired. T gave her a hug and rocked her back and forth on the couch. Mae got so tired. I talked for a little bit but it was about the same topic. It was too hard. I disappeared after a little bit too. Its been a rough night. I dont know... there are so many things I dont want to remember.
Jo

Posted by pilgrim at 6:33 PM | Comments (3)

September 27, 2006

YouTube seems to be one of the biggest crazes lately, and I spend a lot of time zoning out to various videos there when I need to just relax. They have a bunch of rather stupid videos that they say are on multiple personalities, but are actually just making fun of it-- which is pretty typical, and not surprising. However, there is one video there that is fairly new, and it actually is fairly good. I wanted to share it. It has a quite good representation of what DID is like for ME. Note that I am not saying that this is what its like for everyone or all multiples or anything like that... I am saying that this is something that I've found that has the best representation available so far of what its like for ME to have inside people, and how things are like inside my head. It also has a little twist at the very end which I thought was quite clever.
INSIDE on YouTube
Let me know what you think.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:19 PM | Comments (6)

September 29, 2006

This morning I went to see my nutritionist. I love her. She weighed me though-- I have lost more weight. She isn't exactly thrilled with me. I did an ok job recording in my food logs, but she says that we ALL have to write down what we eat, no matter how old we are or who is eating or how we write. Even MAE has to write down what she eats. Our food logs were all disorganized. I tried to explain, this is how my whole life is-- all disorganized and we all can't remember stuff, we forget stuff all the time. During the appointment, we were switching and there were 3 of us trying to talk. I dont know if we even made sense the whole appointment. My Nutritionist says if the boys want to eat meat, I need to eat meat. Yuck. I told her the boys can eat ALL the meat they want on their OWN time. I am not going to eat meat. Its just wrong. AAAGHHHH.I remember ending up curling up on the couch in her pillows trying to disappear while we argued over how I think I am fat and she says I am not.
She's going to tell my T how I lost weight. My T is going to kill me.
I have to go back in 10 days for another check in with my nutritionist. Wheeee.

Posted by pilgrim at 7:21 PM | Comments (2)