The Many Of Me

I’ve been struggling with writing about a very difficult, painful time in my life for the past week. My Writer’s Digest magazine suggests interjecting some light humor when things get too intense, so here it goes:

Last night Beloved fixed supper for us while I was at the computer struggling to write about my life. Now there is something you need to know about our beloved – he has a unique perspective on what flavors blend well with each other and which ones really don’t. For example, he prefers to put orange juice on his cereal instead of milk. So, getting back to last night, I was focused on what I was doing on the computer when Beloved called out that food was ready. I went to the kitchen to find a grilled sandwich and tomato soup. I carried them to the sofa where Beloved was waiting for us to start our evening ritual of eating supper while watching old shows on TV. I mindlessly took a bite and noted that something tasted a little strange. I wearily asked him what I was in the process of consuming, and he told me it was grilled cheese. The furrow in my brows remained skeptical as I explained that it looked suspiciously like grilled peanut butter and Fluffer-nutter. He burst out laughing and told me he had used American/Swiss cheese on top of yellow American cheese to make the sandwiches. I chuckled and settled in to shift my focus from the food to the shows we were watching – Abbot and Costello.

I don’t know what to write. We had a great time camping with our family. The book Beloved and I read together was a murder mystery that ended up being very triggering. It has been a struggle to get it out of my head. Now we are home and I am back to the task of writing the book, though we haven’t made any more headway with it. My heart is very heavy and sad. I want to be fair and just – honest yet loving. How do I say what is on my heart?

I started a new devotional for private study. It focuses on the intimacy of Jesus during His final hours with His disciples before facing the cross. I’m hoping it will re-ignite my own passion for personal devotional times.

I will be leaving for a week of camping with our family tomorrow, so I expect this will be our last post for at least that long.

In resent days we have had some significant insights into our life with FOO (family of origin). It seems I need to focus on unresolved issues with my mother. This is very hard for me/us. We have grieved long and hard for my mother ever since she died of cancer many years ago. In the past we have focused on our grief over her death and the repercussion that had on our life, but we have never focused on grief and pain from our life with her – at least not in depth. Single incidents here and there have been talked about in therapy but not in depth, especially not about the unhealthy bond between my mother and me.

I’ll write more about this in future posts.

I know there has been another extensive delay in our posting. I’m still the same person out who posted last time. I was nearly hospitalized about a month ago for a severe kidney infection, and am only starting to feel better. I must have been fighting that infection for a long time which most likely was contributing to our extreme lack of energy over resent months. Hopefully now I will be better able to keep up with posting here as well as make substantial progress on the book.

A significant insight came to me/us at our last EMDR session with our therapist last week. Although many of the other personalities have done the EMDR before, it was my first time using the tappers. I was surprised that they didn’t cause any pain at all – just a low level vibration tingling. I guess I was expecting a low level pain because I was relating them to the tens unit I have used in the past. Anyway, we were talking about our tendency to see the traumas in our past (specifically leaving foster children behind and the abortion, but also recognizing the same was true of other traumas) from the perspective that they were our own fault even though we had no choice in what happened and would not have chosen to do them if it had been our choice. Our therapist suggested we think, “what happened was my fault” while the tapper in our right hand vibrated, and then,”what happened was not my fault” when the tapper in my left hand vibrated. After a few repetitions my right hand became very hot and heavy. The longer I did these repetitions the more I was able to embrace the truth that these severe traumas were not my fault. It was overwhelming to embrace this reality, and we really believe it will make a huge difference in our ability to continue to heal from them.

It’s been so long since we have posted anything. It’s hard to keep trying to keep up to date when so many things are demanding what little effort we have. My brother who has been a soul mate supporter of ours has deteriorating health. He is frequently in the hospital and about a month ago was in hospice. One of these times he won’t be able to get to the hospital in time and he will be gone from us, which is a very weighty thought for us.

Our SAD lights broke on us and there was a delay in getting a temporary replacement to use while ours is being fixed. Even though we have been using the replacement as we are supposed to, still the depression that has settled in again hasn’t lifted in the least.

Our excessive need for sleep has reached a plateau and consumes a huge amount of time every day. My dear friend has moved to a town farther away from us and that makes it harder for us to get time together. We are both feeling the lose of that precious time together.

I guess I should have said this at the start of this post. I’m the personality who was out much of the time during adolescence and early parenting days. I was also the personality who first got us into therapy with the psychiatrist who diagnosed the DID. For the first time I am attempting to write my story, and as you can likely imagine it’s a major endeavor. I get a little bit written down and then my heart feels so heavy with depression that I have to leave it for a day or two before I come back to it and write a little bit more. Most likely that will mean that I will be doing most of the posting for a while. I’m not sure what name I should use, but I will need to come up with something soon.

I guess that will be all for this post, except to say that it sure would be nice to hear from someone or two of you who are reading these posts.