Introducing Ju

This past week, Ju came forward and introduced herself.

She has no age and for the sake of convenience, she identifies as female, though she feels as though she is neither male nor female.

She is the conduit for the system that connects to a spiritual, energetic source.  When the body was younger, she spoke to angels. She communicates to other systems members by thought. Her presence comes through by her influence on others’ sensitivity: Jelly Bean’s connection to crystals, rocks and mineral and her ability to feel their vibrations, Jennifer’s search for spiritual meaning, Evvi’s goddess playacting, Jen’s interest in quantum physics.

Ju said she is the one that leads the body  to Sedona. She said she chooses the adventures the body takes to meet people.

At one point in 2008, Ju said she fronted. During this time, she enrolled in and paid for Masters degree coursework through the American Institute for Holistic Theology. This past week, Jen came across documents and contacted the school and reactivated student standing. Ju said she told Jen where the documents were, though Jen wasn’t aware of the communication.

So the course books arrived. Classes will resume. Ju and Jennifer have opened a line of communication between each other and have decided to work together.

Ju seems like an ancient, wise soul developed to give the system hope beyond the horrors of everyday life. A child-like crone, a faceless energetic force. A human angel maybe.

She may be the one that has always put us in the right place at the right time. Her words may be the ones that people say are just the ones they need to hear.

It’s a relief to know we have Ju within.

Lock Down.

UBUNTU: i am/we are

The body is free but the mind is shackled, retraumatized by hours spent in isolation in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital where they are used to medicating and moving people out the door. And by people, we mean one person, one mind.

Some one like a me-we is an anomaly. Staff refuses to acknowledge our different selves, going so far as to not speak to us when the body the name isn’t used. They say the radical mood swings are pleas for attention and forms of manipulation.

We are roped in  foot and wrist shackles when we react to what is perceived as an attack. Twice. We are called liars because one doesn’t present a debilitating muscular disease the host has. We are treated to one-on-one staffing to protect ourselves… Or the other patients …or cover someone’s ass. 

Our protector is humiliated. Or host is made to feel…

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Lock Down.

Lock Down..

Lock Down.

The body is free but the mind is shackled, retraumatized by hours spent in isolation in the psychiatric ward of a local hospital where they are used to medicating and moving people out the door. And by people, we mean one person, one mind.

Some one like a me-we is an anomaly. Staff refuses to acknowledge our different selves, going so far as to not speak to us when the body the name isn’t used. They say the radical mood swings are pleas for attention and forms of manipulation.

We are roped in  foot and wrist shackles when we react to what is perceived as an attack. Twice. We are called liars because one doesn’t present a debilitating muscular disease the host has. We are treated to one-on-one staffing to protect ourselves… Or the other patients …or cover someone’s ass. 

Our protector is humiliated. Or host is made to feel ashamed. Others are hiding in fear from scary voices, aggressive men, cruel women. Trigger. Trigger. Trigger.

But we are home now. Noises are louder. Rooms are too small. Closets are hell pits again.

The hospital stay was not therapeutic. Med changes make the head wavy, the eyes fuzzy, the mind sleepy. Everyone is running into each other on the inside, a little confused. Inexperienced doctors should not tweak on the DID med heads.

All they care about is that Cj stops cutting and Jen doesn’t drink. But they have no idea what monsters they unleashed for Trisha and Tammy. And the hate spewing from Jackson is far more dangerous than Cj’s inner pain. We’re free, but still on lock down. Thank you, mother fuckers.

Introducing Evvi

Evvi is 8 and just discovered “record.” This recording is the first time Jennifer say one of her alters come forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhksuUdfwlQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

And the cheese stands alone

19 year old Cj is holding the body hostage. She cuts, she burns, she smokes a pack of cigarettes a day even though the body had cancer two years ago. She doesn’t care. The others are playthings to her. In fact, she insists no one is real. The are toys, things. Objects for entertainment. Her versions off christians and lions in an amphitheatre.

Not long ago she was a stable member who helped out in tough situations by watching over the more demanding kids. Her role generally is to handle stressful hospitalizations, for which she was created many years ago.

But now she is renegade, wreaking havoc on the body, alienating people in the system, scaring kid. Engaging in destructive behavior. She lurks in others consciousness and peeks out to insert her foul mouth, her fuck you attitude.

She pushes every button the therapist has and it’s going to land us in the hospital if the rest of us can’t do something about. When she figured out one of us needed to stay with her to protect the rest, she flipped out, walked out on therapy and did more cutting, now on the face. Sometimes 27 against one isn’t such a good thing.

The smart ass needs a bitch slap. Or a hug.

Earlier this week it became clear that the creep was back…the dark black ooze that starts at the corners of your waking thoughts, slinks its way into mindless minutes and finally pins you, breathless, to the bed, immobile, praying for world annihilation or a brain aneurysm. That’s depression. And it usually strikes several of us at the same time. Some brush it off, one takes to bed, another acts out in anger. There’s self harm issues and suicidal tendencies. What a single person might feel as being a bit down becomes catastrophic, debilitating depression that bites at every single nerve and sense in the body. Even the kids get cranky, though that may have to do more with the stress the adults are putting on them.  Our body is well medicated. And we are taking pills as prescribed…something that doesn’t always happen.  The reasons for depression could be many. Sometimes, most times, it doesn’t even matter.  Once we’re in it, it’s a matter of riding out the storm and hoping we all survive. 

One World

We are rebuilding our world. 

Our system had a common meeting spot created by the host once she became aware of the others. Over months the location morphed, expanded, but always remained a place she created. One day it was vandalized by one of the others. No one ever claimed responsibility for it. It was never repaired. We only returned to the inside once and have been meeting at other common spots since then. 

Each of us have expressed to our therapist the need to have a safe place of our own. And our therapist has encouraged us to cocreate a safe congregating spot. 

This world is our retreat. Safe. Secure. Yet it has no boundaries. We have an ocean on one side and a mountain on another with a beach in between. The sun shines during the day. And at night there’s always a full moon in a sky full of stars. Even so, the sky is not our limit.

We’ve worked on this rebuilding process individually, with each other and individually with our therapist. And it is really coming together. It feels good to not be wandering, to have a place together, to all be equal and not at the mercy of one person. 

Cosmic Chameleon

This body is exhausted playing host to a cast of characters, each so needy, so hurting, so lost, all in their own ways. A million variations of anxiety and frustration and anger and rage and fear tumbling and rumbling, waiting to erupt at any second. Except for the fact that this system is adept at acting, chameleon like in its ability to play hide and seek in the open, used to always being it. One of these days, though, enough will really be enough. And what’s broke…who’s broke…won’t be able to be fixed.

How Are We Feeling Today?

Since being diagnosed with DID in January (or February, who remembers), I’ve been much more aware of emotions. I was going to say “my emotions” and then I typed “when my emotions changed.” But neither of those are accurate. What I’ve discovered is that my (as in whole body, super-consciousness collective) emotions are divvied up between different persons, each handling certain ones, depending on intensity, trigger and human interactions.

For some people familiar with DID, that might be a no brainer. But for a newly diagnosed being such as me, it was a shock. I thought I was truly incapable of feeling certain emotions. I might have an occasional flicker of feeling mad, but not an awareness of being ANGRY. I would feel smiley-face happy, but not JOY JOY JOY from the mountaintops happy. Overall, I felt a little of something and usually indifferent. 

Getting to know the other parts of me through journal entries, drawings, feedback from my therapist and personal awareness, I realize that the whole of me often felt many emotions very intensely…just not this one part of me. WHOA! It’s sometimes exhausting just following the ups and downs of what all of me goes through when I am “not around.” 

The irony is that, in that the brokeness of feeling diagnosed with DID, I’ve come to learn tthat I am a more complete being in the sum of my parts than many single people will ever be in a lifetime. When I, speaking as host, am really struggling with yet ANOTHER diagnosis, I can at least take some comfort in knowing that there’s a wholeness to me that has been created to compensate for my inability to cope. 

So to my point of emotions: I have them. Me, or someone that shares this body of mine. We all do. Next step: accepting emotions. I suppose that’s the entire point of therapy.