i think it’s cuz we’ve been working so very hard in therapy and it is taking its toll on us.  i guess we’re supposed to expect or at least be able to cope with the after effects of therapy but it is so so hard and painful and so exhausting.  we are wondering if we need to pull back some and slow down some of the stuff but we think others inside are just focused on pushing harder and pushing forward on things and that we can cope with it.  well some of us think not!  the sadness entrenches us.  how do we get rid of it? i mean besides making it go away but really it doesn’t go away just somewhere buried inside.

we think too all this therapy and crap is just too much for the other Julies as they just get so worn out easily by lots of stuff and especially since they are kind of working through some of this with us, well ya know, vicariously working through the stuff they know about and are aware of.  it doesn’t take too much emotions and therapy stuff to totally wipe out the Julies if they can’t stay far enough away from it.

we are wondering if we need to do a forced dissociation in order to get stuff done but not sure how long it would really last.  but like in therapy when things are too much or have hit a strong triggering point where the ones pushing to do the talking and telling and emotions and stuff have pushed as far as they can against the ones trying to keep everything silent and nothing happened its not true and all that stuff, well, a weird kind of jolt and snap and jerk of the head and boom we are totally fine and nothing happened, it’s not true, no feelings, nothing, just utter and totally fine and okay and perfectly normal with no problems and no issues.  so like maybe we need to try and use that as sort of a forced thing when we’re like this.  not sure if we can but maybe we could try and see.   and we have no idea if we can control it like that but guess it is worth trying.  but doing any of that by itself takes energy too.  and we have so little of it.  so little physical and so very little emotionally at this point too.

it really sucks being anemic too and we need to schedule an appt with our regular dr. because looking online it talks about how it is important to find out the cause of it.  maybe then we can actually get our vit b12 and folic acid and vit d and whatever else needs to be checked as possible causes of anemia.  we’ve been wanting our vit b12 and vit d checked for so long but always afraid to just ask outright and afraid if the dr. says no b/c for whatever reason it isn’t “medically necessary” or they don’t want to b/c we didn’t convince them enough that it is merited then we are screwed in the future and will have to prove so much harder that it is medically necessary to have evaluated.  we are pretty sure they are totally low and we need vit b12 shots and special vit d pills.  we just suspect it is also contributing to our problems.  our sleep dr. tested and found the anemia and we’re taking supplements but we’re still exhausted and we know it’s going to take time and we’re also looking at upping the double dosage he is already prescribing to us.  we are thinking of taking a different brand and type of iron supplement in addition to the kind and mg he prescribed.

and for all this time, for many years, we’ve thought that our fatigue was associated with our depression and just being a fuck up and stuff.  now we’re wondering if we’ve been anemic for years now.  our regular dr. checked our iron when we went in to see her awhile back but she didn’t do the extensive testing.  the sleep dr did and he found it that way.  she just diagnosed us with chronic fatigue syndrome and maybe we have that but maybe we don’t.  i don’t know.  we just hate being tired all the time.  and this has been our life for years now.  having no energy to do crap and any small thing (taking shower, emptying dishwasher) wears us out and puts us back to bed to lay down which often leads to several hours of sleep.

so whine, whine, whine.  we’re having a hard time.  we hurt emotionally and sometimes physically but i think we still dissociate a lot of our body pain.  we get weird ass pains in various places in our body but we just cope with it and deal with it.  we’re emotionally exhausted and physically exhausted and the depression is just doing its damndest to suck us up and really, we think with the therapy stuff we’re doing lately, we think we’re experiencing a lot of grief even though we’re not sure what exactly it is we’re experiencing other than deep sadness and just our system is struggling.

we can’t put into words yet quite what is going on.  sorry this is so stupid.  just we hate things right now.  it’s so crazy how we can plummet so far and so fast and we forget sometimes how very easy and very close we always are to this place.  we’ve been struggling but getting through and we’re used to that… things being hard with varying moments of coping ok and varying crappy times, but now things are not just hard and barely getting through, they just fucking suck and we feel like we’re falling with nothing to hold onto to stop.

stupid us.

julies, and others we think

We’ve been awake since 5 or 6 am. The last two nights we’ve woken up after only a few hours of sleep. Tried falling back asleep, but then finally got up. Now we should be getting ready to go to DSHS to get this done and make a phone call to Cec to try and see her today. She didn’t return our call from last week to make an appt with her. This bothers us, but we’re trying to give her the benefit of the doubt until we can speak with her– something Wendy taught us and that we’re appreciative of.

In some ways it just seems easier to wait another week to see Cec and take care of this medical stuff tomorrow or Friday. In other ways I know we really, really need therapy right now. A lot of stuff is going on and therapy is just so very much needed.

All we want to do is to go back to bed and hopefully sleep, but I know that means we’ll probably be in bed until this afternoon. We have so much to do around here, business oriented stuff and personally, and yet we seem to only be able to do a little bit a day and sometimes not much of anything. I feel depressed and sad and something… something I recognize so very much. My heart aches inside and I feel the weights of so many things that I’m carrying. And sadness, such deep sadness within.

Such is life.

Julie

for talking about it and proving it isn’t true for saying too much about it. for being a baby about it. for making too big a deal out of it and so it just proves how untrue and unreal and how much we just want attention and we’re being melodramatic about it all. for just again, for just being. for just everything bad that pores from our cellular body and just spreads everywhere around us.

for just.. just… oh how i must stop now. try to express this and precursor it so that people know we know. so that we have said it and that those of us that are going to say it, so that the others know we know it. that we haven’t forgotten. that we know it. and we’re going to say it and be bad anyway.

just this memory has gotten a hold of us. a hold ahold what is the spelling and word we’re looking for. and shit, i said, “memory.” it’s not. it’s not. it’s just a stupid fucking story. nothing else. but yet tears escaped. emotion escaped from nowhere or i guess really somewhere.

we can’t just cry tears anytime we want. we can’t. we can’t even cry or have tears come even when we want to or need to. and yet there are those times where tears escape from some place unexpectedly and they are there. so there must be something to this story. more than just empathy. or maybe it is empathy and just sadness for a story that isn’t true about this body, about “us.” but that’s stretching things and denial a bit i guess. but how can you say you’re in denial if you’re really in denial? does that make sense to anyone?? so of course if you say you’re in denial (which means you can’t really be in denial) then of course it isn’t really true and it didn’t really happen and it’s just some whacky fucked up thing your brain is screwing with you on because your brain is just screwed up and has some need to fuck with your head and try to make you believe something is true when it isn’t.

it’s just this knowledge of this story has seeped so far inside to what seems like so many inside. it feels worse than a “normal” memory in a way because at least if it was a “normal” memory it would be ‘forgotten’ again and lost within again. it would seep back inside with the insider who holds the memory and the insider will probably be that much harder to ever access again. maybe. like we can think of a few insiders who’ve shared their pain and memories and stuff with Wendy over the years. but so much of what’s happened to them is forgotten, is lost inside, or rather it has disappeared back inside with them when they went back inside somewhere. what’s left is mostly their name (if they gave one) or some vague awareness memory that someone was there and shared something, but what was shared is so forgotten. it might be somewhere in some letter to Wendy about it or some journal or some email to our email group about it. but where it is, who knows. of course it is on a therapy tape recording some where, but who knows about the quality of it–if it can be deciphered.

as we’ve written the last 3/4 of the above paragraph, i noticed the right eye spasming. weird. wonder if it means anything. stuff like this half the time i don’t notice. don’t pay attention to. but trying to be more aware of the body. little things like this– seems like maybe it is important or might mean something or maybe not.

so really why are we writing this. we’re writing to say that this story, this memory, this whatever it is, is just really encompassing the brain. yes, it’s in the far reaches of the thoughts. but it’s there. it feels like it is there constantly in the back of the mind. the area where factual knowledge resides. like the sun is out today. stuff that often is passed along with many inside for awareness purposes if they come near the front. it doesn’t happen that way for everyone. i guess really it depends– it depends on whether they have an awareness of “today” or not and how far seeped in trauma and a memory they are in as to whether they know. but even still, sometimes it seems like if they come outfront, even after their disorientation, that something inside works to orient them to some of this shared basic knowledge info. i don’t know how it all works really. i just know that somehow this info has been placed or stored or is sitting in a really shared area that holds the basic info that we’re all “supposed to” know in order to “pass as normal and singleton and not bring attention to ourselves for not knowing.”

and this memory, this story, this whatever is sitting on our heart so deeply. it also is in the further depths of the heart and emotions, but yet, it is still there, constantly weighing on us.

yes, it can be pushed away to some degree, dissociated to some degree, but it hurts like hell and it’s there and we don’t know what to do with it. don’t know how to cope with it. too many of us know. it keeps staying with us. it isn’t going away anywhere. it sits there with the knowledge info that we’ve accused the father of sexual abuse. that we’ve confronted the father in the past. that we say (sometimes at least and some of us at least) that we were ritually abused by others. that we also say none of that is true at the same time. all that knowledge, that information, those words. that’s it. it doesn’t matter that there isn’t any real true “normal memory” with this info of visual, hearing, emotion (or selected emotional segments). it’s just words. knowledge. facts. things believed. things not believed.

it’s just not the same as other insider’s memories that stay with them only or maybe with them and a few select others inside. this is system wide in a shared knowledge base and it isn’t going away and what the hell do we do with it, how do we cope with it, how do we heal with it, how do we really accept it or not, how do we do whatever it is we’re supposed to do with it. how do we keep it from trapping us into a deep depression. from causing the dying impulses and needs and everything from skyrocketing. from triggering those inside to need to do that. from self-harming the body by cutting or anything else.

i want to scream and wish i didn’t know. and yet i know i need to know in order to heal. and at the same time i want to know, so that i/we can heal. i don’t want this to drag on forever. if it is true, i can see why i/we need to know. what we’re trying to work on inside is something that goes system wide and greatly affects our functioning and working together as a system and well, having a will to live. i/we can see how this information is a huge piece in understanding why things are the way they are, why it needs to be dealt with, why we need to heal this and work through this in order to get to our goal. it’s just so hard at the same time.

see i told you we’d whine over this, make a big deal over it. how many times have we said the same thing over and over in this stupid entry but said it in slightly different ways. so repetitive. fuck being succinct. we’re trying to figure this shit out.

oh g-d, here comes the tears. okay, enough. gotta go. can’t fall apart today. it’s a Noah weekend and our house is a mess, we still have a few other things we need to take care of today, aside from cleaning. it’s already late in the afternoon. we’re bound to hear from them soon and it will be time to go spend time with Noah and family. and of course we want to spend time with him. it will help because we will get joy from being around him. and we’re getting to know Hunter too and it’s good to do that as well. and we’re trying to not feel guilty for not calling and trying to plan to get together sooner today. it’s just we’re trying to cope, to pull things together, to manage things without getting too overwhelmed. to be able to be present when we do go see them this weekend. uggh.

keep feeling like we need to write more. like we’re still trying to process everything. need to post that story, but password protect it. and then send out the password to people. but also want Cec to know and want our email group to know, except it was somebody’s bday in our email group and so we have to wait to share that story. well, we don’t have to, but it only seems right to wait. and some inside don’t want us to tell anymore anyway. so we have to work through that too. we read the story in our support group thursday night and it was hard, but we did it. so now if we can tell it again.

julies, us, others (really not sure who’s here right now)

Such sadness. I can’t help but think about how when “I” was suicidal at 13 years old– how my brother found my notes about it to my friend, Kelly, and her notes back. How my brother became suicidal afterwards. Who was it that was hospitalized? My brother. My brother at 11 years old was the one who went into a psych ward for kids. I picked up his homework for him from school. I spoke to his teachers– teachers that I had at one time. And there I stayed in silence- silence of my fear that my father would rape me. Silence of my secret and shame that I would even think or fear such a thing, let alone say it outloud, but I remember it so very clearly. I remember thinking it and nearly obsessing over what I would do and how I would get away and tell. Someone adds, “this time.” I have no idea if it happened during all those conscious fears or after that. I mean, I like to think it didn’t, but too many times I have been shocked into the realization that oh fucking yah, we dissociate and lose time and so yah, it’s so possible that it did and I just had no memory of it then and now. I mean, after all, even when such an obsessive fear and plans of telling, if I had been asked, I would say that no, he didn’t abuse me. Why? Because I had no conscious knowledge of it, and I would never accuse him or anyone of something like that without really remembering and knowing it. But what kind of 13 year old daughter fears such a thing by her father with such depth and careful planning of how she would tell and get away? So there’s one of my secrets. Sometimes I can use that to point to the reality that he did sexually abuse “me,” but other times I look at it and think how it just proves how screwed up I am and that just because I feared such a thing with such intensity and planning thereafter, it doesn’t mean he ever did abuse “me.” I mean, maybe it is possible a girl fears this from her father and her father never touched her.

So basically my brother played the scapegoat role and humor role. I played the hero and invisible child. I don’t know the exact names of these like some others in here do or once did. Now they’ve changed in a lot of ways. After all, we’re the ones who told the secrets and got into therapy. So now Bryan is basically the perfect child in the parent’s eyes. Plus he’s successful in all those “right” ways. He’s got a good job, owns a house, has a child, and more.

But that’s not what this is about right now. It’s that this body is still alive. It’s that nobody really knows or understands how horrifically difficult this has been for us. Not even our therapist, Cec. And there’s anger there, that I don’t completely understand. But it is a rage and a lot of nasty things to be said that I don’t think belong on her, and so I and others squash it down. The fear of expressing such anger, especially displaced anger, and the fear of the punishment or disapproval or her hurt and anger at us for doing such a thing is more than some of us can bear right now. It’s this tentative trust we have with Cec right now. We can’t have anyone inside fuck it up for us. We’re scared of being left again or hurt again in some kind of way by another therapist. Someone screams how stupid that is, perhaps because they don’t want it to be real, or really- because they want us to just get over it and get on with life.

Oh yah, life. So we just wrote how nobody knows what it has been like for us inside. What the hell we went through inside beforehand and then all that time on Friday, even in the early morning hours (middle of the night) on Friday. But that doesn’t matter. And yet it supremely does matter. The pain in being so alone with it and unable to talk about it. Greatly needing Cec, but she wasn’t there and unable to be there. Having to be present in this world, in the time of today and not the past. Yet the past was overpowering us, and we somehow got through Friday. Really the old coping mechanisms so well entrenched in us. Those lessons we were taught so very well– to behave and appear normally and fine at the cost of us. So people called to wish Julie a Happy Birthday, and the voice responding back is someone fine, okay, and not writhering in pain or anxiety or others out-front freaking out about something.

Someone screams at me to shut up. What does it matter anymore. Now we’re left with the cost of this body remaining alive. But that’s another journal entry we need to write another time. Obviously we haven’t spoken about it after all this time and that was the main purpose in writing to begin with.

Just self-hate looms around us. A depths of despair sadness lines our walls inside. But if it is necessary, the masked face will smile and seem fine, normal. It’s what we do. It isn’t who we are.

Somebody and a few others