The Death of This Blog

 I'm faced with a bittersweet decision regarding this blog.  Up until this point, we have been blogging openly and honestly about my mental illness.  Well, it has come to our attention that this blog is being read by someone who knows me in Real Life.  I can't have that.  There is no way I can write without restraint if I'm aware that I'm being read by real people.  I began this blog mainly for myself; it's how I keep track of symptoms and of different K's and how I remember things I'd otherwise forget.  However, I've had a good many people write to me and tell me that our blog has helped them, that they've learned something, or that I've helped them feel as though they're not alone.  Some have even called me "brave" or "inspiring" (I don't know how to take a compliment though, so these titles only embarrass me).  I just write what's in my head.  If someone finds these ramblings entertaining or provocative, then that's great.  But my point is, I'm not trying to make everyone else happy, just myself-which is much harder to do.  I just don't feel I can continue this blog as I've been doing anymore.  My secret identity has been compromised.  Now I feel self-conscious and paranoid and embarrassed, and there is simply no way I can continue to write freely as I've done up to this point. I have decided the best thing to do is create a new blog elsewhere, where my real-life readers can't find it. I appreciate all my readers, and for them I shall keep this blog as is, despite my burning desire to delete it. (You can still comment on posts; I will read them)  Here now, in the end, this blog has brought me shame and humiliation by exposing my personal thoughts and actions (all the crazy, mentally ill stuff) to people who actually see me in person on occasion.  I simply cannot live with that.  Therefore, this is the end of this blog.  If you would like to continue reading our blog and are interested in getting the new blog address, please email me. I deeply regret the loss of any readers because of my moving the blog. If you have any questions about my experiences with mental illness, feel free to email me. We hope that you will follow us to our new blog home...I sincerely thank you for all of your comments and emails, and thank you for reading.

~K(s)

Twitter is More Real Than My Life

Only four people in Real Life know about my DID: my husband and my psychiatrist of course, and also, from another city, my last psychologist, and my ex-boyfriend (who lived with me for a year).  It was he who wrote a letter to my husband explaining how I switch. (You can read the letter here)  I'm only honest about my switching into other K's here, in this blog.  To a lesser extent, I talk about my various mental health issues on Twitter, such as  the voices, the paranoia, and my panic attacks; I don't go into much detail about my alters when I'm tweeting. Also, we K's tend to blog more than tweet (that is, the ones who communicate; some of the K's don't do either).

Mostly I just vent on Twitter.  I follow and am followed by around 150 people, so Twitter remains an intimate experience for me.  I don't think I could follow a ton of people-it'd be overwhelming for us K's. I have a hard enough time just trying to remember a handful of names, I could never communicate with a large group of Tweeps. To be honest, I have to take notes about different people I chat with on Twitter or else I'd never remember anyone.  We like to get to know a handful of people rather than just follow hundreds of strangers.  This is why I don't participate in the whole "Follow Friday" thing, where people on Twitter suggest other Tweeps follow certain accounts.  I don't want to single out any Tweep as being better than any other Tweep, and more importantly, we don't want to encroach upon anyone's privacy. Also, I'd rather not be singled out myself, because the idea of a lot of people following us makes me uncomfortable.

I'm such a paranoid person to begin with, and if I stop to think about the fact that over a hundred people are currently reading my personal thoughts....well, quite frankly it freaks us the fuck out.  I will admit that it'd be nice to get more readers for this blog, although I'm surprised at myself for thinking that.  After all, I began writing the blog for me, for the K's, to use as a record of my symptoms and moodswings and switching.  It seems odd that I'd be looking for exposure...but I would love to help someone out there who might be struggling with some of the same mental issues as we, the K's are.

Mainly, we use Twitter as a support system.  If I'm having an anxiety attack, I can send a tweet out into the universe and maybe, just maybe, someone will answer me and either chat with me until my panic has subsided or at least give us some words of encouragement.  My Tweeps have gotten me through the nightmare that is sitting in a waiting room on many occasions.  In addition to the support, I am also entertained; many of the people I follow are quite funny.  I mostly follow other people with mental health issues, because I can better relate to them than to regular, non-mental people.  In real life, I don't have any friends with whom I can discuss my eating disorder or Social Anxiety Disorder, but on Twitter there's always someone out there who understands and can empathize.

I avoided Twitter for so long....I used to make fun of my husband for using it.  Now, just 3 months after I first began following people, I am hooked.  A few of the K's tweet often, and many mornings when I go back and read the tweets from the past 24 hours, I am surprised at what they've (we've) said.  I'm also frequently embarrassed.  But that goes along with the nature of a dissociative disorder-you never know when you're going to dissociate and perhaps do or say something inappropriate, something that draws unwanted attention to us. I don't remember these things, or else I just get flashes or bits of them; usually I find out because someone will tell me or say something about how funny I was the other night, or make a comment about seeing me totally wasted (often what people think when I'm somewhere else in my mind).  I don't really mind people thinking I'm drunk or stoned; it's less embarrassing to me than the truth, when the truth is that I was someone else, or "out to lunch" in my head.

But on Twitter, and in this blog, I can be truthful about what's going on.  I can exclaim that I'm losing my mind or seeing bugs everywhere or whatever-and no one will think much of it.  In real life, I'd be stared at, laughed at, made to feel self-conscious and foolish.  So in many ways, Twitter and this blog are more representative of my real life than even my Real Life, where I have to hide my true self.  How ironic. Twitter, where people can lie and be whomever or whatever they want...and I happen to be more open and honest there than even in Real Life.

Shut Up Already!

K has a big fucking mouth and she just will not shut up. God! She embarrasses us to death! She must drive everyone crazy with her ramblings. On and on. She never stops. I'm not sure which K was in charge yesterday, but I'm ashamed of her. She completely crossed the line and talked to too many people, gave out too much personal information, and even shared some of our secrets.  We, the K's, are very angry with her for this lapse in judgement.  I'm not sure who she was, but she's a talker.

Man, she would not be silenced, and she spoke quickly (according to Husband) and loudly (according to our mother) and I'm totally humiliated today.  We had a couple of friends over last night, and I'm afraid that K got on their nerves.  Now, they gave no indication that this had happened last night, I'm just assuming that if this K got on our nerves, then she got on everyone else's as well.  I'm terrified of going back through my Tweets; God only knows what all was said and to whom.  It's a sad fact that even though I seem to recall a number of different conversations, I'm not certain today who those conversations were with.  This is quite common with us, in fact it's pretty much a daily occurrence in our life.  So every morning, whomever is out and about is supposed to go back through our Tweets and text messages and emails and Facebook posts, and try and piece together what happened the day before.  This doesn't always take place--a lot of times we forget to do this.  It depends on which K is in charge. Some of us are very self-conscious and worry incessantly about what was said and done the previous day and will not relax until we've read all those pieces of information which are available to us via computer or phone or handwritten journal entries.  Some days we find that K didn't talk to anyone at all, or she just barely interacted with others, choosing to show herself only to those certain few with whom she feels comfortable and who she likes and trusts (to some degree, not completely of course).  Just today our husband told us that there are days in which we talk a great deal (like yesterday) and days in which we stay quiet and hardly talk at all.  He knows now that these are different K's, and he's come to accept that.  He even admitted to me this morning that he very much likes the one he calls Switch Kellie, the one who first showed herself to him for a week back in January.  It seems to me that Dr. H, our psychiatrist, got to meet her too.  I really can't remember.  I suppose I should take the time everyday to re-read all the blog posts and journal entries so that I know exactly where we stand, mentally speaking, and so that we have knowledge of our prior behavior and activities.  But I've come to realize within the past 24 hours that I have a good many blog entries at this point, or at least more than I have time to read over again everyday.  Time is short, especially when you are someone who tends to lose time on a regular basis, and so we can't afford to spend too much of it refreshing our memory of the past several months.  We just have to check our day-to-day activities and interactions, and hope for the best, i.e. hope that we don't say something inappropriate or ask a stupid question (again) or in any way give away the secret that we actually don't remember much of anything that happened to us the day or night before.  Hell, we can't even remember what happened to us a few hours ago, much less days or months ago.  So everyday is like a crap shoot for us...We have to decide which blog posts to read, how many texts and Tweets to go back through, and how far back in our journal to explore, and all of these decisions will, in the end, affect our ability to carry on conversations with Tweeps or friends which make sense and follow the proper timeline. Since K has no concept of time, she usually can't recall when something happened to her, even if it happened that very morning or sometimes even in the past half hour.  I can't stress enough how frustrating this is, not just to K, but to all those parties involved.  K always ends up looking foolish, but she tries to play it off by just pretending that she'd been drunk or drugged at the time.  That's her fall-back excuse: that she was too impaired to remember things properly.  And the thing is, most of the time it works.  Most people really do believe that her forgetfulness is caused by pot-smoking or alcohol or all those pills K has to ingest every day.  We worry that our friends will figure out our secret at some point, hell I guess some of them have already figured it out by this time... I guess our memory loss is severe enough to be quite noticeable to everyone who's around us frequently.  I wonder what they think about that. I wonder if they think K is an idiot.  Or just a stupid pothead. 

Here's a good example of how easily we forget things: I am unable to remember what this blog post is about. I can't recall what I've just typed, and can't remember unless I scroll back up to the beginning and read it all over again.  I hesitate to do that, as it not only makes the perfectionist within us go crazy and try to correct each and every little mistake and we could end up spending hours rewriting this whole blog entry, but it also breaks the stream of consciousness which I like to just let go of and see where it leads us.  So I'm stuck now, stuck here in this situation in which I can't remember what I was talking about, but I don't really have time to find out, and so I'll just flounder and  flail about and try to compose some sort of blog post which has an understandable point and which all ties in together somehow.  I know, in my heart, that this is not going to happen.  I know that I will repeat myself, not just today and tonight but probably in this post alone, and that I do so all the time.  All the time.  Sigh. So much wasted time. So many lost memories.  Some of which we're glad to be rid of, others which could really help us in our recovery process if only we'd remember them.  It could be that every time K goes to therapy, she starts all over again, from the beginning, with her therapist. 

 I'm having a memory clip play in my mind right now, and it's showing me my doctor, and she's explaining to us that we've discussed these things before, whatever these things may be. I can see her looking at us, with this look in her eye, that says "I've told you this a hundred times".  I wonder if she and I are making any progress at all in K's treatment.  I wonder if she'll decide I'm too difficult to treat and just give up on me ever getting better, and dump us as a patient.  Our last therapist dumped us for forgetting too many appointments.  What if this doctor does the same thing? What if we get dropped again, and any progress which has been made is lost, and we must once again go to a new doctor, and spend the approximate 2 years it always takes for them to get an idea of what's really wrong with us? This would be a tragedy.  I don't know what makes me think this, but I have an idea that we, the K's, have gone further in our therapy with this current psychiatrist than we've ever come with any one prior to her.  We are learning, we are taking steps toward healing. We've made some progress.  I know this because I read some of our journal and some of our blog and I found that we're starting to remember things from our childhood.  Now K is absolutely terrified at the thought of having total recall of her childhood trauma(s).  She's not sure that she wants to remember, but some people (we can't remember who now) have told us that we can't truly heal unless we face our fears head-on.  So in order to get better, we have to see what all the fuss is about-we have to relive the horror that must've taken place at about age 4 (we've gleaned this information from the memories we've recovered and from old diary entries).

Shit.  I just paused to take a drink of water and I've once again lost my place and have no idea what I was talking about.  I don't want to read this post again. Maybe I should just shut the hell up.  Maybe I've said a whole lot of nothing.  I wouldn't be surprised at that. Not at all.  If only our brain would stay on track for more than just minutes at a time!  If only we could focus long and hard enough to finish a blog post!  Have any of our previous blog posts made sense or had a message?  Has this entire blog been a huge waste of my time, and yours, the reader's?  I shall stop now, for the shame and embarrassment is overtaking me at this point.  I'll just go take a pill and try and forget my humiliation.  It just popped into my mind that I could have blog posts which look and sound pretty much exactly like this one... now wouldn't that be funny and sad at the same time?  All I can really remember right now is that yesterday there was a K here who had a big mouth and wouldn't stop talking and spilled the beans to just about anyone and everyone and now, today, right now, the K that's doing the typing of this post is completely humiliated and feels as though everyone out there in the cyber world is laughing at us.  Are you laughing at us?  Do all of you make fun of us all the time?  Am I the laughing stock of Twitter?  Or is this just K's paranoia taking control of our mind and twisting things around so that K looks like a failure at everything she's attempted to do with this blog?  What was this blog post about again? Oh yes. One more thing, before I forget (HAHA!), I'd like to apologize to all those Tweeps with whom I had interactions yesterday and last night and even early this morning. I'm very sorry that I talked your ears off.  I'm sorry that I was a nuisance.  I'm sorry if I bothered you, or if I've been bothering you for quite some time now.  I really can't remember what's been happening since...well, I don't know.  I just can't remember.

Not Too Early To Tweet

It's 7:04 A.M. and I'm up with no one to talk to or nothing to do and I can't make any noise or else we'll wake somebody up so I can't vacuum or anything like that and I can't leave the house so taking a walk is out of the question and I just don't know what to do with myself.  So many voices in my head, all talking at once, each one trying to be heard over the others. I'm being told to eat, to go back to bed, to blog, to make a list of today's errands, to wash our hair, to give ourselves a pedicure, to draw pictures in our sketch diary, and someone wants a cigarette. Several of us want to write, just in different places-one wants to write in our journal, one wants to sketch in our diary, and a couple want to blog.  I guess blogging wins, as it has the most votes.  Our psychiatrist is going to be disappointed in us (she wants handwritten journal entries). Oh well.  We don't care right now. Another K can handle that task. The Good Daughter will be here once Mom wakes up, and she's trying to spend less time on the computer and pay more attention to her family, so I guess I better blog in a hurry.

It's been a strange couple of days (or has it been weeks? We're just not sure) and I find that we are missing Twitter.  We think it's time to go back to Tweeting, which is our outlet, where we share honest thoughts and actions and where we are free to be whomever we happen to be.  Some of us have friends on Twitter, and we miss talking to them.  I wonder how everyone is doing.  I think maybe I'll have a cup of coffee and either blog or Tweet....stay tuned...

We just haven't been ourself (LOL!) lately.  That means we haven't felt like K, whatever that means.  Wait-I seem to remember K being out yesterday for a few hours.  I didn't have therapy last week, which bums us out, but the lady never called to tell me when to come in.  I suppose I should've called them, but that's really hard for us, calling people I mean.  I guess one of us will have to call them tomorrow.  The Good Daughter I assume. She's here most of the time lately, co-conscious with other K's. Co-consciousness means that you are more aware of what others in your system are doing; you know what they're feeling and thinking.  Like right now. The Good Daughter just spoke to Mom. I heard her. I guess that means our time is up...

Charging my phone now.  Prepare for Tweeting today- Yay! We've missed Twitter, and it's been difficult to keep our thoughts in our head and share them only with our psychiatrist, because we're still afraid to be totally open and honest with her.

Disconnected

We've been struggling.  We feel terribly guilty, but we can't remember what it is we did wrong.  I can't figure out who I'm supposed to be today.  The Good Daughter is taking care of Mom but it's not real.  I'm not in control of that "me", she just comes out and takes charge of things around the house.  I'm glad she's able to do those things, such as give our mother her medications and put ice packs on her back and bring her food and water.  Mom is very sick right now and is in a lot of pain.  She needs us.

Husband needed K this morning, but she just couldn't pull it together. Tried to fake it for his sake. We're all over the place, feel disconnected from everything. We went into some kind of trance state, or maybe we were just dissociating, but Husband says I was staring into space and unresponsive for a few minutes.  We were at a shopping mall, and then Husband left us alone for just a few minutes, and I had a freakout.  There was just too much for me to deal with-too many people, too many voices, too many colors-I was overstimulated. Just too much noise. Too much movement. Everything was just too much. Had to get out of there.

Took an Alprazalam and tried to drive home, but it was hard. Couldn't concentrate. Can't focus. Had to keep repeating out loud to myself where it was that I was going, or else I'd have forgotten. So we're driving down the road saying, "We're going home. We're going home. Just go home." but man it was hard today.  Sometimes we can't drive.  Too much to look at.  Distractions everywhere. And I forget what I'm doing, I forget that I'm driving.  It's amazing I've not wrecked and died.

We haven't Tweeted in what seems like a long time, but I don't really know how long it's been-could be days, could be months.  For some reason I'm afraid to get on Twitter now.  We miss several of the Tweeps but feel too ashamed to come out of hiding.  I guess that's what we're doing now, hiding.  Not unusual for the K's.  But I miss Twitter. It was an outlet for my madness. Why did I stop? Why can't I go back?  I just can't remember. I can't remember how to get back to being "here". We are lost. Lost inside our head apparently. Who the hell am I now? Need to take meds and just go to bed.  Maybe when we wake up, we'll be someone everybody likes.  I hope so.  It's so important that people like us. Don't know why, it just is.

I caught myself smoking a cigarette this morning. I don't smoke anymore.  Thought that was odd. Blog post from last night (? I think) is embarrassing and I'm ashamed of us.  I'd delete it but this blog is my record of my illness and symptoms and I guess it's important to keep it since it was written by that angry K.  I hate when she comes out.  She draws negative attention to us. And she hurts people. I seem to recall that she screamed at Husband sometime....not sure when, but I remember the look in his eyes and it was very sad. We feel terrible about that. He doesn't understand our sudden outbursts of anger. I think he's worried about us...

Damn.  I want to blog but can't concentrate. Can't figure out what to write about. Need to empty my head, which is overflowing with information and thoughts of all kinds, but can't seem to do that today.  Hmm.  Pills I took are kicking in and I'm getting sleepy.  Yay;! Naptime at last!  Hope this works, and brings "me" back.

I'm so very sorry if I've said or done something bad or hurtful or inconsiderate. I don't want to be like that. But I realize that some of the K's are less congenial.  Shit.  We're just going to go to bed for a while..,

Bad Twitter Vibes

We're struggling today.  Something happened yesterday or last night (we think) or at the very least it was quite recently, and it's upset us and we are unable to move on past this incident.  I don't know how to get over it without discussing it with my psychiatrist, but I don't see her until next week, and I can't wait that long for someone to console us.  So I'm going to tell the tale here, at the risk of embarrassing one or all of us K's on Twitter. That's where all this started. Twitter.

I began using Twitter sometime in December of 2011, from what I can tell, although we had the account for much longer; I created my blog close to New Year's Eve. I used the account before December to occasionally tweet to my husband, and to myself.  That's right, I tweet to K.  It helps us remember things, people, places, events.  So I think I tweeted to myself for about 2 years before I ever followed or was followed by anyone.  I was completely anonymous on Twitter.  I told no one that we had an account or a blog. NONE of my real-life friends know I have a blog or Twitter account. I used the blog to empty my mind of all the crap that was pounding in my head at most every moment of every day. I wrote in our blog as a way to release my confusion, frustration, and tension. I could say how I felt, and no one would ever know or judge me.  But I was severely depressed in December, and someone in our head got the idea that perhaps we could find some type of support group online using Twitter.  Or at least, find another person, anyone, who understood what it is we go through everyday.  What I'm talking about is our dissociation.  Hallucinations, voices, lost time, severe memory loss.  All of these things together make my everyday life quite a challenge on many days.  We have good days and bad days.  Sometimes we forget we're ill.  Other days we are so ill that we cannot function at all.

So anyway, I began to search Twitter for someone "like me".  I don't even know now how I found anyone at all....I can't remember.  But somehow we found some people who were at least similar to us, for example a woman with OCD, and we began to follow them, and this led to people following me, and so on and so forth.  Now I can't recall exactly when this happened, but at some point I came across a person on Twitter who had a blog and who wrote about the same kinds of experiences that I have.  This person described symptoms just like mine, and I was thrilled to know that I'm not the only one.  I began to read her blog from the very beginning; it took me weeks, even months, to read all her posts from the beginning of her blog.  But I got to this one part in her blog where she talked about finding someone online who was "just like her".

I was elated-this woman had gone through a situation exactly like my current one.  She had found someone who seemed would understand her and her illness.  Of course I'm not giving any names, but this woman contacted the other woman she'd found, and apparently they ended up becoming friends.  Now let me say this first and foremost-I was NEVER expecting to be friends with the woman with the blog.  I was just hoping she might answer a few questions, or give me some advice about how to handle my symptoms or at least what to say to my shrink.  I was first diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder way back in 2004, but shortly after that I had to move and so I lost both my psychiatrist and my psychologist, who was helping me explore my diagnosis and treatment options.  When I moved, I forgot. That's right, I forgot my diagnosis. I guess it was just too much for us to handle and so we pushed it out of our mind.  I forgot about the therapy sessions in which I'd "switched" and I forgot about all the different "me"s who had shown up for therapy.

What was left in my memory was my prior diagnosis, which was Schizophrenia.  I'd been diagnosed with that around 1998, and that was the label I wore for all these years.  I saw different doctors, but they always assumed that my diagnosis was correct, simply because I heard voices in my head.  I know now that this is not indicative of being Schizophrenic, it's just a classic symptom.  So basically, what happened was I'd been going through my day-to-day life thinking I was Schizophrenic.  I certainly had some of the same symptoms-hallucinations, delusions, loss of train of thought, social withdrawal, and paranoia, in addition to the voices which I heard in my head.  So this diagnosis seemed to fit, and it was assumed by each doctor that I saw that this was the proper diagnosis.  No one had ever explored other options, except for that one psychologist who'd finally identified the real problem but whose diagnosis I had forgotten.

I'm telling you all this so that you understand how it is that I believed myself to be Schizophrenic when in fact I wasn't.  I wore the label for years, as scared as I was of it.  I told only a couple of people whom I trusted, including my sister.  Fast forward a few years, and K began dating a man who was in college, studying psychology.  It was he who first declared my misdiagnosis.  He said he simply did not believe I was schizophrenic, but rather that I had some sort of dissociative disorder (Apparently I had "switched" in front of him before).  I knew nothing of such disorders, but it was only a few months later when my psychologist threw out the term Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I really don't remember too much from that period in my life. It feels like a hundred years ago. But I've lost my place in this story and to be honest we don't even remember what it was that we were writing about.  I hate when that happens, and it happens frequently.  Oh yes, now I remember.

I found the woman with the blog who had the same symptoms that I had.  I thought, after reading her blog, that I had finally found the answer to all my questions about what was wrong with me.  I've been called "mentally ill" since I was first hospitalized at the age of 16, and I've been diagnosed with a dozen or more different disorders, but I've never had a doctor give me a satisfactory explanation as to why or how.  This woman's blog opened my eyes to this new term, which was somehow strangely familiar to me.  Dissociative Identity Disorder.  It seemed to ring a bell somewhere deep inside of us but I just couldn't put my finger on it.  But what I did was this: I began reading everything I could find on DID. Every book at the library was checked out and read.  I Googled and Wikipedia'd and read any information I could locate on this disorder.

Around this time, I found an old diary which talked about my diagnosis of DID, and it was a tremendous help; I took it to my psychiatrist.  But what was most informative to me was this other woman's blog.  She described my experiences perfectly, although of course we lived very different lives.  I decided that I absolutely had to contact this woman, just as she'd done when she'd found someone else "like her".  I figured if she could do it, if she could find a similar soul and communicate with them, then so could I.  Again, I never expected to become good friends with this woman, I just wanted some advice from someone who suffered from DID.  I got her email address off her blog and I guess it took me days to get the courage to write the email, I can't remember.  I just remember that when I sent the email, I was excited.  I was excited by the thought of her emailing me back and telling me she understood.  That she'd been there, that she'd gone through the same things.  When she didn't respond to my email, I realized that I'd told her about the blog but forgotten to give her the address, so I sent another email, this time with all my contact information as well as my blog URL.  I thought maybe she would read my blog and agree that I was DID and that perhaps she could help me figure out what to say to my newest psychiatrist, who had not yet fully diagnosed me but who was in the process of doing so.

Well, I waited for what seemed an eternity, and I never heard from the woman.  She never responded to my emails.  I thought I must've come across as some psycho stalker or something; I couldn't remember what the emails had said.  I was discouraged but determined to make contact with her, for she was the single person I'd come across in my entire life who seemed to understand the symptoms we have.  Months had passed since we sent the email, or at least I think so.  One of the K's is very bold and wanted to send her a Direct Message on Twitter.  Well, that's how we found out we'd been UNfollowed.  Now we know for a fact that she had followed us at one time, for we never delete our messages and so we still had the email from Twitter, telling us she'd begun to follow us.  That could, in fact, be how we found her in the first place; I just don't know (damn this memory loss!).  But I tried to send a DM and that's how I found out she was no longer following us. So without thinking about it much, I sent a Tweet, saying she'd begun following me in January and I wanted to DM her but she must've unfollowed me because I couldn't do that and she responded, very coldly I thought, "I never followed you back. You have our email."  So my feelings were hurt.  I admit it, I'm overly sensitive. But for her to assume that I'd followed her first really pissed me off.  SHE followed ME first, and I had an email to prove it.  Anyways, I took this straight to heart and got my feelings hurt and I never did send her another email.

However, I continued to read her blog.and learned how she'd been able to better understand her illness through her writing. So I wrote. A lot.  I blogged, I had a diary on my laptop, I had a hardbound journal, I had a sketch diary.  I wrote and wrote, and indeed began to learn things about myself and my symptoms.  The first time I read a blog post that had been written by one of the other K's, it really freaked me out.  I mean, there was now solid evidence that I was going through something major.  Still, I didn't mention it to my psychiatrist. I just continued to research, to read, to learn.

I don't know how I had the courage to do it, but I actually went so far as to contact the other woman with DID, the one that had advised my blog writer when she'd written her an email.  I was scared to death that she was going to be mean to me, like I felt the first woman had been.  But she wrote me back and was very nice.  She told me a few things about dissociative disorders and said while she didn't have time to be a great source of support (she's very busy), she'd do her best to answer the occasional email or Tweet.  I have since made contact with her a handful of times (we think) and she's always been very nice. However, I found out, upon reading her blog, that she considers herself to be cured.  She no longer suffers from DID-she'd gone through something called integration, in which all of the personalities merge.  So I was back at square one. The one person I'd communicated with was no longer suffering from the illness I was trying so hard to understand.  So I continued my search. I was successful in finding a woman who has a dissociative problem, but after I emailed her I found out that she does not have DID.  Still, she became, and remains, a tremendous source of support for me, and I owe her so much for all the advice she's given me since I first contacted her.  She's the person who told me how to create a blog actually.  Her blog is brilliant, and I'd post a link but again, don't want to embarrass anyone.

It was a gradual process, but I began to find others like me, other people who heard voices and lost time, and I even found a few with DID. Now it's extraordinarily difficult for me to talk to strangers, as I suffer from Social Anxiety Disorder, and I fear most people.  So just sending an email to someone I don't know is very difficult for me.  Which is one reason I'm proud of us-we actually reached out to some people on Twitter and met some folks with similar disorders and symptoms and we attempted to be social and supportive in the hopes that what goes around would come back around.  And it did for the most part.  I met some wonderful people, who didn't think less of me because of my mental illness, who didn't judge me, who understood moodiness and depression.  Still, it bothered me that the DID woman with the blog never wrote me back.

Then one day, she wrote a blog post, and I gained some insight into her feelings.  She blogged about how much she appreciated her readers, and that she was so happy to be able to help others struggling with similar disorders.  She wrote that she loved getting emails from people who'd been helped through her blog.  So I decided to once more send her an email-I thought since she said she appreciated the positive response from her readers, well I thought she'd like to hear how much she'd helped me.  But before I could find the courage to send such an email (I mean, this would've been the third email sent to her, and that was like stalker material), she wrote another blog post.  This one stated that she didn't read the blogs of other mental patients, because she found them to be triggering. Well, that certainly made sense to me, as I am often triggered by things I see or read.  So I never sent the email to thank her for her help, the help she doesn't even know she's given me.  I'm afraid of her now.  I really am.  She hurt my feelings twice, and I can't risk getting hurt a third time.  I began to focus more on the people I'd met on Twitter, and on my own blog.

I was starting to communicate with a number of Tweeps and actually, for perhaps the first time in my life, I felt accepted in spite of my psychiatric condition. I gained confidence and started initiating conversations with people on Twitter.  This is unbelievable to me as I write these words-I have NEVER been able to approach a stranger and start a conversation.  So I seemed to be making progress, getting better.  Plus, I was sometimes offering my support and experience to help others on Twitter, sometimes a young girl who was cutting, sometimes a man with an anxiety problem.  I felt like I was doing something that made a difference.  I felt like I was helping as well as being helped, and this made me happy.

At last I had the courage to bring up the subject of dissociation with my doctor, and was happy when she agreed with me, that yes, I had a dissociative disorder.  She didn't say I had DID-it will take a long time for her to positively identify my disorder-but she told me I was on the right path.  So I continued my reading and researching, and talking to people with DID.  They all seem to think that DID fits me like a glove, and I have come to believe that too, but I won't know for sure until my doctor has treated us for a long time, probably years.  I am impatient but understand her point.  She wants to get to the heart of our illness and see what's really going on in my head.  My biggest fear at this point is that we'll have to relive the childhood trauma which she believes is the cause of this illness.  Otherwise, I'm feeling more positive and confident and social. I even got an invitation to join a DID support group, which I did. The people there seem incredibly supportive and understanding. Hopefully I'll be courageous enough to participate in the group.

But now here's where the bad part comes in again.  One night, maybe last night, I'm just not sure, I was on Twitter, just lurking really, not talking to anyone, just reading the timeline, and I noticed a person with whom I'd communicated several times was on there and seemed to be having a very difficult time.  So I thought I'd reach out and let her know that she wasn't alone.  Well, I'm not sure how it happened, but she misunderstood me and got all upset and accused me of yelling at her.  I was shocked. I'd never had a disagreement with anyone on Twitter.  And, as is my nature, I took it personally.  It completely smashed my self-esteem and I was crushed at how mean she'd been to me when I'd only been trying to help.  I guess I'm not very good at offering help or advice.  And so I've come to a decision.  I've decided that I won't be using Twitter as I had been doing up to this point.  I'm not going to try and help people, for it only sets me up for rejection and ridicule and failure and pain.  I'm going to take some time off from Twitter; my husband says I'm obsessed and spend far too much time online anyways.

So I will continue to blog, as it is something that I do for myself, not for anyone else. The blog is my outlet for my madness.  I'm always surprised if someone reads it, and delightfully stunned if I get a comment.  But it seems to help me better understand the different K's, we communicate with each other through the blog you see. So that's pretty much all I wanted to say.  That I was blogging and using Twitter to help myself get better and find support, but that I'd been hurt and felt like I failed. And so I'm not going to do the Twitter thing for awhile.  At least, I'm going to try and stay away from it.  I DO have an obsessive personality, so it will be nearly impossible for me to give up my current obsession cold turkey.  But it must be done.  My feelings are hurt and my confidence is blown.  I'm scared to use Twitter right now.  I shall miss my new Tweeps, and I'll definitely miss the support I received from the other mentals out there.  But this is how I feel right now.  I'm hurt. It's going to take me some time to get over it.  I take everything so personally, it's a character flaw I have no control over.  So there you have it.  That's why I won't be on Twitter for awhile.  It's also why I don't trust anyone on Twitter anymore.  Too much negativity.  Too many bad vibes. Too much disappointment.

NOTE: Not all of the K's necessarily feel this way.  Some of us may continue Tweeting. And we'll definitely continue blogging,as it seems to make us feel more "sane". Hopefully, I'll see you Tweeps again soon. I just have to be sad for awhile, and we need to be alone to sufficiently sulk. That's all I need right now-just a private pity party for the girl who made a fool out of herself, not once, but three times.  I wonder if I'll ever have the courage to speak again to someone in need.  I wonder if I'll ever be able to comfort someone, cheer someone up, make someone smile.  I have my doubts. It seems everything I do now is wrong.

An Apology To My Readers

I'm sitting here, and I'm reading over my last three blog posts, and I'm thinking to myself A) These are so  boring! and B) I sound like an arrogant bitch and C) I'm going to lose a lot of readers/followers.  So I've decided that you, dear readers, deserve an explanation as well as an apology.  First of all, you have to realize that I started this blog for myself, and then later my psychiatrist asked if we could use it in therapy, so it's intended to be just a record of someone mental's day to day life, no matter how mundane.  I wrote this for ME, to help me remember my symptoms and dissociative states.  It was not intended to be a source of information or entertainment (although if you find it entertaining, then that's awesome).  The only thing, if anything, that I hoped to accomplish through this blog was to perhaps help someone out there not feel alone.  I've felt alone most of my life, and I know how hard that is. I hope that if anyone who reads this who has some sort of psych issues will find some comfort or reassurance or hope from my writing.  As for those of you who began reading my blog from the beginning, then you might have a better understanding of what this blog represents, as it is a record of my journey of self-discovery and (proper) diagnosis. It's also a history lesson, collected memories which I need to have handy, details I would otherwise forget that are important to my recovery or life in general.  I'm rambling. Again.  And I don't think I've even apologized yet.  Sorry, readers, that my blog has been dull lately. I promise to spice things up a bit soon. It shouldn't be too hard--I missed over two weeks of meds recently and am expecting the aftermath at any time now.

Groundbreaking Ceremony For Our World

We've been thinking a lot lately (that should come as no surprise-our brain NEVER shuts itself off) and have decided to make a list (yes, the ever-popular list-making, a hallmark of K's OCD) of topics which would be good to write about in this blog.  I'm still learning how to blog, and I've been obsessing for a few hours now over the look and feel of this one.  I'm not satisfied.  I KNOW we can do better, and I'm angry that it's not perfect.  That particular K (or K's-or is it ME?!), the perfectionist, is having a fit about all of this, and is really nagging us to edit the blog or redesign it or just DO SOMETHING that will give it a more polished and professional appearance.  I, on the other hand, just want to write.  I don't care about particulars really, I just wanted to use the blog as an outlet for our usually-overflowing mind.  It was the other K's who got all obsessive about the blog and began focusing on every minute detail, down to the little things which NO ONE would ever notice (well, no one but K).  So I left them to fantasize about the "new & improved" blog, while I chose to come over here and write.  Just write.  I've been hungry to write since...well, hell, I can't remember (damn those pills!) but it seems to me to be a very long time.  I feel like I've been hibernating all Winter and have just come out of my cave to find Spring has sprung and there is new life all around me.  This makes me happy, this newborn feeling we now have.  Clean and fresh.  Renewed.  Yes, good things are happening here.  I believe that for the first time in her life, K is actually traveling down the correct path, the road to recovery; that's the dream, it's always been the dream-to NOT be sick anymore.  I just want to be "normal", even though I don't really have a grasp on what "normal" means, (compared to other people) seeing that I've never been what is generally considered "normal".

K was always different, there was just something about her that didn't match up with the other kids around her, and she felt like an outsider, even way back then.  We can remember being in kindergarten (I was about 4 or 5) and we were all sitting around, coloring.  I remember looking at my picture, and comparing it to the other kids' pictures, and one couldn't help but notice that my picture was painfully perfect, with not an inkling of crayon outside the lines of the drawing.  The other kids had pictures with crayon scribbles all over them or else were just a mish-mash of colors smeared onto paper.  I recall listening to those other kids, laughing and being silly and talking nonsense, and I thought to myself, or rather, someone inside me said, "These kids are SO immature!" and it was then that I first recall my feeling like I didn't belong, like I was in the wrong place or the wrong time or something.  It was a weird feeling, but since I was just a little kid I was able to let the feelings and thoughts wash over me like a river and I could continue on with my life inside what eventually became my own little world.  By the time I was 6, this "world" had news correspondents, and sports broadcasters, and celebrity interviewers, all following K around and asking her questions and filming her and narrating the story of her life.  It's very similar to the reality television programs which are currently so popular, except this show wasn't always glamorous-K often looked like crap in fact-and it "aired" 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which means there were plenty of "boring episodes" of this TV show.  K didn't realize this was abnormal, since these "people" had always been with her,  and besides that her parents found it amusing that K had so many imaginary friends. Other children outgrow imaginary friends; K did not, but she never told anyone.  It was her biggest secret and after she got to be old enough to realize that this probably wasn't "normal"  (after college),  she was too afraid to tell anyone, for fear of being locked away in some psych ward.  Besides, she was pretty used to it by that time; she couldn't imagine being any other way. 

To be honest, K stuck out like a sore thumb back then when she was young, and always has actually, because of her being so very "different" from others.  (DISCLAIMER: The following information is in no way intended to sound arrogant or conceited; we're just stating the facts as we observed them)  When she was a baby and a toddler, she stuck out because she was not only "the pretty one", a title which I believe stemmed from her long, thick blonde curls  and big blue eyes, (a title which K still hears only not nearly as often) but also "the smart one".  The "smart" title was easy enough to trace back, as K was reading bedtime stories to her parents by the age of three, (according to our mother) as well as writing and drawing and, by age 6, keeping a diary.  These monikers-"pretty" and "smart" were something K would carry with her for years.  As far as physical appearances go, adults were forever calling her "pretty" and "beautiful" and she garnered a lot of attention wherever her parents took her, simply because of how she looked. I believe this could be the reason that one (or more) of our "alters" is narcissistic.  (K continued to play that "pretty" role until the end of 3rd grade, when her mother cut her long hair quite short, like a boy's; this was very traumatic to K and she mourns the loss of her hair to this very day)  Being "the smart one" was a title which would follow K around until after college, when she finally realized that boys simply don't date "smart" girls and so she came up with this persona who was pretty and charming but not that smart.  K would slip into this personality whenever she was in a social situation with guys, except for the intellectual types, whom she loved so much.  (K was into geeks before it was chic.)  But I'm getting off the subject.  She had it in her head by that time (it was learned through experience) that for the most part, guys don't want to be with a girl who is smarter than they are.  So this new K was born, this pretty and funny and sweet K, a girl of average (read: normal) intelligence, who was certainly no threat to the men around her.  I'm jumping ahead in the story, let's go back a bit.

The "smart" K excelled in pretty much every area of her life.  She made straight A's without even trying (note that she had a "photographic" memory back then), and whenever she entered a contest, such as an essay contest or an art contest, she almost always won, or at the very least placed in the top three.  By the time she reached middle school, she had a closet filled with trophies and plaques and awards for everything from science to photography.  She was always the first person in class to finish a test, or a math problem, or an English assignment; people grew to expect such behavior from K, and for a long time K was able to handle it without problems (after all, she had people inside her as well as around her who could help with homework and learning) and continually pushed herself to be even better. I don't know what caused her to push herself this way. It was definitely NOT her parents; they were so afraid that K would grow up to be conceited that they NEVER praised her for good grades or a new trophy or any other accomplishment. In fact, I believe that K tried so hard to get her parents' attention that she developed certain psychological problems, e.g. low self-esteem.  I can't recall whether or not someone else (the other K's? Switch Kellie? ME?) was encouraging her or promoting this "must-be-the-best" behavior, I only know that K was stressed out at a very early age and so new K's came into being.  These "others" would be K's saving grace, the only reason she was able to survive and move on with her life, the only way she could continue to "make her 'movie'" and thus fulfill what was at that time her life's goal.

I'm not sure which one of us is responsible for this information, but the Smart Kellie went into hiding after K dropped out of college, and only made appearances whenever she was needed.  For example, when K was in the presence of intellectuals, older adults, friends of her parents, or whenever it was necessary for K to sound intelligent or well-read or somehow special, such as at a job interview or on a first date. We were in college, majoring in studio arts, when we had our first "breakdown" (even though this one would later seem much smaller, at the time it was huge).  Kellie's World crumbled down around her and she went someplace dark and empty and stayed there for years, although you'd never guess it from looking at her because she was being taken care of by someone else, possibly me...(I just can't remember anymore-too much time has passed.)  It took a lot of people, namely a lot of K's, to re-establish Kellie World and make it feel safe again. We had to rebuild everything pretty much, and it was an enormous task, but K never left that world;  instead she changed the way she existed within it.  This is all terribly difficult to explain, and I'm only succeeding in making myself sound foolish, so I'm going to stop now.  I think I've filled an encyclopedia with these ramblings; I wonder if anyone (including K!) will have the patience needed to drudge through this post?  DAMN-at this point, I can no longer remember what the hell we were talking about anyway...