Journal Entry

SUNDAY, APRIL 15, 2012

1:00 PM
I'm back. I, being the persona who's writing this post, being, I believe, (I hate to say it yet I'm excited by it as well), it is I--Switch Kellie. That's the name Husband gave to me when he first met me in January 2012, just a few days before our 2nd wedding anniversary if I'm not mistaken.  It was quite the night, that night of our introduction. Switch Kellie is mentioned here: Blog Post A and here: Blog Post B I'm faced once again with the choice of whether or not I should tell Husband that I'm here.  I'm wondering if he'd notice eventually anyway...I mean, there are clues. For one thing, I'm making lists. Tons of highly-detailed lists, of a variety of things.  What to do, Who to call, Where to go, etc. I'm also doing a lot of paperwork, researching, Googling, taking notes. I have so much work to do, I fear I won't have enough time to finish it all.  It is 1:02 PM and I'm pausing just long enough to make a note of the current time, so that I might be able to keep up with how long I've been here. Here being this moment in time, this "now". How I value time...probably because I lose so much of it. *deep breath* OK, feeling a panic attack coming on...I better go take the meds I forgot to take this morning, since it's now time for the afternoon pills.  Drat.


4:28 pm
 I'm still here, or so it would seem.  I successfully kept my presence a secret and now Husband has gone to work so I'm safe for a few hours. If only I can keep Mom from noticing. I think she might be suspicious, because I was making and maintaining eye contact with her earlier.  That's NOT something I can do very easily, and it's rare that I even try.  But I did it without thought or effort, just action. Just knowing. Just do it.  Oh dear God, have I ended up a Nike commercial rip-off? Sigh. Went to a chocolate festival with Husband this afternoon; he wants to go walk thru the carnival rides section tonight after work, so we just hit the food and vendors side today. There was an appalling lack of chocolate at the supposed chocolate festival. Now, let's get serious. I can't believe how bad this "Kellie World" situation has become. For one thing, K totally flaked out and forgot to pay a number of bills last month. Now I'm getting phone calls from people wanting their money. I had to combine money from my savings and checking accounts to cover them, and even then I had to borrow money to cover everything, since I had 2 months' payments due. *Sigh*  For another thing, K is really looking bad, in so many different areas.  Her skin is all messed up; stress has caused her to break out all over, and her Dermatillomania has caused her to pick at all the zits. Therefore, she looks like an acne-ridden teenager.  Her arms also look horrendous from CSP (compulsive skin picking) so she's been wearing long-sleeves even though the temperatures have been in the 80's F.  Her self-injury is the worst it's been in years-her calves are covered in big, bloody scabby sores. Gross. The new medications have made her gain weight so she sees herself as obese now, although that's probably not really the case. (Maybe it is though, we really don't know how to tell; we see a fat person in the mirror no matter how much I weigh)  Still, it's a major stress factor in K's life. Her hair color needs to be touched up-she's got roots showing, and her bangs are far too long.  I can't tell you the last time she had a manicure, and her nails look like hell. Apparently we've been biting them, just like old times. HA. So NOT funny.  I've been binging on Easter candy lately, and that has got to stop immediately. Also, it's time to start working out regularly again, better yet obsessively.  K has some vitamin deficiencies and needs a multi-vitamin supplement, which she's not been taking. She's been flip-flopping between starvation and overeating. Binging and purging is the norm around here on days that she eats. There is no happy, healthy medium.  This is the worst, perhaps, she's ever been; I don't mean the thinnest of course, I mean nutritionally speaking. K is very unhealthy at the moment. I mean, K is unrecognizable.  Her face is so puffy from the medications that she looks positively round. It's a nightmare. Very unattractive.  And we're supposed to go to our nephew's wedding in mid-May.  Damn.  So much business to attend to, even without all the physical makeover stuff that I must now do.  K has utterly let herself go, and I'm ashamed of her.  Obviously, she's quite depressed.  That's the number one reason she looks this bad.  Am thinking perhaps this switch was brought on by the stress of having to sleep with Mom again recently so that I would be able to hear her calling my name (she was in so much pain the she got scared and kept calling out for me).  I was afraid I'd not wake up seeing as how Dr. H increased my nighttime meds to 4 pills a night rather than 3.  And indeed, I slept long after Mom had gotten up. I slept in til about 8:15 this morning.  Well, not I per se, but us. The K's.  This K is getting antsy now.  Feel the urge to go clean something, or to self-pamper, to give myself a deep conditioning treatment and a fizzy foot soak and a mani/pedi and then I've got to get off my fat ass and get to work.  The bathroom needs sanitizing.


6:09 pm
 Paranoia is putting crazy thoughts in my head. This is making me wonder if I'm faking it, this dissociative disorder. Is this all just in my head?  Am I really all that different from the other K's? Signs point to yes, as I am thinking more clearly and quicker and just...differently.  I see things in a whole other light than what K sees.  I'm more responsible than she is, more able to multitask, I'm more mature and dependable. I don't do drugs. Cigarettes? No. Not Switch Kellie. I might have a drink or two (well, I would if I were allowed to drink; my meds interact badly with alcohol) but I'm definitely not a party girl. I'm more serious than that.  I think about things like our future...Mine and Husband's....I think about what's going to happen after Mom dies. I don't know if we'll be able to continue to afford to live here in this house. Plus, Sis will probably want to sell the house and split the money.  I would do anything for Mom, I'd give away all that I have if it'd make her pain stop. The Dilaudid seems to help a lot, and they gave her some pain patches which I've cut in half and put on her back and chest. Things with Hubby's health are sketchy too. His asthma attacks are getting frequent and more serious. Aunt B gave us some Advair that she had for her husband but he never used. Too bad she gave it to us the day after we'd spent $266 (borrowed from Mom) on a month's supply. At least by the time those run out he'll be enrolled and active in the discount prescription drug plan at the medical complex and can get his meds for like $15 or something. What else has been happening? It's so hard to remember.  A few things on my Master List:  Wash car, Fax letters to banks to add me to Mom's account, a facial masque, dusting the bedroom, cleaning the bathroom, painting the porch, refill the sugar canister, blog about Switch Kellie, Cancel online gaming subscription, etc.  Notice how the list is so scattered-they can be trivial, like the sugar dish, or labor intensive, such as painting the porch. I also have written down to call a dermatologist. It's time to get my legs looked at. What started out as a light rash has now become large scaly patches of itchy, red skin. I've been self harming by scratching them until there are bloody holes in my legs, and now I have awful looking scabs over most of my calves in a spotted pattern. It's quite a shame. I've been trying to let Crickette (Husband's little dog) lick the wounds to help them heal. Speaking of Crickette, did I tell you that Mom was telling me what she wanted on her headstone (just what someone who's a big baby with abandonment issues wants to talk about), and she said she wants her dogs. Sam (Daddy's, now Mom's schnauzer) & Crickette, their photos or engravings or something like that on her marker.  I told Husband that and he teared up; said it was touching.  I thought it was sad to be thinking stuff like that.  But I, being the smart one, know in my heart that Mom is not much longer on this earth.  I don't know if she can ever learn to live with the pain of PHN. She told me that she understands now what Daddy had to go through all those years he was suffering. I would do anything to take away her pain; I can only wake her up to give her Dilaudid, put ice packs on her back, and stick pain patches on her.  She squeezed my hand really tight tonight and thanked me for taking care of her.  I told her that I didn't really do much, and she said "You're here with me, and that's something". Or something along those lines. Damn I can't remember exactly as I keep switching, or trying to switch or something.  Something happened to me sometime around 1 pm this afternoon, and I became Switch Kellie.  I don't drink, or at least very rarely/lightly, and I don't smoke and I don't do drugs. I enjoy reading and crossword puzzles and brain teasers and philosophical debates and hot cups of tea in my "#1 Wife" (isn't that funny? as in #1 of many) mug that Hubby gave me for Christmas.  Now I think, but I can't really be certain without going back into the bedroom and asking Husband the question, but I think that I told him that Switch Kellie was out. He asked, I believe, if "the other Kellie was here", and I told him I'd been here since this morning but didn't want to tell him. I didn't want to freak him out.  But it must not have freaked him out, or else he's just drunk enough beer to cope really well, for he's back there now on the phone with his buddy, not even thinking twice about me or her or any of us.  OK, I've got to get back to my list. I have so many things to do and so little time to do them all. Well, I don't know how much time I have actually; I've stayed over a week before...longer if I'm needed.  OK. Gonna change clothes and start cleaning the bathroom.  Also going to dust the bedroom ceiling/corners/walls.  Need to get some sticky tape and remove the dust from my wigs, especially my favorite blue & black one. I hope it's not ruined.  :(  The K that wears the wigs hasn't been around in a long time, that's why the wigs are all covered in dust.  She last came out.. I believe the year was 2008 or 2009. I really should tell you about her sometime; I find her fascinating, if I do say so myself.  And I do say so, to myself. HEHE  Mental illness humor.  OK, now let's see. Here are the facts as we know them: Switch Kellie was triggered, possibly by stress (from worrying about Mom's health and money and Husband's asthma), possibly by the new increased medication dosage.  At any rate, she's here now, I'm here now, I am in control and I will see to it that all this business gets taken care of.  K has let her finances really get into a mess. We have to close one bank account and switch to a credit union account in order to save $11/month.  We have to write letters and fax them to banks and financial institutions, so that I can do banking for my mother and also talk to phone support about her accounts. OH and VERY important-we have to find our misplaced medical insurance cards!!! Or call and request new ones.

5:15 am (Monday)
Sigh. So much to do. K has really dropped the ball here. But I'm a hard worker.  I've already cleaned everywhere, thoroughly. I never went to bed last night because I felt like I had too much to do, and so I cleaned all night/morning instead of sleeping.  There's just so much that needs to be taken care of.  So much adult stuff.  Not many of the K's can handle adult stuff, so I've got to hurry up and accomplish as much as is humanly possible before I go away again.  If only I knew how to control which one of us comes out when... wow...I'd be like a super hero! *mind wanders again*

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.

Therapy Trainwreck

We have been having a very difficult time lately but can't concentrate long enough to blog about it, which is the homework assignment given to us by our psychiatrist on Friday.  She asked me at our last session to start keeping a diary and bring it in to our sessions; instead, I brought an old diary from 2004, which was written in various states of consciousness,  often while we were dissociating. There was so much I wanted to tell her, to read to her from the diary, to explain to her-but I just couldn't stop crying long enough to get the words out, and I didn't have the energy to talk to her anyway.

It was all I could do just to get to the appointment.  On the way there, in the car, I pounded on the steering wheel and screamed and yelled curse words, tears streaming down my cheeks.  I was shaking and hyperventilating and my heart felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.  I took 1 mg Xanax- thankfully there was part of a bottle of water still in the cup holder from a couple of days earlier.  It was difficult to see through my tears as I drove to my doctor's office. Not only that, but once I got close-within a few blocks-I got confused and forgot which way to go and I took a wrong turn...sigh...I got lost on the way to a psychiatrist's office which I've been visiting regularly for 2 years.  I figured this would make us late but as it turned out there was another patient ahead of us.

Whew~what a relief to get to her office safely, to park the car, to look around frantically and find no other people in the parking lot. I cursed out loud to no one. I took another drink of water and looked at myself in the visor mirror.  I was a wreck, an absolute mess.  My hair was all wind-blown and I had sweat pouring down my face, mixing with the tears pouring from my eyes...I was wearing black sunglasses but you could still see the tears running down my cheeks.  My bangs were sweaty and stuck to our forehead.  I had on no makeup, not even lipstick, and the sunlight accentuated each blemish, scar, and bump on our face.  My cheeks were flushed red from crying and I was huffing and puffing and I looked like I might explode or something.  I searched the car desperately for a napkin or tissue, to wipe my forehead and face, but I found nothing, so I pulled my shirt up and used it to dry my eyes and cheeks and forehead.  I didn't have a brush with me, so I finger-styled my hair and longed for a hat.  Thought about taking another Xanax, but can't remember now if I did or not.  I was quite unsteady on my feet as I got out of the car and walked to the door.

 Inside, I found a couple sitting in my usual spot (the corner) so I was upset about that on top of already having to hold my breath to keep from crying.  I watched my hands trembling as I tried to sign my name but for a minute I was unable to remember how to write it.  I had to think really hard, and even then it seemed foreign to me as I wrote out my first and last names; I don't think I used my typical handwriting-it looked unfamiliar to me.  I sat down and took out my phone to Tweet.  (I Tweet when I'm nervous or upset.)  Pretty much immediately I started having a serious freakout, but luckily at that moment the doctor called for the couple in the corner, and realizing I had some precious time to spare, I somehow found a voice with which to squeak out to the receptionist, "Do I have time to go smoke a cigarette?"  That's funny because I quit smoking 2 years ago, although we have been known to cheat now and then.  At that time, Friday morning, I would've given just about anything to smoke a cigarette, but we had none. She told us the doctor would be a few minutes, so I practically sprinted out of the office.

I got into my car and locked the doors, looking around me, all paranoid.  I suppose I could've turned on some music but at the time it was so loud in my head that I couldn't stand any more noise around me.  The noise on the inside was louder than the noise on the outside, and it was nearly unbearable.  I did the only thing I knew to do to quiet the voices, the yelling, my screams--I dug around in the car until I found a small stash, and I smoked a couple of hits of marijuana.  Sometimes it really is the only thing that will help calm me down.  So I took a couple of tokes-not enough to get me stoned, just enough to take the edge off- and tried to talk myself down from this state of panic and sense of being overwhelmed.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it through a therapy session, and I pondered driving away, but part of us knew that we desperately needed to see the psychiatrist and so we stayed.  Didn't get out of our car until we saw the couple from before come out of the office.

The doctor was waiting for me inside, and as soon as she told me to sit down, I collapsed into a chair and started sobbing.  There was just too much to tell her, too many thoughts, too many feelings, I had too many questions for her and didn't even know where to start.  I was having trouble getting words out at all, so she paged the receptionist and asked her to bring me a glass of water.  With it in my hand, I took another 1.5 mg Xanax.  Tried to take slow, deep breaths and finally, after what seemed a really long time, I was able to speak.  I couldn't sort my thoughts and found it quite difficult to express myself with words.  Pictures would have been better--I'll have to remember to take a sketchbook and pencil next week.  Every time it seemed I was going to get my point across, I'd forget what I was talking about and start stammering, searching for the end of a sentence which no longer made sense to me.  God it was frustrating!  And the tears kept interfering, and the gasping for breath...

It's a terribly inconvenient time for me to be this depressed.  Mom doesn't know; well, she knows we're blue and not eating and wearing my pj's a lot.  But she has no idea that I've given up on my personal care altogether.  I'm not eating or drinking anything but caffeine and alcohol.  I'm self-harming.  Two weeks ago I was binging and purging, now I'm just purging.  I don't have enough energy to shower or get dressed.  I haven't washed my hair in over a week, probably longer. I don't know, and frankly, I don't care right now.  It's hard to care about shit like flossing your teeth when you're searching for a reason to exist, just one more day. I told her I'd been sleeping for about 15 hours a day, sometimes more.

I can NOT do this right now--my mother needs me.  She's very sick-she has shingles-and is physically suffering a great deal; she cries out in pain often, and it tears at my heart.  I can do nothing to help her, and the doctor tells us she could be sick with these shingles for 3 weeks.  Sigh.  I just don't have time to be depressed right now!  There's so much work to be done at home and in therapy.

I told my psych, Dr. H, that I absolutely had to see her more than every other week.  I tried to explain to her that I was too sick to be left alone for 2 weeks at a time.  I tried to tell her that there were different people all living in my head, and that some of them were very ill and needed intense psychiatric care.  I tried to briefly explain about the K's, and how I desperately needed the "strong one" to come out and take control of my life.  I can't understand why she hasn't come to my rescue this time, like she has before.  Usually when things get really bad, when there is just more stress than I can handle, then she comes out and takes over my life and sees to it that everything gets done, everything gets taken care of.  She's the Smart One.  She's quite productive and can multitask and is very capable of handling stressful situations.  She needs to be here taking care of Mom, and taking care of K.  She'd fix things.  I just don't know how to force her out; I haven't learned how to control things like that yet.  I don't have any control over who comes out of my mind when, but usually, say in a social situation, the right K will automatically appear and handle things until she's no longer needed.  And no one ever notices that there are different K's because generally, no one sees different K's, just the one that they know.  Each friend knows their own version of K.

But I've gotten way off topic.  I was talking about my therapy session.  I can't remember everything that we talked about, I mainly just remember getting very upset and worrying that she was going to put us in a hospital.  I tried to tell her that in the 2 years we'd been seeing her, we'd not had the courage to be honest with her about what was in our head.  I'm always afraid that if they find out how sick K really is, they'll lock her away.  That, and the fact that I just do NOT trust people, makes it difficult to open up and be honest in therapy.  I fear my thoughts and feelings.  If they scare me, I figure they'll scare the doctor too.  And I don't want another label, I want an accurate diagnosis.  But she told me at one point during the session that it would take more than a couple of sessions to make a clear diagnosis; since I've only just now started to talk to her, really, we had a way to go to get to proper diagnosis and treatment.

One more thing I just remembered....  she asked me if I remembered any abuse from my childhood.  I told her I couldn't remember the actual abuse (I've blocked those memories) but I had little clips of memories of things which seem suspicious or not normal.  So I told her about the 3 or 4 things that I recall from childhood that I find to be inappropriate memories for a little kid  She asked me again to write in my diary and bring it with me next week. Incidentally, I guess I got my point across about needing to see her more frequently--I saw her Friday morning and she wants to see me again Monday afternoon.  That's as quickly as is possible.  (She also gave me a prescription for yet another medication.  Abilify.)  Or maybe I just scared her and she's keeping a close eye on me lest I become suicidal.  So far, that's not been a problem.  Self-harm is not at all the same as suicidal actions.  I can't kill myself right now-not only is it bad karma, but my mother needs me to take care of her.  I have too much to do to die right now.

The Mystery of Marriage

I just celebrated my 2-year wedding anniversary, so I've decided to write about our feelings on marriage.  K never wanted to get married, in fact she was very much opposed to the idea of marriage; she found it to be an antiquated notion which was only useful for tax purposes or naming heirs in the current day and age.  She thought it was old-fashioned as well as obsolete, so she decided by the time she was a teenager that marriage was NOT for her. (Insert horrible mistake at age 19 here, but it was only 8 months before K kicked him out so that hardly counts as a marriage)  She didn't fall in love, not really, until she was 24, and it did seem that she was going to marry that guy.  He appeared to be everything she wanted, and The Kellie was madly in love with him, but he was evil and the relationship was toxic.  He proposed three times over the course of five years.  Once we said yes, once we said no, and once we said yes and then he changed his mind and broke our heart.  That's a story for a different day.

K moved around a lot, and she'd always end up with a boyfriend whom she'd inevitably dump just as soon as marriage was mentioned. It was a fairly simple task, since she never "loved" any of these guys anyway.  I don't know how or why this happened, (I'd be scared to even date K) but K received 7 marriage proposals from 5 different men over the course of her dating career.  That doesn't count the one she finally accepted and followed through with, the one from her Husband. (I never group him into any of K's categories, for he is the exception to all our rules)  She was engaged four times, but even during those times she knew, on some level, that she wouldn't get married.  Perhaps the logical K's knew it would be a disaster, and they were trying to protect all the K's, or protect the guys she was hurting.  K broke a lot of hearts, and in the end karma bit us in the ass, but after a lifetime of nothingness, we finally found true love and happiness. It was a long and difficult journey with a lot of good scenery along the way.

I think K wasn't so much opposed to marriage as she was terrified of it.  Her parents were married only to each other for 50 years, so you'd think she'd feel good about marriage.  The truth is, K's parents were part of the reason K didn't want to get married.  She grew up watching them...and she didn't like what she saw.  Now there was no substance abuse or violence or infidelity in their marriage, it was strong and dependable and could weather any storm.  Mom and Dad loved each other, of that I am certain, but they never seemed to K to be in love.  K never saw them kiss, or hug, or hold hands.  K used to joke that her conception was probably the last time they ever had sex and they were probably drunk when it happened.  We never heard them speak lovingly to each other, or even say "I love you", except maybe on special occasions.  The one instance of romance that K witnessed between them occurred when her father was on his death bed; he asked K's mother for a kiss, and K witnessed them peck each other on the lips for the first time as well as the last time. It brought tears to her eyes.

I have gone off on a tangent, and have yet to tell the story of how I came to marry Husband.  We met in fourth grade when he moved to the area from a state about 800 miles from K's hometown. We weren't friends, we just knew each other from school.  After fourth grade, his parents sent him to Catholic school, and K remained with her classmates and she didn't see Husband again until they ended up at the same high school.  They met for the second time in 9th grade, and as it turned out they had both gone down the "alternative" path, meaning that they dressed "weird" compared to the other kids and listened to different music and had different interests.  They ended up in the same small circle of "freaks" and became friends and remained so until junior year, when K broke the heart of Husband's best friend.  Naturally, this split the group up and thus K was no longer speaking to Husband, as he was on his friend's side.  K didn't really care about losing friends, she packed up and fled to another state, and was alone for her final year of high school.  (Coincidentally, K moved to the same state and even the same city that Husband was from) She focused on school and her job and had good friends and so she didn't really need a boyfriend.  She wouldn't see Husband again until she was in her 20's and had moved back to her home state but to a much bigger city to go to college.  Husband had moved here and there from state to state, but had ended up in the same city as us, and once in a blue moon, he and K would run into each other at parties or a bar.  It was rather awkward for K (since their friendship had ended abruptly) and so she never really spoke to him.  He ended up moving back to K's hometown and that was that.

It wasn't until K was 26 and visiting her parents one weekend, that she actually had a conversation with Husband.  She was in town with that guy who kept proposing, and they ended up at a restaurant and as it turned out, Husband was the manager of that restaurant.  At some point, he spoke privately to K, and apologized for anything he'd ever said or done to offend us, and said that he hoped we could be friends again.  And so K forgave him for taking that other guy's side way back when, and they were on friendly terms again, but they wouldn't be real friends, and hang out together, for years.  Here's the irony: it was Husband's best friend, the guy whose heart K had broken in high school, that brought K and Husband together. Years later, this friend discovered K on MySpace (even though she wasn't using her name) and sent her a message. (He worked in the same city in which K lived)  They ended up dating casually and K went to visit him where he lived in her hometown and that is when she discovered that this guy's roommate was Husband.  This was the beginning of a new chapter in the book of K and Husband.  She became good friends with Husband, as she was often visiting his home to see the other guy.  Well, it wasn't very long before K decided she was bored with that guy and so she stuck him in the "friend" category, but she continued to hang out at his house sometimes, when she was in town,  and she became better friends with Husband as time went on.

At some point, K's mother got to where she could no longer live by herself.  Her health had been deteriorating since the death of K's father, and she had trouble getting around and needed someone to help her with cooking and cleaning.  She did NOT want to go to a nursing home.  At the same time, Husband's roommate needed a new place to live, a place closer to his job.  K just happened to have a condo which needed a tenant, as she'd decided to leave her life behind us and take care of our mother. This is how it came to pass that K moved back to her hometown and in with her mom. Husband's roommate rented K's condo and everything worked out splendidly.   She began to spend more time with Husband, and he ended up being K's best friend.  Everyone always joked that the two of us should be a couple, (we did everything a couple does except for the sex part) but K never thought about him in that way-she never had in all the years she'd known him.  She loved him as her best friend and their relationship grew stronger for the next 2 years.  They spent time together nearly every day and talked on the phone for hours, sometimes 'til sunrise.  One day, he wrote K an email about his true feelings for her.  When K saw the email she knew what it was about before she opened it, and so she was scared to read it.  She didn't know how it was going to affect their friendship, and so she let the email sit in her inbox for about 24 hours.  Finally, she had a few drinks and smoked half a joint and read the email.  It was the most romantic thing ever-Husband is a writer and has such a way with words!-and K began to cry.  She was thrown into a situation which she couldn't control and she was confused and scared and excited and a million emotions all at once.  She didn't want to talk to Husband after that, not for a while, for she had to digest his words and think long and hard about whether or not she was willing to take their friendship to the next level and go out on a date with him.  Husband tells us now that the period in which I made him wait, after he sent the email, was torture...but I had to do it.  I had to think, and on some level I think I must've known that our decision would affect the rest of my life.

A year later,  miraculously in our mind, he proposed. By that time, we, the K's, had fallen head over heels for Husband and couldn't understand how we never noticed it before then. The next thing I knew, we were in Las Vegas at a chapel.  And I've been in a different place, mentally, ever since.  I think perhaps these unknown feelings I have been experiencing are called security and contentment and I am slowly beginning to accept them as valid feelings.  The thing we haven't spoken about, and which seems really important, is how I went about dating and marrying and living with Husband without him ever knowing about US.  It was no secret that K had always suffered from depression; Husband knew her when she hospitalized at age 16.  Also, once they became friends in adulthood, she gradually began to trust him enough to open up and, when she was drunk or stoned, she'd tell him little bits of information about her mental illness, without ever going into specifics.  He knew I was on a good deal of medication.  He knew I'd been diagnosed with a chronic mental illness, and he knew about the voices and hallucinations.  He did not know about all the K's (even though he'd met more than one of us over the years) and I never told him out of fear.  Plus, I suppose I thought I was such a good actress that I could hide it from him the same way I hid it from everyone else my whole life.

It worked for almost the first two years of our marriage.  In fact, it was only weeks before our anniversary when K had a severe episode and switched to a K that Husband didn't recognize.  We tried desperately to explain to him what was happening, why it happens, how it happens, but I didn't have the words.  How do you tell someone you love that you are not the person they think you are?  (at least, not all the time)  I cannot put into words how difficult and confusing and stressful the situation became after that incident, and there was a lot of crying on both our parts.  He couldn't believe we were married for 2 years and he never knew about it.  He couldn't believe I hid this from him for all these years.  Truthfully, the talk I had with Husband about the different K's was the very first conversation of its kind in K's life.  She had NEVER told anyone, outside of her therapist Patty, about Kellie World and our existence there in various forms, on different planes of reality.  Suffice it to say that Husband's mind was completely blown, and we feared that he would leave us...but it turns out that this love is True Love and he has promised to stay with us and take care of us and accept and love us, no matter what or who we are or may become.  That, my friends, is what we call a happy ending.

Time For Words

Here we go again.  I wonder how long I've been doing this?  and by "This" I mean coming to reality, waking up from my dreamworld, snapping into focus.  I'm back, I've been here very recently, perhaps in the last 24 hours, I can't say for sure because of the damn time thing. K has no concept of time, not time the way you know it, but rather we have what we affectionately refer to as "Kellie Time".  I'm still having trouble in learning which words to use, which phrases are proper, which ideas hold "true" (whatever that means).  I think that perhaps Kellie is hoping to come to a good stopping point before she takes a break from her studies to write a blog post.  Blog post. How funny.  Kellie is such a non-techie, in spite of the fact that her astrological sign, Aquarius, is supposedly very much into computers and technology and gadgets and the like.  Oh dear.  I've just come to the somewhat distressing realization that this could take an exceptionally long time to complete, this latest project.  Perhaps even a lifetime. (I wonder how long that is...)<--- Naturally, we know how long a "lifetime" averages, we know this based upon what we've learned in school and in books, and besides that, these days it's simply a matter of going to your favorite search engine and asking. Currently,  the life expectancy of a female living in my country of residence is 80.8 years.  Now we must compare that age to the one which we find on K's birth certificate, and in doing so we see that Kellie is roughly half-way through her current physical body's life expectancy. That's too bad; I think perhaps, if this Mental Illness had been correctly diagnosed and properly treated sooner in Kellie's life, then she might've been able to recover enough to live a productive and dare we say "normal" life, maybe even excelled in a career, most likely in the arts.  But I'm jumping way, way ahead in our story, so let's stop and rewind, now hit "Play" again.  Listen to this.  Kellie is quite creative and artistic and always has been, for as long as she's been alive practically.  She started drawing around the age of 3 and has done so throughout her life.  Kellie likes to keep a diary, at least some of us do, and a lot of times these diaries don't have words, but rather they have drawings, because it's so much easier for Kellie to express herself through drawings and sketches and doodles than in words.  She is quite good with words, or at least she used to be, before her memory problems became so pronounced.  Granted, the substance abuse which came about in her 20's and early 30's certainly did nothing to help her memory problems.  Kellie was always worried about what the drugs,  I guess we can go ahead and say it out loud now, the marijuana Kellie likes to smoke, would do to her memory. 

She didn't want to impair her memory in any way, and she used to give that as her main reason for NOT smoking pot, but of course she loosened up, so to speak, in college,  and began experimenting with drugs and then the obsessive-compulsive nature of Kellie took over and it went downhill from there.  As the problem with drugs grew larger, her memory recall grew smaller.  Certainly, if she had known for sure that her memory would be so adversely affected, she would never have allowed herself to smoke so much of it, and in the end become the thing that I, the smart one, feared so much back in those days, and that is a pothead.  Kellie used to laugh at them when she'd see them on TV or whatever; she's always been fascinated by and drawn to the hippie culture, for as long as she has been physically alive.  I say that with no disrespect directed towards hippies whatsoever, I must make that perfectly clear.  Kellie loves 1960's and 1970's culture, and I suppose it's interesting to note that many of the Kellie's have a particular decade which they are most drawn to and influenced by, and what we are experiencing right now people, right at this very moment, is I believe something important, something of a clue, so to speak-could that fact, the fact that different Kellie's have their favorite decades...maybe this is a clue as to their ages?  Hmm.  I suppose, if I pause to think about it, each Kellie has her own favorite everything, from music to clothing  to books-I could go on but surely you see the point.  Each Kellie has her own distinct sense of being, her own style, her own sense of "self". I don't personally know all of the Kellie's, and I don't know whether any of us have ever met or who knows whom....well, I take that back, I DO know some of the Kellie's, or at least I'm aware of their existence.  There is the Good Daughter, who takes care of Mom and sees that she gets what she needs and feels loved and needed.  Kellie is NOT the Good Daughter, and I don't believe that Mom knows Kellie, but it's likely that she's met her considering she's "known" Kellie for so many years.  This is really and truly exhausting, I have to interject that.  It's currently 5:42 A.M. on Sunday, January 8, 2012.  We, or I, I being the Smart Kellie, the one who gets things done, the one who takes care of things, I have been having a fascinating conversation with Kellie's husband.  He's really above and beyond anything that Kellie ever could have hoped for or expected to find in her life.  The Kellie had lots of lovers and was very popular, and she had a number of marriage proposals at different points in time throughout her life, but The Kellie is most definitely NOT the marrying kind.  I'm not sure whether I should take this opportunity to talk about The Kellie or whether I should just continue on with my work, with my research, with my "mission".  That's how I described it to K's husband, that I'm on a mission, that I'm here to take over the reins for awhile and see that things get done and business is taken care of.  I am in current need of supplies, namely notebooks and pens, with which we can take notes and keep track of our research, which is currently, and I believe correctly directed at Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I think this is what Kellie has, but I can't say for certain as I am not a licensed medical doctor and haven't studied psychology and psychiatry in the classic senses of the words i.e. I never went to school to be a shrink.  However, I DID take some psychology courses while I was in college, and I've always been intrigued by and fascinated with the subject, and have always enjoyed reading about the subject,  perhaps because we are so ill.  Kellie has always believed that if she learns enough about her illness, she might be able to get well, and for her sake, and I guess for the sake of all of us, us being the Kellie's, I hope that is true.  I, myself, that being the Smart Kellie, or as our husband called us earlier, Switch Kellie.  That's a label which he says I gave myself, but which I have only a vague memory of, and it's more like he gave me the name and I remember hearing it than it is like me giving myself the name.

I have no idea whether we've stated this fact before, and since Kellie's memory is so horrendous it's really impossible for me to say without re-reading it, but I am quite concerned with Kellie being taken seriously, and Kellie being embarrassed.  Now, mind you, I'm not the one who gets embarrassed easily, that is very Kellie, but NOT The Kellie of course.  I, being the Smart Kellie, am worried that I, we, Kellie won't be taken seriously.  I have very strong fears regarding these matters, and it would seem to stem from the fact that as a child I was often accused of lying and I was NOT lying and it was so incredibly frustrating for us, and still is apparently.  Now we must stop for a moment here and clarify the facts as I know them, and the facts are these: My sister's husband does NOT believe we're ill.  He thinks that Kellie has been making it up her whole life just to get attention and get out of her responsibilities.  I guess he feels that way because he's never seen any indication that we were ill.  I've certainly never spoken to him about these matters, but once a long time ago, Kellie did something wrong, I can't remember now what it was, but it was bad and Mom and Dad called my sister and things were said and tears were shed, and in the end my brother-in-law wrote an email to my father, telling him that Kellie was a fake and a liar.  He pointed out that if she were truly so ill, that she'd have no way of going out into the world and buying pot and rolling a joint and getting high and whatnot.  So he seems to think that Kellie is just a junkie or something.  (That's ridiculous, although The Kellie certainly is an addict; I'll tell you about her later) There's so much to be said and so little time in which to say it!  I don't know how to make that any clearer.  I, being in my current state of awareness, have a job to do, a mission to accomplish, a goal to reach, and that goal is Kellie's recovery.  We want nothing more than for Kellie to be well.  (Although Kellie herself doesn't really want to be classified as "normal", for she feels that to be normal is boring)

While we were talking to Kellie's husband earlier (he's asleep now, as it's currently 6:17 A.M.), it occurred to us that it were as though we, he and I, were meeting for the first time or like we had just begun dating and were still getting to know each other.  I rather enjoyed that aspect of the evening, I have to admit that.  I found him to be intellectually stimulating as well as creative and interesting and unique in a way that Kellie really relates to and is genuinely attracted to.  He is something special and I think that Kellie truly could not have a more suitable life partner.  He's a writer, and therefore Kellie appreciates his artistic and sensitive nature, and loves him for his creativity and talent.  He's a very good writer actually; dark but good.  But I digress.  I was telling you about our conversation... this seemed to last a very long time, or as long as say, an LSD trip lasts, which I guess is subjective as well as literal.  It was so much fun talking to him, and getting to know him and hearing him tell us about what he likes and what he collects and what his interests are.  I was trying to tell him things about myself as well, things like the fact that I do NOT smoke cigarettes, although Kellie did for years before finally quitting in May 2010 (because of the ARDS incident) although we must admit that she's been cheating lately due to stress factors, and the fact which The Kellie chain-smokes.  I intended to tell him how I drink hot tea rather than coffee, although I very much like coffee; Kellie LOVES coffee and is an absolute caffeine fiend.  Since I kept coming out with information which seemed important, I remarked that perhaps Kellie's husband should start keeping notes, which is ironic because of my whole obsessive need to make lists and such things; you'd think that I would want to take the notes myself, and let me assure you, I am, but it is just that there is more to be studied here than Kellie could actually remember or I could write down.  So at some point, Kellie's husband brought out his cell phone, and it has a recording device built into it, and so he placed it in front of us and turned it on and told us to speak.  At first I was too self-conscious to talk, too embarrassed as it were.  But after a while, I don't know how long of course, I forgot about the recording and began to just relax and be myself (LOL) and talk to him without thinking of the device.  It seemed as though I were really making strides towards progress, or at least as much progress as can be made without the help of a trained psychiatrist or psychologist.  I can't say how long we recorded our conversation, and I have no idea what we talked about-I can't remember now-but I can recall the specific moment we stopped recording, for Kellie's husband laid down on the bed and I approached him and told the cell phone in my hand that he was going to sleep and that I guess it was time to stop talking to him and let him rest or something.  And so we were able to get back to our project, which is currently this.  What is this?  Oh yes, the blog.  I believe that the creation of the blog was in fact a trigger, that something inside Kellie switched on whenever she created the blog, and that I came out to take over and tell the story because I'm better with words than she is. We both seem to enjoy words though, to a magnified amount, and much of Kellie's art contains words embedded within the pictures. I recently looked at photographs of some artwork that Kellie had done, and I was immediately struck by the fact that she has completely different styles at different points in time; this seemed important to the story of Kellie and therefore I'm writing it down. 

OK, now we really must get back to our research, there's so much work to be done, so many hours of reading  which needs catching up on and notes which need to be made.  Also, Kellie's husband told her things that we need to remember, things like the fact that I, whom he is now calling Switch Kellie, but whom I have been referring to as Smart Kellie, told him that I appear whenever things get very bad.  He said that I said that Kellie was stressed out and that this was the reason for my arrival.  I have tried repeatedly to recall when I was last present in this existence, this lifetime, this "reality" but I cannot remember.  I have a journal which was last used in October of 2010, so it would seem that I've not been here for at least that long, as I like very much to write and am always trying to write things, lists, prose, lines of poetry, things of that nature.  It was me who wanted the new journal for Christmas that first year we were married, and it's that very journal to which I am referring now.  I've begun to use that journal again, in case I need to tell you.  It's being used as a tool, as a guide, as a point of reference I guess one could say.  Kellie can use the journal to find out what's been happening.  Now granted, this particular journal is not nearly as interesting as the purple velvet one, the one we found the other night or day or whenever that was, the journal in which we first (I think) mention Dissociative Identity Disorder as our diagnosis.  That journal was written beginning in January of 2004.  I don't know when we quit writing in it; from what I can remember, it became too much for us to handle, I or we or any of the Kellie's.  The stress of watching her father die was just more than she could bear, and in the end Kellie went to a very dark place and we didn't write there, or at least I've not found any writings from that time period.  I do know about paintings from back then, but we no longer have those.

I've just opened the window blinds and I see that it is raining.  We love the rain, Kellie simply adores the rain and always has.  Which I guess might explain one of the reasons Kellie was so happy when she lived in Seattle, Washington, since it rains there for the majority of the year.  Funny we should remember that time period as being so happy, yet in the end, Kellie was in a very dark place and could've easily died. But that's another story for another day-I don't want to be a buzzkill.  I've got so much to tell you, so much to share with you!  I cannot stress enough how important it seems to me to write all of this stuff down, to put it in writing so that we have some sort of proof, some sort of evidence that we existed.  Kellie has a fear of being forgotten, of not being remembered, which is hilarious when you look at it in the sense that I'm looking at it now, and that is, that Kellie is afraid of going unnoticed, while at the same time we are so incredibly self-conscious that we cannot stand for people to look at us.  Interesting, wouldn't you agree?  I've made several interesting discoveries in this, this most recent episode, as the husband called it.  Like an episode of a television show.  Kellie is the star of the show, and there are different co-stars and various extras, along with wardrobe and costuming and sets and even a soundtrack.  I've always compared it to a movie; Kellie is living a movie that others can see but no one can recognize that it's not real, that it's only a movie.  One time, a long time ago, Kellie had an "episode", and during that episode she became so frightened that she called her best girlfriend to come over and stay with her, for she was afraid to be alone.  I can't imagine how hard that phone call must've been, for that friend had never seen us "switch" before and she didn't know us.  I wonder who made it, the phone call.  I wonder which one of us knew to do that? Perhaps it was me, as I'm the responsible one, the one who takes care of Kellie.  I don't know if there are others who are responsible or mature or whatever.  I have no way of remembering that, except for my precious notes, which I've unfortunately not been keeping for the past 2 years so I'm lost in all of this, I have nothing to help me with recall.

A gradual build-up of symptoms of schizophrenia may or may not lead to an acute or crisis episode called a schizoid break - a short and intense period that involves delusions, hallucinations, distorted thinking, and an altered sense of self.  

Is this what keeps happening to us?  Is this what those periods of clarity are?  Those moments in which I seem to "wake up" and become aware of my existence?s  Or is it in fact the absence of those moments wherein lies the schizoid break? Damn.  I really can't tell you how much we'd like to talk to our psychiatrist.  I really should have called her whenever this all started.  Husband told us before he went to sleep that I've been here for 4 days now.  He said he's tired, that he needs a break.  I get that.  I understand that I'm a lot to take, Kellie in general is a lot to take, for anyone but especially for those who have close relationships with her.  She's very melodramatic.  What else can I tell you about her?  I'm not sure.  I'll have to think for awhile, and see if I can remember anything about her, or us, or any of the Kellie's.  This is all so strange.  I don't know how to describe it, I really don't and even if I did it still wouldn't come close to what actually living it is like.  So the world will never know, but I am trying, in my own way, to tell the tale, to share the story, to help people understand what it's like to live with this particular mental illness, which technically I still have no proper name for.

This is the part where I tell you that I do NOT have a current diagnosis handy.  Which each new doctor has come a new diagnosis, at least that's what's been happening for most of her physical being.  Kellie has worn so many different labels throughout the course of her life that it's difficult to say exactly what is wrong with her at this point.  She seems to exhibit symptoms from a multitude of disorders, which I've learned is called comorbidity.  Commorbidities are diseases or conditions that coexist with a primary disease but they also stand on their own as specific diseases.  Kellie is definitely OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder, an anxiety disorder in which people have unwanted and repeated thoughts, feelings, ideas, sensations (obsessions), or behaviors that make them feel driven to do something (compulsions). Kellie has a multitude of obsessions which seem to change over time; perhaps they change with my "self", with each entity having obsessions and compulsions all her own.  Often the person carries out the behaviors to get rid of the obsessive thoughts, but this only provides temporary relief.  Not performing the obsessive rituals can cause great anxiety-if I don't do whatever it is I'm compelled to do, then I get antsy, nervous, on edge. It is completely impossible to think of anything else outside of that one thought, that one idea, whatever it may be.  Sometimes this can be a good thing, like when I, Switch Kellie, am focused on the task in front of me, which currently happens to be the all-important project of researching Kellie's mental illness and taking notes about it, which we intend to show and discuss with our doctor when we go and see her on Wednesday, January 11. Another example of a good obsession would be Kellie's aversion to dirt, which causes her to clean, but that's not really Kellie, that's one of her alters, for Kellie has never been one to clean her room.  That's most certainly a different Kellie, the one who cleans and who has a phobia about dirt and who gets freaked out if she focuses on something and finds it to be dusty or dirty.  She is literally afraid of dirt, afraid it will hurt her in some way, contaminate her, ruin her forever.  I'd rather like it if she came around more often, for we could really use the help with housekeeping.

I've never thought about it before.  That's a funny phrase to me.  "I've never thought about it before."  As if I would be able to remember it if I had!  And each of us has her own memories, some shared of course, but many unique to only that persona, or "alter" I guess I'm supposed to say, based on the research I've been doing.  I can't say for certain how long I've been researching this subject matter, but it feels like a very long time indeed, perhaps weeks.  I'm cross-referencing my information, using multiple search engines and websites and a myriad of windows to try and organize all this data.  I MUST get organized if I ever intend to get better.  I MUST.  Kellie loves to organize things because of her OCD, but she has a hard time keeping things organized because of her other selves, several of whom are sloppy unfortunately.  These messy Kellie's  have in the past caused great shame and embarrassment for us by revealing to the outside world that we are not perfect.  If someone comes to visit, and the house is messy, then they will see that I am not doing a good job,  and that I, Kellie, am disappointing them, which we absolutely cannot stand to do or perceive to do to any extent.  Kellie does NOT want to disappoint anyone, and she has a hard time saying "no" and in that she can't always be ME or any of the other higher-functioning Kellie's and therefore she's bound to drop the ball at some point and lose control and not be able to satisfy someone's need.  And Kellie will feel just terrible about that.  She really and truly wants to make everyone happy, she really does, but no matter how hard she tries, it is never good enough. Never.