The Inevitable Crash

Well, here we go again.  I was feeling so good.  I was living my life, and things were going pretty darn well.  I got to take a weekend trip far away and had an absolute blast.  I was really living high.  I felt so good it made me nervous.  And this is why. Because invariably, once I'm up, I must come down.  The better I feel, the harder I crash.  So based on how content-even happy-I was up to this point, this has the potential to be a real low.  I can look at the situation from outside myself and see that it's silly.  But I suppose it is akin to that feeling you get the day after Christmas when you're a kid. One day you're on top of the world, the next day it's all over and you just can't imagine waiting a whole year to feel that happy again.  That's where I'm at now.  It's the day after Christmas and all the good stuff has already happened.  There's nothing left to look forward to.  I can't see any reason to be cheerful.  I know it's terribly selfish of me to want it to be Christmas everyday, and indeed I don't really want that, as a special occasion would not be special if it occurred too frequently.  I simply want to be...optimistic.  Hopeful.  For what, I don't know. I just know that I need something to dream about, something to wish for, something to wait for.  During these downhill slides, I lose sight of everything good in my life. It's as though I'm wearing blinders and can't see what's right in front of me. The depression creeps in and wraps its icy arms around me. At least one part of me disagrees with what I'm telling you right now.  One of the K's sees the bright side of things and can always find something positive, no matter how crappy the situation.  But that's not me.  No, I'm the realist. Note that I did NOT say pessimist.  REALIST.  I believe that life is rough and slaps you around and most people are only looking out for themselves.  I believe these things because these are the things I've learned in my lifetime.  Maybe I'm just cynical, but I know that I've learned a few things in my time on this earth, and what I've learned is not necessarily of a positive nature. No, the world is harsh and cold and tough and there's always something standing in the way of your happiness. It's how you handle all of these problems that makes the difference in your life.  Take my current situation. I've been so happy for so many days in a row now that I'm crashing hard and fast back down to earth. I can either continue to free-fall and land in a jumbled, broken mess or I can try to fly, as silly as that sounds.

Skip ahead 2 days: I did not fly.  I crashed and burned. Yeah, I really fell hard this time, and lost my shit pretty hardcore. I've been hiding in my bedroom for the past two days and I just can't bring myself to come out. I have an adjoining bathroom, and I have a stash of Diet Coke and a box of Cheez-its.  I was separated from my pills, but my husband was thoughtful enough to bring them to me, and so now there is no reason for me to leave this room. Truth be told, I'm scared to leave this room.  I have been sitting on the bed for an indeterminate amount of time, watching the sky outside my window grow darker and darker, the clouds reaching out like fingers trying to grab me. Now it's pitch black and I can't see a thing. Normally I'd be far too paranoid to have the blinds open, but since I have no lights on anywhere, I know that no one can see me. I hide in the shadows. I am like a statue, I haven't moved in what must be hours...nothing except the hands on my keyboard that is. Twitter is my connection to the outside world.  It is the only way I will communicate-I'm not answering my phone or the door. The support I receive from people on Twitter helps us hold on, it really does. Sometimes a tweet makes all the difference in the world to us by letting me know there's someone out there somewhere, and I am not alone. I'm not sure which K is tweeting during this meltdown; probably a few. We are all over the map, personality wise. I am coming in and out of consciousness... I can't keep up with how often I'm switching or who's out when. I keep eating Xanax and Risperdal and Seroquel. Just feels like my mind is in overdrive and the pressure is almost unbearable. If I didn't know better, I'd think my head was going to burst wide open like a water balloon. There's a lot of arguing in my head. All the voices are yelling at me and each other and there's an ungodly amount of noise inside my mind. That's the reason I'm in seclusion. I can't tolerate any more stimulation of any kind-audible or visual. I MUST sit alone in the dark, in the silence.  This is my only respite.

In A Nutshell (Pun Intended)

 If you're a new reader, and would like to "skip to the good stuff"....this page contains links to the blog posts  explaining K's story, and a couple written by different K's.

The Lost Blog Post  (history of our mental health as told by a different K)

Major Breakthrough or Break From Reality? (K has an important realization)

The Discovered Diaries (clues to our past and present)

The Mystery Blog Post  (written by a different K)

Help From Afar (an email from the ex-boyfriend to my husband, regarding my switching)

Peeling Off An Old Label (life-changing news about our diagnosis)

How I Became A Walking Drugstore (a breakdown of our past diagnoses)

How To Be Our Friend   (tips on how to get to know us)

What's Wrong With Us?  (we talk about Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Another Day, Another K (switching)

My Own Reality Show (what it's like inside our head)

An Animated Day

Today (Wednesday) has been quite a trying day, but interesting at least. We were supposed to be at therapy at 9:30 this morning.  I found out around 9:00 that the car wouldn't crank. Luckily, my husband was home and getting ready to go to work at 10:00...so I called my psychiatrist and told her I'd be a half hour late. Obviously I started the day off on a highly stressful note, and that is my greatest trigger, so it really came as no surprise that I had a rough day.  Hubby drove us in his car when we left, and he had to stop at the drugstore on the way to work. I waited in the car, and by the time he came back I was no longer in my body.  I struggled to pull myself back inside my head, but it was a hopeless battle. I dissociated and don't remember anything until he's getting out of the car, and I see that we are at his job, and like a robot I get out of the car and walk around to the driver's side and get behind the wheel... Hubby kissed me goodbye then disappeared inside but I just sat there in the car with the engine running for a long time.  I was trying to figure out how to make the car move. Everything began to physically transform and the inside of the car took on an animated appearance, like a cartoon. I began to operate on auto-pilot.  Driving to my doctor's office was exactly like being in a video game. I don't know how else to describe it. My hands weren't really touching the steering wheel; it seemed very far away, much too far for me to reach. I was looking through the windshield and it was unreal, everything was far in the distance and out of focus. I had the distinct feeling, nay knowledge that I was untouchable, unstoppable, impervious to harm. I knew I could not, would not wreck the car or have any sort of accident or run-in with the police. It wasn't possible, for all of this was just a game.  Not real.  I don't know how long it took to get to the psych's office; everything was in slow motion yet seemed to be flying by very fast at the same time.  I don't understand how that was possible, but that's how it seemed to us.  Once in the parking lot, I just sat in the car for a long time with the air blowing in my face. I pulled the visor down to look in the mirror and was quite upset to see that the reflection looking back at me was wearing bright red lipstick.

 
I do NOT wear bright lipstick, although we're aware that some of the K's do. I unceremoniously wiped it off with the back of my hand, then just stared stupidly at the red streaks coloring my pale skin. Decided I just didn't care-what difference did it make?-and just left the red lipstick smeared all over my hand.  Finally walked into the building but it felt more like I was gliding or floating or something.  I couldn't feel the ground beneath my feet. I made it inside and walked up to the counter and signed my name, but not without some difficulty. I was unable to write in cursive; I had to print my name, and the handwriting was shaky. I had taken 1 mg Xanax while in the car at my husband's job, and as soon as I sat down in my usual corner chair I took another 1 mg.  There were a number of people in the waiting room with me; I'm not sure how many because I kept my head down and wouldn't look at anyone. I pulled my legs up underneath me and tried to curl up into a ball in my seat... and the waiting started. I was antsy and anxious and very eager to see my psychiatrist, as I'd been under a lot of stress since our last appointment.  I got out my notebook and tried to make a list, but just couldn't focus...I was too distracted by the thought that everyone in the room was staring at me. I kept looking down, or took out my journal and flipped through it, or played with my phone, perhaps even tried to tweet I can't remember now.  I just couldn't think about anything except how things were in what looked like claymation...3D cartoons of sorts. I was looking around the room in wonder when this guy came in the door... He was younger than K's body but walked like an elderly person, all hunched over and wobbly and he shuffled across the floor using a crooked wooden can and his jeans were hanging very low around his hips, exposing his striped boxer shorts, and for whatever reason, he scared us. K's heart began to pound just as soon as she laid eyes on him (even though she never looked directly at him) and of course our luck would have it that he came over and sat down in the chair right beside us. Panic started welling up inside me. My body was turned away from the strange young man, and I was intentionally looking across the room, through the other people, staring at the wall with nothing in my head except the irrational fear I felt of the person to my left. I wasn't sure I could handle it, and thought briefly about going outside and sitting in the car, but I was terrified my name would be called while I was out and I'd lose my place and have to wait even longer to see the doctor.  So we sat there, panicking, in the middle of a childlike environment filled with caricatures of people...and then my name was called. The receptionist walked over to me and asked me to come with her. I was confused but did as I was told; I wondered if we were being scolded for some reason.  She walked us out the door and around the building to a back door, while explaining to us that the toilet had overflowed and how sorry she was for the inconvenience. It was bizarre to me, but so was everything right then. Now I'm in the psychiatrist's office and I'm trying to explain to her how everything feels like a video game...and she asked me if I was a different person. I can remember all these things because we wrote them down in our notebook. We take notes in therapy now and it is really helping us.  So she asked me if I was a new K, but I didn't know the answer to the question.  It's strange to not know who you are.  I really can't even begin to put it into words. You feel lost and empty and...like nothing.  I told her I didn't know for sure who I was at the moment, and that I felt "switchy".  I don't remember the rest of the session, except for one part:  she was telling me how to use a calendar to keep up with time, so that I can remember when things happen.  I guess that sounds silly to someone with a normal grasp of time, but to someone who struggles to keep up with what day of the week it is, this is a really big deal.  She asked me if something happened this past Sunday or last Sunday, and I didn't know the difference.  I admitted that I never knew when things happened, that I use old text messages as clues to how I spent my time. So she told me to get a calendar and take notes on it, like it was a diary. Write down when I go places, when I do things.  She said it'd help me put my lost time together.  I intend to try it.  I don't remember the rest of the session, nor do I remember driving home.  The rest of the day is scattered and disconnected. I can only recount bits and pieces of it...someone bought McDonald's fries and K doesn't eat at McDonald's anymore, hasn't in years.  I remember we decided that perhaps if we took a nap, that the proper K would be with us whenever we woke up.  I might have tweeted about that, I'm not sure.  Then there's a big chunk of time missing, where I'm assuming I was napping. Next thing I know, I'm putting on an act for my mother, and pretending everything is normal as I put her to bed.  After that, I found myself hanging out with my husband in our bedroom, and I remember him asking questions like "Which K are you?" and "Are you switching on me?". Again, I remember because I made notes about all these things. I found the questions intriguing. I don't remember anything else after that. I think his questions flipped some switch in my brain, and my reality shifted once again. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in bed in my clothes and wearing my glasses.  And that's when I began to write this blog post.

Alone With Our Thoughts

I've only had one meal and 2 hours' sleep in the past two days.  Husband's out of town and I'm feeling alone and vulnerable yet I'm oddly hyper and my brain is going a million miles an hour. I've been all...switchy.  It feels like my mind is a slot machine and life pulls the lever and then whatever comes up from the spin is who I will be, but only until the next spin. I keep coming in and out of time, at least the "here and now" kind of time.  I guess this is how it was for me before I got married.  Just me, alone with the voices, fighting to keep my voice heard over everyone else, but then at the same time I'm wondering if it's my voice that's supposed to be doing the talking anyway, because I have other, different voices talking too, and they somehow all feel like me, even though they don't all sound like me.  Even though my brain is crowded,  I feel so alone.  I am...incomplete.  Like a chunk of me is missing.  My husband is my strength and support and without him I feel weak and uncovered, like I'm a target or something.  It feels like all the world's problems are chasing me and I can't run fast enough to get away.  I'm sprinting through time, and I want very badly to pause for a moment, just a moment, and relax and notice all the little things that I'd normally miss as I'm going by so fast.  My husband helps me slow things down.  He helps me organize my time.  He keeps me on my toes, and on the ball with my medications and doctor's visits and the like.  Husband helps me get through the day, everyday, even when he doesn't know he's helping me.  A simple text from him can transform my mood, and it very often does.  Sometimes, after he leaves for work, a dark cloud will descend upon me and threaten to ruin my whole day.  But a message from him is like the sun bursting through the clouds.  He is my light at the end of every day's tunnel.  I don't know what I'd do without him and his support. 

It seems odd to me now that I was able to live my life all these years without any support.  I mean, no one knew about my dissociative disorder.  People thought I was a strange girl, of that you can be certain!  But no one ever guessed how fractured my mind really is.  Coming out to my husband was difficult to say the least, and not just for me.  He was overwhelmed at first, and shocked that I could hide such a secret from him for all the years we've known each other.  But we didn't live together then, so he never saw the sudden, dramatic transformations which sometimes occur.  He just thought I was moody.  Yes, yes I am. Quite. When I finally did come out and tell him, it was Switch Kellie who did the explaining.  I'm not sure, but perhaps that was the reason he was so freaked out; to his knowledge, he'd never met Switch Kellie.  In truth, he had met her, in fact she was the one who had handled all the wedding planning and she came every day to check on the details and see to it that all the wedding and honeymoon plans were in place.  She was a constant for 2 months, then she receded back inside me, where she stays until I need her.  She comes when the stress gets to be too much.  She comes when I'm overwhelmed and can't handle the pressure.  Switch Kellie is smart and tough and can take care of business while keeping a clear head. HA!  "A clear head"-I don't think that's something we ever really have.  There's always something going on in there, always people talking.

This is the longest I've been without support in what feels like an eternity.  I've not been apart from my husband for this long since we got married 2 years ago.  I miss him terribly. It's very early and normally we'd both be sleeping right now, but I am unable to sleep without him beside me. I feel unsafe.  For whatever reason, the strong K's are nowhere to be found; it's just us weaklings here now.  Last night, I got scared of the dark at more than one point in the night, and I had no one to turn to, no one to put their arms around me and tell me I am safe.  I had more than one anxiety attack last night.  In between those, I was nearly manic. So much energy, so full of conversation...but no one to talk to and so I was unable to relax and calm down.  I'm all wound up and am having trouble being in the moment; I keep jumping ahead of myself, going too fast.  I need to slow things down to a manageable pace.  This hyperactivity on my part is damn annoying! I'm trying to keep quiet so that Mom doesn't know I'm awake. I'm just not ready for interaction with others yet.  I might just hide out in my room all day until Husband gets home.  The only thing I need is coffee, and I'm pretty sure I can sneak into the kitchen unnoticed...

Another Day, Another K

Today was interesting.  Went to therapy. Floated across the waiting room and onto the ceiling and looked down at K. Noticed she was all dressed up and wearing heels, and that her makeup was very dramatic.  The weirdest part of all of this is that I was watching her, and she was talking to a couple sitting in the room with her.  She was talking very quickly and was using her hands a lot and was quite animated. She was out-going and friendly and chatty and self-assured. I listened to her, fascinated, and kept wondering what she was going to say next. She was a storyteller...but chunks of what she said were untrue.  She was not like K normally is; this girl was confident and not at all afraid of people.  But she was familiar to me.  When I got into my psychiatrist's office, I told her about this experience.  I asked her if I were dissociating, would I be aware that I was dissociating.  She said what I was experiencing was depersonalization (a sense of detachment or separateness from one's self), which I would be aware of, and that it can be a part of dissociation.  I know this because I wrote it down.  In fact, I took some notes today, and it's good that I did. Otherwise I'd not remember a thing I'm afraid. Which is one of the things that I wrote down, coincidentally.  Dr. H told me that I probably wouldn't remember much about today's session.  And she was right. All I can remember is what I've jotted down, and I don't really remember those things. One of the things I put down is that Dr. H believes all the me's exist to take care of K, and that each K has a different, specific job. Several times she spoke about "the other K's".  I made a note that Dr. H used the term "different personalities" today when talking about me; that seemed important. Also, she pointed out that I was dressed differently today, and that my makeup was different, and that I was different. She said the K who usually comes to see her dresses all in black, and I was wearing a full-length paisley dress in bright shades of green,  accessorized with tall platform shoes and a lime green, faux-crocodile purse in a funky, curved shape. I know all of this because I'm looking at a pile of clothes on the chair in my room and I'm able to see exactly what I was wearing. Also, I made some notes about my outfit when Dr. H was telling me that I was a different K today. 

Earlier this evening, I had to remove heavy and colorful eye makeup in shades of lime green and turquoise, and hot pink lipstick. That's the first time I've worn eye shadow in...well, a good while.  I just know that I've felt funny all day long. I couldn't put my finger on what was wrong but I was...um.. I felt like I was just outside of my body, or like I was in a movie, that it wasn't really real. I also felt like I was sharing a brain with someone else; I was an us, more so than usual even. Sitting here now, reading my notes from therapy, and looking at the facts in black and white, both from my notes and from this blog post, it occurs to me that I remember this K, but that I can't recall seeing her in at least a year, perhaps longer. Tonight, though, there's physical evidence that she was here.  The clothes. The jewelry. The glitter I found in the bathroom.  The fact that my toenails are now painted lime green-the same color as the purse I carried today. The fact that my freshly cut and colored (bright red) hair has been meticulously styled.  All of these things describe one of the K's whose job is to socialize, to see and be seen.  She often went on dates for K before she got married, and yes, Husband dated her sometimes.  I remember all these things because I'm reading my old online diary now,  from 2008.  Interesting reading. Perhaps I should do a blog post introducing each of the K's, or at least the ones I am familiar with (thanks to numerous diaries/sketchbooks/photos).  A number of them journal, and that's how I get to know myself/us. I can't tell who I am at the moment; think I'm in between me's. I'm in a drugged, dream-like state and I feel as though I'm running on autopilot. I wonder what/who tomorrow will bring...

Psyched To Be Here

I had therapy Wednesday.  The only reason I know that is because it's written on my calendar, and I look at my calendar weekly because I need to know when I have to go out in public, e.g. a dentist's appointment, therapy, a birthday party. (I actually have to prepare myself mentally to be around other people, sometimes for days)  I'm trying to strain my brain and remember what happened in that therapy session.  I honestly can't recall anything at the moment.  Let me concentrate harder...  I still can't remember.  Damn.  I have no memory of showering and/or getting dressed, no memory of driving to her office, no memory of sitting in the waiting room.  Perhaps I should check my phone and go back through all my texts, and then read all my Tweets from the past 2 days, and check my journal for any entries made in the past 48 hours.  This is so frustrating.  I wanted to write about my session, but I can't remember it. Not any of it. Hmm.

OK, something's coming back to me now- I showed her my journal.  Yes, I remember that. I read her parts of my journal, the parts written by other me's.  (Hey, I'm starting to recall stuff now!)  I talked to her about how I switched over the weekend, and remained a different K for about 2 days. I have evidence-notes and lots of lists and partial blog posts and various writings, all written by person(s) other than "me".  Also, there is mention by the one known as Switch Kellie of another K coming to our assistance, the one known as The Cleaner.  So there's that. I talked about being 2 different me's for a few days.  I mean, I switch for short periods of time rather frequently- I'll suddenly change into someone else and get a wild look in my eye and say something out of character or do something odd or my voice and/or language will change, but it could be for an afternoon or even just a moment-but as far as a complete transformation goes, well that happens less often. It does happen however. It all depends upon my stress level and my mood and my environment, among a hundred other things.  When this incident occurred, all the factors were conducive to switching, and so the other K's took over, and my style of dress changed to something more pulled-together (for Switch Kellie) or something very casual (for The Cleaner) and my likes and dislikes (Switch Kellie drinks tea instead of coffee) and habits, both good and bad-all these things changed.  Some differences were more subtle and probably only I would notice them. But I was a different K, no bones about it.

So this past week was eventful, to say the least, and I at times had to take extra anti-anxiety medication. And I was really looking forward to seeing my doctor.  To be honest, I was hoping that I'd show up for therapy and be one of the K's who appeared over the weekend.  Even though my psychiatrist has witnessed me as a different K (she has met Switch Kellie before), I still feel the need to prove myself to her.  I want her to actually see me switch, so that she knows once and for all that I'm being serious. There are many doctors who don't believe in multiple personalities or MPD/DID.  Now granted, Dr. H has never done or said anything to make me believe that she doubts me.  In fact, she's sometimes asked me about the other K's, which implies that she accepts their existence.  And one time I flat out asked her if she thought I was full of shit, and she looked me in the eye and smiled and said, "I don't think you're full of shit."  So this whole paranoia thing is really unnecessary...I think the reason I feel the need to prove myself, to give evidence of my dissociation, is because I've been accused of faking it before.  What's even worse is that it was a family member who proclaimed I was a liar. That still hurts when I think about it.  Maybe I should discuss that incident in therapy one day.

OK, I've been going back through my Tweets and text messages and emails and diary entries and lists and anything else I can find with clues.  I have a better idea of when I switched (approximately April 14) and for how long, and what I did during those times, and where I went.  Also, who I encountered, who saw me "out".  And then there's the Tweet from April 17 which says "Back in my head and body now", so I guess that's when I officially felt like the world had stopped spinning so fast.  Thinking about these things now, it all feels like a dream, or like a story I was told or a movie I watched.  It seems like it happened to someone else, not to me.  I can remember seeing things happening, but it just comes across as so surreal now.  And of course, there are huge chunks of missing time and lost memories.

I went to a bar that weekend. Boy that was tough; I can remember how I felt so out of place while I was there.  And everyone seemed to be staring at me, like I had a neon sign hanging over my head that flashed "MENTALLY ILL".  The bartender that night was a friend, but she doesn't know me as the K that came into the bar; I wonder if she noticed the difference. First of all, I ordered Diet Coke without vodka. Unusual. Secondly, she probably thought it was strange, since for the first time ever, I chose NOT to sit at the bar, but rather to go off someplace where there were no people (I was hiding). Also, I didn't speak to my friend very much at all...I hope she doesn't think I was rude. Was I rude? I'm not sure.   My husband wanted to go check out the band, so he left me alone, just for a few minutes, but it felt like hours. I could feel the eyes of everyone on me, and I was nervous and had to pop a Xanax.  It was really hard being in that environment, surrounded by strangers, when I myself  felt like an outsider in my own world.  That's it exactly! I felt like an outsider in my very own body. My thoughts were not my own; they were foreign to me.  But here I am, and I am fine, I survived AGAIN and no one other than my husband and my shrink knows about me switching.... except maybe anyone who might have stumbled upon certain Tweets during those in-between-me times.  Perhaps no one even noticed. After all, I've been faking normality for more than 30 years now, so I've gotten quite good at it.

I'll tell you one more thing about my psychiatrist's appointment.  She made absolutely certain, before I left, that the receptionist made me an appointment for next week, and for the week after that as well. I thought that was really top-notch of her.  My last doctor would never have been so thoughtful as to do that.  This doctor stood there at the desk with me while the receptionist tried to find an opening. Dr. H insisted that it be in one week's time. I am really beginning to like her, maybe even trust her a little bit. (!) I am holding onto her 24-hour emergency number as though it's my most-prized possession; I put it in my wallet along with my appointment reminder cards and her business card.  I don't have pictures of my kids or my dogs in the clear plastic windows in the center of my wallet; I have my psychiatric information.  How fitting. If anyone ever finds my wallet, they're going to see that I'm just a nutcase with no money but a lot of lists.

Weekend Visitors

So.  Another K was here this past weekend.  Two actually.  The main one in charge being Switch Kellie, who was with us, as far as my investigation is telling me, beginning Sunday around 1:00 pm.  She was with us for pretty much the whole day and night, except at one point in the early morning hours she receded and The Cleaner came out and took over her chores. The Cleaner was only doing what Switch Kellie had written down on her list.  Switch Kellie always has a list, or I guess I should say lists, as there are so many of them.  Lists of all sorts of things....things to do, places to go, people to call, emails to send, groceries to buy, books to read, I could go on and on.  But on the list were a number of cleaning tasks, and so The Cleaner came out and took over and cleaned everything.  She's quite obsessive about her chores.  If only she showed up everyday, my house would be immaculate!  But unfortunately, that's not the way it works. After she'd cleaned, she went back inside and Switch Kellie was here to finish up some tasks, including writing a journal entry. Both The Cleaner and Switch Kellie wrote in our journal Sunday/Monday.  I'm eager to show it to my psychiatrist tomorrow at my appointment. 

 She met The Cleaner once but I don't think she knew who it was, as she never identified herself; she just went off on a rant about dirt and how it was all around her and how we were so afraid of dirt and dust.  Anyway, The Cleaner came and cleaned Sunday night and early Monday morning then wrote a journal entry and was gone by 7:00 Monday morning.  So Switch Kellie was in control again and there was more list-making (as always) and she paid the bills and went to the bank and tended to some financial matters. She was trying to get as much accomplished as possible before she left. Unfortunately, she didn't get finished before she left (sometime yesterday evening), and now here I am, with all her notes and lists and plans, and I just don't know if I can do all of this. I took a nap yesterday evening, and when I woke up, it was "me" again and I had a million things to do.  Things needing doing include taking Mom out of town to see a pain management specialist, picking up a prescription at Mom's doctor's office, taking Mom to yet another doctor at 2:30 this afternoon, returning some library books, and going by the medical supply store to get Mom a 25 foot oxygen line.  Is that a lot?  I just don't know.  But I guess I better get started, i.e. get dressed.  It's good to be back in my body but I wish that Switch Kellie had gotten more done while she was here.  She's so good at managing things, whereas I have no sense of time and no way to prioritize. All I know to do is follow her list and hope that I get these things accomplished.  Tomorrow we get to see our psychiatrist.  I'm going to tell her that I'm too stressed out, for stress is the main reason Switch Kellie comes out, she takes over when I'm unable to handle all the pressure.  She takes care of us when I can't take care of myself.  If I get overwhelmed, she shows up (ideally).  So I know that the stress level is high around here, just based on her presence.  Man, I really could use her today... If only I knew how to force out a specific me. That would be so awesome. I'd be Switch Kellie and run errands out in public, then I'd change to The Cleaner and do all the housework, and then I would change into one of the K's who is fun to be around and good for socializing.  In a perfect world, the right K would appear at the right time and everything would just flow naturally from one moment to the next.  Sigh.  If only...

Unwelcome Visitor

I (or someone inside me) was really nasty to my husband this morning.  I mean early this morning, around 4:00 A.M.  I was so sleepy that I could barely keep my eyes open, and he was wanting to stay up and talk. He was having a bad day and was feeling down and just wanted some encouraging words.  He'd had a few drinks, and perhaps more importantly, I'd had none.  He stumbled a little as he came into the bedroom, and suddenly someone jumped up off the bed and growled loudly at him. I can't remember now what was said, but it was absolutely hissed at him.  I can hear the sounds in my head, but I can't make out the words.  It makes me very uncomfortable, the noises emanating from this creature who appeared all at once, without any warning.  I can see her gesturing wildly at him, and I can hear her spitting out words, but I can't control her at all. She is a part of me, of us, but she is a person all her own.  I am so ashamed of myself for letting her take over my mind and body, even if only for a few minutes.  She doesn't have my permission, she just comes out at random moments in time...and she leaves behind her a trail of hurt.

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.

The Good Daughter

Since she's been mentioned in the blog before (I think the last post?)...This will be a blog post about one of the K's, someone we've seen/been everyday for the past 4 years or so. She believes herself to be the most important K. The jury is still out on that. Although we must admit, she's the most important one right now, this month.  She's caring for our mother, whom she loves very much, and who is suffering from shingles at the moment.  She tells us that the pain is worse than that of childbirth.  It was this K who made all the phone calls to all the doctors and drugstores and relatives until she procured some pain medication for her mother, who refuses to let us take her to the hospital. (She really needs a shot of morphine or something). The doctor we took her to last week refuses to refill her Lortab prescription. The Good Daughter doesn't trust doctors, in fact if she were capable of hate, it would be directed at doctors, because they let her daddy suffer for so many years. The Good Daughter was always Daddy's little girl.

The Good Daughter has been with us for as long as we can remember, and she is the K that most (not all) of our family members know.  From a very early age, she's been responsible for making important decisions (in the nature of what's right and wrong), for being sociable to strangers, for making our family proud, and for maintaining our image as a "good girl".  She comes out whenever we run into friends of our parents or people from church, or anyone who should believe us to be a moral, respectable, responsible young lady.  She usually shared co-consciousness with the smart K until we got to high school, then The Good Daughter went into hiding for several years, not returning until we were in college. Anyway, the rest of the K's appreciate what The Good Daughter does-we couldn't get by without her-but they think she's too much of a wuss. TGD doesn't drink or smoke or do drugs of any kind.  She's very sweet, and respectful, and affectionate.  She always says "Yes, Ma'am" and "No, Sir" and she doesn't curse.  She's the K who usually meets parental figures (of our friends) for us, and they always seem to love her. It's interesting to note that The Good Daughter has a very Southern (USA) accent whenever she's with our mother. The rest of us hate that. I mean we really hate it; we think it makes us sound less intelligent. Thankfully, not all of the K's have this accent.

The Good Daughter is young, but has aged over the years. I'm not sure exactly how old she is, but I'd guess she's in her early 30's.  She dresses modestly, meaning she doesn't let any of K's tattoos show and she doesn't like anything tight or low-cut.  She is one of the few K's who likes to dress in colors. (Most of us wear black)  She can be casual or professional, depending upon what the situation calls for.  She's very practical, helpful, and dependable.  She's quite a penny-pincher with money and likes to clip coupons and shop at thrift stores.  She is not materialistic, but she does appreciate nice things.  She mails cards on special occasions and reminds us to stay in touch with our friends via texts, emails, and phone calls.  Ironically, she does NOT hang out with our friends.

UPDATE: The Good Daughter took our mother to the Emergency Room, where she was given a shot of  Dilaudid for her excruciating pain.  We have been to the ER twice now.  Our mom is still very sick and in a lot of pain, but she's found a new doctor whom we hope will help manage her pain.  Apparently this Shingles thing that Mom has can last for months.  We really don't want our mother to suffer that long, but we are powerless to stop it.  All we can do is keep giving her medications, pain pills, and ice packs.  TGD is doing all she can to make our mother as comfortable as possible.

Today she went to the library and checked out a book about Shingles, in the hopes that her mom can read it and gain some insight into her affliction. Perhaps get a few tips on how to deal with the pain.  The Good Daughter comes and goes, but always comes out whenever we're alone with our mother. Also when relatives show up, or repairmen or anyone who needs to speak with the "lady of the house".  TGD is getting tired, as she's been tending to Mom for several years now, but that is her job.  The purpose of The Good Daughter is to take care of our parents (she was the caregiver for our father for 2 years before he died) and make our family proud.  She often does the grocery shopping and pays the bills.  She answers the phone and makes appointments for dentists and whatnot.  She's the responsible one, and K couldn't survive without her.  The other K's are very irresponsible, except for the smart one.

I don't know what else to say about The Good Daughter.  She's got the most important job out of all the K's.  She is the most reliable, but even she can't be on time for an appointment. We are always late due to our warped sense of time. TGD tries to keep up with time and takes a lot of notes about what needs doing when.  Sometimes we find notes left for us by TGD, telling us our errands for the day.  She's a list-maker. None of the K's can function without a list, instructing them what to do. We find lists everywhere, lists of all sorts of things.  What to do, who to call, where to go, what to buy, when to take meds, even when and what to eat. In fact, she's telling me right now that it's time to make tomorrow's list of things which need to be done.  I guess we better listen to her, as she's the one with all the common sense.

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.

Another Day, Another Dilemma

Lost.  A whole day and night, for the most part, just gone.  I feel like I've been manic and have just crashed.  I also feel like I've been doing a hell of a lot of talking and socializing but I can't remember with whom.  Pretty sure we made some new online friends....now if only we could remember their names.  That's so annoying-to know that I made conversation with someone and we got along well but then after it's over I can't remember who they were or what we talked about.  Makes friendships difficult online.  In real life, I can at least recognize a person's face (well, sometimes) but even then I still have trouble remembering conversations, or even names. I've been trying so hard to develop a support system for us on Twitter, and I think we've done a pretty good job, only when I really need to talk to someone about something important, I can't remember just who it is that I'm close to. *sigh*  Truthfully speaking, I don't know if I'm actually close to anyone, either online or in real life.  And it's far too embarrassing to tweet everybody, asking if we're friends or not.  Plus, the paranoia is stifling me.  I'm paranoid I might've been the mean K at some point, and perhaps said something horrible to another Tweep and maybe I've angered someone or worse, hurt someone's feelings.  I worry so much about what other people think about us; that's the number one reason we keep our illness a secret from the outside world.  My closest friends don't know about my mental illness.  A lot of people know I take anti-depressants and so they assume I'm just chronically depressed or maybe bipolar or something they're familiar with.  I would never dare tell anyone about my dissociative disorder.  That's just TOO weird.  People can't wrap their brains around it. I don't want people to look at me differently, or treat me differently, or talk about me behind my back.  So I hide my symptoms.  From everyone.  Most of the people I hang out with in real life have been with different K's at different times but never even knew.  Because I keep quiet.  I'm shy, and I"m scared of revealing my terrible secret.  This disorder I have is the stuff of Hollywood movies, the type of mental illness that's always portrayed in a negative light, as though we are dangerous or deceptive. I don't think I'm either of those things, although I am aware that one of the K's has tendencies to do things which we find questionable or even wrong.  But that's not all of me.

 I have different me's, different parts of me which have different functions and different personalities and I can't always be sure that everyone is doing what they're supposed to be doing.  After all, I don't have access to my entire mind, just to parts of it now and then.  I know about several of the K's, but I don't know how many of us there are, nor do I know which ones come out most frequently or which ones have the most friends or anything like that.  I wonder if we'd have any friends at all if we were to expose ourselves and admit to everyone we have an illness.  I don't think they'd be able to handle it.  I think everything would change and I'd never be looked at the same way again.  So I've turned my search for friends online, where people can't stare at me or pass judgements based upon how I look or dress or behave in public.  Online, I am honest about who and what I am.  Everyone I've met on Twitter knows I'm mental, and they accept it.  Most everyone I talk to on Twitter is mental as well, and that's the way I prefer it.  I can't relate to "normal" people, because I'm not normal.  I would much rather converse with someone who understands what it's like to be afraid of people or to hear voices in their head.  I need empathy, and that's something that my real life, "sane" friends simply cannot give me.  They will never understand.  No one can, unless they've experienced it themselves.  I had a counselor once who'd attempted suicide at one point in her life.  I trusted her because she'd been where I was.  She "got it".  That's what I need.  People who get it.  And I seem to be finding these people-everyday I get up and find evidence of my having chatted or DM'd or emailed or texted people and it seems to me that we've had a conversation or an exchange of some kind that has had a positive impact on my state of mind.  I know I'm finding support, I have physical evidence in the form of notes or a journal or texts on my phone.  So I'm accomplishing my mission, which has been, since I joined Twitter in December, to find others like me.  I just have to sortof start all over every morning, figuring out who I talked with and what we talked about.  This is impossible of course.  So if you are reading this and you are one of the several people with whom I've conversed recently, then by all means say hello!  Please don't take it personally that I can't remember our conversation or personal info about you. Hell, I'm doing good if I can recognize a person's name as that of someone I know.  A lot of times I'll see people in my timeline who I just know I've talked with before, but I'm too afraid to interact with them because it's just too embarrassing to admit that I have forgotten everything I knew about them.  Now, after a certain period of time, these things get better.  If I talk to you everyday, of course I'm going to remember you better than if I only talk to you once a week.  Now I must tell you, some of the K's are very social and love to talk, but others are quite shy and try to avoid contact with others.

 There's no way of knowing which K is tweeting at any particular time (except the mean one is easily recognizable, and probably the little girl too, though she's never used Twitter before as far as I know) so if you send me a Tweet and don't hear back from me, I'm sorry.  It usually means I just can't remember how I know you.  Some of you I've grown quite fond of, but I have trouble separating in my mind the ones I know well and the ones I don't know very well.  I see the names in the timeline everyday, so they are familiar to me and this confuses me further.  I guess what I'm trying to say is, I feel like I've had a very productive week, in that I made new friends and had really nice conversations and made connections with people, I'm just having trouble now remembering who those people were.  If we have interacted before, then by all means you should feel confident in speaking to me.  If I don't remember you at all, I'll be honest and tell you, but please don't take this to mean that I don't like you or that our conversation wasn't meaningful to me.  I just have a shit memory, and with the lost time and blackouts, it's a miracle somedays that I can remember my own name.  To sum up, thank you to everyone who has made an effort to be my friend.  We really do appreciate it.  It means a lot to us.  But if you want to talk to me, it might not be a bad idea to say something like "Hi, we spoke Thursday about the new Tim Burton movie" or just give me some kind of clue as to your identity.  If I interact with you more frequently, I'll learn your name and personal info quicker.  I just need that chance.  If I've introduced myself to someone and then never spoke to you again, it's because I've no memory of us meeting.  I always have to be reminded of everything. And I do mean everything.  To prove my point-it's 6:00 p.m. now and I find that I've forgotten to get dressed today.  I'm still in my pajamas and I don't think I remembered to eat today either.  This is my normal.  It's a guessing game really.  Just be patient with me-I'm a really good friend to have, if you can just stick around long enough to get to that point. I'm not going to lie, it's hard to be my friend. Not just because of the memory loss, but because I'm moody and just plain weird.  Most importantly, perhaps, is the fact that I don't trust people. Not ever. This makes it very difficult to get close to me.  But I long to be close to people, or at least just a couple of people, just so I don't feel so alone in this journey of life. I need friends. Everyone does.  It's usually pretty easy for me to make friends, but hard for me to keep them, because I literally forget them when they're not around.  I guess all of this sounds ridiculous, and I suppose it is, but this is my reality.  I have to be reminded who my friends are.  I don't know what I'd do without Husband with me, telling me who people are when we are out in public. He reminds me of how I know them, when we've hung out, what we've done together.  If I didn't have his support and assistance, I'd never be able to go out. (which I don't do all that often anyway)  To put it simply, please be patient with me and try to understand that I can like you and be your friend, even if I don't always remember you or our previous conversation.  I know it's frustrating, but believe me it's a lot worse for me than for you.  I may ask you the same questions over and over again, but that doesn't mean I'm not listening.  I just have a hard time retaining information.  Stick around and I'll eventually get to know you.  It just takes me a long time.  You know what? I've totally forgotten what this blog post is about.  I have no idea what I've been talking about, or whether this post even has a point.  So now I must read it over again, probably for the twentieth time... God I'm exhausted.  I wonder if I remembered to sleep last night?  To all those Tweeps out there who spoke to me in the past 2 days or 2 months, thank you. Thank you for talking to me, thank you for noticing me, thank you for giving me a chance.  Now let's do it again.

Help From Afar or She's Done This Before

When this current "episode" began,  (based upon my journal and this blog, I'm able to determine that this happened around the first of the year)  I tried desperately to think of some way to help my husband better understand what was happening, so that he wouldn't be so worried about me and whether I was having a "breakdown".  I could only think of one person on the planet who might be able to help in this situation, and that person happened to be my ex-boyfriend, who had once lived with me for a year, and who was studying psychology at that time and was good at recognizing symptoms.  I'm still very good friends with him,  and I respect him tremendously, but I was scared to death to talk to him about these matters because he and I had not discussed my mental health in years, except for the occasional joke about me being "crazy".

(I have to have a sense of humor about my mental health, or else I'd go nuts...or something like that)  After we broke up (8 years ago),  we never talked about the "weird things K does" again.  I can't remember whether I acted in this manner when I was with him, and I can't even say with certainty that "this" has ever happened to me at all.  (STOP IT! That's called DENIAL!)  I'm not sure how I mustered up the courage to do it, but after a tremendous amount of contemplation, I sent him a text and asked him if he could contact my husband regarding my "switching".  [Psychiatrists refer to the phase of transition between alters as the "switch" ]  It seemed to take forever for him to respond, and at first he wasn't sure what was happening; he soon figured it out when I started referring to myself in third person.  He realized he was talking to (an alter)  and I breathed a sigh of relief that he knew what was happening.  He took some time to compose an email which he then sent to my husband.  I thought perhaps this email can help me remember these events, as well as give some insight into what happens when someone switches.  It is dated January 9, 2012.  Here are the highlights of the email:






Ahh. I heard you're going through your first "switch" with K_____. Grats! Your marriage is now more of a Menage' a Trois! But I've been there and lived to tell the tale. Here's what I think from my experiences.

It's not as bad as it seems, but emotionally and mentally trying, and a bit confusing. Hers is one related to a Dissociative Disorder...    Her "switching" into a depersonalized K____ is like a computer being run in safe mode: you can't really fuck up a computer in safe mode as easily as you can in regular mode.  It's a protective thing that she does to insulate herself from trauma by distancing herself from "K_____" and seeing herself in the 3rd Person.

Think of it this way: It's like watching a movie of your life and saying "Man, I'd hate to be that guy" when, in fact, you are that guy. It removes you from the immediate path of harms way with things like arguments, panic attacks and anxiety, uncomfortable social situations, and facts of life that she would rather postpone dealing with until her brain doesn't feel so threatened.
 
...Switched K_____ is more distant than normal K_____. Her manic episodes before a depressive spell were pretty easy to see, because she would have more outward gestures like laughter, talking and telling jokes, moving around a lot (like almost dance-like movements), and overacted hand gestures clued me in a lot. This is not like mania, but she can depersonalize herself while having a manic episode, which is confusing as hell to say the least. She'll feel like she's dreaming or "not quite here."

There are many kinds of disorders- long story short, they exist to buffer the person that has them from the direct repercussions of high stress. 

He then inserted some links to the Mayo Clinic. How cool is that?  He not only recalled his own experiences with us, but he also gave additional info to my husband. In the end my husband got some relief, some peace of mind, when he read the email, and I was reassured that I do, indeed, have friends who care about me.  

Major Breakthrough or Break From Reality?

(When we started writing this blog post, it was yesterday? Last night? Some time in the past, not terribly long ago, yet it seems I've been typing for so very long...at least 12-16 hours now, but since time is foreign to us there's really no way to be certain)

I'm not sure how to start...Something has happened. To me, to us, to K.  She really, very much needs to see her doctor!  That's not a viable option for us right now, however, as it's currently either horribly late or ridiculously early, take your pick.  Now it could be that she's just experiencing what is known as a psychotic break...

(Wikipedia says: A psychotic break is a term used to describe an occasion of a person experiencing an episode of acute primary psychosis, either for the first time or after a significant period of relative asymptomaticity.)

This has happened to us before, I can't say for sure how often it happens or even when it last happened, but it's certainly not something we are unfamiliar with.  If that is not the case, (and I have my suspicions) then we are having a MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH. I really can't stress enough that we're not sure at the moment what is happening to us, and I'm not sure if THIS has ever happened before. (I have a terrible memory, for a number of reasons which I'm not going into but which include my mental disorder(s) and my medication side effects)

psy·cho·sis [sahy-koh-sis] noun

1. a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.

2. any severe form of mental disorder, as schizophrenia or paranoia.

I feel, at this moment, that something profound has occurred to us. I'm not sure exactly when it happened and I can't be certain how long this has been going on.  I've tried to trace this "event"(?) back to the beginning, using Tweets and Facebook posts and my phone data.  I would normally just check out my personal journal, but we were shocked to discover that K hasn't made an entry in that particular journal since October 21, 2010, so that really didn't help us much at all.  K has spent her entire life trying so hard to hide her symptoms from the outside world, that it feels somewhat liberating for her to open up and let things show now.  Several of the K's are shy, but I am not.  I guess that's a good place to start...

Hello. I'm the K that takes care of business, the K that gets things done, the K that is responsible and does necessary things such as pay the bills and take care of our mother (who is frequently in poor health) at times when things are just too stressful for K to handle them on her own.  K is currently unavailable but will (hopefully?) return at some point and things will settle back down to what we know as "normal". Not that it is normal in any way, mind you.  That's one thing I'm starting to realize.  There's something strange going on around here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.  This feels SO important, I really can't stress that enough.  This feels like something of vital importance to our very existence, we being the K.  Now K has been in therapy for most of her life.  For over 20 years, we've gone from doctor to doctor, looking for answers, and hoping someone would say "Oh, you have this condition and you should take these pills and then everything will be fine. You'll get better."  We are painfully aware by now that this is just NOT going to happen for us.  I don't know if it ever happens for anyone (but I sincerely hope that it does). But television commercials and the media in general would have you believe that everything can be cured with a magic pill or X number of therapy sessions.  If either of those things were true, I'd be long cured.  I've been placed on a veritable cornucopia of psychotropic drugs since I was given my first prescription (for Lithium) at the age of 16. I know for a fact that I'd never be able to name them all, as I've been on so many, and of course because of my memory problems.  Depakote, Trazodone, Zyprexa,  Ritalin, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Ativan, Valium, Lexapro...I could go on but I won't. You get the idea. I've been on different combinations of different drugs for years now; for so long, in fact, that I can no longer remember what it feels like to be completely drug-free. I'm currently prescribed 60 mg Prozac, 300 mg Wellbutrin, 50 mg Seroquel XR, 3 mg Risperidone and 4 mg Alprazalam per day, plus a Folic Acid tablet for what my relatively-new medical doctor (non-psych) tells me is a deficiency which supposedly affects your moods. The last time we were without our pills, we turned to self-medicating to help us feel more "sane".  It's very common behavior in people with mental illness and since I have an obsessive-compulsive personality, it can lead to a lot of problems, physically, mentally, legally, financially,,,(sigh) You get my point. I tend to overdo things, become obsessed, act impulsively and compulsively. K, according to some people, "just doesn't know when to quit", but the obsessions themselves generally come and go over the course of "time".  Time is something we have a special relationship with, and no realistic sense of, but I'm afraid I don't have enough of it at the moment to go into that story, so please let me continue before I switch again.

I have both a relatively-new medical doctor as well as a new psychiatrist (I can't remember how long I've been seeing her, but she was unable to get my medical records and/or therapy notes from my last doctor, whom I disliked).  OOH just checked my neglected hardbound journal and found out that I started seeing this new shrink sometime after Feb. 9, 2010 and before April 17, 2010.  (WOW I had no idea it'd been that long; maybe she knows me better than I give her credit for) I saw my last therapist (not to be confused with my psychiatrist, whom I usually refer to as my shrink, even though I know they hate that) sometime in early April of 2010.  She dumped me after 7 years together!  Because I missed 3 appointments at various times throughout our relationship.  She said that was the limit; that after 3 misses you're automatically kicked out of the system on your 4th miss for being a "non-compliant" patient.  So even though I have this alleged illness-which she herself was attempting to properly diagnose and treat, and which she herself brought up first in our sessions-and even though she knows that we have issues with understanding time and "reality", still she cut me loose just as soon as I had walked into her office and plopped down on her up-until-that-moment-"comfortable & familiar" couch.  Well, actually I think she let me rant first for a minute-I recall I was dying to talk to her about my (often-recurring) then-current obsession (suicide) so she let me spill for a few minutes, then asked the obligatory questions: "Are you thinking about hurting yourself?  Do you have urges to harm yourself?  Are the voices telling you to hurt yourself or someone else?"  I told her that at that time, I did NOT have any plans to hurt myself, and I'd certainly never hurt anyone else!, and so as soon as she was satisfied that I wasn't going to leave her office and kill myself, she dumped me like a bag of garbage.  Up until that point, I'd been seeing her at least every other week, or weekly if I was struggling., for 7 years. A few times I had more than one appointment in a single week.  And I tried to always see my psychiatrist in tandem with my therapist, as they shared a clinic location, and because I was driving an hour to get there from my home. While I may not recall the exact date of our last appointment, I do recall parts of the session.  It was quite brief, or at least it seemed so to me.  I described to her my obsessing over suicide, and how I'd been Googling it and researching and reading news articles and how everyone around me seemed to be doing it at that time, like the voices were trying to get me to "do what everybody else was doing" and how fascinated I was by the whole process. At that time, I explained excitedly, there had been a number of prominent suicides in the news, including a famous fashion designer as well as a former television actor. I had intended to tell her how the TV was speaking to me personally about these things. She didn't like that I was talking about people killing themselves, and as I've stated earlier, she quickly asked me the "suicide watch" questions...and I gave her the answers I knew she needed to hear.  Don't get me wrong.  I had NO intention of killing myself that day, or any day soon, as K was and still is a big believer in Karma and I think that killing yourself is bad karma, regardless of your religious beliefs. Plus I'd never put my family through the humiliation and pain and suffering of the whole suicide event. (some of us do indeed have suicidal tendencies though) I love them too much to do that to them.  Also, I don't think that anyone would be able to style my hair nor do my makeup as I would like, or even pick out the right outfit for me to wear to my funeral.  This may seem trivial to you, but to K,  it is really important.  Damn.  Now I've gone off on a tangent and can't recall where I was in telling the story...

Interesting.  I just left the safety of my bedroom, wherein I've been holed up for roughly 9 hours now, and went into the kitchen for a cup of coffee, which K is almost always able to make (she's a coffee fiend) and which, sure enough, she had prepared much earlier, as in last night.  Now we must interact with our mother, for she is in said kitchen and expects some sort of recognition and acknowledgement.  I'd been wondering what would happen as I walked up the hallway, before I ever saw her.  And then-BOOM-I'm in the room with her and the Good Daughter is hugging her mom and asking how she slept and how she was feeling that day, which is today. I know because I've begun taking notes in a notebook, and I see the date and time written on the notebook and I can compare it to the date and time on my new cell phone, and I can get an idea of "when" I am existing, I being the current K, the smart one, the one who used to attend college and hold down a job (hard to believe now).  We are the K that has ambition.  We are the K that dreams of going back to school and finishing her degree, and of having an actual career that she could nurture and benefit from and perhaps even earning a living and being completely self-sufficient, which up until this point, we don't think she's ever been.  She has always ended up needing some help.  She just can't do it on her own.  She can't make enough money.  She can't have the proper benefits of medical insurance and retirement funds.  As much as K HATES to admit it, she is completely held hostage by, and controlled by, The System.  The System currently considers K "mentally disabled" (due to schizophrenia I believe) and we get a Disability check every month for a set amount of money.  Not a lot, let me tell you.  In fact, I've NEVER been able to afford to pay all my bills in addition to buying food and gas for the car.  K is really ashamed of that fact.  She came close to being self-sufficient once; she had a full-time job and was in management, and she had a checking account and a house and a car and a seemingly "normal" (only NOT) life. Sigh. (That was before our first, and most severe, "nervous breakdown") We're really rambling here.  I need to wrap this up before some other K comes along and messes it up, or erases these words without posting or saving them because of our over-the-top paranoia. I still very strongly feel that these events, happening to us "now"-whenever that may be-are going to have an enormous impact on K's future, hopefully for the better.  Hopefully, this is a brain-altering, life-changing moment of clarity within our foggy, crowded existence.  Hopefully this is K taking the first steps at realizing how she can go about getting the sort of help that she really needs, and not just drugging us to keep us at bay.

We've tried to explain this, or some of this, to K's husband, but he is having quite a difficult time in wrapping his brain around these concepts. We have, in fact, completely blown his mind by telling him openly and honestly what K was thinking and feeling. Now K feels completely vulnerable and fragile and I have to alter my train of thought before the stifling paranoia takes over again... My husband is my best friend, but even he has never seen me like this before,  he's never witnessed me switching from one K to another. I imagine it is quite upsetting and disturbing to him, as it would freak anybody out who wasn't prepared for it. Sigh.  I really, REALLY hope I don't scare off my husband...!!! I tried, very hard, to warn him, to prepare him, for the day he'd see the real me.  "US".  And now it turns out he can't handle it, or at least not at the moment.