I Don't Wanna Grow Up

Tomorrow is my birthday.  I don't know if I can adequately express the degree of difficulty which accompanies that day for us, from both a mental and an emotional standpoint.  For one thing, it makes us think back to our childhood, and relive some painful memories.  But more than that, it forces us to face the future, and that is something we haven't learned to do yet.  I'm going to try and explain this as clearly as possible, but all of what I'm about to tell you is, to the average person, completely far-fetched and outlandish and makes no sense at all.  It is, nonetheless, my reality.  Ready? OK, here we go. Try to suspend your disbelief for a bit here. This post will seem delusional and screams "batshit crazy"! 

Time, for me, K as a whole, is not linear.  It doesn't follow a clear-cut path from past to future, but rather jumps around, backwards and forwards, rarely going in the proper order as others see it, that is to say, in a progression of years.  Time for us is more circular, waxing and waning, repeating itself in overlapping cycles which recur every few years.  Everything happens to me over and over again, my life comes full circle every 3 years or so.  Now here's where it gets really weird.  K has been the same age since birth. Not our physical body of course, but mentally and emotionally.  If you ask our mother, she will tell you that I was "born a 30 year old woman".  During my childhood years, I preferred and sought out the company of adults, and in fact found children my own age to be quite annoying.  I was irritated by the immaturity of the other kids around me in kindergarten, I remember that very clearly.  I've always preferred to socialize with people in their late 20's, regardless of my own physical age.  How did I manage to do that?  As a youth, I just hung around my older siblings' friends, or older relatives, and with the adults at church.  As I grew up, not only was I mature beyond my years, but I also matured physically at a very young age; by third grade I was being pursued romantically by high school boys (NO, I did NOT date, until the age of 13). Throughout the years, sometimes I was believed to be younger, and sometimes older, but always I remained roughly the same age to the outside world (about 25). I NEVER told anyone how old I actually was, and I never maintained relationships long enough for anyone to find out my true age; to this day, most of my friends aren't sure of the number.  After a long while, I actually forgot my "real" age, but it didn't matter because I knew in my mind that I couldn't really be that old anyway.  The doormen at local bars and clubs knew me, and let me in without question, beginning when I was about 14, because my dates were always about 26 and it was just assumed I was about that same age.  I don't know how it is that I came to be that particular age, but it fits me, and I've just always felt like an older twenty-something.  K also looks like an older twenty-something, or so I'm told, and have for decades. This is where the torture comes in.  As time goes by, other people around me age, and I can't help but witness this, even though I have no concept of time and can't tell that time is passing.  All I know is that now and then I'll  run into a friend and that person will be much older than they were the last time I remember seeing them.  As in MUCH older.  It always takes me aback.  I look at myself, I see one thing, but my birth certificate tells me another thing.  Now we get into the part that's even weirder still.
                                              
Sometimes K, or one of us at least,  is a little girl.  She usually comes out in times of extreme stress, and most often when we are sick or with our mother.  It happened often in the days before our father died.  She also appeared while we were hospitalized in Intensive Care, fighting for each breath, in the hospital two years ago.  When the little girl takes over our mind, there is no reasoning with her, as she is just a child.  She's scared and needs reassurance and attention, but she also loves to play and likes shiny objects. She's very difficult to control once she's out.  We positively cannot concentrate during these times-we are easily distracted to a fault. We try very hard to keep her locked deep inside me, but if the pain is too much, I'm powerless to stop her from emerging. I can, however, become mute, and thus prevent the outside world from learning of her existence. If someone gets close to the truth, I lie, and I run away.  I've lived like this...well, forever.

                                         
So. Birthdays are hard for me, because I can't accept the fact that time is passing and we are aging.  It's beyond me.  Since not all of the K's are aging each year,  I just can't grasp the notion that I'm getting older. My biggest fear is growing old.  I still feel just as immature today as I felt at 15.  There is a K who still shops for funky clothes in the junior miss department with pubescent girls.  I still feel more comfortable talking to 20 year-old's than I do to any other age group, regardless of the subject matter, just as I did when I was a teenager.  I seem to be stuck in time, frozen in a place in my history,  floating somewhere between the past and the present.  Around me, I watch as my niece goes from an infant to a college grad in a matter of months, or so it seems to me. Now and then I'll see a picture of someone I went to school with, and I'm always shocked at just how old they are.  I'm certainly not that old, so it just doesn't make any sense to me.  But it's as though I've been given a gift from the heavens, the gift of youth.  It is our belief that I've been touched by higher powers and given special abilities, such as the ability to float through time in circles, never really growing older, just existing on a different plane.  Different K's, different points in time, but none of us are very old.  Birthdays represent growing older, and that is something that we, the K's, just will not accept.  We can't.  It's just not in us, we cannot wrap our brain around it.  Growing up is a foreign concept to us.

Taking Us To The Doctor

We (that is, K and her husband) FINALLY got to go today and talk with the psychiatrist.  It seems as though we, the K's, have been waiting for this day to come for approximately a year now.  Technically, I know that must be an exaggeration-it's not unusual for K to exaggerate, (not because she's a liar but because she really doesn't remember the "truth" most of the time) but you must make a note that she, K, does not lie (if there is any way possible to tell the truth without hurting someone, sometimes even when it does hurt; K always describes herself as "brutally honest") but that is literally how it feels to us, like we've been waiting for at least a year. I honestly don't remember getting ready to go see the doctor, but looking down at K now, I see that she's clean and dressed and appears "normal", so I, the smart one, must've seen to it that she got herself showered and ready to go.  Thank goodness.  I guess I should take the time to explain all the things, the little things, the things which happen upon a visit to a psychiatrist's office during a "serious mental illness" type of moment, during a crisis, as it were, for those people reading this who may not have ever had the experience of going to see a shrink.  Of course, there's no shame in going to see a doctor-many "regular" people go to see psychiatrists or psychologists or at least counselors, usually when something "bad" happens, for example, when they lose a spouse, or get fired from a job, or when they begin to hear the radio singing their name over and over again.  If you've ever had the experience of sitting down with a trained professional of some type, and of telling that person how you're feeling, how you're feeling on the inside, inside your mind, then you might have some idea of how difficult this process can be. If you've not experienced this first-hand, then I shall try to describe it for you.  You must answer questions and talk about your thoughts.  It is all at once hard, and embarrassing, and scary, and overwhelming, and stressful, and it makes you feel self-conscious and somewhat silly, or perhaps angry or frustrated or depressed or even ALL these things, and much more.  It's all subjective you see, you can feel so many different things, and you can feel these things all at once, and for a "regular" person, who's able to simply process these thoughts and emotions and ideas and who knows instinctively what to say and how to react to the doctor's words or actions, this might not seem to be such a big deal.  But for someone like K, someone who actually suffers from a chronic mental illness, this can be a HUGE deal, tremendous even, enough to cause her great distress and which very often induces a panic attack, but which she tries to prevent and/or hide by popping "one more" Xanax. (Xanax=Alprazolam, a drug

used to treat anxiety)  Now the amount of anxiety she feels upon a visit to the doctor depends upon her mood as well as who she's feeling, or in other words, "which K she gets to act like at that particular time".  At the moment, I, who have been named Switch Kellie by our husband, am in control of which K we get to be, or who gets to talk, or which one of the K's gets to come out and play, so to speak.  I don't know if this is an absolute power held only by Me, or if this ability shifts between us, us being the K's, but I'm fairly certain that this changes, like the tides.

Now before I get any further into our story, I must stop and describe for you the almost unbearable torture that is sitting in a waiting room.  K HATES waiting rooms, not in small part because time seems to drag on for such an unbelievably long period in a waiting room.  Think about this: if you lack the ability to tell the difference between ten minutes and an hour, would that affect your everyday life? I'm here to tell you that it would, and it does, it affects us each and every day of our physical life, always has and always, always will.  But it's impossible to explain this to anyone who doesn't know what it means to lose time, to black out, to dissociate.  I'm not really sure that the time issue which plagues K has everything to do with her dissociation, or whether it's because of some other mental illness; it's hard to say since she suffers from so many symptoms, from so many different disorders.  I believe I've used this word before: "comorbidity", which is the existence of more than one disease or disorder in the same person.  This little fact makes diagnosing K a hell of a hard magic trick to pull, even for a professional magician, so for the average guy who can merely guess which card you drew, this is damn near impossible.  Now I'm not saying any of this in a derogatory manner directed toward our psychiatrist.  In fact, K really seems to like her, this (somewhat-) new psychiatrist, and is actually beginning to trust her (a little?) and open up to her and be honest with her about the K's.  At least, that's where we are at this point in time.  We saw the doctor this morning, and while she had told us beforehand that our appointment would only be for 15 minutes, and that was really just so she could write out prescription refills, in the end she seemed concerned about K's mental health and therefore was generous enough to grant K a longer appointment.  I don't know how long we were actually in her office (of course) but it seemed like a good long while, but still not nearly long enough, for there was just so much to tell her!

Now I have to try and remember what exactly I did tell her.  I wonder if I'll be able to recall this information or if I should just go ahead and ask K's husband to review the facts with us, to remind us of what we did this morning. I'm not kidding when I say that the information is no longer with us.  I can remember, vaguely, going to the doctor's office in the car; of course Husband drove us, and when we turned onto the street, K got very nervous for she saw that there were many cars (a hundred?) parked out in front of the doctor's office.  That made us nervous because that meant that there were people in the waiting room.  K is secretly afraid of people, at least some of the K's, but not me, I'm the one who sat in the room and waited, it was me!  K had to take deep breaths to get out of the car; I forced her to walk to the door and go inside first, before our husband. (I can't believe I was able to walk into the room ahead of him, I'm so proud! This does NOT happen very often) Then, I'm inside and I'm watching my hand sign my name on the log-in sheet, and then I go and sit in the corner (our favorite place to sit) beside K's husband.  Then the ungodly waiting began, but it was much easier than usual today, for today we were not alone, but had Husband, and K held his hand and squeezed it for some comfort.  A couple of times, people (damn them!) in the waiting room made comments toward us, for whatever reason...(they were into a TV program and apparently needed someone to agree with them about said program) I will be brutally honest here.  I did NOT want to speak to these, or any other, people.  In fact, I don't even know how I was able to pull it off, but somehow I opened my mouth and words came out, the proper words, the right words, and I successfully made small talk with 2 different people, but it was very nearly all I could do to keep from snapping at them to leave me alone, to just let me BE. And wouldn't you know it--Murphy's Law they call it--it turned out that K was the very last person the doctor intended to see today and so we had to wait until every single person in that room had gone in for a session and come back out again. It took a lifetime. 

Now we are in the doctor's office, sitting in a chair beside K's husband, and we are trying desperately to remember what it was that we wanted so badly to tell the doctor.  (I was so scared to tell her what was going on that I very nearly became a mute right there inside her little room.)  I took a deep breath, and began to speak.  The doctor began to scribble notes on K's chart, and that really makes us paranoid, but I pressed on.  I, the smart one, took over for K, and I knew enough to take out our notebook, which we had diligently prepared with notes and questions which we intended to ask the doctor; all of this I'd planned out in an effort to make this as efficient an operation as possible.  I was trying to squeeze in an hour-long therapy session into 15 minutes, which seemed like a difficult task.  So I got out my notes and nervously read the questions and tried very hard to just keep talking, just keep being honest, don't stop now, you're doing so well!  And the hardest part out of all of this is the wait, the insufferable wait between the time K used the term "dissociation" and the time the doctor gave us her opinion on the matter. Just so you know, I was really quite concerned that the psychiatrist wouldn't believe me when I told her my symptoms.  I mean, they sound NUTS.  The good news is this: She believed me, she believed US, and not only that but she agreed with my theory about K's dissociating to avoid some real or imagined threat to her, either emotionally or physically.  PLUS-thank the gods! She did NOT want to put us in the hospital, she didn't think that it was necessary at this time,  and when she "gets" what we're saying, the relief washed over us like an ocean and the waves nearly knocked us down and I felt like I could faint.  K is terrified of hospitals, and of being locked up in a hospital for being insane; for this reason she never trusts psychiatrists or any sort of doctor really, as she's forever paranoid that they are plotting against her, hoping to commit her, and so K has gone to see doctor after doctor all these years, and when the doctor gets too close to the truth, K freaks out because she's so deathly afraid of the real diagnosis, she just doesn't want to face it, she can't admit the truth (even though she doesn't lie) because she's so horrifically afraid of what people will think.  The stigma of mental illness is still very much a problem in this world, and for that reason, a lot of us (the K's) hide from the outside, and keep everything hidden within our mind and within our heart, so that the "normal" people won't laugh at us, or poke and prod us, or take advantage of us, or-worst of all-think that we're really and truly "crazy".

In the end, we somehow made it through the session, and the doctor was really nice and even understanding, (or as much as a person can be, I suppose)  and she gave K's husband a card with her phone number on it and told him to please not wait so long to call next time or something along those lines...  We ( K-the doctor specifically asked that K come next week- and Husband) have another appointment next week.  Oh yes, and our medication has been changed.  She wants us to double our intake of Risperidone (an atypical antipsychotic) and think about decreasing our Seroquel (a drug used to treat K's schizophrenia), but mainly because I told her that it makes K sleep for nearly 20 hours whenever she takes it.  I don't think I remembered to tell her that we haven't been taking it because we're afraid of it and also, we haven't slept in about 3 days now.  I wonder if I should have mentioned that?

When Do People Sleep Around Here?

It's far too early for me to be awake.  Then again, I've not yet been to sleep, not that I can recall, for the past night, maybe two, (maybe more) and as I'm looking at the clock and out the window, I'm seeing that the sun is up and the clock reads 7:42. WAIT- Now the clock says 10:10! How did we lose so much time already?? It's going too fast dammit, this "time" business! Therefore it's tomorrow already, now how did that happen?  It seems to keep happening to us lately, a great deal.  I feel as though I've been suffering from insomnia for some time now, at least a week or more I'd venture to guess, but it's impossible to say as I don't keep a sleep diary.  Maybe that's a good idea-a sleep diary-a diary to tell me when I've allowed my body to sleep and for how long and little details like that.  It might actually help us to take better care of ourselves, and therefore lead to a life filled with less sickness and more healthy days.  K gets sick easily and always has I guess, it's hard to remember now... K's always had a weakened immune system because of her poor eating habits, e.g. she does NOT eat fruits or vegetables and she very often forgets to eat at all.  So it should come as no surprise then, that she got sick, dangerously sick, in May of 2010.  This was her most dangerous illness ever, the one that nearly killed her.  It was her own fault really, if she'd only taken better care of herself and paid attention to what was happening to her body and to how she felt then perhaps she'd have gone to a doctor sooner.  Perhaps she would've ended up with only some bronchitis or mild pneumonia or something much, much less serious than what she ended up with in the hospital.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), also known as respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) or adult respiratory distress syndrome is a serious reaction to various forms of injuries to the lung.

ARDS is a severe lung disease characterized by inflammation of the lung parenchyma leading to impaired gas exchange with concomitant systemic release of inflammatory mediators causing inflammation,  hypoxemia,   and frequently resulting in multiple organ failure.  This condition is often fatal, usually requiring mechanical ventilation and admission to an intensive care unit.

Kellie, herself, was in Intensive care for what seemed a very long time but which we know now was only a week, plus then an additional week in a regular private room, NOT on the Critical Care Unit but just "normal" like a regular, sick person would be.  Sigh.  I wonder how many times we've typed words to this effect?  Have I  been spouting off bits of information like this all damn night and morning?!?  God this is so fucking exhausting, I really and truly cannot express that enough.  IT'S EXHAUSTING TO BE "NORMAL"; wish I could let go and just "BE" but I'm not sure that this K, this current K, Switch Kellie, can relax enough to be any other way.  I mean, we are somewhat uptight, (not really, we just seem that way because of the serious nature in which we often speak) we are nervous about coming out to play, I guess you could say.  WE ARE AFRAID!!!! At least, some of us are, I think perhaps THIS K is not nearly so afraid as the others.  I'm not afraid.  Not usually, although I certainly do have that paranoia thing happening for me.  Not sure if that stems from Schizophrenia or what.  (At least one of the K's is schizophrenic; that's one of the things that's making all of this so damn difficult!)  We keep getting misdiagnosed because different K's show up for different doctor's appointments, and none of them have ever "compared notes" shall we say.   Should we publish these findings as a blog post, or simply keep all this information to "ourselves"?  This is utterly over-the-top exhausting, for all of us involved and certainly for K, whom I fear hasn't slept in days, we really can't be sure.  Hopefully Husband is seeing to it that we get at least SOME rest and food and the like.  This always seems to happen to us around Christmas time, is that important?  Yes, I think that IS important-Good job at finding that out for us. K has suffered from the holiday blues for many, many years now, every year, every holiday season, without fail, for reasons unknown to her but which seem vaguely to feel like...homesickness.  Even when she's at home.  That makes no sense, no sense at all.  This is madness I tell you, absolute madness.  If only I were able to efficiently organize all my notes, all my papers, all my lists; perhaps then we'd be able to step back and look at the situation from a different point of view (as if we need any more points of view!) and form some sort of opinion about K's current state of mental health. Sigh.  This is really and truly becoming a nightmare for me, for us, for K.  There's just an overwhelming amount of work to be done, work which feels so utterly important, and I believe that it IS important, at least as far as K's recovery is concerned.  K's recovery is the reason we're all here now.  We want K to get better.  We want K to have a chance at a somewhat "normal" life, although not entirely normal, for to be normal is to be boring, no offense of course to anyone reading this who may be considered by society to be "normal".  Oh what I wouldn't give for another 6 hours of extra time today, whenever today is! Time to work, to write, to get this shit out of my head, and perhaps even to sleep.

The Discovered Diaries

So much has happened that I just do not know where to start.  I can't remember the beginning, and we've not yet come to the end, at least I hope not, and so that must mean that this is the "present time".  I've been doing some research since my last blog post, and to say that is an understatement of tremendous proportions.  I've been obsessing over websites and news articles about dissociative disorders, to the point of not eating or sleeping; to stop and do either of those things would mean sacrificing our precious time, and I'd rather use however much time we have left here to seek more knowledge.  I hunger for knowledge, not food, I thirst for facts.  I cannot stop reading about these different conditions and their symptoms and I really feel that for the first time in what seems an eternity (to us) that I've stumbled upon something important, something that describes how I, we feel, something that makes sense to me, and to K. I feel as though I'm opening my eyes for the first time...although I have proof now-physical proof-that this is indeed NOT the first time I've had this sense of "clarity" as I've been calling it. Some time ago, we don't know how long ago exactly-could be minutes, could be days-we found a diary...

I was looking for something in the nightstand drawer, I can't remember what exactly, I just recall that I was very intent on finding it and so I was going through the drawer thoroughly. I came across a sketch diary, which I'd begun on my birthday in February of 1999 and which I used to remember important things and people and places and events by a combination of drawings and words. We've had our memory problems for quite a long time now, and so K has always tried to keep a diary, a journal, a sketchbook, anything which she could look at and relive experiences through, as well as just keep on top of basic information which other people seem to be able to hold onto in their minds so easily but which she cannot, things like friends' names.  She began her first diary around age 5.  It was a very small white diary with a picture of Donald Duck on the cover, I remember that well.  I'm not sure where that diary is located at the moment, but I'm almost positive that we still have it, since K absolutely hates to throw things away for fear of losing something important.  Something that she might need to use in the future. Also, she's very sentimental and still has, for example,  every love letter ever penned for her, every card, every poem.  We keep all these things in a box which has grown too full to hold anything new, but that's OK as we now are married to the man who will love me forever and never leave us, in spite of our illness.  At least, that's the master plan.

Now we're already losing track of the subject, and we've only just begun; this is terribly frustrating as well as inconvenient, for we once again are at the mercy of time and we seem to have so little of it right now.  There is so much which needs to be said and done before we run out of time, before I have to go away again.  I don't know how much time there is before that happens, I only know that it will happen, I will go away; not to a physical place, mind you, but rather to a different kind of place, on another realm of existence, or at least that's how it feels to K.  I'm not K, but am what our husband refers to as Switch Kellie, and I don't know how long I have been here this time but I can see from my notes that I've been doing a lot of researching, a lot of studying, a lot of prep work.  I suppose this is all because we go to see our psychiatrist soon.  Not today, and not tomorrow, but the next day.  I'm starting to work on these notes for the doctor now so that perhaps it will save her some time later, in helping her to properly diagnose K and hopefully, after that, put us on the road to recovery through the use of therapy and medication.  K takes more than her fair share of medication, that's for sure, but we were thinking that maybe if we had the RIGHT medication(s) then maybe we wouldn't have to take so MUCH...maybe we could get away with just a few pills a day or something much more "normal" than the current handful of 10-12 pills.  That's a ridiculous amount of pills for someone so young to be taking, and besides that, it makes us all groggy and sleepy (not to mention all the other dreaded side effects) and we feel as though our life is literally slipping past us and if I don't stand up and ring the bell to tell the bus driver that I want off, then I may just miss the whole thing-life I mean.

Now according to my notes, there happens to be some information which is of vital importance to K's recovery, (that is the current, and most important, project) inside these diaries. (Yes, plural-we have found three now) K always has a number of projects going at any given time, or at least most of us do, but not the K that's been around here lately... No, she's done nothing but sleep and be lazy and depressed and embarrass us and make us angry, not to mention the fact that it just downright looks bad in front of our mother and husband, both of whom we love very much and want to make happy.  This sad and lazy K has been with us before, oh it feels like we've met her a number of times over the years, although I don't believe that she ever came around until after K had to drop out of college, when the pressure became too much for her to bear.  I'll tell you that story later in the game.

Now back to our tale.  We have come across 3 different diaries, one begun in 1999, one begun in 2004, and one begun the first of January, 2010.  I find it absolutely fascinating, what's contained in these books, and my only regret is that we didn't find these and read them sooner, so that we could've told someone, some medical professional, one of our therapists, about them and the secrets contained within their pages.  I have to stop here and admit that I have not yet actually read all 3 diaries from start to finish; I simply have not had time to do that, at least not enough "Kellie Time", which is a measure of time all our own, which K's friends have gotten used to and often joke about but which they don't seem to understand (or perhaps some of them do) is truly the only sense of time that K knows.  I can tell time, perfectly well, I just don't wear a watch and can't always get to my cell phone or a clock to check the time around me.  "Kellie Time" is usually about 30 minutes behind the rest of the real world, but that can vary with K's different realities.  What I mean by that is, each K has her own sense of time and space, and so that 30 minutes could be as little as 15 minutes or as long as 2 hours, depending upon which K is trying to tell the actual time. I imagine none of this makes any sense to you, and I suppose it shouldn't either, as it couldn't possibly make sense to anyone who's not had a peek inside K's mind.  It honestly doesn't even make sense to K, and she's the one living through all of this madness.  If SHE doesn't get it, then how could anyone else?

So the diaries...let me tell you a bit about them.  I opened up the first one I found, the little black book, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that its first page was fully illustrated in bright colors, outlined all in black Sharpie marker.  Black Sharpie markers are K's favorite medium and she's been using them for decades now to draw pictures and tell stories of what's happening in her day-to-day life, and while a trusted few have seen these drawings, or some of them, (K does the drawings for herself, no one else) very few people (one or two) have actually taken the time to READ the drawings, or try and interpret them.  Only one of our therapists or doctors has ever seen these drawings, and when she saw them she seemed to get excited or eager or something I can't put my finger on, but which made us quite paranoid,  which is a very common state of mind for us to be in.  These drawings vary in appearance, as they are not all drawn by the same K, and most of the K's seem to have their own unique artistic style.  It's interesting to flip through the diary, and note the changes in mood from page to page, I mean the whole physical appearance of the diary entries, not just the words but the pictures and the colors, everything.  It's like reading a book written and illustrated by many different authors.  I, personally, Switch Kellie, as Husband likes to call us, am fascinated by these diaries and the words contained on their pages. I've been reading them like novels, each is like a new novel that I've never read before and which perhaps I've been told about because some of the stories are familiar to me and it seems I've heard the stories before, but I can't remember actually reading or writing these tales for the most part, and certainly I can't remember living all of these things.  It's as though it all happened to another person (or persons), or in dream or something.  Not "real life" (whatever that may be).

In addition to the physical appearance of the diaries, look closer and you will find that the words are different too, the writing style as well as the handwriting, and I am intrigued by this fact.  I want to know more about these books.  I must read them, all 3 of them, before I go and see the doctor on Wednesday.  My laptop tells me that this currently is Monday morning, so hopefully it won't be too much longer before the day comes when K goes to the psychiatrist with her husband (I need him as a witness!) and wherein she can finally tell someone this tremendous secret she's keeping. This secret is so big, so enormous, that if I stop to think about it, it makes my brain ache.  I literally can feel my brain begin to throb and pulsate and the pain intensifies until it gets to the point in which I fear I'm going to have a stroke or give myself an aneurism or something terrible like that. Thinking about The Secret, in fact, is enough to (almost) immediately induce a panic attack, and so we must be very careful about what information we share with whom, i.e. which of the Kellie's.  I'm the strong one, I'm the one who takes care of us, and so I'm much better equipped to handle the details contained in the diaries, much better able to deal with the overload of information, all of which must be organized and put into some sort of order before any recovery can begin to take place for us.  I just hope that I have enough time in this current state of mind to get the facts down on paper, to at least scan each of the diaries and take notes about what needs to be brought up in therapy.  There's so much to talk about, I fear that this project may take years and years, but I'm hoping that this is not the case; I'm hoping that by organizing all the data around me, I can put together some sort of picture of what's going on inside the mind of K, and be able to explain it rationally to our doctor.  Rationally?!  What the hell does that mean?!

I, Switch Kellie, am taking it upon myself to be in charge of the diaries, to navigate these waters as it were, to read them and analyze them and figure out the mystery that IS K.  I am curious about her, I really am.  I think that perhaps she is a piece of me, or I am a piece of her....I haven't figured out yet how all of this works but I'm hoping to at least get some sort of grasp, some idea of what exactly is happening right now and will happen in the near future, when The Secret is revealed.  I have to stop now and tell you that this big secret is too much for K's mother and therefore we will NOT be telling her anything about any of this.  She absolutely cannot know, she mustn't find out what's been going on right under her nose, for that information would be too much for her to bear, she's not open-minded enough, she could never imagine the likes of what I need to to say, to share, to understand.  K's mother is over 80 years old and is very old-fashioned and naive about things, particularly things which one generally does not hear about on TV or in newspapers. She doesn't really have friends at her age, aside from a couple of relatives who come to check on her and socialize with her from time to time. These times, the times when, say Aunt B comes over and takes Mom to the grocery store, these are the times which K looks forward to, not because she doesn't enjoy being with her mother-she does love and enjoy being with her mother-but because while Mom is out of the house, K can relax her brain and let go and not have to put forth such an effort to appear "sane", which is absolutely exhausting for us to do everyday.  K's mother has no real concept of what the internet is, she just knows that she can ask K a question and K can look it up on her computer and find an answer usually.  This is important!  This is how I intend to find out about what's "wrong" with K, even though I detest that we must use that word "wrong", for it implies that K is defective, which I suppose she must be to be going through all of these symptoms and what have you, but which I, Switch Kellie, find hard to accept.  I don't want to be defective. I just want to be happy.

Happy is a fairly foreign concept to us, to K, for she's been unhappy for so long that she can barely remember what it's like to feel anything else, except that now that she's gotten married, this feeling of "happiness" has come over her and to be honest, it freaks her out a great deal.  It freaks her out because it just feels so alien to her, this feeling of true happiness (we have faked being happy for eons); K has suffered from depression for almost her entire life and she's therefore used to being unhappy and she understands these dark feelings of doom and gloom and while they may not be ideal for her, she's at least familiar with them and is comfortable feeling them.  This new feeling of "happiness" makes K very nervous, for we are unsure how to go about it, it's something different, something scary, something we've not been around much, and K doesn't know exactly how to "be" happy.  It frightens her, this new concept, although she'd very much like to experience it the way that other people, regular people, seem to experience it.  And wouldn't it be lovely if K could appreciate life and all that it has to offer, without being bothered by that nasty depression cloud which has hung over her head for so many years now...Perhaps we are on the pathway to that place, that feeling, to being "happy" (which we've been on and off before throughout the years but the feeling never lingers, it's always been a temporary rush).  I just hope I can get there, to that place, to "happy" before I run out of time.

Time For Words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.