We were out doing the laundry. One of us decided we needed to keep up appearances of being normal and together even though its so fucking obvious we aren’t. hell I mean we couldn’t even manage to go to the supermarket today. We got half a block from home and panicked so much we couldn’t even turn around and come home. We had to stand there doing deep breathing and self talk and all the other bullshit we could remember just to be able to get everyone calm enough to turn around and come home. So yeah, we’re fine really. And I am finding it rather hard to talk about all this right now without individualising us. I know there are issues about identifying ourselves right now, but you know we sat last night and bitched amongst ourselves that no one in our life treats us like we are multiple and even multiple friends approach us as if we are one person. (Hey, maybe that means that have worked out we are faking *chuckler*) We don’t let other people get to know us individually and yet we are upset when they treat us like one conglomeration, so yes I see the contradiction there, and how difficult it is for other people. But in saying that, I do also think there’s a number of people that even if the body changed, or we had a neon flashing sign above our head they would continue with their approach to us.
So where was I, oh yes the laundry. She’s out there hanging out the laundry, hoping that if “they†see she can be all normal, that she can keep the house clean and maintain appropriate behaviour that somehow “they†will let everything be ok forever. Yes I know it makes no sense, and even she doesn’t know who “they†are, but that’s how her thinking seems to work. She never manages though, especially on the tidying part, since the rest of us are such lazy dirty bastards, but still she keeps trying. So there she is out in the sun, hanging up laundry and hoping no one comes near her because even though she wants to me normal she is also consumed with terror being around other people. But it wasn’t’ a day were she had to deal with that. Instead it was a day where the other person out trying to enjoy the sun kept hallucinating and we couldn’t seem to calm her. Every time the hand stretched up to the clothes line the image hit her like a wave, a metal spike driven through flesh, searing pain and thick dark blood running down pale skin. She should have left then she should have gone home where the images might not have followed, or there could have been help and solace for her. But like most of us when we are triggered like that we get rooted to this world, stuck in the feelings and the moment and stuck alongside that in the body. The girl hanging out the washing continued to do so. She was aware of the crying behind her, of the frantic conversations, but she remained calm pegging clean clothes out to dry because that dear people is what we do, we must always appear calm no matter what is happening.
We are feeling so completely alone. We have spent most of the morning wandering around the places we go online, trying to think about talking, to share, maybe not our strife right now, but just our lives. And the thing we have found is we don’t feel like we belong to any of them. We do we stay places, because at least being able to read other people’s thoughts, opinions and journeys we feel we are part of the world, an observer rather than a resident. We can participate of course, but this always brings with it the feeling of participation from the outside. And again we don’t’ really feel this is anyone’s fault. It is hard to feel like you belong when you don’t join into things regularly, and just because I am in a group with another group of people that isn’t any guarantee that there is any type of relationship there. Recently we asked someone if they would “friend†us on their livejournal journal. Which basically means giving me access to read what they write. You know that was a big deal for us to ask, but that’s a different topic. So anyway, this group friends us, and we start reading what they have to say, we find their ideas and words very interesting. So anyway a couple of days later we go back to their journal and find that they have changed their minds and unfriended us. Yes at first we were deeply hurt, we thought it meant the world had found out what a bad evil people we are, yes we can be so overdramatic at times. And now after some time has passed. Sure it’s still a little disappointing not to be given access, but the thing is that group of people hardly know us and might feel weird about strangers rummaging around in their journal. They also might know us a little and think we are compete nutters. Or to put it more politely, disagree with many of our beliefs, opinions and politics. The point is I suppose, I belong to a number of online communities and email lists (far less than we used to) and I don’t think I have any actual friends on any of them. I have people I talk to, I have people by the nature of reading the same list, that I share things with, there are even a few people that I continue talking with offlist, but they are few. I know my definition of friend is probably narrower than a lot of people. And I know this is not the time for me to be “counting†friends as my outlook on such things is very bleak. But even when times are less fraught my list of friends is pretty small. It’s one of the reasons I have never worried about securing this journal, because aside from the spammers the readership is extremely low.
God I am getting distracted all over the place today, and its not like I can even blame other people for taking over. So where was I? Oh yeah the feeling of being completely alone, isolated and a fucked up mess. Ha, no wonder I distracted myself, that’s hardly cheery reading. It’s a beautiful day here today, the sun is shining, and I have so much I should be doing. I have to get stuck into my study, someone wants to make Curry for dinner but instead we all just sit here and feel weighed down and alone. We get triggered by the heat, we berate ourselves for not being able to hold it together and we look for someone to help although we know there is no one there, no one to rush to and curl up and say we can’t do this anymore. We need a time out, we need to the world to stop spinning long enough to allow us all to catch our breath. But there isn’t anyone to go to, there isn’t anyone that gets it, or is psychic enough to get what it is we need in return. And no it isn’t just that we need to tell people want we need because although we know what that it it isn’t a knowledge that we can yet put words on. Sometimes there is a feeling of what isn’t right, what doesn’t sit right with us. But now isn’t the time to trust that I don’t think, because nothing sits right, everything catches like a cracked fingernail. I know when I am like that, when things get to me. There are a lot of things I have come to realise are never going to change, nothing I can say or do will make any real difference so its better to just let them go, to leave them lying there and move on. One of those things has been that CRA is ritual abuse, that there is a difference between what happened to us and being told you are going to go to hell because you were bad. Now I am not saying the latter isn’t hurtful, I am just tired of people equating it as the same thing.
And yes this could get me into a major rant about something we usually work so hard not to say because we are terrified it sounds “dick-sizing†and we don’t’ want to do that, we don’t want to be one of those people, but you know, to be honest it’s there, at the back of my mind wanting voice. Maybe I should write it one day and put it somewhere totally private, therefore it can be dick-sizing without anyone knowing. God I am so pathetic.
Ok enough of this shit, I’m posting this so you can go and make that curry, or again we will end up having toast for dinner.
We have put on so much weight lately. There is a slight fear that we may actually be pregnant since we haven’t had a period since December. But our periods are always irregular and well our sex life is unusual as in not much of our sexual activity includes penetrative sex. It isn’t exactly impossible that we are pregnant, and the whole removal of the penis before ejaculation isn’t known as the best contraceptive method. Still I think the weight gain is about inactivity and overeating, especially when we aren’t smoking we make up for it by eating. So I need to go to the doctor and make sure I am not pregnant and actually get off my arse and do some exercise and start trying to watch how much we are eating. I am thinking of starting to eat breakfast and not eating as much in the evenings. This is mostly because my weight is starting to feel uncomfortable on me.
God my friends annoy me sometimes, the assumption everyone knows about everything, or maybe its just an assumption that the person you talk to is the one you want to talk to. Maybe I am assuming too much, wanting too much from our friends, but really is it that hard to ask before talking about something really specific. When a friend comes online and starts to talk to us about school in specific detail why is it automatically assumed that the person they are talking to knows anything about school. Really only two of us actually do the work at school, others may go back that’s more for the coffee and to see and talk to people. They haven’t much of a clue what we are studying other than the general details. But when it comes to the details of what it is we are researching, or what our classes are about they are virtually clueless. Basically it would be the same as one of our friends asking another of our friends what it is we are studying. Maybe if they have paid really close attention they might get it right, but mostly it would just be a vague picture. But because we share this one body we should all know everything? It doesn’t work that way for us. Now I know the previous person could have just said, hey I don’t know shit about school instead of having to stop what they were doing and find me to replace them. But honestly we are not all that assertive and even after all these years it is difficult not to just be what people want us to be. So does that make it our fault for not speaking up rather than switching positions and feeling resentful? Well in part yes, if we don’t like doing something, if we don’t like how an interaction is going it is our responsibility to speak up about it. We can’t expect the world to read our minds. (I am not wanting to be my mother). We do need to learn how to say not right now, to not slide into meeting their needs in spite of our own desires. If the person who came and got me hadn’t wanted to continue what she was doing then there wouldn’t have been an issue with her giving up her spot, but because she did so reluctantly and well, with a large amount of hostility then we need to learn not to do that just to meet another’s need. Of course all of this only comes into play when we are dealing with someone that knows we are multiple.
I nearly rang a friend in the states tonight. Probably good I didn’t because it would have been past midnight and they would have been sleeping. I just needed to talk to someone that gets it, gets the anxiety and insanity that is this time of year. I didn’t ring because I can’t find their phone number, not even sure I have it anywhere. I also know the reason they get it means they will be struggling too, so I don’t want to impose on them, use up their energy when they probably don’t have a lot for themselves. I’m just weighed down by it this year. In the supermarket we go to there are these red foiled chocolate bunnies right by the door, we see them every time we go in. Every time it’s the same thing, someone notices them and thinks they are adorable and wants one, our eyes become rooted on the stupid chocolate bunny which then starts to upset those others here who don’t see chocolate Easter bunnies as things of joy and fun. 