
Good morning. This is us. Not much to say this morning, but when has that ever kept us from writing. We woke up earlier, and then Rich called us back to bed – it was about 12:45AM, and then we got up with Rich at 4AM, because he was going out to breakfast, and then to fish with a friend. We asked him to cover us back up (we were sitting on the recliner). And, then we slept until about an hour ago. We’ve done our morning routines, such as everyone is fed, watered, bath roomed, AND some of us have taken our medicine … with the REAL us, just being Dakota and “us.”OK, then. Fresh start!They last couple of days, we’ve been intent on doing work with self-regulation (S-R) and dissociation (Multiplicity). We may or may not go there again, it is too early to tell. The last part was that we’d talked to Dr. Marvin, and he suggested that we write an exposition. We weren’t sure what that was, so, we went online and took a few notes. Whoop! Forgot to plug in phone/camera … that’s charging now, but soon enough you’ll find the picture of the notes.

Ok, they are posted here … must now somehow understand them. I skimmed about 2/3 the note, and then we realized, I was lost. So, obviously, I’m not the one that knows how to do things like this. Either, someone comes out who does, or they as a system, are leaving it out to me to figure out. We use the analogy of the weakest link. I may be the weakest link right now and am slowing down the system.Ok, they don’t hate me, I just have some work to do in trying to understand this. Yes, I am Anniemi, but others skip in and out too. We’ve never could control that well. Ok, and YES, I’m the one that often tries to avoid things as a distraction of hard work ahead. Yep-yep, you could write that in my bio. But, you don’t have to. Obviously, for some uncomfortable reason, I’m here now, and I know that it is nine pages in (3249 words), and I’m just mumbling along. I’m so sorry for slowing down the system. Just get to it? Groaning.10:39AM Back again. We were -assertive in act of having gone back over our notes. There are a lot of parts switching in and out to take care of their business. I think our writing in general, especially blogging must be like this. This time though, we could skim over the entire note above.WooHOO, another contribution toward the project! Someone has cleaned-up the notes. Maybe Jessie? Be nice

Back 10:57AM. We’re struggling a bit. Another walk needed to be done. We had steps on it already, but we had to do a four-minute walk. Maybe not exactly, but we have problems just stopping on a stray number. Step number is 2079 WOW! Good Job! It says also, that we’ve gone .85 miles. That’s good for us, I think.OK, beauties … moving on … writing? ARGH! Ok, lunch first! Be back in a bit.Pswhoo! We’re back! We’re good for the hour on our steps – we did some more. It is now 11:40AM, and we’re up to 2606. VERY Good! We’ll have 3000 steps by 1PM! VERY-VERY happy about that! Feeling tired and a little heated. Our minds are racing. We might have to turn off CNN. We’ve had that on for the last 40 minutes. I think we’re caught up.Someone, maybe me should take a note, that we’re good on the back so far. It hasn’t caused us any problem. We should probably take note what it is our body feels like after we’ve had about four minutes of walking. What is giving out first?Our pulse is 84. Need to slow down that and the racing in our head. OH, we have another picture to post … This is back to the writing. Someone, we’re guessing Jesse wrote a simplified version of the exposition, least that’s what we’ve been told. Hold on…OK, the next thing that happens, was that we put the notes in an outline form. This is what we have so far. Obviously, anything could change.We also need to maintain in this process, our checks and balance … are we adding
- Adding insight (personal and professional)
- Helping the reader relate, without bogging them down.
- Keeping academia invested in our learning
- Overview
- Introduce problem/conflict that leads to our action (story)
- What has already happened (matter of fact voice)
- Historical context
- Introduce the characters, Update progress for our boss – Jesse
- Background or plot, or characters (backstory)
- Setting details
- Explain steps of what is coming-up
Part 1 – Introduction (Read this First)
Our personal overview of “Multiplework,” is that by the end of our project, we and our readers will understand better the connection between Multiplicity and self-regulation (S-R). And, you will also know better me/us.In this case, we will be reading directly from experts in the field, and then allowing the words through “text, cases, or papers,” to touch real people – like us. Our interests are robust; almost magnetic.We invite anyone to read or write alongside us. Early apologies for grammar mistakes, we try hard and edit often. However, the books are formal, we are not.Any of the books, we have purchased or acquired, have come through Amazon, and the material will be thoroughly referenced. We hope to break-open and be in touch with whom the books mention inadvertently; ourselves.As an introduction, we as a Multiple have been tuned-into Multiplicity and S-R without understanding the draw. Multiplicity is clearer. We’ve known about our Multiplicity for 27 years, and have had 25 years of excellent therapy through the University of Illinois – Chicago (UIC), which continues.This interest in self-regulation began about ten to twelve years ago while we were working on a Master’s degree in both Educational Psychology and Adult Education, specializing in e-learning, technology and design.We have not completed a Master’s program, or a PhD program, nor are we qualified to counsel people. We’ll be thinking out loud, but, try very hard not to give direct advice. Each should seek his or her own counsel on their individual needs or crisis.This work will be taken-in when we are rested, and can do a little extra in our day-to-day life and responsibilities, such as, we still have doctor appointments, need to do the wash, and take out Dakota our service dog. So far, we haven’t been able to read the real hard, demanding books that have spoken best in our opinion, educationally, about Multiplicity (dissociation) or S-R.We believe these books are going to be wonderful, if we CAN get through them, in that they are written and edited by what we feel to be a few brilliant people who have curated scholarly work, through additional advanced writers and papers and studies in the field, thus teaching each other and us from a sophisticated, collegial perspective.We would like to put an all-out effort forward in correcting this inability we’ve had to read, and through focus and determination, we would like to boldly learn the tough stuff past our immediate comfort zone. At times, we could do this. We add to this load, by stating up front, that some of us within our system have real memory (recall) glitches.We are stronger now as a person, as we’ve ever been before. We still get easily overwhelmed, but we are quicker to get back on the path.So, our means of getting through this much information might not be standard. We edit in comments from many perspectives … a lot. We hope primarily, to understand self-regulation and “formal” dissociation (Multiplicity), to our own finest levels of “Multability.”We would like to live life with more regularity, but also advance, in many awareness gains.Primarily, we will be reading, noting quotes through our table of contents, and then we will summarize topics and subtopics for ourselves and anyone interested. This won’t happen overnight. We will also blog as we go. We would be very satisfied if this offering of our time, was to be our life’s work/contribution.Secondarily, we hope others are interested too. We hope to be a bridge between us, our peers and contemporaries – with those “other” people who are sensed as more complicated, distinguished, and resourced in higher education,Again, we will be very out loud from the perspective of a Multiple, or through the view of someone who is dissociative. The truth is, we are still under-educated. And, it’s with stubborn mindfulness, that we comprehend the costs of educating “selfs” through mental balance and financial wisdom – expensive!Although we are a system of many, and we know there are others out there like us (we see blogs and Tweets), we feel very alone in starting this project. That is apart from Dr. Robert Marvin. His intelligence, calm, and easy sense of humor are some of our life’s, highest gifts. He’s our current psychiatrist, and we just celebrated our 18th year together, YAY!We will have things to contribute, such as one basic piece of knowledge – many Multiples are offended by the title DID (dissociative identity disorder), so we will try to avoid that, we will use the terms Multiples and dissociatives. No one wants the label of being disordered, or feeling as the “rascally lab rat.”Though, I recognize in the field, DID is still the key term to search-out and to better understand what the scholars have figured out about dissociation, they are still coming from a medical model. I’d like to think one day this will become more humanistic, and we add, that we hope one day, it will be normal for the “subjects” of books, to get their own voice within the book.“We” matter too.Our brains/minds are just creatively different. We think that when we were young and going through abuse, our synapses ordered different and that it has something to do with the amygdala and hippocampus, we can never remember the functions of these two structures, though we’ve gone over it many times. We’ve always thought not only are we survivors, but we are as well prosperous people of the brain’s deepest respect for humanity!We just forget, it’s the “hot” stuff, of our many minds, and not to be taken lightly. Self(s)-realization … This is “the stuff” of OUR dreams, thus high on our priorities. It’s tricky – valuable, challenging? Especially, in conceiving mental structures abstractly. Studying a mind is one thing – looking at, or seeing from MANY minds? Ok, this is a bit different!We’ll figure out more as we go-on and with anticipation, we’ll be able to record things so we can find the information with markers that are clearer for us as a Multiple system.We don’t understand the difference between, “Multiplicity and dissociation,” but both feel acceptable and it’s acceptable right now to have differences. As an aside, the word Multiplicity, should always be capitalized.We’re going to study it – you know, figure stuff out. So, this is going to be a learning process that is difficult, but worthwhile. We want to go-on!We’ve found three books that we believe will give us a lot of answers, and then we went out and ordered a half dozen more books.With the three books, we are starting with – two are on S-R, and one is on dissociation. All the books we have are edited by a couple of master minds, with contributions of many people – experts in the general fields.The books are edited by professionals, and take on the work of teaching through a total of 106 chapters and hundreds of authors. That’s just with THESE three books!The two S-R books are both the Handbook of S-R, but one was edited in 2004, and the second was edited in 2016, so we get an understanding of changes in the field through the same co-editors.The book on dissociation (Multiplicity) was published 2011, and is another handbook collecting the best of resources at the time.These are the three main books, plus the resource that is used as our right-hand:Baumeister, R. F. & Vohs, K. D. (2004). Handbook of self-regulation: Research of self-regulation: research, theory, and applications. (Eds.). New York, NY: Guilford Publications, Inc.Dell, P. F. & O’Neil, J. A. (2009). Dissociation and the dissociative disorders: DSM-V and beyond. (Eds.). New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.Merriam-Webster Unabridged. 16 July 2017. Retrieved from unabridged.merriam-webster.comVohs, K. D. & Baumeister, R. F. (2016). Handbook of self-regulation: Research theory, and applications. (Eds.). (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Guildford Publications, Inc.We have read none of the books, but believe with our whole heart that the process of getting through the “hard” stuff is going to leave us feeling amazed and successful each day of the journey. We want to “go-on” through comprehending the work, and the other hard stuff we’re going to need accomplish to meet this goal. We want to understand and believe that we too can contribute toward something with extremely high value. We believe in a pot of gold too!The historical part is going to take us some time to resource. It seems that S-R came in line over the last twenty to thirty years. Most of the books written seem to be resource books for educators working to adapt to S-R problems in their classrooms. We found some – resource books orientated more toward researchers or scholars, but some of the texts were too expensive. We had to hold a steady ground.As to introducing you to our “characters,” OR people within our system, we’ll start with, Jesse. She’s our “boss,” or “leader” in this cause. She is the newest one of us within our Multiple system of the original 20, but she’s been with us for forty years, so she isn’t a lightweight.There are 19 remaining. Jesse is more of an overriding editor. She is the most idealistic of us.Although Corey is our journalist, she will continue to write mainly in the blogs along with Anniemi and others.The most prolific of us, is our Kelsie, who has our most natural intellectual abilities, especially paired with Lissa.I can imagine others of us contributing such as Jamie, Ann, Ayn and Kate. These are four of our older parts and are responsible for a lot of editing. Most often, we don’t note when the changes occur, we’ll have to see. We’ll try when we can.I’m Sarah. But, it will be a system project of getting all this reading completed and notes given, or pages written. We keep younger parts in check academically. Occasionally, we are still surprised. They do balance us out and contribute many experiences, such as examples of early childhood.Collectively, we are known and/or addressed as Ann(s) or Aynetal3.Our Multiplework project’s, specific background is that this is all new! And, as of this moment, we are not sure which form the process or product as the outcome, is going to take. We have the structure of our web site, and our blog.We know, we aren’t as formally educated, as most of the people that we will be reading, but we are smart in our own ways, and we’re not sure how many of the contributors to the books we’ll be reading are Multiples. Being a Multiple gives us a unique contribution-ability.And, we thoroughly believe, self-regulation is extremely important to Multiples. We hope that reading and connecting interests of someone like us, very experienced in trauma, and versed in therapy, might have something to share too – directly to this conversation.To be upfront, we have a BA in psychology, which shows an interest in that field, but not much more. We will do the project as a system effort – to keep up with the high volume of quotes, we are collecting – and, we will do things as cleanly and as ethically as possible.Look for the most the links to the quotes and written summaries through the Table of Contents.That might work – things are being created as we process/think/write.The current setting is that we have several books in hand, that have not been read. We stated in the introduction, but basically, we believe that we’ve been affected with trauma with poor attachment issues as very small children. We believe this is an effect on thousands of others who are Multiples, and possibly others who have experienced trauma as life survivors of PTSD, and other forms of abuse.From the direct consequence of self-regulation, and we want to discover for ourselves, if S-R is what is affecting our – as people – having trouble with our abilities to “go-on.”This includes going-on for simple tasks like washing the dishes and making the bed EVERY day, as well as going on to find things worthwhile in life to contribute towards, and in handling life and death issues, like when one or more of us finds themselves depressed and suicidal again – ready to give-up.This is our setting. There are those of us as Multiples, who want to climb past our normal difficulties, including communication needs (with sometimes hundreds of people within us), and to set, and complete our goals (large and small). For us, the goal is to “get- on” with life, and to do it well. We’ve hyphenated this term for a good cause, and we’ll refer to it often.We want to fly forward in the face of our own adversities and intelligences, whatever various levels they may be. This is the kind of thing covers our current interests.We are committing our life to this project, and we are interested in not only carrying on the conversation within us, but, with others.The process is that the web site/blog of Multiplework will be our vessel for our system to continue writing and image processes. Also, Multiplework opens to others through open comment sections. Commenters may wish to contribute ideas, or corrections, solutions or questions.We will lay out topics and subtopics, that are interesting to us.We will be sure to include resources through curating direct quotes from our resources.We will try to avoid distraction, but we realize ahead of time, that this is a process, that includes many who are at different levels of learning, figuring and processing.Like we are working on our health and fitness too. If we lose, any of our major goals, we could be tripped, so we must focus all around our life. We must succeed as a group/system.I’m in a 23-year relationship with Rich and we live in our own house, and we have three positive adult sons, and they each have our grandchildren. Our body age is 58 in a few days. I also have a kitty almost twenty years, and a service dog who’s half collie, and half golden retriever. We’re on disability, but Rich earns an income.This must work for everyone within any given system – interior and exterior.We will try to summarize what we have learned, or what information we have gathered through studying the quotes and resources. We don’t have access to academic journals.We will try to put together a general outline of topics ahead of time. That will be one of our next tasks, but we’ve ordered a few more resources, that might have to be added in a couple of weeks.Eh, that’s the way it goes! But for now, let’s start. We have a small task of reframing us, especially through simple inputs and outputs. Please accept as much professionalism as we can offer. There will be mistakes, though we’ll try to prevent them.Anns, July 2017
Return to the Table of Contents
Were back. Its 3:47PM. Whoops, Rich just got back! Gotta go!