Long Day, but Headed for Bed - Postscript - Curated Annotations from the NEWS DID/MPD Blog - Good Ann!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013 @ 9:55 am
Good morning.  This is just me.  We skimmed very lightly through the last entry on our blog enough to know that we wrote on Monday and that we'd been working through the afternoon AND trying to get some housework done.  We might need to do that again today.  The hardest parts is that we got the cleaner in so that's spread itself around and we didn't get the white load folded from Monday or the color load we did manage to put in yesterday.  This would mean that we have to start-up all over again in trying to manage our household AND the part that would rather write, or even sew.  I'm so tired of this argument its not even funny.  *sigh*
We did talk to Linda this morning so got off on that good foot, but then she had to go because she was hanging with another friend and then she'd be watching her Granddaughter again today.  Maybe we'll see each other later in the day - or at least read from one another.
Linda already got the scoop of what happened last night ... BUT, believe me it is nothing to write home about.  The majority of it was that after Dr. Marvin's we left Chicago driving home, and then about the time we got to Plainfield we discovered that Rich was on the same road about 6 miles ahead of us.  So we both drove to the end of 126 and met at a rib place we'd been once before.  I think it is called Smokies.  I had though already had a late lunch at BK which included of course the Icees, so I was too full to have an early dinner.  I did eat a turtle sundae though and that put me over the sane level.  We had troubles starting up the car to drive home, and then when we got home, we walked immediately to the bed and fell asleep.  Rich had gone back out in the meantime to visit his mother.  I think we got up before he got back and watched a couple shows with him.  We had talked at the rib place about our appointment with Dr. Marvin.  And, then about 8:30 pm Rich says we wanted to give him a massage - so then that lasted through one more Big Bang Show and a Risolli and Isles.  THEN, we fell asleep until this morning.
I know pretty uneventful, hmm?  Could it be just this exciting for others too?  We did have SOME trouble falling asleep in the end, but Rich let us snuggle and that will always get us back to that safe, drowsy space :)
Hmm, Rich thinks he won out on the last battle with said cat who thinks it is a good idea to share the milk in Rich's cereal.  NOOOOO!  That wasn't going to happen says said boyfriend!  He's proud of himself for winning that battle ...
Looks like Rich is in general up and about.  I think he's taking his shower next.  He's been working on business since before I woke up.  He made the coffee this morning.  You know us ... lots of catching up on the computer.  Yesterday before Dr. Marvin's was an ok day I think ... don't think we did too much though.  Maybe talk to Linda in the morning.  Going to Dr. Marvin's wasn't that noteworthy either though we went a new route using I-88 which is a toll road.  I don't know how much tolls cost because we use the automatic thing, and we're not sure we really liked it, but it's good to know about for a change of pace.  Maybe we'll keep it in our repertoire for the variety.  We got there in about the same hour and ten minutes as usual.  Just takes a while no matter which way it is cut.
Dr. Marvin was his normally bubbly self.  I think we were having problems though from the start.  But, I'm not sure why.  We'll have to stir up the parts to see if we can put it together.  What do we remember?  I know we told him about the change in route.  Then, I think we went almost straight into our problems with our sister and wanting to stop the relationship - although at the time not wanting to stop it.  Basically, because of lack of boundaries and treating people like objects which is what our parents did and most likely their parents before them, we just keep getting drawn back into it over and over again with little satisfaction.  Basically, we got to the part where there is little chance she will change, because she isn't really aware of what she is doing wrong, I'm not the person to go through it with her, and she doesn't appear to think there is anything wrong with her and certainly doesn't want to concern herself with seeing a therapist.
It's hard for us because we care about her, but it's one of the most frustrating relationships we have.  Basically, it then went into a conversational bend where we were talking about what happens when people objectify others to fill their unmet needs such as by manipulation, narcissism, and abuse.  It wasn't too far a stretch to see the continuum like the placement of ourselves as a sexual object to fill our grandfather's needs, to general womanizing from him and other males in the family, to adults - especially, the females as being too busy to raise children other than to drag them through whatever they were working on ... basically if my grandmother avoided things like the sexualization of others in her family by keeping busy - cooking and sewing, then her child's' needs weren't being met for attention.  That lack of attention is what causes the narcissism where everything in life becomes an object to fulfill unmet emotional needs.  Then again over the next generation the cycle continues.
We asked Dr. Marvin if that cycle hadn't repeated with us and how is it during the blog writing where we are focussed on us - narcissism wasn't being shown.  Dr. Marvin said that in our case, we had some understanding of being separate from the family, so we learned to relate to other friends and role models to better understand good relationships.  We weren't as dependent on the bad communications and psychology that was going on in the family.  CS most difficult seems that she still wanted the parents to act like her parents, where we had given up those thoughts.  Or moreso, at least.  I think the damage had been so severe with us and our more independent nature and from that caused by sexual abuse, that we pushed away.  The writing he said shows not the isolation of the narcissist, but our attempts to communicate outward in an open dialog with people and in the marking of a continuum of life events, thoughts, and feelings, and about our necessity of having relationships that made some sense both intellectually and emotionally.  We don't really talk about how great we are, don't really even think it ... just more a sense especially as a multiple how things appear to us, especially as we write.
People who objectify might realize a need for others, but the objectification is a coercion of the other fitting a need that is more like the other being a tool or a suave instead of a person.  The manipulative part says that if I for example load the other in [false] praise, then that other person will think that we have more of a relationship (although I've not given of my real self) and she will then come back and take care of me.  Because of a lack of boundaries the other person becomes a part of oneself instead of a separate entity.  Like with CS ... she'd first wanted me to learn how to do her long-arm (as an extension of her to us) so we could "help" her, then when we got EQ7 it again happened, then she inserted again where we cut her harder quilts without asking, and then recently we had the same thought/feeling with her telling Joe she could do embroidery [with me/us] again even if she didn't know how to do it.  In each case it wasn't considered how I might feel about the project but that as an object I could do the hard part of learning the project and it would then become my sisters forte because "me and her" were the same person.  EVEN though we're NOT!  If CS were to read this ... she'd have a totally different understanding and would be obviously defensive.  The next thought would be to say something like not needing another's help - so in a sense putting the tool back on the shelve proving a little too dangerous, but there is no point of change in self or relationship because the bare facts of the situation don't change [without at this point, professional help] and the cycle will lay dormant [no communications for a while] until she needed that level of tool again.  Never is the relationship equal.  There may be a profusion/expression of love, but it is as an individual loves a favored toy.  There's no real give and take between two individual's.  I worry because I don't mean to hurt feelings or cause undue pressure, but these are they types of problems we're trying to sort through ... like crazyiness isn't bumping one's head against the wall, it's continuuing to do it over and over again with the expectation that something is going to change.
I see it too in Rich's relationship with his mother.  He is her tool.  Like when we were out at the restaurant too and the question was asked how she was going to get a long with out nurse support, she said well, Rich will come over every day.  That's about when our patience ran thin.  I said out loud and over her, though I am pretty sure she didn't get it ... that Rich wasn't like a nursing home staff, he was her son and should be coming over to visit not to work for her.  It was Rich's services she wanted - objectification - not the actual being with him in relationship as mother and son with little time in her life to share more than tasks.  We'll say it again in agreeing with Rich's brother.  He calls his mom - her royal highness.  BLAH on that!  He is right.
And, now in saying this we have to go back to our own problems with this sort of thing.  Like in recent time we've realized that like the queen, we want to be a princess and have Rich continue to do things for us.  Because of his knee hip, he is doing less.  It occurs in simple ways like having problems bringing the carton of water from breezeway to fridge like he used to (used to bring it up 3 flights of stairs and now having trouble with 3 stairs).  Another example is wanting him tuck us in at night.  Sometimes we (AS A multiple) will lay in bed next to him and whimper until he pulls up the cover.  Certainly, we have it in us to do this for ourselves, but in his company we want him to do it for us.  Let me think one more example of being princess ... I guess we'd go with the lawnmowing.  While we want the option to do it - become the heroine, as soon as it is expected from us - like in over 90 degree days, we want some other to do it, because after all we are the princess.
Usually, when we become more conscientious of it we're able to do more in its regard.  Lately, we'll ask him to do something like bring in our dinner (something he's been doing for a long while), then we'll insert for all concerned because we're the princess.  I can't say this allows for Rich not to bring in the dinner, but for both us and him to realize we are being pretty silly with it.  As a game it is easier to deal with, especially if Rich needs to rationalize with the often younger part out.  He might say, "princesses usually set the table and get the drink." To which we might say uh-uh. And, Rich would diplomatically, continue the verbatim until the task would be accepted by said princess.  Usually either with a reward, or the knowledge that her act of kindness would help the king!
Hmm, now pretty much ... lost in space.  We had taken a thought and progressed it, but not sure where we are at now.  Maybe the thought next would be to go back to Dr. Marvin's office.  Usually our progressed thoughts are a process of trying to internalize what was said.  I know we were talking about people objectifying others.  What is our general summary of that?  I think the point we'd gotten too was that Rich could hear something my sister or others do and then just say simply .. he's not buying into it and then dismiss it, but we were getting psychology caught up in it which seems to show that we're not over whatever power all this has had in our life.  That's the part we need to work on rather than to try and change our sister.  Basically, it's a question of how do we let it take up less weight in our mind. That's on schedule for more work needs to be done.
Hmm, hearing Rich in the background talking to a shop owner about a need one of their customer's have ... maybe it would be more helpful to view Rich's work as also being a large part of him trying to take care of others - of course, this time for profit.  Don't really want to go here though now.
We had a little discussion ... he wanted to scold me on something so then we were like you know ... you don't want to tell your customers things like your phone battery is going in and out, because you give them the impression you are not able to take care of things.  In fairness he related back to me that this was a 20 year relationship and so they'd gotten past all that.  Very reassuring and always we're grateful when we know we can communicate on same track ... as to the scolding part of us - no we didn't need to go there. We knew he was right, but if we admitted it then we'd have to do something about it.
Nooo ... ok, we still dissociate, but that is a whole disorder of work - IN PROGRESS!
Thinking is really being blocked as to what was said in Dr. Marvin's office.  Thinking we did get off the point of feelings and thoughts related to CS, and then where did we go?
I know we told him about Rich's accident and that he didn't get hurt, but that it had been a scare, and then that seemed to trigger into thoughts of losing Dr. Marvin.  I know we've been here before and again we had to hear the reassuring words that he wasn't going anywhere anytime fast.  He also iterated that we were really just coming into "the good stuff" (don't know his exact words), because we are now home and able to take care of more than the years just trying to get through Sr. Theresa.  Eeeks.  That's about enough of that stuff.  We do have worries that we'd be cut out of our sessions by changes in the way psychiatry was covered by medicare or medicaid.  Dr. Marvin stated that there had been a clearing out of many cases, but is in the past ... and it had to be done because of so much abuse of the system.  I have contrary feelings because especially now that we're at home and doing so little (ok there is an internal argument here), that I could be worth Dr. Marvin's time explicitly.  I know that Dr. Marvin would easily disagree because we know he thinks more of us than often time we think of ourselves.  Self-esteem - let's put that one too on a back burner long-time simmering.
I know at one point, we told him that we knew someone young had been out the time before, but then asked for a couple of words to help us find that space.  He told us of sitting on the curb, and that indeed brought back memories.  We went to the turtle, the trike, something about grandfather ... but in general it led to a discussion on sexuality in the system.  One of the major troubles seem to be that ok, we're being honest here right?  Well truthfully, very often while we are at the height of things, we have a great deal of difficulty holding onto older parts.  The reverse of that would be to say that we are ingratiated with very young parts who are not understanding or being able to differentiate well the differences between now and then.  It seems that we are holding onto those states longer ... and I would like to say defensively now that if we didn't allow those parts to have time, they would be sustained indefinitely in that state of chaos. One of the problems there we are having as adult parts is that we need communication from the youngest parts to go through medium young parts and that is a burden for them and one that we regret.  I'm not sure if there wouldn't be another way around this, but it is fair to say at this point, we don't know of one.
We told Dr. Marvin - as I'm sure we have tried before - that Rich is very good about this kind of switching, but we also know that he wants to have sex with older parts.  It starts that way, but usually the excitement is traumatic for the youngest.  We advanced it to something we had seen through their eyes.  Primarily, one of the worries for them seems to be in not recognizing the room when they make a switch from past to present, and that seems too overwhelming for them.  What we had recalled was them looking at the dark paneled wall in our bedroom.  There are actually two walls one in back of the bed, and one to the side getting in the bed.  The other walls are flower printed, but are most likely also strange to them.  Even being in the house 4 months now ... doesn't compensate for them because they are out so little of the time.
Dr. Marvin and us then had discussions on perhaps putting something on the wall that might be comforting to them.  The obvious solution would be to have one of our quilts on the wall, but in reality?  We've made about 50 quilts - big and small for the church, but we don't have many in our own name.  Then we went through the discussion on Rich's deer/fish quilt, but someone stated that it was too close to my grandfather's deer hunting to be safe.  Dr. Marvin and us did continue to talk of it more in the light of being just a wilderness scene which seemed better, but was not kid-proved.  We are still thinking that we want our first fishy quilt off the bed and hanging either in the bedroom or the sitting room.  Think it would be better viewed in the sitting room because behind it would be a light wall - the quilt is dark, opposed to a dark wall like the one in the bedroom.  There is also more space for the bigger blanket out here.  Rich would prefer we hang our own quilts over that of others and I can appreciate his sentiment.  We'll have to think of that later after we finish the bags and baby quilts.
hmm, not sure if that's going to be appreciated by Rich when he comes in, but we decided it is now afternoon (after noon) so that we can have a beer. Hmpf!  Just like that!  Thinking is this the way we look for Rich attention?  *sigh* ... He's out fixing his boat supplies because he's going fishing from Thursday to Sunday.  Really we haven't put too much thought into it ... last time he was gone it was over my birthday - so it means he was last fishing three weeks ago.  Nothing to be done there.
It should be meaning for us more time to have getting whatever is important to us done.  Usually it means we go a little more obsessively into our interests whether it is writing, reading or quilting.  Usually, not as much housework though we can get into that too.  I think we stated a preference earlier for wanting to get the bags sewn by Saturday.  We aren't doing so well with that, but there still is a possibility of doing it.  Depends if we get done in writing what we want to do and if we can hold off on some of the blog reading.  It's already afternoon and we've got those things ahead of us yet.  BUT, we haven't been able to do even the parts where we finish washing the clothes or cleaning up the living room because of the new cleaner.  I suppose in part that's because we're still not dressed yet.  Flylady - would catch that in a breeze!
We did show Rich the carpet and where the line was drawn arbitrarily through a dark spot on the carpet giving a before and after shot of what was cleaned and not cleaned.  It was pretty noticeable.  I think he then likes the carpet, but doesn't know its full cost or that we found after opening the package that they didn't send any hard floor cleaner samples.  Shoot that's going to make things cost more - but IS half the processes the machine was for.  We're not sure also if Chief didn't put some more markings down this morning.  I didn't have anything heavy over me that would allow him to sit in our lap and we think he might have taken it out on a section we'd just cleaned.  AND, Rich is thinking that some of his urine had gone down the air vent on the floor, because Rich thought he smelled it more when the air was on.  Don't know how to change that problem.  I'm thinking though that the vent cover is screwed on and we should be able to reach down and clean at least some of the vent.  Nothing more to do there.  Mot the time our kitties are good, but the times they are bad, they are very bad.  :(
As we were getting to though ... there is this afternoon, evening, part of tomorrow afternoon, evening, and then three more almost clear days before Rich gets home to be doing domestic goddess and sewing things.  Tomorrow morning is the only other scheduled event and that will be to go back to Dr. Marvin's.
I know that yesterday some talk of our Grandfather came up again, but it is very difficult to place right now.  Maybe if we focus.  Where were we?  What did we tell Dr. Marvin?  I know that most of the conversation was with head down which I'm now thinking is our "face of shame."  We can hear Dr. Marvin's voice, but we cannot see him.  I think we were getting spotty feelings - sense of the wall darkness as to my grandfather being present through the conversation with Dr. Marvin on the bedroom wall.  It is like a sense of doom and disaster.  Sort of like looking into combat fire.  Someone mentioned crawling up on his stomach and then we were realizing the pictures/images - feelings were crossing between my Grandfather and Rich.  I'm not sure how close they are when we start feeling things as a younger part with Rich.  We know that Rich hears the signals and starts working with us to "bring it up a level" and to let the bigger parts handle things.  I think that the younger parts know Rich's voice more than anything else.  There is usually the whiny behaviors coming from our throat, no one looks happy, and in fact they look very miserable and it feels like we're coming out of a deep sleep.  Usually, Rich asks us to do something so they can physically feel more grounded to present reality.  This has been going on for such a long time.  I think we really need Dr. Marvin's intervention to progress it meaning that we as older and middle aged parts have to deal with it too.  Somehow or another we can almost sense what's going on for the way young parts, and we can talk them through things, but most of the observations are still coming through the Casey's now about ten years old.  It doesn't seem fair, but their experience has always included sexuality.  Fortunately, they speak and think differently enough for Rich to realize adult from child.  The conversations we have is like, "it's ok.  It's just Rich, It's ok."  Part of the problem younger parts have is in not being able to calm themselves down.  Inappropriate things we're happening and there weren't appropriate ways to sooth them, that weren't like touching with fingers, body or lips.
Whoops could have called that one ... Rich just came in a second for new batteries and noticed the beer, being undressed yet, and that he thought we were slipping.  I hate it when he does that.  Then we have to give him fair consideration.  All we could do this time was tell him enthusiastically, "Yep!  That's what's happening!"  No sense to deny it.  We banked our shot appropriately, because his mind is really much more focused on getting tomorrow's trip ready.  Truth be told, we probably always "slip" a bit when he's gone and we're getting psychologically tuned to that too.  ok you could have almost bet that Ice cream was coming next?
Watching Missy now licking her lips like we were mirrowed.  *sigh*
Ok, ok ... just a little postscript here.  It is now 8:40 pm and the house is completely dark, and we're just finishing our news DID/MPD project and getting a grip of being in real life.
Ahh Linda and I just talked for a bit :)
Whoops ... next postscript ... 9:55 pm and time to go to bed!  Rich is home and watched an hour of tv while eating a late dinner ... Now to the GooD stuff!
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