I Won

Oops, I didn't mean to bid on the Barbie, really I didn't. I saw there was 1 minute left, and thought I'd just raise the bid by a dollar. I really thought the other person bidding would keep going, but they didn't. When I realized what I'd done my excitement at owning the doll was mingled with the panic of, how do I pay for it?

Ah, thank goodness I thought to have kids when I was younger. They really do come in handy sometimes! I asked my youngest if he'd pay for it as an early Christmas gift and he said yes. And I may as will admit that I happened to also mention to him that the slinky evening gown which my Barbie used to wear was available for $20. He was noncommittal, but you never know.

(PS I know this doll is a reproduction of the original, but that's ok by me. I can't tell the difference and could never afford an original anyway.)

Vintage Barbie

Oh man, why do I stumble across such finds when I have no money? Somebody wants this vintage Barbie bad. This is so frustrating, that I have nothing else to write about just now. I'll be back later!

Little Girl Lost

I search for you everywhere, vigilant

for the familiar flare of wrinkled cotton dress and knee socks crumpled

in schoolgirl fashion.

Little girl mine:

I stand on a street corner watching

with wistfulness stinging my eyes

as other children swirl by--a riot of them, like gorgeous autumn leaves--

smelling faintly of dusty erasers and chalk, their sneakered feet scuffing pebbles in their path,

while my miserable adult self stands stiff and tense.

(They are so loud and carefree, shouldn't someone warn them of impending danger?)

I look for you up and down twisted suburban avenues, lanes

and half-circled cul-de-sacs (like carefully trimmed cuticles)

and oh my aching heart! should you remain in hiding

my empty arms throbbing for your little-boned embrace.

(I am a wallflower at a prom, desperate for a glimpse of you.

I am an empty box of cereal which promised but failed to include a special prize.

I am a spinster, unloved, my clothes smelling fusty with old age.

I am a wad of gum which has lost all its flavor, I am every disappointment

which shrivelled up my mother's puckered soul.)

Hurry! cries my heart, for twilight is approaching:

but it is not the dark you fear.

Doors slam

drapes are drawn,

the odors of frying meat and despair assault my nostrils

and still, where are you?

Little girl,

my little girl self:

so brave are you!

I am dumb with admiration

dumb in my adult disguise of grey hair and baggy old fogey clothes,

fondly longing to revisit the best of me,

this little girl, little girl lost.

Moving Day

The movers are coming in about an hour to move Sissyface to her new condo. Endings are always sad for me, even when they lead to good new beginnings. They trigger something in me. This morning, though, I realized that because I've been part of the process of getting Sissyface ready to move, I don't feel quite so abandoned as I would have otherwise. I can't imagine what it will be like to not have her living a few units away, nor am I at all sure I'm going to enjoy being the new apartment manager. Having my landlady pop in several times at the beginning of each month to collect rent checks is going to feel intrusive, that's for sure. I did get her to agree to call me first before coming over. She used to simply use her key when Sissyface was manager, and back when I was living with her it was a constant trigger to have the landlady barge in like that. I'm not sure she'll abide by our phone ahead agreement, but I hope so.

But I'm digressing. What I meant to say is that I've come to realize how easily dependent I become on others. I've relied too much, perhaps, on having my sister so close at hand, on the spontaneous walks to the pub for breakfast, or her dropping by after work to chat. I know that Sissyface isn't my source of strength, and that's as it should be. No human being can ever be that for anyone. But. Isn't it okay to wish that she wasn't moving, that things wouldn't change? We've had impromptu barbecues here with various of my sons and grandkids, we've gone on shopping sprees, totally unplanned, and I think it's these spur-of-the-moment get togethers which will cause me the most pain now that they've come to an end. She says that nothing will change, but of course it will. She'll have to make a point to drive out here, so even though there may still be an element of spontaneity it won't be like before.

I'm not exactly depressed about this, or maybe I am. I feel dispirited, which I suppose is the same thing. I'm not mourning, but I'm not as happy for her as I'd like to be. I tell myself that atleast now I won't have to hide myself away every time our mother comes to visit. That's a definite silver lining. That's really the only good I can see in her move, and of course I'm looking at it mostly from my own selfish interests, not considering what she might gain from her relocation.

I drove to the bank, and then the grocery store this morning in a fog after having run into Sissyface outside. Before leaving I wandered into her nearly empty apartment, marveling at how big it looks. This will be Maddy and Anna's new home, and how odd it will be to visit them in her old apartment. As I drove to the bank I kept reminding myself, I'm driving this car. It was so hard concentrating, and it didn't help any that I had to borrow my son's van to run my errands. It's so much bigger than what I'm used to driving that it throws me out of balance every time. In the store I remembered back when Sissyface used to give me grocery money each month, and I'd make lunches for her every day. It seems so long ago, but it's only been a year.

Changes. Nothing stays the same, that's the beauty and the pain of life. Though I can't imagine ever wanting to move again, who knows where I'll be a year from now? After all I never thought I'd live in the same complex as my sister, never thought I'd ever be able to relocate back to my native state--yet here I am.

I don't like change but I know that it can be good for me. And so as this day continues unwinding I'll try to go with the flow, to remind myself of much harder ordeals I've been through without falling apart.

Words

I spent most of today helping Sissyface pack up her basement. We hadn't planned it that way--she asked if I'd come keep her company while she worked, and I ended up being her little helper as just standing around was way too boring.

After a few hours we decided it was break time. We collapsed on her couch and ended up, in some convoluted way (I don't remember how we got onto the subject) discussing our mutual DID. We talked about everything from how it affected our past relationships with men (negative, all the way through) to how we can't even wrap our minds around something as complicated as Dissociative Identity Disorder. We discovered that each of us, at some point in our past attempts to be involved with a man, eventually reached a point of feeling like our mother, right down to actually feeling as if we were wearing her remote expression. We even ended up in each relationship with the odd (creepy) sensation of being in our mother's body.

How do you nurture your parts, we wondered aloud. Should we even try? Isn't life much easier when we simply ignore our systems? This was a meandering conversation with no real conclusion, but it felt good to talk about this as we so seldom do. I felt a mild hysteria halfway through, and got a bad case of the stutters. I like these type of dialogues and at the same time they make me uncomfortable. As Sissyface pointed out, the more you deal with your DID the more you're triggered and the more issues resurface. But is there a viable option, some place in between being DID obsessed and feigning ignorance of one's fragmented mind?

I sweat about this a lot, I do, so certain that I'm not doing this right. Crud, goes my line of thinking, I didn't get it right as an abused child (why didn't I spill the beans?), and now I can't get multiplicity right. What does "healthy" multiplicity look like anyway? Are there brownie points for being so stoic that one barely acknowledges one's disorder, or is it plain cowardice to do so? I told Sissyface that on my blog I'm either blogging about DID related subjects, or writing about my knitting and grandkids. No in between. And it feels unnatural to me, but I don't know how to find a happy medium. She told me that she thinks it's a good thing that not every post is strictly DID centered. What about the individual who has just been diagnosed with DID and wants desperately to find something on the internet that will help them cope with this new knowledge about themselves, but who aren't ready just yet for too much intensity? Maybe, she reasoned, that person would benefit from reading a blog like mine where there are other emphasis other than multiplicity.

I don't know if she's right, I only know that I hobble along in my disjointed way writing out of an extreme sense of disorientation, just as I do everything else. Nothing quite fits together cohesively; every bit of every day is a series of jerky motions as I putter about my home. What I mean by this is that one minute I'm sweeping the kitchen floor and the next I'm in my room, near tears, wondering why the thought of making my bed is so distressing, or why I can't simply move on to the next chore without feeling such a sense of unreality. I have a strong startle reaction because of my PTSD; seeing someone out of context scares the daylights out of me. But the thing is, it's not just that. My whole life is made up of segments divided into minutes and hours each of which feel out of context. I can't relate them to anything, I don't know how I relate to the world and so everything I do feels like an out-of-body experience.

I don't like not being in control. Having DID means not being in control. Not that anyone has total control of their life, I know that in some peripheral region of my mind. Since I have this disorder it seems that the least I could ask for is some way of controlling it. How unfair that I can't! How shameful, even. There's been so much outer chaos in my life that the reality of my inner chaos is nearly unbearable. I want to rein everyone in, all of my parts from the youngest to the eldest, sit them down and make them all fold their hands and listen to me. I'm not sure what I'd say, exactly. Something about taking it down a notch or two so I can concentrate on the outside world, maybe a stern admonition for everyone to pull their own weight and let me get on with my life, already. Something like that. Only something tells me what a fiasco this would be. Something tells me that this is one area in which I will never have the control I so need so as to not feel like an abused child.

My head aches from all this talk and thinking about DID. Looking at the subject from the outside (as I used to be able to do before my diagnosis) may be a bit intriguing or fascinating. But living it? Huh-uh. There aren't words to describe what it's like, though words are all I have and they will just have to do.