Understand?

We as a community
Don't stand as strong
As we'd like to pretend

We don't protect
We don't support
We don't avenge

So if you are in a position like mine
I hope you don't mindy
But there's nothing we can do to help

We don't have money for you
Because you mean nothing
You're just someone created
To abuse.

Drowning

We feel ourselves
Going underwater
Fast
Can't swim
A whirlpool
Dragging us down
Into quicksand
The money
Needed to send
Rescue crews
To get us out
Must come from
Somewhere
But where?
They don't want to help
Because we don't exist
After all
You can't see
What's not there
And you only see
One Little Sheep
The rest of us
Are hidden deep
Already
Drowned

To donate to my therapy fund, mail checks and cash to the person who ha kindly arranged for a tzedaka fund to write checks to my therapist:

Keren Zichron Gedalyahu
C/O Rabbi M. Keller
565 East 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218

Voices

For so many years
I have feared
Voices.

Voices should come from outside your head.
Unless you're talking to yourself inside, then it's okay.
But they should generally be other people's voices
Coming from outside.

After all, if you have voices coming from inside
They take you to an office where you wait for hours
And a man talks to you and asks you questions about the voices
And then gives your mother a paper with a medicine written on it
And you have to take it every single day
To make the voices quiet.

So I made them go away.
Far away.
Hearing voices is bad.
It's like a sickness.
And you only have to take medicine when you are sick.
So if you get better, then you don't need the medicine anymore.
No more voices.

And then, someone finally figured out what was really wrong.
Someone listened.
Someone realized that it wasn't just abuse, a normal case of PTSD
As if PTSD is ever normal
They looked deeper
and they found the others.

But they wouldn't talk to Little Sheep.
All those parts...they could talk, most of them.
Or draw pictures.
Or write.
Or cry.
But only some people could hear them.
Not me, just not me.

Which is why, when at 2:00 this morning, I heard someone say
"STOP THAT! IT TRIGGERS ME!"
I kinda freaked out.
More than a little.
And I shouted back.
"WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO!"
And Me answered "use a tangle, doofus!"

And I played with the tangle.
Til after seven in the morning.
When I finally cried myself to sleep,
Tangle in hand.

(edited for anonymity, but otherwise, completely true, completely Little Sheep. No false details, just some removed)

Rage

This is some middle of the night art and writing. Please note, if you are a relative of mine and know it, this information is not to be passed among family members. You are welcome to comment or email me any questions you may have.

Red, Blue, and Yellow Yarn

There's a book I have in my picture book collection (title above) about a little boy whose Bubby has come to visit. Bubby has lots of rules, and he doesn't like them. Bubby is staying in his room, and he's not supposed to go in, but he does anyway, to get a car he forgot on his bed. While he's there, he sees his Bubby's balls of yarn, all perfect in a basket, and it's so tempting to juggle them...but he's not very good at it, and every time one drops and rolls away, he just grabs another. By the time he is caught, the entire room is a giant, colorful web of yarn.

I just finished reading an autobiography of a woman who had DID, and successfully integrated her 24 personalities. Unlike Sybil, her book is written from her own perspective, with her therapist's notes included.

Here's a brilliant quote from her book (which I highly recommend) that I really think describes what's going on inside me right now:

"...Yet the flock seemed worse, with personalities further apart an acting out more vigorously now than we had been before beginning therapy. Lynn had said that therapy was like separating the strands in a tangled web of yarn. It made sense that things would keep getting more separate for a while so that we eventually came back together in a more organized way."

I have a beautiful life to knit. I just need to untangle all the red, blue, yellow (and other colors!) balls of yarn so I can put them back together and create the wonderful person I am supposed to be.

(quote from The Flock, by Joan France's Casey with Lynn Wilson)