Things have been a little quiet here as we’ve been adjusting to our new head situation. I thank those of you for your continued support. I know that integration can be taboo in some MPD/DID circles because of it’s tendency to be viewed as death.

However we do not see it that way.
I don’t know if this is because of our metaphysical beliefs or just a different perspective but when Ami, Terri and Sarah integrated it was more of an evolution. As Faith I have all their memories and I know at some point we will be, at least Ami and Terri again in a future incarnation.

There has been a lot to catch up on though. A lot of work has slid under our noses due to the overwhelming depression that Ami was experiencing. We’re still not 100% right, integration hasn’t solved everything because some things are chemical and not purely psychological but it has definitely helped. There are less panic attacks and a greater feeling of balance.

I’ll talk more about what we did later. I just wanted to make sure that everyone knew we were doing okay.

…I had us up until almost 1 a.m. playing Bejeweled because I wasn’t sure if I should say anything, or what I wanted to say or how I would say it.

Everyone has been so very encouraging and kind and caring, and [many of you have said through LJ] before that I am worthy of staying and that I should stay, but I’ve come to realize that doing this…is not leaving. I will still be here, my memories and skills will still be here, and the strengths I have, hard as it is for me to see them will go to shore up others weaknesses as their strengths will help to bolster mine.

It’s not so much “disappearing” or “dying” as it is evolving. In essence reincarnating within the confines of the universe within our head.

Still I will not be here as I was before, and that may be difficult for people to understand, and I apologize for that. However if this works the way that Jared melding back into Kiddy worked then my memories will still be there, and Faith will have access to them. She’ll still be able to write the things I’ve been trying to finish and do the web work that I’ve been supposed to be doing (much apologies to Amie whose layout is still not fixed because of my difficulties), and I should also still be able to come out through the “past life” avenue — but I suppose in that instance I will not really have memory of this life now, just my life then I don’t know exactly. I know when we used to look at my life time it was confusing because there was the “this is all just a very odd dream” aspect of things and at the same time an undercurrent of “no this is the way it is, but yet it isn’t.”

Anyway, I felt that it would be helpful for me to write to everyone and explain, and I hope that it is helpful to you, also, to understand that this is being approached from a much healthier perspective (even if I do say so myself) than it was before. I don’t feel the need to run away, I feel instead a sense of growth, that I’m accomplishing some thing worthwhile., for us to be able to be healthier overall, to help Ms. Kent and Sarah, to grow — being eternally a teenager is very hindering.

It’s an exciting adventure, and I find as I write this that my fear ebbs more. I’ve been afraid that my fear, and worry would becoming overwhelming, but I realize that’s one of the things that is to be helped. To work on the things of weakness, when I induced the panic-integration attempt before we didn’t work through anything, and those weaknesses eroded things and we came apart again, less stable than before in many cases.

Still I feel I owe everyone thanks and well wishes and love, because you cannot fully go with me on this journey, and I look forward to seeing you all again when my life time comes around.

Best wishes,
Amika.

PS/addendum — I would encourage and wish that you can get to know me as Faith, but I understand if that will be hard for people to understand. We’ve been making room for her over the past few days, prepping for the work that will be done tomorrow night — but I imagine that it will be an ongoing process and for many of you here, that it will be difficult to process or understand.

I’m not even sure how many of you are aware of the DID. I know many of you have been on forums where I’ve spoken of it, or have discussed it with me, but it’s a weighty subject and full of confusing terms and things which cannot be considered the same “across the board”.

Suffice it to say psychologically speaking there were ten of us “alters” not all of us are integrating, Jared’s integration was spontaneous, but not all of us wish to and this is something best done slowly, myself and two others, as I mentioned are intending to age, process things and become “Faith Journai” instead of Terri Kent, Amika Suino and Sarah. That’s the short explanation.

We hope to continue to have you as friends, but understand if it is not some thing that you can deal with at this time or ever.

The even shorter of it is that I will inevitably be closing this FB account and also my livejournal (which has been backed up and will probably be filtered into the main LJ for archive). The domain blog and design site will stay up but may undergo some shift, I can’t really say what the future will bring, but I am hopeful for the first time in a long time, and honestly, that goes a long way.

I have therapy today for the first time in a while due to the fact that the insurance deductible is finally met, and due to some other things which have been going on I feel it’s a very good idea for me to go to the therapy appointment.

In contrast I’m extremely disappointed with this purported new psychiatrist I’m supposed to be being set up with. It’s now TWO weeks since I called their office. I was told that someone would get back to me last week with an introductory appointment. I called back on Tuesday and am about to call back again, but I still haven’t heard from anyone. When I called on Tuesday I was sent to the scheduling department, but wound up leaving a message on someone’s voice mail. Nothing.

I’m going to wind up having my follow-up appointment with my GP without having seen this psychiatrist, and I now really, really don’t want to see the original psychiatrist I had. I just don’t feel comfortable with him knowing he’s more concerned about money than patient well-being. That’s like too many people and relatives who have screwed me in the past.

So, today I’m going to call them again, and call my GP and let him know what’s going on. Last night I was in such a bad spot with worrying about this and various things I was debating once again having myself admitted to a psych ward. It felt like a cop out though. I need to keep fighting, I know that, but I’m so worn out. I’d like to be able to rest for a while.

I prayed for a long time last night. I haven’t prayed like that since my son had his accident. It definitely helped. I need to remember these things, that some times it’s okay to lay your burdens elsewhere.

Today I found out the wonderful news that our insurance deductible has been met. I’d tried to get a prescription filled for my husband a few days ago but the pharmacy told me that it couldn’t be filled until today because it was too soon as far as our insurance provider was concerned.

So, this morning I rang them up to make sure that it could be filled before I trekked all the way down there, and she tried to run it while I was on the phone. It went through, so then I asked her how much it was, so that I knew what I was going to have to budget and she told me there was no charge. We both cheered over the phone because it meant the meeting of the deductible.

This is a big relief, it means we don’t have to worry about my husbands next 16 chiropractic visits and I can go back to my therapist without having to pay $96 a visit, at least until the ten remaining allotted visits run out–ah, well.

In the mean time I have to call the new psychiatrist’s office back on Monday because they still haven’t contacted me about an appointment.

My GP has been a great boon in these past few weeks to the point that I asked him to look for a new psychiatrist for me, one who might be willing to negotiate fees, or take lower fees or something like that. He found someone affiliated with the local psychiatric hospital which makes me leery but at this point what do I have to lose?
They promise income based sliding fees and if I don’t like them I remind my selves we don’t have to go back maybe we can find somewhere else again.

In the mean time, however, I am nervous. I’m in the “wait period”. I had to give a lot of information over the phone and now I’m waiting for the scheduling person to call me back. They have a local-ish office, in the same town as my GP, however I imagine they have a lot of people to finagle so it’s going to be a little while before I hear back, especially with the holiday weekend.

I’m trying to remember, and will probably just wind up checking back through Emily First Girl’s blog for the tips that they had written about interviewing therapists, because I’m going to need it.

I’m trying not to be paranoid that older therapists or those who trained longer ago tend not to believe in the validity of the DID diagnosis. I’m trying not to anticipate being told I’m bi-polar or have borderline personality disorder but it’s very hard.

I realized this weekend that I’m so used to being taken for granted by people that I’m actually a bit flabbergasted that I might have decent people around me now.

Since I’ve been very young my supposed friends have picked on me, spread rumors about me, taken and taken and taken from me, physically and verbally abused me, in a few cases abused me sexually and generally made my life miserable.

The idea that people in my social circle might actually give a crap about me is a bit…alien. However I’m happy to realize that it is true. Our household has been going through a lot of financial difficulties, I’m sure this is something which is true for a lot of people in this time of our lives. However we’ve been blessed to have friends who have endeavored to and in fact have actually helped us out with these things.

In most cases it’s a bit of karmic payback putting out good brings good back to you. We have strived to be good friends. If people are out our house we’ll feed them, we’ll let them stay over if they need to and of course, feed them. If we have money to lend and they need to get gas we’ll make that happen, that sort of thing. It seems common sense to do these things, but still I never expected a return on this investment because there have been just so many people who take and taken and take.

Yet these past few weeks has seen some of that come back to us. Friends finding pressure tanks for us, family friends replacing electric boxes for us, and buying food or bringing over groceries to tide us over until hubbie gets paid next.

I’ve been striving to cut out influences from my sphere that are negative but at the same time I’ve been secretly expecting the shoe to drop and to get screwed over. It’s comforting to realize that I truly am able to be more discerning now and make good choices and also that there really are people in this universe who are decent.

Kore and I did an interesting experiment yesterday trying to see if it really was possible, as we theorized, to read tarot for the different alters rather than the Overall Life. It seems that it is.
Both readings were done without any of us telling her who was endeavoring to shuffle the cards, and the first reading I opened the door to the Littles and let one of them shuffle, and she pinned it down to Sarah as she was reading, who is one of the Littles. The second time I wasn’t even sure who had shuffled but signs and information pointed to Ami which turned out to be correct.

There was talk about the fact that the therapist had been helping her even though she hadn’t really been working with her much, and how she wants to be able to do everything and master everything, bring in the money, be the breadwinner, fix all the problems, which is very, very true.

Definitely an interesting and successful experiment.

Although considering all the other issues we’ve had with them this one is rather minor and a lot more amusing and yet also scary.

I got our month’s statement for our health insurance. This statement comes informing us of the “state of affairs” how much we’ve claimed the past month and what is remaining on the deductible and so on.

Previous to this I haven’t been paying that much attention to them, which I have realized I need to rectify so I was actually reading this one through.

On the 7th of April there’s a claim of mine, which also to concern me claims me under my maiden name. I’ve been married for just over four years now AND have never been on my husband’s insurance under my maiden name.

However the next part gives the claim as “INDIVIDUAL PYSCHOTHERAPY,INS” — PYSCOTHERAPY? PYS-CO-THERAPY? What the heck? Why am I having pyschotherapy and not psychotherapy? I found our previous bills and they say the same thing, so for the better part of a year I’ve been being billed for pyscotherapy. I find this incredibly humorous but at the same time wonder why it’s May and no one at the head office has rectified that hideous typo. I mean, they’re NOT fixing the disparity between the 20 visits of psychiatric treatment allowed and the normal physical health deductible so I figure they’d at least have time to run a spell check!

I’m having a problem today because I’ve not been able to get sleeping meds still. Yesterday I did actually remember to call my GP and ask about generic ambien. Today I got a call back from them saying that they’d rather I check with my psychiatrist about the medications because they don’t want to prescribe something that would have a reaction with anything he has me on.

I told the nurse who had called the truth, that I had not been to see the psychiatrist yet because it’s $96 to see him and I couldn’t justify putting that expense on the credit card when we have $10 in the bank. I’d rather put groceries on there instead so the munchkin can eat.

So, they’ve asked me to get my medication list faxed from the psych, things I’ve been on before, and they’ll see if they can sort something out with generics. Which is amazing to me. I at least expected to have to go in, but with the GP I can at least make payments and pay after the fact with the psychiatrists office I have to pay before I can even go in. The office has generously been calling me every day almost offering me alternate appointments because they’re concerned about my well-being but the psychiatrist does not want to lower the fees so I can actually afford to see him.

I think I may have to bite the bullet on this one and actually GASP look out for myself and see if there’s some way my GP can find a different psychiatrist who has a sliding scale of fees. I’m grateful my GP is willing to work with me at least. My therapist wants to lower my fees, but she has to get permission from the psychiatrist before she can. I’d hoped that he would be willing because he lowered my fees last year from $125 to $70 but apparently that was because their office screwed up and didn’t warn me I was running out of visits, because this is just lack of income he’s not willing to compromise his bottom line.

However I’m not willing to sacrifice the munchkin’s well being over this. There are ways around this and I’m going to find them, because you know what I deserve to be taken care of and to get well, but not at the sake of my family.

Well, that was unexpected!

Ben Spark and I had been talking about the Star Trek movie the other day and he’d asked me if I had entered IZEA’s “Trek it Out” contest, which I hadn’t. So, I did. I figured what the heck, right? It’s not like the lotto where I’m out some money if I don’t win.

My sister had really wanted to see the movie too, but wanted us to have a good day out because there had been some crappy things happen on Sunday, so she volunteered to watch the munchkin yesterday and hubbie and I scrimped together the last of our “fun budget” and went to see the movie on matinee when it was only a few dollars and it was absolutely brilliant. I loved it, but I felt so bad because Kore had wanted to see the movie too but put aside her want so that we could go.

Today I find out I was one of the ticket winners! So I can take her as a thank you and she’ll get to see the brilliance of the movie too! How about that?