1) Who is most likely to front at the doctor’s/dentist’s office?
Myself, Abby, or Ami depending on how much information is needed to be given.

2) Do(es) the doctor(s)/dentist(s) see know that there is more than one person in the body? If so, which ones know and why?
Honestly, I haven’t been to a dentist in several years, bad, I know, but we’ve had insurance and finance issues, and so on. I think my doctor does know now given he was asked for information for the disability filing, but we haven’t been physically to an appointment since then.

3) Is there anyone who really likes going to medical appointments? Why does s/he like them?

Not really. They’re considered a chore, and we’d just as soon not go if we can help it, despite the chronic health condition we hate feeling that we need to go to the doctors it’s like we’re putting the doctor out, aside from the admission of being sick factor.

4) What are people’s opinions about coming out to medical professionals?
Apprehensive.

5) Has any medical professional ever asked if you are plural?
No. One of the last times we were at the doctors office for a check-up he commented that we seemed like a whole different person, which was true given I had gone to the appointment before that and then Max actually went to the last one because we were worried about running into the step-father; but he didn’t ask if we were. I don’t think it ever occurred to him.

1) Do any of the front runners like socializing in groups (as opposed to with one or a few people at a time)?
We’re a bit split on that issue. Max is our main social animal, and he loves being around tons of people, and interacting much more than being by himself. Jay can deal with it but it’s a different sort of enjoyment and reasoning. I (being Abby) am fairly okay with that sort of thing, but it’s not a necessity for me.

2) Who is most likely to front when the body is in a group?
Max, particularly if there is alcohol involved in the group situation.

3) Do any of the front runners like to be the center of attention in a group?
Max is definitely what you would call an attention whore. He can deal with not being the center of attention, but he definitely doesn’t shy away from it if it’s a possibility.

4) Is there anyone who hates being in large groups?
Ami. Ami has severe social anxiety.

5) Do people use the public voice in groups or does everyone use his/her own voice?
That depends on the group. Given we’re out of the closet, so to speak, for the most part, within our groups of friends everyone uses their own voice. However in more public settings we try to use the “public voice”.

From the Birch Household Multiple Monday meme.

1) Do you have any pets out front?
Yes, now we do. We used to have Anakin, then he was given to Mum and now we have Nimue.

2) Why or why not?
For a long time we didn’t have pets because overall we really like cats and the husband is allergic, add to that the fact we lived in apartment complexes and they all had crazy pet deposits and it wasn’t feasible financially either. With moving to a house that has tile floor we negotiated with the significant other to get a cat provided it would be one that lived both inside and outside, and we would keep it washed and brushed and out of the bedroom to help prevent allergy attacks.

3) If you do have pets, what are they?
Nimue Caledonia is a 1 year old ginger and buff tabby (she will have her first birthday this week).

4) Do they belong to everyone, the front runners, or a specific person?
She was picked out by Abby and Max, but named by Jay (even though he had been the main opponent against the cat, other than the SO).

5) Do your pets seem to know when different people are out front?
Yes, definitely. There are certain people she will snuggle with and others she avoids. It’s interesting to see.

Today has been an odd day. It’s been hard to stay in “one spot” in other words, to keep one alter consistently front. I’m not sure what it’s been. I doubt it’s the weather, it’s been thundering on and off for the past few weeks with the various remnants of the various tropical storms and hurricanes which have been around. I do occasionally have times when I’m very scared of thunder because one of the littles is more forward and they’re scared of the storms, but that wasn’t really it today.

At one point I was filling out a form at the fabric store and had to ask my friend what my last name was because I started to write my adopted name instead of my married name and suddenly realized that was wrong but couldn’t remember what the correct one was.

Today…one of my alters considers her birthday, so I wonder if that is the cause. I can’t really remember if there’s been any weird effect in years previous on this day…or not. I can see I’ll be looking back in my livejournal to see if I’ve made any reference to things like that.

There’s nothing more freaky than not being able to stay focused for more than a few minutes at a time. Thankfully I have good friends and family around me who can help me stay on track and are understanding about the forgetfulness when I’m normally an excellent multi-tasker. I hope this clears up by tomorrow.

From the Birch Household’s Multiple Monday Meme.

1) Does your household have a significant other?
Yes, a spouse. We’ve been married since 2005, but dated since 2003.

2) Does the significant other know that you are plural?
Yes. He’s known about the switching since before we started dating but none of us really had a definition for it. When I was diagnosed in March he was the second singleton to know after my therapist who made the diagnosis.

3) Is the significant other plural?
No.

4) Is the significant other in a relationship with one person/more than one person?
If you mean internally, yes. He does not engage romantically with the two littles or the straight male in our system, but several of us who are old enough engage with him. In fact we made a card game out of it earlier in the year.

5) Does everyone in your household like the significant other?
Yes, and no. He and Jay have a bit of a…brackish relationship; but it’s more like that of two brothers they will pick on each other and things like that. Everyone else gets along with him, more or less. He’s a bit nervous that one of our littles may stab him, but really every one likes him, if not adores him.

There are days I wish my memory wasn’t a sieve. Even though we different alters have pretty good communication back and forth I feel like a goldfish. It’s hard to stick to new routines unless they’re stuck with for more than a week they tend to disappear after a few days. Ideas, notations…I live like a pensioner (or so I feel a lot of the time) I have to write notes about everything or rely on my husband to remind me about things, and he doesn’t have the best memory either.

I get scared at times. I worry that I will lose my son somewhere, even though all of us are very good at keeping an eye on him. I’m terrified. I hear about people who have left their children in cars and I get petrified that I’ll do something like that. I forget that I’m making dinner some times or to put laundry from the washer into the dryer, or get it out of the dryer, or to order prescriptions.

I hate it.

From the Birch Household’s Livejournal meme: Multiple Monday.

1) Does anyone pay attention to the news out front?
Not really. Ami used to keep up with things when we were in college, but especially living in a household with a small child and tending towards entertainment for him as far as media things really don’t get watched, and we have no newspaper subscription. However, several of us do periodically watch “The Daily Show”.

2) Do people in the front listen more to radio or to pre-recorded music?
Those of us that drive tend to listen to the radio in the car because the tape player doesn’t work and we can’t justify buying a CD player for the car. Although several of us at home, particularly the writers, listen to .mp3s while we’re writing depending on the mood that we’re hoping to achieve. For a while several of us had our own individual playlists.

3) Does anyone listen to talk radio out front? What programs?
No, not really. We had a falling out with Howard Stern when he usurped the morning show on our favorite rock station. My spouse really likes the Real Radio “Monsters in the Morning” but only a few of us can stand them for any length of time.

4) Do you have TV or radio inside? If you do, what type(s) of programming does it have?
No.

5) Has anyone in the household ever been on TV of the radio out front? If someone has, when was it and why was s/he on?
Any appearance on the television has been purely accidental and background wise. The only one I can recall in recent memory was when we were still working, and a local station came to interview some people at our job about something and I was running something from one side of the building to the other and popped up in the background while the interview was going on.

Since I last saw my step-father, who is, if we’re using psych terms one of my “perpetrators”. On that day I was in the grocery store trying to stock for our new house and kill time and calm myself down given I was waiting to here when I could pick my SO up from the hospital where he was supposed to be having surgery.

I walked into the store with my child in the shopping cart and he walked right in front of me towards the checkouts. He happened to look up when I walked in and said, “Hey, girl!” like we were great friends. I just glared and kept walking hoping that he would go away, deep down I knew he wouldn’t, and he followed me up into the baby aisle wanting to talk, telling me I had no right to be angry at him and that he wanted to talk to his grandchild.

I told him that I didn’t care and that he should go away. He was saying, “Don’t do this to me,” I walked off. He tried to say that he had rights to see my child because this is his grandchild and how dare I deny him.

I was shaking by the time I got to the deli, but my child was so cute kept going, “Okay, Mummy? Okay?” as we had been walking off perp had been trying to play with baby and be cutsie at him and attract his attention. I said, “Now, honey, we don’t play with that sort of person,” or something to that effect.

I was angry with myself too. I had started to feel guilty about not letting him talk to my child. But I have to remind myself that it’s for the child’s best interests and protection that he not be around this man who on previous occasions had tried to smack him with a rolled up newspaper and feed him honey and other things which could have killed him at under a year old.

We saw him again this past weekend. He came into a restaurant that we were eating at. He didn’t speak to us. I was with my SO and another friend and SO saw him first and they had a staredown. I have a feeling if SO hadn’t been there he would have come over and tried to be chatty. He had a woman with him who looks a lot like my Mum did when they met. That was more than a little freaky to me.

That night I had a dream that I was jumping on his chest.