To say I’m frustrated about my therapy situation would be putting it mildly. I’m coming up to a horrific anniversary and I have to admit I’m scared as to how things are going to work out. I tried to see if I could negotiate with my therapist’s office so that I could get another appointment in the interim before the insurance kicks over in January.

I have $100 outstanding on my bill. They want me to pay off $50 before I can book an appointment. Then at the appointment I have to pay the $70 plus $25 off the remainder of the balance. Well, unfortunately for me we can’t do that. I’ve been paying the bill off at $15 a month and that’s been pushing it. I figured I might be able to swing the $70 fee for the appointment then and there, but apparently that’s not good enough for the office manager. They don’t want me to get in over my head. Well, gee, that would be nice…IF they’d thought of that before they let me book two appointments after my insurance had run out that I had to pay out of pocket for.

I’m so annoyed. Especially because my therapist had said that she would still see me despite the outstanding bill. I’m not wanting to schedule appointments EVERY week and rack up $280 a month worth of bills. I just want one or two appointments at the most; but no, not unless I admit myself to the hospital.

I really dislike our insurance. I think I’m also frustrated because I thought that the parity bill being passed would mean that this was over, but the parity legislation doesn’t activate until NEXT year.

In the mean time I’m waiting to hear on the disability appeal, and to see if we can get food stamps; and I feel like we’re just going around and around in circles.

From the Birch Household’s Multiple Monday meme.

1) What is the hardest thing about sharing a body?
I think division of labor causes us the most issue at times. There are certain tasks people don’t mind and others that they’ll put off or try to pawn off on other alters, and then things just don’t get done at all.

2) What is the easiest thing about sharing a body?
I don’t know. It’s fun to have conversations with each other at times.

3) Is it easier to share with some people than with others?
Definitely. Jay and Max seem to have the most antagonistic relationship. They’ll pick on each other, throw each other out front for unsavory tasks (like diaper changes) and things like that.

4) What is something you admire about how other households/systems deal with sharing a body?
Systems that have things in better balance I envy; but I know we’ll get back to that point eventually. It takes work and cooperation, and we have that for the most part.

5) If you could change one thing about how the body is shared what would you change?
I don’t know that I would, the position we’re at now is in flux but that’s because we’re re-learning how to work together with higher awareness of what is going, so I know we’ll be better if we rushed this it would fall apart.

I’ve been having a hard time with things lately, and I realized a couple of days ago that I”m coming up for the ten year anniversary of when certain things happened to me.

For a long time I felt that around Halloween of 1998 I was possessed and didn’t overcome that possession until around January or February of 1999 with the help of my room mate, who later became my girlfriend, who is now “fondly” referred to as my psycho ex.

Now, I’m honestly not sure what to think about the possession. I’ve done a lot of spiritual work and so it wouldn’t be unheard of for it to have happened. However when I did work with entity attachment and release, rather than being taken to the time I thought I was taken to January of 2001 and found that my grandfather had attached to me to protect me from a spirit fragment of my “psycho ex”.

Perhaps I did get possessed, perhaps there was some kind of disassociation caused by something going on, where I had a stress-fracture and then it healed itself, after a fashion.

Hopefully when I’m able to go back with my therapist we’ll finally be able to get things sorted out. We were getting ready to look at these things when my insurance ran out…

Yesterday I watched the first episode of “My Own Worst Enemy” and I have to say I find it very interesting. I can relate to several of the things which happened in the show, not so much the killer, secret agent aspect of things, but certainly the leaving notes, and even video for each other and interacting like that. That’s very resonant to me, and the “whose clothes are these?” and things like that.

I’m interested to see the second episode, which was on last night but I have taped.

From the Birch Household’s Multiple Monday meme.

1) Does anyone repair things around the house? Who?
Terri, primarily. She’s very up on the physical labor and the fixing things, although Ami has repaired some things it depends what it is.

2) What kinds of things do they fix (plumbing/electric/etc)?
Computer related problems are Ami’s department, most everything else is Terri’s. She’s repainting the outside of the house, did a good portion of the fire pit, and put up the fence. Although we’ve been fortunate to have the help of some friends in a lot of those endeavors. Our room mate is helping repaint, and our husband and several friends helped dig some of the fire pit; because while Terri likes to do these things with the FMS we’re not always physically capable and she can easily over-exert the body and push us into a flare.

3) Is there a division of labor (like you do electric and I do plumbing)?
Definitely. There’s even division of labor when it comes to household chores that aren’t repairs.

4) Who decides when it’s time to call in the pros?
Whoever can’t fix it. It really depends on what it is; and how much money we have in the bank account. That’s meant a lot of repairs have gone to google. However vehicular repairs nearly always go to the mechanic, except minor things like replacing head lights or indicator lights.

5) What’s the last thing someone tried to fix around the house?
Replacing the weather stripping around the door was the most recent, although the ice maker on the fridge isn’t working properly right now and we’re waiting on a day when the SO is home to help us move the fridge out so that we can assess if we can fix it or need to get a professional in for it.

I am SO, SO tired of seeing multiplicity on television and in movies and the multiple either being a serial killer, or a general murderer or a faker. It really doesn’t do anything to alleviate people’s fear about a difficult to explain health condition.

I’ve heard that Showtime is making a show called “The United States of Tara” which is supposed to be about a woman living with multiplicity in the current times. I’ve heard many multiples decrying the show because they fear it will make light of the issues going on with multiples and how there are horrible traumatic reasonings behind the disorder so it shouldn’t be made light of.

I’m also eager to check out “My Own Worst Enemy” with Christian Slater, because while it’s non-standard multiplicity from what I’m hearing about it it’s going to cover many things that multiples go through when discovering their condition, so it’ll be interesting for sure.

However I, for one, don’t mind them depicting multiplicity with a modicum of humor. It’s generally how I get by. I make fun of myself quite often, because if you can’t joke about things I feel you’re in a bad way. Yes, there were some very traumatic things which happened to me over the years, but if it wasn’t for humor I don’t think I would get by. There are still times that I need to think about things and I do dwell on the bad things, and thankfully I have my friends or family to help me get by, given I don’t have access to my therapist at the minute, but at the same time I think that a television show would be able to do the same sort of thing. Other shows I’ve seen on Showtime balance the serious with the comedic the same way that real life is done, and I think if the shows are done well they might really help to alleviate some of the negative stereotypes that are considered for multiplicity that have been perpetrated longer by shows such as CSI where the multiple had actually made it all up figuring she would be able to get away with killing her parents then.

From the Birch Household’s Multiple Monday meme.

1) Does anyone read fantasy/science fiction?
It’s Ami’s favorite genre (sci-fi); and several of us myself, Jay and Debbi like fantasy, and some sci-fi stuff. Max loves anything with big giant robots.

2) Does anyone have a favorite science fiction/fantasy book or show? What is it?
Ami’s really into George R. R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series, and Scott Westerfield’s series “Uglies” “Pretties” “Specials” which we just started re-reading now we finally got hold of “Specials”.

3) Does anyone watch fantasy or sci-fi shows/movies? Which one(s)?
Any and all of them. We’ll give anything a shot if it’s fantasy sci-fi. We really liked “Firefly”; and are looking forward to “Dollhouse” which is going to come out in February or March.

4) Has anyone ever dressed up as a character from a sci-fantasy story/movie/show? Which one(s)?
Definitely, we’ve done several Halloweens as Jadzia Dax from DS9; and we’ve also done Sailor Mercury from Sailor Moon, in civilian form anyway. We did Neil Gaiman’s Death of the Endless one year, but looked more like Alice Cooper.

5) Which character(s), if any, from sci-fi or fantasy story/movie/show would the front runners want to be?
That’s a loaded question. Max really wants a Gundam.

I get some interesting comments about my mental situation since our friends have been told about my multiplicity. There’s one friend in particular who seems to think that hubbie is exceedingly lucky being married to ten people. We’ve explained to him that there are a couple of us who don’t consider ourselves married to him. Jared, for example, does not look on hubbie as “Honey” or anything of the sort, and generally hides in the back with the Littles if anything remotely romantic is going on.

Hubbie also points out that there’s one Little he’s sure is going to try and kill him, and thus he takes his life into his hands every morning. It’s not quite that bad from my point of view, Little is a bit unstable, but she doesn’t come out much.

Sure things are never boring, and hubbie says he wouldn’t change it for the world, because he loves me with all my quirks, even if he doesn’t think of Jared that way (and he’s not expected to) but there are many times that I find myself wondering if he wouldn’t be better off with a saner person, just because that’s the way my thoughts run from time to time, especially on days like yesterday where I’m feeling decidedly non-functional.

I remember the other day I was talking about a trip I took to France when I was about ten. We went up the Eiffel Tower, and for some reason on the walk down I was seized by a huge panic attack and couldn’t move for a bit. An American tourist actually volunteered to carry me down stairs, but my friend and I refused. I said, “I’m not sure who had the fear…by that point there were five of us, and my childhood is still kinda hazy and jumbled because of that.”

The friend who had been commenting on hubbie’s good fortune being married to me said, “Wait, hold on. You were…ten?” I said, “Yes.” “And there were FIVE of you already by then?”

My room mate said, “Well, her grandmother is such a GREAT person.”

I said, “Well, two of them came about from some thing which happened with my ‘best friend’ so I *think* only three can be put down to my grandmother…”

I get mad periodically and want to go hunt down my step-father and punish him for things, or plot my grandmother falling down a hole and never coming out, and that causes arguments, because the parts that have those feelings most strongly are tempered by others who will defend the abusers in my life and put all the blame on ourself rather than the perpetrators. It’s a complex situation, to be sure, but on days where I’m feeling less fragmented I try to find the humor in the situation. It’s like I was telling another friend even if I’m driving by myself and get lost I’m not really stuck alone I have people to keep me company ALL the time, just so long as we don’t start talking to each other out loud so I don’t get Baker Acted.

Some times I hate it when friends and family tell me how proud they are of me for surviving, for doing the dishes, for cleaning the floor. They say this demonstrates how functional I am. I think it’s something that most multiples go through. It grates on us being told how functional we are, because most of the time we don’t feel that way.

Logically I know that I am functional to a degree, but perhaps it’s just a mark of the brain drain that certain people in my life put me through I don’t feel functional because I don’t have a job, because I’m not bringing in money, because we’re living paycheck to paycheck. I feel like this is my fault, because any job that I might possibly be able to get in this ridiculous excuse for an economy would not make it worth putting our son into daycare.

I look at the fact that our house isn’t spotless, and each out of place toy and speck of dirt becomes a badge of shame. I find it hard to focus on the fact that my son (while in that testing/NO/I HATE EVERYTHING two year old phase) is smart, is learning so much every day and is happy. I can’t see that the fact that he’s loving and will share affection, and babble on about his day is a good thing. I find that I’m hung up on the fact that he’s not potty trained yet, that he’s constantly back talking and re-doing bad things because he wants to see that consistency.

I get so pissed off because I remember what happened and there’s nothing I can do and nothing anyone else could do about it. I fear that my fluxing is going to screw up my son forever. I fear that I would be better off in an asylum somewhere away from society.

Family and friends say they don’t understand how I do it, and I think do what? All I did was get up this morning, give my son breakfast and take him to the park. You guys are holding down jobs.

I’m sure I’ll be back feeling more logical later, but today’s one of those bad days where I just see suckiness and doom.

You did not bear me,
But you wore me down.
You did not break me,
But I’m fractured all the same.
You did not kill me,
Yet you buried me with lies.
You did not fuck me,
But you screwed me over.