Inside Where We Live (Alexandria)

hi im lexi and im 10. i wasn't always 10. for awhile i was grown up but that didn't work so good. i didn't get married but i was there like rite after we moved back after we got married and we had two baby girls and it was stupid and i couldn't figure out how to be a grown up and kaya was no help at all, like not even a little bit because all she cared about was shoes, so i tried real hard but it didn't work.

so i went to live on a island inside. there was a big keeper on the island. he wouldn't let anyone on the island and didn't let me off the island. i was gone from my sisters and kaya and betsy had to figure stuff out themselves because all i did was get in trouble and get the body hurt and almost get the kids taken away two times and make the husband mad and hurt us and the body. when i was around and married i made him mad a lot and the body got beat and burned and ignored and yelled at and tied up and put in bad situations a lot. they were better at not getting hurt then i was. i tried real hard but kinda figured out after a lot of failing that my job wasn't to be a grown up and i didn't know what to do. so i went to my island and stayed there til one day the keeper went away and i still dunno where he went. he was like a big stone giant guy. sometimes i miss my island.

i came back after a long time but i came back as a baby and i played inside and i stayed away from touchin anything outside so i didn't brake things. the outside life was real bad but i tried to help inside by givin sisters someone to snuggle an cuddle and playin games with them an they were nice to me and we all thought maybe i was the original person in our body but it kinda turned out that im not. we kinda thinked that maybe kenzie was too but she's not either. me and kenzie both weren't very nice to anyone inside or outside cuz we thought we were special and better and had the rest of the sisters to work for us but mostly we don't now and momma don't let that happen and daddy gets really mad when any of us sisters treat the other sisters bad and then there's consequences and trouble and a lot of not fun.

i love my family an our new life. no one hurts us here an i feel safe. momma and daddy don't let me lie, cheat, hide, or boss people around but i still try sometimes an then i end up in trouble but they take care of me and even tho i miss my island inside sometimes i don't ever wanna be away from my momma and daddy cuz even tho i dont always be good, they still want me and love me and buy me yellow things.

my favorite color is yellow. i love most anything yellow.


(kaya = cadie            betsy = zoey)

and we all fall down....

howard's nose, because its cute. he's a 1 year old black lab.

sometimes we fall down. a lot of times we fall down. maybe not so much literally fall down, more figuratively. but still, falling is falling, right?

it was walk time this morning. bella was out and mama suggested that bella take howard with her. howard is one of our family's 4 dogs. he's a beautiful and fun puppy and we adore him a lot. bella initially politely refused. she said she was too nervous to take him because she knows we zone out when walking and she didn't want to risk us dissociating putting him in danger. mama said she was more worried about us dissociating than she was about howard being in any danger because she knows he'd keep us aware and grounded.

so bella thought about it and decided to take him. we had a dog that was our everything. she kept us safe and we were super attached. we had to send her to live in a warmer climate for her (she's safe with someone we know loves her and will dote on her) and we've been hesitant to bond with the family dogs here since then because losing her was hard. it was right, but it was hard.

so anyways... bella leaves the house with howard. he's a little over a year and he's crazy and fun. he's so good tho and walks really good so that's helpful. about a quarter mile in, bella dissociates. howard responds by cutting in front of her and nearly tripping her. she told him he's a good boy but said "maybe next time you can be a bit more gentle?" haha. i thought it was funny. they continued on and she talked to him the whole time but it happened again about a half mile in. this time he nudged and licked our hand. she praised him again. they went a mile and then called it good for the day.

bella, and all of us, realized that walking with howard was actually a lot safer for us. mama said she thinks its a lot safer for us too. we realized today that we really can benefit from bonding with him and he loves the attention and time and exercise. today howard was almost like a service dog to us. if we keep taking him out, it may get to the point where he is basically our service dog.

we are fine in the house by ourselves, especially with the dogs. the only time we lose time and dissociate is outside of the house. so at stores, socializing, at events, etc. we all get overwhelmed by sensory stuff really easily and totally zone out and thats how we end up getting lost or scared and stuff. mostly mama and daddy keep us in eye sight when out but when we go walking we go alone and having howard go with us lets us go alone and have everyone be a lot more comfortable with it.

cadie

Inside Where We Live (Parker Quinn)

image frrom google

hi, i'm Parker and i'm 13 like Jossy. we're twins. i only started coming out like this month before that i didn't come out much. i had one job and that job was to watch what was going on inside the inside world and to report it to people outside who needed that information. but the people i told would use it to hurt my sisters and i thought that was a good thing because i thought the others inside were bad and this was the way to make them be good. mostly what i've learned tho is that they aren't bad. the people who wanted this stuff and wanted me to tell them stuff were the bad ones. so i guess i was called a watcher and reporter.

i hold some trauma stuff but i've never gone through any of it myself. i don't know if that makes me lucky or guilty cuz i think i might have caused some trauma by telling people about the sisters inside and what happened there. its something i might have to think about sometime but i don't feel so guilty or bad since i'm now with Jossy.

when me and Jossy are apart we aren't ok. like not even a little bit ok. today is only my second time coming out to meet mom and i've only ever talked to dad on the phone one time and one time on the messenger thingy. Josslyn knows them real well and trusts them a lot and i trust her. i really like mom a lot so far. she feels safe and real. she doesn't ask me for information that might hurt anyone inside. she doesn't seem to want to hurt anyone inside and honestly she really seems to love everyone. i like the fact that i don't have to hurt anyone inside anymore. and i feel wanted.

inside i have a lion companion. i'm not a lion. this causes some kinda confusion for people outside cuz some of my sisters have animal forms but i don't. i have a lion who keeps me safe. he has been with me since the beginning and used to keep me from being found by the other sisters so they couldn't hurt me for telling their secrets. now he's my friend because he doesn't have to keep me safe anymore. i have a mom and dad who want to keep me safe.

love,

parker quinn

Inside Where We Live (Josslyn)

image from google

hi im josslyn an im like, i dunno, 13 i guess. i usedta be littler but i was scared of everything and spent a lot of time under my bed or in the closet cuz i was always scared. but then i took a really loong nap, like from november to march and now im awake an with my twin sister parker and im bigger and not scared anymore.

my job is kinda to help watch stuff inside and to help feel fear. i see a lot of what the inside sisters do and how they act and i see and feel when they feel scared and i can mostly tell where the fear is coming from an why. i can find help, like tellin mama and daddy, or i can keep it to myself, or i can tell kaysie or bella or brina. they are the protector team. mama and daddy are on the protector team too but i don't think they know that. some people think its weird that mama and daddy are only a few years older than the body but they raise us and treat us as our age but they don't gotta live our life and its really not their business anyways so no one asked them.

i really like to color. i have a stuffed animal pony that is striped with all kinds of bright colors and i love butterflys. at our old house before this one i had butterfly stickers on the walls all over by our bed but daddy said they wouldn't stick again so they didn't get to move with us when sister peeled them off the walls. that really sucks a lot and i miss them cuz they were bright and fun.

we usedta have a husband. i guess we kinda still do. he hurt us a lot in the heart and on the body. we have a half moon burn on our calf that itches a lot today that he burned in there. he called it a brand and he spent weeks peeling the scabs to make sure it scarred real good. i still have dreams about that. it was scary. he has our dog and we have the bodys kids with him that we gave to mama and daddy because we can't raise kids and none of us remember much about having kids and we didn't even really want to but he liked pregnant girls and liked to keep us pregnant cuz we were easier to keep quiet an we were clingy. its hard to look at the body's kids sometimes but mama and daddy help a lot an took over there and the body's kids say giving them to mommy and daddy was the best choice we ever made for them and that we usually make bad choices for them so they are happy about this one.

i wrote a lot. i guess. oh well. thats me and what my job is an what i was thinkin about. oh an we have a butterfly tattoo i hate cuz its a property mark we were made to get. but its a butterfly.

love,

jossy

Around the Fire Pit

I took this picture last night while being social! 

I was in the living room with Mama yesterday afternoon. Mama says "My friend is having a fire tonight and I really want to go." I looked up from my phone long enough to mumble "Go for it. I'll watch the other kids." Don't judge. I was bubble popping. Bubble Witch Saga is addictive, people. 

Mama sort of rolls her eyes and sighs. I clearly missed a point somewhere. Again, don't judge. Bubbles... priorities. She says "I want you to make friends too. I want you to want to go places." I put the phone down (I KNOW! It nearly killed me.) and thought about it for a minute. We had agreed to trust her. She's worked hard to earn our trust. We had all agreed to step outside of our comfort zone occasionally. And to be entirely honest, a fire pit on an early summer night sounded like a really great idea. So I agreed. 

I was pretty nervous. I had no idea whether they knew about the DID, about all of us, anything. I was chatting with a bestie on messenger who said "Kaysie, just be yourself. Don't worry about them not knowing about the DID." I realized at that point that he was right. It didn't matter, it still kind of doesn't matter, whether they do or don't know. Last night it was just me. Just Kaysie. 

The new friends have a beautiful home, a beautiful yard, and a beautiful dog. Like, I'm in love with their dog. The fire was bright and warm, the company was open and friendly, and the kids made new friends. Mama was relaxed. There was a lot of laughter, some nice conversation, and a general safe and comfortable feeling.

When I woke up this morning I realized something kinda huge. We were at a fire. Granted a fire pit, but still a fire. Most of our little ones have an intense fear of fire due to our childhood abuser threatening to burn our house down with us in it if we ever told. Not one of the little ones was scared last night at all. Some people were drinking and there was a fire. No one was even close to being out of control and the fire was contained and maintained. The entire situation was safe, comfortable, and really nice.

I hope we get to do it again. I really liked these new friends.

-Kaysie

Inside Where We Live (Trinity)

Image Credit: Google

hi name is trinity violet an 5 years old an trinity learnin to spell cuz jessie loves me lots. trinity live inside at the park wit sisters. trinity usedta lives in the dark wit sami andee shiloh an the shados an olly keeped our gate safes but the shados are meen an skary an we was lone there for long times and skared. trinity don got no job outside. mommy an daddy takes cares of trinity an daddy byes trinity oreos an makes big sissers be good girls.

trinity is skared of peoples an don talk to peoples on Facebook cept for daddy cuz trinity no got friends an trinity no talk to people outside cept for mommy an daddy an sometimes the outside kids cuz trinity no knows what to says.

inside trinity learns bout happy an sad an trinity learns how to filter feels like jenna an mia so trinity can helps thems wit the big huge job theys gots.

trinity likes elephants lots, an oreos, an cheesecake, an coloring, an games, an mommy an daddy.

Hold Up..... Weight a Minute....

This entire system is plagued by absolutely horrific relationships with food. The vast majority of us can be divided between two categories. Binge eating, or bulimia. Body hatred is big in this system for a variety of reasons, most coming down to size. For years now my sweet sisters have toyed with trying to "fix" the body, but it always comes back to the same results.

Image Credit: http://www.helpyourteens.com/teens-body-image-and-eating-disorders

We have been with Mom and Dad for about 9 months now. When we first moved in with them we were almost 300lbs, hair was falling out, teeth broken and cracked, fingernails peeling, and skin cracking. We had some kind of weird awful cyst putting pressure on our spine and our blood sugar routinely ran in the 300s. My sisters complained about it but were met with a mental block every time they tried to make a change. Daily life was so chaotic that the body refused to respond to good interventions at all.

Fast forward 9 months and the body is now 245lbs. Hair is growing back, teeth are getting fixed, skin and nails are much better. Blood sugars are under 150 more often than not and there's no more weird cysts. Logically we all know these things to be fact. The clothes in our closet are a size we don't remember wearing before. Mentally, we can't see the change. 

All of us are self sabotaging on a regular basis, especially when it comes to carbs. There's some kind of self protection program running that's refusing to allow us to make real progress in the way of weight. Over and over again we can hear F's voice telling us that we are fat and ugly and no one will ever want us. Maybe if we stay fat and no one still wants us, then we run less risk of getting hurt again. Maybe we feel like we deserve to be ugly and huge. 

I want us to be kind to this body. This body has carried us through some incredibly awful events and somehow managed to keep us alive. This body has given birth to the 4 boogers that have made it possible for Mom and Dad to be parents again. This body has found courage and hope where there wasn't any and has fought off an angry gall bladder in order to save the youngest's life in utero. This body has done amazing things. It deserves our kindness, and no, trying to sabotage it to protect it from pain is not a kindness.

We all seem to share the all or nothing trait. We want to do yoga to the point that we physically hurt, or we don't want to do it at all. We want to walk 5 miles or 0 miles. We want to eat 12 cookies or no cookies. We want to test blood sugar 10 times a day or we don't test at all. There's simply no happy medium with us. 

Some of my sisters seem to have a tendency to use exercise to cause the body pain. Those same sisters will make poor food choices for much the same reason. They don't necessarily enjoy the pain, but they believe we deserve the pain. Some of the rest of us want to build strength in the body, while yet others don't want to risk any pain to the body at all. To people outside of this body it looks like laziness, enablers, and a general not caring. Most of us will agree with it and say thats exactly what it is because it becomes too hard to explain and our attempts at explaining end up sounding like excuses.

And still yet, it could also be parts of our addictive personalities showing up. Some of us are addicted to pain, some are addicted to nicotine, some are addicted to being hurt. Sadly, none of us are addicted to being happy. All of these emotions, thoughts, feelings, wants, desires, and needs pile on all day long and quickly become overwhelming for the emotion regulators (Jenna and Mia) to keep up with. The outside becomes challenging and we can't figure out simple things like what to eat or how to eat, or how to prepare what to eat. It's a conversation Mom has with us a lot. She, like many others, view it as laziness. It frustrates her because she knows we have the skill set. We are completely capable of cooking macaroni and cheese, or following recipe directions, etc. We just end up with this massive mental block and it becomes emotionally raw and almost impossible. Like words scramble in our head and we stop understanding the simplest of instructions. It's frustrating. Especially when we know we KNOW this. 

So today, today I made a protein shake (protein powder and almond milk) for breakfast. I'm drinking water. I did 40 minutes of yoga this morning. Our muscles ache. I am out of brain power and feeling pretty defeated in terms of body image/help/etc. I feel like we are letting down our family who knows we are capable of better. I wish I didn't care what they thought. 

Sabrina

Inside Where We Live (Andrea)

Image credit: Google  -  Andee loves stuffed animal bunnies

i is andee. i is 3 yeer old lik olly an zozey. thems my sissers. i is daddy's lil gurl. daddy luvs me. andee no speshul. not aminel or cool. jus a lil gurl. andee was in the dark for long tims wit sami an shy an trin. was skary an no fun but now we livs wit sissers in the hose an the rezort. bella waches us an we plays in the zoo an the water an in the playgrownd.

out i play gams on fone an eet crunchies. i gots a dog outsid nam crunchy but she no lik me if i don feeeds her an my daddy say no litle gurls feeds dogys no mor or we gets in truble an andee no wana bes in truble. dady meens it to.

andee liks the new lif. andee liks bunnys an toons an gams. plees liks us. plees.

(This post was written in its entirety by Andee. I merely pasted it here and posted it. -Brina)

Inside Where We Live (Olivia)

Credit: Google

me is olly. i is 3 yer old. i is a baby tiger lik bella insid. outsid olly is litle gurl. olly lernin to spell an lernin to be in a famely. insid olly plays wit zoey andee finley an shy mostlee.

daddy call me his litle gurl. that maks olly happy. daddy is nise an very speshul. he see olly as litle gurl an not big growed up.

mommy nise to. momy help big sissers keep insid safs. she lovs us lots an keep outsid wurld safs.

i wishes olly culd cuddle wit mommy lik the Lil boys dose cuz it look saf an warm an nise but the body to big an no one cudles big bodys outsid. insid bella cudles us an sumtims jenna an mia an brina wils too. i wish mommy culds.

insid i mostly olly the baby tiger an go rawwwwwr!!!! bella giggle at me lots. bella teeches olly to pownse an stawk. olly liks pownsin an stawkin an rawwwwwrin!!!

this is me olly

(This post was written by Olivia.... it was pasted here and posted by Sabrina. I didn't change her words or editing at all, simply posted it with the others.)

Inside Where We Live (Cadence)

graphic made for me by lisha... love you lisha!

thats kinda it. keep calm and let cadie handle it. i like to handle things, especially things that confuse or annoy my sisters. mostly tho, i like to do what i want. my name is cadence danielle. you guys can call me cadie. most people do unless i'm in some kinda trouble or someone's mad at me. 

im about 14 years old. mama says i have a serious attitude problem but daddy says i'm fine for him. kaysie says i save all my attitude for mama but really i don't put that much thought into it. she gives me way too much credit. i just am who i am. i swear too much, talk too much, eat too much, drive too fast, think too fast, and care too much.

i think wolves are the most wonderful creatures anywhere ever. inside i am protected by a lot of wolves. i've long since lost count because when i don't feel safe i find more wolves. most of the time they stay in the shadows and live their lives in the forest but they are never far away when i need them or they sense i'm afraid.

i have trouble making and keeping friends. i have trouble being a part of a family. i love my sisters very much and will be right there if someone causes any of them trouble but i don't mind tormenting them. i'm not much help with the little sisters, and i don't spend a whole lot of time with the older sisters. mostly i hang out with mia and lyssa inside. we have a resort with a water park and most of us "middle" sisters have been hanging out there. i have a room inside the main house that i share with lyssa sometimes, but lyssa is an age slider so she spends sometimes with me and sometimes with the littlest ones in the nursery area where bella keeps an eye on them at night.

out here i manage a lot of our online stuff and make sure our accounts are all in order and stuff. i like technology a lot and understand it pretty good. i have been around and active since like 2005 so i hold a lot of the late years trauma.

i love skulls, all things pink, wolves, butterflies, and shoes. i really love shoes.

love,

cadie

Inside Where We Live (Arabella)

I really have nothing pressing to talk about. It's my turn to write... well, I haven't written in a long time but we don't really have turns. Mostly We write when we feel like it. I could spend some time introducing myself though.

I'm going to be honest though, introducing myself seems risky. I'm one of the protectors for this system an I worry that being as open as my sisters have started to be is a security breach. Kaysie is our main protector, however, and she feels that being this transparent and open is actually safer in the long run. I suppose she's right.

So hello. My name is Arabella.  I am about 17. Inside I am usually in white tiger form. My main role inside is protection of the little ones. The number of sisters under the age of 13 is nearly twice that (if not more) than those over 13 so that in itself is a full time job. I spend most of my time inside with the children, but I do enjoy my time in the outside world. I especially enjoy technology, our new family, and yarn. I very much enjoy yarn. I guess that might be the feline side of me.

Until recently I haven't been spending any real time outside. The outside world can be challenging for me and its harder for me to be sure the children inside are safe if I'm hanging out around here. Mom helps out with that a lot. 

I have experienced some of the body's trauma, but nothing significant. My job has always been to bring the sister who experienced the trauma inside and nurture and comfort her. There's a serious lack of trauma here, so I'm having to find new ways to keep myself busy and still feel useful. This project we are working on to be more open and fight stigma is helping a lot with that.

So that's me, pretty much in a nutshell. I'm around and always willing to say hi.  

Bella

Balance Between Inside and Outside

Inside world is in chaos. We have shadows causing all kinds of frustration and discomfort. We have been battling this, or at least trying to manage all of this since Friday and its been intense and depressing.

Long story short, we have a baby in our forest inside. The baby is sheltered and safe but sleeping (think Snow White). Our internal guides and protectors have always been adamant that we never disturb the baby. The little ones are curious about the baby and want the baby to be loved and snuggled so they go check on the baby sometimes.

Up until the shadows arrived a couple weeks ago this wasn't a big deal. It wasn't until last night that we started realizing (thanks to Mama) that the shadows could be trying to protect the baby. Sami got too close to the baby on Friday. It was like an explosion happened. Everyone except for 3-4 of us were suddenly asleep and our internal protector and internal guide were both knocked into somewhere they've never been and had to find their way back. Up until this morning we were missing our youngest gatekeeper after that explosion. We still have to figure out how to convince the shadows that we don't want to hurt the baby. And to make them understand that hurting our littles isn't acceptable at all.

Today we seem to be settling down, but seriously, its been hard. Harder still has been trying to navigate the outside world while all of that chaos was going on. We are blessed to have a fantastic family who do their best to understand and help. Most systems we interact with don't feel safe enough to share their internal struggles with their in person support people. It makes us feel weird and self-conscious too but we we need to share or we isolate.

I don't care if anyone here thinks its fake or pretend. Its real and the balance between inside and outside is what affects our functioning.

Jessa  ( I posted this in our group yesterday and decided to publish here but forgot to hit publish lol)

Inside... Where We Live (Alayna)

Image credit: Values.com

Last night Mama was talking to Cadie and she said that we have suddenly all stopped communicating about our inside struggles. We haven't been using our secret group to communicate with each other and the blog has been all but ignored. We rarely post in our own group about our struggles but we always have time to support our friends and group members. We have pulled ourselves inside and we are proverbially circling the wagons. We are not sharing at all what goes on inside, and we barely talk to anyone about what goes on outside. We have thrown ourselves totally into supporting others.

Mama said it has to stop. That we need to value ourselves and talk about how we are doing. She's right, the best way we can think of to help others is to share ourselves. So now we are going to work on really being open. No hiding.

Inside we have a resort, a main house, a lake, gardens, a huge forest, and several different places where some of us hang out. It's nearly impossible to translate into words so at some point we may take it one section at a time, but mostly what I'm trying to say here is that our inside world is vast, comfortable, and a real place.

Most importantly, inside is our sanctuary. It's not always a cool place tho. I mean crazy things happen up there as we deal with things on the outside. And its so so so hard to explain it when it all sounds like some crazy imagined soap opera all of the time.  That's like a huge part of the reason we started looking for Facebook groups to be a part of, because we needed a place to be around others like us. What we found instead, for the most part, was judgmental systems calling each other fake. And if you think Facebook is bad, you should see Tumblr. All of these places that could be so cool end up being drama and we have enough inside drama to last several lifetimes, we don't need more from places that should be supportive and fun.

I wanna tell the world about us. I wanna make the world understand that this body is simply a shell holding one huge beautiful fucked up chaotic world. That the world inside of us needs to be cherished, blessed, loved, and protected. That world, the inside world, is what saved us during almost 30 years of abuse. The body is 34. My oldest sister is 17. The rest of us are all under 17. The outside world can't seem to understand how this works, but that's okay.

Inside I am a purple dragon hybrid. My name is Alayna Jade. I am 15 years old-ish in human terms. I have no idea where I came from or how. I just remember showing up here. Mama says I'm a pretty typical 15 year old who has no impulse control, a serious attitude problem, and a strong desire to do what I want. My favorite pet outside is Howard, the black lab. Inside I really love flying over the fields and mountains. I have a long history of starting fires and causing mayhem in general in the inside world. Due to that, I have the pleasure of being supervised by the largest dragon I think I've ever seen. His name is Dae, Dae and his mate, Lianna, guide a rather large brood of young dragons. They provide some internal protection as well as supervision for me haha. Not long ago we found our sister, Shiloh, and discovered that she's a 4 year old baby blue dragon. She's sweet as hell and I totally love her.  Its become my job (with Dae too) to teach her flight and to keep her safe. She's got the dragon attitude and I love it so much.

I have a bedroom in the main house. I also have a cave in the Dragonspan. I can be either dragon or teenage girl. I hate how this body doesn't reflect me in either form. Lots of times I threaten to eat my little sisters if they annoy me.  I love with my whole heart, on the rare occasions that I love at all. I will walk all over anyone if I'm not convinced they are stronger than me. I have no idea how to cook, how to pay bills, how to raise children, or even how to decide what to eat for myself (turns out the outside world frowns on dragons eating other animals.....). I struggle with remembering that the outside body matters, and matters a lot.

I feel numb to most of the outside world but emotionally I'm a big open gaping wound. And when all of that gets too much, I have been known to cut and self harm. Daddy has forbidden self harm which was kind of a dick move really, but I'm allowed to (and supposed to) talk to him and Mama when those feelings take hold so they can help. I don't do that often enough.

I kinda think I'm around inside because dragons are safe and good protectors. I'm a horrible protector for the most part. I do, however, think I'd step up and do some real damage if I ever have to, in order to protect my sisters. Sometimes it doesn't seem like it, but I do love them.

That's me, inside and out.

Love,

Alayna Jade

Shadow People in the Closet

Image Credit:  http://thehorrormoviesblog.com/2015/06/16/shadow-people/

I'm physically in the livingroom. My mom is with me. She's knitting and watching TV and I am working on DID awareness stuff and keeping up with the support group we run on Facebook for DID. I'm coughing, clearing my throat, and gasping for breath, Mama mumbles under her breath.

"I wish I could break into the closet and strangle them"

I heard her. To an outsider this makes no sense, but to me she just said "I love you." It takes a bit of the fear out of this scary situation. Mama is here. Mama is watching. Mama cares.

Our inside world has been through incredible changes since last August. One of these changes happened over the last month. It was the opening of a gate inside, a gate guarded by a sweet 3 year old. Olly had guarded her gate faithfully for almost 20 years, but time has a way of changing things. The gate opened when it was ready and we welcomed Olly, Sami, Trinity, Shiloh, and Andee. They are a group of sweet and fun little girls that we affectionately call the C-Continuum. They hold a lot of memories, triggers, and fears from the body's childhood years. They were not alone though.

Also behind that gate is a group of shadows. They are people but no one, not even the C-Continuum has ever seen them. They arrived some time after Sabrina posted Olly at that gate and they "shut off the lights" and made it cold. When the gate opened, the littlest ones chose to come out and join the rest of us. The shadows retreated into a closet and locked the little ones out. Or locked themselves in.

From that moment we get choking sensations a few times a week. It happens around eating, strong emotion, or at seemingly random times. There's never any actual lasting damage done, but it's uncomfortable and hard to fight through. At first I believed they wanted the body dead. Sami agreed and said that's definitely what they want. I had decided to leave them, and the entire closet, alone.

Over the last two weeks I've noticed an increase in posts in our group about "angry" or "challenging" alters and Brina and I have educated many about patience, love, and kindness when these parts don't seem to want it. So I was reading yet another post a minute ago while regaining my breath when it dawned on me.

We aren't taking our own advice. We need to show love, kindness, and patience. We need to remind them that the body is safe, our life is safe, and we are surrounded by love. Most of all, that they are welcome to join us and receive the safety and love.


-Kaysie

Childhood Sexual Abuse

Image credit: http://www.colorlines.com/content/what-you-need-know-about-childhood-sexual-abuse

The statistics in the image are heartbreaking and shock a lot of people. Childhood sexual abuse doesn't shock me. It doesn't stun me, and it doesn't surprise me. I never wonder how it could possibly happen. I never have wondered. I never will wonder.

As early as any of us can remember, this body was used sexually. We have hints of memories prior to the age of 3 years old. We have definite memories as early as 4 years old. It started so early and went on for so long that we grew up believing it was normal. Our abuser was in the home daily. Outside of the home he was a devout church member. He sang in the choir and was a deacon in the church. Friends love him, other kids thought we had the coolest step dad ever. He always seemed to be wonderful. He fixed bikes, went camping, took us on vacations, and videotaped all typical childhood events. To the outside we had the perfect family.

He never paid for what he did. The mother worked hard to defend him. The police said there simply wasn't enough evidence. Our case never made it into a statistic. The above statistic doesn't include us. If it doesn't include us, how many more cases like ours are not included? What are the actual numbers? How many children are being broke, split, and shattered because of not reporting? How many are being taught that help isn't coming because of not being believed?

Its time to pay closer attention to the world around us. You can make a difference to one child if you can save that one child. Had any family member really paid attention, we could have been saved too. Its not their fault, they didn't know. I just believe that a little more diligence, attention, and time can make a huge difference to a child. We don't have to save all children, but we can all save one. We removed our children from a situation that was abusive in other ways. They are now supported, healthy, and growing. We are here with them, yet we are not raising them. We have no ability to raise children. We are still small children ourselves.


Alayna

Memories of Mothers

Alayna woke up this morning. She was awake for about an hour when she realized that Sunday is Mother's Day. Our adopted mom is cool and we adore her and this will be our first Mother's Day with her.... but our bio mom doesn't inspire great thoughts or warm fuzzies. It was only a few minutes after thinking about it when Layna became overwhelmed and the posts and memories started coming. After hours of her reliving memories she made the choice to call our bio dad and talked to him about everything. He listened, as he always does, with patience and compassion. He had no part of the abuse, and no way of stopping it. He offered to help with remembering and dates. From there the rest of our day has been intense memory work, placing together times and years and people. 

Emotions are all over the place. Memories are in pieces. Pens and papers are everywhere. This headache is unreal.

That about sums it up.....

Carbs. We're mostly made up of multiple personalities and carbs. Lots of carbs. 

So lots has gone on. We moved. We left Denver and went west and it has been an amazing move. No move is without its challenges, and lets face it, we are pretty damn challenging. All in all though, its been an incredibly positive experience. 

Our walking is suffering but its been hard to find a routine and we are finding numbness in our right leg after 2 miles. So today I did one mile. Bella wants to get into a yoga routine. We like yoga, its fun. 

We're also knitting and learning to garden. Jenna is so incredibly excited about our gardens. We have starter plants growing in the garage. Totally excited about having a successful garden. Its a lot easier to garden since we are down 40lbs too. Still more to go but a great start. 

The flabby skin on our arms makes the body look 80 years old. The thighs too but that part we don't care about because pants hide that. The arms are tough for us but we'll figure that out somehow and at some point. 

Pictures will be coming of our garden experience.

Time Flies!

Its been over a month! I know, it sucks for me too. It turns out we despise trying to write a blog post on our cell phone. Our laptop is touchy and we really don't like being at the big computer with our back to the room, and the big computer takes forever to load stuff and its frustrating so we often don't bother. But then we don't write!  And Lord knows we need to write. We all do better writing and writing on paper isn't happening anymore.

Journaling is really helpful for most of us. Hand writing feels awkward and we all feel reluctant to have our thoughts laying around on paper. At least here we can make things private if we need to or want to, or we can share them with the world anytime we want to.

There are about 9 of us active right now.... they are....

Me (Kaysie)
Alayna
Jenna
Cadie
Lyssa
Hayley
Abby
Zoey
Bella

Bella isn't fronting at all unless absolutely necessary. The rest of us are handling day to day life as best we can. Its been tricky because we had to make the very hard choice to give our dog to our ex for reasons that are best for her....mostly health reasons. She was our therapy dog... our bond was tight and we miss her like crazy. Its only been a week but the chaos its created is nuts. Everything from feeling alone, abandoned, unsafe, unable to trust, attachment issues, and overwhelming sadness. I'm hoping it all starts to settle down soon.

Because everything is mixed up we have been working on new ways to stay connected and together. We have found a way to communicate outside when communication inside is tricky and the parents have been monitoring everything to make sure we can ask them whats been going on and they can help us out. They have been pretty patient too. We want to start writing more too.

Thats about it for now...

Kaysie

Reflection

So I just read an article. An article that caused some heavy thoughts and some goosebumps. I'll link the article to the bottom of my rambling because I want to process this out. In short summary, the article was about the author's opinion of comments made about a 14 year old girl who completed suicide after having a sexual relationship with her adult teacher. The author herself had a past filled with willing sex with adult men. She wrote that she was 25 before she realized that the men who consented to sex with her were pedophiles.

That struck a chord with me.  This body's first sexual partner was 40+ years old when the body was 4 years old. By 14 this body was having cyber and phone sex with grown men who knew the truth about our age. By 17 we had miscarried a baby, not with our original abuser, but from an adult man who introduced us to the BDSM lifestyle. One we entered willingly and thought we needed. At 18 we allowed ourselves to be prostituted.  We met our husband online at 17, married at 21, and had an active BDSM life with him until we hit mid 20s and started to realize that something wasn't right.

We consented to nearly everything.  We initiated a lot of it. We grew riskier at every turn. But looking back now, we weren't emotionally equipped to consent to sex. We had no business at all consenting to these relationships. I doubt if we are emotionally equipped to consent to sex now (one of many reasons we are no longer with said husband). 

We learned to use sex to manipulate situations at a very young age. We learned to submit to the desires of grown men in exchange for affection and we called that love.

What we didn't learn was boundaries.  We didn't learn self control. We didn't learn self respect, love, affection, or mutual desire. We didn't learn self worth or value. And it took until this year, when Mom and Dad took us in for it to become obvious to us.

Reading that article brought it all home for me. I'm not sure all of us get it now, but the article wrapped it up in a neat little package and threw a bow on it for me. It also explains our crazy strong reaction to our 46 year old neighbor having a relationship with the 17 year old across the street who has been in and out of the foster care system.  Yes, she's consenting, but she's got about 5 to 10 years before she really gets it. And I ache for her.  And I loathe him.

This protector gets its now.

Kaysie

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stacey-rambold-cherice-morales