We, or maybe just I, seriously need "office hours". We need to dedicate a time where we can just write, research, learn, grow, think... and to process things. I process things through reading and writing, and using our cell phone to research and write is a lesson in futility... or maybe a lesson in patience... or possibly a bit of both. With so many changes in our life recently processing is soooo seriously necessary.
Right now I'm hiding away in my room with a laptop and music. I feel at peace today. Its a much needed feeling because the family has struggled with transitioning and adjusting and we take the blame for that. We all, as in all 11 of us, take the blame and that gets to be a bit complicated sometimes because we can't possibly ALL be responsible for the family struggling. I started wondering a few days ago why we do that. I started to really think about it but got stuck because I can't seem to process anything without writing and I'm out of notebooks to hand write things in. I prefer writing online anyways.
Why do we automatically assume that we are responsible or to blame for everything?
Well, its certainly not because we believe we are THAT important or because we feel everything revolves around us. That is definitely not it.
After some thought (and a few song changes) I think its because we have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong since early childhood. I don't want to be one of those people who place the blame elsewhere or who complains endlessly about their past, but our childhood is kinda how we ended up a "we" in the first place. Oh... just thought of this possible reason too.... if we take the blame for everything then we don't have to face conflict.
I think that's a real possibility... and I think thats part of what's going on with Jessa. Jessa is the oldest (in age) but still about 16 years old. She's the main protector and has shouldered that responsibility for a long time. She has single handedly made decisions for the system and decided for what we will and won't accept/take responsibility. She's been told before that it would one day backfire, and I think that day may have come.
We are safe here. We have parents, the treasures are here and safe. We have a family. We have extended family now. We have loving aunts, an amazing nana, and the treasures have that too (along with some cousins... whoot!). We have supervision, guidance, and space to be ourselves in entirety. And we have NO idea what to do with all of this. Add to that an absolute inability to understand how to deal with conflict and some seriously immature social skills and you get an epic disaster and an overall emotional explosion.
That's where Jessa is, I think. She's pretty much not communicating at all with anyone at all. She's almost perfect in her politeness. She's staying calm, polite, civil, and out of the way. She's doing her best to not ruffle feathers and is taking care to be productive and useful. And she's miserable. What's worse is that she can't see how uncomfortable and sad she's making other people. She's stuck and can't find her way out of it and refuses to discuss anything with any of her trusted adults because she doesn't want to cause them any trouble. Maybe she doesn't really trust anyone. Maybe she's too scared to be vulnerable.
Vulnerability is a hard one for me, personally. I hate admitting weakness and traditionally my fears, anxieties, and weaknesses have been met with exploitation or just ignored in general. That doesn't inspire me to open up and be vulnerable. I have zero good experience with being vulnerable and I have a hard time talking about hard feelings and emotions when the conversation doesn't change anything. Too many times in my existence people have said they care, they love me, they are going to help me... and then they disregard and ignore my anxieties and leave me literally struggling to breathe and to not dissociate while they go out and have a good time. That kinda gets old. I know Jessa sees that too and she's usually the one that has to help me function through my anxiety so that might make it hard for her to trust too. I'm really not sure.
I know that me, Mia, and Jenna are working our way through some self-help workbooks. We are doing our very best to teach Lyssa and Cadie what we are learning and we are working hard at applying what we are learning. I think its been helping. I mean, we don't feel much different, but family life seems to be running more smoothly.
Now that I think about it, I believe part of why its running more smoothly is because we have finally let go of a power struggle we were having with Mom. We can NOT keep saying we trust her and then treat her like we don't. We understand what we are doing and why, but she doesn't always and that's not fair. And she has her own emotional shit-storm to process too. It doesn't make it any easier for anyone in this house to bond or function well and somehow Dad seems to end up in the middle of it all and that's not cool either.
Mom and Lex had a really really good talk yesterday. Lex has settled in at the age of 4 years old but we have strong reasons to believe she's the original. We did learn yesterday that she understands things far better than we ever gave her credit for. Alexandria has been around for as long as any of us can remember. She hasn't always been active, but she's always been there. Lurking. She's a clever little girl who proved yesterday that she can listen, understand, and apply what she's given for information. It takes her a little while to process everything, if she retains it, but when she applies it she has the ability to calm the entire system and calm our inner world.
I know this is all over the place. I'm about to jump topics again. I need to get it all down now and I can come back later over time and chip away at it.
Triggers... we aren't handling some of our triggers very well. Some of them are worse than we originally thought. Some are really hard to swallow and we are left feeling very alone with them. Others aren't so bad and are clearing up a little, I need to explore the relationship between trust and our triggers.
External people. We have been recently made aware that not all of "us" are accepted by everyone we are around on a regular basis. That has been a bit of a blow. We understand are completely accepting of the fact that not everyone has to accept us all. That part isn't the issue. It's trying to figure out how to keep everyone around us comfortable and happy.
Everyone.
That's kind of a big job. Maybe we shouldn't be worried about keeping everyone happy and comfortable. But if we don't, we are going to lose people we want to keep around. Or lose out on their time and attention. Ick. That's going to take more thought.
Moving on.... Dad's home and dinner will be ready soon.
So I read a really great blog post today about DID being an injury vs an illness. It was such an eye opener. I shared it on our Facebook and can post it here if anyone's interested. DID is not an illness. We are not contagious. We have not contracted a sickness. No amount of meds will make it go away. What it is, is an injury. We were injured at a very young age. Someone deliberately hurt us.
Dad just cut me off.
Later!
~Layna
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