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

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

The List

This is, hands down, one of my most favorite memes from Facebook. It completely describes most of us in this system. People have asked us before why we always seem to need to learn things the hard way and the answer has always been the same..... we didn't realize there was any other way. I think, in a way, the hard road/way always seems easiest to understand. We are leery of things that seem too easy. Almost like its a trap or not "real". 

So, these silly girls take the hard road. Part of taking the hard road seems to be never looking at what's right in front of you. Right in front of me is a ton of opportunity to learn new things and to do things that previously were impossible. Mom and Daddy are really supportive of whatever it is we want to try. So some of us made lists of things we would like to try to learn or do.

My list so far: 

Lose weight (working on that, down 32lbs since we moved here in August)

Learn to bake

Learn to cook

Become a better and more consistent writer

Get divorced

Knit something useful

Change the way the body looks to better reflect us... get comfortable in our skin

Learn to bead on a loom

Become somewhat athletic

So far that's what I've got. Glee is playing now (binging on Netflix) and they are talking about Domestic Violence. I'm home alone, like usual these days, and anxiety is bad. I have brownies cooking for Mama in hopes that it makes her smile. I used a box mix because I have no idea how to bake anything from scratch, nor do I understand what ingredients would be needed. That's why baking is on my list. 

Its time to switch. I'll let you know how my list progress goes.

Alayna Jade

Our Aching Feet.....

Most weekday mornings we head out for a walk. We aim for anywhere between 3 and 5 miles, although sometimes we're lucky to hit two miles.... haha.  The walks weren't something we could really do in our old life. We didn't feel safe enough or comfortable enough and it always seemed like our time was better spent in other ways. Here, though, we are greeted every morning by this sight:

Our mountains wish us good morning (taken 11/1/15 with the samsung S6 around 7:45am).

We really didn't think the walks were accomplishing much except for aching feet. (Pretty sure we have a muscle/tendon problem in the right foot, but no pain no gain, right?!). When Mom realized we were serious about the walking she decided we needed new shoes and that has helped a lot (stupid arch in the right foot is still killing us tho....shhh). We seriously had no shortage of aches and pains but we own a mirror and nothing seemed to be changing. It was getting pretty disappointing, which was leading to feelings of defeat and failure. Those feelings were, in turn, fueling some massive bad energy and I'm willing to bet causing us to overreact to other things. We were getting tired of seeing this (see picture below) and still feeling rejected and worthless (other things contribute to that feeling but this wasn't helping):

This a partial screen shot of our Fitbit Flex today (11/1/15).

The negative emotions were eating us alive. We were second guessing a lot of our recent major decisions and trying to figure out how we had screwed up so badly in life. We were trying to figure out what was wrong with us and why we are always rejected and/or left behind. It was just bad. If you've read other posts, you know how bad things got. Everyone in this house was dealing with their own problems and adjusting to their transitions in their own way. Everyone was battling big things... and we were sick. We spent almost all of last week with a bad cold and a mild fever. That helped NOTHING at all, especially because we couldn't safely go for our walks. We could barely make it safely across the driveway. 

Being down for the count last week, having to rest and not walk seemed like a great thing. It seemed so wonderful to not ache and not deal with the arch pain in our right foot. It continued to seem like that, but our life seemed to be falling apart at the same time. We were a mess, our life felt like a huge mess. 

Thursday of last week Mom insisted that we were not only going on our walk, but that we would complete two miles before coming home. Honestly, I (meaning me, Alayna) was pretty sure she had lost her mind because we were still running a slight fever so in my mind we were still sick. Sick kids don't go for walks. Sick kids binge on Netflix. I wanted us to binge on Netflix. Needless to say, if you've ever met my mother, we lost and we went for our 2 mile walk. We lived through it and Jenna at least, was pretty proud of us for getting it done. Then we went back to hanging out with Netflix. (side note: Netflix is pretty much our only friend here, so we're pretty attached...lol)

Friday morning comes around and Mom, once again, insists on a 2 mile walk. We ended up with close to 2.5 miles on Friday. 

By yesterday, we realized that when we don't walk, we miss a lot of benefits from walking. We miss our park, our mountain, and our trees.

More importantly, we miss out on the good feelings that come from walking. We've always heard that walking releases endorphins and raises mood, blah blah blah. I can honestly tell you that the blah blah blah is real. Our mood and our life was spiraling out of control because we weren't doing what we needed to do in order to take care of ourselves. No, we shouldn't be walking when we're sick but we could have tried sooner. Mom knew though. She knew how badly we relied on that, even when we didn't. She made the choice to force us back into it knowing we didn't feel well. 

That's not to say that our problems as a family were all due to a lack of walking. God I wish it were that easy. No, we as a family have a lot of work to do in order to make everyone feel welcome, safe, and happy. But we can make it better on ourselves and, in turn on our family, by keeping up with our walking. 

This morning, while we were hanging out in Mama's room watching her go through her laundry, she had us try on some pants. Almost everything she gave us to try on fit, and most of them were smaller than what we already had. She had noticed that we were struggling to keep our pants up. We noticed too, kinda, but figured we stretched them out or something. We never considered that we were ready for smaller pants. Her scale (which she only lets us use once a week) showed us today that we have lost 30.2 pounds since we moved here in August. That's huge. It's seriously huge and we never noticed. I spent a bit looking in the mirror today, and I really can't see it. The neighbor sees it. Aunt Leslie says she sees it in pictures. Mom says she sees it. We just don't.

What we do see: Our hair is growing back thicker and in much better shape, our nails are getting healthier, our blood sugar is almost always close to perfect and a blood sugar level of 90 feels great. When we first moved here 130 triggered a low reaction. Our average blood sugar sat around 300 and refused to budge.  

Today, after completing 3 miles and seeing the scale, the clothes fitting differently, and spending some not emotional, perfectly normal time with Mama, I feel good. Not only do I feel good, I feel hopeful, strong, and I feel a weird sort of peace. I don't really feel safe yet, that I think will come in time. I think I need to work on not pushing myself to feel safe. Pushing this system to feel something we aren't ready for or can't seem to grasp always seems to lead to disaster. I think I'm going to do my best to keep my sisters and I looking ahead and I'm going to keep building my support system. I love my family and I won't give up.

Alayna Jade

Understanding Ourselves....

Henry David Thoreau said "Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."

We have spent the better part of our lives lost. We didn't really gain much for understanding ourselves.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with that. I just know that today has been rough, almost from the beginning. Jessa was out this morning, and she's struggling hard emotionally and has been for months now. She faced our first major trigger by  9:30am and then the triggers just kept coming.

We have been working hard at reigning in strong emotion and not forcing anyone to pay for our emotional fall out. We succeeded in keeping our emotions quiet so far today, but not with a lot of struggle and a lot of silent tears. We are losing time badly and aren't even positive who is out. I know right now I'm Layna, but I have no idea who was here or what happened in the last hour. Its Cadie's turn at 3pm and I hope we can get that together. 

I just now remembered that the youngest child is here in the house.  I was in a full blown panic because I could hear noises and I didn't know where they were coming from. I was sure that I was in danger... and it wasn't the fist time today we thought we (or someone we love) was in danger. Being faced with triggers like that, especially the big triggers, ends up causing intense fear, dissociation, and paranoia. When faced with big triggers together, like we did today, we become almost emotionally catatonic, or an emotional volcano. 

I hate when it gets like this. I hate when we are triggered so badly that we slide into black outs and losing time. I hate that we can't handle being alone at home for more than a couple of hours. I hate that we are so pathetic. I hate the messages from J and J. I hate the fact that we are expendable and second string. I hate that we are so easy to push aside and not at all worth chasing or talking things out with. I hate that I can not remember what I'm writing right now and I have to keep re-reading to remember. 

 

I hate that today we feel defeated and either useless or a fuck up (can't agree on which). I don't even know what to write about. Noises keep coming from outside and a couple of the dogs keep whining and crying and I have no idea whats causing any of it. The kids that are home keep asking whats going on and I don't have an answer which is making me feel more scared, pathetic, and useless. I've done chores around then house in hopes of proving that we are worth something.... have any kind of value.  Anything that makes up for these PTSD reactions. 

Its now Cadie's turn but we're having trouble switching.We seem to be doing okay co-con. We just can't totally switch. We are gonna have to work on that because Cadie is less emotional than me and I'm freaking out and no one comes home for another 3 hours. so she'd really be the best option. We will have to keep on working on that. I feel so alone. I can't tell if this headache is from the emotions or the cold we are fighting. My eyes burn too. Hoping its not a fever.

**Layna**

When the Parents are the Monsters

I found this image on Pinterest when looking for writing prompts. It is incredibly tempting to create a beautiful story to go with this quote, but it hit a nerve and so this won't be some made up story. 

You see, there are those of us in the world who can understand and relate to this one.  

From the age of 3 the monsters in our life were our parents. More specifically our biological mother and her second husband. He entered our life right after the bio-mother forced the bio-father into leaving. Possibly even before then. Those two had a long history, dating back to the bio-mother's teenage years when she babysat his children from his first marriage. 

From what we can remember, the sexual and emotional abuse and manipulation began right away. Years later, while trying to process everything, I believe we have come to terms with the fact that we were an easy target and quite possibly the only reason he married her. We were 4 when they married and we were someone else's child. Bio-mother was so intent on having her picture perfect family that she kept bio-father as far away as she could, and she turned a blind eye to the things in her life that didn't fit into her perfect family. She was all about appearances. 

Even at 4, (I'm going to use "we" here. It's more comfortable for me.) we knew that we weren't good enough for bio-mom. He told us that on a regular basis. He groomed us to be available to him and he made sure we understood that we had no hope of her ever loving us. By the age of 6 we had been told that she hated us. She hated us, and would be jealous and hate us even more if she knew we were getting his attention. We didn't know... we had no idea that this wasn't happening in every family. We didn't know there was only supposed to be one of us. We had no idea that anything was wrong on a conscious level. 

On a subconscious level we knew. We were a** full blown bulimic by the age of 9. By 12 we were hugely overweight and made to weigh ourselves in front of the family so that he could tell everyone how fat we were. He was sure to tell us that no one would ever want us, we had no hope at a family, marriage, love, or children. We were expendable and not wanted and the only reason we had a roof over our head was because he pitied us. All of this was being fed to us while he abused us sexually. She - bio-mother -  was rarely home. She went out with friends, went to school, went to work... she talked to us on the phone after school everyday but that was simply to tell us what chores she wanted done. When we were alone, the bad things happened. To this day we feel rejected and struggle with nearly paralyzing anxiety when we are alone. We lose time badly and often forget the children are here and rarely remember where they are or what they are doing. 

At the age of 14, we told. We told a camp counselor, who told the camp director. We were at an overnight camp for a week. They reported it all to social services and then sent us home. Bio-mother told us all about how our report was going to cost her the house and her cars. She told us to "shut up about it". She told us that we weren't the first girl it ever happened to and that we probably wouldn't be the last. She told us all about her anxiety, and how her feelings needed to be protected, and how she needed us to give her space to deal with her emotions. She made sure to tell us how hard her life was and how she needed her space. It was 3 years before we heard her say she loved us. As a matter of fact, aside from necessary conversation she pretty much ignored us.

She didn't leave him. We were forced to continue to live with them. It was the early 1990s and reports weren't handled like they are now. She wrote a letter asking social services to close the case and made us sign it (she says it didn't happen like that). They closed the case and left us with them. We spent some time in counseling but that ended when bio-mother was done taking us. 

We left that house at 17. And I wish I could say that was the end of the abuse, but we left there broken. Broken and split. 

How I wish there had been a monster under the bed to protect us from them.

** I understand that there are some issues grammatically.  It was done intentionally and in a way that makes sense to us.

Alayna Jade

Office Hours, Processing, and Jessa

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

The Worst is Over Now.....

.... so what the fuck is wrong with us?

Cadie touched on it some yesterday. Not gonna rehash that, its boring crap anyways.

I woke up in a fairly decent mood... and then I had to get out of bed. Instantly everything was stupidly overwhelming. I couldn't remember who was supposed to do what (thank God for the schedule/checklist Mama made), or what time anything was supposed to happen. I made it through most of it without taking it out on the kids, which is good because its not their fault they were born to a mommy who is falling apart, and I hit the shower. I was seriously relived to see the neighbor (who is more like an uncle/nanny) sitting in the living room directing the kids to finish up their morning routine. It was one less thing I had to focus on and my good mood returned.

Uncle Neighbor and I took the kids to school. Right before we left Girl 2 mentioned that today is half-day Wednesday. That totally caught me off guard because I had forgotten all about the half days every Wednesday. On the way home he mentioned plans for today that we had no idea were happening and immediately the anxiety creeped back in and the mood was shattered. Cadie had asked yesterday what the plans were for today and the answer she was given and had emotionally prepared for did not match how this morning was portraying the day. I spent the rest of the walk home wondering if we have finally shattered emotionally. We never used to have a routine, stability, or structure, so why is it now that the smallest deviation from what we have emotionally prepared for launches a full blown anxiety attach? Kenzie is a fucking emotional disaster and I know that is a large part of our issues. Jessa is back but has no faith in herself or her abilities to keep us safe and well. I'm not sure I can do it either, but I know Jessa can.  She's always done it before.

I have such a headache this morning. The anxiety is too bad to even try to eat.