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)

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

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