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