All Seat belts Fastened?

Wednesday, August 10, 2012 at 12:41 PM

Greetings … It’s just us. We decided we better get some writing in because we just got a call from Rich. He said that we should go on a date and that he would pick me up at 2 PM. Okay, let's pretend that didn't send us through a small panic attack. We became automatically sulky and nonconforming. The last words expressed were something like an accusation of “You are going to make us get ready!” (It was stated as a pout). Rich’s normal expression is something like “Yes dear, but you have to get out.  I’m just trying to help.” (It was stated with more confidence than we have).  Hopefully, with any luck, we will not get too frazzled. It is a Friday, we did get in the shower, we still have an hour and 15 min. before we have to go, and Rich is going to be gone a good part of next week. These are all likely reasons why we should be going out, but always it is a drag on the system. We are better at virtual adventures then those leaving our computer behind. We need to live by whichever part that is saying that life is an adventure in 3-D land. Hopefully, she's the one who is going to buckle us in her seat. Grumble, grumble, and grumble.

Aha - we just found our picture that makes us feel a little bit better with the dog being belted in :). There is nothing better for a young part than searching for just the right picture.  It is our way of sharing the experience. Okay, yes that and we promised them they could have popcorn and pop before they left.

Okay girls, if we are going to write, you have to stop crunching on popcorn so fast - let's take turns okay? We all have to work within the same slight one hour of time. Okay, let's not get counting down the minutes, next?

We have been over at our “multiple” neighborhood. We're now calling it the Insiders’ Neighborhood (IN). We’re struck that Dell was using the term "insiders" to explain people who are multiple. I'm still working it out in my mind that it is an okay term to use. It seems to me that one of the problems with the term is that it feels like we're trapped inside something - possibly our own bodies by being the "in" term, so that would not be such a good thing. I do like the thought that anybody could be an insider if they were multiple so everybody would be “'in' the right crowd.” That part kind makes me feel that multiples are a little bit more special and maybe that's a good balance from the way things have been going in general society. We are still playing off our frustration at the majority of the world not considering multiplicity to be real.

We talked to Dr. Marvin about that last night, as well as many other things. Jesse, Kate and Sarah seemed to have the majority of the session. I think Casey was there at the start, but she didn't stick around after she introduced that the bigger parts had business to talk over. I think some of the business was 1) we had a goal for the billing, 2) then we wanted to talk about Dr. Marvin's peer, and then 3) there was the issue of getting papers from Dr. Marvin, 4) as well as getting the final documents possibly from Dr. Woollcott. 5) We also wanted to give Dr. Marvin the chance to catch up on our writing.

We initially didn't think that he might want to do this because I'm thinking that with the quantity of our writing that it can't be too exciting for him, and it is taking-up our session, but the questions he was asking were better handled from having read the entry. So, we sat back and let him do that and enjoyed watching his face throughout the process. I think he decided that we were more aware that he had thought. Since I don't know what he had thought, we'll just consider him right on this point.

I am too jumbled up right now to spell out everything that was going on.  Maybe, I'll just try to remember some of the highlights. As to the above highlights, Dr. Marvin said that UIC bookkeeping was behind because the University was switching their computerized appointment program. I know that he is aware that we are waiting for their business portion, so we just thought, okay that's fine as long as we've done our part; we asked and we can wait some more. We are in the process where we need the University to give us a clean billing sheet so we can submit it to Medicaid as proof that we paid $300 towards the fees. And, we also want the paperwork to reflect that Medicaid has Okayed expenses from April and May. The last thing we need the papers to do is to put out the real expenses, so that Medicaid will cover us for June, July, and now August.

The next business part was discussing Dr. Marvin's peer.  The first question being, "Is he your peer?" We read in yesterday's Google alerts that there was a doctor in Oak Park named Dr. Ron Moline who had done something with multiples.

Okay just a small note here. It is now 1:30 PM and Rich just called, and he says that traffic is really bad and that he will be a half an hour to 45 min. late. So instead of expecting him at 2 PM, we are now looking at 2:30 to 2:45 PM. We said great news for us! He laughed and said okay.

So, going back to Dr. Moline...

The article shows a picture of who he is. I recognize that the article was from the Forest Leaves which was the paper we used to get when we used to live in Oak Park, apparently the paper is still going. The book will be available October 15, 2012, it is a hard copy, and it sells for $53.42. The book is sold at Amazon and it is only 196 pages.  Eh light-weight hehehe!

Quote:  Oak Park – If one member of the Oak Park community has his way, individuals diagnosed with a debilitating condition will have a more direct route to attention and treatment.

The condition, dissociative identity disorder (DID) – also called multiple personality disorder – is popularly known to characters like those in films “Sybil” and “The Three Faces of Eve.”  In reality, however, the diagnosis is controversial. [I get tired of this reference - don't you?]

Dr. Ron Moline M.D., a member of the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of psychiatry faculty and a psychiatrist since 1966, and wants to end the doubt.

“I regard it as a very profound pathology that needs to be cured, if possible, he said, and has written a book to advance that cause. He expresses his ideas in his new book, Moline argues for the validity of the diagnosis and recommends a non-standard treatment course based on his own success with DID patients. The diagnosis and treatment of dissociative identity disorder: a case study and contemporary perspective will be published by this winter.

The heart of Moline's authority is his longtime work with one DID patient whose journey he chronicles in the book. Prior to encountering this patient, a well-educated professional woman with the family, Moline said he was skeptical about DID. This case cleared his uncertainty.

Essentially, DID involves the presence of two or more distinct personality states within an individual that can take control of his or her behavior. Symptoms can include multiple mannerisms and attitudes, psychotic like issues such as hearing voices, and memory loss when a different personality takes control. Women are much more frequently diagnosed with DID than men and the diagnosis is highly correlated with childhood abuse.

“The field of psychiatry is almost as divided on the diagnosis of this condition as it is on the politics of this country,” he said, noting that its incident became widely recognized in the 1980s, hand-in-hand with the rise of cultural questions about gender and other aspects of identity.

“Identity began to be very fluid and for some reason this diagnosis became almost a Jericho epidemic, to the degree that there were psychiatric units opening to address it,” he said.

The boom also fueled professional skepticism about DID, including Moline's own, until he met his case study patient and saw her personality characteristics change rapidly and convincingly, even during the course of a therapy session.

“These presentations were compelling, frightening and could not be ignored,” Moline recalled. After he worked with her intensively for six years, Moline said the woman regained a solid sense of identity that she's held now for almost a decade.

“This book is important for two reasons,” Moline said.  “It addresses skepticism about the diagnosis and deals with questions about it, and it question the orthodoxy of treatment among the so-called ‘experts,” I would like to persuade the psychiatric profession that the diagnosis is real, and persuade clinicians that the treatment is much less formulaic that some would want.”

Moline, a 33-year Oak Park resident who raised two children here, is  not new to publishing. In addition to professional articles he has authored “In Good Faith,” a book on Unitarian – Universalism based on his role as volunteer archivist for Unity Temple.

“End QUOTE”

The author of this article is Meredith Morris and this article was contributed  August 7, 2012 at 8 PM in the Forest Leaves which is a Chicago Sun-Times publication and can be found here

http://riverforest.suntimes.com/news/14317069-418/doctor-seeks-breakthrough-on-personality-disorder.html

So anyway, the scope is – yes, Dr. Marvin does know Dr. Moline quite well, and he describes him as older, and someone who has been around UIC for over 30 years. He states that Dr. Moline was seeing his multiple back when Dr. Marvin started seeing me, and when asked further, Dr. Marvin states that he had three multiple patients when he started just as he was leaving residency, and that two patients remain. And then Dr. Marvin, confided that yes he has talked to Dr. Moline about me quite a bit and that they interact as professional collaborators. That just gave me the giggles.  I'm wondering who came first between this woman as Dr. Moline's patient, or me as Dr. Woollcott's patient in 1990, and then I wonder since Dr. Woollcott was the head of the UIC Psych Department - if he also then collaborated with Dr. Moline.  It's really an interesting new perspective.

Okay, then you could probably see this coming, but I asked Dr. Marvin if he could get a copy of the book for me, and then he could tell Dr. Moline that I would give him a copy of my book. It seems a matter professionalism, I believe. I'm still giggling. I say one giant yay for UIC, and then have to ask Dr. Marvin "Where is your book?" They could have a whole specialty at UIC - think that could go hand in hand with the work that's been done by its neighbor Rush-Presbyterian.  They have had Dr. Bennett Braun - one of the three biggest in the fields. His bio says that he helped to start the International Association for dissociation in 1983.

As a side, we were at Rush Psych unit in 1990 for seven weeks, but our multiplicity wasn't diagnosed at that time.  They had thought we were being manic depressive because that's the diagnosis we started with and they threw us out on the curb when they found out our insurance was ending after 7 weeks.  We were still depressed and suicidal, but they were like who could care?  That's my opinion of Rush.  UIC on the other hand - seriously less than a mile away in distance didn't throw me to the curb.  They supported Medicaid, and, they picked up the work and made the correct diagnosis that Rush hadn't.  Dr. Woollcott made the diagnosis during an interview that included us and about 30 health care people in a large meeting.  Currently, Dr. Marvin also stated that some of his residents were seeing multiples now as well.  That's about as much information as I could squirm out of him he's pretty tightlipped. So anyway that was that part of the business.

Yeah yeah .. Dr. Braun - here is his bio if your interested.  Click!

Yeeks - I posted this link so I figured I better go back and review the entire article.  It was actually put out by FMS - the ugly False Memory people.  The way they write the Braun story is that - a bunch of them sued him for "Rewriting a patient's life" to include some horrific RA stuff.  I'm not sure how old the article was, but they stated that they had brought this person under with legalities and stripping him of his licence.  Please don't read the article unless you are able to do this kind of thing.  I don't really know if Braun was a genius or Charlatan.  Just that we were never treated by him, nor had we been treated by hypnosis for anything other then to stop smoking - that evidently did work :)  We were 25 years in and now have stopped for 6 years.  Yay us!  Kind of sorry to hear of Braun, but don't credit much anything done to damage the efforts of doctors and other therapists of complications from being multiple.

Anyway...

The next part of business was talking to Dr. Marvin about getting papers from Dr. Woollcott. We had thought that maybe if we could get a hold of Dr. Woollcott that we could meet somewhere in exchange from car to car the passing off of papers and an enormous part of our segmented life - if he still holds them. I would love another opportunity to see Dr. Woollcott, but he has to see that that we haven't really lost too much weight. He is going to get on our case about that. We had not been heavy when we had seen him, but the two years after in Winona, MN with BAD psychiatry (those people didn't believe in multiplicity), and the 13 years with Dr. Marvin, we have been heavy. That doesn't look too good for Dr. Marvin. Let's blame it on him!

Dr. Marvin seems to think it was a good idea to get papers from Dr. Marvin and that we might be ready for it, and he discussed that maybe there was one other way of getting some of the papers that he's missing from his email collection. I am sure it's got something to do with the way computers save information or archive. Maybe Dr. Marvin can get some help with it although he is very computer savvy.  If Dr. Woollcott can give us the papers from his years, the first thing we'll do is set up a system of getting them all into the computer through the scanner, and then we will store them with our the papers online until we can get to them properly. There's so much work to be done in the world of our multiplicity.

We did send Dr. Woollcott the note, but we'll give him some time to return it. We don't know if he's even in town although now I believe he lives in Northern Michigan, so that's his newer town. He is retired and I would be asking a lot from him. Since he moved from Chicago to Michigan, I would hope he still has the paperwork, but I can't be too sure - perhaps it was lost. I am thinking that his Chicago house would have been bigger than his Michigan house. Okay, let's not get into that worry. We know he knows we'd be interested in the paperwork.  I think, he would have let us know that he had to do something different with the papers, before he threw him.  Dr. Woollcott is very familiar with our writing and was instrumental in starting us up in that direction.

The last part of the business meeting with Dr. Marvin was having him read our last blog entry from a couple of days ago. I'm always appreciative when Dr. Marvin moves so quickly from one station to another - in this case moving from his session chair to his computer chair. He is very fluid. Okay - we hold him visually hehehe - it's an important element.  It didn't take him too long, and I was also happily surprised that he remembered how to get back to the blog. That would fulfill all my fantasies that even he reads me. I know, I know he's a busy man let that one go too. I don't think he asked too much about what he was reading. He probably made a few clarifying comments or remarks. There was one remark that he stated that there was something written new to him, but I don't recall what he said at this point. And it's already 2 PM so were really worried about the time.

When Dr. Marvin returned to his seat, we started talking about what was written and about other stuff that had to do with our blog/writing visiting processes in general. And then, we even talked/discussed some of the work by Dell and O'Neill. By this time, Dr. Marvin has a hard copy of the book and he has read/skimmed several chapters. He hinted that the next chapter 4 was on attachment and it might be something I was also interested in. He's hinted in this direction before.  He also asked if we had gotten a copy of the book because he was now printing out some of the work for his students. That made me really proud that I had anything to do with him getting smarter, and then that he was sharing smartness with others in the doctoring business. It makes me feel like a million bucks – Though this million-bucker person better get herself dressed because we don't want to be surprised by Rich coming home before we are ready. Hold on.

Okay, all dressed. We'll just have to stop in the washroom on the way out and we're all set to go. I think both of my electronics are energized. I might want to add ear plugs in case of a sudden need for music. This doesn't usually happen, unless I get mad at Rich, but we don't get mad at him tooooo often, just in case you never know. I think one of the parts especially appreciates the distraction of music to calm self.  Sometimes we are put off after a visit to his mother's.  I'm not sure exactly where we are going either. I think it has something to do with getting his boat dropped off at the fix-it guy place or picking his boat up from the fix-it guy place. I think there's a dinner involved, and I think he is thinking of having pie over at his mother's house afterword if it is not too late. He's got a whole bunch stacked into the date night.

Back to Dr. Marvin's – I think we were most excited by the conversation on reading and learning from the multiples like us. I can't say that enough. Something I wrote reminded us that we were really searching out most likely for our identity within the identity of others like us. Dr. Marvin reminded us that we like to have things organized and systems, so when we created a system for gathering our multiple contacts, and visiting, then that didn't seem to surprise him much.  It feels like the old AOL days back in 2003.  It is within our MO. We do crazy things like this, and he just smiles and smiles. I think anything to do with us learning about ourselves and others excites him. I think he likes it too that we are interested in the field, especially because his interests lie in anything toward psychiatric healing.

I wasn't in on the conversation that the others were having with Dr. Marvin about multiplicity in itself because that kind of thing is more complicated than I usually get. It was really surprising because we didn't have the work directly in front of us as a resource.  We don't usually go into it without notes and note-taking.  He helped Kate get through the words that she couldn't remember. For example, she has a hard time remembering the term "attachment" speaking of theories of attachment. I think it is the work of Bowlby. We have read some work through some old Master's courses, and through the multiples' block about attachment, so I know it's out there and is being discussed in the multiple community.

I'm having a really hard time talking about, or thinking about what was being said at Dr. Marvin's. I think it has to come up in some kind of context. I just remember the part that he was helping Kate remember a couple of the vocabulary words, and that parts were remembering things about the chapter that we've been stuck on for so long, and that Dr. Marvin knew that we were still reading that one section of the book. I think he is looking forward to us going forward. I am looking for insights that he might be picking up, like I think it's a great thing that he thought enough about something to make copies for his students. We'll have to ask next time which chapters he'd copied.

He's obviously getting something out of it that makes sense to his own knowledge base.  I also like that he is again fluid enough to add something spontaneously to his course schedule and that it is something about multiplicity.  I'm always voting for him to concentrate more on multiplicity other than schizophrenia, depression or other.  I wonder sometimes of all that he might have learned from us or talked to others about us.  I think this is our own bit of narcissism.  We want to know we are making a difference even if we don't know how directly.  We REALLY like the idea of being in Dr. Marvin's thoughts.  Sometimes it's easy to forget that Dr. Marvin is the director of all of resident interns for UIC. That puts he and them in a prodigious place in the life stream. Sometimes, I get a little bit over-excited about thinking that he's learning from me, and by that understanding, he is making sense to others as well. It's like an evolution for "OUR" cause.  He has never thought to suggest that an intern or resident should come into our meeting with us, and I'm pretty grateful for that because I'd have to share Dr. Marvin, although with the amount of thoughts that we express outward, it might be something fun to do also. Not for anything serious, but we're pretty sure, we could easily entertained someone. Hehehe - you know which walnut half is holding the pea.  :)

Some time has gone by, and we were just using the washroom.  We figure better we should get that out of the way in a  housekeeping manner - no not a housekeeping task, just in priorities, you know? It's now 2:30 PM and I'm thinking that we're going have to end this pretty soon so we can get it locked into the computer before we go, although I think Rich owes me 5 min. after he gets here because he hasn't given me a definite time we'll need to walk out the door.  Likely though if he's behind though, he'll be rushing.  I'm very frustrated that I can't remember more of what Dr. Marvin and us had talked about. I understand that I'm not the one that was out, but I should have some more information on what was going on. I don't think it was a secret. Maybe it is just too complex for me? Who knows? We are still little frustrated also that we have to be going outside our place. I'm one of the group that LOVES staying at home - and VERY near the computer.  I'm ready for it physically, but emotionally I'm not really up for it.  Better get the earphones out for the Kindle/Rhapsody. Okay that is done.

Man oh man - we are just floundering here. I think I better back out now while we are still holding our self-respect. Okay, okay one more thing.  We're supposed to tell what we did last night and this morning - very quickly girls. Yes, I know it is part of our routine. Okay, last night what do we remember? That seems to be the cue question.

We seem to have come home and gotten out of our regular clothes and we had gotten ourselves ready to eat. Rich had spaghetti waiting for us. At least he calls it spaghetti; I call it tomato hot dish. I like the hot dish better because it has more spaghetti sauce. The next thing is that we had gotten a call ... Oh my gosh, I can't believe we almost forgot this ... First, Rich had a call from his son, Chris, and I was frustrated because he had called during dinner and Rich had not excused himself to call back later after dinner with us. Rich and his son are still trying to pretend I don't live in this house with Rich when they talk. I went back to my computer area and we're kinda doing a pout, and I started to work from there a little on the computer, but in a very short time it was me who was getting a call, and it was Thom on the other end! Oh my gosh, we were just so excited!

The bottom line story with Thom is that he is coming home for 7 to 12 day vacation. He was hard to hear in an auditory respect, so I wasn't sure of all the words and I did want to keep repeating "What was that?" because I thought he would get frustrated and sign off. We learned all about what's going on, or is much as the mother has a right to know. I think he really misses his wife who is in Vietnam right now. She won't be back until the end of August. I think Thom is coming home probably next Friday. He's in DC now days - though he was talking about going back to work in Japan. Rich is leaving Wednesday night at midnight for fishing with Bob and his group, so they will not see each other for the first part, but I think Thom will still be around until when Rich gets back.

Thom indicated that he might even be staying with me for a day or two because he was by himself and didn't need the regular bed for two. We only have the extra couch back in the sewing room, but he seemed to think that was fine. I think he's just checking out his options.  We volunteered our car again if he wanted it, but I think he had wanted some small change in that plan last time, but I know he is saving money, so maybe he will let himself use it. He hadn't told the rest of the family yet that he was coming home, but I thought that was going to be soon in coming. He seemed strange when I asked him if he was staying at his father's, because he almost always does.  He said he had thought that his father had moved, and it seemed that the father had not given him a new address yet, or had not communicated with Thom since the funeral of the boys grandmother, which allowed our ex and his wife the money to move. All I know is that they are now in Bolingbrook and we know that it was supposed to be a nice improvement of their other house which had been nice and that the improvement started with a house an extra $100,000 more.  Okay, I still note these types of things even though it has been about 20 years.

The call went on for a little while, and I'm always sad when we've gotten through our business and it is time for him to leave again. The calls are always a long time in-between.  We are pretty much an agenda person with Thom, like how is this?  How is that?  And, he is one of the people that will ask me how my life is going. Unfortunately, he had remembered that I was on a diet, and we had to respond that it wasn't going great. He wasn't very clear as to me being in school, or looking for a job, or being on disability, or any of that. We gave him a quick rundown, but we were kind of mushy as to the details especially with our excitement of being on the Internet with multiples.  I don't think he was understanding it. Rich had fallen asleep during the conversation because he knew I was having trouble hearing Thom and so he had turned down the TV he had been watching. There was a nice rain coming down and it just felt very homey.

I think I started to get back into the work of the blog and other, but we ended up just talking to Rich for a little bit, and then he convinced us that he really needed a back massage, and perhaps we might pay some attention to his legs and feet. Well, you can't go wrong here. Unfortunately, I crested sooner than I would have liked. Later he reminded me of all the good times I missed after I'd fallen asleep. The first thing I learned is that the Bears game we were waiting for to start that was postponed due to thunder and lightening was actually a game lost by the Bears. Rich handled that for a little bit, but then he watched TV for a little time, and then he read from the Kindle until the battery wore out. I should've had it plugged in yesterday but my plug-in was still in my backpack and Rich didn't know where it was. It's now charged - Yay!

Nothing very exciting this morning I felt I was just pushing Rich out the door because he was breaking my concentration. I've get serious things to  be doing first thing in the morning, you know? I am eager to see him now, but just a little bit afraid of falling into the right amount of time spent with him and "cooperative" parts out, and being on time now before he gets home, so I think I'm going to end this now - nothing else you know, regular-regular, and then she moved on :)

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