Rocking the Crib

Monday, August 6, 2012 at 4:36 PM

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Although this isn't the point where the triggering material begins I'm going to put a trigger alert here for anyone to stop if they are sensitive to things that shouldn't be talked about in front of small children, or your adult parts who might be more vulnerable.  I can't remember the last time we had to put a spoiler in to something we're doing, but it feels like the right thing to do. Okay going back...

Good afternoon. It is a strange time for me to write, but I'm trying to get to the part where we can tell about the flashback. I don't mean to bring up so much suspense; it is just dogging me down. I guess this next part though would be the part where we clear up some of the other things that have been happening so we can focus on the other. To put things in perspective we had problem with the flashbacks on Tuesday, so six days ago, and then Wednesday we had jumped in to the blog pool with 2 feet – 2 feet with paddles. Thursday we continued that work and went to see Dr. Marvin. Most of that appointment was spent in tears. There were many references back to Tuesday, but we were not up to talking about it there either. We just cried and cried hard, hot tears. Part of the reason that that experience was so hard was that we were spending most the time talking about giving up school. That is coming across that this a major defeat to me. Other times we can be okay with the thought of all we are going to be doing with the time, but the time is hard, because although it's what we want to do, it's not bringing money into the family and I have to depend more on Rich and that is something we avoided for 18 years.

With school, we were able to get 100’s on most of the assignments, but we were not able to get to the assignments, start them, and finish them, and move on. And, I had we are developing all these systems upon systems of thoughts trying to get to a space that gives us great satisfaction. We love the material that we are reading in school. But we had trouble disconnecting from one written resource to another and being able to hold the information in while an entire bevy of new stuff was coming in. We were also going through other things. At the beginning of this particular course, we had gotten into the tweeting. I won't blame it on that because it wouldn't be fair. But, the more we learned and became interested in school the more need we saw in developing a social presence for our many selves on the Internet. This led into a lot of work that happened on the blog. You've already heard us talking about the changes there and there have been many more since.

I keep walking further and further away from where I want to go, but it seems it there so much catching up to do because I haven't really written for several days. Just briefly then some of the changes the blog have seen are that we redid the banner so it now includes our wordle, the title of the blog, our picture, and Dr. Marvin. This was a big pressure release because the other “three picture parts” were taking too much space so when looking at the blog, you couldn't see the first entry because there were so many pictures and such. It is still kind of a dark blog banner, but I needed the darker gray of the title to balance against the background that our picture is taken. Dr. Marvin, of course, always comes out as the bright star of our day.

We did add some more entries, but nothing major.  We caught up a little bit with the girls’ weekend although it was light. I don't feel that it's fair to discuss all the things that were on their mind because obviously it's their private business and our private relationship with them. What I do with myself in my own thoughts is a different matter. You know my tendency to talk and share a lot. The next thing that was done with the blog was to add some pictures to lessen some of the effect of all the words that we use in putting together our blog. Quite sensibly than the first picture was the one from the multiple blog that says blah blah blah. I couldn't of said it better myself. The next picture that I love is the one with the bear on it and the bear is kind of frumpy, and she is holding the pillows and says I want to play, but it is my bedtime. It's a true reflection of what we feel to be us on the blog. The next picture is the picture of us having a happyland day. This one is special because this is so bright and colorful and fun and it helps to lighten my minds. And the last picture added comes underneath the total page views which is at that this point 3,274, and the picture is of dog holding our book and he is saying it is multiple personality day today. Have you hugged one or more? I don't recall now the day that is really supposed to be multiple days, but I love the sentiment. It's also something that comes at the end of the blog page and reminds me that it's time to get soft and cuddly toward resting, or allow another part out, and not be so mindful of all these little details running through my mind. I can confess to being slightly OCD about it. I'm sorry.

The other big change was that we went through the Twitter contacts and we added and subtracted more blogs from our blog roll and we are now at about 100. I kind of hope it stays at this number of people.  More will come obviously, but I think it's a pretty stable block of neighbors. We are very serious about taking off blogs that are not being used within the year – there is plenty of reading to do by the blogs that are being used by their owners. I do find that I can go down the whole list and when I'm home I can do it at least once a day - usually in the morning. I might go back into some of the blogs that are 2 to 10 months old just to catch up with what is out there, but I am really feeling good about catching the blogs that are one week or less. I find that if I had written on it last without the author coming back, that I can just let those blogs go, but it allows me to catch up with authors that have written something back to me and I feel really, really happy connecting to others. One of the things I did as to adding bloggers to the roll was that I went through my Twitter contacts that were multiples and I checked to see if they had any apparent blogs. I would only take the ones that were still written within the year, by multiples, and weren't too self-destructive or sexualized. I still don't take the blogs that have warnings on them. It's nothing against those bloggers just that I don't want to worry about permissions with anybody else that might be looking at my blogroll.  I think it’s kind of rejecting when you find a blog and then the message goes up that only some people can read it.  I think bloggers do though have a right to some privacy and I’ve written private blogs – even recently – so I’m thinking life eventually balances itself out. I want us to be at least at a comfort level that we can look at each other straight in the eye though for this portion of our life.

I was glad that I got a real member to the blog this week. She's only joined five other blogs and her blog is personal or private. I'm okay with that and am happy to think that she might want to come back to our blog. One thing for sure on our blog is that if somebody wants to think about something, there are plenty of options.

I don't hear Rich getting ready for dinner yet, so I'm going to keep going. It seems that he's been hard at work all day in the back. He did say something about going to see his friend Doug at about 6:30 PM because Doug is in town seeing his parents. I know that Rich doesn't get a chance to talk to this friend often, so I'm glad that he is going. Maybe today he also contacted Jack and his wife. We are supposed to go out with them for dinner next Sunday, and he just wanted to make sure that everything was going through okay.

I also heard from Maury today, at least earlier. He had thought he might get a chance to share lunch together, but he didn't call back and so I'm thinking he just ran into a much busier day that he had planned. It's already 5:00 PM and he didn't even leave a text message, so I know that he was real busy. I hope that by this time the day, he's headed home and use starting to relax and chill out.

I think we’re all caught up as far as the blog. We still haven't worked on the weekend work of going through the library from Diigo.  We had started this last night, but obviously we were much too tired after the trip. We’re determined that until we put something down on paper about last Tuesday we’re not going to go further on anything else, I think. We have said this before and have failed. Ouch that word is being used twice already! We’re talking about the word fail – obviously we are going to have to talk a lot more about school, but I don't want to think into that too much. Maybe just a little bit at a time? Oh, we want to say anything about that right now? I think it will be a good conversation for Dr. Marvin, and I'm not sure, but I don't think were done talking to Rich about it either. I feel good about letting the pressure go. And at this moment, I'm not trying to belabor the part about not getting a degree. I believe for me education is all about learning and that part will continue. I did want the degree so that when I write things it comes as somebody with more subject and system authority. But optimistically, after we go through some of the current trials it will come again to us and we will try again another day.

Dr. Marvin talked a lot about the problems that we had on Tuesday and the problems that we are dealing with on Thursday as being very closely related. I don't remember all of his keywords that help pull those thoughts together. He was just tempting us to think that one was directly affecting the other. Now what was that word that he was using? Anyone? Oh I got it thanks. The word he was using was anticipation. We were anticipating how difficult the work was with school (and psychologically toward our childhood) and so we never got past the point of putting away everything and just doing the work. This has been our downfall, or maybe we should just say our setback. That would be more optimistic, right? Speaking of - I think I'm just going to go ahead and start telling the story of Tuesday because it's just getting to be such a headache to hold back.

So what happened was we were set to go to Dr. Marvin's on Tuesday, and we had been adding bloggers to our blog roll. We had been feeling a little behind and so pressured because we weren't doing school on either Monday or Tuesday or Sunday. I think we had intent to show Dr. Marvin what we had been working on though with the blog and had tried to get it to a ready-point. We were already proud of the blog. But then, while waiting for him to open his door to start the session, we got very triggered by one of his coworkers - the secretary that works for him. On her own, she is not a threatening person, but she had taken a stance that was highly upsetting to us. We will have to figure out this specific role and how it plays toward our mother, but when we come into Dr. Marvin's office …

Within this section of the building behind one closed-door, there is a large room with cubicles; probably about eight cubicles in the center and then around those cubicles are the doors of people in actual offices. There are doors leading to this set-back section for the graduate program.  The cubicles appear to belong to mainly secretaries or billing specialists. The major thing that happens in this office is they do something with the graduate program for residents practicing in psychiatry. Dr. Marvin is the director of that program, but when you look along the left side of the section of walls where his door is, it doesn't seem any different than any of the other 4-5 doors on that side. The difference is that he has an extended office much bigger than any of the others in that area of the building.

His internal office is an L-shape. And on the lower L part is a small hall.  On the right side there are plants and a little statue and a picture, and on the left wall are a couple tall horizontal file cabinets. At the end of the cabinets after the plant and some space is his couch and we usually have sat on the far side closest to the windows. Both this section where we meet to talk and the top of the L section which is where his office desk, personal business files, printer, and bookshelves. On one wall there is a white message board where he can diagram pictures for people. Immediately across the couch and much closer than the office desk is a rectangle coffee table with an ocean thing – hard and pointy next to the Kleenex box. And on the other side of the coffee table are two matching chairs, which also match the couch. The whole long wall has windows and there are windows behind my couch and behind Dr. Marvin's desk opposite of each other.  Dr. Marvin usually sits on the far chair when we are talking … there is a picture of it located in our blog banner.

We have to now re-concentrate on the situation altogether again. The time has lapsed to 6:00 PM and Rich has just gone out to be with his friends. Doug came over to the house and he hasn't been here ever and this is one of his best childhood friends. Doug just isn't in the area that often. So Doug and Rich were going to go meet Bob at the Mexican place and have a couple margaritas. No way do I want to do something with that group. It will be guy talk. Rich says that Doug has a business lead for him. Rich tried to talk to me about business today and I listened, and I've tried to be patient, but I wasn't very patient. Rich wants me to do some things for his work which would be nice maybe I talked about this earlier, but it won't be fun. Anything away from this computer not doing what my minds wants to do isn't fun, but I can appreciate that bills still have to be paid. Okay next subject.

It was kind of a fast shuffle. Rich said, "No he's not coming up - he is going to meet me downstairs." Then as soon as he said this, Doug called from downstairs and Rich asks, “Do you want to come up?”  And, then it was a scurry – OH My Gosh, why are you doing this to me? Most of the house was cleaned up but there was a pile of clothes on the coffee table waiting to be steamed, and I didn't have anything on - sort of like that. And our dinner dishes were still on the counter. My sewing room wasn’t set-up proper because it was taken apart over the weekend, and I had to rush to make the bed. All the time we had to make house adjustments was the length of time it took Doug to walk-up three flights of stairs. *ARGH* okay girls it’s okay they are gone.

Everyone that comes in takes a look at the statue on the coffee table when they sit down. Doug was no exception. Rich had answered the phone because Julian had called about the time we all sat down and Doug reached out to test out the statue. It is a cat rolled over on his back and exhibiting his belly. I told Doug the same thing I tell everyone else. It's for Rich and us so that we could tell who has to give the massage. If I want Rich to give me it, then we point the cat in his direction, and then if he wants the massage he points the cat in our direction. Doug got that right away, but he's a little quirky about it. So he turns the cat facing me and we were like no, oh no, I'm not giving you know massage! And then he keeps edging it towards me while making purring sounds. I guess this has to be a good friend Rich to get by with that. But it had me giggling.  I really don’t know Doug very well. This was a very forward moment that was not overly comfortable so the giggling was more nervous.

Okay, I have to slow down. Rich and I had Chinese food last night and we had been talking before Doug was there. The TV was never turned on today and it's kind of nice when it happens. I better get on with it though because he said he was only going to be gone for one to 1 1/2 hours.

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Okay getting my feet wet again, we are back at Dr. Marvin's. I'm sitting at the table at the end of the outer room which is about 7 to 8 feet from Dr. Marvin’s office door. Usually, this is quiet time and I just sit, maybe check my electronics, or look around to see and hear what is happening behind the cubicles. But this time, Dr. Marvin's secretary was in the next office over and she comes out of her office and chats with the lady who makes the copies. This got us aggravated because they are both in our waiting space and we are petrified of people in-between ourselves and Dr. Marvin’s door that we are staring at intently.  We always feel tension … just waiting for it to open.  So then the paper lady goes back into her office and for 5 min. - 5 min., believe me I timed her, the secretary person stood outside her office staring at Dr. Marvin’s door too. This had us incensed. We can't say anything but we feel trapped and violated. We feel all kinds of negative emotions including panic. We know this scenario because it's happened before. Basically the secretary is waiting to talk to Dr. Marvin and although he is trained not to open that door until exactly 4:30 PM when he lets us in, she ignores that it's my space and she is going to intrude upon it. Basically, her goal is to jump to Dr. Marvin's attention before he signals me it's okay to come in which feels REALLY in my space.

Okay this shouldn't be the end of the world, but it pretty much was. It took us about 35 to 45 seconds before we could even move after the woman went away and Dr. Marvin had signaled us to come in. We were frozen in our spot. The tension had built and by the time we got to the couch we were livid, but scared – although, I think Dr. Marvin is really the safety. He seemed to be in a good mood, but we were way past that.  I can be pretty sure he can trace when we are feeling off emotionally. I believe it was our Anniemi who was then stammering her vocabulary and speaking sporadically. This continued for 10 min. while Dr. Marvin tried to get to the bottom of it. He used to have a secretary that did this kind of thing all the time, so it got approached all the time. We never normalized to the behavior. Dr. Marvin tried to make sense of it and saying things like do you think you weren't going to get your full hour? And we answered slowly and cautiously as if we were watching snake eyes. We understand that if he is 3 min. late that I get to have a session that will run 3 min. later, so that wasn’t it. We went through this over and over again with Dr. Marvin trying to nail it. He was better this time and thinking that it was something that we could concentrate on and maybe get to the bottom of where sometimes he lets his own frustration get in the way. Dr. Marvin really is in control of his emotions, but this particular act has happened so many times with no solution that it gets very frustrating. I think because Dr. Marvin had a psychiatry-win with us last week, he was in better shape to take this particular trouble on. He was more confident and insisting, though always in his gentle way.

I remember looking at the clock at 10 min. after thinking this is taking too long. Why doesn't this emotion go away? Dr. Marvin did the things psychiatrist do best; they asked those questions that get you to remember or recall when this had happened - before when we had these kinds of feelings. I don't know what the exact words he was using, but I think the practice is called age regression; at least our age was regressing.

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It seems the first thing that we were recalling was that there was a door, and we were standing in the crib, and we couldn't get past the terror we were feeling while staring at that door. It took about 35 min. for this next part to unfold, but the bottom line was that the fear was tied to being petrified that my father would come in. There was another part who was also a child talking to Dr. Marvin, but she wasn't the child in the crib. We saw there were actually two children involved at the crib one being Crystal, and the second one being Gracie. Our knowledge of those two is that Crystal will flail in defending her body and Gracie becomes a piece of petrified wood. And between the two of them they seem to have had to handle the situation with my father. It scares me right now just saying the term “my father.” I don't want to get involved in a space where my head starts to think of him as the person that I knew who could be doing this. We have had over a very long period of time remembered our maternal grandfather’s connection to our life, but we'd only had worries that something could have happened between our father and us. Connie sue said that he was schizophrenic, I'm not sure it's somewhere between that and borderline personality disorder and we know he had major depression at some point. But the fact of the matter was, he was in our bedroom.  We just need to get these words out.

The part that took the longest amount of time was the toddler, which may have been a very young Anniemi who was trying to prevent what she knew was going to happen. Although it took some time to think it through – of what was actually happening. Basically, what he was - he was the snake in the grass! He had told me that long ago. He had thought we were the snake in the grass, but it was him. What he appears to have done was to come into our bedroom where my sister was sleeping and he would just stand inside the bedroom behind the door. Crystal would be on guard. But some time or another she would get tired and if he stood there long enough she would fall asleep. He seemed to know that if our “on-guard” person laid down that he could approach the part that was then lying down which would be the calmer Gracie. Gracie can feel people touching her but she cannot move. We believe what the father did was to stroke her genital area.  And, we are thinking, she was locked into position and she could not move or make sounds. Now she makes sounds with Rich, but they are only a form of a whimper which gets louder and quicker if ignored, or not otherwise consciously calmed by us. 

But Gracie couldn’t avoid our father. We are thinking at this point that what he was trying to do, for his own sexual fulfillment, was to give the one and half-year-old orgasms. I don't have any technical information to say whether children of this age really can have an orgasm, but that is our thinking. We do remember being in the bathtub where we could float in the bathtub, but we were small enough so that our legs wouldn't reach the opposite ends meaning that we were still very small, and I remember giving ourselves an orgasm although not knowing what that feeling was or why it was happening, but we were doing this by rolling on a plastic ball. The thing about that experience was that we have in our brain is that we can remember feeling good in that area, trying to hold on to it, and having figured out that if we pressure that part it would give us those sensations.  I think we knew too the father’s intent to do this and then become self-stimulated by it.

We also held that this was something to do without people knowing what we were doing. So we must have known it was a wrong thing to do. Somebody must have seen it and tried to stop it?? Or, at least been in a position to do it?  But I think at a very early age after having been stimulated like that it had become something more habitual. I believe at this point that my father knew how to stimulate Gracie. I also believe this has to do a lot with our knowledge of Crystal that was most likely - when he got to the point of giving Gracie an orgasm that would wake Crystal. Crystal is like a bullet out of control or a bull banging against the walls of his shoot.  She would bounce from the floor and up and around and swing at everything in her reach. Her goal, I believe, is to push people away or maybe unconsciously to knock herself out. She becomes very crazed.  When we first knew Rich she was out a lot. She would bang herself against anything solid. She would also try to hurl herself into corners, where she couldn't be reached; maybe like an infuriated chimpanzee where bars of a cage and bars of a crib were the same.  Another example of this when older was that Crystal would roll between the bed and the wall where Rich had a difficult time trying to pick us up and to stop the flailing.  He would have to hold our arms down and I know we used to be even hitting ourselves as the arms waved wildly.

My guess is that he would've tried to stop before she got to that point, leaving the child in the lurch, but I am assuming that he must have been giving himself quite a rise. This satisfaction would have been to set the other off without getting caught. My mother had told us much later at one time that she though he was abusing us, but we thought she was deflecting our knowledge of the Grandfather’s abuse.  We’re thinking she’s more involved in this too – like the secretary also waiting, but we believe he waited a long time in the dark to get to these moments and to assure that everyone was quiet if not asleep. I’m wondering now if she was waiting in her bedroom for her husband to come back and pleasure her, but that he was spending long completive times in our room.  This wouldn’t surprise at all, but is a fairly new idea of something that had before been in our way background.  Now we are thinking of being at the house and the door being shut so that we couldn’t go in the parent’s bedroom.  There were other times we were allowed in, but I need now to back away from all those thoughts. 

I think that if we did go crazy that he would just yell to my mother that it was okay because he was checking on her – her being us. I believe that's how we got by with it. I remember at some point the family had got the dog Timmy that was just lethal feelings to a small child because of the speed, weight, and energy of the dog. Somehow that ties into this. I don't think my father could have snuck into the bedroom with the dog because it would have been too startling and I think the dog left our household at a very young age because he’d tip us and trample us.  I think because of the dog, we spent a long time in the crib day and night sometimes with CS and sometimes separate. I know the dog was sent to a farm because they said he was too wild. Although, by the time we were about six years old my mother got the other dog/puppy which was similarly quick, but much smaller and less powerful.  The family dog we grew up with named Susie and she was a boxer/cocker spaniel mix.  Timmy had been an untrained hunting dog.  I believe I was the one to do the majority of training with Susie as we grew older.

Most of the time that we were out with Dr. Marvin - there were older parts out also watching trying to also discover what was happening with the younger parts. It is hard knowing when to step-in and when not to step-in so they could tell their story in which ever way it happens for them. We knew that with Dr. Marvin that was the girls’ safety, it was our job as older parts to just to be paying attention. Throughout that 35 min. with Dr. Marvin I think that we saw the quick fleeting pictures that were going on; I don't know how much the Anniemi part was able to connect with to Dr. Marvin. I'm pretty sure he had a good sense of what was going on, I don't know if he had the details, or if he wasn’t hearing the account as a direct listener within the story as if he was discussing it with the narrator - Anniemi. He was instrumental in getting the girls out of the situation they were in. I think there was a long conversation between Dr. Marvin and Anniemi because she did not want to leave the younger two girls in the bedroom with our father in the room. So Dr. Marvin worked hard to be in that room with her and that together they would tell the father that he couldn’t come in the room with them, and they could tell our father that he had to leave, and then later – STAY DEAD!  And I think it got to the point of the father had to leave because Dr. Marvin told him to. I don't think she believed she could do it on her own, but “Dr. Marvin told you” is another situation. It is a big shield in the eyes of our little ones.

I don't know what the transition was in getting them from that point then to older parts. No doubt there were middle-aged parts that were doing the transition. I remember seeing that Dr. Marvin was very lighthearted after the tenseness of the event where we were able to sluggishly come back in the older parts. He was just beaming and we seemed to take that cue that something had happened that was good psychiatry work and that we knew something of what had happened yet were still too afraid to go over it in our minds.  But, we knew like Dr. Marvin would, that it was something that was so long in coming and that it good to be finally out. And I believe too that Dr. Marvin was thinking this had to be a good thing maybe even a great thing. We still hold our doubts. We know most likely his impression of the event is going to be the one that carries the day, but we are not through handling the emotional space of what happened. For one, it still is something that happened to our younger parts; we are not bridging the gap between them and us. To be fair to the younger parts - we should as older more responsible parts have to take that hurt and pain from them by assuming to ourselves, if necessary, enough to get them clear of the situation. I'm not sure how all this works.

I have the sense that the older or middle-aged parts were out for about 10 or 15 min. before leaving Dr. Marvin’s office, so the spacing of the event was good in that there was the hard part getting into it, the part as it played out, and then yet time left at the end to normalize again. I don't know what to do with it after that. There is so much to go into as to how all of these parts of us were handling the situation and of the exact situation as it stood. We have no doubt in our mind that what is coming to us now in this flashback was what had indeed happened and I am willing to stake our lives on it. There are too many other pieces that started tumbling in as soon as we got to the middle-aged parts - like the event with my father watching us at his cottage when we had gone up there before he died. Now I'm remembering to that that was part of Dr. Marvin's magic with the younger part was that our father had died and he couldn't come inside the door anymore. I don't know how long the event happened. We had always known that Gracie had had genital stimulation, but we were never clear of what had happened. The more I think the more the situation seems to fall in place as to other clarifying thoughts.

Dr. Marvin said something about we might get intrusive thoughts and I think that's what he was talking about are these thoughts that come in now. We haven’t been able to let this situation go; it is still very provoking to us – so we’re trying to give it “go-away” space - trying to control when and where so it doesn’t consume us.  Like this time we were able to see that my sister was in the room although in a different crib. We didn't see that before but it seems obvious to us now and we can sense that space as real … can do little flashbacks to it.

I think the way that Dr. Marvin is looking at it is that it can only get better from this point on that that was something bad that had been locked inside of us for so long. Part of the scary part now is that we don't know how many situations like this there are, and we don't know how many things that situation affected down the line as we grew-up and developed awkwardly. I can intellectualize now that it would have been at the time of the self-regulation which is what we have been worrying about for such a long time - at least the last seven years. The three little girls were not able to control not only the room situation where the father came into the room, but also they weren't able to control the stimulation he was applying to them. I believe that in trying to correct the problem by stimulating themselves later both within and without the tub – and when smaller and much bigger they were trying to balance their system and regain control over it.  I don’t think there has been though any masturbation in the last 15 years of having known Rich, because there was always a preference for him helping us get through that which was taunting, yet terrifying to us.

We haven't talked about “him”for a long time, but there's huge tie-in with someone that we used to date and I use that word was squirm-ish in my voice. We used to date someone named Kevin. We grew to hate this person, and I'm not going to go too much into it because were just feeling repulsion already just even mentioning his name. Basically, Kevin came in as a substitute male after we have broken off and began the divorce proceeding with our ex and before we had started doing much of our work with JVS and Rich. Kevin was a substantial part of our life in that we bought a house together, although it was only for us to live in meeting myself and the three boys. There were sexual trade-offs where we felt we had to give him some time with our younger parts to keep him calm.  Guiltily, we ourselves could not tolerate being sexual with Kevin.  We sold our soul.  To make a long story short there eventually I ended up committed into a mental hospital in Winona about the same time the house needed to go through closing (we went bankrupt).

I remember trying to tell him that we were in trouble and that we were going to lose everything and that we had to get out of the house, but he did want to let us out of the personal relationship because he wanted to keep coming back to it so he could have access sexually to our girls.  We on the otherhand were working it out through psychology with Dr. Woollcott so that we could say no to the part where we were selling off our body for the security of living in our house, which now seems the same with our father.  He owned the house, and now we are remembering that was something too the younger part was telling Dr. Marvin.  Our father owned both us and the house and it wasn’t something we could get past.  We had put the house purchased with Kevin on the market when we were losing everything including the boys in 1997.  By the time it was closing we were in the mental hospital because of all our acting out suicidally.  Obviously we could not be a part of the closing, so I remember signing consent forms they had faxed to the hospital from the bank, and Kevin and the lawyers the new people whoever - took care of what happened to that house. I never wanted to go back after we left it.  Nor, do I know if there was money remaining that went to Kevin.  I just didn’t care … we’d been really driven crazy. 

We’ve been able to handle driving past the old house 3-4 times over the last 15 years, but it still causes us great pain. It was something that had to just get over in our life. At the time, I had had about $8000 to put down on a house, Kevin had good credit rating, and we needed a place for us and the three boys after the Victorian house sold. 

To move on with the story Kevin took advantage of our parts, although in some ways we took advantage of him to in that we were willing to go into some deal with him, so I could provide the kids a house. I would and basically did do about anything to get control over our families living situation. By that time the boys’ dad was living with his mistress and he was already living in a house he had arranged to buy with her. The bad part of the Kevin story is that there were sexual relations that had happened in-between things. I know that our boys know about the situation, but it's one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever had to deal with. We allowed Kevin to be near us even though he repulsed the older parts, because there were certain things that we had thought we needed help in taking care of. The bottom line to this story sad story is that Kevin had relationships that were sexual with our younger parts - not unlike BJ, and not unlike our parent, or not unlike others that JVS who had gotten to us before Rich took us off the general market. Rich was the only one that had been attracted to us in a relationship-building manner where the others were playing with younger parts.

Basically, if you could get a younger calm part out then you could progress sexually, until the big disconnect when Crystal would be startled out. Somehow we felt a responsibility to service males like this.  Again Rich had to deal with younger parts too, but he would stop instead of going forward at those moments to calm us down and get back to older parts who could be aware and consensual to sex – where most the males were using that time to forge ahead.  Eventually, time won out over difficulty and we are now at a point where we can only periodically have to deal with those major triggers. They would be caused now by over-tiredness or not taking our medicines proper before going to bed with Rich.  We are still getting Gracie at the end of most sexual occurrences, but she is quiet and doesn't thrash like Crystal did. She is just whimpering in a manner of calming herself – most likely like when my father had left the room.  I think that is a big part of sexual abuse, self-regulation and all else biological … basically someone abused like this don’t have the self-systems to sooth or calm self which leads to some of the pathological problems like hypersensitivity and OCD.  

This is why it was so easy to type/tie my father into so many situations from the past. Because they repeat patterns over and over and over again as I think things through as an adult and get chances to talk and recover with Dr. Marvin, it is like then getting another chance at life to accept and partner with those on the other side like Dr. Marvin and you.  The situation … story told loses some of the weight and anxiety with having a better handle on what is happening - like being able to stop the intrusive thoughts, enacted behaviors and such.

What is happening to us sexually is something that I would honestly like to go over with Dr. Marvin and I'm thinking that we might want to suggest to him that together, we ask for Dr. Woollcott's papers with us, and that we work through that period of our life together with him so we can assimilate what it happened and then get past it. If we can get over the financial burden I am now putting on Rich by not going to school or bringing in the loan income, then maybe we can get to the bottom of some of these things that are so much at our core being and that have never been brought up because of interference or lack of tolerance within our “regular life.” If all I have to do at this point is read and reflect and write it would be the optimal time. 

I don't know where Rich is standing in knowing that financially we are going to have to depend on him. I believe he understands it intellectually, but I don't think he's had to deal with it on an emotional level of being directly hard pressed for cash to come up with money to pay bills. We will have to deal with this with him more as it comes along – it will take in Rich’s anxiety and our guilt. Tomorrow will be a big day in that we will talk to Kathryn at school and we will talk to Dr. Marvin at the office and will come to some conclusion with what happens to school or what our options are going to be in the future and with what is going to happen not only to not getting a student loan, but also then being in a position of having to pay it while being very broke.

I think we were almost done with what had happened on Tuesday. It did seem that it was a little bit like pressure let off at the end of the session with Dr. Marvin, but that we were very eager to get out of his office. And, as we mentioned before, Thursday was all crying and we were dealing with the loss of school and perhaps some of our childhood. That left us pretty overwhelmed with taking care of the writing, but there was this owning up to the situation, or to basically take up the slack, and now today we are back to trying to get a grip on our new life with the center of it being the blog and being with other multiples like us and handling new information as it comes in from the blogosphere and other social media outlets. We see the other multiples as somebody that we can support and they can support us in getting through something that is very natural to their own periods of grief and success.  We feel a definite kinship with them, although there is nothing common about being abused and having to deal with the after effect, I just know there's a lot of wisdom within these circles. I don't want to take advantage of that, and I hope that we even out the tab in that I can contribute back into the multiple community or culture.  We still have major thoughts of bridging the differences between people from the inside of this situation to people from the outside – particularly those still asking, “Is it real?”  Or, those because of the question denying the affects and instance of child abuse that are still happening and would call for more world accountability.

The time is now 7:43 PM and Rich is still out, I thought that would happen after he got out with the guys. I think it takes a long time to drink a margarita, and I'm thinking that just to get through one argument with one from the other would take some great number of minutes. He and his friends are so quarrelsome and competitive. But the three of them Bob, Doug, and Rich all got to know each other in elementary school and they've been friends for over 50 years. Is very unusual though for Doug to be in the area and I was very glad to see the three of them get together. Rich needs that kind of friendship and support and I think it’s good for the others too.

Rich did a lot of work today working on his business systems. He was making cold calls, and he was checking into a new program that he wants me to help him with. I know that I have to get into helping him because of our money flow, but it'll be difficult to let go of some of the time that I'm not spending. Maybe it will be a blend of the above and things will work out because with Dr. Marvin, Rich and family, things always seem to work out now that we’re out of abusive relationships.  We want more contact with friends, but still will be cautious not to get overwhelmed by their priority of having their own lives.  At least with multiplicity most realize they need special assistance psychologically.  I still think it’s odd that the people being “hit upon” get the therapy while those out in the outer world get by with none.  I am far from saying that “regular” people cause abuse, but there are enough who do in one small or large fashion or another that there always has to be cautions, PARTICULARILY with self-centeredness, shame and lack of personal boundaries.  I don’t mean for this to seem negative, but there are reasons why we feel our psychiatry world is sometimes more real than the reality it is helping us adjust to.  At this time … we still feel very much wanting only small bits of time off-line with out loud reality.

I think I'm going to go back and now and edit this so I can get it posted. I would like to have this entry in and then move on. Tomorrow, I would like to work on the section that we were supposed to work on over the weekend as to gathering together all our library items from Diigo. It takes that much just to get caught up in our little world. I can't imagine what it's like to have such a big world that goes much farther past my own doors. Ouch … doors … still touchy.  I did appreciate being able to be out with the girls over the weekend and I appreciated being able to be at the hotel by ourselves. I'm not sure if the deal with Maury is going to follow-through with our babysitting for Jasmine on Saturday. We talked to him earlier today and it was up in the air because he was thinking he might be able to sell the tickets for $300 and he thought that might be worth more than going to the actual game. I don't know if he would substitute something else in that timeslot, or if he would consider coming over and hanging out, that would be very cool, but right now Rich and I are really at the bottom of our money flow. There's such a fine line between making it and not making it. I don't want to end on a negative note though.

My next best dream at this moment is that Rich is handling that we have to go through alternate sources like him being successful in a small business to make ends meet. I did fill out the application for the dental care. I don't know how it will turn out because we had the fill-in paperwork that we were living together which raises our joint income even though we are not married. In reality – we are together bringing in $2,900 regular though without St. Rose – we’re $3,000 short of being able to pay alimony unless Rich does some extra income from his business.  The money comes from my $1400 from disability, his $900 pension, and his approximate $600 from officiating games.  Working with Rich to balance an income seems like the only fair thing to do, but it has to be done in such a way it doesn’t make me overwhelmed and super-crazy. If we keep honest with the things in our life we’re asking support from, then things will happen the way they supposed to whether we like the result or not.  I’m thinking we really do need the financial help, but don’t want to take advantage of systems out there either.   I'm hoping though that we are going to be able to get the dental care. I don't know if we mentioned that before, but we need to get two root canals done and our dentist is saying that she will do the work voluntarily at least for one of them, she will do the other in-between work for the second one, but she is not able to complete the complexity of the work the second tooth presents because the cavity was there for so long and it has calcified the root, which has to be fixed. The dentist volunteering her services is going to ask another local specialist to also volunteer under the program, and I hope that works out, if not, I mean you just go more and more in to debt and that's about all you can do right?

I did want to say just a couple more things. I'm trying to wrap-up things that have been happening in my mind over the last several days. I can't believe it's just a Monday. Once you get behind in writing it takes forever to catch up where about the 9,800 words a minute at this point or page 17 on a word document. The thing I wanted to mention is that we have been using the system over at the blog to go through and to be commenting to other people who have multiplicity. And I found a couple people that I'm really interested in being more friends with. It's always a matter of trust with multiplicity.  I am going to hope for the best.  Both these people seem to be on our communication, independence, creativity, and positivity levels so we'll see how that goes. I'm really looking forward to the possibility though that we can make new friends. I've never really had friends with other multiples, because the relationships have seemed so complicated, but I think if I keep my boundaries and assist when necessary to help them keep their boundaries – so then we should be okay.  We’ll feel our way through it as normal.  We have good supports with Dr. Marvin AND with others.

We have learned a lot from Dr. Marvin in this way. It is still Dr. Marvin on his side of the table and us on our side of the table. I am saying that if somebody is too needy we tend to back away. If people take care of themselves, then things have a possibility of working out.  We don't talk to anybody that is talking about death, self-abuse, or sexuality – at least not yet. We’re also very cautious when dealing with other multiples on anger issues. We will not try to calm somebody down in any of these above situations. I know that sometimes you have to talk about being suicidal and things like that or having sexual relations like we have today, but they should be in context with what is happening in your life not just thrown out blatantly as a hazard sign to warn people from approaching or otherwise abuse. I will not, repeat will not get in a situation where I have to take care of anyone. I will talk with other writers/bloggers and I hope other writers talk to me, but the actual act of psychological improvement has to be on their own like we do for ourselves. I can be a support, but I will not take care of others. We do care and caring about them is okay, just not caring FOR them.   Everyone has to play by the rules of “being nice!”

Okay girls - regret saying this one more time, is there anything else that needs to be brought up?  Let's think for a second. It has been a long time since we talk to Linda, we saw her of course on Saturday, but we didn't have a chance to talk to her Sunday or today so we might try to look for to that, although we have to get this entry edited before we can do much else and that has to be a primary rule.  Writing FIRST!

I do have to say that if we could get past the money issues which we have been talking about, I am excited to pieces to think that we are almost out of obligations for school for it while. I am really looking forward to being some kind of a super human being who doesn't have to worry about day-to-day stuff with multiplicity that keeps us from doing the simplest things like steaming clothes. As on-cue Rich has come home and is just walking into the door, it is now 8 PM, and so it is a good time to end this entry. I never have it all in, but we've come a long ways from start to finish and it will take a while to edit so best be getting on with it. To another young day!  Also – if we finish, we can ask Dr. Marvin to read our thoughts.  I believe this to be an important entry for us.

Okay one more thing, I don't mean to be ominous, but we have to make some reference to one of the things that Dr. Marvin said in his conversation with us on Thursday that we are just now thinking about. And that was basically, he was wondering where the anger went. In the relationship with my father that was abusive, he's basically insinuating that there should have been anger involved, but it’s not there yet, so that will be one of the tasks we have to accomplish. I suppose we will have to try and figure out where all that went. But, I don't want to get into that now. I just wanted to leave a note so we could get back to it again later okay? Good.

Ok, one more thought … we want to leave another marker for the time with Dr. Woollcott where we had drawn pictures of our castle and within the castle there were pictures of the crib and that we were hiding underneath and in back of it and had been wrapped around a leg hiding.  Just saying … it too now seems to fit within the newest pictures of our life.  Steady girls … steady!

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