I thought I caught some lost time again this weekend. I was packing to head off for the evening to visit some friends, and anticipating the arrival of my ride - someone we all are pretty comfortable with. We slipped messily around as to who was out for a while, so the memories are fuzzy.
The next time I was fully in control, I was sitting with that friend, riding in his car. No big deal, until I looked at his clock, and it showed 11:47. He was picking me up at 4:30 in the afternoon. And it was currently daylight. Which meant it was either the next morning, or the day after that. And that's a whole lot of time for me to miss at once.
I sat very still for a while, looking for clues. The clothes I was wearing seemed to be the ones I had decided to wear out for the evening; I couldn't remember if what he had on was the same as when he picked me up. An internal query didn't answer anything. Finally I just picked up my phone to confirm the time.
And it said 5:30pm. His car's clock was wrong.
I reset the clock for him.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Friday, August 26, 2011
The 80-20 Insight (Lynn)
I'm recording this here as a concept which we need to think on more fully. On another multiple's blog (http://www.multiplicity.ca/), she tells of reaching an insight. About 80% of each personality is the same core person, with 20% being the differences from one another. And it's in that 20% that all the friction occurs.
We are each very much like one another. And in smaller but extremely telling ways, different, even opposites. Kiara is cute and accepting in ways that none of the others would ever want to be. Rubi's anger colors even her good moods; she is defiant and closed-off. Sam just won't take anything seriously, whereas I admit to taking everything seriously in my turn.
Food for thought and conversation...
We are each very much like one another. And in smaller but extremely telling ways, different, even opposites. Kiara is cute and accepting in ways that none of the others would ever want to be. Rubi's anger colors even her good moods; she is defiant and closed-off. Sam just won't take anything seriously, whereas I admit to taking everything seriously in my turn.
Food for thought and conversation...
Multi-Personality = Multi-Tasking (Me)
More from The Flock. A passage from Chapter 31:
"It was clear to me that, despite occasional bouts with depression, the Flock was more effective than many of the other graduate students. This was even more true now that we had our own apartment and could work undisturbed for fourteen or sixteen hours each day.... The Flock required only four or five hours of sleep a night. That left a lot of time for work. And the amnesia that in the past had crippled us became an advantage. Our production multiplied because each personality could focus on a separate task. Jo, for example, worked for many hours researching and writing a paper, unaware of what else needed to be done. When I pushed Jo aside to fulfill my graduate-assistant duties, I didn't worry about the progress of the paper. When Jo came back to work, whe picked up precisely where she had left off, with no concern about her 'lost time'.... Being a multiple apparently created more efficient use of my conscious and semiconscious mind. I didn't want to give up my greater productivity to become just like everyone else."
And I understand what she means. I frequently have friends marvel at my capacity to go, go go. Five hours of sleep a night is usually plenty, as long as I'm switching enough to give myself time to rest. The body needs a few hours, and the rest is for the mind. If Kiara takes over for an evening, for instance, I feel plenty rested with just four or five hours of actual sleep. And we can concentrate on several things at once. As an example, while Jarett's driving me to work, Lynn is often making a list of things to put on our to-do list for the day, Kiara or Sam might be singing with the radio, and I could be thinking of things I want to write here in this blog.
"It was clear to me that, despite occasional bouts with depression, the Flock was more effective than many of the other graduate students. This was even more true now that we had our own apartment and could work undisturbed for fourteen or sixteen hours each day.... The Flock required only four or five hours of sleep a night. That left a lot of time for work. And the amnesia that in the past had crippled us became an advantage. Our production multiplied because each personality could focus on a separate task. Jo, for example, worked for many hours researching and writing a paper, unaware of what else needed to be done. When I pushed Jo aside to fulfill my graduate-assistant duties, I didn't worry about the progress of the paper. When Jo came back to work, whe picked up precisely where she had left off, with no concern about her 'lost time'.... Being a multiple apparently created more efficient use of my conscious and semiconscious mind. I didn't want to give up my greater productivity to become just like everyone else."
And I understand what she means. I frequently have friends marvel at my capacity to go, go go. Five hours of sleep a night is usually plenty, as long as I'm switching enough to give myself time to rest. The body needs a few hours, and the rest is for the mind. If Kiara takes over for an evening, for instance, I feel plenty rested with just four or five hours of actual sleep. And we can concentrate on several things at once. As an example, while Jarett's driving me to work, Lynn is often making a list of things to put on our to-do list for the day, Kiara or Sam might be singing with the radio, and I could be thinking of things I want to write here in this blog.
Multi-Level Multiple Personalities (Me)
I just read The Flock, another multiple's autobiography. And I marked a couple of passages to repeat here.
In a section clipped from her therapist's diary, there is something along the lines of what I wrote in my last post here. She groups the personalities, of whom there are dozens, into three groups. The first group are the 'autonomous personalities', "who are truly well defined and complete enough as individuals to be able to function autonomously, without the assistance of the others. Each appears to have as full a range of dispositions and capabilities as any individual person.... Then there are the special-purpose or 'single-motive' personalities, who have clearly defined tasks - such as organizing files, cooking, or cleaning house - and seem to have no interest in holding the outside consciousness after they have completed their tasks...." There is a third group as well, "'past-keepers', personalities who hold some experience or knowledge from the past. They fit into the system... by hiding memories that might prevent the autonomous personalities from functioning."
So for me, Sam, Kiara, and myself are all first-group autonomous personalities. At one time, I would have put Rubi into the second group, but I get a range of emotions from her now, not just hate, so I would call her autonomous as well, I think. Jarett, Cherish, and Lynn seem to be special-purpose personalities, and I don't know of any past-keepers. Or perhaps Silent One is one of those. I think this model has some use. By not expecting the same depth and fullness from each alter, perhaps I can allow each to fill their own niche more comfortably.
In a section clipped from her therapist's diary, there is something along the lines of what I wrote in my last post here. She groups the personalities, of whom there are dozens, into three groups. The first group are the 'autonomous personalities', "who are truly well defined and complete enough as individuals to be able to function autonomously, without the assistance of the others. Each appears to have as full a range of dispositions and capabilities as any individual person.... Then there are the special-purpose or 'single-motive' personalities, who have clearly defined tasks - such as organizing files, cooking, or cleaning house - and seem to have no interest in holding the outside consciousness after they have completed their tasks...." There is a third group as well, "'past-keepers', personalities who hold some experience or knowledge from the past. They fit into the system... by hiding memories that might prevent the autonomous personalities from functioning."
So for me, Sam, Kiara, and myself are all first-group autonomous personalities. At one time, I would have put Rubi into the second group, but I get a range of emotions from her now, not just hate, so I would call her autonomous as well, I think. Jarett, Cherish, and Lynn seem to be special-purpose personalities, and I don't know of any past-keepers. Or perhaps Silent One is one of those. I think this model has some use. By not expecting the same depth and fullness from each alter, perhaps I can allow each to fill their own niche more comfortably.
Friday, August 19, 2011
It's a Technical Thing (Me)
I'm always looking for a good analogy to explain what being a multiple is like, and last night I came up with one that I'd like to try out. It began when I was reading a book about another multiple, and something struck me that should have been obvious, if only I'd thought of it that way. This multiple had dozens and dozens of alters, and was explaining that all alters are not equal. Some are full-fledged personalities with memories and opinions and plans and dreams and friendships. But some alters are less filled-out. They exist to serve a particular function and then fade back into place until the next time they are needed.
These single-purpose alters are like utility programs on your computer. Like Notepad, or Calculator, they serve some simple function for a short period of time, and then you close them and they go away. Until you need them again. I feel that Jarett may be a 'utility alter' - he drives the car; occasionally he looks at women. But he rarely takes full control and thinks and feels. Lynn could be considered a utility program as well; she rarely operates without another alter co-conscious; she advises and guides.
But what about the others? If the single-purpose alters are utility programs, what are they? And it hit me... they are Operating Systems. And the analogy holds. Most people have one major personality - like a computer that boots to this O/S or another. But some computers can dual-boot, or can run one O/S over the shell of a different one. The computers I support at my job do something like that - they are running a DOS-based program in a Linux shell. From the user's viewpoint, you can't tell any difference between the DOS program and the Linux one.
I can boot to Rubi or Sam or Kiara or Me. Usually, though, I'll run on a shell of Me with Rubi or Sam or Kiara running in the front, where it's in use, but ready to be dropped at need back to just Me. At need, I can pull up the Counselor/Lynn program, or run the Jarett utility. I'm not sure, yet, but for now I guess I'd put Cherish down as a utility program as well.
Does that make Silent One a System Error?
These single-purpose alters are like utility programs on your computer. Like Notepad, or Calculator, they serve some simple function for a short period of time, and then you close them and they go away. Until you need them again. I feel that Jarett may be a 'utility alter' - he drives the car; occasionally he looks at women. But he rarely takes full control and thinks and feels. Lynn could be considered a utility program as well; she rarely operates without another alter co-conscious; she advises and guides.
But what about the others? If the single-purpose alters are utility programs, what are they? And it hit me... they are Operating Systems. And the analogy holds. Most people have one major personality - like a computer that boots to this O/S or another. But some computers can dual-boot, or can run one O/S over the shell of a different one. The computers I support at my job do something like that - they are running a DOS-based program in a Linux shell. From the user's viewpoint, you can't tell any difference between the DOS program and the Linux one.
I can boot to Rubi or Sam or Kiara or Me. Usually, though, I'll run on a shell of Me with Rubi or Sam or Kiara running in the front, where it's in use, but ready to be dropped at need back to just Me. At need, I can pull up the Counselor/Lynn program, or run the Jarett utility. I'm not sure, yet, but for now I guess I'd put Cherish down as a utility program as well.
Does that make Silent One a System Error?
And Now We Are Eight - A Little Redesign (Me)
Another month has passed between blogs. Things aren't feeling quite so bleak as they did before, but my shifting from one personality to another is still under restraint. My daughter goes back to college this weekend, so I expect we'll feel more free to be ourselves in the next few weeks than we have been.
There has been a lot of self-searching and internal conversation the last week or two, and it has resulted in some restructuring internally. We have found a new alter. Her name is Cherish. We tried to talk her into a more 'name-like' name, but Cherish is it. She's very submissive and sweet and quiet, which may be why we haven't noticed her up to now. None of us are submissive or quiet; though Kiara can be very sweet, at least. At least so far, Cherish exists only for interactions with one person - a gentleman that we expect will, at some point, be in a Dom/sub relationship with us. Other people have noted that, in his presence, we've displayed a different behavior set and attitude, but for some reason we never looked at another alter being the reason for that. Until I recognized her thoughts as separate from mine one evening while spending time with him. Since then, I've followed her thoughts to reach her and asked her to participate in our 'mental group talks'.
When one of the alters comes out to chat on IM or by phone, they'll usually sign off with /K for Kiara, /R for Rubi, /S for Sam, etc. Now I have two /C's - Cherish and Counselor. In light of this, Counselor has let us know that she will be happy to use the name Lynn, instead. A slight restructure, here. So the full roster of personalities is thus:
/M - Me
/K - Kiara
/S - Sam
/R - Rubi
/C - Cherish
/L - Lynn (formerly Counselor)
/J - Jarett
and the Silent One
There has been a lot of self-searching and internal conversation the last week or two, and it has resulted in some restructuring internally. We have found a new alter. Her name is Cherish. We tried to talk her into a more 'name-like' name, but Cherish is it. She's very submissive and sweet and quiet, which may be why we haven't noticed her up to now. None of us are submissive or quiet; though Kiara can be very sweet, at least. At least so far, Cherish exists only for interactions with one person - a gentleman that we expect will, at some point, be in a Dom/sub relationship with us. Other people have noted that, in his presence, we've displayed a different behavior set and attitude, but for some reason we never looked at another alter being the reason for that. Until I recognized her thoughts as separate from mine one evening while spending time with him. Since then, I've followed her thoughts to reach her and asked her to participate in our 'mental group talks'.
When one of the alters comes out to chat on IM or by phone, they'll usually sign off with /K for Kiara, /R for Rubi, /S for Sam, etc. Now I have two /C's - Cherish and Counselor. In light of this, Counselor has let us know that she will be happy to use the name Lynn, instead. A slight restructure, here. So the full roster of personalities is thus:
/M - Me
/K - Kiara
/S - Sam
/R - Rubi
/C - Cherish
/L - Lynn (formerly Counselor)
/J - Jarett
and the Silent One
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