Stephanie's Story [Paul]

With Stephanie gone to storage, I did some cleaning up of the files we got in our head. She won't be using 'em no more. At least not for a long time, I think. And I found her memories. Like me, she showed up with some memories already in her head. Like watching a movie, you know? I wrote out some of my memories into our story-blog. And I thought it'd be good if I did the same with hers, so we couldn't forget 'em. One of them had already been shared with Boss, and the other was stuff we'd mostly all guessed about, like how she got hurt. Anyways, the links are here - Part One and Part Two.

Stress Reduced [Me]

We've had an excellent weekend. Something we really needed, after so much stress at home lately.

We're still dealing with condoms, which has caused a lot of our stress, since early February. Nobody wants to use them, but if they don't get used there's anger and guilt and distrust. I hate fighting with Boss over something like that. When he tries to initiate sex without a condom, I feel like he's not sticking to our agreement to use them. I feel like I have to check up on him and monitor him, rather than submitting to his wishes as I want to be doing. And when I have to stop him to put it on, it gives me the feeling that he's trying to get around the rule. And that means he's not protecting me. I can only submit to him so fully when I can trust that he will take better care of me than I will of myself. I have to be able to trust that he will do whatever it takes to protect me. When he does, it makes me feel like I am something valuable and treasured in his life. And that feeling is essential to loving, for me.

The biggest problem with that comes when we're sleeping. Boss has three primary alters, all of whom I think can be relied upon to 'play within the rules'. But he has several secondary alters that won't, or don't understand. And in the middle of the night, one of those alters is likely to wake up and initiate sex before any of the primaries are awake enough to grab a condom. And if I'm asleep, I'm likely to let it go further than it should before I stop to do a rubber-check. Especially if Stephanie's out, like she was a few nights ago. She will not force the condom issue; she's certain that he has every right to do anything to us without our agreement. So the other night there was probably twenty minutes of rubbing and humping before primaries in either system had any sort of control. Which means I was furious in the morning, and Boss didn't even realize why, because he didn't realize just how far that had gone. This was part of the reason for Stephanie being shelved. She has no sense of self-preservation, and I can't push her out of the front to protect us.

So this weekend we handled several steps to easing the tension on this matter. First, Boss got his lab results back, and tested clear for STDs. We expected him to, but weren't positive. We still need to wear condoms a bit longer because some things take 12 weeks to 'pop' on the tests, but most things are now ruled out. Second, Stephanie got put into storage. Third, Cherish was given orders to speak up and ensure that Boss wears a condom. That's really hard for her, but she agreed to it, and even practiced it. And Fourth, I talked to one of Boss's secondary alters, the one most likely to be transgressing, and the most likely to be able to control the others. He didn't like being told what to do, not at all. But after some growling at each other, he got the idea, and reluctantly agreed to follow the rule, and to try to force the others to do so, as well. Apparently I lose points for asking the craziest guy in there to follow a rule, but I get points for flattering him about being the only one strong enough to enforce it.

While Cherish was out, Boss also talked to her about Stephanie being put away. I think they both really needed to be able to talk about be sad about that.

Shelving Stephanie [Me]

Stephanie has become more and more of a problem for our system's safety. She's missing a lot of basic self-protection behaviors, and I can't count on her to continue acting at all unless Boss is watching her very closely and being uber-responsible about directing her. Last night it came to a head, and we made the decision this morning to do something about it before she gets us hurt.

Externally, she was out all night. We let her get one last shower this morning, because she loves them so. Internally, during the shower, several of us took ahold of her and walked her down the hall, past her room, to the storage access. There are several closet-shelves in there, all but one dark. Jarett's glows a rich chocolate-brown color. We opened up the one next to him, made Stephanie lay down on the pull-out bed, and then each bade her goodbye. Then we closed her up into storage like Jarett. Her door glows a rusty, earthy brown color.

Cherish has been heartbroken. The two slaves have been sharing a room all this time, sleeping wrapped around each other, the light and the dark. Paul's devoted his energy today to taking care of Cherish. Rubi's guarding the hallway access to keep anyone from heading down that hall.

Externally, we've done some crying over the matter, but we know it's for the best. Maybe our world will be such that it's safe to bring her back out in the future, but not right now. We just told Boss about it earlier. He's going to blame himself, take it as us punishing him; that's the way he is. That's not what it's about, but that's how he'll feel. And right now, we're torn up enough about making the decision and acting on it that we're not up to comforting him, too. So I anticipate the next couple of days being a bit uncomfortable around home. There's other reasons for that, too, but not related to being multiple, so I won't go into them here. Just couple stuff.

An Avatar for Each [Me]

I made avatars! I found a site (which I have since closed instead of bookmarking - sorry!) where I could make an avatar of each alter. And I did, and it was pretty cool to hear them make choices in my head and direct what they should look like. I've added them to the Alters tab above, but I want to talk about them a little here. So I'm going to show them to you a few at a time and tell you about them now. We actually have an order we think of us in, radiating to either side of me. You may have noticed it when I transcribed a group meeting, the order in which we were arranged. But I'm sticking to that order here, because I find it helpful. And maybe interesting, too.

First, The Quiet Girls - Gracelyn, Stephanie, and Cherish. None speak up very often, but they each have a strong presence when they come out, nonetheless. Gracelyn first - she's furthest from me, and sometimes difficult to hear. But her position at the edge gives her the perspective to see what's going on, and keep her distance from the emotions of it all. She prefers shades of purple, and always carries a clipboard with her. Next is Stephanie. She sees Gracelyn as the Lady of the household and obeys her. Shades of brown suit her and her darker skin tone. She shares the title of Slave with Cherish, though they go about their service in different ways, dark and light. Cherish is golden and beautiful and graceful.

Then we have The Kids. Paul is Cherish's son, so he connects with her, but he's no slave. He's all boy, and very strong. He has his own subsystem of alters, but he takes up only one spot in my system. Green is his color - army green, grass-stain green. He gets to have the mohawk he likes, here. Kiara's also very strong, but she's a very girly girl. Bright blue for her, and we found a little polar bear teddy bear for her, too. She has a wig at home that she sometimes wears, styled in pigtails.

Kiara's the closest to me on that side, so I get to be next. I found a book to read, and short short hair for my avatar. I usually dress in shades of red and black, but I'm as likely to take on Kiara's blue or Paul's green, or even Gracelyn's purples. Together with Sam and Rubi, we make up The Big Girls. Sam found a sexy corset top and some comfy harem pants, and a messy kinda-short hair style suited her well. Rubi went sexier and tougher, with red spiky hair and lots of leather.

And then we have Silent One, who doesn't fit into any of the other categories. It's past Rubi simply because they are both rough and animalistic, with Silent One dropping any connection to human behaviors. We 'see' it in shades of gray and black. My theory is that because it has animal sight, colors just don't mean so much to it. We see it as somewhat fuzzy, and hairy. This avatar did approach some of the way it looks internally. 

So there we are, a quick visual image of the folks in my head. It was fun for us. We've added these images to our Pinterest boards, also, but I wanted to have them all in one place, too.

DID Presentation [Me]

I want you to go watch this video. Yeah, it's really long. But it's worth it. It's a very basic overview of DID presented by a student who is a multiple. I just finished it. I did have to take a few breaks, both to work, and to keep my head together. Boss watched part of it last night, and it made him really spinny, as it has me. Talking really intensely about being multiple makes it more... active? My analogy to him was that it's like watching porn. Even it you're doing nothing, thinking about sex a lot makes you want to have sex. Thinking a lot about being multiple makes you lean toward more switching. So I have a switchy headache right now, not from switching, but from the effort to not switch. That has to wait until we leave work, of course. But for now, go watch the video.

Negative Emotions for Breakfast [Me]

I'm feeling incredibly negative this morning. I know it's not really a valid emotion, as in it's based on some very thin emotional responses. But I can feel it bogging me down, and it will take some effort to work through it today.

The major (but not only) starting-point of this is that Boss is sick. And when he's sick, he starts feeling unlovable, and thus unloved. None of us are extremely desirable when we're sick. We're messy and make unpleasant squishy noises and need someone to wait on us, but not require anything of us because we're too sick to do it. We can't concentrate and we're not capable of doing things for ourselves. So then we feel bad about requiring someone else to do for us, and the guilt just makes us feel worse. So then we try to just ignore our needs and not be so hard to take care of. But ignoring our own needs makes us feel like no one cares what our needs our, or that our needs just aren't even important enough to matter. Yeah, and so the pity-party just spirals down upon itself.

Boss is a master of this negative cycle. So he's feeling undesirable to the nth degree. And being all mopey and moist and down on himself, makes him hard to desire right now. Also, in trying to treat him gently in response to his sickness, I'm less demanding of his attention and action. Which translates in his fever-befuddled brain to I don't need him, and even don't want him. Which, of course, is not at all true. I'm just placing my needs and wants on hold until he's well enough to fulfill them.

So last night this cycle took a hard dip. He's in the living room being all moist and I'm on the computer. Sure, I could have been snuggling up with him on the couch, but he was watching something I didn't want to see. I did spend a little while in there letting Paul go through his leather kit and reorganize it. We had planned to work on Boss's leather last night, but Boss wasn't up to even changing shoes and sitting there for us. So it'll have to be another night.

I got done with my computer stuff for the evening, and went to my room to put up laundry and clean up a little. So yes, I left him. I was doing chores. My metamour was in there playing on the computer too, though, so it's not as if he was totally alone. When I got done with chores, I laid down on the bed to read for a while. Eventually, Boss came wandering in, and he cuddled up on me and started petting on me. It was very nice. So nice that I fell sort of asleep (okay, he may have caused that to happen on purpose). So I'm there drifting away and realize that he's whispering something at me (not really to me, as I'm out of it). Now, in that state, I do mumble to myself, and apparently I mumbled something that sounded like something that upset him, because the next thing I know, he's angry and wanting me to repeat and explain myself. I don't know what the heck he's talking about - I wasn't even awake - and then he takes off on a tangent about how I need to act like I desire him and I'm supposed to be seducing him.

I was, of course, confused and upset. And he was confused and upset. I wrote it off to him being sick and me being asleep and did my best to just go back to sleep, because he wasn't interested in talking reasonably, and I wasn't awake enough to do so. I went back to sleep. At some point during the night, I think there was an attempt on his part to snuggle and initiate sex, but I'm not sure what happened, because the next thing I'm aware of, he's flopping over with his back to me like I've offended him.

I don't know what's going on, exactly. I blame the sick and hope he gets better quickly. But I think he and Gracelyn need to have a talk. Or we need to have a fight. Or something.