Feeling Revitalised!

Hey everyone!

Because me and Vi have been here all week again (plus these 3 extra days because of my blog delay) I can say we’re still pretty stable which I’m very happy about! Vi managed to get a total of about 18 hours sleep in the couple of days she was here. She got more sleep in 1 night than I had for the entire week! I feel so much better! It’s like I’m revitalised! I’m back to my usual mischievous and productive self. I’ve tried so hard to adapt to sleeping at night but it’s not working and I’m not sure if it’s even possible for me to change it. I think my internal clock is pretty much just set the way it is. It doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying but it does mess things up a little bit! 

We now have a very happy trio of gerbils! I collected 2 babies last Wednesday. They’re called Danzilla, Zil for short, and Orion (because I love the stars!). So how we have Tom, Danzilla and Orion. Tom was like a grumpy uncle initially but now he’s been teaching them how to do things. I’m working very hard to tame the babies and luckily Vi didn’t screw it all up while I wasn’t here! They were only in the split cage for a few days and now they’re all living together and sleeping in a big pile of fluff. Zil and Orion use Tom as a giant pillow which he doesn’t seem to mind. Tom is the same size as the 2 babies put together! It’s quite funny seeing them sat next to each other! You’ll see photos of them on their Instagram account. So far, I haven’t been bitten at all by the babies but I’m taking it very slowly with them. I don’t know how Keri did it with Tom and Ian but I do know we had different methods! Both must have worked though as Tom and Ian never bit either! I have high hopes. Zil and Orion are still a bit skittish but they’re getting used to the day to day noises and movement. They haven’t just had to get used to Tom, they’ve had to get used to me, and they’ve had to get used to a new home, and a brand new environment with all sorts of new noises and sights! I’m surprised they haven’t nipped me actually considering all they’re having to adapt to! Everyone that has come to see them so far has fallen in love straight away but I think you’d have to have an extremely unhealthy deficit of emotion not to fall in love with the little balls of fluff. Orion is already going through some colour changes. He’s a honey coloured gerbil and is getting patches of dark orange on his forehead. He’s looking quite quirky!

I went to the community centre today which I was very happy about as last week I couldn’t go as I had to pick up the gerbils. The week before, Keri was out and point blank refused to see anyone. The week before that and my support was cancelled unexpectedly. There was a couple of women there that I already knew from the last time I went. One of the older ones was doing something with wool and she showed me what she was doing. She called it “crocheting”. I love anything that involves detail and that takes a lot of time. It’s like with my diamond painting sets - they take forever, but one by one you add the little diamond sequins onto their places and eventually you get a beautiful picture! I know Keri has a load of stuff that she did for “looming” but I associate looming with those silly elastic band bracelets that teenage girls used to make (and that Vi loves which makes it even worse...). The crochet thing seemed really interesting to me and the woman showed me a lot of what she’d made. She calls herself the “original granny” and her grandson asked her the other day if she was old enough to be in a museum. I couldn’t stop laughing! It was a couple of mins before I pulled myself together! The younger woman drew some anatomy stuff. I’ve always been terrible at drawing so I didn’t look too much at that besides the fact she was doing a lot better than I would’ve done! In the end I did some colouring by number sheets that the staff found. I have no idea what I was colouring in though! 

I love going to that centre as no one has any issues with me being around and me and my support worker did explain a bit to another woman who I was as she got a bit confused about the me vs Keri situation. I don’t mind explaining this at times as it took all of us alters a while to get our head around it and we live with it, let alone other people who don’t have to live with the whole thing or maybe haven’t even come across DID before. It still really bugs me though that it’s all women! I know they don’t mean to make me feel bad but quite often it’s “bye girls”, “hi ladies” or “women’s group”. No thanks! I’m male! I’m NOT a girl and I don’t like being reminded that I’m going to a WOMEN’S group because I’m a boy! Just because this stupid body is female doesn’t mean I am and sometimes it makes me so angry! People don’t mean to say it and I know they don’t understand but it can get so frustrating that I want to scream. Although even if I was capable of screaming I doubt I’d stand in the middle of the room and actually do that... I don’t have any issues with women but it’s nice to mix it up. There’s ONE male support worker here and I really look forward to my time with him purely because it feels so nice to actually be around someone finally who’s my own gender! Even though being around people is exhausting I really try to make sure I have that support with him as it feels kind of refreshing! I can’t exactly hang around with other 15 year old boys. I hate saying this crap but I do in fact, in other people’s eyes, look like a 26 year old woman, so I think hanging around a load of boys my age would look odd. It feels so isolating! I’m just glad that the support workers accept me and let me be myself. If I want to have an immature moment rather than keep being constantly overly responsible for a 15 year old boy and kick a load of leaves across a park, there’s no issue! I might get some looks from people, but I don’t care! I should get to be myself and screw everyone else! Hang on, I’ve gone off on a serious tangent. I feel quite strongly about all of this so I think my writing got a bit out of hand! Back to business, whatever it was that I was going to say... 

Vi was out for a couple of days as I was severely sleep deprived. I was losing my focus on things, I wasn’t able to get the motivation to tidy or do anything productive, I needed more alone time, socialising was even more exhausting, and ironically it made sleeping even more difficult! I left Vi a letter explaining what had been going on since she was last here (it had been a week since she was last here with that migraine). She was very happy that she had a couple of days to herself where she didn’t have to deal with any illness and the only ‘job’ she had was to sleep! Besides that she could do as she pleased (within reason) for the rest of the time. She has a tendency to treat human beings like “starving lions”. She thinks she’s going to get hit, shouted at, hurt, any negative thing a human being can do and she thinks it’s going to be inflicted on her. She’s also very guarded with what she says as she’s scared she’ll say too much. She even said she was scared she’d said too much to our key worker simply because she was asked why she liked reading! Simply put, Vi likes reading so much as an escape from all the crap she went through, a bit like a fantasy world she can flit into when she needs to. Even this, as small as it seems, Vi found too much and didn’t want to expand and felt scared. I’ll be making sure to write in my next letter before she comes out that this was a completely innocent remark and that our worker meant nothing by it. I did say beforehand that even if she had a lot of secrets, the staff and family know about at least half of the things that have happened in the past and she doesn’t need to be so guarded. Unfortunately she seems to have it ingrained into her that she shouldn’t let things slip. When she does she starts panicking, which is why she felt she had to write about it in the letter she left for me.

Vi also went to her 1st therapy session. She wouldn’t have gone in if it wasn’t for the reassurance of our support worker who goes with us. I don’t have the same anxiety so I didn’t feel as terrified for my 1st time but Vi has horrible anxiety about everything, especially if it involves attention being on her. I also overlooked a crucial detail that I forgot to write about to her and apparently everyone else forgot about too! No one, including me, thought to mention to Vi that anything that is said in that room is shared with anyone else (besides other alters if necessary). Vi said that after our therapist had said that she felt a bit better about talking. Unfortunately, that’s now started a lot of crap that we’ve tried to avoid for a long time, including Vi texting her mum about her “dad”. I have a feeling this is going to get very very complicated. We kept Vi away from all the court stuff that happened and she still doesn’t understand the severity of everything. I won’t go into details about what Vi said she talked about in therapy as I feel like that would be invasive. I don’t mind writing about certain things I talk about but that’s my own stuff that I’m sharing, not someone else’s. I’m glad Vi and our T finally met but it’s definitely opened a can of worms! Her mum is now aware as I had to text her as soon as I found out about the message Vi had sent. At least next time, Vi will be less wary. From what she wrote, she spoke more to our T than she had to either of the support workers she met and that’s very reassuring to me.

I’ll admit that even though Vi purged (she said she’d done it both days) she was very well behaved! She said she’d tried very hard to behave and I double checked the flat to make sure nothing was broken or that anything was out of sight in an attempt to hide some form of impulsivity that went wrong. It all looked fine! The gerbils are all still perfectly fine and aren’t hiding in fright at the sight of me. Tom is used to the switching so knows the difference between me and other alters, but this is something else Zil and Orion are going to have to adjust to! The fact they’re still happy proves that Vi didn’t try grabbing at them or chase them around like a maniac and scare the crap out of them! She has asked that I get her some new clothes and some decent boots which I think is reasonable. I didn’t give her the usual allowance (something else I forgot) so all she did was spend money on food. I did double check this though as unfortunately Vi’s word isn’t always the best thing to go by. This checked out though and she did only spend money on food so yesterday night I had a look at the wish list she’d made and ordered her 2 new skirts, a pair of fleeced leggings and a pair of knee high boots. The boots and leggings have already arrived this evening so I’ll lay them out on the armchair when she’s out again for a couple of days. It’ll be a lovely surprise for her! Considering we could be here for a while and I’m very good with managing money, I think it would be cruel to neglect Vi’s needs just because ‘I can’. If it’ll make her feel better than I’m happy too.

This temporary host thing is making us both sympathetic towards Keri though. Because of the amnesiac barrier between me and Vi, and the fact we have no contact with any other alters, we have the same kind of switching Keri seems to describe. When Vi was out, I felt like no time had passed. When I came back I felt like I’d blinked a few times like I was getting my eyes to focus, except I was in different clothes, sat in a different chair, with things in different places, and 2 days had disappeared! All I’d done was found my door, switched with Vi, but then I’d blinked and that was it. Now I understand what Keri means when she says that weeks can disappear and she just feels like she’s blinked. It’s like Vi said in her letter to me when I got back, she feels the same! We had no idea how disorientating it was! It took me about 20 mins to adjust to what was going on before I then went to have support with the staff.

Vi had a lot of strange symptoms, just like I’ve been having. I emailed our care coordinator about it on Sunday and our key worker spoke to him too. I’m still keeping a log of everything that’s going on but I’m not reassured. Things haven’t been getting any better with these strange occurrences but I’m still going to maintain my faith that we have a good mental health team that knows what they’re doing. When I met our care coordinator he did seem to me to know what he was talking about and seemed logical. I usually have a decent sense of people but I have been wrong before. It’s rare though! Sometimes it’s little things I’ll pick up on. There might be a sudden look of skepticism. A look of shock. A look of fear. A sneer. A glazed look. It could be a sudden atmosphere or feeling that develops for a brief second. It could be anything. Usually there’s some kind of sign but I don’t look at people’s faces unless I’m pretty sure they aren’t looking directly at my eyes. I’ve made that mistake before and felt myself freeze. I don’t mean a sudden freezing episode, I just mean frozen in fear staring at the floor for a minute. 

I’m going to a wildlife park on Friday! I’ve got a few hours tomorrow to go somewhere but I have no idea what to do. I’ll improvise! The support is at 11am and at that point in the morning I’m not exactly ‘with it’ considering I can never fall asleep until about 8am now. I’ll have to be up before 10am to shower and get sorted. I used to like showering in the evenings but Vi prefers the mornings and keeping our schedules the same just makes things easier when we have to switch. Because of my tendency of taking ages to be able to wake up even after I’ve gotten out of bed, a shower seems to help get the sleepiness away a little bit. We even have a meeting at 10.30am this week which means I’m going to get a whole hour of sleep before I have to get up and shower. Can the whole world turn nocturnal please? It would really help! 

Most of my time right now is being dedicated to the gerbil trio with staff support dipped in here and there, plus the joy of cleaning, appointments and all the lovely adult stuff I’m very quickly adapting to. I’m glad I have so many hobbies I can do in the flat but it’s good to get out of here most days. I haven’t been on a decent night time walk recently as it’s been raining and horrible but it seems to have cleared up a bit more now. It’s just very cold. I can cope with that as long as I can see the stars! If it’s clear tomorrow night then I’m hoping I can get out for an hour. I’m also dedicating a lot of time to eating! I don’t mean pigging out, I mean making sure that I’m eating when I’m hungry but trying to add additional snacks, and healthily. I’ve said previously that Keri has lost a lot of weight and it wasn’t until today that I found out the staff had noticed the difference too. I was easily able to say I have no issue with eating and one of my goals has been to get some of the weight back on! It’s part of the reason I don’t want Vi out for extended periods. Her bulimia is severe and it won’t help with weight gain. If our time was evenly divided then all my hard work would then be taken away as soon as she was here! I’m hoping that gradually I can get us back to a healthy BMI as we’re underweight again. Even if I can just get us to the minimal BMI needed then I’ll be happy. I’ve hidden the weighing scales as well purely for Vi’s benefit so she doesn’t get tempted by them when she’s here or she’d never get off the stupid things. I’m only getting them out once a week to make sure we’re gaining some weight but so far... I don’t know how it’s happening. I weighed exactly the same the 1st week and then this week lost weight. I don’t know how that’s even possible. I think I’ll ask staff about it tomorrow. This is one of the things I’m not expert on. Considering I’ve never had a problem with an eating disorder I’ve had no need to be obsessive about calories or the whole metabolism thing. It’s one thing I am pretty clueless about, besides the basics that everyone knows. I think google might be necessary although I don’t want to get freaked out over skeleton photos or something. I’m well aware of some of the sites Keri and Vi visit online that feed into their eating disorder crap and I don’t want to find one 😡 Maybe a search engine isn’t a good idea and I’ll just ask the support workers and maybe our care coordinator too. I’d rather ask human beings as technology isn’t reliable at certain times. It’s a bit like people trying to diagnose themselves without a doctor. Do you have a degree and study medicine for 7 years? No, you googled for a total of 3 mins...

All the gerbils are cuddled in a big pile! Tom still doesn’t seem to mind acting like a pillow. He’s so much happier now. I think he wanted slaves to do the nesting for him so he could be lazy again! It’s getting very late now so I need pasta, hot chocolate, dimmed lights, some games, a movie, start some cleaning, and all the usual crap I tend to do at this time as my brain seems to start getting a lot more active! If the washing machine wasn’t so noisy I’d be doing that at 3am so I wouldn’t be bored out of my mind lying in the dark daydreaming and trying to quiet my mind for the night! This task of changing my sleep seems impossible but I still try every night. If after another few weeks it still won’t budge then I’ll bring it up with our care coordinator. Who knows, maybe he’s met another nocturnal human before! Anyway, I’m sure you lot should be huddled in blankets or a duvet at this hour, unless any of you are the same as me and start getting strangely active at this time until the daylight hits again in the morning!

I’ll be back to blog on Sunday! Even if I haven’t slept much Vi won’t be having a couple of days again before then 😊 Good night! Or good morning or afternoon! Whichever part of the world or whatever time you’re reading...

Fox 🦊