Feeling A Lot More Positive!

I’m very happy to say that the majority of us are feeling a lot more positive! We went 16 days on only 14 hours of sleep and finally for the last 3 nights we’ve slept about 10 hours every night! It’s going to take a couple more days before we feel back to normal but I’m already feeling the effects. I can focus more on the good things going on rather than the bad. That’s always the way I prefer it to be! I think it finally hit the point where our brain just crashed and I’ve gladly welcomed it. I haven’t even come out at 3am like usual as I don’t want to be the cause of another sleep deprivation episode. I understand why it’s used as a torture technique. It’s horrible. At least it’s over for now and hopefully the next episode won’t be for a very long time! I’m keeping my fingers crossed. I’m going to delay my night time walks until we’re back into a proper routine again. Delaying my walks is a small price to pay and I’m happy to do it as long as I can keep doing my writing.

Keri spent the evening with her best friend last week. She lives in the same block of flats so it’s quite handy! They spent the evening watching a movie. I don’t know what they spoke about or what they watched as I wasn’t really around but I do remember hearing Keri and her friend laughing. Even if Keri is feeling really depressed, her best friend always gets her smiling. I’m glad they have each other. They’re a good influence as well. Keri’s friend knows about her problem with alcohol so that’s never an issue and if Keri needs to talk about something her friend is always there, even if she has her own stuff to deal with. And it works the other way around too. It makes me happy when those times come up when Keri is happy. Or happyish. Even a few hours is brilliant!

Keri’s eating disorder has been pretty bad, along with 3 other alters who also have eating disorders. It’s got worse over the last week as Keri’s daughter’s anniversary is coming up so Keri has had a relapse with her alcohol. She wasn’t eating solid food anyway without purging as soon as she can but now she’s drinking all her calories are being reserved for alcohol. That’s why my post has been delayed. I usually write it Sunday night or the early hours of Monday morning but writing while drunk is very hard. I started writing this post Sunday night but the amount of mistakes I keep having to correct is really annoying me. Yes, I admit that Keri’s alcoholism is causing problems but I’m a kind of person that likes looking on the bright side. The bright side is that Keri hasn’t attempted suicide and that Sally hasn’t started trying to kill people (I wish that was an exaggeration and that Sally just had a desire rather than acting on it). 

Keri’s been referred back to STEPs again - Specialised Treatment for Eating Disorders Programme - and has an appointment next month. The initial referral was because Keri can’t eat solid food without purging. Now the issue is that Keri is saving all her calories for alcohol. We’re hoping that her alcoholic relapse will set itself right after her daughter’s anniversary though which is September 3rd. Even if that happens she still needs help getting back to managing solid food again without feeling the need to get rid of it. She has an issue at the moment with chewing and swallowing which immediately makes her feel sick. I don’t think it’s a biological thing, I think it’s psychological. But her doctor at the eating disorder unit is very experienced and will hopefully help ease Keri back into eating solid food again. I’d rather she ate solid food and focused on calories rather than have only liquids and need to purge ASAP whenever she eats something. A couple of us have been trying to come out and eat every now and then. I had a pot noodle a couple of days ago. I know it’s not the healthiest but it’s at least more than coffee and milky drinks. Plus, I miss eating. I don’t understand the fear of chewing and swallowing that Keri has but I can still try and sympathise with it. What I hate more is the whole alcohol issue. I hate feeling drunk. That can’t be a surprise to anyone considering me and Clari are polar opposite twins and she lives for feeling drugged or drunk!

We had a huge scare this week with one of our gerbils. He started falling over constantly and walking around in circles. The vet said on the phone that they might have to put him down. We all felt heartbroken. Luckily, Keri and Nat took him to the vet with one of our support workers and found out Ian has an infection deep in his ear that will take a while to get better. Poor Ian had to have an injection at the vet and he was so well behaved. He sat so still and only flinched a little bit when the needle went in. He’s also been taking his antibiotics straight from the syringe. The vet said it was rare for a small animal to willingly take antibiotics so Keri and Nat Both tried to tempt him with a treat and dilute the medicine in squash. Neither worked! None of us thought to say “Give him the syringe!”. Turns out Ian is an angel when it comes to taking medication. He’s even better than most alters taking their meds! Tonight was the last night Ian needed his antibiotics and we’ve all noticed a difference. Even after a few days he’d stopped falling over and was walking less in circles. We’d have all been so upset if we’d had to see Ian put down. The vet even made an appointment for the evening so that the vet practice would be quieter just in case... well... you know 🙁. Nat said that while she and Keri were sat waiting, they saw a woman rush out of one of the consulting rooms in tears. I’m guessing she’d just seen her own pet euthanised and I’m glad I wasn’t there to see the devastation she must have felt. The same devastation we would have felt if Ian had something untreatable. Did you know that besides Keri and her best friend, our gerbils have lived in these flats longer than any of the other residents?! They’re old hands in this place! And hopefully will be for a long time to come! If you want to follow Tom and Ian on Instagram they have their own account separate to our account: @tomandiangerbils 🙂

There’s no improvement with Keri’s current episode. She’s still having severe difficulty in speaking, writing and thinking properly. She’s also still convinced she’s being taken over by a demon. I can say with pride that she went to the community centre last week with a support worker and her best friend. I don’t think Keri would’ve had the courage to go if her friend hadn’t gone with her so I’m very proud she went, and very happy Keri’s friend went with her too. Keri managed nearly an hour before she needed to chat to her support worker as she was getting very overwhelmed with the wall people talking to her and she thought she was making everyone ill by “spreading the demon around”. The community centre is open every Wednesday for females only so the staff try to persuade Keri to go each week. It was the first time she’d gone since she started feeling this demon thing so a lot of us were very proud of her. Hopefully, because of last week, she’ll get herself to go this week too. Her usual support worker should be able to take her. This is going to be a key point in Keri’s state of mind. Since Keri started believing she was being infected by a demon, her usual support worker hasn’t seen her since she told her about the demon. This has had nothing to do with Keri. Her usual worker has been training, at meetings, on annual leave and, during one week, she was off sick. Keri has been convinced that the reason her usual worker hasn’t been with her or gone with her to the community centre is because she’s infected the support worker with the demon. I truly hope her usual worker makes it on Wednesday otherwise it’s going to continue feeding into Keri’s delusion. In fact I’m going to be extremely annoyed if her usual worker doesn’t make it again as it’ll be at least 4 weeks in a row since Keri had the courage to go to the centre with her.

I’m planning to see our parents soon (to specify, I mean foster parents, not birth parents). It’s around the time now when Keri would ring them to see when she can visit and I plan to spend some time with them myself! I actually spoke to our mum a few weeks or so ago as I needed her advice but it would be lovely to see her face to face. By ‘spoke’ I mean texting as obviously I’m mute. Our mum was really helpful when I needed advice as there’s some things I can’t wrap my head around that somehow she manages to! Maybe to do with her psychic thing going on. She always knows when something is wrong even though we don’t live at home and haven’t done for 6 years. Some alters, including Keri, call it creepy but I call it intuitive! You know, since I started regularly updating this blog, I’m happy to say none of the other alters have been reading it! It gives me more confidence to write honestly about my feelings without worrying I might insult another alter!

We’ve started another puzzle as we’ve been trying very hard to stay distracted. We have a 500 piece puzzle and a 1000 piece puzzle finished that David has glued together. The frames for them have been ordered and we are now starting another 1000 piece puzzle. We used to decorate our hospital room with puzzles we’d done but we can’t find them anywhere. That’s not very surprising though. Unfortunately a lot of stuff went missing through all the moves we had in different hospitals and through stuff going missing while supposedly safe in storage. I don’t mind though. It’s a fresh start in this flat and because I’m feeling fairly positive at the moment I’m not really lingering on the things that could dampen my mood. There’s always a silver lining and I wish most other alters could see that!

I’m looking forward to another week which I’m hoping will be positive. Remember that if you message us on Instagram then please say who you want to talk to as some of us have answered messages that aren’t for us and it’s all got a bit muddled! Even if you’re meaning to talk to Keri, please state that! Thanks 🙂

Until next week!

- Fox 🦊

No Driving Licence

It’s been a couple of weeks since I was last able to write a post, although I’ve just found I forgot to publish the previous one so I guess it’s been 3 weeks and now all of a sudden two in a day!

We’re severely sleep deprived. In the last 12 days we’ve had a total of 13 hours sleep. It’s destroying everyone. Keri can’t sleep because of the demon she still thinks is overtaking her and the wall people talking to her. I was hoping to come out at one stage to see if I could help us get some sleep but I’m not too good at sleeping unless I’m out for at least a few days. Our mental health team has told Keri to take her sleeping tablet every night now until she gets to sleep. There’s a point when our brain is just going to shut down and sleep for 10 hours or something but the sleeping tablet will help speed that up. She’s been saying some very strange things and it’s making us all ill. None of us wanted to come out today as Keri was ill and she spent over an hour this evening vomiting. I disappeared into my room at that point as I hate being sick. By the time I came back out to see what was going on with Keri, she was lying on her bathroom floor. I hoped she’d fallen asleep from exhaustion but I then realised if that was the case I wouldn’t be seeing her on the floor, I’d be seeing whatever nightmares or dreams she was having. Sometimes we share dreams and it gets confusing. One alter could have a nightmare about something that happened to them that Keri doesn’t know about and be seriously confused when she wakes up as she doesn’t know where on earth the nightmare came from. Normally I’m quick to know if we’re awake or asleep but because I’m sleep deprived as well my brain is being a bit slow keeping up with everything. I can’t wait until we finally sleep!

We’ve been waiting for permission to apply for a driving licence for 7 years. A few months ago we were given permission. Although when I mean me, I mean everyone over 18 which doesn’t include me. I wouldn’t be allowed to drive. I’m able to learn but legally it could be an issue if I drive alone. That doesn’t matter now though. We had a psychiatrist review just over a week ago that was out of the blue (that urgent one I spoke about) and he said that the DVLA would only give us a licence if we didn’t switch at all for at least 3 months. Multiple alters took it very badly. We never go more than a day without some form of switching. Initially we thought he meant alters like Sally as the psychiatrist brought up that there was an issue with the fact Sally was restrained in hospital a few times. He actually means no switching at all, with any of us. We’ve had arguments about whether we should lie but that’s against my morals, and a lot of the other alters’ morals too. Plus, we’d never get away with it. People that know us well, including support workers, would pick up on it quite easily even if we try to blend in. It wouldn’t be obvious to strangers or people that didn’t know us very well if we were trying to blend though. I wouldn’t be able to as because I’m mute I can’t really be in a social situation without people realising I won’t speak. It looks like it’s back to getting a new companion bus pass.

Since the psychiatrist said about not switching for 3 months and for Keri to be the one that has to be here the whole time, everyone has rebelled. Every day an alter has been out ‘properly’. When I say properly I mean that they haven’t just come out to help or briefly talk to someone. They’ve come out, got into their own clothes, put on their own makeup (where appropriate) and done whatever they want even if it interrupts the status quo. Even through the sleep deprivation we still find time to come out. I wish some other alters would take the initiative to get some sleep. It’s only Keri that has this episode still going on with the wall people and the demon possession. Any of the rest of us that come out don’t experience the same thing. I love the peace and quiet myself but I hate the feeling of having my brain melting and leaking out of my ears. I can’t do my word searches or anything as I can’t focus. Even this post has taken longer than normal to write. Usually I get it done pretty quickly but it’s hard thinking of the words. A lot of us are losing our temper pretty quickly even when we aren’t normally emotional. Especially if people say “I’m so tired, I didn’t sleep well last night”. Oh really? We have barely slept for 2 days shy of a fortnight. No complaining from you thank you! Sorry, I’m tired. That kind of thing gets me very frustrated. It’s a bit like if someone says they’re feeling a bit depressed but they’re only having an off day and have no idea what depression feels like. 

I wish I could be more positive but right now I’m really not feeling at all positive. Most of us are past caring about much now and are just getting ratty, physically ill and frustrated. By next week we should have had a decent sleep and I’ll be more positive about things! Have a good week everyone :)

- Fox 🦊 

Internally Busy, Externally Insane

Forgot publish! This was from 28th July.

Well it’s been a week since I last posted as I haven’t had a chance to write anything in between my Sunday posts. Me and a lot of the other alters have been busy as we’ve had to pick up the pieces Keri is leaving behind with her episode.

So, internally, I’m spending a lot of my time looking after the littles. Most of the time I enjoy it but now I find its grating at me. I need some peace. Mary and David have been busy trying to talk to Trixie, Spike and Sally as they want to do destructive things. Luckily we rarely have an issue with Spike sexually assaulting women as he can only come out when Sally’s out, him being her “sub” alter. Natalie has been trying to keep on top of the practical things like bills, payments, shopping, groceries. Penny wants to ligature even though we aren’t even being detained or locked up anywhere so her and Violet have been spending a lot of time together trying to support each other. Some alters are doing nothing except wanting to stay away from all the work and sitting in their rooms pretending they haven’t noticed we’re so busy even though I know for a fact they DO  know! Most of the time we complain that there’s way too many of us. But right now, there’s not enough! I wish I could magic alters out of nowhere just to tell them to help out and then they can disappear again. 

Externally, none of us wants to go anywhere near any of it. Keri’s delusion of being possessed by a demon is getting worse by the day. She’s convinced that the demon that’s possessing her is making people sick and she thinks that explains why a member of staff was off work on Wednesday. Since then she’s been refusing most of her support. The only time she’s been accepting it is in the evening when she has to shower. She still can’t shower alone as she’s terrified of the wall people she hears and now obviously it’s worse with this demon thing. The two other times she accepted it were brief times, one where she needed to collect medication and one where she had to buy milk and some sweets I asked her for. Everyone can see she’s just getting more and more isolated and depressed. Her key worker tried talking to her this evening before Keri got in the bath but I didn’t hear a lot of the conversation. I know she tried to tell Keri that she wasn’t causing people to be sick and should try to accept her support, especially at these times when she’s not exactly thinking clearly. I also heard that she’s started nicknaming one her of gerbils Meatball because he’s so fluffy and round. I had to have a chuckle at that.

We should be seeing our care coordinator again this week. Although considering how Keri has been since we got home I can’t say I’m expecting anything. Remember that “urgent” review that was requested with her psychiatrist? Still hasn’t happened! It’s really annoying me! If nothing happens soon then I’m going to speak to the staff and sort this out myself. I’m worried. Most of the staff are worried. All of us leaders are worried. WHY AREN’T THEY HELPING HER? Keri is our chosen host and we don’t want to have to go through the process of picking another one. We reevaluate it on a yearly basis and there’s been a few years where we’ve been on the edge of another alter adopting Keri’s life as their own instead. It takes a lot of work doing all that though so we’ve avoided it at every opportunity we could as it means rearranging a lot of things and opening and closing doors that shouldn’t really be touched. It also means that whoever takes over ends up with the previous years of amnesia. It was okay to get away with that when they chose Keri at 8-9 years old but more complicated now she’s 25. I have occasional images of Sally being the permanent host. No thanks! I doubt anyone would agree to that!

I’m running out of ways to keep the littles occupied. We have Lego and toys. I’m asking every now and again for people to get sweets for them. We’ve had to sort out more regular supervised playtime with the gerbils. I’m running out of alters who have different children’s stories. It’s times like this when I know I should appreciate the times when things are calmer and less chaotic. The silver lining is even though Keri’s brain is working on a different wiring to everyone else, she’s not doing anything too bad. She’s not running off, she’s not trying to kill herself, she’s not threatening people with knives. I mean, she’s doing a load of other stuff but not stuff that’s going to lead to legal or fatal consequences, not in the short term. We have to count ourselves lucky there.

We’ve completely recovered from Clari’s ecstasy play time on our birthday. There was a few days where we were zombies but now we’re back to normal. I found out from Keri the other day that baby unicorns are called “shimmers” and “sparkles” depending on whether they’re male or female. Why on earth she knows that fact I’ve no idea and why she decided to tell me is another thing I’m clueless about. Some things may never be explained but I guess I know something I’ve never known before. I don’t think it’s something I’ll ever need but it did entertain the littles when I told them about it. Young children and unicorns seem to go well together, even with boys. I’ve never seen the need for thinking about unicorns. I guess I’m thinking about them now though. Wow. The unicorn fact has permeated through my brain and taken over! 

Bye for now! 🙂

Fox 🦊