Postponing Until Next Week

Hey everyone.

I can’t sit and write a post tonight. My focus is all over the place. Vi is going to be here for a week or so so that I can try and suss out whether everything I’m experiencing is down to illness or severe sleep deprivation. I’m desperately hoping it’s the latter of the two and I can go to our care coordinator next Friday and say “I feel great again!”.

I’m exhausted, I’m losing my appetite, my mood is dipping, my focus is erratic, my brain feels like it’s dripping out of my ears and my logic is slipping occasionally which is very frustrating. I’m also starting to get very mistrustful which doesn’t help when I’m trying to help all of us as a whole, along with all the other weird stuff I’m dealing with that I can’t really brush off anymore which I chatted about in previous posts.

I do have good news which is I’ve heard from our foster mum, well technically ex-foster mum but I hate using that term. Things are chaotic and as mental as usual but thankfully everyone is at least alive, even if not in the finest of physical health! We have a new baby niece, who looks amazingly gorgeous and I’m sure she’ll be a spoilt little princess that’s if she’s not already!

Plus, our gerbils are still causing mayhem wherever they lay their paws although I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ll speak to you all soon and hopefully I’ll be in much better spirits and be able to tell you that this whole thing was just sleep deprivation and I feel fine. If not, then, well I’d rather not think about that unless I’m in that situation (then I’ll deal with it). Optimism is key!

Have a good week or so!

Fox 🦊

Needing Vi More Than Anticipated!

I’m a day late this week but I needed Vi sooner than I thought I would! It’s been a harder week. I lasted 4 days before I had to get Vi to give me some respite again but now our switching is the same as Keri’s experience (ie like blinking without any idea how much time has passed) it’s not really much of a break in the usual sense of the word!

I haven’t done much this week as being around people is exhausting for me at the moment. These weird things I’m seeing, hearing and feeling are really hard to just brush off now. I can’t just ignore any of it and I’m questioning everything. I even had to ask this evening about a weird noise the boiler was making as I had a horrible feeling it was about to explode when actually it was real and the noise has stopped now. It’s ridiculous! I can’t do this! The support workers are being great though. I’m in the middle of trying to sort an email to the manager with compliments about a lot of the staff but it’s taking longer than I thought it would as my focus is all over the place. At least my mischievous grin hasn’t disappeared! That I’ve managed to keep so far! 😁 I’m still trying to stay cheeky when I can but sometimes it’s hard. I think being mute makes things easier to hide although my facial expressions probably show more than I mean to when I can’t hold in my frustration, shock or fear. I’ve dug out some headphones and found I can cope a bit better if I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head back and forth a bit to see if things disappear. It doesn’t always work but I’ve got to try! I’m a stubborn little donkey!

I went out with a support worker to a wildlife park on Friday and it was brilliant! I can deal with the cold. I just hate the rain. I saw lemurs (and almost got peed on by one that was sat above my head that I didn’t notice!), giraffes, cheetahs, a lynx, bears, wolverines, zebras, reindeer, monkeys, goats, pigs, and best of all, wolves! I love wolves! They’re my favourite animals! There was a pack of them and I got some great videos. Actually I got great videos and photos of all the animals! To cap off the trip we got a drink in the cafe for the drive back, hot chocolate for me! It was great to be out in the fresh air, even if I did get bothered by things that didn’t seem to bother other people. Looking back I don’t think those things were real or people would probably have screamed or at least frozen and stared like I did. Because my support worker was looking at all the animals like I was it wasn’t hard to look like I was engrossed with everything but there were times where I felt terrified. At one point I wanted to grab his arm and drag him in the opposite direction to the warped shadows that were screaming at us but he didn’t even seem to look at them, let alone point them out when we walked by. It’s confusing the hell out of me! I hate it! At least the animals made the trip quite enjoyable though. They kept me distracted enough that I wasn’t stuck in my own head for the whole time, especially when we got to the wolf enclosure. I think it must have been feeding time as they were definitely hunting for something in their pack! And nearly being peed on by a cheeky lemur out of nowhere got me laughing quite a lot...

I got Vi out on Friday night as by then I was just too exhausted and getting very frustrated. Although today has felt much the same, it’s just Vi has helped a lot by getting 3 nights of sleep! She didn’t do much by the sounds of it. She spent the weekend purging which I’m not happy with at all as it, once again, makes my effort to help us gain weight get dented a bit. She didn’t go out but at least she tried relaxing. She played on the PlayStation, had cuddles with all the gerbils (the babies are now happy to be held although I’ve made it clear that it’s not to be longer than about 30 seconds as they’re still very skittish), and at least saw the staff. I bought her a couple of skirts, a pair of leggings and a pair of new boots which she’s very happy with! A neighbour also very kindly gave me a body warmer. I don’t think she realises I’m actually a teenage male though. She knows my name is Fox but explaining the teen boy thing is complicated. I left a note under her door saying this though and said Vi might like it, and she does! So that’s that sorted! I’m no good with teen girl fashion but I thought she’d like it. She’s asked me to thank our neighbour which I did on Friday. I think I’d make things a lot more complicated if I slid another note under her door saying “Oh Vi was here for a couple of days and loves the body warmer! She said to say thank you!”. I’m not even sure our neighbour knows about all of us alters or if she’s just picked up on the fact all the staff, and a couple of the other clients I do actually chat to, call me Fox and know I’m a “he”. Vi said she met one of the clients I chat to but is worried it didn’t go well as she thinks she upset her. As far as I can tell Vi was being her usual very sensitive self though. She thinks she upsets everyone whether she actually has or not. If someone is frowning that’s just walked past her, even if Vi doesn’t know them, she’ll think she’s upset them somehow. I’m very happy with the fact Vi got so much sleep! I don’t feel as exhausted, I just feel mentally fatigued. I think it’s just stress more than anything which probably explains my lack of focus. I’m going to need Vi a lot more frequently than I anticipated. I wanted to be back tonight so I could go to therapy tomorrow anyway but it might turn out I have to split my time pretty evenly with Vi after all. I’m very reluctant to do this though, as I said last week.

I came back late this morning as Vi refused point blank to go to our eye appointment. It turns out that we didn’t need an eye appointment anyway and the letter came because of an error. It was the quickest appointment I’d ever had! I was very glad as, while the woman was telling me all of this, I was sat in front of these 2 machines that I felt were about to shoot lasers at me. I have to admit, I didn’t feel very ‘at ease’! It wasn’t a complete waste though as it meant I got a walk, I met a new member of staff who was shadowing our key worker and I got to pick up a new box of contact lenses. Not a worthless effort. It was also the session where our key worker noticed my head shaking thing I try and do to get rid of things that were freaking me out a bit or that I didn’t know were real or not. This led to me obviously explaining what I was doing. Initially she thought I was shaking my head as if to say “women!” at a conversation we were having! I do that quite often... I’ll never pretend to understand the inner working of the female brain and I doubt I’ll ever understand! It’s a long standing thing amongst the staff that I take the mick quite a lot about the fact they’re all female besides one of them! 😉

I don’t have much planned this week besides seeing our care coordinator although honestly I’m not sure how helpful that’s going to be. If I can barely even focus on writing this or watching a movie like usual then I doubt I can spend an hour talking to him about stuff. Plus, that’s another 4 days away. Maybe I can get Vi out the day before just so I can make sure she has a night of sleep. I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there. I’m taking it one day at a time. Planning ahead doesn’t work too well right now. I can’t predict the future. I can’t say that’s in my skill level! I don’t believe in fortune telling stuff. I’m very sceptical of that kind of thing. That doesn’t mean I can’t wish I could do it! 😆

It’s amazing how fast time is going even though half the time I’m doing nothing. I think I’m getting a lot of dissociative episodes. These are different from the freezing episodes. The freezing episodes mean I physically can’t move for hours. The dissociative episodes just mean I go into somewhat of a trance until something makes me snap out of it. I lose track of time and just kind of stare. If I lose focus too much or get too mentally exhausted then these happen a lot. I think it’s my brain saying “I need a quick break please!”. I don’t mind this too much. It’s better than not being capable of moving for hours. It just means that time is quite meaningless right now. The only time I’m very aware of what the time is, is when I finally feel able to go to sleep and when I get up to have a peek out of the blinds I find that it’s getting light outside for the morning. I’m lucky that most of my schedule is in the afternoon as it means I can sleep from about 8/9am - 11am-12pm. That’s 2-4 hours. The only exception is Thursdays when support is at 11am so sleep is pretty limited that morning! As you can probably hear, my nocturnal sleep pattern is exactly the same. I’ve had no success changing it. This isn’t bothering me too much though as I’m just trying to adapt things around it. Plus, now Vi has been here a few times she’s more aware of what goes on while she’s here so I don’t have to be so wary of things going wrong. The worst she can do is faint. Admittedly this isn’t great but in the grand scheme of things this isn’t nearly as bad as what could go wrong is it?

All 3 gerbils are awake! I need cuddles with them right now as it’s 10.30pm. They’ll go to bed in a couple of hours and as long as I don’t have a freezing episode then it means I can get some housework done before dimming the lights and putting on some music in the bedroom. I’m tempted to try meditation again. We have a lot of meditation stuff on our phone. Even if I’m not asleep, if I’m lying down with my eyes closed that’s still technically resting as your body isn’t moving or tense. The only problem is when those stupid voices bug me. They set me off at times when they touch on certain subjects but most of the time it’s more annoying, like a mosquito buzzing around in the dark by your head you’re trying to swat away, except you can’t swat away something that’s disembodied. Plus I can’t retaliate as I can’t talk or shout which is even more frustrating, and they know it!

I’ve still got texts and messages I haven’t replied to which is my fault. I’ve mainly answered texts that involve support sessions as considering I’m mute it’s my main communication! Besides that I don’t really bother at the moment unless it’s family. Maybe I can teach the gerbils how to text? Tom is always pretty keen to run all over my iPad keyboard when I’m using it to type gibberish for me so maybe I could tame him to type actual words. I reckon the word “treat” would go down quite well! 😄

Speaking of Tom, it’s snuggle time. And I can’t concentrate anymore. It’s taken nearly 3 hours to write this much as I’ve had to write on and off. Our little fluffy meatball has been very patient and played with the babies while he’s been waiting for me! He’s still a very good teacher and uncle to them! I still can’t get over how adorable they all are when they’re in a massive pile of fluff fast asleep or grooming each other, or even having a little look around in their “meerkat mode”.

If I don’t post on Sunday then it’s because Vi is here again but I’ll try not to keep delaying it too often. Although these self care things have to be taken into account! It may even be I write it a day early but we’ll see. I have to be wary what days I let Vi out as she refuses to work with the male support worker as she’s terrified. I also have to take into account appointments and such. She may only be a year younger but emotionally she’s a lot younger than that so I need to take that into account too.

I’ll be back in about a week, as usual!

Fox 🦊 

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 🦊 

Scheduled Post - Vi is here for a couple of days

Happy Sunday! Although technically it’s going to be just turning Monday when this post goes up!

I’ve scheduled this post to go up at midnight (or 4pm Pacific Standard Time, America I’m assuming?) as I won’t be here for a couple of days. Due to the fact I’m so exhausted I haven’t been myself the last few days. I’ll be writing a post on Tuesday or Wednesday night. In the mean time Violet is going to be temporary host until then as she tends to sleep like a log. She’s a 14 year old girl after all! I should feel better by then!

Due to the fact I won’t be here, although I’m not actually here at the time of this post anyway, I can’t write my blog for tonight! As usual though I’ve scheduled this for those that read it on Sunday/Monday expecting to see an update. I’ll speak to you all soon and hope you’ve had a good week! If you know us personally and do speak or see Vi then please be nice to her! She’s very shy and quiet so she’ll feel very intimidated, especially if you’re an adult.

Bye for now!

Fox 🦊

26 Years Old (Physically)!

Happy Sunday everyone!

Keri had her 2 day chance and she seems to have gotten worse. She saw our key worker only because she hadn’t realised I’d been out for 8 days and only thought she’d lost a few hours. Our key worker filled her in but obviously didn’t tell Keri the full details of my sabotage! Keri found out anyway after our key worker left. She didn’t sleep at all on that Monday night as she spent the whole night figuring out what I’d done. After finding out most of it she completely lost it, had a meltdown, smashed a glass and that was about the end of it. She then refused to see ANYONE. She didn’t see staff, or friends, and she cancelled her therapy session, which she hasn’t done for months. The other leaders were the ones that mainly kept an eye on her while I spent the majority of my time dealing with Shadow and checking in on the other alters, most of which aren’t doing too well, especially Raven, who I was hoping was going to come out with me to help host. She’s hallucinating and really out of touch with things. At one point she screamed so badly that me, Clari and Mary shot straight to her room to find her completely hysterical and seeing things. Obviously, in that state, we can’t really have her out here with me! So Violet has joined me instead. We’re experiencing some weird stuff but it’s really mild and occasional so I’ve been brushing it off and so has Vi. 

In the mean time, while me and Vi are here it means that things are going to be relatively stable, thank god! We’re eating actual food, taking medication regularly, getting some hobbies, staying occupied and we’ll be back to therapy again this week after Keri cancelled last week. Considering Vi has never met our therapist, she’ll need to eventually. I’ve let our T know that Vi might turn up on her doorstep one week as considering Vi has never gone I doubt she’ll even know she needs to go to a therapy session until our support worker knocks on the front door to say it’s time to go! Me and our key worker also talked about the possibility of getting Keri out occasionally to do some sessions as well just to keep monitoring her psychotic and depressive symptoms to see how the medication and therapy is working but I’ll talk to our T about that this week. We’ll be doing work for our overall stuff but I’ll also talk to her about stuff that I need to as well. Considering I’m having to deal with most things (Vi is kind of a “sidekick”) there’s a lot of stress involved that I didn’t really anticipate and that hasn’t come up before when I’ve been out for prolonged periods. I don’t know if it’s because our brain is a bit unwell at the moment or something but it’s been a lot more exhausting and distressing. At least everything is calmer though and no one is panicking or worried as I have no risks to myself, other people, property, animals, nothing! That’s something I focus on when things are feeling tough as it’s half the point of me being here, to make sure we’re all okay in the long run 🙂

I know me coming out on Wednesday night meant Keri missing her birthday but she didn’t even care that it was her birthday anyway so in the grand scheme of things she’s not going to think much about that. I carved a pumpkin for the first time with my name (you’ll see the photos on our Instagram) which was definitely a weird but fun experience! I wanted to go trick or treating as I’ve never had the chance to do that but the male support worker who was working thought it would be a bad idea to have him knocking on people’s doors with his “scruffy face” with me in tow! Maybe next year, ha! Although I’m hoping I won’t be out next year for Keri’s birthday and that she’ll actually have the fun experience like everyone else. Right now she doesn’t even realise she’s turned 26!

I was going to get the gerbil babies today and even spent 2 hours setting up the split cage! I’ve spent a lot of money on a lot of brand new toys that don’t have any gerbil scent on them as Tom could be territorial after the introduction is over. Then, migraine hit. The signs for me are slightly different for the average person as I’ve got to keep a close eye on things. Because of the fact I don’t feel pain anywhere close to the average person I can’t really judge a migraine on pain signals and I need to bite it in the bud before I get to vomiting stage, otherwise that triggers one of my totally frozen episodes and I never know how many hours that will go on for. I had to get Vi out to deal with it early this afternoon and the poor girl doesn’t have the same pain tolerance I do so she got hit with the full force of it. She left me a note before I was back out as I said I needed to be back by 7pm to sort out our next week of medication if the migraine was better by then. The problem with the fact we’re temporary hosts and not permanent like Keri, it means that me and Vi still have complete amnesia between each other. It’s not like Keri where we can see what she’s doing if we choose to. There’s a total block between me and Vi so communication is vital between us, especially if it’s been several days since one of us has been out. Plus, I can’t deal with periods! It’s been a long time since we’ve had to deal with those because of Keri’s eating disorder, and because Vi has bulimia I doubt the periods will come back for a long time. The fact is, I can’t take that risk. If they do come back because of the fact I eat healthily and regularly, I’m not dealing with them! I’m male! I find it hard enough when I have to go to the toilet and shower, let alone THAT! Vi will get days to herself though as she really wants to go to the park and do stuff like play on swings etc. I don’t think that’s asking much! She’s very immature emotionally and psychologically for a 14 year old but when it comes to practical issues she is very capable. She can even fix a fuse! I don’t even know where to start with that! I wouldn’t want to take a plug apart, let alone mess around in there!

I met with our care coordinator for the first time and he was actually not an idiot, although one of the first things I wrote to him on my iPad was that I had to suss out whether he was actually an idiot or not! He said that was a fair thing to say! I actually had a really good chat with him. We talked about a lot of stuff. I asked about the episodes I’m getting where I freeze for hours and can’t move. Hopefully it won’t happen in public but if it does it’s down to the support workers for their judgement. If it happens in the middle of the road then it’ll be a lot more serious of an issue than if it was a quiet street with no imminent danger. I thought it was going to happen last week when I went to pick up some medication from the pharmacy. There was a woman in there getting quite angry and I could feel myself getting more and more worked up. I don’t normally show much if I’m anxious so when it shows to other people it’s not good! I started bouncing up and down a bit and our key worker noticed and knew I was really not feeling good. Luckily it wasn’t long after that before the woman left and the 20 min walk back home really helped me. With that kind of thing I always want to leave the situation but my legs never want to cooperate! It’s not until I’m bouncing around and flapping my arms and doing all that weird hyper stuff just before I freeze that my legs decide they want to go anywhere. Our care coordinator suggested it was catatonia and asked questions about the episodes but couldn’t really explain why it’s happening more than usual. I’m seeing him again in a few weeks and there’s another review with the psychiatrist in about 4 weeks and I’ll have to ask the care coordinator if it’s better for me to see the doctor or if Keri should. We discussed antipsychotic medication but because we’re already weaning onto one medication, I don’t want to wean onto another one otherwise we won’t know which one is helping with which symptoms. I asked what the psychiatrist’s opinion was and he thinks we should wait to see what the effect of the current medication is and work from there. I agreed. It sounds like we actually have a psychiatrist who is sensible but whether he accepts me or ignores me is yet to be determined! So we’re waiting for now. The problem we had in hospital, and I said this to our care coordinator and he agreed, is that we were bombarded with so much medication that no one knew what did what and everyone was so foggy and zombified. It was just about trying to “manage” things because of the aggression Sally often presented with and the unpredictability of behaviours by Keri and other alters. The problem with hospital is psychiatrists often decide that if patients are out of it with pills then it makes it easier to deal with them. I’ll admit, over 4 years of dealing with all of us, I don’t really blame them for shoving all those pills and injections into us. I can see their point of view. It doesn’t mean I agree with it. That’s one of the reasons I’m so glad we live in our flat. Our mental health team has a totally different view to hospital, in fact they have the same view I do, to have us on medication we actually need, not just a cocktail to keep everyone sedated and zombie-like.

I’m actually managing to get some sleep finally! As long as I have nothing planned in the morning, I can go to sleep when the daylight hits (which right now is about 6.30am although getting closer to 7am) and then set an alarm for late morning. It may not be many hours but at least it’s a decent chunk. I don’t have any issues staying asleep or anything. I did wonder whether there was any such thing as a nocturnal human and apparently there’s people with a sleep disorder with similar symptoms. I doubt I have a sleep disorder as I think it’s just an engrained thing that’s happened to me but it’s reassuring to know that I’m not the only human in the world having to deal with a similar problem. I’m still going to try and adjust my sleep to see if I can start sleeping at night by trying to get to bed slightly earlier every other night. Our key worker suggested I take a sleeping tablet every night for several nights to see if it helps me sleep earlier which I’m going to try. I hate “as needed” stuff so she suggested putting it in my regular dosette box with the other night medication and just taking the night dose later. That, I can do! It’s just in with my regular meds so I don’t have to pop it out of the foil and stuff which makes it feel easier for me!

Vi left me a note after she’d been out today and she’s had a couple of weird experiences with a voice she was hearing. She got pretty creeped out but brushed it off like I’ve been doing. I didn’t think anything of it until I had a chat with our worker and she suggested starting a log of all the weird stuff that happens, even if I’m just brushing it off. Not bringing up the reason Raven couldn’t host with me was stupid, and not bringing everything up with our care coordinator was an oversight on my part. It’s only little stuff right now but it’s something I’d rather nip in the bud. It’s been a very long time since I had a really bad psychotic episode and I don’t plan on having another one. Ignoring some of this stuff has probably not helped. I think I’ve been wanting to ignore some of it purely because I don’t want to admit how much everyone is being effected. Vi actually asked what’s wrong with Raven. Before we both came out I told Vi to let me know if she experienced anything “weird” even if she just brushed it off afterwards and it seemed small but I didn’t go into details as I don’t want to scare her. What am I supposed to say to a 14 year old girl? Yes, you need to tell me or you might end up the way Raven and Keri are right now? That would scare her stupid! I’m trying to be blasé about it otherwise she’s going to be terrified every time she comes out just in case something happens she can’t explain. 

I’ve watched a lot of movies lately: Happy Feet 1 & 2, Madagascar 1, 2 & 3, The Emoji Movie and I also started watching Goosebumps with a support worker as I love the books! I didn’t even know they’d made a Goosebumps movie! The support worker isn’t allowed in the flats because he’s male. He’s actually the only male support worker based here. The first time I met him I did comment and grin at the fact that I’m male and I’m allowed to live in the flats and he can’t even come in. Nuh nuh nuhnuh nuh! Considering it’s freezing cold weather it’s lucky the support workers have their own flat as this means we can have support in their flat. How that’s allowed and yet he can’t support me in my flat I have no idea. I’ve asked lots of staff and they’ve explained the reasons but I really can’t get my head around it. I know the reasons make some form of sense but, yeah, I don’t get it. Some of the reasons behind the decision do make sense, some of it is just plain illogical, and this is coming from someone who bases most of their decisions on fact and logic!

Wow. I’ve really written a lot tonight. It’s about 2am so I guess I better take this medication and go and lie down. I got so frustrated trying to sleep last night I actually wanted to punch a wall and that doesn’t happen very often at all. I think I tried to run before I could walk. Lying in the dark for 3 hours when you’re wide awake really isn’t helpful when you’re nocturnal and trying to change your sleep pattern. As soon as the daylight hit though? Within half an hour I was asleep. I didn’t even know it was daylight as the curtains and blinds were both closed. I only knew when I checked the Fitbit log to see what time I’d finally slept and it was 25 mins after it had started getting light so I know that it’s my internal clock, not the lightness of the sky. It’s crazy. Let’s hope these sleeping tablets help! Tom is even asleep right now which is rare for him at this time. Normally we’re sat watching a movie while he’s curled up in my hoodie, but I have spent over an hour writing this blog post so I guess it’s been so quiet he’s given up trying to get my attention! At least that means that he can’t distract me with his big eyes after I’ve had the meds, otherwise I’d be spending the next 2 hours with him in my hoodie rather than lying down and trying to doze off with a book and some music! I have the joy of a flu vaccine tomorrow so wish me luck. It doesn’t give me the flu does it? I can’t deal with that right now otherwise that means Vi is out for a week or I’m frozen/catatonic for a week, not really liking the latter one or I’d probably find myself coming around on a hospital bed!

We’re stable, eating, semi-sleeping, safe, and all the other things that are good. And alive and kicking. Although I don’t plan on kicking anything any time soon! I’m sure my mischievous streak will continue in other ways though...

I’m being pretty crap responding to messages right now (texts and Instagram) for 3 reasons: exhaustion, getting distracted, and the stupid phone is having issues with sending/receiving things (although I don’t know if this is with certain people or at a certain time of day or whether it’s just being temperamental). So bare with me if I don’t reply until the next day. I’m either too tired to use the phone and I’ve just left it on the side to have a break, haven’t even seen the message or, worst case, haven’t even received it!

See you next week! 😄

Fox 🦊