We don’t have to love ourself?

When we went in-patient for the first time almost five years ago, we wanted goals. Context (short version): We were drowning in shame from childhood trauma memories. Being productive while away from home for five weeks seemed important. Maybe from authors we read and therapists we had, we got the idea that we must love …

Call to action: petition

The USA needs compassionate first responders trained to deescalate mental health crises so that a call for help doesn’t become a death sentence, as it can especially for people of color. This is a call for reform to public health so that police trained to incarcerate or enact violence are not deployed in mental health …

Rock song emoji game, part 1

Each emoji combination makes a song title. Most are classic rock. Some combinations are literal; some are more conceptual. Words like a/an, the, of, in, on, with are implied. Feel free to list your guesses in the comments. Hope it’s fun! 🔥 ⬇️ 🏠🇺🇸 🥧👁 👧✈️✊ 👼🏽 🚪👋🏻 👋🏻 💕🎟 🎟 🏝🃏👎🏻 💊🚕👁 🚫 🚘 …

Fourth of July celebrates violence, genocide

We are in the US living on stolen land from Indigenous peoples. White people stole black and brown people from other lands to be our slaves, killed the Bison, dug up the prairies, cut down the trees, and genocided the original inhabitants of the current USA. The oppression of non-whites continues today, this minute. What …

Mental health disorders and police reform in the US

Being mentally ill or experiencing a mental health crisis can increase your chances of death by police in the US, especially if you do not have access to supportive crisis resources and particularly if you are non-white. As published on The Hill, according to authors of newly proposed US federal legislation, people with untreated mental …

Taking action: George Floyd, one year later

May 25, 2021, marks exactly one year since George Floyd was murdered. A year ago, we realized the power of our collective voice as we took to the streets in the name of justice. We realized that when we refuse to tolerate oppression, we can make people listen. Today is a Virtual Day of Action …

Practicing skills when “calm”

Coping with big emotions is a challenge. For us, big emotions feel urgent and overwhelming. When we struggle to catch our breath, many of our traumas are triggered. Breath is so underrated. A deep inhale followed by a big sigh or prolonged exhale can feel so restorative. In fact, catching our breath is the goal …

Updates on life events

Spouse rode along with us to get our second vaccine dose. We recognize that the privileges of technology access, mobility, and family support allowed us to schedule this appointment and drive an hour to a rural pharmacy. Spouse has been reporting vaccine openings on a Facebook group in order to maximize people’s access to information. …

Anchors to humanity

We have unmet need for Safety. We are always looking for risks, dangers. Is there a way to look for evidence we are safe? The one person we’re not feeling safe about is us: we are worried our behavior will turn violent or will embarrass us or humiliate us. In that case, another unmet need …

Responsibility as a goal

If we do not attempt to meet our needs, who will? If we wait to be rescued, we are putting our agency on hold, staking our life’s fulfillment on others. If they are well-adjusted, they know they cannot be responsible for our existence or even our contentment. Thus, we will wait in anger. We can …

What to expect from COVID-19 rapid test at CVS

(We/us pronouns) We had a Covid-19 rapid test today at CVS Pharmacy. We signed up for it online, which included insurance information and a photo of the insurance card (both sides). We got a same-day appointment (on a Sunday) very close to our home. Rapid test gives results in 15 minutes! The other test via …

As parents’ lives run short

Parents updated us by phone on mom’s cancer. It spread from lungs to liver and brain. So that is not ideal. Functioning of those organs is not yet impaired, so chemo and eventually radiation will be used (again) to slow it. It’s not curable but they’ll try to treat it to prolong life. She said …

Limbo: mental health provider shortage

IOP hospital wants to discharge Younger Child but Outpatient Hospital will not accept YC because they say YC is too sick. Not sick enough for Provider A and too sick for Provider B. Sounds like Goldilocks. So Provider A referred us to yet another potential provider. They have a 16-week waitlist for Eating Disorders treatment! …

Pandemic: prolonged mental health crises

Both children are in distress. Older Child has reached the point of 100% stress, 100% of the time. This is the point Younger Child reached last Fall. We are beside ourself with worry for them. We are recommending that Older Child consider mental health support. Spouse wonders if Older Child might move back home (classes …

In Now we must trust

(We use plural pronouns) We are working with New T on sitting with powerful emotions. Feeling hopeless and despair is uncomfortable. We normally dissociate instead of ride it out. New T had us use bilateral stimulation to activate both sides of brain. Having T with us allowed us to just be in pain for a …

Messy life (redundant)

Older Child returned to college yesterday. We are bewildered and morose, funereal, weepy. First Covid case in our extended family, a niece. She and her friends tested (negative) before going to a resort together. Niece is the only one so far with Covid. So far very sore throat, taste and smell gone, fever. We hardly …

Churning mind, tired Us

There is so much uncertainty regarding Younger Child’s mental health, especially since this child has shut us out. Because our tolerance of uncertainty is low, we risk guaranteeing the worst outcome in our relationship—withdrawing, getting angry, using power-over—just to meet our need for order. Finally got to see New-T after T’s two-week holiday. T did …

Goal setting

We started _Peaceful Living _, a Nonviolent Communication daily meditation book (author Mary Mackenzie). January 1 is goal setting, with the parameters of being (1) specific and (2) positively worded (what you want, not what you don’t want). We also revisited important unmet needs of ours so that our goals are aligned with meeting important …

Scarcity obsessions and associated compulsions (OCD)

We are trying to name and notice some of our obsessions and associated rituals. We might try ERP (exposure/response prevention) on our own to free us from some shackles. Here are some: Cleaning The bath towels fit in two piles (side-by-side) in the drawer. We arrange them so that no similar colors come up side …

Be gentle and survive

Trigger warning: we are feeling oppressed and want to say painful things that may trigger those with ptsd We sense that the childhood sexual abuse ruined life for us. Spoiled us like freshly killed meat left to rot. We learned too much, felt sensations too overwhelming for our precious Little selves. It was overload right …

Why don’t things work as intended?

Why don’t products we buy work as they are designed? Food packaging So many packages of food have a tear strip that is supposed to come off and reveal a resealable baggie (like the seams on a sandwich bag): Often these strips won’t tear at all, even at the designated “tear here” location.If they do …

Stress is a choice that takes lots of practice

We went into nature with Older Child all day yesterday. We woke up and hit the road long before sunrise. We birded in a national forest all morning. Birds were scarce; trees were abundant. We saw not a single person or other vehicle all morning on the forest roads. We drove with the windows open …

Brave enough to cook a turkey?

Lots of energy in our house. Feels crowded. At night, we feel oppressed by it, threatened because we think people are scheming against us. They are absolutely not. This is delusion and trauma. It is morning. We are preparing the turkey before we cook it. We can see our lack of compassion to self and …

Time travel, map travel

On a walk with Spouse today, we stopped suddenly. Spouse is used to this: do you need to hold on to me? No, we said. Where are we? We were one block over, about a 3-minute walk from home. We just couldn’t understand what we were seeing. We had no previous perception of this angle …

Doomsday scenarios

COVID is raging in the US. Our local schools reverted to all distance learning this week with no notice. The schools aren’t transmitting infection; the community is. But so many students and staff are getting COVID (from community activities, such as restaurants and social gatherings) that contact tracing is becoming too big a job for …

Disorders, thought distortions, and new therapists

Super depressed. Younger Child’s health struggles are hitting us hard. We are paralyzed with resisting and craving. We continue to feel responsible for most things that happen—especially everything others in our life find unpleasant As Younger Child struggles, our cognitive distortion’s mount: YC will be unhappy forever. We can’t live like this. We have to …

Thank you, T-2, for trying

T-2 is committed to helping us stay alive. We told T-2 if we can make it to Thanksgiving, we can make it until the end of the year because we have something that will uplift us for those 6 weeks. T-2 offered to call a prospective T we found through calling, calling, and calling. This …

White privilege: Established by force. End date TBD

We use we/us pronouns. When trying to grasp the concept of white privilege in the United States and Canada, and even anti-racism as we see it, it might help to consider the colonization of the land and genocide against the indigenous inhabitants. So much of colonial perspective is taken for granted by the colonizer, in …

We don’t quit

Trigger warning: self-harm, blood, anger, despair We reached out to 3 mental health clinics and 3 individual therapists this week requesting in-person therapy. Five responses: no. We have not heard from one clinic. No one has referred us to anyone who is seeing clients in person. We are amazed people return our emails. We always …

Early Winter

All people do their best. Since we are people, we will hurt other people, succumb to base urges, like greed, and experience pain. Rolling with life is a challenge for us. The pain we are experiencing is acute, and we have so many voices in our head! Crying Littles. Judgments. Advice for how to act. …

Survival soup

Trigger warnings: blood, trauma, self-harm, disordered eating, etc. When we want control, our go-to is to withhold food from us. While it may not sound ideal to starve children, and it isn’t, please know it’s the children doing the starving of the body. When we get sick from hunger, getting food in us can be …

Nerves. Practicing flexibility

Younger Child started php for mental health. This could improve all of our lives. We have been saying life has many paths: school can wait, college isn’t required for living. Focus on health and well-being. Relieve suffering. Now, there is a chance to relieve suffering. You know us: we feel other people’s feelings, especially pain. …

Learning to live with DID— again

Since we started weaning off meds, we have been dizzy and nauseous hourly. No abatement. Hunger—even a little—exacerbates the sickness. Now that we know that, we are trying to nip it in the bud as it intensifies. Eat as healthfully as we can. We used to have this level of vertigo, before our DID diagnosis. …

Planting seeds in life’s autumn

Withdrawal spiked yesterday and we were crying and inviting death. Spouse was attentive. That really helped us to survive. Spouse kept saying this is not permanent. It will pass. That is one fear: that it is permanent and won’t pass. We slept a lot during the day. Nausea and dizziness walloped us. We tried to …

Wait at the intersection

The meds that helped us get off xanax are themselves leaving our system. We have chosen no meds. Why? We don’t remember what we know and do not know. We know we are low on skills. But we don’t know what we need Now. We used to have energy. We used to have a fire …

Eyes closed until the ride stops

Is “try harder” possible? We are feeling trapped. OCD might play av party because we like rules. Breaking rules—or seeing with fresh eyes—helps get new ideas. Energetically, we cannot seem to keep boundaries. We feel other’s feelings. We aren’t sure how not to. That is why we like being alone. To recharge. Practice. Be free. …

We want to slow it down

These are forecasted to be the final warm days of the year here. Autumn has often been a melancholy time for us. Suicidal ideation often spikes as the leaves fall. We think the trigger was the annual return to school as a child, which augured suffering because we could not sleep at night. Summer allowed …

Is the pandemic over or continuing?

COVID-19 pandemic is not over in our house. We are still social distancing. Some people act like it is over, and we do not want to judge a view as right or wrong. We walked with Spouse this weekend and saw elementary school kids playing organized American football—close contact among players, coaches, and parents with …

What’s going on with us

We usually write when we have something to say or if we want support. This post does not fulfill either of those. We are just writing so that people know what is going on in case they are interested. Older Child will return to college in a few weeks. All classes are online. So why …

What now ?

Tried another new therapist. Stopped after two sessions. Not a suitable fit. We received an ultimatum in the second appointment, and that did not meet our needs for Autonomy and safety. Going to try to drive the 37 minutes each way to see T-3 this week in addition to seeing T-2. Back to the basics. …

Start (resume) where you are

We have lost much ground in: Being in our bodyMeditating Feeling any contentment Physical strength Therapeutic relationshipsHealing our traumas Cooperating internally Having friendships Expressing our gender We have gained ground in: Being compassionate to Younger ChildGetting off benzosAdjusting to new normals Things may not go back to the old normal. There is no knowing. Even …

Still going

We have been doing the work of survival. It makes sense we haven’t been in our body. Perspective is hard to find. We don’t recognize our experience because the meds are new and withdrawal is ongoing So we injured the body twice. This fragile container is healing. We haven’t gone birdwatching for a few weeks. …

Inclusive Patriotism

USA Fourth of July is almost here. Patriotism means different things to different people—maybe more so this year with the prominence of the Black Lives Matter movement and some resistance to it. In our home, we will all be wearing black—instead of red, white, and blue—on July Fourth in solidarity for ending systemic racism. The …

Puzzling over exclusion

We have stopped solving The New York Times crossword and stopped using our USA Today book of puzzles

Medication withdrawal

Bodily functions warning ⚠️ Have been tapering down Xanax for more than a month. Stepped down to zero last night. This was not the plan. We were having withdrawal symptoms already. We needed several more days at current dosage. We didn’t crave it as much and thought we’d just get it over with. Slept very …

If social distancing ends

We have been in COVID long enough for Younger Child to exclaim last week, “I just got upset because the people on the show [“The Office—US version] weren’t social distancing!” We all had a laugh and we were all a little fearful. In about 90 days, Younger Child has an adapted worldview that now recognizes …

Celebrating Juneteenth

We heard of Juneteenth a year or two ago. This year, it is getting more attention because systemic racism is getting more attention since George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police. You can learn about Juneteenth history. We signed a change.org petition to make Juneteenth a national holiday in the USA. Most US states are …

Gentleness for cravings

Friend Eliza wrote about an experience that resonates with us. Her blog is here. She wrote about the need for reassurance from a friend that the friend is still there. We have that kind of urgency with T-1. We would urgently need to text T-1 because we panicked T-1 had forgot us. T-1 told us …

Closing the empathy gap to enact social change

The empathy gap seems to be a primary barrier to widespread acceptance that institutionalized white racism exists.

Using love to end racism

Our family continues daily to discuss white racism against People of Color, the role of anti-racism, white privilege, and white fragility. We try to include nonviolence in the discussions with family. We try not to judge people. Instead, we extend empathy when possible. It helps us in our desire to improve life if we lead …

Electrifried brain: meds

Have brain zaps. Am so hypervigilant that doors opening and closing in our house are sending us up a wall. Tried to nap. No luck. It might be Xanax withdrawal. We are poor at tapering meds. We have apparently been on it too long. Years. Dangerous. New meds still has us sleepy. Not as much. …

Why we demonstrated

We left the house. Someone got killed. A police officer met some of his own needs without meeting George Floyd’s most important needs. Others watched and did not meet their needs to help George even though they feared he was being killed. It happened very close by. And worlds away based on how we are …

We love friend Ashley

If you know Ashley, you get it 💕💕❤️❤️

transforming enemy images

We are drained. Are you, too? Can we lean into it? If you are someone benefiting from white privilege, can you see how your black brothers and sisters cannot rest? Can you use that to keep going? For peace? If you have trouble empathizing with others, can you examine your enemy images? Whom do you …

Compassion for change

Maybe take in a deep breath Maybe let it out slowly Maybe repeat this a few times. Maybe sigh if it feels like a release Can we have compassion for ourselves to start? For how we were raised, for what we believed, for questions asked and unasked? Now can we have compassion for those we …

Why I Use My Voice to Say Black Lives Matter

Through our shared humanity, all lives matter. So why is it important to talk about black lives mattering? All lives should matter equally. That is …Why I Use My Voice to Say Black Lives Matter

Change you, change the world

We are not well positioned to tell anyone what change is being born. We are not well positioned to name all the ills. So maybe we can suggest how it’s a time that would seem opportune and reasonable to question everything. Every single thing. For those of us who freak out when the co-op sells …

War scheduled tonight

[Update: it is morning and we are safe]

Love as a guide during civil unrest

A message today to our neighbors, near and online: Some People feel unequal and some are resorting to violence. These are two separate things. We acknowledge feelings of inequality. Remember: Hatred never ends hatred but by love alone is healed. Gandhi learned it, Mandela learned it, MLK learned it. Peace alone doesn’t necessarily increase people’s …

Self-care amid healthcare chaos

We need an increase in our take-as-needed medication. Our doctor is very responsive to our needs, as we have a history together and we never have abused or misused a medication. Wet have adjusted the dosage down in the past, too, which indicates we are not always wanting increases. We had an appointment scheduled in …

Declining teletherapy before it was cool, and now the risks to life

At one of Dr. Ross’s hospitals, we had the opportunity to have a public (in front of all patients and staff on the Trauma Ward), one-hour therapy session We had seen this session before starting in 2017. Dr. Ross would fly into town, visit the ward, and hold a public therapy session once per week. …

Stop waiting for the rescuer

Dr. Colin Ross* uses a triangle to show the roles that trauma survivors tend to replay in their lives. At each point of the triangle is one of these roles: VictimRescuerPerpetrator Sometimes, we were a victim in real life, as with abuse. Sometimes, we suffer a medical emergency that is no one’s “fault,” and still …

Love is the best we can do

Love is probably the best we can do In general We like our thinky brain. We use it. It will help on this journey. And our feeling brain is probably where we need to heal and grow and experience life We live our life in fear. So moving to a point where we can ever …

Rewiring a brain: 16.5

We see some of our thought patterns, we think. We think that the content may change and the thought patterns persist. In other words, we could complain about missing T-1, that Ts in general are harder to get help from, that a Child or Spouse is or is not doing X or Y. It is …

Update on needs: therapy and meds

Some of our needs for therapy session needs are starting to get met. When shelter-in-place began, we had four therapists whom we were seeing 4-5 days per week total. We terminated our relationship with T-4 after one teletherapy session (we saw T-4 at least twice in person after other therapists stopped meeting in-person, so the …

May is rushing

“These are days you'll rememberNever before and never sinceI promise... ...When May is rushing over you with desireTo be part of the miracles you see in every hourYou'll know it's true that you are blessed and luckyIt's true that you Are touched by something That will grow and bloom in you” “These are days” —10,000 …

The therapists are gone

Are there any therapists out there who aren’t too scared to help heal the long suffering? Are there any therapists who connect at the human needs level and are able to use love as a guide post instead of fear? Is there a therapist out there who, when times get tough like now, won’t retreat …

Seeking resources, not quitting yet

We met with T-2 in cars yesterday. T-2 is holding face-to-face sessions in clinic wearing masks, and we are too afraid and uncomfortable to do that. We pulled our cars next to each other, and T-2 wanted us to talk on the phone, so we did that. There is a lag in the phone so …

Who is caring for the therapists?

We are feeling very much stressed and low on resourcefulness and energy. We told Spouse. We vented. It is hard to say much at this point for Spouse. We have boxed ourselves into a corner. We want to practice Nonviolent Communication, and we know nobody who knows it. We found an online, yearlong compassion course …

Internal meeting

T-2 is going to start seeing clients again. Therapist and client have to wear a mask at all times and stay six feet apart. Our Littles do not want to do it. They are too scared of the masks. Scared of being contagious. Of being feared. Of being afraid. Afraid of being afraid is common …

Practicing love

We are pausing our therapeutic relationship with T-1. This is scary. T-1 has been one of our strongest tethers. Will we ever see each other again? If not, thank you for trying to help us. We learned many lessons. T-2 will know this week if T-2 can begin seeing us in person in some capacity. …

Socially distanced mental health therapy

T-1 agreed to our first socially distanced mental health therapy appointment. We have had two such sessions with T-3. T-1 had many concerns and objections that were voiced to us. Spouse was not thrilled with this level of sharing. Spouse worried about how much T-1’s objections were stressing us out. We accepted the specific objections …

Thank you, Community!

Thank you to all the friends who interact with us on WordPress. These connections provide empathy, validation, perspective, and are helping to sustain us We have difficulty keeping up reading and commenting. We want you to know we are trying our best to support you, too Mostly, we want to express gratitude We are ruminating, …

New therapy, same as the old therapy

We sat in our car next to T-3, who sat in a different car, and, as weather was nice, we had our windows down and held therapy that way in T-3’s parking lot It felt like being near T-3. It felt like therapy So now our body and mind are wondering if we want to …

creative vs delusional

Love gets confused. We forget how Older Child is related to us. Some of our me’s see Older Child as our parent, some see Older Child as our sibling, some as our friend, some as our offspring This awareness is itself startling and dispiriting. If we can notice and not judge, maybe we will have …

Amazing Love!

When shelter-in-place began, Younger Child began planning. Younger Child contacted two of Older Child’s best friends and set the plan in motion. All of the friends had to coordinate schedules because they attend different universities. The hard part was luring Older Child outside today. It was determined that we would set the bait with a …

Liberate us while we are young, or now

It’s getting close to our worst right now We tried to help Younger Child. We see the suffering. And Younger Child thinks that fulfillment lies outside us This is what society teaches Young People: Your value is assigned by teachers as grades, by the number of followers and likes Do what adults say to you, …

Toileting and hygiene with trauma and OCD

This is not an easy post to write, because it feels embarrassing and triggering. And we feel isolated around these issues and wonder if other survivors and those with OCD might also share some of these struggles. If not, it was worth a try. Urinating is highly triggering for us because of sexual trauma. There …