I wouldn’t say that I love myself, or really any part of T-E-C. I tolerate us, I like some better than others, but in general I’m just not a “feel good about yourselves” type of person. When my therapist suggested that I feel good about myself tonight, I actually laughed. Probably not the proper response, but the honest one. What an absurd idea!
I guess he had his first in depth talk with Janet last week, and was surprised that there was so much more depth to her than what I had relayed. I realize now I’ve been very unfair to Janet. I admit, I have a grudge. I didn’t want to be system host when she stepped back a couple years ago. I also have worked hard my whole life, only to have to answer to her name instead of my own. It sometimes feels like I do all the hard work and she gets the credit. But that’s not true or fair. Janet has done a lot for this system. I really was hoping that she would step back up as host, or co-host, of the system, but from her retirement posting on the old blog, I’m not sure that’s ever going to happen.
I owe Janet an apology. While I won’t go as far as to say she saved the system from living with Dad – I think credit there goes to several T-E-C-ies, as well as our Mom – she was an instrumental part of our transgender journey and shaping our adult life. Yes, she stuffed us all away as much as possible, but we needed to convince two psychologists we were a good candidate for transgender surgery, and that would have been a lot harder sell had we been more open about dissociation. We went stealth mode, and she made it happen. And yes, it was absolutely the right decision for the system. In the 25 years since the sex reassignment, I’ve never once wished we didn’t do it. As far as I know, that holds true for everyone. I fully believe we would have eventually committed suicide if we hadn’t transitioned. It was truly life and death stuff for the system, and Janet was the one who brought us through that. (I had an ex-therapist accuse me of ‘being dramatic” when I said it was life or death. I was simply stating facts.)
In our experience, the best way to sell a lie is to believe it yourself. (I regularly question what lies I may believe in. Question everything.) Janet really convinced herself she didn’t have DID, and there was lots of stress in the system because of that. That lead to us to breaking down completely at 30. It also indirectly led to me becoming who I am today, but that’s another story. It was Janet’s inability to play well with others in the system that led to a lot of resentment against her. It wasn’t really until a couple of years ago that she finally caved in and fully admitted we had DID.
So yeah, I haven’t given her a fair shake, and I haven’t let her know how much we all appreciate what she did in our 20s to set the path of our adult life. Maybe that’s why we can’t seem to fully fuse with each other, I don’t know.
Wow, that was a tangent I wasn’t planning on going on. <laugh> We’re supposed to feel good about ourselves for trying to improve our health (i.e. our weight) by going off Zyprexa, even if the withdrawals suck. They are sucking a little less tonight, which I take as a positive sign. I still kind of feel like someone shoved a couple ice picks into my head, but the dizziness and nausea have gone down a notch or two.
And I’m falling asleep at the keyboard. Talk to you later, interwebs.