This blog is essentially one of T-E-C’s journals. We can’t promise to always be entertaining or engaging (or to ever be, for that matter), but we’ll try to be real. We often feel we don’t have much to offer, but maybe a look into our lives will help someone. We aren’t role models. We don’t have all the answers. We’re lonely and often depressed. We still struggle with dissociation after decades of dealing with it. Things get easier over time, but that doesn’t mean they ever become effortless. DID and its comorbid conditions are still a disability.
So here we are, a dissociated puddle at 2 a.m., thinking we may have to take a leave of absence from work. That’s hard, especially for Saoirse, because work is one of the few things we’re proud of. But we’re struggling. We thought everything might be better after the holidays, as they were tough this year… but it seems not.
Insomnia has been a real problem for the last few months. We can’t sleep at night. Anxiety has been higher than usual, so we have a nice bald spot on top of our head. (We pull out our hair under stress. It’s why you’ll see us wear hats.) Saoirse was able to channel some of that into something constructive here on the website, but even that is getting harder. We’re sinking into a depression.
We’re so spacey right now it’s taken us over two hours to write three paragraphs. We’re in a weird in-between state. Sometimes switches happen quickly. Sometimes they take hours. It can be hard to let the long ones work themselves out. There is a temptation to use someone’s positive triggers to try and force the issue. But we’ve come to a point we trust our switches – what needs to happen will happen.
To us, switches are like breathing – something that just happens. Do we trust our breathing? Well, not totally, we wear oxygen sometimes, and breathing can be an issue. It’s another disability. But we recognize breathing has to happen – it’s just how we’re built. Likewise, switching has to happen – we’re not built to live without it. Do we trust our switches? Well, not totally, but trusting that we’re made to handle life as a team, not as a singlet, is something we’ve come to accept. We decided long ago that our goal would be functional multiplicity, and embracing our switches and each other is part of it. Is gasping for air something fun? No, but it’s essential to our survival. Switching is similar.
And it’s hour three of this post, and I believe we have a winner. That was a three-hour switch between Saoirse and Sharon. Do any of you guys experience that kind of thing? Leave a comment if you do! And I’m just realizing that we’ve been sitting on a pressure sore for the last several hours. The pain is now just starting to register. Time to wrap this up and move.