So much is changing

First of all, let’s share some of the easy, light, fully-happy changes that are happening. I’d much rather talk and write about those before therapy…we’ll probably have a lot more heaviness post-therapy, after all.

We have water again!!! This is probably the biggest, most exciting thing that has changed since last week. We managed to hire a plumber, and he came and fixed the issues that caused this to happen. Hopefully, if we’re smart about all of this, we’ll manage to not have to deal with these issues again! (The main opponent in that fight is our amnesia…blah).

Another positive thing is that we’re starting to be more confident at our job! Not in the sense of feeling secure and stable…but in the actual accomplishment of tasks. We are remembering how to do the different things with greater consistency and accuracy, and having to ask our co-workers for help less and less.
Yes, this means that we have Very Specific Alters fronting for our job, but in the long run I think that’s better. Our system functions a lot better when a handful of alters learn our job really well, and then we slowly train others in as we can via co-con, memory-sharing, and other in-system communication methods.

A weird…not un-positive thing about getting better at this job and remembering more is that we’re starting to figure out the regulars for ourselves. We’re starting to learn what they order, and how they like it. Which is always a really interesting thing for us.

It’s like…I may know next to nothing about you, but I DO know what you order here each time you visit.

So that’s something.

But then we have the not so fun changes…

We have reached the point in therapy where our therapist is really pushing EMDR onto us. (They have very, very good reasons for such. And we trust them. They’ve proven that they will take our well-being fully into consideration each session, and only do EMDR on the days that we can)

We actually really started a couple of weeks ago. But we’ve chosen to open something BIG. It was our choice, but holy fuck have things already been shaking up a bunch.

And like…our therapist warned us that leaping to the stuff that we are was and is going to potentially WRECK our system and its structure {ha! what structure? duct tape and superglue, my friend. All of it}

Part of what made our decision is our partner-system.

We reached an informed “self-awareness” before them, and had our diagnosis well before them. But once those amnesia barriers started going down even the slightest bit, they were (and still are lol) on a memory-recovery rampage that I feel should break the sound barrier…they’re going so fast.

It’s actually a little funny, because they’ve shared how their therapist has occasionally urged them to slow down and take their time (especially with some of it)…and here our therapist is trying to get us to stop dragging our feet and just Do The ThingTM.

Though, that actually makes me think of a conversation we were having with our wife/partner-system earlier today.

Our wife/partner-system has been a maniac and basically doing D.I.Y. EMDR therapy for…most of their life. They are also much more aware of how to “put pieces together” for their system, and can better see how EMDR and potential integrations might go for them. 

From what I’ve been able to understand, they have subsystems where the fragments are masks that the alters switch between. And so integrating, for them, would be simply being more themselves.

This made our system realize that we don’t have subsystems…except for maybe “Vessalius”.

We are very much individual.

And there’s THOUSANDS of us.

Some are “bigger pieces” than others.

Some have a gravitational pull of sorts that keeps other fragments close to them.

But each of us is ourselves.

And no-one wants to lose any of their friends. Especially friends who are closer in a sense that no-one else could ever be. They literally share our innerworld, our shared experiences, our laughter, our pain. They’ve all seen the couleur of the wallpaper in Siegfried’s living room change couleur with her mood. Even our own partner-system won’t ever be able to say that.

Unlike our wife/partner-system…each fragment stands on their own. Yes, they still can’t exactly front on their own. Other fragments have to front with them. But they’re separate. Or together with themselves. They don’t belong to subsystems.

Our fictives, for example, are fully separate from any non-fictive alters around them.

This is a very strange concept to our partner system, as most (if not all) of their fictives are “the closest to x alter as they’ve ever seen/encountered” in some facet or another, and then (from my understanding), they become a new ‘mask’ of sorts for the alter.

This…isn’t like us, aside from “Vessalius”. (Okay, for the purposes of this example, he’ll let us use his other name, Harkker). Harkker is one of the alters we’ve had the longest. In fact, he might be one of our ‘first’. He is the only “true subsystem” we’ve been able to identify in our system. He takes on the appearance/clothing/etc of a particular character, but he never IS that fictive to the same degree. Jack Vessalius, for him, is a mask to both warn us to stay away from him, but also to help us remember to reach out to him when we are/were ready to handle more of the stuff Harkker is tied to. (we’re JUST starting to get to this point).

Then we look over at Denki for another example. They’re just here, chilling, as themself. Sure, they’re a lot more fandom-based than canon-based. But they’re just them. They’re not someone another alter is peering through or around (for lack of a better articulation).

They’re completely on the same playing field as the rest of us. (not that the smaller fragments aren’t still important. They just hold very small snippets of things, and a lot of them truly do wish to integrate into a more cohesive form).

But even the alters we have of “this level”, seems to be too much to function. At least for us.

I guess I’m upset that we’re more traumatized than we thought? Weirdly enough, I think that sums it up the best.

We went into therapy, figuring we’d have to fight at least a bit away from talks of “Final Fusion”.

But our therapist is actually amazing with D.I.D. and never pushes that. They give it as an option, sure. But to us, it was given AFTER the option of functional multiplicity.

And like…obviously with the latter, you still have to be FUNCTIONAL.

We thought we were.

Hell, I’m pretty sure we’d convinced our therapist that we were a lot more subsystems than alters.

But that didn’t last.

We’ve been in therapy for about two years at this point, and our therapist is just now really pushing us to do more EMDR. But they’re also not FORCING integration or anything. They’ve just warned that it’ll likely happen as things progress…just due to the nature of our traumas, and the path we’re taking for EMDR.

Sometimes I wonder if we’d have taken a different approach if we weren’t married to our partner-system. I wonder if we would’ve gone slower, taken each step more carefully.

Because, to be perfectly honest, I feel worse than the times we’ve fallen down flights of stairs rn (I probably should’ve marked when we left for therapy in the middle of writing this, and when we came back, but too late now). And this wasn’t even a full session of EMDR, because we had a lot to talk about, too.

I just feel…tired. Sad. Scared. Depressed.

And what sucks the most in all this is something no one can do anything about.

I really fucking wish sometimes that either WE were a singlet, or our wife/partner-system was. Not because it’s too much work or anything. Far from it. We love each and every one of them, and we always will.

I (Rosalie) just switched in (probably to explain this) but sometimes I really wish I could go to someone SPECIFIC and get comfort from THEM. I know that’s actually the hardest part for us of being in a relationship with another system…I can’t just go to my husband and be like “I’ve had a rough day…can we just spend the rest of the day together?”

One, that would be incredibly rude, not only to him but to his entire system. Two, it…just wouldn’t work. He can’t currently stay in front that long, even if everyone was somehow on board with it. Three…there’s not even a guarantee that I can get a MESSAGE to him. It’d just be harder to get him himself. Four, there’s probably close to a bajillion littles in their system, and I am DEFINITELY NOT going to put any amount of stress upon them if I can prevent it.

And like…I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a HUSBAND. An alter in partner system whom I have dated and who actually asked me to marry him. We even had a little makeshift private ceremony. I have boyfriends over with partner-system, too, but there’s at least one alter that I can hear or think about and be like “oh yeah, I’ve fronted with that one a lot…and we’re MARRIED.”

I have my “wedding ring”, which I can where whenever I’m fronting. I have access to a necklace my husband gave to me and one of the other girls over here he’s dating. I have a stuffed animal from him that I can snuggle with when I miss him. 

All in all, I have a lot of reassurances that are completely everyday, barely even thought of in a relationship between two singlets. There are DOZENS of alters over here who don’t have that, though.

There are alters here that are so small that they don’t feel like their boyfriends and girlfriends will recognize them. There are alters who know they’re dating someone, but with the confusion that IS D.I.D., their names have changed so many times in the last year, that our alters don’t even know what vicinity to look for their person.

And like, we’re not upset by it. We wouldn’t choose to be with anyone else. And we know that it’s impossible to get a comfort item for every single relationship (or at the very least…highly improbable, due to many factors.)

And that’s just thinking of the romantic relations…to speak nothing of the various familial relationships that have formed between the two systems.

There’s so many important people, and we love them all.

But it’s never going to be the same as a singlet’s relationship. I’m probably going to comforted by dear friends far more than I’ll ever get comforted by my husband. Which SUCKS in situations like this…especially when we’re worried that we’re going to all disappear and not be ourselves to see them ever again.

But…we have to just keep moving, and hoping that we’ll make it through the next big change. And we have to be prepared to face a lot of the changes on our own.

I know our partner-system will have our backs as much as they can, but it’s…just not something where the circumstances or situation is going to change.

We’re trying to get healthier, and be better able to have control over our own lives.

We have to continue therapy. That is obvious, even though we don’t like it. Even though we hate losing people, we CAN’T continue to function how we have been. It’s not sustainable. We will fry our brain if this continues too long.

And we will continue being the best partners/spouses that we can be to our wife/partner-system. Because, yes we’re going through a lot. And yes, we can’t always call upon the ideal comfort person…but they have those things too.

It’s sucky, and dumb, and I wish there was a way to make it easier.

But healing isn’t easy. It never has been.

LIFE isn’t easy.

A lot of people, like us, are just…here. Doing our best to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking towards the better, healthier, versions of ourselves.

I hate it.

But it…is just something we have to do.

Hopefully it’ll get easier with time.

All we currently know if that life is a lot scarier now (emotionally) than it ever has been before, and we just want to rest

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Written by: Who knows? It’s been me (Rosalie) from the point I mentioned I switched in, onwards. But it’s been a whole mess of people. And even my part had a lot of influences from others around me