All in a Day's Good Work

Good morning ... though now a late one. I wanted to say thank you to you all for commenting in our journal yesterday when we were having such problems. It means a lot to me to know that people care. I care too :)

We are back on the normal schedule of taking medicines and we saw Dr. M. last night. It wasn’t a great session in that there were negative emotions being acted out by some of our parts, but as a few of you have noted ... at least we went.

There were at least four parts out. Annemarie was out first thing and seemed to take the most time. She is very angry and absolutely forbid herself from having much contact with Dr. M. except her statement of stony anger expressed through her body stance. Then two of the younger parts, Ana and Casey, were out. They were pretty much scared. Ana had images of Annemarie throwing things at her. Casey looked intimidated to either being there, or not being there.

Then Jaime was out, who is an older part, but she seemed grumbly about the whole situation. She is a very strong protector of younger parts, but did not have time to communicate or establish new safeties. By then though the hour was up. We need to cross our own bridges within our head so that we can agree to the extra appointment Dr. M. is offering due to the holidays on Monday. Hmm, maybe we should take care of that right now. Hold on.

Ok, that is done. There is still confusion and anger due to limits he is placing on some of the communication resources. We’re not sure if we are reading correctly what he is saying though, so we’re asking for clarification. We don’t mean to be as mad about it as is being acted out, not sure of where all of these feelings came from.

It is a safe guess that our minds are confusing things that have happened in the past when there were very intense feelings with things that are going on in the present. We know that some of our parts, particularly Dear Heart has confusion of separating past from present.

From the images from last night, we’re guessing at some point in Dear Heart’s life, that communications were cut off from important family members conscientiously. We’re thinking now that maybe because some of us are at such a terrifically "high" place with the Hall of Fame Journal and in meeting so many people that some of this other "stuff" is coming up now because the majority of us are feeling so strong and are in better shape to handle negativities.

Our guess is that whatDear Heart is going through is a period when our sexually abusive grandfather left us alone with our physically abusive mother. This appears at best to have been extremely traumatic and terrifying. At least this is our best guess at the moment. It is also our best guess that in holding a line of anger, temptations to cross the line were drawn. Most likely, it was her means of establishing safety from danger or vulnerability.

The thing about the multiplicity is that some of the parts are still dealing with initial upsets while most of us have skipped that part and gone on to a far more healthy life. Now we are all being held accountable to support the "system" as a whole. We are not angry at Dear Heart, we are trying to understand her. We also feel responsibility over younger parts who are living in fear. We often think the statement, "You are only as strong as your weakest link."

Hmm, interesting ... our brain has been processing. The thought just occurred to us that this communication situation, the acceptance of "self-isolation" might have something to do directly with suicidal ideation we are known to have. It’s like Dear Heart is screaming, "FINE, THEN I WON’T BE HERE THEN!!!"

There is also some thoughts on the word, "invisible." We’ve used this word often to describe our feeling in being around the family. We felt invisible to them. The double-sided picture is that ... Dear Heart, as the core, has been as well as from the original family, primarily invisible to us. It is unusual for her to be such a strong presence in our day to day life. Normally, we are very functional, go to work, hold a responsible position, and love our dear sons and friends.

This week, work has been too difficult and last night, Annemarie was a strong presence in the session. I think often we try to avoid her space, because she seems so dangerous. She seemed dangerous to the younger parts last night, and we are guessing that she may have seemed dangerous to family members, that would have helped to keep the isolation intact.

*Sigh* So much in a day.

On a much happier note ... After last night’s mailings, there are now 115 acceptances!! One of them is an author by the name of Frances McFate (fanniemae3@aol.com), who has published a book called, "The Demon Plague" with her co-author.

Pretty cool, hmm? Check it out by clicking here ... The Demon Plague.

There was another great development! Christina (C82trinity@aol.com) has volunteered to do some publicity work by posting an announcement in her journal,

"Christinas Photos and Thoughts"

Every part helps in getting the word out there. We’re trying to include as many journalists as we can. We all deserve a hand of applause for putting our thoughts and feelings out there for the world to see! Each of our journals are special and unique and deserve recognition :)

With that thought, maybe it is time to get back to work. Like to get out another set of 50 journals today. We are now up to the "H’s" in Pam’s Directory :)

Our best to you and yours!!

Just one last thought ... have any of you thought of the comparison in AOL journals, at least in small measure, to the hayday of starving artists in Paris, France?  Hehe, ok ... ok ... just a thought!

Graphic created by Aunty Lyn :)