Ann Garvey's List: 8-16-12

• It’s been slow going because I’m a survivor of abuse. However, this stuff would be tough for anybody to get through, but I think it’s harder for people who  have experienced and witnessed violence. 

• I move beyond my old limitations and allow myself to express freely and creatively.

• Try loving that child. Starting can be rough. I had to understand him first – his search for love.

• Even though I’m NOT a morning person, I have to say I do love the early morning hours just before the sun comes up. Everything is so still and quiet. People are still sleeping, and the only noises to be heard are the occasional chirping of the crickets and birds, and the humming of hummingbirds wings.
• I’m feeling really good today. Perhaps it’s because I’m leaving to go on a road trip later today. I love road trips, and driving.

• Yesterday, I shared that I had recovered a flashback
• Today I am going to write about why I think this is information I needed to process.

• I’m kind of in a rut right now. I’m having a really hard time knowing what’s right from wrong. I don’t really know how to explain it…but it’s tearing me apart. In the last 12 months I have heard numerous times that what the people in my past did to me was wrong, horrible, and not okay. But because I have the tendency to push people away, it’s all happening again.
• So, I’m lost.
• Do I walk away, again, or do I stick it out?

• I so wish this test had materials to study… that I didn’t have such a tendency to push people away… and that for once, my life could just be quiet.

   

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• Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward.

   

  ~ Henry Ford

• ow that I am on the other side of that great weekend, things are starting to crumble
• I was wonderfully distracted, but now at home the distraction is gone and my mind is being flooded with thoughts I can barely contain and it is becoming increasingly difficult.

• It feels lame to post about good days, and these posts sure do get a lot fewer hits, but so be it.  I had a good day, and if I never document good days, this blog isn’t representative.
• But of course a good day doesn’t mean that all my problems and issues cease to exist; it’s just a day without any major triggers.  I do think that my good days are due in part to the work that’s done mentally on the bad days.
• I’m grateful for the ability to feel.  Here I guess I am touching on the general gist of this blog.  I spent much of my life being pretty numb, and I was frequently overwhelmed by the intensity of feelings when I did have them.
• This whole experience of feelings is just a matter of being in the moment, and feeling what that moment contains.  

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• It is said people with DID can have alter activity even if they are asleep....
   which can explain some missing time...
   feeling tired in the morning...
   waking up in other rooms ...
   stuff like that...
   
   Yes yes it's weird even for me....
   but it happens...
• I'm hoping at some point to capture a picture of her..
   but that won't be so easy since i'm sleeping...
• Tonight I am going to leave my computer on in hopes of seeing Ju Ju in action.....
   wish us luck....

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• The blue tiles lined with a hopeless effort to fit in. The floor always reflecting a self conscious, fearful, younger me, who thought she had everything under control.

• But there’s also something really relaxing about talking with people who just know you on this other level – the one where you grew up together, danced at each other’s weddings, etc.
• On the drive home I was all full of extrovert goodness, eager to share the joy.
• I know this will sound cheesy but…I have had so many times in my life that I felt so alone. Times I truly was, and times I just thought that I was because I didn’t reach out.
• I made that decision a few years ago to fucking get over myself or whatever my issue was with my inadequate self/home/cooking/whatever and just reach out. The Internet really has helped. (But this dinner also shows how much getting together in person is a million times better.)
• Not to get too editor-advice-like on anyone but if you have a friend out there you have been missing, just freaking tell them them that. :)

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• Some of us drink. Some of us smoke pot. Some of us take pills.  It’s a very common practice among the mentally ill.  I just wrote a blog post about that very subject:  Mental and Self-Medicating  I’m only human.  I have weaknesses. I have problems with moderation and self-control. But I am far from being a junkie.
• Whomever this chick was, she needs to read more of our tweets before she judges us. 

• 13:00 – Continue working
• 16:00 – Chocolate break

• 21:00 – Cycle back to the castle. Reflect on how much work I’ve done.

   

  22:30 – Bed

   

  Lather, rinse, repeat.
• I cannot believe quite how much work I have done in the last few days. My routine is completely unsustainable… But do you know what? I’m loving it!
• I think I’ve even experienced that flow thing (getting lost in time but not in a dissociative kind of way) Mihály Csíkzentmihályi wrote about. Cool, huh?

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• There are also thing about being in a relationship with someone who has DID that aren't always easy - according to him...*shrugs*....we don't always understand, because we think we're as normal as females are, generally speaking.
• We still don't think we're worth it, and some of us know we aren't.

• It is now clear that when I was 12 and this may be true for some cults I was given what they thought was an opportunity. In a way I was put on the cross roads. In my case it was three times.
• What they really were offering is I could do well on my own and if I did they would take credit and they would only really be about any advantage to them.
• The over all effect is I do not accept help from anyone. I do things totally on my own. I stay so far away from being part of the old boy network it hurts my work. If someone does something for me I make absolutely sure I pay them back a min two fold. Other than my therapist who I can never repay.

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• Conspiracy time: Isaac suffers from multiple personality disorder...
• In that case Samson would be Isaac's pent up rage against everything, bloody lust making you stronger the more you kill enemies.

• I became my wife’s caregiver, peacemaker and sometimes a target. She suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder. Nothing was ever easy or went smoothly. At times my life and safety were seriously compromised. Finally, I became overwhelmed by her illness and after the years of turmoil and uncertainty I left. I felt I had no choice but to take care of myself for a change. How do I get rid of these guilty feelings that I have?
• If you are taking her to physicians for help, then I’m sure they are telling you how to “best” handle her situation. You may be all that she has right now, and if you give up on her it could equate to the same as stealing her last ray of hope… No one “chooses” to be sick, and if your wife could talk to you rationally from her “main” character I am sure you’d know what she would say to you.
• I suggest you think back a couple of years to someone reciting a line that went something like “For better or worse and in sickness and in health”. Then I suggest you do whatever you feel might be the next “appropriate” thing to do… and please let “all” your wives know that I said “Hello”.
• She puts on different wigs, dresses, and changes just about every way she can
  Come to think of it, isn’t this the normal thing a woman will do for a  man?
  Wouldn’t every man like to have many different wives just for fun?
• Having different women can be freaky, and sometimes it can be a lot of fun
• So that in case ANY of them get angry or even mad
  I will bolt out the back door and become a “fast” running lad
  Because when I’m laid up in a hospital,at least I’ll still have humanity
  Because if she is tried in court, she’ll get off for temporary insanity
  Then no matter how much I cry or even sob
  I’m going to be afraid, because she might just come back, to “finish” the job…
   

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• Do you think if a woman had MPD it would be possible for her to physically do everything the Ripper did?
• The throat cuttings were particularly deep and savage and required a good amount of force. Also, some of the ladies may have been a bit difficult to subdue and required to be "handled."
   
   On the other hand, we DO have lady weightlifters.
   
   Possible? Yes.
  
• Firstly, any woman regardless of mental condition could do what Jack the Ripper did. Certain parts would be harder, but not impossible. Secondly, Multiple Personality Disorder doesn't exist. Disassociative Identity Disorder is the name of what you are thinking of, and it is not quite the same. It's also incredibly rare, if it exists at all, and most people thought to have DID are actually psychotic. However DID has a lot to do with social norms, the victims having experienced abuse or incidents well outside societies definition of normal. Because social norm were different in Victorian England, and impoverished children especially had no expectation of being treated in a certain way, it is highly unlikely the disease ever even presented before the the early 20th century.
• Multiple Personality Disorder was renamed to be Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is rare, and it is in fact quite possible for this mental disorder to have been around at the time of the ripper.

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• O’Hearn is now online in an intriguing Web series of his own creation. In “Alter Ego,” he plays an ex-wrestler on the verge of transitioning to A-list movie stardom, but his mind begins to work against him and his grasp of reality becomes increasingly frayed.
• So, basically I had an idea for a superhero with a trait that I’ve never seen any other superhero have: his main fault is that he is possessed with a multiple personality disorder. I put pen to paper and started writing out the story.
• It would have to be the “triplet scene,” where my character is confronted by three of his mind’s personalities – which were all played by me.

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