Please dont be so nice to me.

I have been born with stubborn unruly frizzy curly hair. I have spent most of my life fighting and hating it. About 2years ago I had the available funds to get it permanently straightened. I was in love. for nearly 2 years I have had hair I can brush and style. Hair that moves and flicks back off my shoulders. (those of you with curly hair will I am sure know where I am coming from.) Due to my current employment situation, i.e. being on the pension, I can no longer afford this expensive treatment. I was faced with the reality of going back to the hair I dreaded.
 Trust me this going somewhere, it is not just a whinge about my hair.
A friend convinced me to come into her salon and that together we could come up with a style that I would love. Up to now this is a relatively simple discussion on hair. But from here it is were it gets interesting. As a multiple, there were many voices wanting input on the change. The general consensus was that we had little choice so lets go for it. Some of us have curly hair so it seemed right that the body did too, others of us have straight so that was better. Ultimately money had to win.
I went in yesterday and got it done. Now as you may know, physical touching can be a problem for multiples, so a hair cut can be fraught with difficulty. We were prepared and had gone there with the right alter/alters forward to make us feel safe and protected. If we are prepared it is often not too much of a big deal.
The hair dressing went well, although quite a change from what we have had for hair in quite a while. (This alone is going to take some of us quite a while for some of us to adjust to).
Then it happened. My friend, being a caring person she is, was nice to me. I mean really nice. In the busy salon she took time to come close to me and tell me how I needed to take care of myself and spend time on me. That I had been though a lot ( she has no idea of my DID or trauma history) and that I deserved some special treatment. It was very sweet of her and very thoughtful.
It was also devastating on my system. We were not prepared for that. Physical contact AND being nice to me. That was more than I could cope with. By the time I reached my car everyone inside was screaming. We really needed time alone, and everyone wanted to head home to try and deal with it all. I was desperate to get to Bridges and knew if I went home I would never make it there on time. So I drove on the Bridges, fighting the very strong urge to dissociate and or go to sleep. By the time I reached Bridges I was a bit of a mess. My hands were shaking, my head was a mess of confused talking and I felt light headed and tired. Fortunately this behaviour is nothing new in Bridges and I had plenty of time to relax in the group until I felt better.
By the time I left I was much more stable but still a bit drained. When I got home I headed to bed for a rest and an early nights sleep. This morning I was up, at a reasonable time to take my son to work and the dog for a walk. By midday I was home and still feeling like I had been hit by a bus. I got back into bed and slept for 5 hours.
I still feel a bit average, and expect I will be in bed early again tonight.

The long and the short of this whole thing is that, it is the unexpected little things that can throw us multiples into chaos. Simple caring words, have knocked me out for 2 days. I am not saying you should never be nice to a multiple, that is silly, You may never know when it is a good time to say stuff. This is merely and insight into how I and many multiples work.

I just can't do it.

I have had a fun day so far today, and I wanted to share my multiple experience with you today. As you probablly already know we all have parts. The part of us all that works, the part that does the house work, the part that does the hobby, and in singletons those parts can mix and mingle and change amoungst each other without too much bother.

With Multiples it is quite different. Today I attended my first Doll making social group. I was quite nervous about it, but ended up having a great time. I left the group feeling happy and very social as I had enjoyed meeting the other ladies and sharing ideas about doll making. I decided to head down the beach to have some lunch and go for a walk on the jetty while I made the most of the elated mood I was in. I felt confident and happy. After my walk and lunch I headed home. Driving was difficult as my eyes seemed suddenly very short sighted and I had left my glasses at home. Part way home I switched alters and I could see better but still not brilliantly. Once I got home I ofcourse had home things to do and think about, the only problem was that the doll group alter couldnt do these things. I couldn't focus well and my mind was stuck on the group. As I tryed to get on with the simplest things at home, the alter just kept saying 'I can't do it, I can't do it". She was not able to do the home things at all eventually we switched, and now I am in home mode. I am able to go on the computer and type this, I am able to deal with cleaning up some mess, but I have lost that confident happy feeling I had before.
It is this that makes one of the big diferences between multiples and singletons. Each alter serves a function and outside of that they cannot do any thing much else. It sounds silly but they do not have the ablity to do even the simple things like cleaning. We do not go between functions well and we much switch between alters to achieve tasks other achieve without thought. As that switching happens, memories can be lost and moods and emotions change. We cant always switch back unless we are in the same situation that brought that alter out in the first place. i.e. I would probably have to go back to doll group or think about it for a while to bring that alter back to the front.
All of this just because we changd activity. It can get so complicating and confusing. It can also get frustrating when you go from an elated mood to a more depressed mood.

Still going!!

Well, I lived. No car crashes, no falling pianos, no death or dismemberment on my Birthday. It was actually a really good day. I had a great lunch with my Mum and son, and go totally spoiled. I spent the afternoon with mum doing some fun shopping and then back home for dinner with my hubby and other sons.
On Friday some of the Bridges crew come over for a homemade pizza night. My husband made awesome pizzas and we talked, laughed and cried until 4am. All in all, one of the best Birthdays I can remember.