Woke up in a foul mood. Everything is irritating and i hate people. I want to throw things around and smash stuff up. I’m catching myself muttering under my breath. I am at YIKES level grumpy. This is mania. More than that though, i think this is mania under control and parts of me don’t like it much.

I can hear some of them bitching about everything up in my head. Mania makes sliding and switching easier and more frequent. Mania makes it more likely i’ll use drugs/alcohol, go out partying, and spend a lot of money. I’m not doing any of those things, and some of my Bits N’ Pieces are pretty worked up about it. They see handling mania as THEIR job, and an opportunity to get out and get some fresh air. Some parts like being in the face and in control, and they aren’t getting many chances to do that anymore. I think i’m feeling some resentment coming from up there. Pouting. There’s some serious pouting going on. Heh.

Yes, they’re me, but they’re parts of me that have been dissociated/disconnected for so long that i experience them as somewhat separate from me. I don’t know if that’s what others with this diagnosis experience. I don’t know if they’d relate to me much at all. It took so long and was so hard for me to accept this diagnosis, in part because, for whatever reason, i can’t tolerate being around other multiples. It triggers ALL of my childhood programming at once, i.e. i shut down and run. I was taught to denydenydeny from the start. I was indoctrinated to have an instantaneous and visceral hatred for any references to MPD (what it was called at the time), plus a deep distrust and need to get away from anyone who spoke of it.

That being said, one of the best friends i ever had was also diagnosed multiple. We met at a halfway house for women in crisis. I’d already been through the program, but came back regularly for visits with the ladies who ran the place. She mentioned DID when i was first getting to know her. I remember internally rolling my eyes, but liking her so much that i became friends with her anyway. I only remember her mentioning it once after that, and we still weren’t close. If she talked about it after we’d become besties (and she was without a doubt the closest girlfriend i ever had), i must have been in an altered state. (“Altered.” Okay, that’s funny to me.)

Back to my main point, which is my crappy mood and why that might be. Most of the “people” floating around in my brain are very flat characters: they’re an emotion, a moment in the past, or they’ve been created to handle or accomplish a specific task, e.g. talk to people in authority, take a shower, absorb a loved one’s anger, take care of children. However, there are a couple who are very well developed, and it is from them i think i’m getting the stomping around and grumbling. I can still feel and hear my various parts (a few have gone completely silent since i began therapy for DID), but they’ve become quieter, and carry less mental “weight,” over the last year or 2. If my brain is a ship, i am now truly the captain. I chart the course now – we’re no longer being tossed about on the waves, at the mercy of the weather.

This is an adjustment for me. When i finally acknowledged my multiplicity i was in the grips of a powerful mania, and i couldn’t control my dissociations. Later, when my mania had faded and i was deep in therapy and more depressed than i’d ever been, i didn’t bother even trying. I’d seen how my past had been spent in resistance to many truths, and i made the decision to just let things happen and see what was what. Once i had an accurate picture of myself and my past, i thought i could figure it all out from there. I was right, and that’s exactly what i’ve been doing. This is the most capable i’ve ever been during a mania, and i’m coming up against some internal resistance.

Today, i have a conscious and mindful experience of what it means to be a highly dissociative individual. The boundaries between me and my system are blurring more still, becoming nebulous and losing meaning. Today they are more me than not me. They always were all me all the time, i know that, but my clever and imaginative brain had created a house with many hidden rooms. It was to help me survive. It worked very well until the danger was over, at which time my house needed to be gutted and rebuilt, lest the foundation crack and the building be condemned. I’m a fixer-upper, but i’ve got great bones. So says i.

I don’t know if there’s anything i can do to improve my mood, but i’ll try. I have the ability to weather these thoughts and feelings if i can’t change them. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, but whatever it is, i’ll handle that, too.

Y’all Take Care,
Love and Peace,
~H~
*The Latin name for my current affliction.

IMAGE: Wonderlane