Hearing Internal Conversation

So I just keep brain fogging when trying to focus on anything this morning, and finally made a frozen dinner for lunch/breakfast and sure enough after eating that and giving it a bit of time to kick in, I felt like I could finally feel that part coming online with a wakeup mumble, almost with a faint sense of response echo in the back like “There you are, where the hell have you been? You’ve been needed for hours!” 😅

Capturing An Odd Moment

A moment while driving to a meeting – and I think I’ve done this plenty, but just this time consciously caught it?

There was no hiccup in time, no loss of control of the vehicle, but in the span of maybe a quarter mile on the interstate suddenly this extremely self-aware feeling, as if just waking up, and realizing a fast “speed of thought” series of thoughts, almost overlapping each other:

I feel awake
I’m in a car
I’m driving, keep it in lane
where am I – oh, I know this stretch
why-
driving to meeting
what meeting – ah, that meeting
was eating, don’t need to eat there, okay
okay

And the handoff was done. And I knew it, and wondered – who was this me, that I could catch that, and know I’d just woken up, and felt different from who’d been driving a half mile prior, but there was no real change other than internal mind’s perception? And if I could tell, why could I not pull up a name or other defining thing to determine why I felt different, what was different other than just I knew?

Self Doubt and Shoulds

So I’ve had a week or two of very busy days, causing me to slip back to almost barely-noticing anything of a DID nature, as I have done for most of my life. Then this past week I came back around to suddenly revisit it again, and am dismayed by the amount of backstepping I’ve done.

I was chatting with another friend with full diagnosed DID today, and I ended up hitting on a major point as I suddenly took off into a conversation direction I wasn’t necessarily planning to:

“It seems kind of ironic,” I said, “we are both dealing with similar concerns about handling everyone’s [internal] needs, yet we have opposite problems, as if on both sides of some window.”

“Oh?” was his response.

I continued:
“You guys can communicate and individually front to act on those needs, thus is seems like your efforts are on reigning that in to avoid social interaction problems.

I can identify differences in influences/feelings/thoughts, but get little to no coherent communication, causing potentially wild flip-flops in demeanor that are exceedingly internally schooled to make sure the outside stays as serene and consistent as possible. Without extreme effort on my part, I slide back into not knowing what I need until I’m suddenly a broken down mess because someone managed to break through enough to vent.

Because as far as I know, I’m normally happy with what I’m in… until I’m suddenly not. And it almost always comes out as feeling like “me” instead of “not Sokei”, thus leaving me open to attacking myself for not knowing what I want or for being inconsistent or for being crazy…

In retrospect, that may be part of the design on keeping us all “in line”, now that I think about it. Potentially continually self-persecuting to keep it all broken and controllable.”

The thing is, this isn’t new. I loop back through this over and over, I feel like I don’t make any progress and I’m just rediscovering the same thing in some stupid pattern that never ends. I could have sworn I’ve worked through this already. As I put it later in my conversation with my friend:

“I know I was doing better at trying to let everyone step out. I particularly remember a point where someone was out and for the first time I as whoever was front KNEW for certain that I was not Sokei. As opposed to whoever talking was still doing it within the bubble/mask/skin that was Sokei.

Working on all this has been so much better for me. The depression issues of my life have backed off, splintered, compartmentalized, become easier to identify and overcome when illogical.

I don’t like back stepping out of fear that I’m stepping away from a state that it sounds like many DID people fight to achieve (continual shared time with less loss).

Aren’t I where most people already want to be? Why am I trying to step away from that?
But I need to, and it’s so hard to argue against those questions..

Like I can’t even tell if those questions are in good faith or if it’s just another attempt to put myself down, trying to argue out that by trying to step further into individuality and split that I’m disrespecting everyone who’s fighting to to get where I already am. That I’m just being disrespectful by existing as such and should just shut up and keep going as is.”

This is, of course, copy-pasted from a text conversation, otherwise I’d have been able to only type about one paragraph of summary. And it’s been trimmed to just my part, because I kind of just kept going separate from what he said. But I wanted to capture it here too.

Additional capture: “I get the feeling I’ve forgotten a lot.

little things like discussing Catholic upbringing with Cyclohexane and realizing we learned almost opposite approaches (did I just conveniently internals & bury anything too downer?)

or when telling Darkmage about how mom would pick me up from [elementary] school and I’d cry the entire half hour drive home. every day. And when Darkmage then asked how did mom react… I don’t know. I can’t remember anything.”

I need to revisit the putting down part a bit back, I know I do. I’d planned to do that here now, but I can’t bring myself to do it at the moment. I can’t even go back to re-read it directly. But at least it’s captured here now.

I’m not her?

Today’s oddities started with a normal issue. I have never denied I flip flop between caring/feeling emotional about something and being so disconnected I can’t even understand why I cared in the first place. (Funny how something so obvious can be denied for so long, huh?)

But in my short journey so far, I’d not run yet into today’s experience as something referring to myself.

I should clarify: I’m only a few months into this journey, conciously. This past spring I finally conceded that maybe I am OSDD at least.

I typically do not lose time, or not large pieces of it, as far as I can tell. I get “micro-losses” as lot, where I might not be able to tell you what I was just doing 20 min ago, so I record and write down most everything I can. My switches even when obvious have not included a loss of a sense of myself, that is they’ve always happened under this mental understanding of “well yeah, I’m so-and-so, but we’re all a part of outer Kat”.

So back to today. I was holding off feelings that I’ve handled previously that I think are initially tied to self-worth issues and solo polyamory, a lifestyle which I’m only 1-2 years into as well. Or at least, that’s the triggering instance. I get the impression it goes deeper: a feeling of completely hopeless disconnection/ loneliness/ despair, some expectation that the way I’m living now is it and I’ll always be alone.

The emotional response is irrational, ignoring all logical response back. I’d initially hoped letting it vent a bit instead of trying to force it back might help give some insigth into further feeding thoughts/sources, but I wasn’t finding any and getting frustrated. More than frustrated, I was getting angry that every time I think I’m over something it pops back up as if it’s brand new, and the lines of thought fell in with the emotional spiral of self worth issues and deserving to be lonely and how I’m going to just chase people away because I can’t be myself anywhere.

And in my text rant to Darkmage coming out of a spiral, it happened: I realized I’d typed of Kat in third person, but in a way that gave a short lightbulb moment: in that exact moment, I was not Kat. Whoever I was, was distinctly not Kat.

It was brief, as if catching that realization was enough to feel a feeling of “I am Kat” start blending back in, like watching a color work its way through water before blending into the entire pool.

And I still remember it. Concious or conciously known attempts to try to forget things hasn’t worked. (Ha, last post person!) So if I remember that feeling of being not me, was there still some co-conciousness? Or just that most memory is a shared bank that we automatically start reading for smoother handoffs?

The following conversation after that with Darkmage turned dark, where I shared any quotes I was catching. It was worrying. Someone wants to keep everyone in line “for our own good”, because it “keeps us safe”.
And when told it isn’t, and doesn’t keep us safe, and that that’s abuse, there was a response and another voice at the same time:
“Pain for the greater good”
“God just let me die already”

I have no idea if either of these are related to the angry one who keeps interjecting with “Fuck off” when I start probing.

Side note, the “not Kat” considered wanting to claim Sokei as a name. There was a deeper feeling of multiple complaints/objections, since that is meant to be our generic system name. One or more of us made it, it’s not even English. It’s ours.

I should be working

but I got pulled away.

I’ve been actively working hard to avoid the self-deprecating words that fly when this happens:

What’s wrong with me
I’m a fake
I’m a terrible worker
I’ll be found out and fired for this
What’s wrong with you
Such a fuck up

Etc.

I know what I need to do so at least there’s that – I’m not in a complete block of unthinking anxiety.

Someone might be though? That’s what brought me here now, when I should be focusing on the work on the other screen.

I heard them on repeat last weekend while at Stump. Not safe. That’s all it says, over and over. It sounds young, and sounds hurt or desperate. Or maybe not young, hard to tell in the half-whisper.

I thought it was just from being over there, but I’ve realized I’ve heard it last night alone at home and today; and shouldn’t home be as safe as can be? No one to interact with, to give away anything, that should be safe as ever, right?

So it’s not about physical location at all. Trying to ask inward gives no response other than a feeling of fleeing, and someone distinctly different spitting out Fuck you. Fuck you all.

They’ve been saying that a lot lately.

Look I was nice and made a cute little hr tag for later indication. And don’t fucking tell me I’m not playing nice. I’m doing NOTHING to anyone other than sitting here feeling like shit because they’re trying to do their thing and just fuck it there’s no point in fucking talking anyway. Just feel happy I’m not deleting this.

Don’t worry we won’t let us

I was going to leave it at that. But now I’m kind of stuck here. I know – I’ll see if I can make us forget this post and find it later. You know, if I’m going to be stuck here anyway. Make her fucking freak out. She needs to fucking let go anyway.

Made a Site but What to Say

Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy. Maybe I’ll think I’m crazy.

Without any official diagnoses, I’ve been working to accept I’m likely somewhere on the DID spectrum. People I know currently confirm entire conversations and experiences I cannot remember. Exes I’ve reached back out to have provided data from their own experiences interacting with me. An old childhood journal provides the craziest noticeable changes in font, topics, and tone that I certainly don’t ever remembering bothering to decide to make.

This is my place to dump my links and research, to output my rants and vents and thoughts and concerns and fears. Physical writing is too slow, and too easy to put off. This will be available everywhere I have internet (so everywhere).

It took a lot to get to the point of creating this site. Just this past weekend the mere thought and discussion of doing this caused a sudden inability to think straight, with an overwhelming urge to go lie down to sleep. Perhaps someone doesn’t want me to do this. I spent so much of my life running from the world through games and books. I bet it was pretty easy to keep ignorant with no interaction with other people to cross reference.

I’ve been working on emerging back into a crazy world, and no surprise what worked so far in my life isn’t working anymore. I feel like there’s still noticeable resistance: from someone else, from my current conscious self, from both, I don’t know. But my gut or someone inside says making this site will help.

So I did.