Update: Estate, System Issues, Etc.

[MakersDozn]

Brief talk of dark thoughts. We are safe.

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We went more than a week without posting in our blog, until today. We've been trying to get used to living with a greater sense of normalcy in our life, or at least with a reduced number of stressors. We and our brothers have basically finished cleaning out our parents' house, and we're waiting for the title company to complete its work so that the lawyers can schedule the closing. We're more than ready for all of this to be over.

Charity has been struggling with anger. She says repeatedly that she hates being alive, and she digs in her heels in when we try to help her work through things. We know that only she can do the work, but she doesn't live in a vacuum. Her experiences affect all of us.

Mary, Allegra, and others

[mosaic]

sorry things are feeling dark for yous right now. it's very frustrating when one of us needs and refuses help.

it's nice to hear you are making progress on the house and we hope that things finish up on it soon.

Charity, anger is a difficult thing to deal with. we hope you find your way to working on it, because we know that working through difficult things does help. tisn't easy, but it does help.

[The People]

It must be a load off to get the estate stuff settled. Where did your younger brother end up finding housing? Hope it is working out for him.

As for Charity's anger, we have found in the past that helping angry teens actually had an opposing effect. Just as with 3D teens. A thought just popped into our head. What if you gave her a certain period of each day where she can journal or colour - they are now coming out with CB just for grown ups. We could have told them how well it works (we as in MM). Anything she wants to do as long as it does not involve help of self or others. Maybe she could find out what else interests her besides being angry? Just a thought.

[MakersDozn]

Thank you both.

mosaic....Charity at least listens to our T, although she struggles trying to see the T's point of view. They haven't spoken directly in a couple of weeks. When we had the Skype session on April 22, Allegra was out, and last week, Laura was out. In fact, Charity was at a noticeable distance during last week's session.

The People....our brother found an apartment on the second floor of a house located about 15 minutes from where we/MDs live (and also about 15 minutes from our parents' house).

Charity is an adult. She is 25 and the oldest in our system. We believe that our first split occurred in infancy and resulted in baby amanda (to experience only physical needs with no emotion) and Charity (to experience thoughts and feelings). The massive load of feelings and memories were too much for Charity to handle, so she off-loaded them to others who came later.

It's only been during the past few years that Charity has been able to reclaim these feelings and memories. This is great for the others who'd been burdened for them, but unbearably painful for Charity. We believe that only the system member who originally experienced a particular trauma can work through it and resolve it, so Charity's anger and pain is certainly understandable.

Even when she's calm, Charity doesn't know who she is anymore. She created an idealized self, but now that this idealized self is no longer useful, she's reluctant to discover and develop who she really is. Her idealism led her to make mistakes that caused harm for the system, and she doesn't want this to happen again.

One of the things that all of us have realized lately is that part of why the pain is so unbearable is that it's all out and raw and chaotic. Charity has envisioned all of our memories as being in an archive filled with boxes. In the past, she's been able to focus on only one box at a time, but now many boxes are open, and memories and feelings are strewn all over the place. No doubt our father's passing has contributed to this.

Thanks again,

Mary, Allegra, and others

[The People]

Charity we understand this. We have gone through periods of it over the years where not just one memory at a time came out at us. We would spend nights with things flying through our head. And yes for us it was the death of the mother that set it off. It did get better. I hope it does for you as well.

[MakersDozn]

Thank you.

Charity