i think i'm in an efb. or just coming out of one.

it was just a good cry first. well "good" isn't the right word. it was a bad cry. that's how it always starts. the kind where every tear is physically painful.

well no, how it usually starts is the spasms. the involuntary ducking and covering, the shaking, the nervous laughter about nothing. then it moves on to thinking about how i wish i could be young and cute and small and not take up space and not get in anyone's way and be someone that anyone cares about or wants to protect. then the physically painful crying. then my pulse shoots up and i start hyperventilating and get overwhelmed with repetitive thoughts of "i can't do this anymore," "i can't keep going like this," "one of these days i'm just gonna give up and die."

and then the last phase is feeling hollow and numb and wishing i could go to sleep and never wake up. that's where i am now. that whole specific cognitive sequence that seems to keep happening, happened again, to the letter, and now i'm at the end of it again.

after writing my dark fanfic and being able to give it a happy ending... and not having any kind of reexperiencing for days afterward... i thought it was over. i kind of let myself believe i'd conquered it for a minute there. which was foolish, because for one thing it didn't actually feel good to think that, which should have been a dead giveaway. if i don't feel done feeling sorry for myself, it probably means i'm not done needing my own sympathy, which is almost certainly because there's still more to get through. fucking duh. and for another thing, my food intake was dropping even lower.

just... wow, i'm sure not any happier to not actually be rid of it than i was to let myself believe it for a minute. i'm so fucking done with this. i don't think i have much left to fight it with. it's about to win.

edit: and now i'm back in the "why am i here, i'm sorry for being alive, please don't hate me." always those words in the end. always in that order. it's like some kind of mantra.

it wasn't any of the ones i thought i knew. i see now. little jaime wasn't secretly three other parts. she was secretly protecting three other parts. when she leapt from the tower and broke open... they came out, yes, but she, too, survived. they hold specific things, but she is my core, i think. they are my emotions, but she is literally just the younger tower, before it turned to stone.

and this past night, she and i were in a dark, spacious room together. she was sitting against the wall. i also sat on the floor, to be level with her.

she told me so much. she sounded so subdued. empty inside. that's what she is without them. but just beneath the surface i could hear traces of the others. so much resentment. so much grief. so much jealousy. it felt so unfair to her, that she had to remember and be suppressed, while i could be ignorant and in control. she wanted me to know everything. she wanted to not be alone with it anymore.

i don't remember most of what she revealed. i think i wouldn't let myself hear it. but the gist of it was this: "all of it was real. you think you have it bad now just with what you've had to remember so far? you couldn't even imagine the shit i remember. we don't have the luxury of doubting it."

that was what i was afraid of. that was why i didn't want to accept the suitcase nightmare. because there was no way it could have been real without meaning other things that i wasn't even ready to think about. but she doesn't have that luxury. that's what she wanted me to hear.

Like if I said 'I see you...'"

"Do you like what you see?"

"I love you..."

"Aww, I love you too! [lie]"

"... You're safe now."

"I know that, silly! There's no safer place to be than in his bed, where he's going to violate me again and remind me I'm wanted."

Until I finished writing this example of why I can't communicate with her, I didn't even realize I just had.

She could hear me. She's been trying to answer all along. I was the one who couldn't hear her.

Once I could hear her, she gave her name freely and readily. It's not that she trusts me already, I don't think. It's more like... no trust was required. She's prepared to give all of herself to complete strangers, without a care in the world what they might do or say. Because she doesn't value what she's giving up. She wants them to value it for her. "La la la, nothing matters! I don't matter, they don't matter, and it's wonderful!"

Today I was proven wrong. On her behalf, I said something really inappropriate in someone else's thread. It was intended as sympathetic, but it was actually really not okay. I wasn't in control enough to catch it at first. Then I did, and I edited it out. If you are that person, I'm sorry if you saw that. I hope you didn't.

I think accepting her enough to give her a name has emboldened her, but she's too angry to understand how to talk to people.

Lucy, I'm sorry. It's not your fault. After what was done to you, you have every right to feel this hateful, and you've been kept silent and alone with it for too long.

Clearly she can't be held back any longer. But I don't want to hurt anyone else with her either. So I'm going to use this space to give her the floor.

TW... uh... "passive homicidal ideation?" Is that a thing? Well it is now. And, listen, I wouldn't actually do this, I swear I'm not actually violent.

Edit: I feel like I've done something wrong in writing this. Maybe the worst part is that I have. When resentment gets to this point, it's no longer possible to just say it's all the other person's fault, is it? These feelings are because of how badly he hurt me, yes. But if they've developed to this point--there's no excuse anymore. I'm just a bad person. It's that simple. The reason no longer matters.

... So the shame isn't limited to Alice. I see. One of them is sad, one is angry, and one is in love... but all of them are scared and ashamed. Lucy's way of coping with the shame is by reveling in it.

I have a gut feeling as to why she chose that name. She seems to hold things around the suitcase. "Why am I here?" She holds a memory of waking up drugged in an unfamiliar place, as if taken to a twisted sort of wonderland. And she holds mom yelling at her, but also the grief of losing her... And I projected mom into a stuffed rabbit... Alice wants to follow the rabbit. She wants to follow it into the next life, that she wants to believe will be better.

Alice, sweetie. The rabbit isn't going anywhere. It's right here. What we remember of her... is staying right here with us. And we can still turn this life into one you would want to live. And... no one is ever going to take you to wonderland again.

Reading that back is making me flinch away from my phone screen. Yeah... she hears me.

Last night, Fight must have seen the work I did with Alice. Hesitant, guarded, she came forward with a name as well. "Lucy." As in "Lucifer." I can't tell if she was joking.

I didn't know what to say to Lucy last night. I was only ready to deal with one part deciding on a name. I was exhausted, too. Falling asleep. It was like... 1am.

But I've spoken to her just now. As usual, I phrased things clumsily, in ways that could be misinterpreted, and, in her smoldering distrust, she took the worst meaning possible out of everything. Her atittude is justified. It served her. Of course she would be this way, after the experience she's had to hold. The one on the bathroom counter.

But what I think I may have finally gotten through to her with, was this:

"Lucy... I was wrong to say I know you think you don't need my help. What I should have said was that I know you don't need my help. Not to survive. You can survive anything. I know this. You've told me, and I believe you. What I want to help you do now is live. ... I didn't mean it that way. What I meant was... I want to protect you. The same way you protected me. I want to prove to you that no one is going to try to hurt you anymore. Not me, not him, and not anyone else."

Fawn--since she's still trapped in an endless daydream and can't hear me, I still don't know what name she would choose, and can't ask.

I know what her name was. When I was maybe 5 or 6, she told my mother her name was May. But... that was before whatever else "May" may have gone on to be made to endure. She was "May" when, despite what had happened up to that point, she was actually happy--when she was still guarding my innocence successfully. When she was just happy--instead of... happy and scared--that is, instead of being in love with a man she knew wasn't real, and knowing she was "freely" giving herself to the monster wearing his face.

Now... she can at least hear that name, if nothing else... "May..." and she doesn't like it. It doesn't fit anymore.

For now, until I hear otherwise, the only way I can distinguish her is to keep calling her Fawn. At least it's less dehumanizing than "the yellow one."

Earlier today someone told me my toxic way of looking at trauma is because I want to be able to feel like I deserve to be saved, because I'm caught between not feeling like I deserve it and feeling like I need it. That cut deep, but the only way I could actually tell for sure that it was true was because of the tight knot in my chest.

I was also reflecting on a scene in Void Stranger (really good narrative indie game) that illustrated a genuine hug between two normally very repressed people. This time I could easily tell how I felt about it even on a mental level, because I was sobbing. (Listen. It was a really good scene.) And I started to reflect on why I felt so strongly about it, and realized I wanted the healing it was showing. I wanted to hold my parts like that, the way those characters held each other. Realizing that--I wasn't sure how that realization made me feel in and of itself. Until I noticed that when I'd started thinking about that, I'd started hugging my pillow.

Also something happened today in a very sweet Discord server I go to. The server was discussing, among other things, a Steam page person A had run across. In the course of that discussion, person B pointed out that it seemed up person C's alley, a gentle ribbing about his preferences, since the game's protagonist was a plus-size woman. Person C didn't mind wholeheartedly admitting it. Now, I've been there in that server long enough, I know the kindhearted nature of this person's body type preference. I know all three of these people are very sweet people and there was no prejudice or mockery or fetishization involved in this exchange. Even so... and this is entirely my own problem... I read that and it made me start shaking and involuntarily bring my hands up over my head and do that ducking-and-covering pose. The funny thing is I didn't even realize I'd felt anything about reading it until I noticed I was doing that.

I'm noticing these a little more easily lately. I think switching my HRT regimen to injections helped. I did that a couple days ago and I immediately (like 6 hours in) felt so connected to my body that I was completely overwhelmed with joy and could barely sleep that night. The shot should remain in effect for a week, so maybe that's helping, maybe I'm still benefitting from that improved feeling of connection.

In any case, I think noticing these body responses is going to be really important. The memories try to speak to me in more than just the loudest and most obvious ways. I need to take care that I'm listening properly.

And i'm realizing it doesn't work like that.

I can't stop thinking about it even if i try. That's how this whole sudden decline in my mental health started and it's not any different now. How it started was, i withdrew from my daily life, i started writing a bunch of poetry and prose about what he did to me and how much i fucking hate myself, then it got to a point where every single day, i was feeling unsafe, i felt like something horrible was going to happen, i didn't know where to turn, i didn't want to burden my online friends by bringing this fucked up shit into a more general-purpose vent space, out of desperation i made a reddit account even though i don't like that website very much and i tried to trauma dump there and beg with tears in my eyes for urgent advice but i just got filtered by karma requirements, then i was eventually directed here, then i used this place way too much, realized i was using it too much and went back to reddit, and...

And what it comes down to, is that for a little over two months now, what was done to me is consuming my every thought. I can't not pry into it. I can't not think about it. I try to do literally anything else, but no matter what i do, no matter where i look, all i can see is reminders of what happened to me, and it's anywhere from hours to minutes before i have to just get back online and whine again. I'm telling myself it's just a matter of being addicted to social media and making my trauma my whole personality for attention, and i'm disgusting for that, but i don't think it is that, i'm starting to realize it's something a lot scarier than that, i think i keep posting about this stuff because the trauma itself has complete control of my mind, i'm not making it my whole personality, it's making itself my whole personality. It's devouring me from inside. What i'm "addicted" to is getting it the hell out of me.

How can i barely be having any more flashbacks besides emotional and still feel like this? Is this hyperfixation a different kind of reexperiencing? What's happening to me? Why can't i stuff it down and live a normal life anymore? I'm scared.

Flashbacks are when the EPs reexperience, right? This other thing, this uncontrollable, anxious rumination, turning it over and over and over and unable to stop, is this maybe what happens when the ANP reexperiences?

But can one EP hold multiple traumas? Does it work like that? Or do you always split off into a different one for a different type of experience?

The highly vocal and articulate EP, the one who was so angry and afraid she even saw me, my own ANP, as a threat... And I can't blame her. Negative self-concept is my most severe symptom, and I've engaged voluntarily in really unhealthy thought patterns before. I've hurt myself. As painful as it is to admit, I am a threat--or at least, I was. Anyway, as for her, I think she definitely experienced the violent penetration. That's why her emotions are so intense. She definitely seems very fight-response. It makes sense. I felt like he was crushing me, suffocating me. I couldn't move under his grip. Nowhere to escape to. Fight response would have been the only one available. And how the emotional flashback only ended when I yelled "Get off of me!" ...

But is she the same EP who had that intense emotional flashback (it was an emotional flashback, not a somatic flashback, I realize that now, I didn't know the difference at first) and said "why am I here, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for being alive, please don't hate me, I want a big baggy coat to hide in?" I assumed so, but now that I'm thinking about it, that doesn't sound like her at all. The angry one doesn't give a shit who hates her. She will fuck them up if they come close. By contrast I think the sad EP is the one who experienced the verbal abuse. She holds freeze response. She just wants mom to stop yelling at her and hug her again. She just wants mom and dad to stop yelling at each other and hold her between them again. Is that really the same EP?

And which EP had that momentary visual flashback, to when more than one man was touching me but I was trying to be brave and patient for them? Is she the same one who showed me the nightmare where I was waiting for my dad to join me in bed, eager for his affection but nervous to be violated again? Is she the same one who was happy to be called his "little girl," even though now it makes me sick? The same one holding the feeling that "I would have at least liked it to mean something, I wanted to be his child but I would have settled for being his lover if he would at least have seen me as that and not just an object?" An EP who actually still loves him, in spite of everything. The EP who endured having her trust broken to create the angry one, and who endured the less violent abuses, and who endured losing him in the end. The EP who holds the fawn response, who forgives too easily and loves too generously, who still wanted to hold onto what she'd thought he was before he showed his true colors. And, if she holds the fawn response, perhaps the same EP that had to pacify my mom before she would start yelling, and even still persuades me to practically worship mom rather than just love her, even though there were times she hurt me.

Well, the angry one is articulate, so I simply asked.
"Are you the same girl who curled up and cried and wondered why you were alive?"
"I don't know."
"If you don't know if you're the same... then at least, did you do that?"
"Do I look like I'd do that? I know why I'm alive. I'm alive 'cause I can live through anything."
"I see. Then, are you the same one who still loves him on some level, and wants to see him again?"
"Ew. Gross. Do you even need to ask? The only way I want to see him again is dead."

Well, there's one vote for more than one EP. Unfortunately, if there is more than one EP, the other two are abstaining. I don't know how to communicate with them yet. And if there isn't more than one EP, then one vote is all I can expect anyway. So... inconclusive.

I'm... not sure they actually all have different names. The name "Jaime" actually fits the fawning EP best, for the emotional relationship I have with that name--but even though there is one in particular it fits best, I get the feeling, though unsure, that the other two are also just called "Jaime." Maybe because we're split a little uncleanly, still a little more on the connected side overall. We do share memories of time spent fronting, after all. Primary-and-a-half structural dissociation?

If I had to guess... The angry one being the most articulate fooled me into trying to make her feel safe first, when she's actually going to be the hardest one to convince. The freeze one and the fawn one will probably both be more than happy to believe me if I tell them they're safe now. Well, the next time they come up, anyway. Although, when the freeze one comes up, at least, it seems like I have a greater tendency to become her for the duration, so... Being present myself to tell her she's safe will probably require grounding myself.

It's getting a little abstract, trying to understand how this all works while not having had any new memories come up lately to go off of, but I think I'm still on the right track.

Edit: Wait, but... If the freeze EP only holds the verbal abuse from my mom, then why did yelling at my dad to get off of me end the flashback? I wonder if there was some point where I used the freeze response with him. Some time when I was feeling hopeless and resigned...

And I don't know why I never really took the time to think too much about it, but tonight it hit me like a ton of bricks:

The trauma itself is a part. My dad is a part. I have literally let my abuser get into my head.

Not that I really blame myself. I'm sure that happens to all of us to some extent. Just part of the process. But I'm moreso concerned for the implications.

Every part is innocent and blameless, right? None of it was ever their fault, right? They just did what they had to do, what they were forced to do. They're not in that place anymore. They're home now. They're safe now. They're loved now.

How the hell am I supposed to extend that compassion to him?

First of all, he's not like little Jaime. He's not some frightened child in need of rescue. He's older than me. Bigger than me. Taller than me. Stronger than me.

Also, he has power over me. Not the other way around. And he didn't grow naturally to protect me from something I couldn't cope with. He grew so he could represent the thing I couldn't cope with. He is artificial. He was injected. He's an invader. He's the thing I see in my closet, the thing I see at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, the thing I'm afraid will suddenly come in whenever I get that weird feeling of dread I get when I stare at a door a little too long. I don't know what's scarier, an open door because he can just come in, or a closed door because I think any second he's going to open it. He's the part of me that revictimizes me. He's the part of me that feels about me the awful, exploitative way my real dad felt about me, feels that same fetishized hatred, now in context become self-loathing. He's the part that comes after me in the nightmares and flashbacks and steals away my innocence over and over again.

I feel similarly about him to how I have unfortunately made little Jaime feel about me: the thought of reparenting him makes me want to puke. If he ever needs my love and protection, he knows perfectly well he can just steal it from me with physical force. Like he always does.

Do I maybe have to get him to reparent me from inside? Is that how I can maybe heal him? By somehow willing him to stop seeing a sex object when he looks at me and start seeing his actual fucking daughter for once? Is it that in order to heal him, I'm the part who has to come to feel safe and loved? Because that's a long way off. That's like, the end goal here.

Well. If he is the trauma itself, I guess it actually makes perfect sense that reintegrating him would equate to healing completely. He will necessarily be the last part to heal.

Even so... ugh... I do not like being reminded he's in there. That I'm going to have to... deal with him eventually.

since my experience a few days ago ive felt bad and icky about being naked for any period of time. this has made it emotionally challenging, albeit doable, to do things like showering and changing clothes. i felt this way when i was a kid, and a lot more strongly, but until now, not since then.

for a long time i've had an assumption that i'm "not plural" or at most "halfway to plural but not quite there." i believe it may be time to call that assumption into question. during that flashback there is no question i definitely felt like a totally different person. i can now confidently say i have two personalities, and two, um, i guess "hypo-personalities:" dissociated things somewhere between actual personalities and just ordinary imagined people, that have feelings and agendas but are incomplete and cannot front.

the stone tower of repression is the part that usually fronts. its function is to protect the child from the outside and seal away the father, but it's not entirely a healthy arrangement, because in doing so, it also incidentally seals away the child and protects the father--and more importantly, the child is not protected from the father, because they are trapped in there together. in and of itself it's cold and emotionless, stilted and robotic. there was a time it couldn't show any emotion at all. then it learned to fake it. then it became slightly more authentic by learning to fake the same emotions that the girl trapped inside was really feeling. and now there is a window; there is a direct channel. it mostly doesn't have to lie anymore.

the child is the "real" one. fronted before the incident and until most of the way through it. fronted during the flashback. otherwise usually stays quiet and requires active effort to listen to and negotiate with. she is my joy, my lost innocence, but also fear, shame, and hurt. she is also why i type in lowercase during the times i'm feeling more in touch with myself. proper capitalization is fine for the tower, but the child is so very timid and fear-driven that she somehow feels like it would be too assertive even though it's literally normal and expected.

the "hypo-personalities" are my mother and father.

the father is self-loathing, denial, flashbacks, nightmares. he serves an important function: most of the time, his cruel lies keep the child safe from him. denial is ultimately not healthy but sometimes it's necessary.

the mother is self-compassion. until the real person passed, i didn't have self-compassion. but then my memory of her became a source of it. this is of course the one i project onto the rabbit. i was once so desperate to have her back that she almost fronted, but i don't think she actually can.

before the mother arrived, i used to think the child and the father were the same entity. that was because she was completely under his control. seems that just like in real life, mom rescued her.

whatever was stopping me, maybe i worked through it with that. i was able to tell them the truth about why i've been away.

no one has reacted yet. doubtful they've even seen it. but i halfway don't care anymore how they react. i've done what i needed to do. now i can only wait.

edit: woke up and thought i was better. i'm not better. the bad just took time to wake up too. and again with the thoughts about taking something sharp to my skin. havent felt the need to do that for years. not sure if im actually a danger to myself right now or if i just think im in danger cause im scared. i know im dissociated but not enough to have alters i dont think but i do feel like someone else right now. i feel younger and. powerless. and even though im here with you, i feel alone. its hard to get through telling you what this is like because my body is not cooperating. instead of typing i just curl up and shake and cry and stammer and hyperventilate. and. im. going to end it there and, go back to um, doing that

. ok nope theyre gone. a..are they? maybe not. im still typing like them. but. i stopped feeling like something is gonna get me. i think the panic stopped bc i described it? maybe it made my body notice the monster wasnt really here.

im so tired. i wish i could to back to sleep and just stay that way forever.

why am i here? im sorry. im sorry for being alive. please dont hate me

i wish i had any long sleeve shirts. im heat sensitive so i only own tees. i dont want to leave my room in a tee right now. or get out of bed in a tee. or get out from under the covers in a tee. if anyone were here to just pass a huge baggy insulated hooded coat under the covers. and then immediately leave and not look at me. that would be so good