Scattered pieces

When we answered Sam’s question about our use of closet versus closest in our WeeWorld posting we didn’t realise what issues the basic facts about our various levels of literacy would bring up.  We have a masters degree, so some of us are literate.  M did a majority of the masters degree alone, or in conjunction with W, so it was easy to keep the wording consistent and correct.  However, we have problems when is comes to this blog as there are more of us present as it’s B who mainly writes here, so the chances of the words tumbling over each other and therefore getting mixed up is high.

Aimee is 9 and illiterate.  Apparently she wasn’t allowed to go to school for anything but the sports and outside activities because she talked too much and fidgeted – neither were deemed appropriate ways for us to stay invisible and not cause trouble.  T, W and SO didn’t enjoy sports, so gladly allowed Aimee to do this piece of our life.  What we just realised today is that at the chronological age of 9, S was born and was aged 13.  Both are associated with the sister in various ways.  Whereas we were model students, the sister was a classic trouble maker – she was constantly truant, mixed with the wrong crowd, was a bully and got involved in sex and drugs too early.  She was psychologically abused, but was not subjected to any other abuse.

When we were chronologically 9, the sister was 13 and started to spiral out of control.   Whereas before, she was just a poor student that we could be a polar opposite with our school achievements, she now absorbed so much of the family’s attention that we were ignored.

Aimee and S mirror the sisters life quite accurately.  They’re slightly more extreme versions, but we now think this was an outlet to balance our need to obtain some of the attention the sister received and our need to try and stay invisible.

In some respects this helps us explain some our actions and need to create ones to cope with situations.  In other respects it’s just depressing.

Aimee is rather amazing by the way.  She is everything the rest of us aren’t – optimistic, chatty and care free.  She also has a tendency to come forward at the oddest moments.  On Wednesday we were in a rather boring database training session, the trainer from the database company had some labelled items to give away – one of which was a bear soft toy.  At the end of the session, the trainer asked who wanted the bear, so Aimee came forward and in her own voice asked for it.  Our team leader looked shocked when we got back to the library and asked if it had really been us asking for the bear.  Our voice was so different that she didn’t recognise it.  Stink!  The confused look on her face worried us.  Thankfully she’s too overworked to give it much more thought.

Not that we’re camera shy or anything, but we’ll never put our photo online.  This is the closest you’ll ever get to seeing what we look like…

Created through WeeWorld.
Thanks for the fun distraction idea David…

It’s usually not a good sign when the person with a mental health issue looks around the room and wonders who in the crowd has the most problems.  Doubly so when that room is not on a psychiatric ward, but is instead a library workroom.  Admittedly this could be because the one with the mental health issue (namely us) is feeling so withdrawn from reality that everyone else just appears to be acting exceptionally irrational and odd.  It could also be that we are working with a bunch of crazy librarians…

Exhibit 1 – Our friend with the husband and brother dying of cancer.
She asked us today when it would be possible to start calling out “dead man walking” whenever her husband comes into the room.  Now before you think this is too harsh, it actually suits their sense of humour which is very dark and sarcastic.  Humour is the only way that they are able to cope with what is happening, so we laughed along with her.

Exhibit 2 – The self-absorbed lady we’re having to teach how to teach.
How in the world has this woman made it to this level in the profession and still be totally incompetent?  She doesn’t know how to search for information – which is sort of what we do lots in libraries.  She considers that because she is over 50, she is incapable of learning about technology – apparently when you turn 50 your brain gets fried.  We’ve yet to get out of her where you go for this brain frying, but we’re a tad worried because Exhibit 1 is also over 50 and we like having our sarcastic “non-brain fried” friend around!

Exhibit 3 – the work avoiding library assistant
OK so on the surface of it, work avoidance isn’t a problem – at least half the population do it regularly.  But do they do it loudly?  Do they moan about their daughter’s hair loss while avoiding work?  Do they continually bug those around them by asking questions that we had to ask her before the restructuring?  NO!  If you’re going to do nothing, do it quietly!

Exhibit 4 – the team leader
Our team leader is an amazing woman.  She has been doing the work of 2.5 people for the last year.  It’s starting to show!  Good grief, just give the woman a holiday before the short term memory loss caused by stress turns her into a goldfish.

Exhibit 5 – library manager
In many respects this exhibit is mis-labelled because I don’t think she realises that she is meant to be managing a library.  I think she’s also forgotten that we’ve had several rounds of redundancies since she last realised she was managing us.  But at least she makes a delicious spicy chai…

Sometimes we look around and wonder if we’re the most sane one in the room…  Sometimes that brings a level of comfort… Sometimes it’s just really worrying…

It hasn’t been a good week.  We’ve been doing all sorts of negative things and not getting enough sleep.  In amongst all of this we’ve been lashing out at the people around us who care.  We can see ourselves doing it, but it feels beyond our control to stop it.

At work we’ve apparently been grumpy and short tempered with some people – actually the ones we’ve been short tempered with are the ones who suck all the positive energy from those around them.  So it’s not everyone we’ve been grumpy with.  I have a feeling that this is the emergence of the ones from the 1st floor within our internal house going into a protective mode as we move closer to the anniversary.  They have a tendency to protect those around us that we think need protection – namely our friend who has the brother and husband with cancer.

Kriss however, has been a different story.  The guy says he loves us.  He keeps on being there.  We’re trying very hard to act as if nothing is wrong, but we’re going crazy on the inside.  We don’t know how to tell him that we’re hurting.

This became evident over the weekend.  Kriss usually talks to B, but with the anniversary coming up Sophie is more present.  Sophie is emotional and a teenager.  She doesn’t know how to ask for help when things are bad, so tries to act as if everything is alright and cheery.  Kriss knows us well enough to see that something is up and asks what’s going on.  We’ve always associated asking for help as being needy and unable to cope with life.  So we end up saying that everything is fine.  This goes in a vicious circle with us wanting to reach out for help – Kriss asking us what’s wrong – us eventually saying or doing something that drives Kriss away.

This pattern happened twice over the weekend until yesterday morning when I finally had the courage to say – “we really need someone on our side”.  Those simple words took so much courage and energy to say…  Not only did it show that we were vulnerable, but it showed that we might need someone else.  We were expecting Kriss to reject us for being so needy and such hard work, but his response was a simple “why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Dissociation is such hard work.  It’s hard living as a dissociative and it’s difficult to be around someone who is dissociative.  At times I hate this coping mechanism, at other times I wonder at the brains ability to adapt to the unbearable.

The ex-husband once said that our dissociation was breaking him in half and we were the reason he had made a suicide attempt.  Pretty hard to argue with that.  We’re expecting Kriss to get tired of coping with us soon as well.  We know the best remedy for this is to get a good therapist who can help us move forward.

In the meantime we had a totally pointless conversation with Kriss yesterday night about him being technically challenged and trying to find ways to fix his computer.  It was totally pointless and yet so meaningful.  He sat with us and made us laugh.  We showed that we needed help and he didn’t reject us as weak and pitiful.  He struggles to understand our thinking sometimes, just as we struggle to understand his.

It’s very odd to talk to someone for any length of time who doesn’t play games.