tear it up

I re-emerged in December, though. Temporarily; the therapist drew me out against our will, and the child. We revisited that yesterday. 

She spoke to me directly, which was a strange experience. She’d asked J what he wanted her to call me, but he’s too afraid to tell her my name, so he said ‘Protector’ was fine. I find it vaguely condescending, to be spoken to like a fragment and not a person in my own right, but J’s self-control and self-consciousness is too strong for him to talk to her about that. 

Anyway - she spoke to me directly, when J switched chairs. I knew I was in control because I could make eye contact with her (J can’t do that, not ever). And I was angry. Because she was asking me to step out of the room: to let J function without me for a while, because she feels that I’m hindering his progress by preventing him from feeling. 

When she asked, I wanted to refuse. I haven’t forgotten the last time I let my guard down, to let someone see us as three and not one. What happened to the child. 

But in the back of our head, J was asking so quietly for me to go. And it terrified him. I could feel that much. The idea of letting his walls down, of being left with just him and the child and nothing inbetween, was terrifying. But I stepped out.

He said to her that he felt ‘wobbly’ without me. Like an egg undercooked. She asked when the last time he’d felt wobbly was, and he said it was after our last session, when she’d dragged me out of hiding.

Anyway. She asked about other times he’d felt that way. He has a hard time pinpointing specific scenes, memories; he’s always trying to figure out what she wants him to say, what angle she’s trying to take. He’s suspicious like that even without my influence. But she got him to talk. And after things I won’t go into here, she got him to cry- crying has been a subject of their discussions a few times, his lack of it, his refusal to allow it. He couldn’t stop it without me there. 

After he cried, she asked if he’d like to stop, and he said yes. I think I returned to him almost immediately, without being asked. She asked later if he wanted to invite me back in and he said “He slunk back in a while ago; subdued, but no less present.” I liked the wording.

I don’t like leaving him. I don’t like leaving the child, and I don’t like that she asks him to ‘alter’ his memories when they’re already so fragile and susceptible to suggestion. 

To put it simply: J is of course aromantic, or something close to it. And relationship-repulsed, with a fear of ever getting into another one given how disastrously they have all gone in the past. Even our last one, which was undeniably healthy in many regards (but deteriorated towards the end), ended horribly. 

But J, unfortunately, has feelings of a kind for someone. And whether those feelings are only the result of that person having expressed feelings for him first in the past is impossible to tell. That those feelings would continue to exist once a relationship was initiated is extremely unlikely. And the person in question is likely not an ideal partner, in any case, nor would J be an ideal partner for them. There is too much to figure out on both ends.

I think he’s touch-starved. I think he’s starved for affection, and wants to love and be loved and have all of the benefits of a romantic relationship with none of the drawbacks, like effort and commitment, both of which he’s afraid of. And I think that these things cannot be reconciled. He cannot have one thing and not the other. 

We are still very much traumagenic. I’m just not sure this isn’t something that’s being... perhaps not faked, but exaggerated in our mind. Even as I type this I feel as though it’s just the host taking on a different personality. I can’t be sure--we can’t be sure--what’s him and what isn’t, or if there’s anything other than him at all. So. Here we are.

- Max.

edit: yeah basically the thing is that like, even if i don’t feel like we’re a ‘system’ in a way that would fit did/osdd, i still want somewhere i can express this shit? like even if it’s fake or i’m exaggerating or don’t really have alters but am just using the idea as some kind of coping mechanism due to trauma and mental illness, i don’t think it’s such a bad thing to have a blog i can express this shit on, or sideblogs to do it more intensely? ya feel me? 

a lot of times, alters go quiet or wander off! It happens - andit isn't uncommon to feel somehow less valid because of that. Either way though, u should just take it a day at a time. Try not to force urself to fit a particular label!

thank you <3 i’m just. i’m trying to remind myself that like... even if it’s not OSDD, that doesn’t mean it’s not a symptom of mental illness, if that makes sense? esp because brains are fucking bizarre, and it’s not like i don’t fit the criteria for ‘early childhood trauma that was so prolonged my brain just fucked off into different parts’