The Next Version Of Me

[Bach]

The hug thing is confusing.  Middle B is upset about it.  Seems like there was a miscommunication between us about what I was supposed to say in her message the other day but I don't have any grasp at all of what it was.  I have so little understanding of what she wants and needs, and I despair at that.  She never had a chance back when I was her and she had my mother, and I can't stand this feeling of failing her now that I'm me trying to care for her and she's her with all her beauty and spirit and creativity and life stuck inside because it's too unsafe to let out.  Why can't I be like those art teachers (Little) Middle B had early on who nurtured her instinctively and taught her about all those things that she misses so much but is too afraid of?

I think I might be losing my mind.

[Hope67]

Hi Bach,
I just wanted to say that I admire how you're looking to provide things for all your Littles, and how you're doing your best to meet their needs.  I have read things about how to nurture and provide support, and what I noticed in the books I read is that it's a complicated and difficult thing, that it's challenging, and that very often there are people who try to help, and get it right, and it's difficult.

Middle B sounds like such a creative person, and I can hear your pride in her ability and in her beauty and spirit.  I wish that she could feel safer to let that out, and enjoy herself, and feel free to create and do whatever she wants to do. 

I am sorry that you feel you might be losing your mind, and I hope that you can keep some sense of safe permanence.  I hope that Middle B is ok and I hope that you are ok.  Sending you a safe hug, if any parts of you are able to take that   

Hope 

[Armee]

Hope said it just beautifully. Injust want to add that it strikes me how much you care and how tender you are and I want to reassure you I guess a little....as a mom, I cannot be everything to my kids I can't be exactly who they want me to be for every part of them that needs nurture. I can just be enough.  I can love them and adore them and nurture them up to a point. I can get other people in their lives to help guide then as well. But I can't be everything for all parts of them.

I don't think we can expect that we can do the same for the fragmented parts of ourselves either, but we can be enough and we can show then we care and accept them and want the best for them.

I don't think you are losing your mind. I think you are gaining it. But that's a scary feeling to think you are losing your mind. And I just want to gently remind you it's OK to disengage from your mother if and when you need to.

[Bach]

This doggy wants a hug!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51842853328_2951e568f0_z.jpg

This one wants to play!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51842853383_d0e0eb560e_z.jpg

Look at the silly smooshy face!!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51842853343_dd85446343_c.jpg

This one is trying to look all serious but I bet if you hugged him he'd get all smiley and go arr arr arr and probably slobber on you which is kinda gross but I wouldn't mind.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51843106514_f4422d0857_o.jpg

[Not Alone]

Middle B, I love those pictures of the dogs. Thank you for sharing those.

[Armee]

Aaaahhhh that smooshy face is so so cute!

[CactusFlower]

  Thank you for sharing those, super cute!  My cousin has a rescue pittie mix, and she's such a big baby.  Very sweet.

[Bach]

Staffies!!!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51845336153_898466bbe9_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51844290867_117b36dfe3_b.jpg

Omg the SMILE!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51844290862_8497106970_o.jpg

Look!  Here's a super-huggable staffy AND flowers!
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51844290872_83bf553c65_o.jpg




Bach said I can come here and post doggies anytime I want to if it will make me feel better.

[Bach]

I really don’t want to write about what’s been going on in the past 10 days but I feel like I should.  The Wednesday before last, an issue with the new mortgage came up, and we had several tense days in my house as we worked on a solution while inside me the kids went crazy with tension and fear as they prepared for the disaster they were certain was coming, even though My Person and I were both rationally quite confident that the problem would be resolved and we would not lose the house.  The whole time that the uncertain situation was going on, I was very aware of the separation between Self and the parts, and I did a great job of staying in Self and managing Little/Middle B through their intense and painful anxiety.  But then the situation resolved a few days ago, and since then, the kids are off doing their own things, almost totally absent from my conscious reality, and Self has also pretty much abdicated, and left someone else in charge here, and I think it must be Angry B, the inheritor of Lizzy B, who thought she had found a home in which she was loved and welcomed and didn’t understand why everything still hurt so much.  Well, Hi there, Angry B.  She thinks that’s a lame name, by the way, and that all this description-B stuff is stupid, but she doesn’t have any better ideas for what to call her and her sisters, so **** you, Angry B it is.

[Armee]

Hi that all sounds really stressful. Angry-B  reminds me of my sister. She was the "angry" one but it wasn't so much that she was angry as that she saw what was happening...the truth and essence of things and those things weren't alright. But she calls herself mean things because she was labeled angry, but she's really just loving and wise and brave and protective. Maybe Angry-B will show you another name that fits the intentions better. I admire Angry-B. Angry-B seems really important and special. 

[Bach]

Angry B is an almost complete mystery to me.  I can't remember what it felt like to be her at all.  I can remember some of the things I did when I was her but not much of it has any resonance.  She's kind of the Forgotten B.  I remember being Lizzy B a lot better.  But I don't think Angry B even wants me to remember.  Or is it me who doesn't want to remember her? 

[Bach]

I've been smoking and eating too much.  It's making me ill, and I need to put the brakes on it.  I can't figure out why it's so out of control right now.  It hasn't been out of control like this in years.  It's a huge reversion.  I suppose it's all about the house, and I guess that I'm probably doing better with it in general than I ever did at times of great stress in the past, but it's really upsetting to me to feel so helpless to bring it under control.  I also feel a lot of fear about how much harder it is to recover from protracted periods of compulsion these days.  It was hard enough in the past, before my body had really started breaking down from the lifetime of trauma-echoes the way it has in the past dozen or so years.  Not to mention menopause.  I can no longer afford to engage in the compulsions for months on end.  I'm worried about my poor abused heart.

[Bach]

In the process of sorting out my belongings to move to the river house, I'm careening back and forth between feeling great about letting go of things I've held onto for many, many years, and feeling dreadful about my life.  With the winter weather I've been stuck in the house too much lately with all my belongings to sort and figure out what to do with.  Most of it means very little to me, and that makes me uncomfortable because it makes me feel like my life means very little to me.  Everything reminds me of everything I never really did.  Everything I tried that didn't work out, everything I wanted to pursue that for whatever reason I couldn't stick with, every friendship I didn't maintain or that blew up because of trauma reactions I didn't even know I was having.  It hurts so much and makes me feel so empty.  I hardly even remember most of my life, really.  I've spent so much of it alone at home passing time or out in the world half-dissociating just to be able to cope.  I'm finding myself attaching a great deal of importance to pictures, because those sort of prove to me that my life actually happened.  That I've actually for real existed all this time and I'm not just a figment of my own imagination.

[rainydiary]

Bach, I am also in the process of moving and am encountering similar things as I go through my home.  I appreciate you articulating this all as I've been having trouble putting into words what is troubling me and it is helpful to have your example.  I hope that your move goes as smoothly as it can and will be thinking of you as you navigate this time.

[Bach]

Thank you, rainy.  I'll be thinking of you, too.  I hope that your move goes well and that you are happy in your new house.