10 july 2021
Doing a bit better today- not in panic mode at least. Been a few surges of brain screaming but mostly holding it together today. Probably because there were no nightmares last night- we've been plagued by them this week and not waking up on edge was nice. Helps a lot with feeling okay when you don't start out struggling, you know? Hopefully that keeps up.
Spent half an hour walking today- treadmill since it's way too hot outside. Jogged for a very short time too. We have no endurance for running but can walk for quite a long ways, and we need to get that cardio tolerance up. Little bits at a time. A minute of light jogging is a good start. The walk was nice- powerwalked for about half of it and it felt good to move.
Been sort of scatterbrained today. Feels like our mind doesn't want to hold onto anything, and it slips away as soon as we think it. Lots of spacing out. The good news is that we're used to it and know how to deal with it by now. Perk of sharing a brain: brainmates can snap you out of a empty-brain haze by redirecting you to something and talking you through it. We might fight a lot and have a hard time getting along, but we do support each other sometimes like this and it's getting better a little at a time.
Being plural is like... do you ever talk to yourself in your head? Imagine that the other half of that conversation is entirely out of your control. They have their own ideas and preferences, their own sense of self, instead of just being a part of you. It's like having roommates but the room is your body and you all have to share a life. Imagine having an identical twin who you shared a life with, where you switched places to do different things and no one was the wiser despite you being very different from each other, but you don't have your own lives and only one of you ever leaves the house at a time.
Watching someone else pilot your body and do things that you didn't tell your body to do, feeling your arms move on their own. "Waking up" somewhere you don't remember going beyond maybe a fuzzy sense that a car was involved, and having no clue why you're there or why you're cooking rice for someone whose house you keep showing up at without explanation. Going on a walk and hearing people crack jokes and comment on what you're doing inside your head, trying not to laugh because of something genuinely funny they said. Knowing these people either more intimately than anyone else, or barely at all because they don't tell you anything useful about themselves and you can't talk to them. Feeling afraid for no reason because the kid inside your head is paying attention to what you're doing and is mentally "close," so their emotions leak onto yours and you wind up being confused about where it's coming from. Having to talk that kid out of a panic attack over something that has no effect on you, feeling bizarrely fine and yet freaking out at the exact same time. Struggling with gender because you're nonbinary but your headfolk are other genders and it gets mixed up all too easily because you're all using the same brain and things inevitably leak. Not knowing who you are half the time, just who you're not. Asking someone in your head, "hey, can you take care of work today? I'm not feeling great," and hoping they're feeling nice enough to do it. Having funky inside jokes that no one else will ever get. Never being alone, but somehow being lonely anyway. Trying to help a brainmate work through problems that no one is equipped to handle because there aren't any therapists in the area that are willing to work with more than one person in the same head, being forced to learn how to fix yourself. Being told that you're a murderer or monster or shouldn't exist all the time by strangers and friends alike, everyone thinking of your existence like it's a bad Hollywood horror movie or pity flick. Having absolutely no privacy, getting comfortable with using the bathroom while someone in your head goes off on a rant about why "The Game" (sorry) and Rickrolling are technically infohazards- yes, that happened and became an inside joke. Finding drawings and notes you didn't do that have the nerve to be better than your own art. Fighting over lunch because you want pizza, but a brainmate really wants bagels and hates your favorite kind of pizza, and the kids always want candy or something so sweet that it makes you feel sick. Fighting over career choices because you can only have one and all of you are going to have to deal with it. Struggling because a skill you really need is gone without warning even though you did it just yesterday. Having a really wonky relationship with your brain, trying to talk to parts of it that don't have access to words so you can start trying to process something that's been buried for years. Just trying to exist when you have to share everything about your body and life with other people who never asked for this. Loving and hating those people for being there at the same time. We're closer than we can ever be with someone else, yet blocked off and fighting all the time because of so many different interests. It's a lot.
Don't get me wrong, it's not all bad and our experiences aren't universal- some plural folks have bo memory issues and get along beautifully. And we do support each other when we remember to stop yelling and getting mad at each other for not being perfect. We're getting better at getting along as we keep working on things and helping