Dealing with Alters

Boy is this stuff hard. Just when I think I've figured things out.....

I had updated and shared my blog with two survivors yesterday. I did it a bit impulsively and am not sure I was ready to process their reactions. As one of them jokingly told me "It's like one of your alters had just had enough."

This is true. I have had so much "don't talk" programming that it has made it really hard just meeting my fellow survivors again. For whatever reason I was programmed to remember more or at least believe that I do. I feel like I was told a story about all of us. The way it was presented to me was that I would be recovering more memories whether I wanted to or not just by meeting these people again online. 

Why would I subject myself to that? Because I'd already spent 5+ years having to deal with recovery in total silence. I felt like I had to reach out, that I had to try talking and sharing. I came to a point where some part of me had "had enough" of being left out and alone. That's why when I recognized people from their YouTube videos I started emailing them to see if we could help each other somehow.

At first, a lot of the people I met just kept things casual. They'd share videos, music, news, etc. Sometimes what they shared ended up being one of the mnemonics or triggers that related to things I was programmed to remember. But these people didn't know that they were doing it. You see, my handlers were so specific about things they made it to where I could be triggered just by seeing someone post about their love of Hawaiin coffee if it happened at a particular time and was done by the right trigger puller. 

I believe I have what you could call a robot or computer alter that is based on YouTube and other types of content databases. I don't know why I am so impressionable but I am. I may not have the info when I'm in my day self unless I know to look for it. If you press the right button my mind just suddenly goes "Sept. 16, 1984. You were wearing Crocs. I don't even think those were out then so I don't know where you got them; but it had to be 1984 because we were going to see Ghostbusters in an actual theater and then on Monday I went to school and that's that grade we all remembered where Mrs. SoandSo went apeshit and lost all her marbles that day when Kenny called her a cheddar whale."

I don't know how it works. My handlers called it "eidetic memory" but I still don't really understand what that means. It sounds insane on the face of it. 

Anyways, I was handling my reactions with some difficulty. Some days were ok then I felt like I got sideswiped and I couldn't always identify the source. But that started to change when I met this latest group of people I have a more communicative relationship with so far.  I won't say their names unless they ask me to edit them in later, but they know who they are. 

They both have their battles right now but one is more public about them. The one who is more public is the one I had the most "don't talk" programming done about, while the other one I was told to talk to freely and that she could help me decide what to do and how to process it. As I've bounced between the experience of relating to each of them as individuals I feel like they are somehow blending some of my alters into a better place but I'm starting to worry if they are now paying a price for that?

Am I helping or hurting? It's complicated. The one who wants all of her memories back is the one I was programmed not to talk to. When I first recognized her and started dealing with that aspect of things it was clear that she didn't remember me. I thought our new online friendship was going to be like all the rest. That I would experience whatever triggers are left from the programming done during the times I remember her, all the pains, all the stings, and that she probably wouldn't react.

Well, the more I watched her posts and videos from the time we became Facebook friends, the more I was remembering about her and what we had been through together. I couldn't tell if I was just showing up at "the right time" or if the simple act of meeting me had set off a program. All I knew was that it was like I was seeing the alter from 1990 speaking through her, but they are so close to each other, they aren't really separate. I feel like our core selves went through this together.

And, quite frankly, it was starting to make me mental. Maybe I was processing my own pain. Of course I am. That was a dumb thing to say. I was reliving it. But I was also watching her processing it. I don't know how she woke up exactly or what the background of the whole story is, I just knew I remembered her and recognized what they've programmed. They're putting her through the same thing as me. 

So it's like my 16 year old part is the one who has been watching this whole time. I think I just now figured that out. I've been watching her when she's feeling down, angry, scared, over it. I think about our experience together, I think about my own life story, I wonder about hers. I don't know how to piece it together, I only know they made this feel like a very big deal to me. 

But I didn't want to be wrong about sharing. So I kept keeping it to myself up until one video she posted where she was really suffering and all of her suffering seemed connected in my mind to them forcing her to relive some aspects of what we went through together. I still didn't know if it was my fault or if it would come up anyways. But it seemed like it was just coming up in body memories and mood states for her rather than recovering images or words from the events. 

And that made it look to me like she was having to feel all of this without knowing where it came from. And I started to question whether telling her everything I knew would put a stop to that pain. Several times I cried myself to sleep and felt like the biggest jerk in the world. I'm crying again as I write this because I'm feeling that way again. 

Why?

Well, I had reached my limit a second time. I thought some things might change once we started talking but it seems like I might have set her off again. She had started to recover a drawing and I could tell my alters knew something about it and they were very upset watching her have such a hard time sharing it. This is something that goes into a whole other level of programming they do on the artistically and spiritually gifted. When I saw her having to deal with it, too, some part said "That is freaking it! I'm done with these people!"

So there I went again barfing everything I thought I knew onto my blog. And when she read it, it turns out that I have still triggered her emotionally. And I am just going to be honest here and say I don't have any idea what I'm doing and at the same time I do. I'm being taught a lesson about boundaries. One I thought I already knew. One that points out the cruelty of the programming. That rule is: this stuff is really not easily dealt with over the Internet with relative strangers. 

And that's the key. We don't really know each other. We didn't go to school together. We didn't party together or hang out at each other's houses growing up or later. We were perfect strangers who went through something so intimate and painful at once that it's hard to just be Internet friends and post about these things on blogs. What kind of a jerk move was that?  If it weren't for my own selfish need to relieve my own pain maybe I could've waited a few years and some day paid a visit to these friends. I could have bought them dinner and we could all talk at random. Here's a memory, yeah, but here's an even funnier joke.

That would be so much funner and healthier but that's not what they program us for. Instead, they isolate us and have us hunt each other down like emotional prey. I think I've written all this to figure out whether to back off, how to proceed, etc. The person I'm talking about mentioned her experience of going through a type of Wizard of Oz programming (which is one of my main themes, too) and how that connects to heart programming.  

Suddenly it all made sense. When I was 16, they ripped my heart out about her while torturing the both of us. Now I'm reliving it because my don't talk programming is the thing that frustrated me to the point of reaching out in the first place. It all just goes around in a circle and I am over it. I can never seem to be mad or sad enough on anyone's behalf for it to really help but I just want all of you to know I love you!  We have to get through this for a reason and we will.