OMG! there's a dog in here! NO!! It's a really small elephant

Lets talk dogs.  People with disabilities use a multitude of aides in order to have a better quality of life.  I personally have:

• two canes
• walker
• platform crutches
• manual wheel chair
• electric wheelchair
• parifan bath
• tens unit
• custom eating utensils
• mouth guard
• cpap machine
• braces
• wrist
• ankle
• back
• shoulder
• custom shoes
• service dog

All of these aides do something specific to make my life easier whether it be helping me walk, lowering pain, helping me breath, controlling muscle spasms or aiding in controlling the effects of PTSD.  While most of these devices are not living, they all are protected under the ADA laws.  These laws are specific and protected by federal law. A service dog must be under the control of the handler at all times.  This can be a physical or verbal tether. Some people need the dog to be free roaming to do physical actions like holding the door or pushing the buttons to open a door. A service animal it must provide a minimum of two aides for the person.  The following is an example of some of the activities a service dog may do. This is by no means all the services they do.

• picking up dropped items
• keeping an autistic child from wandering away
• alerting parents to a need for a ill/disabled child
• alerting on high/low sugar levels for a diabetic
• helping with dressing a person
• pulling a wheel chair
• redirecting damaging behavior such as skin scratching or hyper vigilance for PTSD
• calming persons in a panic attack 
• taking someone  home who is unable to remember how
• calling 911 for a medical emergency (really) 

 Service dogs have a unique ability to provide a multitude of services,   When I am out with my dog, I may appear perfectly fine. It is important to understand not all of disabilities are visible.  Attempting to forbid the entrance of a service dog or telling someone to leave the animal at home, is the same as telling a paraplegic to leave their wheel chair at home. Yes, it is exactly the same thing.  Similarly, the federal law specifically states that a service dog is not required to have an identifying vest, leash or other identifier stating it is a service animal or what it does.  No one would expect someone with MS to have a sign on the back of their chair stating they have it.  This is the same reasoning that is applied to service animals.  Privacy is part of our rights as people.  

As an advocate for service animals and the many different people who have them, I often deal with uneducated people.  I hear things like " You're not blind, you don't need that dog." or " What about people who are allergic to dogs? You could make someone sick."  In answer to the first question; first it's rude. Secondly, unless you are intimately involved in my medical care, you have no business making medical judgement on what I use to aide me.  I know many fine veterans who have severe PTSD.  Allowing themselves to embrace the need for help and acquiring a service dog to help make living every day a bit easier, simply by training a dog to support them is a medical break through that helps reduce veteran suicide.  Being attacked in public for needing the dog frequently triggers panic attacks and flashbacks. Believe me I know. 

I will end my lecture with this.  As a veteran and a person living with PTSD, I know what having a service dog has done to make it possible for me to leave my home on my own.  I function more clearly, knowing my dog is trained to minimize triggers and to alert people to my needs if I become non functioning in public. My life is better for having one.

The Search 

My beloved Dobby has been my faithful service dog for six years.  He was a rescue dog from the Humane Society before he came into my life.  Having him at my side all of these years truly opened doors for me participate in life.  Unfortunately, I have had to retire my Dobs because he has become a senior dog with a bit of a grumpy side. He will be retiring to manning the sofa and barking at the neighbors.  I have now begun my search for a new dog to train up as my new service animal.  I have looked at several over the last months and none of them have been able to truly qualify as a candidate for training.  I am continuing to look at rescues and animal shelters for my new partner.  While previously I have looked at larger dogs because I am more comfortable with them.  This weekend I will be evaluating a pup named Betsy.   She is dachshund/bull terrier mix, white with big black spots, and 6 months old.  While she is a rescue she has been in a home with many other dogs, cats and children, thus having healthy socialization during the early developmental stages.  This is a plus in that she should not need as long of an adjustment time before I begin training with her.  

I do not have the mind set of this has to be the dog for me.  I have done that in the past and that usually leads to a bad match.  I am excited to go evaluate her but my heart isn't set on her.  It will be nice if she is the dog for me because I truly need to have a service animal who can go out with me daily. 

It should be interesting..

determined to simplify

Knowing I have changed and having others understand and accept this are two entirely different experiences.  As the healing happens and I evolve into this calmer more joyful person, I am acutely aware of the lack of emotional and spiritual  pressure. I "know" I am stronger, calmer and happier than I have been in a long time. Those closest to me are encouraging and supportive of my work to evolve into a better person.  It is when people who knew me during the worst parts of me depression can not imagine me as a something other than out of control that my heart breaks.
Many years ago I found a book in the library "The Simple Living Guide. " As I was reading it, I felt as though an entirely new way of living had opened up for me. As a natural purger and minimalist, this book gave healthy examples of how to make my world more peaceful and clutter free. I have been able to down size my home to less than 700 sq ft. I am learning the difference between having stuff just to have it and having objects because they are truly useful or bring me joy. It has been a true challenge.
As part of the simplification of my life, I am freeing myself from the restrictions set by an apartment or house. I imagine eventually I will find a place that sings to my heart and I will once again settle into a place where people can know my name and the waitresses will be thrilled to see me in the local diner.  For now though
I am looking forward to the reality of being able to travel. The freedom of leaving most of my trappings behind and living on purpose.
I believe the hardest part is keeping clothing that all of my alters will either wear or respect that someone else in the system will wear.  This applies to items such as toys, art supplies, shoes, photos and any other items we have in the house. Because we are not on a short dead line we can make good choices about what to keep and what can be sold.  Not having a powerful attachment to material items makes these choices easy for me.  The others in the committee don't have the same mindset. There are going to be many compromises over the next several months. In the end I know we will have our world bared down to the absolute must keeps. I am excited about the idea of  going alone, with just my service dog and my spirit to help me brave the world before me.

Who ordered this?

There are days when the committee just seems to be spinning.  On those days, all bets are off as to what is going to happen and who is going to take the front.  It can be entertaining and a bit odd for the people around us, depending on who takes over and when.  The Littles: Julie girl, JJ and Pun'kin are always the most entertaining from what I have been told.  When in a restaurant the alter ordering the food may not be the one to consume it.  If Georgia orders a steak medium rare because she loves meat, by the time it arrives Jewel may be out and she doesn't like meat at all.   The choice becomes either Jewel eats the food and continues the conversation she may be having or she goes back inside leaving the conversation unfinished to allow Georgia to eat what was ordered. This puts Georgia in the position of continuing a conversation she may have no idea was happening.  There are also the times when food is ordered by one of the Littles that is just not healthy. This usually comes in the form of blueberry pancakes with strawberry compote on the side.  If we are lucky there will be a protein such as eggs to go with them.  We often are not lucky in that regard.

Our friends are amazing about interacting with whoever is presenting.  They take care of the Littles without even blinking.  We have items gifted to them such as stuffies, food items they love, coloring books and other such  fun things.  All of them have evolved and mellowed over the last couple of years as they continue to live in a positive world.  The feeling of eminent doom and danger is slowing lowering and we are learning to function outside of the fight or flight reflex.  It is incredibly difficult to manage,especially when we are in the middle of it. The people in our life just remind us frequently that our world is peaceful and we are safe.  

The committee and cooperation. .. or not..

Living on my own has been educational to say the least.  I just turned 43 and it's just plain weird.  There are very few of us in the committee who age at the same rate as the body, most of them don't age at all.  Julie girl has been 5 years old for as long as I can remember. Just like JJ has always been three. Rachel will always be 22 and Laura will always be 12.  On the other hand Georgia is about 45 we think and Julie is about the same age as the body. Although we like to harass her and tell her she's getting old faster than everyone else.  Jewel stopped ageing about age 30  and Serenity never seems to really have an age. Tara is apparently about 250 years old but she's a mermaids, so I have no idea what that translates into in human.  Fury refused to discuss something as trivial as how old she is and Frantic seems about 18 but she's autistic so it's not a high priority when she is out.  Pun'kin is about 18 months in her actions but it's hard to tell..she just wants to eat. Cinder is about 25 and very quiet. As long as she has her plants she doesn't really interact with anyone although she lets the littles walk through her gardens as long as they don't damage the roses.  Emma is ethereal and sort of glows. I wish we had her calm all the time. I'm sure I left some one out but I'll catch it later.

For the most part none of us keep track of how old the body is.  It doesn't really matter to us.  We take care of it, sometimes better than others, and we try to be aware of everyone's needs. This can be as simple as feeding the littles peanut butter sandwiches (which everyone else in the committee hates), or a complicated as making sure we take all of our medications every day.
As you can imagine w have a diverse wardrobe.. depending on what is planned for the day we attempt to let Rachel or Julie be in charge of clothing. Rachel has the best skill but Julie has the best business look.
We always end up shaking our head when the littles happen to put clothing on us, because wow can they mix up the color! Julie girl loves stripped socks, JJ  loves oversized shirts and Pun'kin likes lots of color. We usually end up with pig tails and sparkly jewelry.  Let me tell you what a shock it can be to come out at a restaurant and realize you're wearing purple stripped knee highs,a bright yellow shirt, hot pink skirt and leather boots.  It's just special..lol
On the other hand each alter has amazing skills that make us as a whole unique and versatile .

being multiple

Here we are, embarking on a journey of new adventures.  My world took a left turn and I am now  looking at the future with a relatively non-specific plan.  How vague can one person get?  Well with us this person it's fairly easy.  Let me introduce myself, or us as it were.  I am Friday Lowrey.  I wasn't born with the name Friday, I was born Julie Ann Lowrey. Then my last name changed to Brubach and then Hoffman.  Through the years I was called everything from Jewel, Julie, Julie Ann, Jewels to Babe , sweetheart and the other normal collection of nicknames people call females. 
With me there is a bit of a difference though, I live with dissociative identity disorder (DID) or what most people still call multiple personality disorder.  There are some common factors among those of us with the labeling of DID:

usually 4-20 alters is common
there can be alters who are not human
alters who are under the age of ( in our book 12 ) that are called little's
alters of different sexes
alters that may not have bodies
alters that are seen as demons
alters that are violent, mute, deaf, blind, young, old, and any other variation you may or may not be able to think of.

lost time
poor since of time
often have the strangest wardrobes

there is normally other mental illness that goes with the diagnosis
PTSD
depression
anxiety
suicidal
eating disorders
insomnia
personality disorders such as
OCD
bipolor
ADD
ADHD

 There are may be physical chronic illness such as
obesity
high blood pressure
diabetes
poor eye site
migraines (very common)
and any other number of illnesses

We don't all have all of them, but all of us have some variation plus other affects that are not listed.  My personal list is rather involved and long.  I won't be going into that right now but I thought it helpful to give a basic idea of what challenges we live with on besides having more than one person hanging out inside one body. I have heard and used the term singleton to describe people who are not multiple.  I know a lady with a little who asks when the singleton's are going to be fixed because in her mind everyone is supposed to be like she is.  Part of a system that allows the body to function. 

So back to names. We decided on the name Friday for several personal reasons which will be gone into in future posts.  The reason for choosing a name unlike any of the alters or our given name was to remove the confusion of who was responsible for being our "front" person at any given time.  We discovered people seemed to want an accounting of "who" they were talking to as though we function like a switch board or board house.  It doesn't work that way and being forced to have specific alters come to the "front" more often than they desired or when someone outside the system decided they wanted to have a chat was causing chaos inside, which triggers all sorts of negative responses. 

Something very important to remember about those of us that are multiple.  Due to extreme trauma (no it doesn't have to be abuse, although that is the most common starter) the mind either locks a memory down and separates it from the rest of the mind, or creates an alter to deal with the trauma at hand.  There are different jobs assigned to different alters, each job is created to again protect the mind of the person.  As time goes on this becomes the normal way for the brain to respond to extreme trauma or stress.  The person has no idea it's happened or happening, usually until in their twenties at least.  I was 30 before I started therapy even though I knew about at least two of my little's.  I've been in therapy for over ten years now and I have a better understanding of my system and I function so much better, but there are some things that I just have learned to adapt to.