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.