the Solar system

We might've found a grouphome. Maybe. It serves our county specifically, and it takes in people with "serious mental illness" as well as mentally ill folks with homelessness and substance abuse issues - it's a lot more open and general than most places we've seen. We shot them an email essentially asking if plurality and the struggles that sometimes come with it would be considered a "serious mental illness". I guess since DID and DDNOS are "disorders", they would probably count, but we don't think of our existences as disordered so much as our worldviews associated with our existences? If that makes sense? We can't function properly in the Real World and it's deeply and directly related to our being plural, and that's where the "disorder" comes in. We are not Healthy Multiple at this point. That's what we're hoping a group home will help us achieve, is becoming healthy as multiple. But we didn't say all of that in the email, of course.

I'm fairly sure that once we're legally 18 and diagnosed, they'll take us in. My big worry now is what we'll do in the meantime. We're graduating either this April or this June, depending on the circumstances, and after that we won't belong to any particular institution. We will have precious little structure, most of it centered around therapy appointments, which really isn't enough. We need pillars to lean on until we can get on our own feet. Barring a couple of programs we may be able to join, we won't have any pillars, any structure, until we turn 18. And even then, we could easily wind up on a waiting list instead of directly in a home. Especially considering our birthday is in December, which is a major mental health crisis time. The only saving grace is that it's before Christmas.

I'll have to look into those programs and see if and when we could get into them.

-Sam

so we've been thinking about writing a sort of, not a memoir but a novel based on Us? like a novel about a bunch of systemmates going through the same stuff as us. like a fictionalized memoir i think? idk, it just sounds like... like "write what you know", that kind of thing. writing is hard for us because we can't stick to a single thing (which might partially be because Ell is so flickery about fiction). but writing about ourselves under the guise of fiction might work better? it's something to try out!
-Darby

The world is my oyster! Thats a phrase, right? Or is it just from Spongebob? I dont know, and I don't mind either way, because it's true! I mean, first off, I definitely want an A.A. in Religious Studies from the local community college, that much is for sure. And there's this herbalism academy up in Boston I'd totally be interested in, because learning about spices and herbs sounds really fun!! I could become a Unitarian Universalist minister maybe, or go to a four-year school and get a degree in social work or teaching. I could help people, whether through social work or through religion or both! (Of course not if they didn't want religious help!! I wouldn't force it on anyone, that'd be mean and awful). I could teach elementary school maybe, or be a school counselor, or teach... I'm not sure about the word "special ed" honestly, it seems pejorative,, maybe "accommodating education"??? I don't know :- (

Gosh i kind of got carried away... but still! There's so much to do in life! And i can choose different things to do at different points in life, like I could go back to school in a couple of decades for education! I just hope everyone else will be okay... They don't like school much. I'm not super good at it either, but I like learning things like religion and herbs and how to teach people! And even more important than the school is that I could help people afterwards! aaaaa there's just so much to do in life and I'm so excited!!!!! And don't even get me started on non-career things, like weddings, cause I could go on about that too, but that's something for another post ;- )

-Darby