I watched a television show tonight on multiple personality disorder. I can understand how it happens. It would make life so easy, wouldn't it? To just slip out of stressful situations and let someone else take care of it all. Life would be so good.

I know that I have learned how to use other personalities to help me. Not like they are talking about, but just pretending I'm someone else. I am still me,though, not like this disorder. I just try to figure out how someone else would think in the same situation, and then I act accordingly.

I frequently use two other names when I reference these. One of them is just a strongly opinionated person, and the other is extremely weak and kind to everyone--who just does things because it's the right thing to do, no matter how illogical things are. And both of the personalities are very sexual...whereas, if I didn't think how these two would think, I tend to be very conservative and only show these more sexual behaviors when I am very sure that no one else will ever know about the activity. If the sexual activiiy is a secret,then it is always much more satisfying for me. But, if eveyrone knows about it, then my libido just kind of takes a nosedive. But, if I think about being Karen, then the secrecy is not an issue, and I can pretend to be her. And being Kathy allows me to be submissive, and to enjoy that role. I know these ladies are not real, and I am always me. But imagining how they would behave helps me get through the stressful and the sexual times.

So, I can imagine how nice it would be to have the real multiple personality disorder. Imagine! You mind can't deal with stress, so it just becomes someone else. A defense to help itself. I can completely understand that kind of mind. I wish I had it, but I suspect if I did have it, then I would really have stress.

Still, it would be so nice to just kind of slip away from reality and be able to blame it on someone else....

In reality, I just want to have a life that allows me to balance stress with life, and just be free to be me. Totally me.

"Life Ain't Easy." That's the phrase I think most applies to life. And I always seem to come back to my childhood and how great an influence my early life has on my every day decisions and problems today. I also have to wonder if I'm just making excuses.

Yesterday I watched an episode of "Wife Swap" on tv. There was a large lady who really was blind to her own faults. She conveniently got sick when she didn't want to do anything. She said she shared responsibilities with her husband, but it was obvious that he did most of the work. She said she ate healthy, but the food she had in her refrigerator spoke other words. Everything she did was denial of truth. While the new family man that she lived with was not exactly perfect, this woman was totally spun out of reality. And I wonder if I am like that.

My house is a mess. I work a couple hours on it each night, but I don't put my heart into it. I always complain that my adult children don't do anything, that they don't cook or clean...but in times like this, I have to ask myself who's to blame for that. I'm the mom and I should have done more when they were little to take responsibility for some of the cleaning...and now it's just a bit much.

I have no money. I'm in such debt that I can't imagine ever being out of debt. I blame not having money to begin with, but really I wonder if it's because I just don't have the ability to keep to a budget, that it's my fault because I don't watch every single penny.

I have very few friend. I tell myself I'm different, that other people just would never understand me or even like me if they really knew me. But, really, I'm just a person that works and struggles just like a lot of other people.

I'm fat. Obese. And I tell myself that I just don't have the energy to exercise, or the self-will to stay on a diet. The truth is more probably that I just don't want to give up the more familiar habits, those every day actions that I am most familiar with.

But through it all, am I really being honest with myself? Does it all go back to my childhood abuse...or is that an excuse too? How do I figure this out? I can't afford counseling, even on sliding fees--and I've searched the internet to no avail. How do I find the answers? How does it all get better? Can it get better if I can't erase the past?

I'll have to sleep on it....

"Work hard and life is easy." I heard that today. I thought it was a good thing to hear when I first heard it. But then I realized it simply isn't rue.

I work very hard. I find I do the work that everyone else should be doing...because no one else does it. And I'm just worn out. Or I feel like it, but I always feel like this. Whether I worked or not.

I'm going to keep working, but I don't think life will be easy.

Nothing bad has happened...yet. I still can't stop feeling like something really horrible is about to happen.

In the meantime, I'm pretty upset with myself. I have an exhusband who has led me to believe that he is struggling with bills as he builds a truck driving business he began in January. I've been trying to scrape by with almost no child support because I did want him to succeed--partly because I want my children to be proud of him, but mostly because if he succeeds, then eventually I will have child support. My youngest just turned seventeen, and as he's about to turn eighteen, it would seem that his dad is truly trying to succeed--but it seems that every week something new happens and he can't pay. He bought a fifteen year old truck, and it is constantly needing a new repair--and a couple months ago, he had to have emergency surgery and couldn't work for a couple weeks. Then his brother advised them that he is about to die, and my ex needed to stick around for the imminent funeral, so he couldn't drive many miles. One thing after the other.

However, in the meantime, the county has decided to prosecute him for contempt since he's not paying support. I felt really bad for him and all his troubles, so I went so far as to draft a letter to the county trying to reduce his obligation--when I discovered that the man is making about $4000 a month, after expenses. He's bought a swimming pool and a truck and has promised kids the world if they don't discuss with me his finance. And all along, I've been struggling to stop disconnections and not paying several bills because I've been trying to understand his financial problems!

And I am so mad at myself! I should know him. I should know his lies and his manipulations. And he must know me pretty well to give me stories that I'll believe.

I try to be straightforward in everything. I try to be as honest as I can, and I try to take people at face value. My mother and my sisters shake their heads with me because I never learn to forgive and not forget. I forgive--and I forget. Promptly. And it makes me so angry that other people use my faith in them to build themselves up while taking me even lower.

But I've learned it does no good to be angry. I have learned that when I do get angry, though, I can't let it go until I truly am ready to forgive. I can't forgive my brother for his actions, and I stay angry with him. I can't forgive a young man from high school of twenty five years ago, and I am still angry with him. I have forgiven other people, and I can't even now remember what I was angry about that presented a need for forgiveness. Maybe in this instance, I can't allow myself to forgive my ex-husband--and then I will stay angry and not feel so stupid and vulnerable again.

There are very few people I get angry with. I had to struggle in my mind to remember the high school kid. And I am more angry with myself than I am with my exhusband. He's just being himself, leading people on and people believe him. That's him, and I can't change him. But I should have learned to know him, to not believe anything he says--much less allow myself to act upon that false belief in a manner that is detrimental to me.

Tonight I'm mad at myself, and I'm ready to cry again. I can't hurt me, I can't slap me. I can't beat myself to a pulp. Even if I could, I've never been in a fight in my life--except as a little girl with my sisters, and I lost those. All I can do is be mad and cry and feel sorry for myself. And that's not right.

I have to try to think positively, to have hope that life gets better. So far, there has been no proof that life is anything but a struggle. It is difficult to hold hope, and I don't know if I can do it any more.

Tonight I feel as if I'm going through the motions...as if I should do and feel certain ways, so I'm trying to do and feel that way. Not happy, not sad. Just being a person.

But I feel as if something really horrible is going to happen tonight, and it scares me. I want to gather my children close, even though they are young adults. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm afraid someone is going to make a horrible decision and something bad, very bad, is going to happen.

I think it started lastnight when I heard my youngest son leave in the middle of the night, and he sounded like no one would catch him as he drove off. That scared me last night, and now I"m probably just worried that he is driving so irresponsibly. I'm waiting for him to get home from work in about a half hour so that I can reassure myself that everything is good...and that I can remind him to behave responsibly.

I don't know what to feel right now, except that I'm sad and tired. I want so much more happiness. I hope it comes to me one day...and I hope this dreadful feeling is just a manifestation of a powerful imgination.