I changed

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. William Faulkner

Change for change sake doesn't accomplish much.  When I was growing up, routines were changed often trying to find the 'perfect' solution.  All it did was cause more confusion.  When I took care of computers I tried to lag at least one year behind since many 'updates' did not mean fewer computer crashes.  Usually it was just the opposite, an update would be the problem.  Some of the things I had to do to change - I got on my knees and prayed. I was then led to seek help. I felt that I had done all that I could do on my own with my own understanding. I sought professional help. I faced hard truths about myself, my family of origin, and what really made me tick.  When I started counseling, I was under the illusion that something magical would happen that would fix everything.  I had no idea how much work would be involved.  How much I had to examine myself under the harsh light of how I am behaving and why do I do some of the self defeating behaviors that make my life more difficult.  Finding out my missing childhood memories carried the key of how I overreacted or shut down felt like a tsunami in my life.  The changes I chose to make in my life were massive and irreversible.  I can't go back to not knowing that I was brutally abused as a child.  I can't go back to my naive statement, "My childhood was great we went to the park and the zoo."  I couldn't un-know what I learned in book after book after book.  The books on the reading list page are a fraction of the books that I read.  Books that shook my world to the very core.    I accepted that I functioned as a multiple personality.  I decided to change how I functioned.  I walked, stumbled, dragged myself down an uncharted path towards integration and healthy living.  I didn't struggle alone.  I was blessed with a counselor that understood what needed to be done.  He knew the obstacles and taught me what I needed to do to get over the worst.  He let me stumble on, encouraging me, but knowing I had to travel this path myself.  My sister helped me in so many ways.  She accepted me being a multiple.  She would talk to all the different alters.  She started recognizing the switches.  She listened to me and called me on crap when I was being unreasonable.  My family of choice stood by me.  I tried to protect them from some of the worse.  Kind of tough to find out that your own mother is a mess.  So I tried to minimize the fall out.  I wasn't always successful.  They were the ones to stand by me when things were really tough.  I also had a surprising support system at the school of art where I worked and studied.  Many of my class projects were about my life and trying to understand myself.  Teachers encouraged me to explore my raging world through photography.  Change appeared not to happen.  I learned a quote recently, "Sometimes when things look like they are falling apart, they are actually falling together."  I changed. I integrated.  Change happens every day.  Deliberate change towards a specific goal is difficult but not impossible.