Wolf and Raven, Fox and Sea
Screen names, Psychology, CPTSD, and Me
I have four authors dictating in my head at any given time.
They have been there long enough that I have given them each names: Wolf, Raven, Fox, and Sea.
To be clear, I am not admitting here that I have DID or some form of schizophrenia. What I am referring to is actually an extremely common phenomenon in those with cPTSD like me: structural dissociation.
If you’ve ever heard of Internal Family Systems, EMDR, or Parts Work in regard to cPTSD treatment, structural dissociation is the big ol’ maladaptive-bento-box in the brain — the walls of which all three are focused on tearing down. These four are a partially consolidated form…
But consolidation of your fractured self is a conversation for another time.
For now, I’ll just focus on introducing you to my personal cast of mental characters. Sound good? Great. Because it’s happening.
Wolf.
Wolf is regimented and likes their space. They do not suffer foolish or inefficient prose. They are the brilliant, loyal, fierce, critic who has my best interests at heart and will not shy away from protecting me from myself. They will frequently do so viciously, and doesn’t feel the need to apologize for doing so when they are wrong, because 9 times out of 10, they are almost always correct.
The parts of my writing that are unflinching, deeply researched, combed with a fine tooth brush, clear, purposeful, shockingly emotionally resonant, and concise all come from them. They hate this paragraph and what I’ve written below and would like to rewrite it themselves. But they are also ready to snarl if anyone dares to stop me from sharing my thoughts.
Raven.
Raven is nearly six whole personalities in their own right. Raven is highly critical and cuts deep to the core of what they communicate. But where Wolf would be blunt and then frustrated at you for taking offensive, Raven is discerning and conniving and then will persuade you into agreeing with them until you thank them for it.
They know what twigs to pull to get the whole nest to fall apart, and the one move that will have them all flip into neat stacks. They repeat this gleefully and enjoy the search for what it all means. They value order as much as they value chaos and they have no intention of explaining how this balances out to anyone ever but will draw you a picture of it and scoff when you don’t get it.
They love and feel deeply and often need to fly away for a while. They will hover in the sky until things seem closer to sorted in their minds. Then and only then will they return fully charged and ready to enjoy the thrill ride with sincere deep appreciation. With a smidge of sarcasm of course.
They are the snippy, seething, well-plotted, emotionally gut-wrenching bits of my writing. They are neutral about this paragraph, but applaud my efforts and insist they are not being condescending.
Fox.
Fox is as clever as Raven, but she is more quippy than she is snippy. She is mischevious, playful, and deeply interested in satisfying her vices. Long, stretching, sensorial prose is her brioche and crème fresh. She does not shy away from raw or emotional, no matter the kind. She is the open and bleeding heart who does not care if her dark sides are seen because she wants everyone to embrace their own and love themselves as much as she loves each of them from the moment they meet.
Fox is feisty and flirty. She will fight to win but she also makes sure you get yours. She is flighty and impulsive, and hard to tack down.
Writing is a passion that she does when she feels it is time. Naturally, Raven and Wolf are not fans. Fox makes sure they love her anyway.
The parts in my writing that meander, describe, play with humor and surprise, and swirl the words right into your soul are almost certainly from her. But they have been honed into coherent concepts by the rest of the group.
Fox has a quick passionate emotional range and jumps between them regularly. Unpredictable and fierce in one kaleidoscope of creative connections and perceptions are Fox when she sits in my head with inspiration. We write mostly due to her jumping straight in and going by impulse while Wolf and Raven debate about where to start.
Fox is ok with this paragraph because this whole article was her idea, and she has no interest whatsoever in editing it now that it is out of her head.
Sea.
As undefined as he is powerful, Sea is what holds us all together in his embrace. Sea is who separates us when Wolf needs to do the work, balances our efforts when Raven takes off, and keeps us pulled center and in a flow when Fox wants to skitter.
Sea embraces our change and carries it in him for when we need it brought back to harbor again. But sea is also where our storms are formed from the depth of our shapes long before now. Sea spreads out the rage to let us be more, but holds nothing back when he crashes our shores.
Sea is deep grief. Sadness. Despair. He is our heart, dissected and bear. Sea is the rhythm and song in my mind. Sea is what loves and fears all humankind. The peace and serenity that show through his words, are echoes of waves, slicing daggers and swords. He is our rage but also our love. He lifts us all up but is never himself above. Out of necessity, for his feelings too easily sweep, our minds, hearts, and souls to the deep. Anything lyrical, traumatic, in hope of repair, are his words swelling, white peaked, seeking care. Sea is content with this paragraph of mine, he nods along says I did just fine. He won’t tell me more he is pulling away, the storms are too close for him to be with me today. There’s one more writer, but I think that is clear. I didn’t name her before, because she always here. Please wait a moment, while she separates from the Sea, it takes a minute to extract his pulse from me.
Fox is the one that fights back the Sea for me in times like this. She is the only one that he listens to. Not a huge shock considering they are both sides of the same me. Raven and Wolf? Raven just flys over the storm shaking their head at the stupidity of getting caught up in it at all, while Wolf paces the shore growling, towel slung over their shoulders and a reprimand in their barred teeth.
Raven’s approach makes sense when you realize they were born in response to the Sea. Not to counter it, but as a counterpart. And when the Sea has me, Raven doesn’t. Which they find particularly irritating since the majority of the time they can rely on me being with Wolf.
Wolf is the one who I walk with most. My little spirit ghost, always there to help me steer clear of wherever Fox pounces at without looking first, and there to pull me out of wherever Sea tries to sweep me off to.
They are the one who gets tired and retreats when necessary from the rest of the three, including Raven. It’s always quiet when this happens. Not as numb as when I’m flying off with Raven alone. Not as sharp and exciting as I am when running purely with Fox at my side. Not as expansive and emotive as when I let the Sea sweep me away. But a grounded sort of instinct and strength that walks me back to myself.
As they have just now. I am fully back to me. The fifth in the mix.
Hello, I’m Grey.
I never introduced myself above. I am Grey Girl. I’m the observer and holder, the mother and carer for all of the me’s that live in my head. I’m the final call most of the time; and nearly all of the time if I’m on medication—and the damn pills are working. I used to think of myself as “the real Cayse.” But that is incorrect. The real Cayse is all of me as I appear to you. The roller coaster of expression and interests and distractions. The contradictions that make up any human mind. That is who I am to you. To me I am a system. I experience myself as such and I have in one form or another since I was around six years old.
It’s taken me years of therapy to make sense of the parts most prominent in myself, even longer to understand how they each applied to my writing voice vs how they applied diagnostically.
For instance, I have plenty more “parts” within me than those listed above, and it took time to reconfigure how I thought of my internal self; to recognize what could be consolidated into a single aspect and what was distinctly separate. In the end I was left with almost comically stereotypical internal family systems parts that clearly corelated with my diagnosed divergencies.
Identifying these aspects of myself and naming them more clearly let me see how each whole aspect could better fit together to make up one whole me. Essentially, I took the scattered machine parts and half functional gadgets that six-year-old me, teen me, college me, etc. had all tried to hobble together, and reorganized it all in the way they were meant to be: a single sustainable machine with clear components that served specific functions.
The Diagnostic Lens
The clearest distinctions—without getting into the cPTSD side of things (which is Sea)—is that Wolf is my highly in-tune, sensitive, freedom loving but structure seeking, stubborn component that is easily overwhelmed by and therefore has zero tolerance for sounds, people, and smells. They are the irritable and rigid side of my autism and anxiety, but they also sense emotions and sensations like a medium on psilocybin.
Raven is my obsessive, higher intellect, control craving, high-functioning, efficiently capable, pattern recognition machine. They are the very connected, coercive, and conspiratorial half of my autism and “intellectual giftedness'.” But generally, in a good way.
Fox is my ADHD. That should be fairly obvious. Very much my hyperfocus when paired with Wolf, and my creative connections when paired with Raven. Fox and Sea don’t get along great, but the stubbornly love each other as much as they despise each other. Fox finds it fun to provoke Sea into coming on shore so she can play with tossing him things to see what he makes with it.
Sea occasionally claps back and that is the only real time that I ever see Fox show the selfish, flaky, and callous part of her other side. She almost always would prefer to ignore that anger. And typically pounces away from it to let everyone else deal with it in her wake. (Which is really Sea’s wake, which is problematic, hence the whole “don’t get along great”). So, keeping Fox under control is almost always the first step in keeping our team running smooth. This is not shocking when you remember that Fox is my ADHD.
Helping Fox do her thing has been the best way to regain her trust from the times I couldn’t keep her under my control and couldn’t keep her safe from Raven, Wolf, Sea, or the outside world. She will release me or allow me to see the true other side of herself when it is time. And I trust her.
The parts of my writing that I feel are the most me, are the ones where I have edited those things the others write into something legible to all of us, or when I am doing what I am now, holding the others back while I use this activity to satisfy their needs.
How?
Well…
Wolf needed a breather, so this is giving them that by ticking a box and letting them disconnect.
Raven needed a puzzle to be solved and a way to get conflicting information out of our head so we can more properly work on the project they actually care about: the book. See? Conniving.
Fox is hoping for love and attention and egotistical praise from the end result since she was the one that came up with the article idea.
And Sea is happy to float us above the surface while we talk metaphor more than we talk the nitty gritty of our real deep ocean caverns of truth.
The Pack.
I’m the ringmaster in the troupe, and it took me a while to claim the reigns let alone get everyone to move toward the same damn goal.
And even these days, I often fail to do so.
For instance, right now, all of them are telling me that this is done.
More than anything Wolf wants me to get to bed, Fox wants a treat for having to focus too long, Raven wants to go find other thoughts to play with, and Sea wants some space to disperse.
Fox has told everyone we aren’t editing this tonight, Wolf won’t let us post it, Raven thinks we are missing something, and Sea really needs us all to shut up and stop asking them to contribute stuff. So, off the five of go for the night.
Pouncing with each other into the dark, like a pack of wolves.