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You don't have to earn rest.

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like i’ve seen several different posts floating around to the effect of “tell your doctors that they’re doing things wrong! get a legal team!” wrt psychiatric abuse and it’s like. i don’t think y’all understand how fucking disenfranchised you are when people decide that you’re crazy. you lose any right to autonomy and the notion that you’d want or have it is seen as ridiculous. the only way out of it is total compliance, which is why it’s so brutal to people who get socialized through it. idk. telling people who are living at the whim of an ill informed medical staff to speak up for themselves is like. just so fucking tone deaf and unhelpful. if you’re institutionalized rn on the off chance you’re on socials i’m wishing you all of my strength and resilience. i believe you and i see you and you’ll get through it.

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from Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation

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“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

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so funny being honest about having DID with my home support guy bc he was like "so, I've only met one of you" lol i know i've switched in front of him multiple times, i just don't tell him bc that's scary. it's very funny bc he noticed once, but he didn't clock it as being "switching alters" but as "oh this subject we talked about made you act different"

people dunno what DID is and it's kinda rough trying to explain that it's not this extreme and obvious thing in most cases. like for ppl who know us, us switching looks like one person having different moods and maybe sometimes an anxiety attack. we all try to use the same name and pronouns. we try to go by one collective identity and we do our best to mask. i told my home support that i got DID bc it's my main disability he needs to know about to help me in my daily life, but otherwise i've only told a few people and only my closest friend knows the names of some of my alters. like it is super vulnerable and triggering to bring up my DID and alters bc they represent my trauma. also because most ppl dunno what DID is and dunno how to react to it. usually i just say i got cptsd if they need to know i got a disability and that's enough really since it's basically the same thing anyway and ppl are less weird about cptsd

i think ppl need to know you probably won't notice a system switching. most systems are covert!!! also a lot of us can mask pretty well! like if someone notices something off about me i'll just say i didn't sleep well last night and i need my coffee and they'll accept it as a valid explanation. everyone has a complex, multifaceted personality - mine is just fragmented and dissociated more than the average person!!

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I think more than anything else, being so traumatized is just really fucking exhausting and sad. Like it's sad and exhausting that I have a brain that is constantly on edge and on alert, I feel like life would be way more relaxing if that wasn't the case. It's exhausting and it's sad that the "smallest" things are so triggering sometimes. It's exhausting and it's sad that everything sets us off and you and your body and your brain can never calm down or relax. I feel like a constantly shaking chihuahua in a cartoon or something.

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bike light selfies xoxo

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We are feeling super rejected and uncared for rn bc we have no one to talk to and the few friends we have aren't replying. This feeling is probably one of the hardest ones for us to handle. It makes us very suicidal. We've always been rejected and ignored through our life unless we could be of service to someone else and if we had needs it was punished. I feel like an unloved child rn. I have a super hard time forming friendships bc of my DID and possible autism. I isolate myself out of shame and paranoia. I struggle with setting boundaries. I don't wanna ask for help because I don't wanna be a burden and seen as vulnerable. Im a bad friend bc of my disabilities, so I'd rather keep my distance than being a burden to others. I've learned my whole life that I should be hidden away or I'll get bullied and abused. That if I cant be of service to others then I shouldn't live. Its hard trying to unlearn this. It's such a core belief of mine that im worthless and a waste of air and I've tried to work on this in therapy for over a decade

Rambling bc idk what to do rn. I keep getting triggered and I do r have any good coping mechanisms. I just dissociate and push the feelings under the rug. Therapy never helped. They never taught me any useful skills. I feel abandoned by everyone

Im honestly spiralling again. I dont know what to do to stop it

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Doing laundry today instead!! Laundry is very hard for us hjdskkdjdks mainly because we need to use a shared space in our apartment complex with a fixed time table so you need to book these time slots in advance and we can't really rely on ourselves to have the spoons in advance. We'd wish we had our own washing machine in our flat 💔

Got a new bike and might do laundry too today!!! My back pain is so bad tho rn. I just hope it passes before the washing machine is free bc carrying laundry up and down stairs sounds horrible

But im so glad i managed to do something I really couldn't yesterday. DID is a journey. One minute you're almost killing yourself and the next you're fine

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what im thinking about at any given moment

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I don't owe you anything. I don't have to tell you if I'm fronting. I don't have to tell you if we switched. I can mask to you as much as I want. I don't have to tell you my name. I don't have to tell you my pronouns or gender or source or anything about me. You don't have the right to know anything about me.

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Can minors be diagnosed with DID?

Yes, they can!

There is a lot of confusion and misinfo on the Internet about how old you have to be in order to be diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID). For years, it has been a common myth that minors can't be diagnosed with DID. I’ve also seen some people claim that you have to be at least 20, or even 40! You can see some examples of this misinfo here: source.

In actuality, DID can be diagnosed at any age. While it's more common for someone with DID to be diagnosed as an adult, it's also possible to be diagnosed as a minor.

What is the proof? The DSM-5-TR (one of the most widely used diagnostic manuals) specifies how to identify DID in children/teens versus in adults: source. Furthermore, there are treatment guidelines specifically for treating minors who are diagnosed with DID. You can find those here: source. Here are also a few books on this topic, too: source, source, source. Be warned that these sources are aimed at clinicians and contain sensitive material that can be triggering to read.

For anyone, I recommend reading this article written by Dr. Muller, a trauma psychologist: source. He briefly describes a 4-year old girl diagnosed with DID. There are very short mentions of abuse, nothing graphic. The article focuses more on the differences in diagnosis & treatment between children with DID and adults with DID. It's a good introduction to this topic!

There are several case studies on minors diagnosed with DID. Due to the graphic nature of these studies, I do not recommend them to everyone. Consider all of these to have a Trigger Warning ⚠ for descriptions of trauma, violence/abuse, and neglect as well as its impacts on young children: source, source, source, source, source, source.

Thanks for reading! If you meet anyone who seems confused about what age DID can be diagnosed at, please feel free to link them to this post!

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I had a vision. They're sister albums to me

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Got a new bike and might do laundry too today!!! My back pain is so bad tho rn. I just hope it passes before the washing machine is free bc carrying laundry up and down stairs sounds horrible

But im so glad i managed to do something I really couldn't yesterday. DID is a journey. One minute you're almost killing yourself and the next you're fine

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194. Work