partstalk

[partstalk]

we used to split, maybe once every few months? sometimes more, sometimes less. now we split maybe once every few years

[partstalk]

it's complicated because some of us don't identify as lgbt+ as a trauma response

collectively we are a nonbinary lesbian, that's our 'true' identity, but a lot of parts have issues with that due to the form that our abuse took

so we have one part that insists he is a straight cis man (not physically possible but it's a substitute belief) and a few who insist that they're straight cis women

we're getting there with them feeling safer accepting being who they really are though

#Seventy-One

[pt: Seventy-One]

[partstalk]

i said yes but im reblogging for my full answer:

yes both is possible BUT its also important to be careful, because 'possible' doesnt mean 'always whats happening'

ive tried to access inner world while in dream-like states before and just had my brain invent a random place with random people that had no meaning at all

dreams are very subjective and analysing them can tell you things about real life, but you also have to take it all with a grain of salt because there can be random stuff thrown in

that being said in understanding and treating dissociative identity disorder there's a whole chapter about did and dreams, including a patient who only experienced her system in dreams! so it's definitely something worth thinking about

i think meditation is a safer way to explore (in the sense of less likely to get random shit) but still could make mistakes

so tldr: possible but still be cautious with interpreting stuff because it's easy for your brain to just do whatever when youre in a suggestable state :3

So nervous to ask this because I feel it sounds ridiculous. Questioning traumagenetic system here. Assumed I'm always stuck front but then realized I have had some interactions with what I THINK might be a head space. I left Oreos there for myself and the next time I went the Oreos where still there right where I left them. I could taste them and feel them between my fingers. But it's usually after I go to sleep. It'll be the same place each time, sometimes I can go there in meditation, but that's if I'm actively trying to. Since I don't often meditate, It's mostly when I sleep. I guess my question is - is it possible to access headspace via dreams? Or what I would perceive as a dream? Or when I'm meditating? I always thought I was just extremely good at meditation but I've been thinking maybe feeling my whole body transport elsewhere could be something else 😭

[partstalk]

i think we're mostly around the body's age now! we used to be mostly younger than the body, but since we've done trauma processing more parts have identified with the body's age :3

we still have parts that identify as younger, but they're the minority im p sure

- opal.

[partstalk]

feel bad

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i wish that people would stop putting 'radqueer' and 'trans id' posts in the did tags. can we not have tags to talk about our experiences with our conditions without people dragging often extremely triggering topics with little to no censors there?

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autism and trauma go hand in hand to make it really difficult for me to communicate about things that aren't my special interests. i'm so confident when it comes to my interests, but end up spiralling when it's anything else because it's just too hard.

[partstalk]

i hate being met with stressors and having 'i want to die' being my first thought.

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Is it right to tell someone that you switched, if you switched in response to something they said? I don't want to make them feel bad. I wish there was a way to guarantee I never had a negative impact on anyone

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I wonder if I'm even fit for human consumption. What if I'm incapable of forming attachments? I don't know how to love people well.

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attachment trauma is so weird.

i spent my whole life having to make myself small. take up as little room as possible. be independent. say what needs to be said and nothing more. don't burden others with your emotions. if possible, don't even have emotions.

but now i have good people who want me to be big. who want to talk to me. who want to help me. who want me to depend on them. who want to see me and know me and spend time with me.

and it's so hard to accept that when my brain is hardwired to believe that those things are how you get abandoned. i'm trying my best but it is so hard.

[partstalk]

I hate having attachment issues. My girlfriend is helping a mutual friend with how they are feeling. It's understandable. But I feel horrible and now I feel jealous on top of it and my instinctual reaction is to isolate myself. Which never helps. But I don't know if it would be inappropriate to voice how I feel. I don't know what to do.

[partstalk]

every time i end up as host we coincidentally go through a major (positive) life change. i'm not complaining, i'm having a great time, but when i go dormant again everyone's going to be very disoriented... i hope one of the other host parts come back before we leave home...

[partstalk]

it's kind of sad that i can't join in with a lot of funny conversations about did. in servers i'm in people often share how they found out they have did, but my story goes against the blacklists, and honestly, i wouldn't.... really want it attached to my name anyway.

i was 12 though. at least, that's the youngest i remember of it. i was a csa survivor, but amnesic of it at the time. and i had a part who would go on the internet and seek out predators. she'd go by a different name and say these things that i didn't agree with and i knew what she was doing was dangerous and 'wrong' but she kept doing it and i felt like i had no control over her actions.

i was so scared i didn't tell anyone, for years. but i did google. i remember going down wikipedia's entire list of mental illnesses, trying to find something that could explain what i was experiencing. but i was amnesic for the abuse, and in denial about other forms of abuse i had experienced, so i glossed over everything trauma-related. i thought it was hypersexuality due to mania in bipolar disorder for a while, but that was pretty obviously not what was going on.

i eventually saw someone describe did and realised that was it. i remember reading did-research when i was 16, shocked to finally see something that explained everything.

it's still hard to talk about those events in therapy. there's so much guilt and self-blame tangled up there. i used to lose the ability to speak when i tried. that doesn't happen anymore, but i still can't look at people when i disclose it. it's hard.

the part who used to do that is... better. she's integrated with two protector parts. we have a much better relationship now. things have improved. they have. it's just sad to think about.

[partstalk]

CW: Pedophilia, Victim Blaming

I’m still scared that my abuse makes me bad. It’s not that my abusers weren’t to blame, it’s that I think I was my abuser. It’s really weird. I know it’s dissociative but that doesn’t really make it easier to process or deal with. Or I guess it does, but just, it doesn’t make it go away.

I want to work with traumatised and other vulnerable children, it’s my passion and it’s all I want to do with my life. I’m finally at a place where I’m well enough to start working to that properly. Next week I’m talking to a college about the course I want to study. It’s very exciting.

But a part of my brain thinks that I’m the pedophile. I’ve never ever hurt a child and I would never ever hurt a child. But I feel like if anyone knew of my abuse, really knew of it and not just as ‘a survivor of CSA’, they’d think I was the pedophile. Even though I was the child. And then I’d never be able to help any other children, because pedophiles rightfully shouldn’t be allowed around them.

It’s ridiculous really. When I really sit and think about it, I know it makes no sense. I was a child. I was a child. I was the victim. I’m not my own abuser.

But every time I disclosed it I really really thought the police would be called and everyone would think of me as the pedophile. I get it but also I don’t.  I’ve never hurt anyone and I am very passionate about child protection because of what I experienced. But I keep thinking it.

[partstalk]

It’s difficult for me to understand why people are kind to me. Earlier, I was having a breakdown. I think that what I was upset about was really stupid. My friend told me to stop calling myself stupid, that I hadn’t done anything stupid, validated my emotions and told me I wasn’t alone.

I just don’t really understand things like that. It’s difficult for me to understand why someone would want to offer that kindness to me. Especially someone who knows me as well as she does.

But I appreciate it. I’m trying not to fight back against kindness, even if I don’t understand it and don’t feel as if I deserve it.

[partstalk]

i’ve been thinking about integration recently.

when i first discovered that i have parts, i found integration a frightening concept. i saw the way people talked about it, and while i knew that parts (or ‘system members’, as i called them then) couldn’t die, i was scared. i didn’t know how i would function ‘without’ my main protectors or caretakers, and while i didn’t get along with my persecutors, back then, i thought it was ‘wrong’ to wish them away, because ‘theyre people too’.

that was back when i thought my parts were separate people. i used to call them ‘the people in my head’. it took my therapist years to get through to me that they were parts of me, and that my experiences were just a pathological varient of something that every person in the world experiences.

seeing my parts as separate people, is it any wonder that i couldn’t understand integration? that i thought it was something to be afraid of, that i thought i would be loosing something? the logic made sense, i just didn’t realise, at the time, that there was a fault to my thinking.

now, i see my parts as what they are. parts of a whole. they are real. they have their own identities, wants and ways of thinking. but no single part could lead their own separate life, because no single part has all of the skills needed. that’s the point. they are individuals, in a sense, and each part is a person - but the same person, splintered.

there’s a song lyric that i relate to realising that my parts are parts. ‘i am part of you / and you are part of me / a great epiphany that brightens everything’. ‘a great epiphany’ is what it felt like. the moment i realise that my therapist was right, it was as if everything started making just a bit more sense.

and i stopped thinking about integration as being something scary. my parts are me. i am my parts. there is nothing wrong with wanting to bridge the gap between us. i’m not wishing them away, and i will never have to function without my main protectors. i am wishing them closer.

dissociation and trauma fragmented my sense of self. it separated me from all of these other ‘me’s. i couldn’t bear to carry what they carried, so i wished them away, and away they went. i couldn’t cope with knowing what was done to me, i couldn’t love myself, i couldn’t stand up for myself, so those parts of me - the forbidden knowledge, forbidden self-love, forbidden desire to be safe, were squirreled away, and my brain told me that those things were held by different people, people who weren’t me.

but my brain lied, because it had to, and now, integration allows me to learn the truth. the truth isn’t always easy. to integrate, i have to accept every part of me, even the ugly parts, even the sharp parts, even the parts that i may still want to wish away. it’s not easy, but, for me, it is necessary.

i’m not there yet. i don’t love myself yet. but i want to. and if i want to, i have to include everything. i can’t just love the easy parts. i have to love it all. accept it all.