#DID support

[subsystems]

There's been a lot of harmful invalidation and misinformation floating around trauma spaces lately about the cause of complex dissociative disorders like DID. Please, let's put to rest the trauma olympics and claiming that certain childhood traumas are more "valid" than others. The childhood trauma that causes someone's DID does not need to be sexual or physical abuse, or even abuse at all.

From Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach, by Elizabeth Howell (pages xvii - xviii):

"DID is usually the outcome of chronic and severe childhood trauma, which can include physical and sexual abuse, extreme and recurrent terror, repeated medical trauma, and extreme neglect. Pathological dissociation generally results from being psychically overwhelmed by trauma. . . . However, the traumatic experiences that may result in dissociative disorders do not always stem from sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Disorganized attachment which often underlies the dissociative structure of dissociative disorders . . . may result from overwhelming experiences in the infant's interpersonal environment that are not caused by parental maltreatment. Parental illness, depression, or problematic attachment styles may be psychically overwhelming and lead to disorganized attachment. In addition, medical trauma may be dissociogenic. For example, some dissociative patients have reported histories of chronic medical problems and hospitalizations that involved severe pain and unavoidable separations from well-meaning parents. Medical trauma may involve both the chronic and severe pain of certain diseases and conditions as well as painful procedures intended to remediate these medical conditions. Some dissociative adult patients have reported the trauma of being left alone to suffer their pain as children in the hospital. Such children may be additionally confused by the fact that their parents are either hurting them, as part of necessary medical interventions or allowing others to hurt them . . ."

You can find a free download of this book and others [here]. I highly recommend reading it, it's one of my favorite books on DID. If you're able to, please consider purchasing a copy of it to support the author too!

Anyways, if you're reading this and you've been harmed by the recent influx of trauma invalidation, please know that I'm here for you. I believe you. Your trauma is REAL and it was ENOUGH to cause your disorder. You were a child and no child deserves to go through trauma. No one.

[wandering-forestss]

hello sysblr. please help me out!

can you all tell be about your experiences with emotional influence and emotions 'bleeding through' from another part/alter?

i had an experience recently that is making me think again.

[forestfirefragments]

We had no support system as a kid so our brain really went 'fuck you we're making our own'

[spoonie-support]

You are not lazy, on motivated, or stuck. After years of living in survival mode, you are exhausted. There is a difference

[lethalspit]

gossiping with your system friend being a system is like:

"i think i told you what happened"

"i don't think so, i don't remember"

"i don't remember telling you either"

[is-that-plural]

🍓

hello ! we wanted to create a blog just like @/is-this-plural, but the main difference is we are anti-endo !

about us:

collectively we use he/him pronouns, for the most part, but if you're unsure, feel free to ask !

we are only one system running this blog, so if submissions are slow, give us some time ! we will get to you, we promise <3

those active here will sign off using their respective emotes, which is as follows;

mod 🦉- he/it

mod 💜 -he/him

mod 🎀 -they/she

DNI;

-> honestly, we dont have much of a dni, but if you are a (pro-)endo, then we do ask that you stay in your lanes ! endo-neutral or whatever its called are fine to interact 💖

how to submit / rules !

-> through asks ! (anon or not, up to you!)

-> tagging us in reblogs or posts ! -> you DON'T have to be a system to submit something !! singlets can submit and interact freely <3

-> simply messaging us, if messages are on, and we'll post it for you !

-> or the good ol fashioned way; using tumblr's submit button !!

--

some additional context to the rules/what our purpose here is: x

the rules are that ! there are no rules, if we, as a medically recognized system, see that something could be plural, even if you have to squint, then we (and you, by proxy!) deem it so !!

not everything is going to be plural !

that's all there is to it !! this blog is 100% for fun, and not trying to diagnose anyone or anything

[forrest-system-userboxes]

[godofautism]

Happy disability pride month chat!

I'm twice as neurodivergent now :333

Twice as queer and twice as autistic

[lemony-ink]

Poll time ! (Thank you @57-rats for the suggestion)

Please feel free to elaborate in comments

[scaphismx]

I don’t know what’s happening.

I don’t know if this is DID or something else, but I keep going through these moments of suddenly not knowing where I am or who I am. But not in a blurry way, it feels like something else is forcing its way through me and I can feel its panic and confusion. But I don’t know.

It feels like something in my brain is being unlocked. And it feels like my memory is falling through my fingers. Every time it makes sense, I forget what I’m thinking about entirely. I hate this. This is confusing and it hurts so much. I’ve been dealing with really bad nightmares and flashbacks. I just can’t deal with this.

Does anyone have advice ? What do I do, what is happening to me, how do I fix it ?

Is this a new alter ? Old alter ? Is this even DID related ? Am I just struggling with dissociation ? PTSD ? I want all this to stop, my head won’t stop pounding and it feels like my brain is splitting apart. I had this period where it got so bad that I think I completely zoned or blacked out.

[jokestersinmyhead]

Has anyone else felt like they lost alters after a traumatic experience instead of splitting them? We can't find so many members after what happened last week and it's really distressing to not know if they're all right or will ever be seen again.

[subsystems]

I like this diagram a lot!

Because of dissociation and trauma, I've struggled a lot to identify what I'm feeling, both emotionally and physically. Lists like this can be really helpful. I've found lots of lists with emotion words before but not as much when it comes to body sensations. Wanted to share it.

Here's a grounding exercise for anyone reading this: try going through the list and pick out which words fit what you're feeling in this moment.

______________

[Image Description: A free resource from Carolyn Spring. It shows the figure of a person surrounded by a list of words. Here is what it says:

Body Sensation Words

Achy, Airy, Bloated, Blocked, Boiling, Breathless, Bruised, Bubbly, Burning, Bursting, Butterflies, Buzzy, Calm, Clenched, Closed, Cloudy, Cold, Comfortable, Congested, Constricted, Contracted, Cool, Dark, Dehydrated, Disconnected, Dizzy, Drained, Dry-mouthed, Dull, Empty, Energetic, Energised, Exhausted, Expanded, Expansive, Faint, Flexible, Floating, Floaty, Floppy, Fluid, Fluttery, Frozen, Full, Giddy, Grounded, Headachey, Heavy, Hollow, Hot, Hungry, Hurting, Icy, Itchy, Jabbing, Jittery, Jumpy, Knotted, Light, Lightheaded, Limp, Nauseous, Nervy, Numb, Open, Parched, Pounding, Pressure, Prickly, Pulsing, Queasy, Quivering, Radiating, Ravenous, Raw, Relaxed, Released, Rigid, Saggy, Satiated, Satisfied, Sensitive, Shaky, Shivery, Short, Short of breath, Shuddering, Sick, Sore, Spacey, Spacious, Spongy, Squashed, Squirmy, Stabbing, Stinging, Stretchy, Stuffed, Suffocated, Sweaty, Tall, Tout, Tearful, Teary, Tense, Thick-headed, Throbbing, Tickly, Tight, Tingling, Tingly, Tired, Trembly, Twitchy, Uncomfortable, Vibrating, Warm, Wet, Wobbly, Woozy

End ID.]

[zandiks-interests]

kinda wanna start a system server on discord for adults with did/osdd

because most servers we've been in were full of minors? and it's really uncomfortable for us because most (if not all) of us are adults and the body is 21

would anyone be interested??? I'll put a link in the comments or something if this gets enough interactions

or, alternatively, please recommend us servers for adults !

(endos dni)

- ethan, eleven EDIT/UPDATE: SERVER HAS BEEN MADE! https://discord.gg/xXuRZKV8mA

[spoonie-support]

[the-freckled-collective]

Diagnosis???

So I started the process with a clinical psychologist to get a diagnosis. Issue is she was transphobic and unprofessional and just not great (and lying about her credentials). My actual therapist was wildly upset and felt terrible. We haven’t decided on next moves yet if i should try to go forward anyways or not, because it seems like the CLP may literally only diagnose me with adhd and nothing else because she refused to listen to me talk about DID, but ADHD was mentioned in passing and she suddenly made the entire appointment about that??

Anyways. So

The thing is, my real therapist who I fucking adore, won’t clinically diagnose me because she can’t do the assessments (she isn’t trained) and so she doesn’t feel comfortable right now doing so. (But she is taking the assessment classes because of me, so in 2-3 years no matter what she can😂) But she said I hit the score on the DES (which she comfortably can use) and I fit all of the criteria for OSDD/DID and she genuinely believes me. She’s even working with us as alters individually and she also has seen us switch.

What I’m trying to convince myself of, does this count enough as a diagnosis? I want a diagnosis to validate me because I have issues with believing myself. She can’t clinically diagnose me due to her own comfort, but she has essentially medically recognized me.

Would you all consider this a diagnosis?

(I am only asking as a way to validate my own thoughts. Not as a diagnosis. Just as a way to quell my concerns and validate myself so I can get some relief and stop trying to gaslight myself.)

Tl;dr

Basically medically recognized, undiagnosed due to therapist not having done assessment courses and no clinical psychologistswho can test in the area: does this count as diagnosis?

[theembersys]