#and those kids definitely don't have did.. if they have trauma and are dissociating it's going to be something else like dpdr etc

[coulsonlives]

I just had to share this video because holy shit, it hits the nail right on the head! So well spoken. This stuff needs to be circulated more, esp with the growing number of people thinking they have this because of misinformation, or just outright faking it.

[swiftfootedachilles]

pls can you talk more about age regression mickey? i need it😭😭😭😭

anon i promised myself i would never talk about this subject on tumblr yet here we are

ok i have to preface this by saying a couple things for clarifications

i DO NOT fuck with sexualizing age regression or ageplay!!!!

that being said, somebody can age regress sometimes and still be a grown adult with dick and balls who has sex! but they are entirely separate from one another!

i dont really, like.... fully understand age regression, i guess? i dont understand the difference between age regression, age play, and just enjoying kid stuff(age dreaming?). like is it a specific headspace? is it a form of dissociation? how do you know if you're regressing or just pretending, or are those the same thing? my ignorance may show in my headcanons so sorry

my headcanons for mickey are based on my own experiences. so although i don't know anything about what i just listed above, i do know that personally i really like a lot of kid stuff and it definitely is because of my childhood trauma and my (assumed) autism. and obviously mickey has a lot of childhood trauma, and hes autistic imo. so that's really the only scope of reference i have for this 😭

autistic people are not inherently childish or lack certain skills just because they consume a lot of child media. anybody who enjoys kid stuff or age regresses is automatically doing that 24/7 and unable to exist in adult spaces. and even if they are like that, that's nobody's business but theirs. but obviously mickey doesn't do this 24/7, and i don't think he would enjoy doing it all the time anyway. autistic people like children's media because its usually created to have an easily understandable premise, visually stimulating, have very concise pacing, understandable character motivations, and conflicts are resolved efficiently. it's something straightforward to watch, read, or play when the world doesn't make any sense and overwhelms us

i do not view age regression/ageplay/age dreaming in this context as mickey having did/a little alter. most of the content ive seen about agereg seems to view it as a form of dissociation, and while it can be that, i think writers are doing this accidentally because they don't really understand how dissociation works. and again, this is just based on my experience and understanding, and i don't dissociate at all when i consume children's media. i just enjoy it that's really only how deep it goes i just like it lol

ive mentioned both of these many many times before but mickey has fidget toys and plushies. he especially uses chewelry/teethers, bike chain fidgets, mechanical fidgets, tangles, spinner rings, weighted blankets and plushies, and jellycat/squishables/aurora/douglas/plushie dreadful. he also has a color changing lamp with multiple brightness settings that he likes to sit by/stare at

he likes to draw and color. he doesn't read because he struggles with it and it's not relaxing at all to read. he eats "boring" tasting food for the texture, like freeze dried yogurt and puffed rice. ian has to watch him and redirect him when he eats otherwise he'll just keep eating and eating just to chew on something. he likes chewing gum but it hurts his jaw if he does it too much.

he rewatches a lot of shows from his childhood. ghostwriter, zoboomafoo, magic school bus, bill nye. he also saw a lot of older shows and movies because they were recorded on vhs tapes in their house, or they were reruns on their free-to-run tv. electric company, zoom, little audrey, romper room, felix the cat, speed racer, space ghost. he really likes to watch old westerns and gangster movies. it really just depends on how "small" hes feeling. he also likes bluey, avatar the last airbender, and a lot of the classic cartoon network shows. hes watched a lot of peppa pig but thats only because franny is obsessed and watches it every day. he shows freddie speed racer because he has a racecar/hotwheels obsession

when hes regressed, ian will not do couple-y thing with him. he won't kiss his mouth, talk about adult topics with him, touch him inappropriately, none of it. he doesnt want his role as a romantic and sexual partner to be equated to his role as caregiver

mickey doesnt need help using the bathroom or bathing beyond being reminded when to do it. he usually becomes nonverbal though. communicating doesn't really happen beyond a few words when he has to respond to ian. he also stims a lot more and generally is unmasked in this state. ian doesn't want to disturb him, but he also wants to use the chance to get mickey to do some new things while he's relaxed. he gets mickey to help him prepare dinner, pick out colors for house decor, takes him in public with his headphones (mickey usually hates wearing them in public because he thinks he looks stupid + he can't hear much around him). ian would take him more places like the zoo and museums, but it's usually too crowded and he knows it would sour the experience for mickey

mickey is overall much more.... soft and pliant in this state. he can definitely have a meltdown, but he's usually pretty chill as long as he's at home and doesn't have any errands to worry about

[sophieinwonderland]

“I never said people need to meet my definition of distress or impairment... but they do need to meet a definition. That's how criteria works.”

Honestly? I feel like if someone feels like DID, as a shorthand to describe a bunch of dissociative experiences, is beneficial to them, then they can use it - criteria be damned.

I forget what your original post specifically said and the whole situation around it (with the ‘distress’ = ‘brokenness’ take someone apparently had according to what you’ve mentioned), but I say that from a belief of that intracommunity discourse is not going to specifically change any definitions in either the ICD or the DSM.

On the point about DID as a shorthand, I think one problem right now is that too many people use "DID" in this way. It's become synonymous with multiplicity in the mainstream.

And while intercommunity discourse won't affect the ICD or DSM, it does have the potential to cause other problems. A good example might be the TwoSoulsOneBod controversy. There you have a system who identified as having DID who... didn't have it. I don't mean this in a fakeclaimy way. It's just, they said they didn't experience any amnesia which is literally in the diagnostic criteria for DID.

You cannot have DID without amnesia. At least in the US. The ICD-11 is a bit more lenient about that, but also has a stricter harm requirement. They could still have OSDD-1b, but since they also experienced multiplicity as a purely positive thing with no harmful dissociative symptoms, they still wouldn't meet the harm criteria. And they were very clear about their system not coming from trauma.

So you have these popular influencers claiming to have a disorder they literally don't meet the criteria for by their own descriptions of their experiences, and they're explaining this disorder to others, saying that they're proof that DID isn't caused by trauma and that it's a good thing.

And all of this is because DID is seen by many as the only valid type of multiplicity.

And when they spread this misinformation to their followers, many of them will become convinced they have DID as well even if they don't meet the criteria.

Those followers make their own TikTok accounts dedicated to their alleged DID because of this influencer who told them you can have DID without any amnesia, distress or impairment of any kind.

And what psychiatrists see is a massive trend of people claiming to have mental disorders they don't have online, leading to them being more skeptical of kids who experience dissociative symptoms, and making it that much harder to get diagnosed.

I don't believe that there is a mass of people maliciously faking DID. But I think there are a lot of people who are misinformed about the disorder.

This is why it's incredibly important to both communities to spread awareness of other forms of multiplicity outside of DID.

[system-of-a-feather]

Hi! What is a substitute memory (if you don’t mind my asking)?

asdfalkaklj I actually haven't called upon my brain to define this in a bit so it might not be the "cleanest" definition, but what I'm assuming the bingo was referencing was substitute beliefs (broad term) and specifically when those beliefs are presented with "substitute memories"

Substitute beliefs are concepts / aspects / understandings of self and events that aren't exactly what is actually true / real / accurate but reflect it in a way that it is often easier to handle, accept, and bear for the person with the trauma.

Thats a mouthful, but a simple example would be say... someone's trauma was nearly drowning - they might then have an alter / develop a substitute belief that "I am a mermaid" or have the idea that being underwater like that was wanted because they are "spiritually a water creature" or that the drowning nearly happened BECAUSE they were confused and thought they were a mermaid rather than due to malice / neglect. In both cases the context of that memory might be reframed with a sort of substitute buffer to cover over the hard aspects of a shitty situation to make it more palatable

Those are more "extreme" examples because I can't really think of a more mundane example - but its a common defense mechanism people with DID and other people who were traumatized at a young age kind of do to sort of buffer the blow of being aware of the shit that's happened without necessarily having to deal with the entire reality of it.

I just got vague vibes from back there that it's fine to share, but the Riku subsystem was trained to be our sisters attack dog to a pretty extreme point of her manipulating dissociative barriers she knew of and as a result XIV has always really taken a lycantropic form, particularly when put in aggro mode and while he is aware he is not "actually a werewolf" it actively leaks into his day to day life and it is a really quick "blur" over topics that if dug more into could cause things to be uprooted that we aren't quite ready to.

Similarly, there are substitute memories that can happen where the memory of an event itself might be too hard to "digest" and as a result some people get similar but "slightly off" memories of things that didn't happen. I've seen this mostly talked about in terms of introjects and them developing memories related to trauma the body did experience but instead in the frame work of their source rather than the actual real lived body. Rather than remembering and processing feelings of neglect with your actual parents in reference, the part may still have the feelings that stem from a real trauma and experience the body had, but instead process it in the terms of "people who don't really exist" which makes it easier to operate and handle in an environment where it might be difficult to do that with the real people (often living there still and what not)

In substitute [anything] its really the brain just kinda blurring the details and shuffling around the lines to make it look like something easier and nicer to look at than the reality. It's usually similar to what ACTUALLY happened but often with a few details that are weird / wrong / obviously not real (ie, characters don't exist, werewolfs dont exist, mermaids don't exist, etc.)

It's been a while since I've seen it brought up so it might be a bit off of an explanation but hope that makes sense?

It's easier to process "I'm a werewolf" than process the implications of having been through mental abuse and directly trained as an attack dog for another's benefit.

It's easier to believe that the time you nearly drowned is because you were a "delusional kid and forgot you couldn't breathe underwater" than it is to address possible neglect or malice intent of someone who is supposed to be close to you.

It's easier to (not necessarily for the fictive themselves, but often for the rest of the system) see the struggle of their system member Sasuke processing the trauma of Itachi's betrayl than it is to see and process the betrayal of trust that the sibling you live with and have to see daily.

Substitute beliefs and memories are also often on a sliding scale of how seriously and literally the affected parts / people experience them and how real they actually feel, so theres a lot of variety.

-Riku

[amygdala-suzanna]

I'm gonna rant about my identity, trauma, girlfriends, Life Is Strange, and Gwen Stacy for a bit.

"nerdy middle-class trans-lesbian white-girl" is probably like the most inoffensive label someone could have. It probably even sounds fragile to a lot of people. But that is what I am.

I'm definitely not normal though, people often find my interests disturbing when I'm allowed to go on about them. Unhinged sadistic demons and gothic fantasy blade-wielding blood-covered warriors are certainly my favorite kind of characters to present myself as when given the opportunity to roleplay. My heart rate doubles when my girlfriend describes how they'd allow me to bite down on their neck. I love horror, being scared and being scary, and it's not pleasant to most, but that is what I like.

The thing that comforts me about being discomforting like that is that there's nothing for me to prove to anyone. Those close to me can just smile and laugh at my absurdity. Even better if they find it exciting. But, all my life with my parents I always feel like I have to prove something to them in order to justify asking for anything. This has carried over to my love life. I really struggle with asking my partners for anything. I developed a habit of avoiding confrontation with my parents by simply doing things based on my presumptions and hoping they'll be okay. It's pretty bad.

At four years old I had the displeasure of learning what I was. This was traumatizing, because I knew I was inside. In my dreams as a kid I always saw myself as a girl. When I learned that I was born a boy because of my body something broke inside me and I have been in and out of dissociation ever since. There used to be four alters in our system. The one that played the role of "boy" was evicted from the system some time in the 10th grade when we realized that there was serious gender dysphoria with the three other feminine alters inside and the masculine body. Sam fucking killed him and I'm glad she did.

When I came out to the then-girlfriend, she rejected me, hard. I had to spend like 4 hours on a phone call with her convincing her that I was the same person, unaware that I was lying to her more and more with every minute that passed. Because we were not the same, not remotely.

That relationship ended poorly. I still hate her for stealing my life for those 3 years. I hate that my experience playing Life Is Strange was with her, and I hated that she made me feel bad about wanting Max to kiss Chloe. Fuck her. I pored over so much Pricefield fanart that night and it made stronger impacts on my memory than anything you've ever done for me.

When I came out to my parents, of course, I had to prove it to them. They didn't believe me for the first two years, of course, they had to send me to a therapist who just told them exactly what I told them two years prior. Then they didn't believe her either and sent me to another one who came to the same conclusion. Guess fucking what, dad, I'm a woman and I always have been. Don't ever fucking say that you "lost" your son, you never had one, it was just a stupid fucking alter playing make-believe because it thought it had no other choice until Andrew told me he had a trans friend.

Fuck.

Watching the new Spiderverse recently and seeing Gwen's arc with her dad hit it perfectly for me. "Wow, look at this trans teenage girl who loves punk rock and lives in a world purveyed by a living watercolor painting that feels like a dream of color and melancholy and identity. She's just like me for real." I'm probably just like 90% of the other trans women seeing this in the theater in thinking that. I wonder how many other saw that aesthetic and were viscerally reminded of the overall aesthetic of Life Is Strange. Guess what, that's another story about a nerdy white girl with a savior complex trying to prove herself to everyone while just trying to be in love.

Teen white girls with identity crises and issues about proving themselves are not in short supply in American fiction by any means, but fuck it still hurts my heart seeing Gwen's dad come around to listening to her. I know my dad eventually came around just the same, but he didn't do it in a way that didn't hurt. I just wish it didn't hurt me and make be bitter and never want to go back home.

It would be really nice if I got to be the teenage girl I always wanted to be. I suppose that's what I'm doing now, in college. With the girlfriends and dates and all. It still hurts that Brynn decided she doesn't want to date a poly girl. I love her so much and I even enjoyed spending time with her family. I know we are still great friends, but that space between us does still make me sad. I'm grateful for Lil asking to be girlfriends just in time for Brynn to decide that, and Lil is really sweet and makes me really happy, but the sadness isn't gonna go away soon, I feel.

Melancholy helps get the emotions out at least. I think probably like two people will read this post until this point. Maybe Acorn if anyone. If you are here, you're a real friend, I knew I could count on you to pay attention to my stupid vent posts. Weird to find out here that Brynn isn't dating me anymore, isn't it. Oh well.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

TW : unsafe situations for minors, sexual trauma, rape, csa

Hello I wanted to send an ask to help me process something from my teen years. I think I mostly need to talk about it, but if it seems important to point something I missed, I'd love to read about that too.

There's so much more than that because I was so unsafe growing up, but right now I'm especially thinking about a friend I had in middle school.

We were some of the only queer kids to our knowledge, so of course we stuck together and we explored non-cishet themes. By exploring I mean we would discuss shipping, draw, talk about sexuality in general ect. This is pretty normal for teens and I believe it helped me find a reason to keep going at the time, given how terrible everything else was.

The thing that bothers me though, is that this person brought up rape a lot.

We used to roleplay as many teens do, and they would so often make their characters rape mine or tell my characters to rape another. It was a sort of trademark, I remember they had a nickname with "pervert" in it, so it became a sort of personality trait.

They were also joking about raping me once or twice, and I was a dissociated mess back then but I don't remember being terrified exactly. More confused than anything. Maybe I was actually scared, at least I think I was uncomfortable. I don't see any context where someone would hear another person joking about raping them and not be uncomfortable.

They never touched me in that way though, so I keep thinking it isn't that bad, but seeing how much denial I was in about my actual rape (unrelated), I'm not so sure I'm "fine".

For them I think rape was the main way in which they conceived sexual attraction, it was a joke we constantly saw in youtube videos at the time. And it was around 2014-2015, so most of the queer content available was yaoi with of course a lot of abuse and rape.

To me at the time, rape was this thing that was "technically bad", because I saw how the men in these youtube videos were making faces when implying someone was a rapist. Rape was clearly represented as a crime, but not a traumatizing thing for the victim - more like, don't do it or you will go to jail.

I knew it was something bad, but the culture in general (and my friend as well) did not address why. So in the end, because we joked about it a bunch, because it was just grouped with "regular sex", then it must've actually been kind of fine. That's the general narrative I remember.

I grew up very sheltered so I didn't really know what I was supposed to feel or do about this. I was also assaulted when I was very young, can't remember but the symptoms have always influenced my life heavily. There wasn't really anywhere I could've gone to have someone, or even something like a book tell me that rape was never okay. I know my friend was probably the same, and I can't help thinking they must have been struggling with sexuality / sexual trauma given their behavior.

And in the end, we did bond, and even if it was extremely unhealthy, it was my first time learning about my sexuality and exploring my queer identity.

Because of that, I'm not sure what to do about those memories.

Hi anon,

I'm sorry about what you went through.

I can definitely see how the queer content available at the time may have influenced the normalization of rape, and I also think just the culture around the early 2000s trivialized rape, especially by using it as a punchline (I just think about this). While I think, at least in America, that modern culture still has some work to do in terms of respecting the true gravity of rape, there has been a drastic improvement in how we approach the subject.

At the same time, I don't believe that this was really the only reason why they were heavily incorporating rape into their roleplay. However, I don't think it's necessary to speculate their motives, because it doesn't change the fact that their behavior was unacceptable.

While you say this experience wasn't "that bad" it's still apparent that this had a notable effect on you and I think that's worth highlighting. It's understandable that this bothers you, what happened was not okay. However you feel about these experiences is valid.

This is something that it sounds like you're actively processing, and so it's especially okay that you're not sure what to do about these memories. It's not necessarily my place to tell you what to do about them, but it may be helpful to start by figuring out how you want to name this experience, and going from there.

I hope I could help. Please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[theradiowaves]

Did some deep discussion about traumatic experiences yesterday, and am reeling at some posts I saw just now, so I wanna... kicks dirt. Talk about it? Shrugs.

I was bullied, as a kid. As a teenager. As an adult. School was the most horrible time of my life. I was clearly mentally ill, but undiagnosed due to a father who was scared to think his child could have the same problems her mother had.

Bullying, straight up, is harassment. People don't think so because we associate it with children/being childish. But... that is what it is. It is abuse received from your peers. And it is so strange that people seem to not realize that when we have such large (and generally useless) anti bullying campaigns. When we have reminders of what being bullied can do to a child.

...

Anyways, I speak on it because the core of some of my plurality certainly blossomed from that. People will say they were imaginary friends, and perhaps that is all they were. But those imaginary individuals were real to me. They helped me survive when everyone I knew was against me. My fantasy world was my only safe space, and I'm always wanting to be there even now.

It definitely WAS due to that sort of harassment that my head mates began to properly appear. Ingo was Me, separating into his own entity because I needed stability during very stressful times. I have an old diary where I wrote about him, and he wrote back to me. To the diary itself.

I had headmates who warped and changed and merged over time. There used to be Snatcher and Wrathia here. They ended up merging with Dameta. He is still who he is, but we know that they became a part of him, even if he does not identify with them.

I had a headmate who represented the part of me that was evil and angry, who wanted to harm others for harming me. They've faded away, bits and pieces becoming part of those who are here now.

Maho formed because I needed someone who made me feel completely safe.

Al formed for many reasons. Most we don't like to share.

We don't remember what made Dimi form. But he is here and has been for years. Dimi likes taking the piss with others and having fun, while our own interactions are few and uneventful.

We used to have Sir Falspar. He is gone now, but we remember him clearly. I identify with him, so I think he returned to me in a way not unsimilar to that of Ingo or DMK separating from me.

There used to be others. Those when we were little. When things were the worst. Those who we felt at our side and lived life alongside us. Most have merged or disappeared. It feels weird. Kinda sad. But the brain does as it will.

... They are important to me. Everyone here, who has come and gone, who may eventually show up or disappear.

I'm not diagnosed with DID or OSDD. The things I experience are explained by other things I struggle with. Most of them, anyways. My alters formed from trauma or a dissociation of self due to my shaky identity issues. Or simply because one day they were there and I nodded and went okay, here you are.

I don't get amnesia. I don't leave the front. They join me there, speaking on rare occasions with others if they feel it safe and enjoyable to do so. (Not so much anymore because of being told we are fake or asked not to use system terminology despite how much we were hurt).

For years I described myself as a median system, and that is a term that feels the closest to correct, still.

But we don't focus on figuring it out specifically anymore. Of course, if we find something that fits? It is really, really nice.

But we're tired of having to have words for it. We are tired having to try to define or defend. We are ANGRY that we have been forced to question everything because we don't have solid memories and explanations or have unique brain quirks.

We ARE here. Whether it is because of trauma, loneliness, just showing up, or something else we can't explain.

I am me. We are Me. I want them to have a chance to express themselves if they do desire. I want them to be a part of what being Me is like to others.

We are not just me. We are the collective of us, even if the world doesn't know. Even if they don't believe us.

- 🌌

[hologramcowboy]

Sadly, I think people ask themselves whether the twins are really Jensen’s because they are trying to rationalize Jensen’s resentment towards them. After all, what father would so openly resent his own children? Not a good one that’s for sure. So thinking that the twins are Steve’s makes this a lot easier. I used to be certain they are Steve’s as well, but once I stopped putting Jensen on a pedestal I realized Jensen’s more than capable of being resentful towards his own children for one reason or another. No the twins are most certainly Jensen’s for one reason only: Danneel. No matter how much she likes Steve more than her husband she would never let any man other than Jensen father her children while being married to him. She cares about her image as Mrs. Ackles way too much so being regarded as a cheater with the proof being two actual humans would be a disaster. She’s also let us know that she’s had an abortion so we know that wouldn’t be a problem for her. If she ever got impregnated by Steve she’d fix it real quick. As to why Jensen’s resentful of his twins, well, I believe she tricked him into having them. I don’t know how but something definitely smells fishy there. Jensen’s let us know that he agreed to one more kid with Elta , meaning that they were at least trying and he was expecting a pregnancy announcement from her, but we’ve also been told that Danneel actually used JJ to deliver a piece of paper saying She is pregnant to Jensen in a crowded public place, why on earth would she do that? Unless she was expecting a negative reaction from him. So he most likely didn’t want those twins and instead of going to therapy or even getting a divorce he decided to mentally scar two little humans because of his own issues.

Everything does seem fishy and most likely she did go behind bis back in some way and hence he felt betrayed. That's the only way I can explain his clear dissociation from the twins and his resentment. What I don't get is why stay married to a woman capable of such things and,most importantly, why make innocent children feel about something she's responsible for? I hope Jensen reanalyzes the impact he has on his children. Because the public comments he makes are bound to reach them eventually and they will create trauma.

[thecirculararchive]

For system quirks.

I don't have an innerworld, which seems to be really rare for pf-DID, at least online. I do have mental visual escapes, but they're nothing more than that. Also unlikely, I have no littles. Only some who seem younger but those are still 15+. Majority is much older than I am, or in the same decade of my age but then higher up. Introjects don't have the commonly known pseudomemories, though they do hold general subtitude believes. We have no gatekeeper, no opposite gender differences, either one of two pronouns, appearances usually match in some way, overall the same sexuality and other types of attraction. I have noticed that this combination is really unlikely and I've been barely able to relate to others, online. Only recently I managed to find a trauma dissociation group from my country where majority is older, 30+ with kids and jobs. And for the first time I found people who share my experiences, it was really nice.

My experiences may seem mismatched, but the type of trauma I went through is also very rare. Not that it's the extremity type of rare, it's actually a rather common type of life phase, but the way it went down was rare. Which is why I haven't been able to talk to others about it much, or have anyone know what it is like. Maybe this system quirks will reveal I'm not the only one who seems not to fit the online painted image of being a system and having alters, is what I'm wondering. Our experiences may differentiate, but that doesn't make anyone less of a system.

God, Anon, I love your last sentence on here.

“Our experiences may differentiate, but that doesn’t make anyone less of a system.”

Your experiences, all together, are definitely rare from my experiences! But there are some similarities.

We have no gatekeeper, a lot of us have fairly similar appearances (which has only started to change in more recent years, if we’re discounting our nonhuman alters), and we all love the same person, even if our sexualities differ. Not quite the same, I know, but similar.

I’m so glad you’ve started finding IRL places to discuss your traumas and hardships. I hope System Quirks helps you find more like-minded (or, well, like-experienced) people to share community with. <3

[honeysuckle-venom]

5, 9, & 18💜

Thank you so much for asking Fable!!!

5. Are there parts that are more able to communicate with each other than others?

Yes, for sure. Most of us in the main system communicate with each other fairly well at this point, but I tend to be a bit of a central point. Like Eloise communicates with me, and Cypher communicates with me, but I don't think Eloise and Cypher ever really communicate, you know? Although Cypher and the kids do, and Eloise and the kids do. So actually I don't know, it's kind of a weird graph with some parts communicating with some and not others now that I think about it.

What I can say for sure though is that the Dolls all communicate with each other much more easily than anyone in the main system, and those in the main system all communicate with each other much more easily than with the Dolls.

9. When did you find out/realize you had a dissociative disorder?

5 years ago, when I was 19. I had been in therapy with my current, excellent therapist since I was 16, and we had discussed the fact that I definitely had PTSD, but we didn't really focus on diagnoses. I was attending a school at the time that for various reasons attracted a lot of people with significant trauma histories, and therefore a higher than normal percentage of people with dissociative disorders. I had a good friend who had DID, and another friend who was starting to wonder if he had DID. So I introduced the two of them so they could talk about it. As I listened to their conversation I felt a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, because everything they were saying connected to what I experienced. I later approached my friend who had DID to talk to them about it, and they provided me with some resources (including mentioning DID tumblr, as we were both tumblr users). I started to learn more, and as I did I became more and more convinced that this was something I was experiencing. I talked about all of this with my therapist as it was happening, and she agreed that DID was a diagnosis that fit me. And we went from there.

18. What has your experience with therapy been like?

Oh boy. This is going to get long. You know what, this post is so long already, I'm putting the answer to this part under a cut. Trigger warnings for mentions of self harm and suicidality

So I've had a lot of different experiences with therapy over the years. When I was 11 my whole family went through some significantly traumatic events, and I was put in therapy. I've been in therapy pretty consistently ever since.

I saw my first therapist from 11-16, when I moved away and started seeing my current therapist. But besides my two main, long term therapists I've also seen a number of others, such as school psychologists, family therapists, inpatient therapists, and psychiatrists.

My first therapist was...decent. She wasn't bad, she wasn't great, she was helpful to a point but couldn't fix the deeper issues, and I'm still not sure how much of what was going on she actually picked up on or knew about. Certainly the words "dissociation" "psychosis" and "abuse" never came up, but she also started advocating for me to go to boarding school/live away from home when I was 12, so she must have had some sense that my home life wasn't the healthiest. My current therapist and I are actually planning to get in touch with her this summer to learn more about what I was like in middle and high school. But anyway, I think for the most part she was just...perfectly fine, and I'm glad that I saw her. Being introduced to therapy and having it normalized at a young age was definitely beneficial for me and allowed me to do deeper work more easily later on.

My other experiences with therapy besides my current therapist have not been that great though, and some have been quite traumatic. For the most part, therapists just haven't known what to do with me. I have a complicated and somewhat unusual trauma history, DID, schizophrenia, OCD, anxiety, an eating disorder, and a long history of self harm and aborted suicide attempts. It's a lot for your average therapist to handle. One psychiatrist at an intensive DBT inpatient program I did told me I was "too weird" and made me do exercises focused on fitting in with the other kids in the program and being "more normal" rather than focusing on the severe suicidality I was there for. The psychiatrist I saw from when I was 16-20 was obsessed with managing the weight I had gained from medication and would regularly tell me to engage in deeply triggering and unhealthy behaviors that worsened my eating disorder. The family therapist my family went to when I was 15 and 16 accused me of being manipulative when I talked about wanting to kill myself during a session. The therapist I saw for a brief period in the counseling center at my college found my history and symptoms overwhelming and cried several times during our sessions, which was kind of funny to me, but not particularly helpful. The vast majority of therapists I've seen have not known what to do with me or what was wrong with me, have misdiagnosed me with various things from bpd to schizotypal personality disorder to bipolar disorder, have actively made me worse, and/or have just been completely lost and overwhelmed by my case.

But then, after it became clear that I needed more help than the college counseling center could provide, I started seeing an outside therapist, J. I was 16. J was like nothing and no one I had ever met. She trusted me. She believed me. She listened to me. She was funny, and smart, and had a sense of humor dark enough to match my own. She wasn't scared when I talked about violent urges towards myself and others. She didn't flinch away from my more severe symptoms. She took my word over my parents' when they said contradictory things to her. She gave me a place where I could tell the truth without being afraid of the consequences. She pushed when I needed to be pushed, and gave space when I needed space, and trusted my instincts. She worked with me, not on me. She didn't try to fix me or claim she knew myself better than I did. She challenged me, but she trusted me as the ultimate authority on myself, and no one had ever done that before. It felt like a miracle. It was a miracle. J has saved my life many times. I truly believe that if I hadn't met her and started working with her I wouldn't be here today.

I've been seeing J multiple times a week for 8 years now, and in that time I've made incredible progress. I had no idea it was possible to have a therapist as good as she is. I now know it's possible, although it's very rare. She's really someone special, and I know how incredibly lucky I am to see her. Therapy can be all over the map. I've had decent therapy, bad therapy, and great therapy at various times. I completely understand people who don't trust therapists after having bad experiences with them. But good therapists are out there and they can really, really help, and I'm so incredibly grateful to have personal proof of that.

[ziracona]

What do you see happening after Josh is being rescued? Does he meet everyone of his friend eventually or some of them keep their distance? I read one of your answers about them abandoning him and honestly I don't think they didn't care at all about him, but the events were so traumatic and scary that they probably had a hard time taking into consideration that small possibility of him being alive. Plus I guess it's also part of the smooth flow of the game if it makes sense, Mike doesn't go after Jess either after he sees her falling into the mines and accuses Josh of killing her without being 100% sure that she is dead and without seeing Josh around when shit happened to her. But if I were Josh maybe I would be upset knowing they didn't come for me at all. So how would a reunion go?

That’s valid! You can interpret the lack of an interest in rescuing Josh to multiple things—that they are very sure he’s dead, if you want to be as generous as possible to them. That they think he’s probably dead and are afraid of dying too more than willing to save him, that they’re (sans Chris) too mad about the prank he pulled, etc. And I can see why people would go for any number of them. I think to me it has always read like they think he is probably dead, and the whatever he has, 30%, 20% chance? Of still being alive just isn’t enough for them to feel motivated to face very likely death to go hunting for him, especially with flamethrower dude just dead doing the same. Which makes /me/ angry, because Mike went batshit after seeing Jess wounded and dragged through a window and more trying to save her, multiple characters can kill themselves trying to save the others in the finale, etc, and I just think if you /can/ save someone who is your friend—or like, you have a shot anyway—you don’t know it is too late. You should. (& true Jess can still be alive and Mike will assume she is dead, but in his defense, so do basically all blind playthroughs she looks like she falls four stories or something while already almost dead I can’t fault Mike for assuming that was a 100% death there. Boy really tried. Whereas Josh’s vanishing from the shed is much less confirmed. There is no ‘I watched him fall’ here. Just a neither he nor his dead body were still in the shed so /something/ happened). Like I do get it, that’s a terrifying situation and not helping doesn’t = not caring, but I will hold it against characters if they don’t risk themselves to save their friends and I will be unhappy with them. Loyalty is very important to me. But it is a truly terrifying situation.

But I also get why they’d be terrified to go out there. I don’t think it makes them evil to not want to risk it till they have to, it just makes me disappointed in them. I don’t think I said I think they didn’t care about him—typo if I did, because I certainly don’t think that at all! I think Chris was traumatized and felt very sure he was dead, Ashley didn’t care (she explicitly says she thinks he deserves it and tries to stop Chris from saving him the first time), Emily doesn’t care a lot one way or another and is mostly on her own trauma right now and thinking about Matt and the awful shit she saw, that Sam does care but thinks he is probably dead and is in team mom mode and cares more about trying to keep as many friends alive as possible right now than anything else and doesn’t want to lose the others, and Mike is still pissed but also feels very bad and would prefer for Josh to make it but is also more focused on group survival and not losing anyone else since he just lost someone he loves horribly (based largely on how his reaction to the safe room scenario is either to kill Emily and feel awful but do it because he very vocally and visibly doesn’t want the others to be killed and she won’t go peacefully, and he’s terrified of losing them, or to try but not be able to because he loves Emily, and instead give the gun to the others to try to save themselves with in the event she /does/ turn). And although he’s a right coward bastard for leaving Josh if Josh gets grabbed instead of killed, down in the mines, I do think he cared about Josh. He seems truly sorry to some extent when he finds him, and does /try/ to lead him out of the mines. At the point they make the decision to go for the cable car key, I don’t think they don’t care at all, except Ashley. I just think they should care more. Although I tend to give Chris a pass because he just watched a man get beheaded, has strong reason to think Josh is dead, is injured, and spends the entire rest of the game more or less in traumatized mode quiet in the corner.

But that said I can also see why people would interpret the reactions to mean they all believe he is very dead, and mean they’re going after his corpse! I can see lots of basis in-game to interpret in quite a number of ways. And be generous to the fool kids if you want to! I /super/ hold abandoning Josh in the mines wildly against Mike, but Mike is still one of my favorite characters in the whole game. I love how flawed the cast is and that you go in hating most of them and only slowly grow to care because you don’t want them dead-dead, which keeps you there long enough to see some of their good sides. *cheff’s kiss* the great ability of the horror genre. The bar to initially invest is so low, it lets you have such a multi-faceted cast.

Okay anyway, original question! What do I see happening after Josh gets rescued and exorcised.

I think he meets up with all of them again eventually. Interesting to think from Josh’s pov how he’s going to feel. I expect to some degree he does feel abandoned, and fairly, and in RoB it is very clear he is afraid to some extent of Mike and Chris after being dragged off and tied up and left in the shed, and the things they said to him. He also /definitely/ feels massively guilty and self-blaming about all of it. He’s telling himself through Hill that no one will come for him and it’s his own fault by the final chapter. And mostly he’s just afraid of Mike and in ptsd dissociating mode by the time Sam and Mike find him. So, mixed feelings on his part I expect. Lots of fear and pain and hurt at being abandoned and so universally believed capable of murder, hurt, left to die alone in the mines. Pretty damn betrayed, and that on top of the hurt from what happened to his sisters and the inherent paranoia of paranoid schizophrenia. Hurt that they just left him. Hurt they didn’t believe him. Hurt nobody came for him until it was too late. Hurt he got betrayed again. Probably pretty miserable overall. But with that, also feels really bad about going too far and hates and blames himself intensely for everything, and I expect is also kind of not just traumatized but ashamed of what happens to him, and everyone knowing about the possession and the cannibalism. Probably he wants to lock himself in a room in the corner of a big house and never come out. But also is intensely and miserably and hopelessly lonely. Probably feels all of his friendships are likely broken beyond repair.

I don’t think they are though. Chris “I’m not your bro” six seconds later “bro are you for real?” Hartley almost dies trying to save him and wouldn’t care about the possession stuff except to be worried about him. Sam is angry and harboring some resentment, but clearly reacts to Mike reporting he is gone with regret. Mike would probably feel very guilty for leaving him and be hesitant to reconnect and then defensive doing it, but I think he cares. Jess wasn’t even there for this shit so probably she does. Same for Matt maybe? Ashley and Emily are harder to guess for. I think Ashley would be incredibly angry and resentful—I mean she wants him dead in-game, but might eventually join the others if the others got over stuff? Bc she’s also kinda a joiner? Really it’s hard to say she is a very...hair-trigger character. Volatile and intensely and massively changeable. Probably the least predictable of all. That kind of person scares me deeply in real life because I have been very backstabbed by them before. >.> But anyway hard to say. Also a lot of this depends on what ending, even assuming they all live. But I usually assume that like, Mike almost shot Em, didn’t, Matt tried to save her, Sam saw the workshop, etc ending. Emily I really don’t know. She’s a very self-reliant and hard person. She didn’t have anything very specifically for or against Josh with her experience, but wasn’t that close to him before, so I think she just kinda falls wherever she falls.

I think mostly though that they’d reconnect. Definitely Chris would jump to it, and I think Sam would too—she’s a well educated, empathetic and understanding person. She’d know he needs her. And Chris is his childhood best friend and cares the whole game. I think Mike would try to go too because of guilt, and because he’s a decent guy. Probably so would after not much time those least effected by what Josh did. I think Josh would be alone while being exorcised and probably reocvering in a hospital some after, and Chris would be the first, or Chris and Sam possibly. I think he’d be afraid to see them, and it would be complicated and messy and painful for them all, but it would be okay and sort itself out and they’d find old ground quickly. And having them there would be /incredibly/ vital to helping him recover. I think eventually he’d get back on his feet, and a lot of his old friends would be around and stay in his life. I think things would get better. I’d say the OG ExorJosh comic writer I think did a good job of guessing about what a lot of it would be like. Hard, and slow, and messy. But a lot of them care for him, and I think that would matter enough to help things get okay between them again.

[bubbelpop2]

If you think you have DID but have little alters or no amnesia, you're not faking! You're definitely not faking, and your condition is very real. It's called OSDD, and you're not "role-playing" or "method acting". It's a very real dissociative disorder, and not just trying to hop on the mental illness clout wagon, I promise.

Because maybe your experiences are similar to mine, here's my experiences with it! (Warning; child abuse and mentions of other trauma)

I've always had "alters" (less like compete switches, I still have influence over my body and no amnesia, but I sort of go nonverbal when someone else takes over. Since I don't have did I don't use the term "alters", I use "people" or "characters" or "others"- it doesn't feel like I'm acting at all, but those terms are more comfortable for me.)

Ever since I was a kid I've always had a really bad childhood, and I've always had a disconnection with the world- sometimes everything seems like a video game or not real, and sometimes I sit in the background while one of my characters pretends to be me and talk to other people so I don't have to. It's like- I got bullied a lot and my parents were mean so I kinda got my characters so they could protect me/ I didn't have to deal with them. I don't really have a need for them anymore, but they pop up occasionally if I'm having a really bad time/sometimes they randomly come back.

I've never had the same set of characters for a long time. I had different ones as a kid, as a preteen, and now as a young adult, with some age reg mixed in now that I'm old enough to miss never being a child. Dad was a crackhead (a literal one, don't give me shit for using that term, his use of drugs exacerbated his already unhealthy tendencies and he abused us. I can say crackhead if I damn well please. Meth isn't something to be proud of unless you've stopped smoking it and have recovered.) Parents divorced, went through numerous abusive relationships and abusive step dads, extreme poverty, bullying, homophobia, transphobia, being surrounded by bigots and white supremacists, I inherited a very severe manic depression/mild bpd from my father and was already predisposed to being Fucked In The Head, it was quite a bit of a doozy.

My most recent characters originate from my ocs! All of my characters are all based off of exaggerated/unclear parts of myself, and I identify with all of them very strongly, even though they're very wildly different from each other. I can tell the difference between them all very clearly if I unexpectedly change.

I also have problems with nonverbalism- (I'm autistic), and a lot of the time when one of my characters protects me/speaks for me, or switches/comes in, I feel as if I can't speak, but they can. I feel very, very nonverbal, and it feels unnatural for me to force a switch back. So a lot of the time they pretend to be me by using my voice in public, because my family would immediately smack down any hint of me coming to them with having a dissociative disorder so I don't let them see any of my characters. So they always pretend to be me to keep me safe.

Those are my experiences with it!! If you have OSDD you should tell others yours in the notes if you want!

[janiedean]

Oh? Oh! Now me moved to suicide bait, like we don't know except for a few hate-filled messages and she's telling you she's going to kill herself? Like I don't know, but yelling at random people on the internet isn't going to attract empathy? (And ++ for Bruce Springsteen, can I have some analysis too? Hum... You're a.. Hum.. A bad woman! A very bad woman! And you're Italian! Does it count as anon hate?)

you're a poop head ( this is me trying to get you to give us that sweet bruce springsteen content by sending you hate )

these were two anons but it’s 11 pm and I can’t do two analyses lmao

OKAY GUYS, SINCE ANOTHER ANON ASKED A FEW DAYS AGO, HAVE ONE OF MY FAVORITE UKNOWN BRUCE SONGS!

Shut Out The Light is an outtake from 1984′s Born in the USA, which eventually ended up being the b-side on the BITUSA single 45′, and finally published to everyone’s happiness in the box set Tracks in 1998 but played live in other occasions. It’s from the Nebraska/BITUSA era, and it’s another Bruce songs focusing on the Vietnam war question.

As in BITUSA, we have another veteran coming home, but differently from the previous song, he’s just come back and hasn’t tasted the whole variety of rejections he’ll have from society yet. But, differently from BITUSA as well, it touches on other issues. Let’s get into it!

The runway rushed up at him as he felt the wheels touch downHe stood out on the blacktop and took a taxi into townHe got out down on Main Street and went into a local barHe bought a drink and found a seat in a corner off the dark

So, again we have the cinematic opening - this could be right out of a movie: you can imagine visually the protagonist (who is a he, not an I differently from BITUSA) getting off the airplane and goes back home in the taxi and instead of going home goes to get a drink. Actually, this has a lot of interesting choices because he buys a drink and wants a seat in a corner in the dark, so he tries to not take space and he doesn’t want to be seen, and rather than meeting his family, he goes to have a drink.

Spoilers: our guy has issues. Now, let’s move on:

Well she called up her mama to make sure the kids were out of the houseShe checked herself out in the dining room mirrorAnd undid an extra button on her blouseHe felt her lying next to him, the clock said 4:00 amHe was staring at the ceilingHe couldn't move his hands

Here we moved to presumably the man’s wife. She leaves the children with her mother - because she wants some private time with her man, or because she’s worried about something else? probably the first, though, because then she takes the time to pretty herself up and open the button on her blouse, as in, she’s trying to look more attractive for him after they haven’t presumably seen each other for a long time.

So: they presumably have sex - she’s lying next to him - but he can’t go to sleep, and he’s staring at the clock at four in the morning and then at the ceiling and can’t move his hands, which suggests he might have sleep paralysis or something of the kind, which is also a consequence of trauma, and actually, as we go into the refrain, we have the confirmation:

Oh mama mama mama come quickI've got the shakes and I'm gonna be sickThrow your arms around me in the cold dark nightHey now mama don't shut out the lightDon't you shut out the lightDon't you shut out the lightDon't you shut out the lightDon't you shut out the light

Spoilers: this guy has ptsd. Bad ptsd. Very poetically put, but:

he wants his mother to come to him (calling for your mother is like, your basic instinct because she’s the person you should technically be closest to as the person who brought you up and raised you and birthed you);

he has the shakes and he’s gonna be sick (could be triggered panic attacks, flashbacks, dissociating - obviously it’s not detailed because it’s a song and not the DSM, but the symptoms are there);

he wants his mom to hold him (actually: throw her arms, so doing it almost violently) in the cold dark night (a situation that sounds fairytale-scary);

and he wants her to not shut out the light - ie he doesn’t want to be with the lights turned off because the darkness triggers memories (if you read any vietnam memoir you know that they hated night stake outs because they couldn’t see shit and they could be ambushed at any time).

So: the entire refrain is about how he has bad ptsd and he’s not handling it even if he’s trying to keep it under control, this just after he comes back from Vietnam.

Established that:

Well on his porch they stretched a banner that said "Johnny Welcome Home"Bobby pulled his Ford out of the garage and they polished up the chromeHis mama said "Johnny oh Johnny, I'm so glad to have you back with me"His pa said he was sure they'd give him his job back down at the factory

So: this guy got at least a welcome home party and we know now he’s named Johnny (reference to When Johnny Comes Marching Home? MAAAYBE SO) and that he has a best friend named Bobby who drags the car out of the garage (so he hasn’t driven it since Vietnam and no one else has) and tries to do a nice thing for him by polishing it and they can do something normal. Johnny’s mother - the one he wants at night - is happy to see him and she’s glad he survived, while his father discusses his job (mind it - the mom is worried about him being back at all, the father is worried about Johnny’s employment, as the One Who Things Mostly About Work In The Family as we already see is a recurring theme). And mind: he’s sure Johnny will get back his factory job (so, another unskilled worker who got drafted while poor) which as we know from history and the follow-up songs, Johnny will most likely not get.

Which sounds nice, except that then we go back into the refrain and nothing has changed - welcome party or nor, bff with the car or not, job or not, Johnny still isn’t okay at night and still doesn’t want the light turned off.

After the refrain, we get into the last part:

Well deep in a dark forest, a forest filled with rainBeyond a stretch of Maryland pines there's a river without a nameIn the cold black water Johnson Leneir standsHe stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where he's been

Now we have the name and surname of the guy - Johnson Leneir. He could be with his wife and family (the kids out of the house) but instead where is he? A deep dark forest, filled with rain, as in... a forest that could match Vietnam’s since again, Vietnam is filled of rainy forests and it was where most of those people have to fight. He’s in Maryland, but beyond its stretch there’s a river without a name, so the river in Maryland (if it’s there at all) or the land beyond that stretch of land is a river in Vietnam - a lot of the people there didn’t necessarily know the names of where they were or knew where they were being sent - and the negative association is made by describing the water of that river as cold and black, which are hardly words with positive connotations. Also, he stands in the cold black water as in he walks into the river same as he might have done in Vietnam (there’s a similar scene in Tim O’ Brien’s If I Die In a Combat Zone and idk if Bruce read it but it was published in ‘73 so he could absolutely have), so he can’t detach himself from that experience but at least he’s not risking death by re-interpreting it. 

Then: he stares across the lights of the city - a place he’s cut away from when he should belong there, and that’s to say he’s not belonging even with the bff and the supportive family and the beautiful wife, when instead he can’t help going into the woods and the cold dark river because he can’t leave Vietnam behind, and dreams of where he’s been, as in - as I said: he thinks he’s back in Vietnam or he thinks back about Vietnam and he can’t leave that behind him, and again the refrain doesn’t change -- he still doesn’t want the lights turned off, he still wants his mother, he still has the shakes, he still will be sick at least for the foreseeable future, because the war fucked him up and he’s not well and he won’t be until he gets help.

Will he turn into the guy from BIUSA? Given that this song is its b-side in the single, COULD DEFINITELY BE A POSSIBILITY. Will he get his life straight? We just don’t know, but here we have in three short, simple vignettes a full-on picture of someone who came back from a war traumatized that we can identify with as it concentrates not on his war experience but on things we all can relate to (the wife, the kids, the parents, the best friend with the car, wanting your mother when you’re afraid), which shows that Bruce can write a fucking song even if he wasn’t in the guy’s shoes personally (he got a 4F and GOOD FOR US ALL), and this in an historical moment where people pretended Vietnam never happened. I personally kind of wish he published it properly before 1998 because it’s a gem imo, but it did come to light outside being the single b-side and IT’S A GORGEOUS SONG AND I STAND BY IT.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Seeking advice tw for csa

First off I wanted to say thank you again, I've sent a few asks into this blog and they've always been helpful.

I saw another ask about a person questioning of the might have OSDD and there were a few things in the ask that really resonated with me. I remember my mom used to say as a kid, I didn't have imaginary friends that I played with, which was true to an extent. When I was very young, I didn't have any that I recall. But when I was about 7/8 I experienced what I now know to be csa. After that I did start having imaginary friends similar to what the anon I saw was saying. They were and are fictional characters that tend to center around my fandoms and just sort of...hang out for the most part, though to varying degrees, and I can talk to them as if they were real people and real friends. Beyond that, I have found that there is one "voice" in particular that I don't really know where they came from. They're not connected as far as I can tell to any fandom I've been in, but they come and go with the others, but there's something about them that just feels different. It seems like they've always been there and I have often found myself in the plural, especially when it comes to tasks I need to accomplish or strong emotions, "we really need to do laundry" "take a deep breath, we need to calm down" etc. The best way I can describe it is it's like Inside Out except Riley can talk to her brain workers.

I was just wondering if you or other followers might have resources ideas for this.

Hey there nonny! Thanks for the ask!

Questioning whether or not you’re plural can be really difficult, and ultimately, I suggest bringing it up with a mental health professional whenever possible. Obviously, that’s not necessarily in the cards for you right now, so here are some resources on both criteria and symptoms of DID/OSDD/UDD based off of the DSM-V, and a few websites that have good general info and resources on those disorders! In addition, I suggest keeping a log of your encounters with them, periods of dissociation, any memory gaps (if applicable), and other things noted in the “symptoms” category below. Hope this helps!

What is a system? (Tumblr Post)

Symptoms, Criteria, and Definitions of DID/OSDD/UDD (Tumblr Post)

did-research.org

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD)

Best of luck nonny!

-Mod Spinosaurus 🦕