#dissociative identity disorder book

[bunnidid-reviews]

DID book Reviw - Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Facts:

Date of publication: 2008

Fiction or Nonfiction: fiction

Was there a diagnosis of DID? Yes, near the end

Was the person with DID presented as evil for having DID? No, just a flawed and struggling individual

Major trigger warning list:

Alcoholism

Drug use

Incestuous rape by the father (mostly non-explicit but implied enough to be obvious)

Lots more uncomfy incest things (kissing, wanting to see his daughter in attractive clothes/getting changed)

Denial from the mother

CSEM being made (mentioned much later and not very explicit)

Bulimia (lots of binging and purging)

Grooming by a teacher

Inebriated sex with fawning into it

A dubiously consenting BDSM scene? (Nonexplicit)

Self harm

Suicide attempt and idiation

Abusers being in positions of power

There may be more that I’m not remembering. Shits fucked.

Subjective Review(this is how I felt about it)

Personal triggering scale from 1 to 10 (1 being not triggering at all, 10 being a badly overwhelming experience that might cause personal harm): ???5-7? (Unsure if its very triggering or not because of my current sense of being disconnected from most things. Still its def not been the worst/most difficult ive read, and its not explicit)

Personal relatability scale from 1 to 10 (1 being unrelatable, 10 being OMG THAT’S ME!): 6

Personal avoidance scale from 1 to 10(1 being eager to get on with it, 10 being impossible to finish): 3 (extremely easy to just keep reading, part of its probably because of the easy format)

My interpretation of the media(Includes spoilers):

I went into this with trepidation because the cover looks like it would be an edgy triller type of book, so I was half expecting the evil alter trope. This is especially common when its ‘just two’ alters, because the assumptions are made around the ‘split personality’, which is a term thats usually used negatively, associated with evil alters or used as an insult, etc.

And it can sorta seem like that, especially on the surface premise of ‘one of them is ruining their life!!’, which is also how this book seemed the be advertised. Except.. neither of them are trying to ruin their life really, they’re both coping just as poorly as eachother, and surviving just as well as they can. Does that involve self destruction? Majorly, but I read it more as trying to do anything she can to get out of the situation she’s in.

the premise:

Kaeleigh and Raeanne are 16-year-old identical twins, who live the idyllic, picturesque american household: their mother is a politician rising through the ranks, and their father is a judge. They’re both incredibly well-respected and have a lot of reach in their community. Their family looks perfect on the outside..

But is not so pretty just inside. Both parents are alcoholic in their own rights, influencing their daughters to take after them to cope through living together. Mom’s barely home and never wants to be there when she is. And dad.. controls every aspect of their lives through his unpredictable temperament and drunkenness. He’s lonely and pathetic and feels beat down by his cold wife, so the only person he can turn to for comfort is his daughter(s)

Which he does, frequently. He’s been raping Keileigh since she was 9, after a near-fatal car accident that broke her mother’s ability to feel love. Since then he’s been using Keileigh in this sick, twisted way, and controlling her so she’d never get away.

Keileigh and Raeanne’s means of coping are intense, but they’re not as opposite to eachother as it may seem. Keileigh is binging and cutting and shutting down and fawning. She’s in denial and always has a sense of being crushed under the weight of her father’s control.

Raeanne purges and seeks out her vices in getting high and having risky sex with guys who will never love her or treat her right, the more dangerous the better. She fawns just as much as Keileigh actually, just in a more subtle ‘this is what I deserve anyway/it’s too late to say no’ kinda way.

Both of the girls use alcohol and pain medications as a means to get themselves to sleep or get through the day.

As the book goes on, and the election draws near, the intensity and frequency of the abuse is driving Keileigh and Raeanne further and further into their breaking point. They want it all to end already, especially when her mother wins the election and is fully out of the picture, and the grandparents start showing up mysteriously to uncover the past. Something they knew about, something the parents have tried so hard to hide.

It takes Keileigh’s suicide attempt to make Raeanne say enough is enough. She sneaks out to meet with her grandfather on her father’s side to learn the story of what happened to make her father this way. It turned out he’d been the victim of CSEM, and deeply traumatized from the abandonment of his alcoholic mother.

This diddddnt super help her crisis, Raeanne couldn’t have just gone back into it all. She attempts to escape at least mentally with one of her drug hookups Ty, who likes sex rough and forcibly consenting. The drug trip is hitting her badly already when Keighleigh’s boyfriend shows up, mixing her and Raeanne’s world. Everything all together is enough to fracture the heavy wall between the twins, and..

All along they were one person. Raeanne was Keileigh’s twin sister who died in that fateful car crash, and from the trauma of that and being raped so soon after, she split off an introject of her sister to be a step outside herself.

The sisters wake up in the hospital, having to stay until the drugs and the withdrawl wear off safely. She ends up telling the doctor about her symptoms and shes able to get diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

But how do you go home after that? In memories that came back, it turned out that her mother knew all along and intentionally turned a blind eye. Nowhere is safe.

It turned out that the grandmother knew and was scared into silence by the father’s influences. She had witnessed sexual abuse long before the accident, making her turn to alcoholism to try to forget what she saw, to cope. She showed up in the end to make ammends, and Keileigh and Raeanne were able to go home with her.

The ending is bittersweet but hopeful. Six months in, the girls are getting therapy. They have a loving boyfriend who doesn’t know the whole story yet, but he’s endlessly supportive. The father put himself in rehab and basically out of reach of his daughter. The mother works in DC now, shes not really in the picture as much but that’s probably for the better.

-

For a story told in poems, there was so much that was said in so few words. It was really hard-hitting and felt like a realistic approach of what happens when you’re coping with incest, just how much isolation it entails, how much control goes into it.

Like I said before, the sisters are a mess. But she’s also 16 and still getting raped at home, and literally no one was there for her, or at least allowed to be there for her until nearly the end. It’s heartwrenching really, and the whole time I was going Yeah, of course they’re like this, what else can they do?? It hits just very very honestly, and I don’t feel like any of it was written with pure disdain for the victims in the story, even if the tone could be very dry and callous in the point-of-views.

The poetry was really good too. The ‘chapter ends’ where the switches were happening had a very distinct way of formatting it, so there were two poems on opposite pages using some of the same words, with the spaced apart words revealing the truth of what they were both feeling. It was a fun read and very very well executed.

I don’t remember if I’ve read from this author before, but I feel like she handled a story about DID and incest and coping really well. It’s not a light read, but I also couldn’t put it down.

What they got Right in my opinion:

Diagnosis of DID being called Dissociative Identity Disorder

The entire structure of isolation and power dynamics ensuring that incest could happen and not be spoken about felt scarily accurate

Loosing time was not always so black and white it seemed. Of course I’m just going off poems, but theres mentions of what the other twin is doing in reference to themselves (usually in Raeanne’s point of view)

Introjection of a real person felt very correct and not in some weird ‘the ghost of your sister lives within you’ kinda magical bullshit way. She is an introject. They dont use that word specifically but its really obvious

The fawning is so fucking real, man

Keileigh often feeling ‘miles away’ or spacing out frequently

Neither part was better or evil compared to eachother, they were both coping in very messy ways

The thing that got me to notice that it felt more like an alter thing than a sister thing was in this very subtle thing of, when Raeanne found that her ‘sister’ had started self harming, or had a suicide attempt, it wasn’t like.. a normal person’s level of concern like ‘oh my god i could loose my sibling’ as much as it was this almost callous way of treating one’s self the day after deciding to live or having a major self harm episode. Just sigh, clean it up, forcibly make yourself carry on. Am I making any sense? It just felt very much like taking care of yourself vs another person.

The ending not being sunshine and rainbows happy ending, everyone wins. Idk, if you read my review for Pieces of Me, you’ll notice I was pretty upset about the fact that everything worked out extremely well, over the top idyllic. When we all know that healing is actually really messy, its not comfortable, not everyone’s on the same page and not everyone can safely know about the DID always. This felt very real to me

What they got Wrong in my opinion:

I think having full blackouts to the point of having an entirely different life from one another is pretty rare(if its not let me know, ive not heard of this happening much)

Umm I was a little disturbed by one of the healing things she had to go do was apologize to the teacher for leaning into him showing Way Too Much interest in her. The only goddamn reason he didn’t go through with it was because they could be caught?? That is the teachers responsibility, is it not????? Am I being too tumblr??? Am i missing something here???

I did not super understand the logic of Keileigh’s at work but Raeanne is going and doing drugs. How are they doin that, or is she very quick? Just little attempts to hide the big reveal didn’t super make sense to me

Would I reccomend this to someone with DID to read? Yes! But carefully, and keep in mind all the TWs. You might find it very relatable and idk if thats a good thing or not

Just so you know, there is a lot to this book that I didn’t talk about, a lot of little traumas that stacked up into it getting heavier. I just couldn’t possibly write about everything, so bear🧸 in mind if you read it yourself

[thetransfemininereview]

My new essay about the interconnections between transmisogyny and pluralphobia is live right now! It's titled "Transfemininity and Dissociative Identity Disorder: An Undertheorized Intersection," and you can read it here ✨

[subsystems]

About dissociation in childhood, from Treating Adult Survivors of Childhood Emotional Abuse and Neglect (pp. 148-150)

[musingsofacuriousmind]

“The body remembers everything the mind wants to forget.” ― Fiona McPhillips, When We Were Silent

[lefluoritesys]

You can't say "host" without "ho"

-our host

[multiplicity-positivity]

Are there any books you recommend for learning more about systems in general and about being a system?

When it comes to plurality/multiplicity in general, we don’t have any good recommendations for you. But there are a few books about living with and managing dissociative identity disorder that we know of… these books have been on our reading list for a while, but we haven’t actually read any of them yet 😅

That being said, here are the books from our list. Keep in mind they may have discussions of trauma, particularly childhood trauma and abuse. Please keep yourself and your system safe and don’t read anything that may prove to be dangerous or too much for your system to handle!

First Person Plural: My Life As A Multiple by Cameron West

Got Parts? An Insiders Guide to Managing Dissociative Identity Disorder by ATW

Amongst Ourselves: A Self Help Guide to Living with DID

The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization by Onno van der Hart, Ellert R.S. Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele (we actually have read this one. It’s quite dense and has a lot of complex clinical language, but it was really eye opening for us and definitely worth the read imo)

We also have a link to this Google drive which has a few books on living with dissociation and a history of complex trauma (which is often intrinsically linked to dissociative disorders that cause systems to form).

It’s also worth mentioning that some of these books may have out-of-date information about plurality and DID. But we still think they’ll be worth reading, as there likely will be some useful stuff in them, even if some of the info is outdated.

If anyone else has recommendations for books about plurality/multiplicity, please share them! We’d like more books to add to our list, too 😊

[paradoxesofgalaxies]

— The Dissociative Identity Disorder Sourcebook by Deborah Bray Haddock

[image ID: white text on black background

The habitual use of dissociation or switching as a defense is based not only on perceived threats, but also on an individual's perceived ability to cope. Consequently, as your stress level rises, due to present circumstances or triggers related to past trauma, the key issue becomes whether you believe that you have resources available that will allow you to cope. If, at some level, you do not believe you have adequate resources, or if you are triggered at a physiological level, you may begin to switch internal states. (See Figure 9.2.)

Body becomes still or stiff.

Person is slow to respond to others.

Things seem to move in slow motion or fast-forward.

Emotions become flat, numb; no feelings.

Not feeling expected pain.

Out of touch with surroundings.

Drifts off, goes away, spaces out (gets spacey), blanks out, loses track of what's happening.

Stares off into space, blank stare. Downward stare.

Eyes dart anxiously from side to side or roll upward.

Eyes blink rapidly or flutter.

Faraway or dazed look.

Tunes out.

Not involved in present.

Feels like an observer of the present situation, rather than a participant. Inattentive.

Memory lapses.

Fantasies, excessive daydreaming.

Overactivity or withdrawal.

Is on autopilot (automatism behavior); feels like a robot.

Falls asleep. Disoriented.

Misses conversation.

Derealization (people or world do not seem real; feels like a stranger in a familiar place; does not recognize herself in the mirror; world seems like a dream, veiled).

Feels as if one is watching things from outside one's body.

Life split before and after (I'm a different person since the trauma). Twitches or grimaces

Clouds of alertness; foggy feeling (if you're suppressing traumas, you can't focus your thoughts; your mind goes blank).

Unusual, inexplicable behavior (hits the ground when a car backfires; a dependable woman suddenly leaves the house for two days)

Attempts to remain grounded in the present (strokes side of chair, taps, jiggles leg).

Self-soothing (rocks back and forth).

Things look or sound different: colors are faded or brighter, tunnel vision, wide-angle view, sounds are louder or more muffled than expected, things seem far away or unclear and fogged.

Reprinted with permission from The Post- Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook. Copyright 2000.

Figure 9.2 Possible Indications of Dissociation

/end ID]

[purplezombietumbler]

Sorry I've developed a hyperfixation on this D.I.D YouTuber and have watching their shit over and over and over but like:

Imagine Bill didn't die or whatever and still in Stan's head but it became like, a D.I.D situation. He suddenly gets feelings that aren't his like Bill will suddenly remember when killed his dimension and his feelings bleed into Stan's and he's like "woah, where did that come from?" Or he wakes up in places he doesn't remember going to he's like "Lol I'm just old!"

Ford is like "I told you you we were going to the bermuda triangle yesterday, remember?" "You did? I don't remember... weird" and Bill's like "I remember!"

Bill realizes what's going on and he trying to subtlety communicat with Stan by writing on Stans arm when he's fronting things like "I AM STILL HERE!" Stan gets random memories of things that happened but from Bill's prospective. And Stan's just like "Oops must be possed! What's this!?" Than he finds out he's sharing a body with the little Dorito that tried to /kill his family/ and Bill's like "YOU DONT THINK IT'S EASY FOR ME TO BE STUCK IN MY BROTHER IN LAW'S BODY!" And it's just them trying to live as two people.

[surfqueenoftheisles]

DID in the HDM world: Deamons

alter in a polyfragmented system here with questions:

okay so in his dark materials if a deamon is representative of ones soul, when there's a DID system does the system have one deamon who never settles to one form?

do the system have one deamon that is settled into one form but it's different for each adult alter changing only as they switch?

if the latter is true can the deamon shapeshift freely only when a little is in front?

when they're co-con is the deamon a hybrid chimera of the two or more alters who are there?

in that case if an adult is co-con with a little can only half of the deamon shapeshift?

if so is that the front half, the back half, the left half or the right half or just the middle or just the top half (furthest from the ground) or just the bottom half (touching the ground) or some other way???

what if the alters are blending???

or is it that each alter has their own deamon who's out as they are? (most plausible in my opinion)

is it that everyone's deamon is out at all times regardless of who's in front so polyfragmented systems have a zoo of deamons following them everywhere some of which require different terrain (like fish) and some of those deamons can still shapeshift because they belong to the littles???

also which is funnier?????

[clown-cars-blog]

Me if you care

Anyway, I’m taking recommendations for books to read. I’ve been into mental health books for reference. Leave a comment on what I should read, or DM it to me if you’re shy.

~Bec

[bunnidid-reviews]

Tumult: a DID Graphic Novel review

Title: Tumult

Author: John Harris Dunning(writing) and Michael Kennedy(art)

Date of publication: 2018

Fiction or Nonfiction: Fiction

Was there a diagnosis of DID? The character with DID is diagnosed with DID, but the actual process isn't shown

Was the person with DID presented as evil for having DID? Until the very end, yes it's implied that the person with DID is capable of murder

Major trigger warning list:

Cheating

Alcoholism

smoking

Implied drug use

Nonexplicit sexual intercourse (Nothing nonconsenting)

Government-funded organized abuse (MK Ultra and the like? A UK versionnn of it? Sorry I don't know much about this)

Being locked in a dark room as a form of abuse/mind control

Gun violence(nonexplicit)

Stabbing

blood

A dog(alter) attacking (but with angry dog imagery thats pretty creepy)

Evil alter trope

Subjective Review(this is how I felt about it)

Personal triggering scale from 1 to 10 (1 being not triggering at all, 10 being a badly overwhelming experience that might cause personal harm): 3ish?

Personal relatability scale from 1 to 10 (1 being unrelatable, 10 being OMG THAT’S ME!): 2

Personal avoidance scale from 1 to 10(1 being eager to get on with it, 10 being impossible to finish): 6

My interpretation of the media(Includes spoilers):

Hmmmm What do I saw about this

To begin with, the book starts with the main character (Adam, not the one with DID) going into a dissociative episode it seems when he jumps off a cliff into the ocean and injured his leg. It's not entirely clear whether this is something he's gone into before, but he entirely upends his perfectly-normal life with his partner by cheating on her with a woman who stuck around him while he was healing.

Later, he's moved out, he's become an alcoholic and feels so much nothing that he essentially gives up on his job. He's ruined his own life, basically. His best friend points this out that he needs to make a change. (There's plenty of exposition that honestly just bulked up the story and didn't add much, it feels like filling in for context in a memoir, except the context leads to nooothing)

In attempt to socialize, he goes to a friend's party and sleeps with a woman there who's name is Morgan.

Adam considered it an unforgettable night, so when he sees a woman on the street who looks exactly like her, he ends up following her and insisting that she is Morgan, despite multiple denials to his claim. Finally she takes the bait because he's a slightly better option than being harassed in the street by another man trying to convince her she's in danger.

This womans name is Leila. Adam convinces her that he's certain that she's the woman he slept with, and leaves her with his card for contact.

Adam later gets a call from seemingly a little girl, with enough of an inflection in her voice that she sounds very familiar. They meet up in the park, and she introduces herself as Pretty Princess, who's concerned about what's happening around Leila. She tells him that she needs him to look out for her. Adam is perfectly fine with this offer, with a nice little..

"This craziness didn't put me off. If anything, it drew me closer."

Exposition, exposition, Adam quits his job because he's decided to become a thriller movie hero like in Die Hard, putting his energy into Figuring Leila Out.

Adam and Leila meet up again and hit it off better this time. They fuck. We get this lovely description...

"then we were in Leila's bed, and she was shape-shifting. She was girlish, manly, bestial. It was like fucking a barnyard"

Adam hangs around and snoops around her apartment because he woke up without her. He Just has no sense of boundaries almost, bent towards unravelling her mysteries.

Leila meets up with him and starts to explain her DID, only for Adam to intersect and say that he's already met Pretty Princess. He says he doesn't understand but he wants to. Leila, distressed, tells him she's been experiencing blackouts, and it brings out Pretty Princess once again. She tells him that they can no longer be near him now that he knows.

Adam and his friend talk, and they get talking about girls and equating how they see relationships to more thriller moviesssss and thennnnn

A guy shows up, his name is Dave. He was the first one to harass Leila in the street, telling her she's in danger. It turns out she really IS in danger, she was victim to a government-funded mind control program, in which they trained her to be the perfect killer. There just happens to be murders happening left and right, and at the center of it all is Leila's system and a sense of unease. Is she the killer? Is she next on the list? We the readers are left unsure.

As Leila goes to seek help from an old friend who was part of the organization, she finds out that he had suddenly died.

She has no one to turn to, so she turns back to Adam for support.

In a flashback we find out that her mother would lock her in a dark closet for hours at a time as a form of punishment.

In the present, as Adam and Leila are walking, they get mugged. It brings out her biting dog alter in self defense.

In the next scene, we see that the head of the organization apparently had some weirddddd views on religion? that might've influenced how heee wenttt abouttt things, but again, it's never really brought up, only implied. Pretty Princess shows up and tells him she is probably intending to kill him, and he doesn't deny any of her claims about the organization, that they were indeed trying to make the perfect killer.

Except something mysterious.. Happened?

Anyway, they got the confirmation that the conspiracy theories were confirmed and all the 'random' killings are linked.

Insert a scene where we find out that Leila is some sort of escort, and it triggers out another one of her alters, a sultan who threatens to castrate the clientele. At least her coworker seems understanding. (I've heard from my dancer sibling that most fellow sex workers understand dissociation to some degree tbf)

Leila meets up with the program director, who seems genuinely remorseful for what he's done to her. He reveals that he doesn't believe Morgan is capable of the killing that everyone's thinking she is, that he only got into the program because he wanted to study DID

Some stuff, Leila gets kidnapped and it brings out the Grave Digger alter. the person asks a lot about their DID, more than any stranger would know, and they answer honestly. We never really know who kidnapped the system, but we know someone else who was involved in the program is killed directly after.

Leila wakes up, gets a call, and switches with Morgan, who we haven't seen since the night she slept with Adam.

We learn that Morgan was specifically trained to kill, in turn for learning how to control her DID(?). It's revealed that Morgan's never killed anyone while in their training, and implied that she never has since. They have sex and the system disappears from Adam's life.

But hes in too deep and can't take a hint, so Adam stalks theeee doctor from before I think, the one who begged for forgiveness? waiting for his inevitable demise.

It turns out he's been doing the killings so he can sell her as a weapon, and using Morgan as a scapegoat for his crimes by triggering her out every time there's a murder taking place so Leila's system has no choice but to suspect themselves.

Ssssomething happened, since the system was getting locked in the dark as a means of triggering and controlling them, everyone ended up seeeinggg aaaa masss vision? Of some goddess that came to comfort her or something? It's really weird and unclear what exactly happened here, but the governement stopped funding the project because they couldn't believe what was being reported.

Then Morgan kills the doctor, and Adam just happens to be there to sweep her into his arms. In the end, we see that Morgan is an accepted part of the system.

~

I wasn't planning on marrating the entirity of the book, I'm trying to cut down on explaining everything but it's very hard to, sorry. I have a lot of thoughts on this, not a lot positive.

I mean yes, the DID was portrayed fairly well. I don't think the system members were entirely nonsense, they were a mixture of specific and odd enough to be made by a little girl going through trauma. That is to say, Leila and her system aren't really the problem here. I'd actually prefer if the book was more about them

It's just.. Adam. He's.. I don't want to root for him at all, and his interest in the system may have grown into genuine concern, but I have genuine concern for how he's gone about this the entire time. He is blatantly putting his partner on a weird abelist pedestal and doesn't see her as a person in her own right, not really. Just an interesting mystery to unravel, a possible threat, and something to fetishize. I don't often look to other reviews for insight on my own, but I did say that someone else said it was fine, just really weirdly sexist. Because, yeah, it really is.

The story is kind of a slog to get through when it's less than 200 pages also. There's a lot of detail that doesn't fucking matter at all, like a lot of movie references, or caterwauling for 4 pages on how he knows this one guy... We don't actually meet Morgan until halfway through the book, if you can believe it. It's just dense with a lot of stuff I (sorry about this) Don't fucking care about!

I don't know, I came away from this book feeling weirdly objectified for having a disorder.

I also don't understand theeee suddenly Magic thing that apparently happened in the end. It was way out of left field when the rest of the book seemed to be grounded in some sort of reality.

I can't speak on the experience of government-based mind control either, I don't know anything about programming either so I can't really speak on that. It did seem pretty scary that she ended up in this institution by seeking help for her DID, though. I don't feel great about that, I don't know if that happens but it feels like a deterrent to get help.

I don't know. I think I don't like the book. The art style isn't my cup of tea either, so I'm not super fond of it anyway.

If you've read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I don't remember how I end these reviews, but those are my scattered thoughts.

What they got Right in my opinion:

That DID comes from extended, inescapable childhood trauma

All the origins of the alters shown made sense for alters. (the dog coming from feeling cornered, the sultan being an introject from some artwork, etc)

Seeing communication between alters was very nice

Leila feeling as though she was doing fine until looking at her life a little closer was very relatable. As she put it, 'A bug under a rock that's been upturned'

What they got Wrong in my opinion:

Not about DID, but I don't feel like stalking and not taking no as an answer should be rewarded with sex and affection just because the other party is 'concerned' :')

What. was the magic that happened. I do not think that happens when being put through reliving your childhood trauma.

The constant theming about alters being violent and implying one is a killer. even if it was disrobed pretty well in the end, it's not a great feeling throughout and very trope-y

People with DID are just as equal partners to people without and shouldn't be seen as something to fetishize or treat like a puzzle for you to solve, unless explicitly given the okay to.

Would I reccomend this to someone with DID to read? No. I don't feel like this was for someone with DID to read. The intention does not feel like it's made for someone with DID as much as it is a well-researched gimmick for neurotypical people to fetishize.

[wet-canid]

book concept maybe?

i wanna write a book or short story. the basic idea is it's a society similar to our own with stigmatization against disorders. but the like catch is disorders like actually dictate appearances. like eye color, hair color, skin detail color (like freckles, scars, ect ect), blood and general internal organs. probably other stuff too. but like example would be "people with ASPD has maroon skin details" (not the official thing btw).

but its essentially like a group of people who are all friends with some of the most stigmatised disorders fight the bullshit they face to try and fix stigma. people who are neurotypical will likely all have natural features, and color palettes. some disorders will have pity taken on them, or be treated differently, and other stuff ect ect there are also a lot of advertisements with products that claim to hide and or fix the off coloring that comes with disorders also with trauma based disorders the child would start off with natural colors that slowly fade to more out there / the color(s) that is associated with that disorder feel free to list disorders, and the colors / feature you think they would be / effect if that makes sense! i'd love suggestions to help form this idea into something better

[misty1111]

Thank you SO much for these incredible pictures Sarah Rayburn and 11:11 Photography by Sarah. I love how they turned out!!

The first picture is what I’m currently planning to be the cover of my new poetry book The open vault.

I wanted the pose to represent the magician’s pose in the tarot honoring the hermetic principle of correspondence (as above so below) and I wanted to pose topless showing my bare back to represent the vulnerability that I’m expressing in my book. I’m so excited for this book to be finished and available for sale!

I’m still working on recording all 120+ poems of my book for the audio book and have been trying to enjoy the process and not burn myself out. I just finished chapter 34 the other day so I’m steadily making my way through.

This is so exciting! ✨

[musingsofacuriousmind]

“I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.” ― Truman Capote

[furiousgoldfish]

Are everyone's alters super dramatic? Do they all put up a front and play a role that a child would think is intimidating, or funny, or comforting, or evil? Do they all want so much reactions from others, they're willing to overdo it at all times?

Is this happening because alters split in such young age, so the core of their behaviour is forged in a child's mind? Is that why there are so many introjects, characters from children's media that encapsulate concepts and emotions that would make perfect sense to a child? Does anyone's else's inner world look like a child created it? Almost unnecessarily over the top, but extremely expressive, filled with symbolism, atmosphere, subtle signs of what happened to them?

[thrivingwhilemultiple]

Who am I, and what are we doing??

After decades of struggle and stagnation, being diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder in 2013 saved my life and changed my whole world for the better --- now we write about it.

I write what I wish I could've read when I first began this journey. I write what I’ve lived, what I’m learning, and what I think about it. I write to all versions of myself, past, present, and future.

Now I understand. Now I can explain. Now I can say what I couldn’t say before.

Certain juicy tidbits are dropped here, but the real meat is over on our personal website.

Essay are published weekly, centered around one concept, theme, or idea, and crafted to be as non-traumatizing and trigger-free as possible. Topics will be listed in the tags, and reblogs are welcomed.

With more than a hundred original essays on a variety of subjects, TWM also has a helpful Glossary of terms, Library of accredited resources, handy Post Index, and FAQ with the answers to Who, What, When, Why, and more.

This is not a day-by-day diary, nor a generalized or authoritative depiction of DID. I am neither expert nor educator; these are pieces of reflection regarding my own mental health recovery as I understand it.

This is my story, in our own words. This is our Truth.

I'm T.W., we're the Motley, and we are thriving while multiple (dot com!)

P.S. - We write for the stories, not the SEO --- Share, reblog, like, link, subscribe… Help us be heard!

P.P.S - Instagram!