#i should get diagnosed i miss therapy so much

[pekodayz]

​i can’t even feel comfortable in my own skin or identity. can i not defend is that wrong. i feel awful my knuckles hurt. can i be a cute pink kawaii desu fucking gyaru who has other mystery identity plz. i am tired. i wanna have fun too im so so so tired im just gonna cry this world is never gonna change

[misguidedasgardian]

Blurred Lines / Prologue

MASTERLIST

Summary: Your separation with Harwin wasn’t easy, specially with his oldest son hanging around your home 

Warnings: Cursing, cheating, adultery, talks about body shaming, talks about postpartum depression, therapy, Harwin is a c*nt, for reals, like, sorry, I love him, sorry sorry, misogynistic beliefs, body shaming, again, Harwin is not a good person on this… 

Wordcount: X K

Notes: Uff this is a tough one, I never thought I’d write something like this, it quite evolved from Jace’s darkish spicy one shot with Alicent, so it wasn’t really a surprise that it evolved into this actually, jeje well, have fun, and i think that in the future I’ll write the other one too, “the boy next door” muahaha

“She is 21 Harwin! what the fuck is wrong with you!?”

“It just happened!”, Jace looked up, almost rolling his eyes at the back of his skull

“She is the same age as your oldest child!”, you whined

 “I never meant for it to get this far..”

“It’s been happening for three months, Harwin!”, your broken voice made him shiver as he played with a rubber ball against the wall of his room

“We haven’t had sex in forever”, he heard his father said

“Because you…”, he raised his head off of his pillow, wanting to heard what she was supposed to say, but he didn’t hear anything else, “I can’t do this”, Jace smiled wickedly

He knew it was a matter of time before his father screwed up the best thing that ever happened to him, well, after he and his brothers

“What do you mean?”, he asked

“I think you should leave”, you whined

“The boys are sleeping in here”, he said

“Tomorrow they go back to Rhaenyra’s, sleep on the couch”, your voice sounded so broken, the only thing he wanted to do was hug you tightly against his chest 

“We can work through this”, he said, so faintly Jace almost missed it

“No we can’t”

“Think of Aerea, she is only two”

“I wish you had thought of her when you were having an affair with your secretary, of all people Harwin, like, really? that cliché?”

“She was there, when you wouldn’t…”, you said nothing, and Jace, even through the wall of his room, could feel the tension rising in the living room, just next door

You were discussing in shushes, but he could still hear you clearly, and smiled about it 

“Say something”

“What would you like me to say?”

“Yell at me, throw something at my head… something…”, he said

“Your sons and our daughter are sleeping under this roof”, you sounded devastated, but he couldn’t hear tears and sobs, and that made it worse

“We can work through this”, he repeated

“No we can’t”, you said back

“We can go to therapy”, he continued

“Harwin, when I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, you wouldn’t go with me”, Jace opened his eyes widely, “In my worst days, you weren’t there in that sofa with me, but now you are willing to go to fix your own fuck up?”

“Please, it will be different this time”, he whispered 

“Don’t touch me”, and then is when Jace got ready to pounce, if his father didn’t relent, he didn't know what was happening, but if he heard you asking him to release you one more time, he was going to jump his own father

“Please, my love”

“You disgust me Harwin, even thinking about touching you makes my skin crawl”

“I’m still me, I’m the same person you married”, he said

“That man died when you told me you didn’t want to touch me five months after Aerea was born, when you confessed, while drunk, that you couldn’t stand looking at my stretch marks, that my postpartum body disgusted you” 

“I didn’t mean any of those things”

“But you did Harwin, you never fucked me again, not for the lack of trying, it was humiliating”... there was an awful silence, in which, Jace couldn’t believe how the fucking planets were aligning for him, “so exactly what is it that you want to salvage? your second failed marriage? too much humiliation for you?”

“No… I love you”, he heard him say, “I realize now I need help, professional help, let’s get therapy…”

“I don’t want to fight anymore Harwin”, you whispered, Jace had to stuck his head to the wall

“Good, me neither”, he said, relieved

“No, I don’t want to fight anymore, for us”

“You don’t want to fight for us?”, he asked back

“No”, Jace could laugh in relief, as his hopes and dreams were suddenly materializing

While your world was crashing down around you

The worst part? as you admitted you didn’t want to forgive him, that you didn’t want to “work” in fixing something you didn't even break yourself, you saw in your soon to be x-husband, the pain and heartbreak

Harwin had always been so easy to read, his eyes said it all, not that his mouth didn’t. If he was happy you could tell, in the way he talked, and moved, if he had a rough day at work (which he hadn't in the last couple of months), you would have known before he even opened the door, only the slam on his own car door would tell you in what mood he was in, even as he opened the door and stepped in to the house.

And now? he looked completely devastated, as you told him you didn’t want to forgive him, that you didn't want to “work things out”

“You are going to throw it all away?”, he asked

“You did Harwin, when you started to fuck your 21 year-old secretary, of all people”, you whined, “like, really? she could be your daughter”

“I did it because… I was stressed, she was there, we haven’t been… intimate, since a long time”, you where whispering now, your temper had subsided, and it was true, you had your daughter, and Harwin’s kids from his first marriage sleeping in your home, you couldn’t wake them 

“How do you expect me to be intimate with you Harwin?”, you asked, eyes filling with tears of anger and humiliation, “after what you said to me that night?”

“I was drunk”

“Even if you were, actions speak louder than words don’t they? you were the one who rejected me at every turn for the past year, only started fucking me again when you started doing your secretary, its disgusting” 

Your eyes traveled to the papers you had printed, that harlot had the audacity of emailing you texts and conversations between them.

The fact is, that you had grown apart from your husband after Aerea was born, you got into a deep postpartum depression, you didn’t want to leave the house, you had to admit, you let yourself go, and Harwin wasn’t there, he didn’t even believed in therapy, and wouldn’t go with you as much as you had implored him to.

But you found comfort in your daughter, and when she started growing into a beautiful, kind, smart, calm little girl, you wanted to think you flourish again, you began cooking for yourself and Harwin, no more takeout, you stopped wearing sweats, you started moving move, your body slowly coming back to where it was, but it hasn't yet, you had made your peace, he hadn't

Aerea was the perfect little girl, and that did wonders for your deep doubts and PPD.

“Please”, he whispered, grabbing your upper arms, “I can change… I would do anything for you”

“Then give me time”, you begged him, “please, move out, I can’t even dared to look at you right now”, you whispered, releasing myself from his grasp

“I have the kids a week on and off, where am I going to go?”, he said then

“Well, I’ll go, I’ll take Aerea and go to my godmother’s”, you offered, and now he looked panicked

“No, is alright, the kids leave tomorrow, how a week to start sounds?”, he asked, and you barely nodded

“Sleep on the couch”, you asked, “and tell that fucking tart that if she ever contacts me again I will ran her over with my car”

“She and I are not talking anymore”, he said

“Oh good”, you whispered sarcastically

“Please, my love”, he begged again, “I cannot afford to lose you, or Aerea”

“You already lost me Harwin”, you said, not dared to look at him in those eyes that even now could melt you, “And Aerea, well… you won’t, she is a daddy’s girl trough and trough”, there was no smiles, no nothing you couldn’t even look at him in the face

It hurts too damned much

He was your husband, you married when you were 25 and he was 36, now, four years later and a two-year old, it had faded pretty quickly

You were destroyed over this.

You met him, coincidentally, when you started an internship in the company Harwin worked at, you were not his secretary, you were an intern and he was just an executive, he was way older, handsome, so sweet, nice, in a lumberjack kind of way, he was divorced and had three children, little guys who you adored with all your life, well, at least Luke and JOffrey who ere really young when you married Harwin.

 When you got married he insisted you stayed home because he wanted more children, and you obliged, you haven't worked since then, your life revolved around him, your home, and specially your child

But that wasn’t enough for Harwin.

You slept alone, when Aerea woke in the middle of the night, you went and grabbed her, Harwin slept sloppily in the small bed in her room, didn’t even wake, and you brought her to sleep with you, she was calmed almost immediately.

The next day you held her in your arms as you got up and went to make breakfast, Jacaerys, Harwin’s oldest child, he was pushing 21 right now, was behind the kitchen island, making scrambled eggs, he had woken up before you apparently

“Good morning”, he purred

“Good morning Jacey”, you greeted with smile, Aerea threw her chubby arms at him and he smiled warmly, taking his baby sister in his arms

“Good mornin’ mama”, he greeted, you thought he was sweet, he obviously was talking to Aerea, who cling onto him like a Koala

“How do you like your eggs?”, he asked

“Surprise me, I’ll put on some toast and coffee, and juice for Aerea and Joffrey”

“Already got it”, he said, with his head signaling at the table, you smiled

“You are too kind Jace”

It was summer, he was on vacations, and he joined his brothers who were still underage on visiting Harwin every other week, Harwin got a big house for all of you to fit in, and Harwin’s sons were just so kind, it was sweet having them around 

If only you knew what Jace was only thinking that this was going to be his life in a couple of years, of course the baby that he was going to hold was going to be his, and Aerea would be sitting on the table by herself, eating the pancakes his stepdaddy was going to make for her. 

You missed the smug look Jace gave Harwin over the table, as you didn’t even look at him, this was going to be the last family breakfast in a long time…

You also missed the way Jace looked at you and then at his father, he was the only one who knew besides you both, that it was Harwin’s last day with you as well 

“Thank you for everything (y/n)” said Luke sweetly as you said your goodbyes at the door

“You are most welcome sweet Luke, thank YOU for coming”, you kissed him on the cheek and hugged him, you were going to miss him, and Joffrey, who was ten and clinged into you, you kissed the top of his head too

“bye Aerea”, he then kissed his sister on the cheek and then ran back to his car, only Jace was left, he leaned in and kissed you on the cheek, you turned your face for accident, and his lips landed way close to the corner of your lips, but it was probably a mistake

“See you next week”, he said with a shy smile 

“See you”, you whispered and smiled, you didn’t have the nerve to tell him that probably you were not going to see him again…

Aerea waved her hands saying goodbye as the car drove away, you wiped the bitter tears that fell down your cheeks, your chest hurt, your heart breaking, Harwin had sneaked a bag, so he was not coming back, and neither were the boys next week… 

Or that is what you thought…

[dorkydiaz]

i made a short post here referring to my own experiences and wanted to expand on it, you can reblog both of these posts btw. I am only writing this all down because the way some of you have spoken about chris and his decision very much bothers me. trust when i tell you i do not want to completely lay out my trauma on the internet for all of you to read, but if it makes one of you understand why this works, why it is important, then it will have been worth it to me.

When I was 12 my father was diagnosed with frontal temporal dementia. the adults in my family and his doctors decided that it was best for him to be moved to a a full time care facility. The next year, and after hearing, seeing, and understanding my father's condition and where it would go, I, at thirteen years old, made the decision to say goodbye to him, that I did not want to hear about what levels of deterioration he had reached. I wanted to remember him as he was when he remembered me, and all the adventures and fun things we did together.

I made that decision. I made it because it was easier than watching him deteriorate, forget who his sister, his brother, my brother, my mother, and me. And I knew that at twelve and thirteen. It was never a decision I ever thought I would have to make, it wasn't a decision I should've had to make.

Now, the important part, over the next few years my decision was questioned and ignored by the adults in my life and even my brother, some of the questioning I can understand now that I am older, but it should have never reached the level it did. My aunt and uncle would openly discuss his condition over dinner when he came to visit, and I would run away to the restaurant bathroom and cry my eyes out until my mom came to get me. I was forced into visiting him in his care home, which ended with it causing far more harm than good. Only then was my decision somewhat respected, it took me being retraumatized for it to be taken seriously.

Despite all of that, I do not regret that decision.

I can't know how I would be different if none of that happened. But at this point in my live, eleven years and some therapy later, I am fairly certain I would be less traumatized, carry less resentment and anger, if maybe my mom had spoken up at those dinners and made arrangements to get updates without me next to her trying to enjoy my pizza. Had I not had to see my own father forget my name and then have some sort of mini medical emergency. Had my brother heard me in a way only a sibling could.

So, yes, Christopher at thirteen made a indefinite and truly most likely temporary decision to remove himself from an environment where he doesn't fully trust his sole and primary caregiver. He knows his dad loves him, Eddie made that so clear. And it could really be 5 minutes, 5 days, 5 weeks, and so on and so forth until Christopher is ready to come home. And him knowing that Eddie respected his decision and loves him no matter what is what is going to make that time shorter. If he had walked out with his father begging him to stay, to forgive him before he was ready, the chances of him coming back would in my opinion would be far slimmer than the circumstances under which he did leave.

with that i leave you this, "yeah people go away. and it's sad. and it hurts. but you know, not everyone goes away forever. sometimes they come back. and as much as we miss them, that's how happy we are to see them again."

[galaxygirl-katie27]

Vector Redesign

Tap for better quality

Notes under the cut!

-Okay so first of all, I had to finally figure out his nationality, so that it would make sense with the story. Which led me to my headcanon of Vector being Turkish-Persian mixed, with his father being Turkish and his mother being Persian. But ultimately he would be the prince, later king, of Persia. I‘d like to make a full post about this topic specifically later, but in short: His father was the second Turkish prince, so in order to be king himself, he married into the persian royal family, who had no male heir, so he could have his own kingdom. So that later, Vector could jut walk through Türkiye with his army to attack Nasch in Greece, because of his blood-relation to their royal family without any problems.

-To the design. I gave him a ponytail, just to try it out, but I just liked it so much, that I had to stick with it.

-He has big eye bags from Insomnia, because of many nightmares almost every night. He has major PTSD from his past, that sill haunts him.

-He has a tooth gap (where he actually lost a tooth) and many scars and bandaids, because this boy is just always hurt (most of it because of the Ray-Way). I once read a headcanon, that all of Ray`s clumsiness wasn’t even acted, Vector is just like that. He still bumps into all kinds of furniture post-series.

-Also he ruined all his pants at one point because of his clumsiness and because the others (Nasch) don’t want to buy him new ones, he just patched them up himself, and yes he did poke himself with the needle multiple times.

-FRECKLES. No elaboration needed.

-Big father issues. Also no elaboration needed.

-This boy never ties his shoes, which also doesn’t help his clumsiness. Also he wears mismatched shoes, but they match enough for him and he just doesn’t think anyone notices. Everyone notices.

-He is one of the people with the most Trauma. If you ask him how he‘s doing he‘d say: „I take antidepressants.“ And he does! He got them perscribed, after an… incident. I wont go into detail, but I think you can guess what happened. And while most of the barians still don’t exactly like him, they don’t want him to die. He also refuses to go to proper therapy. Yuma is his therapy.

-He also has ADHD, which I think he always had, even in his past life. He got it diagnosed post series, when Yuma talked to him about his ADHD (another headcanon of mine) and Vector just heavily related to many things Yuma said and so he proposed that maybe he should get a diagnose. Which tuned out positive.

-Also he‘s a cat owner. I read so many fics, where he just adopts a cat. It’s mostly to spite Rio, when he came across a little kitten box on the side of the road one day. But he got so attached to it, it‘s his family now. It’s a little white female kitten, who is also deaf and her name is Pestilence, Pesty for short. He is also so good at hiding her. The barians only found out about her like 6 months after Vector got her. There was a massive discussion, but in the end Vector got to keep her. She is now his emotional support cat.

-He also reads a bit, but it only consists of the most cliche, sappy, stereotypical romance stories you can find, to make fun of them.

-His past life redesign is like the biggest redesign up until now, since I researched ancient Persian an Turkish royal robes, because even when he‘s the prince/king of Persia, I think his father would still bring some of his Turkish background into the family.

-And since I made him older again (and tanner, because he was more in the sun in Persia than in Japan) I gave him a little goatee

-Also his robes are red to resemble his father, and how he is slowly turning into him (plus the goatee), but he still has blue in his clothes to resemble and respect his mother. I refuse to believe that he stopped loving her after her death. I think he always continued to love her deep inside and actually still misses her post series. He just doesn’t show it.

[r1poutmygvtz]

longgg ramble/vent/whatever's on my mind, idk man i'm tired and should probably schedule another therapy appointment soon

also this is kinda just all over the place, idk my thoughts are kinda scattered rn for some reason

(tws: mental health talk, sh, suicide attempts, od mention, ed, body issues, weed + alcohol talk, medicine misuse, childhood abuse, pet + family death mentions, possibly more idk if i missed one lmk and i'll tag it and put it up here)

my mental health right now is so fragile i don't understand, like obviously i know i'm depressed, i've been diagnosed for nearly two years now but i should've been much earlier, maybe that's why it got so bad, i don't even remember why i was diagnosed tbh, i think it was my first time back after like a year and a half maybe two years of not being in therapy and obviously a lot of shit happened, in that time that i went without therapy i tried to kms three times, had an alcoholic phase, and got addicted to weed

it was also sometime around my birthday i believe, which would make sense on why i got diagnosed, im always super depressed around my birthday, i mean i was expelled on my 13th, my great grandma died the day after my 14th and the day after that i tried to kms and that was the most traumatizing one and it took me over 2 years to be able to take the meds that i od'd on again without freaking out, i was literally so high i can't even remember my 15th, 4 days before my 16th i graduated (horrible for me, i had a panic attack everyday leading up to it for like 2 weeks straight) and 2 days after that my cat that i had since my 12th birthday died, so there's literally nothing enjoyable about my birthday and it feels more like a curse than anything

anyways, i've been the same since i was like 8 or 9, i was depressed and dreamt/wished i would die or get seriously hurt, maybe i just wanted my dad to care about me for once or maybe i did really just want to die, im not sure, i can't really remember my childhood, my therapist says i most likely have ptsd from the abuse which would explain the memory gaps and dpdr (depersonalization & derealization for those that don't know, the derealization is confirmed by my therapist btw just not the depersonalization but that's probably only because i didn't bring that up)

i think the most fucked up part is the fact it took me 16 years to find out the abuse was also physical, i spent the entire time before that thinking it was only verbal towards me and my siblings but i guess not, also apparently all the times me and my sister went to my neighbors/aunts house was because we were hiding from my dad, i thought we just went over to watch cartoons because we didn't have them at home, idk it was just weird for me to find out 7 years after it stopped, it doesn't really bother me all that much tbh my dad was already dead to me and i've been mostly no contact with him for almost 3 years now

also speaking of me as a kid, that's when a lot of my problems started, i was 9 almost 10 for the dpdr and 8 or 9 when i started hating my body, sh came in later tho i was like 10 or 11 when that started, i actually remember being like 9 and writing down everything i ate on a piece of paper, and when i was 10 i kept a notebook full of what i weighed in the morning and night and would see the difference in it, i also vividly remember asking my mom how many calories were in something from mcdonald's and she told me i was too young to be asking that so i just kinda stopped after that which obviously ended up coming back, i mean just look at my account

anyways yea i just hate how back and forth my mental health is, one day i could be doing great and think i'm amazing and unbelievably pretty and smart and ill try to better myself by getting sober and staying clean, then the next day i'll hate myself and consider going back to taking my meds throughout the day just so i was loopy and hardly able to process anything

tbh i do miss it a lot, i started back when i was heavily addicted to weed and would take my meds when i couldn't smoke, actually i used to take melatonin a bunch throughout the day so i could just pass out if anything happened that i didn't want to deal with (literally anything at all tbf) but that started to not work as well as i wanted so i turned to my meds, i'd take my nightly dose (50mg instead of the 20mg i was supposed to take) at like noon and would be loopy until it was time to actually take it, i didn't do it much tbh, my sisters bf caught on after the third or fourth time because i had just met his family for the first time that day and their dog tried to bite my face apparently and i didn't even react (didn't even realize it happened tbh) and he asked what was up with me and i told him bc i've known him forever, anyways yea he yelled at me to knock it off and went on about how it's gonna kill me if i kept doing it, so i did it like once after that and it's been months since i've done it again

it's kinda funny tho, those meds actually could've killed me regardless, i was supposed to take them three times a day but only really did once at school and i still got a bunch of the more serious side effects because i wasn't supposed to smoke while taking them but obv i did bc i was addicted, like breathing was hard, i nearly fainted all the time, my appetite was nonexistent, my heart was starting to mess up, like i literally thought i had a heart attack one day because the side effects were that bad and my mom and sister started looking up symptoms of POTS because that's what the side effects looked like, anyways i got taken off those months ago but i still have them somewhere and i'm fighting the urge to find and take them just so i have no appetite and so i'll sleep through the day

i think that's really all idk, there's more i was gonna say but i can't really remember plus this is already super long jfc, i don't expect anyone to actually read this, i just wanted it off my chest and i don't really trust talking to many people about this kinda stuff

[satureja13]

The Boys rode through the pouring rain across the Bridge over to Koh Sahpa. And the horses stopped by a stilt house. Jack: "Are we going to stay here? Woah! When I showed Ji Ho the beach after he arrived we saw a stilt house and we talked about how awesome they are and we asked Arturo if we can buy a lot here to build one..." Vlad: "Arturo told us. Kiyoshi, Jeb and I built it to make it up to you. It's not finished yet. You were only supposed to see it later. " (So that was their secret project!) So Kiyoshi built this house. For Jack. (Even Lunatic is stunned ^w^)

So Jeb built this house. For Saiwa. Sai had put all his hopes in that circuit board because he has no idea how he is supposed to look Jeb in the eyes again after they 'agreed' that Sai should give in to a fake relationship with Kiyoshi to bring him back from the tree. Because they thought Kiyoshi is Saiwa's fated mate. But he wasn't. Saiwa stared into nowhere... Before Sai could follow these thoughts further he got distracted by the noise of the singing birds. Why are they so loud? Bird... (They really are so loud here ö.Ö') He has no idea how to go on.

Vlad: "Look after them and try to finish the rest." (Yeah I know. Who would trust crazy Jack with looking after anyone? Usually he is the one they need to look after and care for. But Vlad trusts him. Because he knows the Jack behind his disorders and antics (and the ones who know adult Jack from our other stories know it too :3) And he knows that he can rely on him when it comes to it.) Jack: "You're leaving? What about the Bond?" Vlad: "Jeb and Kiyoshi need me. They are broken too. I will feel it when it's due to charge the Bond."

Jack: "When you feel it Ji Ho already suffers. He has the deeper connection to the Bond. Don't let him beg for it. The intervals are always the same when you don't use it's magic. Just come here in time and do it." Vlad: "Uhm. Ok." Vlad and his foolish pride and reluctance. Luci had been bolder... And Ji Ho often said that he doesn't mind physical intimacy with Vlad.

Then it was time for Vlad to leave - to look after Jeb and Kiyoshi... He is hesitating.

And Jack took Saiwa inside to give them time to get their stuff together. Oh my, after all they already did with each other they still behave like this...

Vlad: "The Bond. I will be back before..." Ji Ho: "Ok."

They held on to each other a bit longer than usual. Maybe the Bond hates it to see them apart or maybe they will miss each other. Who knows?

Vlad left and Ji Ho went inside. Ji Ho: "Oh. He's already sleeping. I hope he changes his mind about Tiny Can. I could really need some help from a therapist. Even if it's only an AI." Jack: "An AI is even better! He knows everything and is always up to date with the latest research and discoveries! He must have scanned countless articles, diagnoses, therapy approaches, research papers... I'm so ready to try it and get stuff fixed in my furry brain."

They sighed and turned around to take in the view. And just across the river there was the stilt house they had admired a few weeks ago. Just the one Kiyoshi, Vlad and Jeb built is so much more beautiful. Because they built it with love 💞

'There's a message in the wild And I'm sending you this signal tonight You don't know how desperate I've become And it looks like I'm losing this fight

In your world I have no meaning Though I'm trying hard to understand And it's my heart that's breaking Down this long distance line tonight

But I ain't missing you at all Since you've been gone away I ain't missing you No matter what I might say'

Missing You - John Waite Link above leads to the MV on youtube

From the Beginning  ~  Underwater Love ~  Latest 🕹️ 'Therapy Game' from the beginning ▶️ here 📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 17-22 ~ 23-28

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for having an alter come out around my friend and making him uncomfortable?

This is going to require some context, so bear with me. I (23M) am diagnosed with DID. My family has been aware of it since I was around 6-7, we figured out exactly what it was around age 13, but I only began being open about it at age 20/21 due to a bad experience the first time I told a friend in my mid teens. This openness has been pretty gradual - I told my partner first, then my college, my counsellors, then some of my closest friends both IRL and online. This included my friend K (28M).

K and I have been friends since I was 14 and he was 19 after meeting via online RP, so a full decade, and we’ve talked pretty much every day since. We’ve met in person a couple of times over the years, though we’re both pretty busy and we live different countries so no more than that. He’s been super supportive of me since I told him, making sure to individually accommodate alters when he encounters them, and gets along in particular with one alter I’ll call E. E is probably the most ‘active’ alter (behind myself if I count), and is usually the one people first meet and speak to most often once they know. He’s very friendly and outgoing, the worst trait he has is that he’s been a little too blunt/unfiltered at times and hurt feelings which is always resolved quickly.

Also relevant to this is another alter, P. He is what’s called a persecutor - essentially an alter that harms the body and/or system in general for whatever reasons they may have. One way he has always done this is by trying to sabotage our friendships/relationships by telling them things I feel or think that I don’t, arguing with them/insulting them, playing on their worries, etc. It’s obviously unacceptable and something we’ve been trying to work on in therapy, but he’s very resistant to changing so it’s not always helpful.

K knows about P and has interacted with him a fair amount.

A while back, I asked K if we could meet up as it had been a while and I missed hanging out. We ended up arranging for us to travel to London together, stay at a hotel for a few days, and watch a musical while we were there. I was a little worried about another alter coming out while I was with him, because we’ve never been together longer than a day and a night, and I wasn’t sure how well he’d take it if a switch happened in person rather than online. I brought it up to him as a concern and he said it was completely fine, that he was prepared for it and wouldn’t be freaked out, etc.

I figured that the most likely alter to appear would be E, which wouldn’t be a big deal because they get along, so I accepted this. P is the only alter who’d potentially cause problems, and he hadn’t been active in several months, minus a couple of brief stints out, and while he was aware of the trip he had expressed zero interest in being part of it.

So cut to London trip. Everything’s going super well, we’re having a lot of fun, musical is great. The night after the musical, we decide to drink together in our hotel room. I have a mega high tolerance, but I know my limits pretty damn well, and I know exactly how much it takes me to get tipsy, Drunk, and black-out gone. I drank no more than usual and distinctly recall feeling completely fine, just a little buzzed and giggly like I usually am.

Flashcut to next morning. Can’t remember shit. Basically feels like I blacked out. I think this is weird because the amount I drank should not have been enough to cause that, but I DID drink and maybe nerves made me overdo it, so although I question it I end up writing it off. I notice K is a little quiet and doesn’t mention going out that day like we were sort of planning to, but I put it down to him being hungover and tired.

For the rest of the trip, everything’s fine. We’re hanging out as usual, he doesn’t act differently, he’s initiating hugs and affection, etc. I go home and see it all as a fun, successful time. We continue to message as normal from there.

Then weeks later, I wake up to a long message from him. The message basically said that while we were drinking on the trip, P had come out and had made him extremely uncomfortable. I asked him if anything had been done or said, and he said nothing in particular, but that knowing it was P made him feel unsafe and that it wasn’t a fun environment anymore. He told me that for the rest of the trip after that he’d been dissociating and feeing unsafe and that he didn’t know if he’s comfortable being my friend at all anymore, let alone meeting me again in person.

I was so caught off-guard that I couldn’t really process it because it felt so sudden to me and I hadn’t picked up on ANYTHING. I apologised Profusely, have been very very guarded around him since to ensure it doesn’t happen again even online as best I can, and I’ve been trying my best to work through it all and try to get more control over things with my psychiatrist.

At the same time however this has really thrown me off-kilter. I feel like I can’t be trusted to go out and do things, maintain friendships, meet people, without being unsafe to be around or having P ruin it. This is a decade-long friendship almost wrecked (and likely irreparably changed) by ONE NIGHT. I’m kicking myself for all the things I could have done differently - avoided the trip, gotten a separate hotel room, not drank - and I feel incredibly guilty and irresponsible, but I also feel so run-down and frustrated and depressed, because I can’t do basic human shit without this ruining it. Part of me is lost because he knew about this being a possibility, and explicitly told me it was fine. But I can’t blame him for reacting badly the first time he’s there for it in person either, especially because it wasn’t someone either of us expected. But am I going to need to go the rest of my life always watching myself around people and never letting my guard down and never letting myself relax or have fun in case a switch happens? I just don’t know. It was the first time in so long I’d just had fun and it resulted in this. It’s basically made me feel like a ticking time bomb and like every relationship I have is at risk of being ruined overnight if I relax at all.

AITA for agreeing to a trip and sharing a room when I knew a switch was a possibility and not taking into account that it could be someone who’d cause issues? Should I have taken more precautions?

What are these acronyms?

[i-promise-i-am-not-on-drugs]

(The good ending we deserve AU: )

— Boris ended up buying an appartement less than 1km away from Hobbie's, and he lives there when he's in NY, which is becoming the norm these days.

— Theo has a key to Boris's appartement (obviously) and he use it when Boris's not here. He likes Boris's appartement. It has a calm and cozy vibe to it, and Boris always had the best blankets anyway. (It feels safe. It feels like home. It feels like Boris's arms around him after he had night terrors, in LA.)

— After Theo and Kitsey officially broke up, she and Tom "started to" date each other. They ended up breaking up not too long after that, as she discovered that Tom was cheating on her and using her for her family's money and her body.

— Pippa and Theo had another talk about their feelings for each others. They agreed on staying good friends, and Theo promised her to try and become friends with Everett. They actually get along pretty well.

— Hobbie convinced Theo to try to see a therapist. The therapist diagnosed him with a huge depression, internalized homophobia, and suicide idealisation. They are working on it, slowly but surely.

— Hobie and Theo are trying to convince Boris to go to therapy too, it isn't going anywhere for now. Boris doesn't like to talk about his problems, and even less having to pay for it.

— Theo is going to detox therapy for drugs and cigarettes. Not for alcohol thought. He recently managed to convince Boris to do it with him.

— Pippa and Boris meet each other by chance in a bar and didn't realize that they where "the one Theo was talking about". They went along pretty well.

Weeks later, they meet again at Hobbie's because Theo wanted them to meet each other, and they went "HEY! I know you!!" and started laughing, and Theo was just so confused.

— Boris came back to NY after a 3 weeks long travel, and while he walked to a bus stop not too far from the airport, he saw a cardboard box with "free" written on it. Of course, he crossed the road to see what was inside the box. And he saw a small white pup, looking at him with it's big and sad brown puppy-eyes. Boris has a soft heart for animals, dogs and cats especially, but this one somehow made him think of Popchyk. And he just couldn't leave this little guy here in the middle of winter, could he?

— Theo loved Popchyk, and he was absolutely devastated when he died. (Of course he was. Popchyk was another living being in Theo's life who missed Boris, and that was a comforting though. Even if he was only a dog.) When Boris entered his appartement with a small puppy in his arms that looked at him with the same look Popper used to have, Theo couldn't help but feel like his little gay-looking dog came back to life, somehow.

— They agreed to name the pup Popchyk Jr., in honor and memory of Popchyk.

— Boris and Theo's relationship is... Complicated, to say at least. They pretty much live together, they have a dog, they sleep in the same bed. They like to cuddle while reading, watching the TV or just talking. They cook, eat, and do the dishes together, and they split the chores. They also have sex together sometime, and they kiss. Just because they can.

But they don't talk about the implications of any of that.

And maybe they should.

But for now, it's fine. They're both happy with how things are between them.

(Maybe one day, they will have enough courage and mental stability to put words on what they are. And maybe, these words will be "life partner", or even "soulmate". Not today, and probably not tomorrow either. But one day. They will.)

[capcavan]

can i ask about how many ways can a raven break (if thats one of the thing u can ask was a bit confused)

its one we really hope to turn into a fic we have a friend who is very excited for it (and is also our sensitivity reader) riko joins foxes and as part of his therapy with abby he keeps a journal where he writes long thought spirals any time he is anxious so that then he can consider whatever or not he wants to show it to Abby or not, the journal is here to help him keep his thoughts a bit more organized. At some point Riko notices new notes in the journal notes in German (his notes are always in Japanese) as well as doodles and drawings. this agitates him. he is aware that andrew is the only person reading his journal which he passively allows but after the notes started appearing he started hiding the journal. this leads to andrew growing suspicious, when few days later riko catches him going through journal he had hidden they get in a fightt (riko punches him all of sudden something that somehow never happened before). one thing leads to another and over course of following therapy with new therapist as bee was not qualified enough to diagnose him Riko is diagnosed with dissociative personality disorder (all parts of system refer to themselves as Riko but they do have nicknames they use as well) There is "Fox" (you can think about him as all my cute fox riko headcannosn and arts very energetic and full of life very fannon kind of riko)- Riko after joining the foxes, he is much more open in showing his emotions he is actually based on the rp "quarterhouse/roadkill" he dates renee aaron and kevin , genuinely loves life and is very unhappy when he finds out details of his condition - he feels extremally possessive of the body and time he has which leads to frustration towards other alters and fear that their actions might fuck up his already complicated life "Raven" (much closer to canon riko or even fandom riko - evil brody mad bad) - Raven was the first fronter and keeps most of memories from nest, this is why fox himself did not remember much form before joining foxes, raven hates fronting now, he misses nest he hates fox tower hates the foxes , his pride is still not healed, he does snot feel safe or accepted around them, he is nyctophile and still gets triggered into fronting any time its perfectly dark (when foxes figure that out there is some teasing happening about it which he despises) as well as when it rains. Raven loves kevin and feels posessive over jean and does not see reason why renee and aaron should be part of that. is the one who broke jean "captain" possibly riko's first split - captain is on the court and takes care of all things exy, he will become good friends with neil who will be the only reason captain starts fronting outside of games- just to chat about exy. captain is also not convinced about need for relationship with renee and aaron as he sees both to be mediocre players and he is straight (all of this plays a lot into aarons relationship insecurities and makes fox miserable and resentful of his alters). captain is very frustrated to find out he is not a captain any more and is pretty damn hurt over not being a captain anymore it is bit of crisis for him considering the title was core of his personality as far as he rememberer. later on riko get title of co captain <3 is very confused as to why jean can not play "King" - trauma holder, specifically physical abuse , hates fronting because feels phantom pains constantly "Princes" - a split made to help King cope with the psychological part of the abuse, princess is regressed little girl who just wants to be loved and cared for, jean is her knight and she can NOT find out who hurt him , it would break her

there is also danny who is split from one of riko's most constant abusers he does not front just provides bad vibes and keeps them on edge psyhologically fun stuff i love about it: Kevin absolutely can not deal with the fact that he is not the favourite person of all rikos fox woudl prefer not to choose but renee was his girlfriend before kevin became his boyfriend again raven sees kevin as his everything so this checks out captain also likes kevin but he end sup pretty taken by neils approach to the game over time princess loves jean and renee and idk she doe snot give a fuck about exy so can kevin shut up about it? (jean is delighted) king does not like anyone i don't think kevin should want to be dannys fave luckily nobody other than riko knows about danny anyway there's actually .. a lot of lore for this technically the ship is riko/renee/aaron/jean/kevin the same way like in quarterhouse but fox unlike raven feels embarrassment and shame for pact actions and doe snot feel even allowed to look at the man

[notexactlyrocketscience]

Mini “Should I consider whether I may actually have ADHD?” masterpost:

“The lost girls: ‘Chaotic and curious, women with ADHD all have missed red flags that haunt us’ ” by Noelle Faulkner for The Guardian

“The Lost Girls of ADHD: Getting diagnosed as an adult hasn’t been the relief I thought it would be” by Kara Eva Schlegl for Human Thoughts

“ADHD Is Different for Women” by Maria Yagoda for The Atlantic

“Failing at Normal: An ADHD Success Story” by Jessica McCabe for TEDx

“Should You Be Assessed for ADHD?” by Dr Stephen Humphries for Harley Therapy

Bonus: “The Results of My Brain Scan” by Laura Clery

There are a growing number of similar articles and resources that you can easily look up now, but the above list, starting with the first article (shared by a woman of colour friend with ADHD), is how I dove headfirst into a rabbit hole in January 2021 that's become a years-long journey.

I grew out of my selective mutism and into an incredibly organised student as a teenager, but my productivity and focus quickly went downhill halfway through twelfth grade before I took my IALs.

The first time I considered having ADHD was in August 2019, during my freshman year in university. After a friend (who grew up with far more prominent mental health struggles, including depression and anxiety that affected her grades) shut me down saying I was probably just “demotivated” instead, I quickly dispelled the thought. I didn’t want to be yet another neurotypical person trying to use mental health issues as an excuse for my laziness. I grew up with crippling, alienating social anxiety, and it had gotten worse with my move to the US for university—I wondered if I might have autism; I had always been so different from other kids. But I didn’t get a high probability on the free quizzes on the internet, and that had been the end of that.

I didn’t know at the time what masking was, and how ADHD and autism symptoms can overlap—how the two are often mistaken for one another. I didn’t know that ADHD can present differently in women and people of colour because of the environment we grow up in, and because of how we have been excluded from medical research from the moment of its discovery.

In Bangladesh, we’re expected to grow out of our neurodivergence, which is euphemised as personality quirks. There is a great stigma around having children with disabilities, and around mental healthcare in general, so parents often live in denial about their neurodivergent children. There is a very stereotypical view of how a child or adult with autism is supposed to appear, and about the occasional “hyper little boys” that will usually grow up to become quiet, calm, mature and shy. Girls are raised in an extremely regulated, structured environment with high expectations. We begin developing masking skills from the moment we develop a sense of gender.

If you are struggling to understand yourself, look up your symptoms. Do a deep dive. Ask your friends—multiple friends. Trust your instincts. Be patient and forgiving of yourself. There is so much more dimension to mental health and neurodivergence that may not be well-known within your community. There is light at the end of the tunnel, I promise.

[epithet-beloved]

hihi um. i love the platonic sylvie imagines here,, could i request autistic sylvie hcs and/or sylvie with a reader his age whos special interest is also psychology…….

AUTISTIC SYLVIE THOUGHTS!

synopsis… Autistic traits Sylvie exhibits, and how he bonded with someone with a similar special interest!

ft. Sylvester “Sylvie” Ashling, Molly Blyndeff (mentioned)

tags… fluff, autism headcanon, i don't know anything about psychology save for basics oops

word count… 728

a/n… uhmmmm hiiii do you guys remember us… being an adult is difficult guys why do we do it. anyway. autism. i am not OFFICIALLY diagnosed myself (to which my friend immediately went "you were stimming so hard at the movie today bffr"), but i suspect i am and i also relate to sylvie so a good bit of this is projection ✧ 🦝

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Lovingly, have you seen this kid?

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 It goes without saying that no one in Epithet Erased is neurotypical but we’re not here to discuss that today.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Sylvie was diagnosed fairly early in life, some amount of time before he jumped a few grades.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 He doesn’t really like acknowledging his diagnosis.  Unfortunately, upon getting diagnosed, the most exposure he had to autism was his uncle, and characters that fit the "genius" stereotype on TV.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 So, of course, Sylvie absorbed the pretentiousness from these sources trying to learn about himself.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Like, is it not just canon that he uses the “neurodivergent and a minor” excuse to everything online?

“Huh–?”  Molly blinks at Sylvie’s phone screen, opened on social media, but the way he chose to phrase the reply…  “Sylvie, I-I don’t think you should say that sort of thing!” ��I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor.  This ‘adult’ is the one arguing with ME!”  Sylvie defends himself with a huff, missing the way Molly gives him a look that’s a mix between disappointment and disbelief. Isn’t Sylvie always the one saying he isn’t a kid?

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Sylvie didn’t really have a lot of friends as a child, considering how he tends to act around others.  Pretentious and defensive – it’s hard to get through to the Sylvie that’s more vulnerable and actually nice.  He’s mostly in environments of predominantly neurotypical people, and he finds himself in conflict of whether he should mask or not.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 He finds his stims embarrassing for example.  His most common ones are fiddling with and pushing up his glasses, pacing, talking to himself, and messing with his hair.  He also flaps his hands when excited but tries to stop himself from doing so, calling it ‘childish.’

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 His biggest stim of all?  Playing with his yo-yo.  It’s also a comfort item.  When commuting places or even just needing to do something with his hands, he’ll find himself using his yo-yo.  He tries to say he wouldn’t die without it, but he’s definitely more tense if he can’t use it.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 His special interests include psychology (duh) and epithets.  Things he can study.  However, he has a hyperfixation on card games that comes and goes when it feels like it.  Sylvie can be really distracted by games like Horizontal Pilot Command, so much that he can procrastinate on work, making him feel bad about it afterwards.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Meltdowns are “shamefully” common for Sylvie, and he needs a lot of time to ground himself.  He usually keeps to his room and uses his sheep to rest on or surround himself with.  The fluff is therapy sometimes.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 So socially, Sylvie struggles, it’s true.  He knows it, but a little worm of denial in his head tries to say it’s because he’s superior to these people, or something like that.  So, meeting someone who's similar to him means the world.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Sylvie with low empathy, and a friend who has high empathy?  Dynamic duo.  Sylvie can wonder if he’s just a jerk due to his low empathy, and he can seek reassurance for it.  A friend can help him feel less like a terrible person.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 His favourite joke is when someone asks him for something, he goes “no,” while doing exactly as asked.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Sylvester meeting someone with a psychology special interest?  He’s in literal heaven.  Two little nerds keep talking about things that make even full grown adults feel dizzy listening to.

“Ah, like Pavlov,” you say with a nod when Sylvie finishes his study help suggestion.  The chocolate in hand is an incentive to finish the page you’re scouring through. Sylvie perks up.  “Well, yeah!�� Behaviourism is really important in Pavlov’s theory.  The more a behaviour is repeated, the more it affects the mind.” “Mhm!  Although I do like B. F. Skinner’s suggestion too,” comes your reply, and Sylvie feels his jaw fall slack at the fact you even know his name.  “Stimulus first, then response, then reinforce that response.” “Exactly!”  Sylvie sits up, louder than you ever heard him.  The study session was quickly brushed aside in favour for now bringing up the founders of behaviourism.

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪 Sylvie doesn’t know anyone else his age with his diagnosis, so it really opens his eyes being with you.  And, not to mention, he finally has a friend who really gets him.  Where would he be without you, eh?  Or, so he jokes, but you can tell he’s serious.

[fierceawakening]

I feel a bit afraid to even post this, for fear of someone else lashing out at me for questioning received wisdom but I still kind of feel like people are so invested in explaining their point of view (which I’m already saying is valid) that they’re missing part of mine

And that is that for me, part of my trauma is that I was both physically violated AND physically altered. And also I’m afab, and very often girls and women bear the brunt of purity culture in ways men and boys… definitely can but I’m not sure they always do.

And what purity culture says to little girls is that their worth is in their… well purity. Their innocence. That’s what’s beautiful and lovable about them.

So what happened to me… at least as I experienced it, I felt it stole my innocence. Destroyed my purity. I was still a virgin, but I’d kept a tight lid on any interest in anything dark or sinister or anything like that (and it turned out there was a lot to keep a lid on.)

After my trauma I was so angry and disillusioned I couldn’t do that any more. I got angry. I got cynical. I got bitter.

Which is all understandable. But here’s the kicker: I felt bad about it. Like a monster. Damaged and broken.

I kept getting diagnoses of situational depression. I’d get talk therapy until I felt a little better and then it would end and I’d need it again, later, like clockwork. It didn’t dawn on me that this indicated a chronic problem, not clearly enough for me to say “let’s look at diagnoses that include recurrence.”

In grad school, I read the book Trauma and Recovery which is an in depth look at PTSD, mostly as suffered by women who were raped or sexually abused.

In it, the women described my deep feelings of having been defiled so well it was eerie. They talked about feeling like there was dirt or oil or mud or sludge way down in their soul, where they couldn’t remove it.

That it made them fundamentally unclean in ways other people weren’t. Dirtied deep down, in ways that would forever separate them from other people who hadn’t been polluted.

Which is how I felt and still feel when things get bad, and what makes me feel suicidal. I can never be clean again, so I’m fundamentally unworthy, so I need to die and get it over with already.

Trying to frame it as that I’m still clean, or that the dirty one is the perpetrator(s), may work for other people, and I wish them the best. But trying to reframe it that way has never worked for me personally. As I said my body is literally altered surgically. I can’t avoid that something changed.

So what has worked to help me feel less like I don’t deserve to live?

Seeing the new thing that was created as worthwhile rather than poisoned.

Because of that, I get a lot of reassurance out of monster stories, especially ones where the monster isn’t fundamentally evil, just threatened and lashing out, or confused, or a child that doesn’t know its own strength or the like.

Which overlaps A LOT with “what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

It’s not quite the same but it’s a cousin concept, a sibling. “You tried to kill me. You really should have finished the job.”

So when I see people say “don’t tell me I’m stronger now, I get to be the judge of that thank you very much,” that version I get.

But when I see “the idea that I’m stronger now is bullshit, all I did was break,” that one twigs me.

Because it pulls me back to the broken doll oozing ichor. Nothing new came out of this. Nothing brave. That’s just a demon trying to justify continuing to exist, when deep down it knows all it is is pollution.

I make these posts not to tell people that they need to see themselves as stronger. I don’t know how they should heal. They know that.

I make them to remind people that there are a lot of different ways to reconstruct a self, and that it’s easy to overstep if you generalize too much.

[ladyseidr]

So, as you may know from his muse page, Rory has ( obviously undiagnosed ) ADHD. I wanted to delve more into this ( and project some of my ADHD onto him lmaooo ).

so, we'll start heavier and then move on to the mostly lighter stuff: yes, his ADHD is disabling. no, he does not know that. yes, he's thinks he's just lazy and stupid ( he's not </3 ).

no, his would-be-shitty-no-matter-what parents do not help the above, although his mom's emotional abuse / judgment actually gives him the bigger complex abt it

he does struggle academically despite the fact that, talking to him about his interests / stuff he's knowledgeable about, he clearly comes across intelligent. he struggles with focus, some memory issues, plus general test anxiety despite claiming to not care about school. he hears a lot of "try harder" despite, like, actually putting effort in for many years of his schooling.

he graduates high school, barely ( as in, highly considered dropping out for 101 reason, including the ADHD ). no, he doesn't even consider college.

the combination of untreated ADHD, C-PTSD, and definitely an ( un ) healthy dose of depression make it hard for him to work "traditional jobs," so he does mostly odd jobs. at some point after getting his own place, i def think he starts diving into his art a little more. can aspen write a muse who isn't a creative? tune in next time to find out.

unrelated, but i am serious about the band idea. about him joining some local, semi-decent band as a singer.

ANYWAY some lighter stuff now: guy who always has one major ( months and months long ) and one minor ( 1-2 weeks ) hyperfixation going on at all times.

his common types of hyperfixations tend to be: specific comic book series or characters, specific bands, D&D, video games, and so forth.

he does get pulled back to previous hyperfixations sometimes, especially favorite characters ( like batg.irl, green ar.row, nightc.rawler, spid.er-man, etc )

please let him infodump at you. please let your muse find it endearing when he talks for 30 minutes straight about the latest Batm.an series. or about his new spray paint. or about anything.

btw i'm adding this just to be petty because i brought up comics but i promise you he called in and voted for jason not to die. i think older rory read "Under the H.ood" and felt the most validation he'd ever felt in his life. this isn't even fn.af-related anymore, let me get mad about D.C for a second—

( actually let's be real rory relating to jason big time is Real and Canon to me. anyway hayla, if you're reading this—)

sometimes his brain moves faster than his mouth and he literally can't say what he wants to say fast enough to get it out coherently ( real real real ).

he does miss social cues sometimes, but how much of that is ADHD vs him just not being properly socialized prior to school is debatable. pre-bite, he's able to laugh it off when someone calls him on it.

projecting big time but i think he should be a rocker ( as a stim ). if he's sitting down, he's probably rocking or bouncing his leg or something. if he's standing, he's shifting foot-to-foot constantly. that's not to say he can never be still, but he stims quite a lot. it's not always ( or even often ) a sign of nerves, he just gets restless.

in fact, honestly a lot of his idle behavior can scream "nervous" if you don't realize he's simply restless.

his recklessness is honestly not something i'd attribute to his ADHD. he has little care for his own safety, but i think that's a lot broader then ( or even wholly unrelated to ) his ADHD

does he ever get diagnosed? it's probably well into his 30s before he can even be convinced to try therapy, but yeah, i think eventually he gets diagnosed and tbh i think he probably cried the first time he read the, like, symptoms of it and realized it fit him. also when he gets on medication. this is supposed to be a happy bullet point but AGH </3

anyway rory infodumping at your muse starter call when?

[justanothersyscourse]

Hey, I have a limited understanding of Did/OSDD, but if I’m not mistaken, many people do not even realize that they have it until it is diagnosed.

How does a person not realize that they have alters? I understand the memory loss, but isn’t it bound to be found out at some point? When do the alters get their names? Because, I’d think they had the names all along, but ofc if you don’t know there’s a alter then you can’t find out their name. If a system has lapses in memory depending on what alter is “taking the wheel” how is it possible to get to know your alters? Or is it not?

That is correct-- many people don't realize they're a system until they're diagnosed, but there are good reasons and with the age of the internet, that's quickly changing. Already, clinical and research texts are beginning to discuss the societal growth that helps people realize sooner, but let's go over how it's possible.

Before there were readily accessible system spaces and information online (and it still happens, and will continue to happen for many people) it was extremely common for people to misattribute their symptoms and explain them away as something else. The brain loves doing that. There are people that have gone their entire lives never realizing it, just explaining one thing away after another.

A huge part of DID is "amnesia for amnesia", so people don't realize they're missing time. I've found that many people I've spoken to, and the doctors I've worked with, say that in most cases alters aren't distinct prior to therapy, and it's more common for alters to be very similar to the host. It's not until you start working with those parts that they gain more substance. Before that, they're... almost like personified emotions that come out for quick periods of time, do a thing, and go back.

People usually don't realize it's even happened until someone else points it out to them. An example for myself was throwing a drink at someone after they said something stupid and then leaving. The next day someone asked what had happened and I was like, "HUH, weird, I don't remember, must have had too much to drink, I should probably look into anger management classes," and then I never did and I moved on with my life.

I know now that was an alter, and they have a pretty clear memory of that night, despite not being... Fully formed? At the time, they didn't care what their name was, they weren't thinking of who they were and what their past was-- they were triggered, they were mad, they did the thing and went home with only a vague idea of who's home that was and how to get there.

Other alters I envisioned as fully separate people. My oldest alter was the parent I always wanted and needed, and they were my little secret, they came at night and tucked me in and gave me advice. I eventually explained it away as an imaginary friend and they stopped coming around, but I'd still have these moments of, "I bet X would tell me this," but it was really X telling me that, and I was like, man, I sure talk to myself a lot.

Others were introjects that formed with names and backstories already that mirrored my experiences, but I thought they were daydreams, or I was role playing.

These are extremely common experiences, and if it wasn't for a very traumatic event, I probably might have never realized there was a problem. Not all of my "amnesia" moments were pointed out to me, I genuinely thought it wasn't as bad as it was.

After the event, I became slightly more aware of the alters and the memory problems, but it was still another year before I finally got into therapy. That was the next problem. Most doctors aren't trained in DDs, let alone DID. I went through the usual steps of misdiagnosis and trying out different medications before I finally found myself with a doctor that picked up on it. That was pure luck, and most people won't be so lucky.

Once we started working on building communication with the alters, THAT was when they started to grow as people and had more thoughts beyond, "I'm triggered". Many had or chose names that were significant, even if I didn't realize it. Sara was my best friend in grade school, and it wasn't until years later that I realized the connection. She had picked a name of someone that had been important to us during a bad time in our lives, unrelated to when she had formed.

Her "backstory" only started to grow as we dug into memories of when and why she had formed. She was a prostitute who loved her job and the power it gave her, because what better way to combat the feelings of helplessness. She was from America, unrelated to the people doing things to her, because it wasn't incest if she wasn't related to the perpetrator. She was of legal age, because yes.

Before therapy and before fostering communication, she might have had a vague idea of those things, but it was nothing solid. Little wisps of ideas that helped to make it hurt less. If she had been caught out and questioned prior to all of this, she herself might have just dissociated into oblivion and kicked out a different alter-- most likely the oldest one, the only one with any really substance, who would explain everything away to keep us safe and hidden.

Because that's the thing-- they don't want to be found out. The system usually doesn't want to be discovered.

With the growth of the internet, it's so much easier to find information on what you might be experiencing, and once you get the idea in your head, it's possible to work through it and gain some of that awareness prior to therapy. Clinical practice will change and adjust to account for this, and it'll get more and more common as time goes on.

My experience was pretty commonplace for the time, though. System spaces weren't available or accessible, and MPD/DID wasn't mainstream enough for me to be like, "huh". If all of it was only happening to me now, I don't think I'd find any use in those spaces due to my age and the ages of people usually accessing those spaces, so I probably would have brushed the possibility off, especially if I ended up in endogenic spaces.

So there you go, common reasons how/why people don't realize it, and might never realize it.

[genderqueerpositivity]

I'm neurodivergent, very neurodivergent, but I didn't always understand that.

Figuring out that I'm autistic at 18 years old changed my perspective on everything that I had experienced up to that point. I quite literally spent the next few years afterwards re-processing my memories. There were so many moments where I'd struggled socially without understanding why, meltdowns mistaken for panic attacks, and so many times when I'd been in actual physical pain from sensory input while everyone else around me had been absolutely fine.

I also went through a process of dealing with feeling like I'd been let down by everyone who should have cared about me. Surely someone must've seen how badly I struggled at times. If the people who bullied me could tell I was different, shouldn't my parents and teachers have been able to tell too? Did they somehow not realize? Or did they know and simply not care?

I had some really difficult conversations with people in my life, some with disappointing outcomes. I read a lot of books and blogs, watched a ton of videos, reached out to autistic community.

In the 12 years since, autistic and neurodivergent have become not only words to explain my differences, but parts of my identity. They're tools that I can use to better understand myself, to express my experiences, to seek out community, and to seek out ways of essentially accommodating my own needs.

Although I failed to find someone capable of formally diagnosing an adult when I initially tried (at the time, I lived in a rural area with few resources), I have since received some professional confirmation that I'm autistic.

Last year, a different "professional" (who had known me, at that point, for all of 8 minutes) that I ended up seeing in a state of crisis told me "You don't seem autistic to me" and immediately gave me a very different diagnosis. One that--after going back to therapy and doing much research--I've come to reject.

I went through a stage of processing that incorrect diagnosis. I went to appointments, I did the reading, I even spent some time wondering if I was in denial or dealing with internalized ableism. And I hate to use a puzzle piece analogy, but in the end I felt like the pieces simply didn't fit and my therapist agreed.

Instead, I'm now dealing with a different possible diagnosis. The more I read and the more I process things, the more obvious it feels. And I keep wondering how I missed it for so long, for a lot of reasons. Including the shared traits with autism AND having a sibling with the diagnosis???

I'm currently waiting to hear back on a referral (for the third time) to hopefully see about getting diagnosed, so we'll see what happens with that.

And until then the processing continues.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Good morning! Any advice for alters who just. are not being included in the system?

I didn't know I was a system until very recently. I have massive missing memory patches. I know I was formed due to trauma, but I have absolutely no recollection of the trauma or of forming. I don't experience that feeling of alters in my head. I don't front for months, and then I'll suddenly be shoved to the front and get frontstuck.

Very recently, I found out from a friend (as in other alters made a friend) that I am a system in the first place.

I don't know what's going on. Did I do something wrong? Why doesn't my system talk to me?

Ah, hi… we are so sorry to hear you’ve been struggling lately. Learning that you’re part of a system is a major discovery, and as a trauma-formed system, you may find many aspects of your plurality that are frustrating or downright scary, especially at first.

Our best, most pressing advice to you would be to speak to a therapist about this. A good therapist can help you learn to work together with your system, access each other, and eventually process harmful, traumatic memories. Doing this sort of work on your own could be incredibly challenging, so trying to access therapy would likely benefit you a lot here.

We know that not everyone can access a good therapist, though. So here’s some of what we understand about dissociative disorders, which may help you.

In a complex dissociative disorder like DID, alters are kept separate from each other due to dissociative barriers. For us it feels like a soundproof, reinforced wall between some of us that can’t be broken or bypassed. These barriers protected us as a child from the painful, traumatic memories held by other alters. That coping mechanism of dissociating from certain memories and blocking them off which helped us survive as a child, lasted into our adulthood, even if we are in a safe place and don’t need to be blocked off from each other anymore.

We’ve been able to make progress lowering dissociative barriers and learning more about each other through therapy and lots of hard work and patience on our own. The rest of your system likely isn’t talking to you because they literally can’t - some of your members may not even know that you exist. You didn’t do anything wrong! This is the nature of disorders with dissociative barriers and amnesia.

Of course, we don’t know for sure if you have a complex dissociative disorder, and we’re not here to diagnose you. But you can learn more about these disorders in the CDD section of our resource post, which aims to serve as a jumping off point for systems interested in learning more.

In that post ^ we have also linked a previous post of ours on establishing contact with headmates, which might also be useful for you. It’s important to remember, though, not to rush yourself or put too much pressure on yourself or your system to learn more about each other initially. Discovering your system can be a very lengthy process, and it’s definitely not one that should be sped through without taking proper precautions.

We hope this helps, even if just a little bit! And again, therapy would probably benefit your whole system a lot here. Regardless, we’re wishing you the very best!