#traumagen system

[rustybutterknife]

Microdosing polyamory by dating a system

[thattheater-kid]

Here’s my metaphor for systemhood that I tell my singlet friends.

Imagine you’re playing a first person video game. You have the controller, you control your character. It’s a normal first person game. You are an alter, the character is the body. This is fronting.

Other people live with you. Sometimes, they come into the room and sit and watch while you play. They sometimes try to guide you, give you advice on what to do next. They don’t always agree, and they can argue with each other. Other times they scream at you that you’re doing everything wrong and you suck at this game. This is co-consciousness.

Imagine how distracting it would be for people around you to tell you what to do, or to scream at each other or at you, even if they have good intentions. It wouldn’t be easy to focus on your game, would it?

Then sometimes, something happens in the game that prompts you to hand off the controller to someone else so they can play and you get a break. This is (some types of) switching. This can be good.

Other times, someone rips the controller out of your hand or fights you for it. This is (other types of) switching. And sometimes, six other players hook up their controllers, but there’s only one character to play as. So all of you have your controllers, but you’re all trying to play the same character. This is cofronting.

Imagine how difficult that would be. Imagine how hard it would be to try and play a game while someone is trying to take the controller from you, or while six other people are trying to play too.

There are also times that nobody is playing, or you can’t decide who should play. What’s happening to the character in the game? What are they doing if no one is playing? This is dissociation. The character is doing nothing. They’re stuck.

This is the best metaphor I have come up with for being a system. It’s something a lot of people get because they’ve played games before.

[fetty-fazbear]

“Stop thinking of alters as separate people” this and “alters are each there own different entities that shouldn’t be blended” that

How about we let each system decide what feels best to them and stop policing systems that are already dealing with a very complex and varying disorder

[fleshfictive]

NOT supportive to your system friends:

- "can you make [alter] front?"

- always asking who's fronting

- getting upset when they can't remember something

VERY supportive to your system friends:

- giving them money

- "here's $50 for you"

- relinquishing your money to them

- offering them money

[gor3sigil]

DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT-

[clutching-our-plurals]

Shout out to all the kids who always picked shape-shifting as their hypothetical power growing up and assumed it was for gender affirmation but now realize it was also a plurality thing.

[harrvesting]

When the dissociative identity disorder starts dissociating my identity

[possibly-a-secunit]

[r0ttingsystem]

Being a system is so weird like my mummy and daddy didn't like me so now I'm sans the skeleton

[miskio]

If you grew up constantly apologizing and then apologizing for apologizing and you were/are afraid (or unable) to express your emotions and feelings because it was seen as “manipulative”, or for any reason, I love you and I hope you’re having a good day

[welldrawnfish]

Plurality

[collectivewarmth]

one of the most important things about dissociative identity disorder and generally being a system that i wish people would understand is that it truly isn’t as cut and dry as it may seem for member count.

you’ll see people who say they have “six alters” and then immediately assume it’s six fully fleshed out equal individuals with no confusion or fuzziness regarding identity. that’s simply not true in a majority of cases, as i have seen.

most systems still VERY much deal with confusion regarding potential splits, go through dissociative episodes where they’re unsure of who they are, sometimes feel no attachment towards any identities, feel like they might have split and then suddenly that person is gone, unsure if alters they haven’t heard from often have gone dormant, not sure how to react when alters do come out of dormancy, etc.

it’s not a fun feeling and it’s genuinely unfair in certain situations to force systems to list every single alter to you with full certainty, as if it will never change. because it will. for so many different reasons, systems will grow, they will shrink, they will fuse, they will develop. you can’t expect the person with the dissociative disorder and lack of core identity to be able to keep up a perfected list of forever, it’s simply impossible. you may have alters who stick with you, but that doesn’t mean changes won’t happen.

and systems who may be reading this — please don’t feel bad. you are not a hassle, you are not a headache, and you are not an inconvenience for simply coping with something like this. it’s out of your control and the only thing you can do is continue to cope to find ways to help yourself retrain from these reactions. please don’t allow yourself to be harmed by others who don’t understand what you are going through. there are people who will accept and love you for who you are, all of you.

past, present, and future.

[orbitposting]

DID but not as in presence of "evil murderer alter", DID as in buying two drinks instead of one because someone came to front after seeing a blue raspberry slushie and DEMANDED to have it, but the alter who walked all the way to the gas station refused to leave without getting what they wanted to get initially.

[botanical-garden-system]

Hey, it’s not your fault. You were just a kid. You may still BE a kid. But I know a few things for certain:

You didn’t ask to be born into this world.

You didn’t ask to be treated the way that you were treated—whether it was by bullies, parents, or other family members.

You didn’t ask to “be a burden” to your caregivers, you deserved that space to be loved and safe

You didn’t ask for your consent to be broken.

You didn’t ask for the shame and guilt someone put you through.

You aren’t bad for something happening to you. You aren’t your trauma.

I’m sorry if you were ever made to feel that way, and I know that may never mean much coming from a stranger, but I know it’s something I wish I heard more.

[candyrain-collective]

a comic about my experience with other people's perception of my DID/OSDD. might do more pages in the future? we'll see.

[certified-silly-guy]

Bro doesn’t even know I’m a we