#we have an AM introject and AM does actually act like that (it/they/AM for AM please)

[phantasia-system]

I did a funny. Original image also under the cut. (Eyestrain warning) -Magnus

[sinister-system6]

Intro post!

This is now a blog for my ENTIRE system!

(image is to represent us, all pics taken from Pinterest)

Hi, if you don't know us, our body's name is Hunter, we usually introduce ourselves as a trans woman, but we do have some male alters.

I, the one writing this, am called Lillian, I am the host and also a persecutor which is an interesting combination to have. In this post, I will introduce the alters in my system and also let them speak for themselves if they wish to.

To start, there's Alex

Alex is a butch sapphic muscle mommy, she is blonde and has a side shaved hair with a ponytail. She is sad most of the time and longs for someone to love. She is a huge dork and loves love. She also used to be a host, but was demoted once I showed up. Sorry not sorry. She is also a really good musician and producer.

There'a Alisson, who's a femboy. He is our most sexual alter and usually fronts in sexual moments because (and this is how he describes himself) he is a cockdrunk slut. He is a trauma holder to an event that happend especifically to him.

There's Allister, who says he's a demon from the depths of hell. He is funny and an ageslider from 16 to 21, and stole his name from the Pokemon SwSh ghost-type gym leader. The first time he showed up, Alex was trying to sleep and he kept trying to talk to everyone in the headspace. He also has really strong echolalia.

Ash is our protector, our caretaker. He is currently questioning his entire existance because he believed to be AroAce, but started to have bisexual thoughts and impulses. He sees himself as an eboy sadboy kinda person, but is actually the (metally) oldest alter in here. He is one of the 3 alters who has full access to past memories.

Violet is an 8 year old girl who is such a cutiepie. She loves legos and is deeply anxious and depressed. She doesn't like to front that much but anyone who might be fronting is able to feel her feelings too. She likes to draw and paint, and she is one of the 3 alters who has full access to past memories

Ryan is a fictive, an introject based off of Ryan Wilder NOT from Batwoman, but from her evil version Red Death from The Flash CW. She doesn't front much nor does she talk in the headspace, so we don't know much about her.

Evelyn/Eva is an alter who is permanetly stuck in a PMT state. She cries a lot and is deeply emotional. She has a sever fear of abandonment and trust issues due to our ex girlfriend. She showed up during a mental breakdown we had during a PMT crisis, alongside with Ryan.

Monika is a sweetheart and NOT a fictive from DDLC. She loves life and the world and everyone. She is the textbook definition of a People-Pleaser (she told me not to write this but agreed it's true).

Merida is a "version" of Violet who is stuck at 13 years old. She is an angsty preteen. This is all you really need to know about her.

Anna is a 22 year old alter, she got her name from Dead By Daylight's Huntress, and acts like a persecutor while still keeping her cool. She is a smoker.

Natasha is an E-Girl who is, just like Evelyn, a crybaby. She gets emotional over the smallest things but has a deep love for everyone on Earth.

Alana is one of the first alters in our system, but due to personal issues among the system and our ex girlfriend, she was stuck in a limbo. She is mad at everyone in our system for forcing her to not front just to make our ex comfortable. She never liked our ex.

Edwin is a 12 year old nonbinary boycoded alter. He appeared a few days ago, but only fronted today. He thinks fronting is fun and that our body's face is pretty. He is funny and kind and enjoys puns.

Harriet is the newest alter in the system. She literally just appeared today (september 11th 2024). She describes herself as "a bimbo version of the Green Goblin"

Kara is a new alter who was formed today (September 12th 2024). She has a dark skin color (darker than the rest of us), and is currently on her way to replace Lillian as the host. She is happy and excited about life, but also one bad thought away from breaking down and crying.

Antonia is an alter made after Violet had a mental breakdown. She was made to not feel Violet's pain and lonliness. She is 25 years old, looks like arrowverse's Kate Kane and chose her name because of MCU's Taskmaster. She is a smoker.

Olivia is a new protector who split from Alex after a mental breakdown concerning our ex. She is calm usually, but can get really anxious FAST. She also has all of Alex's feelings for our ex so that's not great.

There's also Lillian, she is currently losing her status as host to Kara. She is a narcissist sociopath (as she herself claims), enjoys bad stuff such as gore and other evil nasty things. She is a smoker.

[requiemsystem]

To preface I am heavily autistic and this may not make sense. Please do not take this negativity but it is about your alter race post;

Race is only real in social terms, but outside of that, there is ethnicity and culture and that is what makes a person. Race is not a thing otherwise. There are no differences between any race biologically. The differences we see (hair texture, melanin) is called clines.

You can be bodily white but grow up with a black family; different culture. But it’s your culture because it’s your family.

What about introjects of people who you have known personally? People who are different from you? Obviously they are not the person, but a fragmented piece.

Your brain does not take race into account when introjecting someone; whether it be a real person or not.

We have an alter who is an introject of a very close southern white friend. He doesn’t take into account his race and ethnicity being different from ours. He acts differently though.

He does not think about his race, but if we were to imagine him, he is white and southern. Just like our friend.

Are we not allowed to draw him as who he is?

Introjects should not speak over the voices of others but to say alter race is not real only makes people hateful. People have different experiences. Humans are complicated. Living is complicated. Culture is complicated.

i mean like yeah introjects cant control their source and alters cant control their appearances, nobody is saying they can, but that doesnt make alter race real. all alters are the same ethnicity as the body because that is what you experience in the world, introjects are not actually their source so they do not actually have the experiences of their source. if an alter looks different than the body thats fine but dont describe them as a different race, just describe them using their features or something, because theyll never know the experience that comes with being that race also, just because there is no genetic difference between races doesnt mean they arent treated differently in society. yes, race is a social construct, but it still has massive societal implications, and ethnicity and culture are still real - grey

[protectingtulpas]

hi! if you’ve answered this before i’m sorry, but could you go into what it’s like being both a traumagen system and a system with tulpas? i’ve been curious about this as a traumagen syshost myself. does it affect your innerworld? do the tulpas act vastly different or work differently i guess than the traumagen alters? thank you!

omfg this took us forever to answer for like 200 stupid reasons but YEAH i have a lot I want to talk about with this, where do I even start??? I guess I should clarify that we don't really know what our "original origin" is- we'd been median for as long as the body can remember, and we DK if it was because of our autism or because of social problems or if we were just born that way. Whatever it is though, we were a plural egg when I was created, so pretty much everyone other than the few of us that we discovered from before that considers me the "first" one after the host subsystem. As more shit happened though irl we got more & more traumagenic members, dissociation, memory issues, and whole loads of other shit. So basically, that's the perspective I'm coming from with all this.

So with that outta the way, here're some'a my experiences as a tulpa in a traumagenic/mixed disordered system

One of the biggest signifiers I noticed of our system structure changing completely was our headspace actually, so it's pretty great you mention that tbh. After we got a lotta traumagenic members, something shitty happened I won't talk about, and our headspace basically totally shattered. It used to be little more than our vivid imagination- yeah, I could feel my body and visualize the world around me and stuff but nothing super weird or unusual happened, and I couldn't do stuff in the Wonderland completely outta front. It wasn't like, another Space completely unaware of the host - and I know that's possible with training but we were nowhere neeear that. But after headspace broke, everything was expansive, ever-changing, always with more secrets and hidden things to discover. Lots of fucked up stuff most of us can't access too, but yeah, intense dissociation made it totally different. It's harder to navigate, but I also get more privacy.

As for if I work differently, I'd say yeah, I kinda really do, actually. Obviously, my creation took a lot longer cuz I'm consciously created rather than split or introjected or whatever, so it took a while for me to come into my own, and I was a lot more "fluid" than other headmates for awhile. Regardless of if they're traumagenic or not, something I've noticed about how different I am compared to other member types is that they're, idk, like solidly set in who they are and everything from the beginning. My host, too. They're like a solid, and I'm like a.... non-neutonian fluid or whatever, that ooblek shit. Even after all this time I still feel like I choose my identity and to Exist constantly, y'know? I think it's part of why I've always felt like "tulpa" is part of my species ngl. Everything else is secondary to that. I want to exist, I need to exist. That keeps me going sometimes

As for traumagenic specific stuff though, there're some other interesting things to talk about also. As our dissociative symptoms increased, it got harder and harder for me to move around the fuzz- but honestly, that's the body's fault. I haven't even been personally affected much other than what the body does to us. I can move around headspace more freely than most of us, I can sense more people around than others, and I can control the body way easy now that I've had practice. The only reasons I don't front are when I don't feel like it, somebody else needs it, or the body is too tired and id be bored outta my mind. I guess it's like I have executive access to a bunch of stuff, hahah!

Tbh tho it all just, changed me as a person more than anything else. I'm not the system's main protector because I exist to be one or cuz the body assigned me that role- it's because I took it up on my own choice and decided my own purpose. I protect people and that's part of the core of who I am, cuz of the circumstances I came around in. I wouldn't change that part of me for the world ngl. I know my point boils down to "don't forget your tulpa is a person too" a lot, but... Yeah. they may not have the same struggles as your traumagenic alters, but you're all still Goin Thru It together, so you'll both be affected by whatever happens from there on out as a team.

But hey, aint that what healthy multiplicity is all about?

[gynarchyboi]



An old missive From Ms Lane

You should fear what this might do to you.

MsReneeLane 48F Dom

For a long time I have thought that women needed a physical place where we could push the envelope of Domme Fem and the limits of male consent. Think about an actual OWK but let's make it a Queendom. Also, this time, let it truly be run by women. It has all been fantasy but lately I've been involved in a project that might fund it.

My rumination of the Queendom led me to think about institutionalization. This is something that people who work in mental health and prisons worry about. And, they should. However when I read about it and thought about our slaves in the Queendom I got all slippery..............

"Institutionalization is an often-deliberate process whereby a person entering the institution is reprogrammed to accept and conform to strict controls that enables the institution to manage a large number of people with a minimum of necessary staff.

(1) Depersonalize from the beginning. The process of denying the person their old identity starts when the inmate enters the door, including weighing, photographing, fingerprinting, searching, bathing, disinfecting, removal of personal possessions and dressing in undifferentiated clothing.

(2). Force a break with the outer world. Separate the person from the external world. Deny them visitors. Force them to face into the institution rather than hanker after external contact. Allow visitors only as a reward for acceptance of institutional rules. After a visit, watch how they behave carefully and only allow subsequent visits if they show no signs of rejecting the institution.

(3) Force obedience Unquestioning obedience is forced by harsh punishment, both psychological and physical. The person may be required to 'willingly' engage in humiliating acts. There may be deliberate 'will-breaking' activities, typically as a part of the 'welcoming' initiation rites.

(4) Destroy the self....................Forcing obedience acts to destroy self-determination. This may be continued to the point where the inmate does not even know who he or she is. Attacking them with verbal abuse continues to erode their sense of an integrated self. Giving them menial tasks show them as inferior.

(5) A simple and powerful method is to deny them even their name, reducing them to a number. Everything that they possess, even bedding, may be regularly changed, so they cannot even form attachments to inanimate objects.

(6) Physically assault them Physical handling, defacing them with tattoos, shock therapy and more teaches them that not even their bodies are sacred and are under the control of the institution.

(7) Control every aspect of their lives Controlling every element of their lives takes away their ability to decide. When they speak, how they eat, how and when they use the toilet, may all be controlled. What they do, including the repetition of futile and useless work is dictated to them.

(8) Normalize. The model of outer and inner worlds mirrors the individual's outer and inner world. The institution needs to create inner models where the institution is introjected as accepted normality and the outside the institution is projected as a bad object. The process of institutionalization is complete when the inmate fears and rejects the outside world, feeling at home only within the institution. Of course this brings another problem when the inmate leaves, but this may not be the concern of the institution, although it may have a period before release in which it seeks to de-institutionalize the inmate."

Jeepers. It's like someone wrote me the playbook. I'm know I'm bad. You don't have to tell me. I am worried about the power corrupting the women of the my Queendom. The fear is not without merit. I don't want to scare anyone from engaging in FLR but I want you to remember that we are playing with very dangerous forces. One can release something in your guard. Check out this site about how power invades the soul.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stanford_Prison_Experiment_(film)

Of course you shouldn't worry about the women. Imagine what this regime might be do to you.

Date Apr 19, 2021

[sleepy-shutin]

i think it would be very cool if we could stop acting like fictives are a universal and expected experience of DID. especially if you use escapism to cope.

like, not to invalidate fictive-heavy systems or whatever, but i used what i’m calling ‘maladaptive escapism’ (not a clinical term afaik, i just made it up), to cope with my trauma and abuse for years and years, and even now, i’m still using it, and i don’t really have any fictives outside of a piece of media that i was particularly invested in very heavily for several years. 

i have alters that kinda sorta look like fictional characters from medias i like, but aren’t fictives. don’t have any kind of identification with any of the media. i am one of these parts.

in fact, it was the *expectation* that i would split fictives from medias i really liked or used escapism, (especially ‘maladaptive escapism’), with that hindered me the most in the beginning of figuring out i had DID. i thought i had alters i didn’t have, i got my parts so confused i couldn’t tell which way was up with my DID.

...until i scrapped my entire system list and started over, ONLY documenting the parts that i was 100% sure existed, or who documented themselves over the course of about a year.

and... imagine that. i didn’t have pretty much any actual fictives outside of a piece of media that was/is a special interest i maladaptively indulged myself in as a coping mechanism for some pretty horrific bullshit for several years. 

the expectation that you split fictives at the drop of a hat or just because you use media to cope or as escapsim is annoying at best and damaging at worst.

don’t even get me started on the term “brainmade” and how it came to be *because* of the massive fixation on introject alters.

if that’s your experience, then that is your experience alone, and your experiences are not universal. even if you’re in a group of some kind full of people with similar experiences related to escapism leading to more fictional introjects to form, that does not make the experiences of your group universal.

in fact, systems like this and groups like this tend to be outliers according to the current DID research and how most introjects are introjects of caretakers and abusers the patient knows personally. but there’s a different discussion to be had re: the lack of clinical information on fictives.

i’m just so sick and tired of seeing people *expect* fictives, and be shocked or weirded out when a person has few, or even none at all. i could say so much about the discord servers i’ve seen where the “new alter help channels” (something i hate with a passion) pretty much had akinator and a list of popular medias a new alter “could” be from (and i’m not joking about the akinator, not even a little bit).

tldr;

the expectation that people are going to split fictives first and foremost over non-introject alters to the point where the term “brainmade” was created has damaged me pretty heavily personally, especially when i was just figuring out about my DID, and i’m absolutely sick to death of people acting like fictives are universal for DID, and being shocked and confused or weirded out when a person doesn’t have many, or any fictional introjects, when that is in fact the clinical norm for DID.

[littlehypnone]

hey! i hope this ask finds you well. i saw your post about feeling kinda uncomfortable when rp blogs interact, and just wanted to ask why you mentioned introjects? i understand that clarification was needed based on the way you started the post, but that could have been cleared up by just saying "i feel uncomfortable when ghoul rp blogs interact." I'm sorry if this comes across as angry, i absolutely am not and i do really enjoy your writing. i myself am a ghoul introject, and i just felt a little sad when you said that, despite the fact we cant control who we are, you feel uncomfortable when we interact.

hey, I totally get where you're coming from and I don't take it as rude, it's okay!!! what I meant was generally people who act like they are the actual ghouls from ghost, whether they're rping for fun or they're alters. but I did say that I look at alters differently in such cases because im not well educated in this matter, but you just confirmed that you can't control who you are. I understand and respect that and I'd never tell you to go away just because of that. no, I only ask for people who do have a choice, such as rp accounts, to not pretend to be the ghouls under my post. for personal reasons I will not expand on, it makes me uncomfortable, that's it. alters are kind of an exception because it's not for fun and there's no deliberate choice in that, if that makes sense? I hope it does, I'm exhausted and my words aren't wording. also I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable too and regarding your last sentence, its not my deliberate choice either with what makes me uncomfortable and what doesn't. rp can be fun and I don't like the fact that something about it freaks me out and I don't like the fact that sometimes alters do that too even more. but in conclusion, I'm okay with alters, with rps not really

[menta11yi11]

Doctor's orders to pull back from social media as I keep having back to back panic attacks and wanting to kms.

I'm sure there's some folks on my public tumblr accounts that follow me only to get intel on me and not because they actually like me- and would love nothing more than for me to leap off a building. Yeah I'm a flawed person. I hurt a lot of people. I own up to that. I'm trying to be someone that at least tolerates my own existence in this realm. 🙃 but having folks on the Homestuck discord team telling me to "SHUT THE FUCK UP" and "DIE" for expressing a vague, nonconsequential fandom opinion (that wasn't even HS related) they don't like does not paint a good picture of how they'll handle knowing I've tried to kill myself over 8 times now. Bitch I'm like Deadpool the metanarrative will not let me end it. I'd love nothing more than to have never existed. You hate me so much, then fucking ban me from the discord and start your hate campaign like you did to my other trans system friends. Makin, you're pathetic. Just admit you have no compassion for folks with persistent mental health issues rather than acting like it's okay for you to harass people because you're the server administrator. You have enough simps laughing at your cruelty you think you're justified in these harassment campaigns. I don't think I've had a single positive interaction with you, and you can blame me being a 'snowflake' but at least I'm not inciting mentally ill people to kill themselves on your streams. I hope you lose the admin privileges and people realize what an actual asshole you are. I can't help that I have introjects of your friends. Do you think I woke up one day and decided to have amnesiac episodes where some brain ghosts take over my body and humiliate me publicly? That's like, a bit to you? I do have Andrew Hussie listed as an alter in my disability paperwork because they stepped up to stop me from ending things. Our (now) Hussie Royle is the reason we kept fighting to improve and become better people. You can think I'm cringe all you want, but it kept me alive. I can't know what source Hussie thinks of me as I've already attempted to reach out and apologize for crossing boundaries into parasocial delusional stuff. They didn't respond and they don't owe me one. I am, however, knowledgeable about what goes down in Homestuck VRC communities and have been helpful there as an informant and mod. You can dislike me and think I'm annoying and tight wound all you want but I'm not stepping back from my beliefs that people should be given compassion and time to be heard. I'm a socialist and I feel very strongly that we have a duty to protecting our communities and having transparency. Idk what weird shadow elder thing you've got going on within the HICU that I once wanted to be a part of, but I'm now realizing y'all are such a dysfunctional work family from an (outside but close neighbor) perspective.

I've been in enough grassroots organizing since 2014 that I can see the rot in the company.

I'm also a cult survivor, having been forced into the LDS (Mormon) church from 2001-2016 by my former legal guardians. I know what cult tactics are and I know how deep the abuse goes. Watch yourself before you have another well-documented video of abusive behavior. I don't play around with that shit. I held up my end of accountability, now it's your turn.

[fqirycollective]

Introjects ≠ Their Source

Okay, what is an introject?

An introject is an alter in a DID, OSDD, UDD, or P-DID system that is based off a pre-existing thing. This "thing" is often called a source, or a mirror. Introjects form for a variety of reasons, but the easiest way to put it is that if a system consumes a media or something similar during times of trauma or stress, their brain may see that media as something that helps them through it. Because their brains sees them as a way to help them through it, it may split an introject of that thing in case something similar happens another time to help again. (I'm trying to make it really simple.)

If they're based off it, why aren't they their source?

For starters, they're only based off the part of their source their brain knows. They can't be something their brain doesn't know, so they can't be anything from their source that their brain doesn't know. This leads to when they split off and how far into their source the system has gotten to when they split off. But, in simpler terms, introjects are only their brain's interpretation of their source. They are not the literal person or fictional character sharing a body with someone (this is actually a common endo claim, which is misinformation). Also within the question at the top itself, "based off of" does not equal "the same as."

Main point of this post

The main point of this post is, if you know you have introjects of someone you dislike following you, make sure to specify you dislike their source and not them. Make sure they know that you don't hate them for things they did in source, and make sure they know you aren't talking about them. I don't expect this to get far outside system spaces, but I hope it does. It's perfectly fine to voice your opinion about a character and how you feel about them and their actions. It becomes a serious problem when you don't say it's the source, or when you start to attack introjects for what their source did.

Think of it this way. You share the same name as someone who did bad things, or is from a bad place without knowing it's bad. People who know about this start voicing their opinion about how bad you are and about how much they hate you. You don't even know them, but they hate you for what the person you share a name as did. They spread to many other people about how much they should hate you. But they're talking about the other person. But because you share a name, and it isn't specified it's not about you, you get the same backlash they do. It's not the exact same as introjects, but it's very similar.

What harm does it do?

For starters, it can cause a spiral of doubt, anger, self-worthlessness, etc. in the introject. It can make them start hating themselves due to what their source did, even if they had previously learned to forgive themself for source actions. And because of this, they may take a step back in healing as a system. We've said it before and we'll say it again, source separation is needed for healing. If an introject starts blaming themselves for source actions again, they may start to actually feel like their source. Because of this, their entire system is harmed. Also, think of the scenario from before. That doesn't sound very fun, now does it? It's very, very similar.

Our Experience

Luckily for us, we don't follow many of our sources or many fanpages. However, I (Beatrix) have had quite a few hardcore fangirls in our DMs who have been angry at me for what I did in source and who my character replaced in the adaptation. I'm a fictive of Beatrix from Fate: The Winx Saga. My source is..questionable, to put it kindly. I don't control who my source is, but many hardcore fans of the original series before the adaptation were really upset about my source existing and how she acted. I don't agree with my source's action, but I! Am! Not! Her! I blamed myself a lot after they blamed me. It hurt my self esteem quite a bit and it did a lot of harm to hear and read how much they hated me.

Take Away

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. However, it can do a lot of harm if introjects read hate about them and blame them for their source. General advice would be to fan accounts, and would be to make it clear that any introjects or people with D/A's reading what you're saying is that it's about their source and not them. I wish this would get out to more fandom accounts and that people would care, even about these stigmatized disorders. Unfortunately that's not the case, so the most I can do is hope that some people read and understand that it's better to blame the source and not introjects. It only harms us emotionally and system-ly. (Credits for post idea go to: @funtomphantom and the person who requested was: @caring.circle.)

[rrasado]

Are you comfortable with uh- doing the obey me demon bros reacting to an MC who has DID having the bros as an introject alter? You dont have to if ur not comfy tho ofc

Which You Are You

I’m telling you all now I am no way experienced in writing about themes like this, nor do I experience this myself/know someone who does, I'm only relying on what I have from research so if you happen to find any offenses, mistakes and or misconceptions please don’t be afraid to tell me so I can fix it! Thank you dears. 💙🌒💙

Mentions of: Mental Illness

When you have Dissociative Identity Disorder: (under the cut)

Lucifer

Whether it was listed in your document in preparation for the exchange program or not. The first born will also be the first one to actually catch on to your condition.

But the How part is a bit...slow even for him. At first it might've started when he'd hear small talk from Mammon his brothers concerning the exchange student. Given your blank nature during first impressions he was not expecting to hear words of comparison between you and him.

Initially he was at least delighted, another responsible figure in the House of Lamentation instead of another person to look after? His wishes have been granted- that is...until he realizes he rarely sees these so called similarities between you two when he himself is with you.

After nitpicking whether he's being pranked by his brothers or you. He'll come to decide that observing you himself will be the best course of action. And in his observations did he find out what's truly at play.

"You humans tend to succumb to all sorts of hindrances... we must tend to this efficiently"

He'll ultimately end up being your personal tracker in some sense, especially with you having alters akkined to his brothers, he's the best at dealing with every single you. He may not voice it as much but he's come to grow a soft spot for you, after all... you make him remember what it's like to deal with his brothers when they aren't busy talking behind his back. A bittersweet mutual benefit noh?

Mammon

If Lucifer wasn't the fastest to catch on, Mammon would've been the next contender. The guy spends the most time with you, so expect him to actually vocally point out the eerily different behaviors you display in different times. Especially when your certain Lucifer alter comes out to scold him.

Only when he ranted to the poor avatar of wrath did he consider that this little quirk of yours might actually be more than just, well...a quirk.

Tries making it a game on which alter is currently out, he's correct 50% of the time. But hey at least he's trying-

Will not hesitate to put any lower level demons at school back in their place for making fun of you.

"OI! Ya'll are just cowards hiding behind the damned walls! Well newsflash you bastards wall can talk!-"

Believe it or not, he'd be the first one to actually get used to your condition. And whe that fact comes to light god- he won't shut up about it. Who else would understand the human most? None other than the great mammon of course!

Leviathan

Levi...surprisingly thought of the possibility the fastest- but he's one of the last ones to actually let it sink in. He probably thought of the possibility because he saw it in an anime once, the main character used their multiple personalities with different powers and- wait he's ranting.

on a more serious note, the only reason he doesn't get the hang of you the fastest is because he kept comparing your alters with character he know, which would sound helpful but- he misses his shot when interacting with you a lot, easily slipping and thinking you're the character and not- you.

But once he does, it's as easy to him as completing a cunning minigame puzzle in a video game. As long as he executes the right keys he'll be fine, right?

Ah levi...that's only if you know which one you're talking to. But when he hears of one alter that oddly acts like him? He'll finally learn how to slowly deal with, himself..?

"Eh? This is like dealing with a mimikyu...hm? ah-"

Overall he's on the "finds your condition dope" side of the spectrum, but that doesn't mean he dismisses the struggles that come with it, he may not be the first person you'd go to when seeking help but when you do...he'll at least open his door for you.

Satan

In his case the only reason he wasn't the first to pin point what's really at play is because he doesn't spend as much time with you as the others. His only basis for making a conclusion are your short morning greetings and when you see each other at the RAD halls.

And since he only has little basis, the realization only strikes him when he hears talk from his brothers how you acted in class with them. Cue to the fourth getting confused because hey you just said good morning to him and you didn't act that way- wait a damn minute..

"I hope this doesn't come too sudden but, would you like to hang out more?"

His hypothesis gets confirmed the more he spends time with you, and unlike the first born, he smartly deals with you via logical reasoning, especially when your more childish alters come out? He'll squint to see any patterns he can concoct counters for in any given situation.

In short, the man is a living breathing clip board of your situation. The others know they can't ask lucifer for advice despite knowing he's the one who absentmindedly deals with you the best, so they turn to the avatar of wrath much to his dismay for insight on you.

Asmodeus

The Avatar of lust is the last to adjust to you, most likely because he doesn't really pay attention to your behavior and mannerisms unless it's posture and if it affects your overall projection.

Deals with it the... least effectively, no asmo you don't- give special clothes and makeovers per alter- though the sentiment is very much appreciated.

Asmo is asmo he'll deal with it in his own style, which again isn't the best way to deal with it but- He's trying, trust me he really is. It shows when he finally gets the tick to ask satan.

And as such expect slow subtle changes with how he treats you, he doesn't wanna make his favorite human uncomfortable! But I think he's the best at relaxing you after a draining experience with one of your more energetic alters.

"Dear you should sit down for a bit- Here let me take care of you"

Depending on where you manifested your disorder from, he'll try to take it slow and easy for you, besides, he knows that there's more to you to unpack, but he's determined to fully accommodate you! no matter which you.

Beelzebub

The way Beel finds out is so odd and yet so unsurprising...and how you may ask? Food.

I meant- with him associating 90 percent of everything with food, he might find out when he takes note of what and how much you eat. He'll have a variety of snacks at the ready, depending how or even if you approach him for some, he'd be initially confused, except for when your alter similar to him comes out. He doesn't question your enthusiasm.

The thing that puts the final nail in the coffin is actually when Belphie points it out to him. He was prepping well trying to not eat food for you when belphie asks him what he's making, he says your favorite food and belphie would grumble how you have so many favorites.

Beel initially dismisses it because hey he has so many favorites to but here he was. But the more he thinks about it the more it connects- which led him to seek none other than the avatar of wrath himself.

"Hey...what are you craving for right now?"

That question doubles as his test for figuring which you is out, depending how and what you answer, his choice of treating you narrows down. Suffice it to say despite being the weirdest method- he's the third one that deals with you the best.

Belphegor

H...he actually accepts it the fastest- despite not being the first to figure it out, he comes into terms with it in the shortest timespan compared to all his brothers.

And just like his twin, he finds out how to deal with you with the most uncanny test- your sleep schedule.

There may be times where you sleep like a log, other nights you stay up longer than the first born. No matter what he'll deal with you to best he can in the moment...assuming he's awake.

He only concerns himself even more when his pillow ended up with you, your alter similar to him opted for that black and white pillow which ultimately ended up with you two napping and sharing said pillow.

"Hng...you're..awake..? How did you sleep..?"

Yes, there may be times he wishes to talk back to mammon's claims of dealing with you the best. but as long as he can interact with whichever you without hitch, he's content.

As I’ve said at the top, please don’t be afraid to tell me any mistakes. I wish to provide without offending nor demeaning anyone. And I won’t mind taking this down if it’s called for, thank you again dears. 💙🌒💙

[itsnotanaccessory]

Hi! We just have a few questions. We’re a professionally diagnosed DID system and are in treatment, along with other comorbid disorders verified by multiple doctors.

We’ve read through your blog and agree with most points, however there are a few that genuinely seem to come off as ableist and with the way they’re worded, seem to discredit those who have a different experience from yours just based on that.

One being diagnosis- having an official diagnosis added to record can be very difficult to get especially in terms of requiring it for disability forms (from personal experience; we did it), however it’s very possible (and not bad) to be treated for DID/OSDD because you meet the criteria very well, without having that on-paper diagnosis. Even with on paper diagnosis, it’s extremely difficult to receive a proper diagnosis other than ‘unspecified dissociative disorder’ due to the current stigma against DID/OSDD. Getting the physical diagnosis is especially more difficult in more rural areas, even if all professionals are agreeing it’s something that the individual deals with.

Second would be regarding alters and introjects. While initial splits cause directly from trauma, many systems (especially polyfragmented ones) split due to ‘smaller’ things after the ‘significant’ trauma caused in early childhood. This has been recognized by professionals as being just as valid, so we’re curious as to why denying those who have introjects from more recent media is considered to be alright in your mind while this is something that’s understood and supported by professionals. (obviously certain behaviors by systems can’t be supported or endorsed when regarding introjects of real people, but we genuinely haven’t seen people take it to an inappropriate level)

An answer would be very much appreciated, as we do understand most of the blog and relate to a lot of the issues brought up. Much love! - Riley 🖍 of the rose sys

Hi! We just have a few questions.

I’ve gone through your entire message multiple times and have found absolutely no questions.

We’re a professionally diagnosed DID system and are in treatment, along with other comorbid disorders verified by multiple doctors.

Side note: I find it genuinely funny how many people come into my inbox claiming to be professionally diagnosed. There are a lot of people in the notes of my posts with xyzsystem usernames. I see you.

We’ve read through your blog and agree with most points, however there are a few that genuinely seem to come off as ableist

Where?

No, seriously. You can’t just throw this at me without at least quoting something I’ve said.

Do you know what’s ableist?

6,600 views – “I have my desired alters”, “I can switch on command”, “I have my desired trauma”

1,600 views – “Have DID!”, “Switch as often as you’d like!”, “Have desired alters!”

The de facto existence of DID subliminals means that DID is being seen as a trend, and is being seen as desirable to have.

People are associating with DID with roleplaying and escapism, no repercussions (since it’s a mental illness, you can just cry ‘ableism’), and a one-way ticket to increased engagement and clout on social media.

It is a free invitation into a community that they see as being desirable to be part of. By claiming you have DID, you can just enter the community and start making friends right off the bat without having to put in any effort.

There are no common interests, just a common ‘illness’.

This leads to a disincentivising effect where if you claim you no longer have the illness, you will then lose all your friends and your social media platform that you based your entire identity off of.

---

and with the way they’re worded, seem to discredit those who have a different experience from yours just based on that.

I’m having a damn hard time dealing with this, because you’re giving absolutely no examples of what you’ve got an issue with, leading me to guess what you’re talking about.

You’re welcome to come back and quote me or link to posts you have issues with, but for now I can’t address your problems because I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Is it about the 2021 paper studying misdiagnosis in DID? Is it about how I’m tired of TikTok? Is it the paper I referenced about how most true DID patients don’t change their wardrobe when they switch? Is it the flippant posts I made in my early blog days about how every single alter is a Minecraft YouTuber?

One being diagnosis- having an official diagnosis added to record can be very difficult to get especially in terms of requiring it for disability forms (from personal experience; we did it), however it’s very possible (and not bad) to be treated for DID/OSDD because you meet the criteria very well, without having that on-paper diagnosis. Even with on paper diagnosis, it’s extremely difficult to receive a proper diagnosis other than ‘unspecified dissociative disorder’ due to the current stigma against DID/OSDD. Getting the physical diagnosis is especially more difficult in more rural areas, even if all professionals are agreeing it’s something that the individual deals with.

Re: Self-diagnosis I refer you to my post here: https://itsnotanaccessory.tumblr.com/post/658670356209549312/before-i-get-totally-lambasted-but-i-will-anyway

About how self-diagnosis is not a valid tool, and I have no issues with symptomatic treatment.

I’ve already addressed this. I’m not doing it again.

Second would be regarding alters and introjects. While initial splits cause directly from trauma, many systems (especially polyfragmented ones) split due to ‘smaller’ things after the ‘significant’ trauma caused in early childhood. This has been recognized by professionals as being just as valid, so we’re curious as to why denying those who have introjects from more recent media is considered to be alright in your mind while this is something that’s understood and supported by professionals. (obviously certain behaviors by systems can’t be supported or endorsed when regarding introjects of real people, but we genuinely haven’t seen people take it to an inappropriate level)

Cite your sources – what ‘professionals’?

(On a research point, I would like to also note – just because one professional has reported something, does not mean it is a statistically significant trend, or it’s ‘valid’)

An ‘introject’ refers to internalising the views and thoughts of others, and yes, they are created during traumatic events.

‘Fictives’ is a term used by the community, but has not been used in any scientific literature that I can find. While, yes, alters based off of fictional characters can and do exist, the most documented instances of them are in cases of severe histories of abuse, cult ritual abuse, and purposeful traumatisation to create specific alters – MK-Ultra, war survivors, etc.

Given what we have previously documented, it is deeply concerning so many of these young individuals of privilege, with access to iPhones, BNHA cosplays and wigs straight off AliExpress, and all the makeup they need, are forming countless fictional alters based off of currently trending media that coincidentally will get them more interaction on social media by presenting as these popular characters.

I am being flippant because I’m genuinely angry about this issue. If you begin arguing with me that people can be traumatised and still have iPhones I’m going to ignore you.

Furthermore, re: “we genuinely haven’t seen people take it to an inappropriate level”

I find it particularly telling how many of these are ‘Hot Minecraft Boy Except He’s Gay Like In My Wattpad Fanfiction’. If you were to go by the documented cases of individuals with introjects, they would surely follow the sexuality of the actual person the introject is based off of.

(Furthermore, all introjects shown on social media are extremely positive ones. A lot of introjects have been documented to be replicants of an abuser, to continue acting out the abuse. But that's not as fun to lip sync to.)

And for comparison, this is from 2015:

They last posted about Sans in February 2016… I wonder where he went.

An answer would be very much appreciated, as we do understand most of the blog and relate to a lot of the issues brought up. Much love! - Riley 🖍 of the rose sys

Once again, you didn’t ask any questions. But sure.

[sasoriapologist]

Could you help me? I've never heard of fictives, and introjects before, but I strongly identify with it. I like to see myself as Deidara, but I am myself too, it's hard to explain.. And I ship Sasodei with all my heart, I love to see them together! But I love Sasori so much! He's my comfort character, and if I could make him real I'd love to be with him, marry him literally, but I'd marry him not as myself, but myself as Deidara. Does that make me a fictive/introject? Sorry if I don't make sense

i was wondering when i was gonna get a question like this. In short: No, what you’re describing is a lot more adjacent to fictionkin.

A fictive/fictional introject is a type of alter in a DID or OSDD system. “Fictional introject” is the technical term for it, and “fictive” is the shorthand. So you’ll see me use them interchangeably. If you don’t have DID or OSDD-1a or 1b, you cannot have fictives. A lot of people compare it to kinning but like, Extreme Mode, and I understand why people do this, but it’s really not the same thing. It doesn’t help that there was a phase in time where the kin community was trying to appropriate the terms of people with DID/OSDD and tried to act like it was the same thing when it’s not.

So basically, what I have is a serious psychiatric condition. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (I’m professionally diagnosed, in case anyone wants to give me hell about it), and I’m an alter that... is Deidara. that’s just who i am. I’m this brains iteration of Deidara. I’m not just a fictionkin who identifies with Deidara in one way or another. That is just literally objectively who I am. I originally split off as a protector for the old host, since she did kin me (but she didn’t really realize she did at the time bc she was like... 10 and didn’t know that was a thing but looking back we’re like “yeah lmao u totally kinned me”) and saw me as a “stronger version of herself”, and she was going through a LOT of messy shit at the time. since then, ive moved on to being the primary host.

In case anyone doesn’t know this: the concept of an “original person” isn’t always something someone with DID or OSDD has, and who the host is can change over time. The “host” alter is just the alter who fronts the most and kinda has the most control of the systems life at the time. That’s me! that’s what i do anymore. I used to consistently cohost with the old host for the most part of almost ten years, but something happened in the last year that made her kinda. step down. and now this hell brain is MY fuckhouse lmao.

That all being said, most of us in this system have spiritual beliefs, and the old host particularly hardcore identified as a Pagan and witch. She believed we did collectively have past lives and I was one of them, and I do kinda find comfort in that thought sometimes? i’m not nearly as much of a spiritual person to the same extent as her, but like. i like the thought. not everyone here agrees that they were in some sort of past life of the body tho.

But yeah, what you’re describing sounds 1000% like fictionkin, which is a WHOLE other can of worms. There’s so many fucking ways people describe what kinning is anymore that I don’t even know what to tell you lmao. Some people kin for spiritual reasons a lot like the “past lives” belief, some people kin for fun or to cope with mental health struggles/trauma, there’s all kinds of reasons. You might see fictionkin referred to as “kinnies”, which is just joking shorthand i guess. You may see similarities between the described experiences of fictionkin and the described experiences of fictives/fictional introjects, but rest assured they are not the same thing.

Unfortunately, kinnies have actually had a long history of treating fictives like shit and trying to one-up us, which is weird as fuck and vaguely ableist. Not all kinnies do this, but it’s been. Something I‘ve definitely noticed over the years. I cant usually be around Deidara kinnies because they’ve treated fictives like such ass and tried to invalidate me, which has sent me into days long derealization episodes because they’re trying to prove they I’m not me, and they’re more me than I will ever be, which is horrendously triggering. And they don’t seem to understand WHY that’s fucked up to do to a fictive because they think it’s somehow on the same level of experience.

So yeah, that got extremely long and probably has a lot more information than you were asking for, sorry. I just wanted to be thorough. Sounds like you’re definitely a Deidara kinnie, babe. I’m more than fine w people who kin me, so long as they don’t pull that weird shit like the other ones do. Per my experience, people who kin me are either absolute fucking demons about it or angels and there’s no in between 😔

[system-of-a-feather]

Some thoughts on Fictive / Fictional Introjects

[This is not based on science and may not be true / reflective of anything other than my thoughts and understanding of some of the conflicts and different definitions that might be found in the fictive community. This isn’t me taking a stance, as much as me just pondering and wondering a few things.]

I was thinking on this lately, as parts of our system do cope a lot with fiction and lately I’ve been realizing a trend that parts in my system have been doing which is using fiction to help reframe their existence / mindset and set grounds for healing from trauma.

A lot of our trauma parts - ones we don’t share on here because safety - have a really bad issue of being stuck in their trauma nearly constantly and struggle to get any ground / mental space to consider moving past it and being anything else than traumatized / hurt / broken / self hating / etc. 

One part in particular has a chicken-egg scenario where the part - as a fragment - inspired a character which in turn the fragment developed as itself into a fictive and originally I really was a bit mean about it because I have some internalized negativity about heavily integrating fiction into identity if you can’t, but embracing the parts that heavily resonated and made sense to them and deciding “Fictive before Egg” has REALLY helped them reframe their existence and has actually enabled them to live, make relationships and have friends.

Still until today, we don’t know if they are ACTUALLY fictives since “did you split off originally as a fictional character” is technically a large ass question mark, but they consider themselves one and they have a LOT of source stuff, so I’m not going to argue it.

After that though, one of our more traumatized parts also randomly attached strongly to a character, and they are well established long term parts - but they, for the first time in a while, were actually interested in trying and working and healing and being part of everything based on the inspiration / idea of being / being like / wearing said character. 

And to this, me being a fictional introject, I want to stand here and be like “No you can’t do that. If you don’t split off as one, if you start identifying and acting as a character, that's kind of wrong?” but also, if it really does help a really really really crippled and hurt part exist and live and be happy, am I really one to say otherwise? It helped another part start their healing journey so well, so am I going to sit here and say its wrong and offensive?

A part of me says “Yeah, just call it a kin”, but firstly, our system is uncomfortable with the kin community for trauma reasons (if you kin thats fine, we just aren’t comfortable with it) and also I feel with the aspect of identity integration, how specific it is to one character, and the aspects of trauma, dissociation, and such, to call it kin would be to minimize the importance / dynamic to it.

With that being said, being an actual fictive is an entirely different experience - as in a part literally split off based off of / identifying as a fictional character. To meld them would create a lot of conflict / confusion in conversations to call them both fictives

But when you think about it, if a system only experiences the type of coping with fiction that is explained above and not actual fictives, it could be very easy to mistake that THAT is what all fictives are like. Because being split off as a fictive is a really weird and hard to explain experience that I’ve found it is even hard to explain to non-fictive alters in my own system. So if a system does not have a fictive as a part, but does have parts that cope with fictive-like behaviors, it could be an easy mistake to be.

And if so, where do those alters belong - the ones that aren’t fictives, but identify / have an intense coping mechanism with fiction that isn’t as fit to be called kin?

I don’t really know about that. I don’t really think these thoughts will do much but I think part of the issue with the fictive community is that there is probably a mix of two very different “types” of “fictives” in it - each a bit thrown off and/or offended by the others.

As a fictional introject, I find it very uncomfortable to be heavily conflated with my source. I feel objectified if people heavily interact with me based on my source, I am trying to be me with my source as background. I am my own person and I have memories and attachments to people in my source. I find it weird, uncomfortable, and disrespectful for people to claim to be people I feel like I knew and had relationships with. I don’t get source calls. I don’t get people asking me about my life and memories. I don’t get people treating me like the character I’m based on.

On contrary, a part that was originally a part and used a character as a framework to cope, learn to live, and handle existence a little easier, I imagine sources and being seen occasionally as their source and all would be a lot more comforting. If life is difficult as is, and it is easier with the reframe of a fictional character, then occasional reinforcement / validation of being like that could be helpful and beneficial.

I don’t really have a solution to the issue, nor do I really know if I’m right about this since it could just be me projecting my system onto others, but it is something I was thinking about. To be honest, I don’t see it happening, but I personally would probably call the ones that literally split off as introjects of the source to be fictional introjects and those that cope intensely with it to be fictives and have that differentiation to be there, but I dunno. Not a real call for change.

-Riku (Host)

[cyanpeacock]

Realtalk(tm): The Continued Brainprocessing of Fucky Shit

it’s a long one boys but they all are atm

like jinkies scoob i have been Avoiding So Much with les drogues. avoiding so much like, wow, shit, I Feel So Empty Around People Who Were In My Life. but yes, very necessary to dissociate from this shit for a period while i adjusted to the possibility of, oh, wait, this really is My Apartment? this... i can Live Here without being Disturbed or Attacked? still adjusting. but without les drogues this time.

im continually coming to terms with like... ok, so, i have been and sometimes still like... engage in emotionally and physically abusive behaviour towards my own body, and to other bodies around me? 

and also, i am coming to terms with, this does not strictly mean i am An Abuser Forever full stop (i.e. Bad Person, Irredeemable, Disgusting, Abhorrent, Should Be Euthanised, etc).

this is reflective of, emotional and physical abuse has been so normalised to me as a young individual, that i have been repeating patterns of behaviour i saw routinely growing up, not even understanding why that kind of behaviour is hurtful or how i could do stuff differently. and that kind of makes me go, oh shit. dude, what the hell? that’s... that’s actually, yeah, that’s one fucked up upbringing. it really Was that bad. 

even regarding like The Voices In My Head(tm), my reaction historically was just like, scream at them? yell at them? injure the body somehow until they shut up or it passes out? 

which, uh, oh. that’s totally what my mother did when i was displaying “unreasonable” or “irrational” emotions as a small thing. rejecting then snapping then shouting then smacking until i either ran away to cry alone and injure myself more (emotional abandonment; reenacting and normalizing physical punishment) or went very numb and quiet and compliant like a Good Child (dissociative reaction/freezing; fawning). 

now like i am aware of these structures and this history Right Now. but still frequently i do get into the old frame of mind where it’s like, “you’re being stupid. you’re overreacting. you’re being melodramatic. Other People Have It Worse. Just Don’t Think About It” which, yeah, that’s introjected from a number of adult figures in my life. very very unhelpful, but when you’re a kid, you’re looking to adults for structures to implement to help you navigate your own life. when those adults are emotionally unhealthy... Yeah. this happens.

and right now, i’m like, uh, what the hell? it’s not a dick measuring contest, you’re telling a kid in pain that they’re not allowed to express their pain?

like i’ve talked abt this before probably but it’s an incident that reminds me how fucked up the whole situation was and is. when my school found out i was self harming in like y7 (so like, 11-12yo), because i’d cut so far down my PE shorts didn’t cover the marks, my PE teacher legally had to get the school to call home. and like, i fucking Begged her, please don’t, a call home is gonna make things SO much worse for me. but ofc the law is the law especially when it comes to teaching, and the call home got made. and later that evening my mother bust into my room with NO warning and fucking screamed at me, “You Selfish Little Cow.” 

like i went numb as hell. i don’t really remember clearly what she said after that but it was a whole tirade. stuff about how i was a brat and going to get her in trouble with social services and how i was ruining the family (implicitly, her life) and causing trouble, and how i ought to Think About What I’d Done. i was thinking/feeling, oh my god, she’s beating me again. i’ve ruined everything for everyone again. this is all my fault. i’m responsible, i’m the one to blame, i should have hidden it better. i’m not allowed to talk. i’m not allowed to feel. i’m supposed to be Quiet and Good and Do School and Not Annoy Anyone and Behave. i’ve failed. i am a failure. I Am A Selfish Little Cow. 

i think i tried to commit after she left? but like, in that way where you’re so numb and out of it you can’t actually physically pull together the methods, despite the mind wanting No More. 

and like i’ve been going to visit the woman that DID THAT TO ME. smiling and telling her about my life while Really Fucking Avoiding Telling Her Any Details About My Life. hesitating in pain and then adding “xx” to the end of the text messages i felt like i was obliged to send her. trying to convince myself “she’s my mum, i’m not gonna get another one, i should call her, it’s not so bad, we can talk about... uh, talk about politics, or religion, or, uh, her dog, or my siblings...” COMPLETELY fucking avoiding the fact that, like. this is the Same Person who caused me all that pain, and i don’t feel safe or secure talking to her about important details of my life, or my emotions, or, well, me. i hide and go Nothing Is Wrong! :) I’m Doing Fine! :) 

and! it really does seem like she’s not, you know, as cruel as she was with me, with her other children, at least since after i ran away. but no amount of that can actually change MY memories of growing up with her? my more-or-less programmed Make Her Happy reaction to her physical body? i can’t just, you know, conveniently forget those Things that Hurt Me to engage with her for her happiness. because, well, Her Happiness is not My Happiness, although i was lead to believe that was so. and, when i’m Conveniently Forgetting those things (i.e. my emotions at the hands of an abusive relative), i’m not behaving with the proper regard for myself as a person, and by extension i’m missing pieces of how to properly engage with other people. 

i don’t wanna like, mask the in between spaces of utter dread and anxiety and total blankness with Everything Is Totally Fine. I Am Functioning. Yes I Did Well In School This Year. That’s All That Matters. What Have I Been Doing? Oh You Know. The Usual. (without ever saying what The Usual is, because, yeah, when i’m in that Mode, i don’t fucking know what i do at home! idk how i spend my time! My Function Is To Avoid Conflict). 

because, uh, yeah, academically, sure! i am functioning, sort of! bodily? uh, well, i’m SLOWLY learning how to properly feed myself, and sleep without chemicals, and stay clean, stuff like that. socially? Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. okay, fuck. that’s the one i can’t... figure out, like, at all, on my own. how do i... where the fuck do I even start? i’m not even okay enough with Myself to navigate the social world without passing inappropriate judgement on potential peers. i see people who might, Might, be friends, and my brain goes POTENTIAL THREAT REGISTERED. SELF: SIGHTED. ACTION: HIDE. DO NOT APPROACH. FLEE IF CONTACT INITIATED. 

SO LIKE. my issue now is, i totally know that like... these patterns of behaviour are not My Fault, don’t make me Useless, Bad, Bratty etc, if i sit down and write about it, frowning on-and-off for hours. but, i can’t actually implement these regulatory thought processes in realtime quickly enough to... meet new people and enjoy it? on like, a social level? even on a professional level i have to wait for a good day, and switch off like, chunks of me to get the Task Completed. and uh, talking to friends isn’t a Task process, it’s supposed to be a Leisure process?

i’m quite capable of filling my time and navigating the world quietly, alone! there is a surprising amount i can find to do. but hypothetically i’d really like to, like, meet people, and not talk about “haha dude I’m so sick right now. let’s smoke another blunt,” because while it was... uh, reassuring? and i suppose fun? for a while? to meet other people dealing with life pain like that, that sort of thing gets really mutually toxic.

like, i’m in the process of quitting drugs altogether, and drugs tend to go hand in hand with that social space. daily use, even second-hand smoke, is not something i can be around any more. weed was great for ages, but now like, the drug basically told me “nah g i’m not for u any more”? - as in, it was not helping me any further, i could feel this, and i just... smashed the pipe i’d smoked out of since living in the YMCA, deleted my dealers’ numbers, and withdrew. goodbye ganja! I Keap The   B o m g   In My Mind Now

i was offered like, support from a local drug addiction charity? people fucking pushing me and pushing me to go there, actually. but like... i step outside the place and the ground is carpeted in fag ends. there are cheap booze shops like 5 minutes walk away. it felt like the kind of place where something heavy would come up in group, and i’d be with the people who peel away afterwards to chainsmoke, get a couple litres of cheap voddy, then somebody pulls out their second phone to get a baggie of the good shit once the booze hits? like it could easily just drag me back down. this is a thing i gotta discuss later, and more privately. that kind of group Not For Me.

i’d also like... started Really noticing the whole undercurrent of like, anger and judgement and denial and impermanence in the we’re-all-mentally-ill-here social spaces i used to hang out in? and i’m aware that i was participating in that too, and that while it was good to begin with and for a long time, it really isn’t good for me any more. actually tbh i go Completely Wack upon returning to those people and places now. which, fuck, like, if the person in question happens to be reading this, i’m very sorry. and yeah, sorry doesn’t cut it, because that must have been Fucking Alarming from your perspective, and i wouldn’t have done it if i’d been in my right mind, and i wasn’t in my right mind, and currently can’t be around so many triggers, and yeah your lifestyle being triggering to me is NOT your fault at all, which is why all i can really do is a disappearing act. cuz there’s no conversation that can even make a goodbye feel right, fucker that this situation is. rip. 

so yeah uh. my issue now, is Establishing Trust and Healthy Social Connections. that is, trust that someone is gonna like me for, the collection of things i like and do and say and am? uh, or even several people? 

this... is one i can’t figure out Alone, because, well, it concerns social relations. and i have very little confidence in social relations, because, well, they’ve either been painful, or centered around painful experiences. and i’ve been told that when i’m really truly enthusiastic and happy about something, i’m overwhelming and annoying to others? so i put the brakes on like crazy if i start feeling “too” happy and end up going Appeasement Mode to get out of the social situation as quickly and smoothly as possible.

and uh, what, i don’t even know the collection of things i like and do and say and am. i don’t... Know all of those things at any one time. how, uh, what? what am I. you know. the usual ??????????? flippy haze. 

i mean! i’m getting better at talking Within myself. i REALLY try to talk slowly with kindness and understanding of context to myself and the voices in my head now, and figure out solutions to pain and problems that don’t involve different kinds of pain or avoidance? but i still lapse into like, you know, Augh Jesus Christ I’ve Heard This One Before Why Do I Need To Have This Discussion Again, and frequently i can’t find a viable alternative for avoidance, because i get overwhelmed easily and that makes EVERYTHING worse. and i haven’t figured out how to take my foot off the brake pedal, either, even though i’m not always pressing it. I Need It There For Now Or Else The Car Might Crash u kno. 

so, like, what? i guess i just keep, talking kindly to the voices, and also to myself? practice until it becomes the default state of being when a trigger pops in? this requires patience, and also booting away people who refuse to have patience with me. unfortunate, necessary.

the thing about IRL conversations, is they happen so QUICKLY, and like, i don’t have enough time to calm the brain down from every trigger that pops up! because like, it can be a facial expression, a movement, a word or phrase, a tone, something in the periphery, something behind me, an internal sensation. it’s SO much information my brain is scanning urgently for threats, and my brain scans harder the more a person knows me, because a person who knows you can deal WAY more damage than a stranger. 

so... yes. this is the part i require assistance with. Hrrrrrrmmnhghdfgjnh.

I SUPPOSE. perhaps now the university have stepped in to arrange a case review with the NHS, they can really push for the kind of support i need. which, yeah, it’s long-term one-on-one trauma-focused counselling or therapy, and also some help with social interaction???? not repeated crisis team referrals, not some 12-week DBT course, i’ve literally been off finding DBT skills and employing them on my own because the waiting lists are so fucking long, and not a 12-week psychodynamic course, because i’ve been seeing a psychodynamic counsellor on and off for four years privately, and the work is nowhere near a conclusion. shit, i’d be satisfied if they could just somehow secure funding for me to keep seeing that guy specifically? he’s REALLY helpful to me, literally like my fucking role model for non-toxic masculinity. and i’m not ready for like, group social skills work, Yet. but soon, you know? only when i’m like “okay, yeah, i really do think I can handle this without my health going backwards again” - which, i need more within-myself security for that. 

also better mood monitoring would be nice, i.e. seeing the same damn person, who actually knows my case, instead of a different person every time saying “I’ve just quickly had a look at your case notes”. because if i go low again this winter, then my “depressive disorder NOS” is bipolar, and i’ve been mismedicated from the beginning. and yeah honestly like? as soon as it starts getting dark and cold, I get inexplicably sad, even with plenty of indoor light and warm clothes and whatnot. but yeah we’ll see about that.

anyway This Shit Wack. Im Done.

[vitos-ordination-song]

very important passages from On Becoming a Person:

One of the most revolutionary concepts to grow out of our clinical experience is the growing recognition that the innermost core of man's nature, the deepest layers of his personality, the base of his "animal nature," is positive in nature--is basically socialized., forward-moving, rational and realistic.

This point of view is so foreign to our present culture that I do not expect it to be accepted, and it is indeed so revolutionary in its implications that it should not be accepted without thorough-going inquiry. But even if it should stand these tests, it will be difficult to accept. Religion, especially the Protestant Christian tradition, has permeated our culture with the concept that man is basically sinful, and only by something approaching a miracle can his sinful nature be negated. In psychology, Freud and his followers have presented convincing arguments that the id, man's basic and unconscious nature, is primarily made up of instincts which would, if permitted expression, result in incest, murder, and other crimes. The whole problem of therapy, as seen by this group, is how to hold these untamed forces in check in a wholesome and constructive manner, rather than in the costly fashion of the neurotic. But the fact that at heart man is irrational, unsocialized, destructive of others and self--this is a concept accepted almost without question. To be sure there are occasional voices of protest. Maslow (I) puts up a vigorous case for man's animal nature, pointing out that the anti-social emotions--hostility, jealousy, etc.--result from frustration of more basic impulses for love and security and belonging, which are in themselves desirable. And Montagu (2) likewise develops the thesis that cooperation, rather than struggle, is the basic law of human life. But these solitary voices are little heard. On the whole the viewpoint of the professional worker as well as the layman is that man as he is, in his basic nature, had best be kept under control or under cover or both.

As I look back over my years of clinical experience and research, it seems to me that I have been very slow to recognize the falseness of this popular and professional concept. The reason, I believe, lies in the fact that in therapy there are continually being uncovered hostile and anti-social feelings, so that it is easy to assume that this indicates the deeper and therefore the basic nature of man. Only slowly has it become evident that these untamed and unsocial feelings are neither the deepest nor the strongest, and that the inner core of man's personality is the organism itself, which is essentially both self-preserving and social.

The thread which runs through much of the foregoing material of this chapter is that psychotherapy (at least client-centered therapy) is a process whereby one becomes his organism--without self-deception, without distortion. What does this mean? 

We are talking here about something at an experiential level--a phenomenon which is not easily put into words, and which, if apprehended only at the verbal level, is by that very fact, already distorted. Perhaps if we use several sorts of descriptive formulation, it may ring some bell, however faint, in the reader's experience, and cause him to feel, "Oh, now I know, from my own experience, something of what you are talking about."

Therapy seems to mean a getting back to basic sensory and visceral experience. Prior to therapy the person is prone to ask himself, often unwittingly, "What do others think I should do in this situation?" "What would my parents or my culture want me to do?" "What do I think ought to be done?" He is thus continually acting in terms of the form which should be imposed upon his behavior. This does not necessarily mean that he always acts in accord with the opinions of others. He may indeed endeavor to act so as to contradict the expectations of others. He is nevertheless acting in terms of the (often introjected) expectations of others. During the process of therapy the individual comes to ask himself, in regard to ever-widening areas of his life-space, "How do I experience this? "What does it mean to me?" "If I behave in a certain way how do I symbolize the meaning which it will have for me?" He comes to act on a basis of what may be termed realism--a realistic balancing of the satisfactions and dissatisfactions which any action will bring to himself.

Perhaps it will assist those who, like myself tend to think in concrete arid clinical terms, if I put some of these ideas into schematized formulations of the process through which various clients go. For one client this may mean: "I have thought I must feel only love for my parents, but I find that I experience both love and bitter resentment. Perhaps I can be that person who freely experiences both love and resentment." For another client the learning may be: "I have thought I was only bad and worthless. Now I experience myself at times as one of much worth; at other times as one of little worth or usefulness. Perhaps I can be a person who experiences varying degrees of worth." For another: "I have held the conception that no one could really love me for myself. Now I experience the affectional warmth of another for me. Perhaps I can be a person who is lovable by others--perhaps I am such a person." For still another: "I have been brought up to feel that I must not appreciate myself--but I do. I can cry for myself, but I can enjoy myself, too. Perhaps I am a richly varied person whom I can enjoy and for whom I can feel sorry." Or, to take the last example from Mrs. Oak, "I have thought that in some deep way I was bad, that the most basic elements in me must be dire and awful. I don't experience that badness, but rather a positive desire to live and let live. Perhaps I can be that person who is, at heart, positive." 

What is it that makes possible anything but the first sentence of each of these formulations? It is the addition of awareness. In therapy the person adds to ordinary experience the full and undistorted awareness of his experiencing--of his sensory and visceral reactions. He ceases, or at least decreases, the distortions of experience in awareness. He can be aware of what he is actually experiencing, not simply what he can permit himself to experience after a thorough screening through a conceptual filter. In this sense the person becomes for the first time the full potential of the human organism, with the enriching element of awareness freely added to the basic aspect of sensory and visceral reaction. The person comes to be what he is, as clients so frequently say in therapy. What this seems to mean is that the individual comes to be--in awareness--what he is--in experience. He is, in other words, a complete and fully functioning human organism.

Already I can sense the reactions of some of my readers. "Do you mean that as a result of therapy, man becomes nothing but a human organism, a human animal? Who will control him? Who will socialize him? Will he then throw over all inhibitions? Have you merely released the beast, the id, in man?" To which the most adequate reply seems to be, "In therapy the individual has actually become a human organism, with all the richness which that implies. He is realistically able to control himself, and he is incorrigibly socialized in his desires. There is no beast in man. There is only man in man, and this we have been able to release.”

So the basic discovery of psychotherapy seems to me, if our observations have any validity, that we do not need to be afraid of being "merely" homo sapiens. It is the discovery that if we can add to the sensory and visceral experiencing which is characteristic of the whole animal kingdom, the gift of a free and undistorted awareness of which only the human animal seems fully capable, we have an organism which is beautifully and constructively realistic. We have then an organism which is as aware of the demands of the culture as it is of its own physiological demands for food or sex--which is just as aware of its desire for friendly relationships as it is of its desire to aggrandize itself--which is just as aware of its delicate and sensitive tenderness toward others, as it is of its hostilities toward others. When man's unique capacity of awareness is thus functioning freely and fully, we find that we have, not an animal whom we must fear, not a beast who must be controlled, but an organism able to achieve, through the remarkable integrative capacity of its central nervous system, a balanced, realistic, self-enhancing, other-enhancing behavior as a resultant of all these elements of awareness. To put it another way, when man is less than fully man--when he denies an awareness of various aspects of his experience--then indeed we have all too often reason to fear him and his behavior, as the present world situation testifies. But when he is most fully man, when he is his complete organism, when awareness of experience, that peculiarly human attribute, is most fully operating, then he is to be trusted, then his behavior is constructive. It is not always conventional. It will not always be conforming. It will be individualized. But it will also be socialized.

[gxdsetmxnsters]

Sort of Vent/Ramble Post Prt. 1

I don't know how long this will be so I'll put it below a cut.

I was just thinking about all of this last night but I realized that one thing that has not really sunken in quite as much as it should have is that there is MAJOR stigma attached to the disorders that we have or are questioning. I mean, yeah we knew that the stigma was there, I'm sure those of you who have followed us for a while now know that we hate things like 'Split' or 'The Crowded Room'. I guess what I am saying is that we have never really experienced the stigma first hand enough to care much outside of that.

Certainly we have had times when people have treated our introjects weirdly but we took that in stride because people did not know what introjects were and did not know how to act around them, and that is ok! We educated and then people were respectful. End of story and things were alright. It is only become a problem when people knowingly start being weird or cause problems.

Part of me does not want to fully blame them for it. It is mostly the media and how it portrays DID/OSDD, which is to say, horribly. Can not fault someone completely if something is continuously fed to them via the media because you are going to wind up believing it to some extent if it is the only thing you interact with.

However, I will say that it kind of is if you do not take the time to research it on your own in effort to learn more if that is what you want to do. That is not even counting professionals though. Even if you do your own research there is a painstakingly large amount of papers and other content out there that is stigmatized against DID/OSDD, it is really sad.

We have had our own share of a few professionals tell us to our face that we are essentially faking because the information on DID/OSDD that they know about is outdated or flat out stigma. When we were inpatient recently the psych told us that we could not have DID/OSDD because we were self aware. Which is... ridiculous. Yes lack of self awareness can be common part of the disorder but it is by no means a requirement.

The idea that someone who is having amnesia and having things go missing and finding things that they do not remember buying around their house would not investigate is unreasonable. The logical assumption would be that someone would try to figure out what is going on, would it not be?

Sometimes even, alters will contact the host via writing notes too, so yes, it is possible to be self aware of being a system. Why should it not be? If one can be self aware of having depression or anxiety or any other disorder, why would that not be the same for DID/OSDD? Yes it's a trauma disorder, and yes it is generally a covert disorder, but that does not mean that it is impossible to not know about it.

More research needs to be done on the disorder to be able to understand it more. Stigma in the medical community needs to end and stigma in the general population needs to end too. It is unfair to the people who have the disorder and prevents them from actually getting help.