archive-of-escapism

[archive-of-escapism]

I think it's okay to view your other alters as people. It doesn't stop recovery, in fact, it can help promote communication.

Treating alters as ignorable parts can just cause worse dissociation and leads you back to square one. You're not a singlet, just learn how to accept that.

Final fusion isn't bad either, if you're doing it right. But if you're going into it with the mentality that you could be a singlet, it's not helpful. It will cause you more pain, especially if you're not ready to accept all the trauma you went through.

It's okay if you don't feel like a whole. It's okay if you don't feel like the same person. It's okay, you don't have to be a single person. I need people to stop forcing that onto systems. I'll never reach final fusion, because we don't want to. Don't force that onto other systems.

No system has to prove singularity to you, they're not problematic when they're inconsistent. Please respect systems, no matter how healed or unhealed they are. We literally have complex post traumatic stress disorder. It's built into dissociative disorders. No system needs prove wholeness or singularity. Stop making that the goal.

The goal is to accept trauma, to work together. You can't do that if you're ignoring your own damn needs.

It's okay to be a little emo kid sometimes, it's okay to be a vampire or a fairy or a mermaid, it's okay to be a doll, it's okay to like things that you did when you were 10. It's okay to remember only some memories sometimes. It's okay to be inconsistent, it's okay to have multiple opinions, it's okay to feel conflicted about someone. It's okay to be contradictory. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to feel confused. Be okay with being different. Be okay with changing. You're allowed to be 50 rats in a trench coat. Don't blame yourself for this.

[archive-of-escapism]

I think it's okay to view your other alters as people. It doesn't stop recovery, in fact, it can help promote communication.

Treating alters as ignorable parts can just cause worse dissociation and leads you back to square one. You're not a singlet, just learn how to accept that.

Final fusion isn't bad either, if you're doing it right. But if you're going into it with the mentality that you could be a singlet, it's not helpful. It will cause you more pain, especially if you're not ready to accept all the trauma you went through.

It's okay if you don't feel like a whole. It's okay if you don't feel like the same person. It's okay, you don't have to be a single person. I need people to stop forcing that onto systems. I'll never reach final fusion, because we don't want to. Don't force that onto other systems.

No system has to prove singularity to you, they're not problematic when they're inconsistent. Please respect systems, no matter how healed or unhealed they are. We literally have complex post traumatic stress disorder. It's built into dissociative disorders. No system needs prove wholeness or singularity. Stop making that the goal.

The goal is to accept trauma, to work together. You can't do that if you're ignoring your own damn needs.

It's okay to be a little emo kid sometimes, it's okay to be a vampire or a fairy or a mermaid, it's okay to be a doll, it's okay to like things that you did when you were 10. It's okay to remember only some memories sometimes. It's okay to be inconsistent, it's okay to have multiple opinions, it's okay to feel conflicted about someone. It's okay to be contradictory. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to feel confused. Be okay with being different. Be okay with changing. You're allowed to be 50 rats in a trench coat. Don't blame yourself for this.

[archive-of-escapism]

I think it's okay to view your other alters as people. It doesn't stop recovery, in fact, it can help promote communication.

Treating alters as ignorable parts can just cause worse dissociation and leads you back to square one. You're not a singlet, just learn how to accept that.

Final fusion isn't bad either, if you're doing it right. But if you're going into it with the mentality that you could be a singlet, it's not helpful. It will cause you more pain, especially if you're not ready to accept all the trauma you went through.

It's okay if you don't feel like a whole. It's okay if you don't feel like the same person. It's okay, you don't have to be a single person. I need people to stop forcing that onto systems. I'll never reach final fusion, because we don't want to. Don't force that onto other systems.

No system has to prove singularity to you, they're not problematic when they're inconsistent. Please respect systems, no matter how healed or unhealed they are. We literally have complex post traumatic stress disorder. It's built into dissociative disorders. No system needs prove wholeness or singularity. Stop making that the goal.

The goal is to accept trauma, to work together. You can't do that if you're ignoring your own damn needs.

It's okay to be a little emo kid sometimes, it's okay to be a vampire or a fairy or a mermaid, it's okay to be a doll, it's okay to like things that you did when you were 10. It's okay to remember only some memories sometimes. It's okay to be inconsistent, it's okay to have multiple opinions, it's okay to feel conflicted about someone. It's okay to be contradictory. There's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to feel confused. Be okay with being different. Be okay with changing. You're allowed to be 50 rats in a trench coat. Don't blame yourself for this.

[archive-of-escapism]

For us, we talk about fictional introjects more because we have more positive relationships with them, getting into abuser introjects is just more difficult,

But from personal experience, I have 2 big ones: mommy and Him

Mommy is a protector, but she's also abusive.

Have you ever seen that seen from memoir of a geisha? Mommy is like that scene from that movie: "I will beat you hard now, so that mother does not beat you harder later"

Mommy feels like she has to abusive towards us and our little siblings to keep us safe from our mother, who was much more unpredictable than mommy. Mommy says clean your room so that mother doesn't drag you down the stairs again. In therapy we have worked with Mommy to help her understand that a good mother doesn't need to use fear to control us, that if she talks to us with kindness and positivity we can have a stronger relationship.

Him is different, Him doesn't front, Him only speaks, and the only way to stop him is to shut him out, we haven't been able to work with him well

just another thing that makes me feel incredibly alienated from the community: there’s a large focus on introjects, but only the palatable ones–fictional introjects–instead of abuser introjects or caretaker introjects. i have an introject of my mother. that is an incredibly terrifying experience that i don’t even know how to begin dealing with. i WISH i had advice for handling her when she comes near, even if she doesn’t come near very often, and yet, every single post about introjects is about fictional introjects.

why don’t we as a community talk more about introjects of abusers or caretakers? seriously. that is, clinically, the most common form of introject for a person to have, and yet people with abuser or caretaker introjects feel alienated in the community because the only kind of introject ever discussed are fictional ones. 

like, c’mon guys.

[archive-of-escapism]

Alters: Who Am I?

Oftentimes with DID/OSDD, it can be difficult to tell who you are. Our system kind of has a list of questions we go through, and I thought I might post them to see if anyone else finds them useful. I’ve added some too.

Do I have an accent/speak a different language? If so, what kind?

What gender feeling do I have (masculine, feminine, androgynous)?

What pronouns do I use?

What age do I feel like (adult, middle, little)?

Am I an extrovert or introvert?

What main emotion am I feeling or goal do I have?

What music do I like?

What’s my favorite color?

How long/what style of hair do I have in innerworld?

Do I feel shorter, taller, or around the same height as the body?

Do I have any pseudomemories? If so, what are they?

Do I seem more like an ANP or EP?

Do I feel non-human in any way? If so, what do I feel about me is not human (wings, horns, etc.)?

What hand do I write with easier?

Do I need glasses?

Am I having any functioning issues (motor, vocal, etc.)?

[Insert things specific to one or a few alters in your system that others don’t experience or do.]

Please feel free to add on with other questions you might use to help yourself distinguish who you are, as this is not an exhaustive list!

[archive-of-escapism]

I'm sorry, but I just don't think the brain is that simple /: and I don't think it's fair to deny their existence.

I am getting so TIRED of white systems

Not just endos/non traumagenics I’m talking about I mean you anti endo systems too. I mean ALL white systems.

Y’all are so quick to take names from closed cultures, claim races and ethnicities that you don’t belong to, and blatantly ignore people of color when we tell you something is racist, and it’s getting tiring. It’s hard as fuck being a person of color and y’all just make it so much worse. Listen to people of color.

[archive-of-escapism]

This argument is assanine because alters in the body that have different ages than the body are literally those ages - there's still body accountability obviously. Just because an alter is 5 doesn't mean they can go to a public kindergarten with other 5 year olds when the body is 30. I'm not arguing to be allowed into spaces reserved for poc, I'm arguing that the mind is capable of forming cultural identities that are incongruent with the body

I am getting so TIRED of white systems

Not just endos/non traumagenics I’m talking about I mean you anti endo systems too. I mean ALL white systems.

Y’all are so quick to take names from closed cultures, claim races and ethnicities that you don’t belong to, and blatantly ignore people of color when we tell you something is racist, and it’s getting tiring. It’s hard as fuck being a person of color and y’all just make it so much worse. Listen to people of color.

[archive-of-escapism]

I would argue that it's entirely possible for an identity to completely adopt a culture the body doesn't belong to though. Like, when the mind is totally disconnected from the body during the formation of an alter, there's no sense of self that matches the body, if the forming alter happens to consume nothing but media, works, and information about a culture that is seperate from the body, like I dont think its fair to the alters who, mentally - aside from real life social experience, feels a deep connection to the culture they identify with. Like we have Hispanic family through marriage, and while spending time with them as a child and splitting/developing alters, some of those alters adopted Hispanic names and identities formed through experiencing that culture, sometimes there's no identification with the body or the bodies family when an alter forms, like if we have an alter who is a Pikachu and a cat, I don't find it completely bizarre that when we were small we were playing with children from another culture and we took on the identities they shared with us because we wanted to be them instead - I don't find that to be wrong. Like logically, I know I am white - but that doesn't change the fact that G grew up in a black neighborhood, riding bikes with black kids and learning and forming an identity more similar to theirs than their siblings. She only has memories of her friends, not her own face so the closest face she can imagine to hers is a black face - I'm not jumping into discourse to talk about racism or nothing cus I know the body is white, but it doesn't change the fact that I most identify and flow better with black people when I'm socializing. So idk it's like maybe there's room for nuance in this conversation ? I've heard black systems talk about white alters forming due to social stigmas and racism, and to that I can completely understand cause I grew up where it wasn't normal to be white and so when I lost my sense of self I picked up the selves around me, the people I admired and wanted to be like, and they were black sometimes 🤷 or Hispanic, or mixed, and most of em are white, but there's a damn cat so it ain't like we been controlling this thing? I feel like it's unfair to them to say they're wrong when they formed from people and culture we cared for and partook in and developed our sense of self in

I am getting so TIRED of white systems

Not just endos/non traumagenics I’m talking about I mean you anti endo systems too. I mean ALL white systems.

Y’all are so quick to take names from closed cultures, claim races and ethnicities that you don’t belong to, and blatantly ignore people of color when we tell you something is racist, and it’s getting tiring. It’s hard as fuck being a person of color and y’all just make it so much worse. Listen to people of color.

[archive-of-escapism]

You cant control what culture an identity forms from ? Like we know there are systems with cross racial/cultural/ethnic identitities - like idk man

I am getting so TIRED of white systems

Not just endos/non traumagenics I’m talking about I mean you anti endo systems too. I mean ALL white systems.

Y’all are so quick to take names from closed cultures, claim races and ethnicities that you don’t belong to, and blatantly ignore people of color when we tell you something is racist, and it’s getting tiring. It’s hard as fuck being a person of color and y’all just make it so much worse. Listen to people of color.

[archive-of-escapism]

Having DID is watching the movie Frozen and being like "so yeah, that was a movie about myself who is in charge and needs to be responsible learning to give up the need to control everything to allow our self to feel safe and happy now that we've left toxic relationships, toxic households and met better people to build loving relationships with"

And then everyone else is like no its 2 sister princess and magic, your not in that movie?? Do you think you're in every movie?

Me: encanto is about 9 of my selves-

[archive-of-escapism]

Okay but this literally happened to us last night/last morning

Carrie had a bpd meltdown, hit our head with a book, and then she kept crying and making mimi cry and everything was like agahwudbcbwjejdjxjejejdjcjcjrjrjfjcded badness

And then I just come up out the blue start talking to everyone and makin em feel a bit better and fuck I guess I'm Alive now, I think I branched off of JR maybe cause I feel like we're cousins but idek lol

my DID brain experiencing even a tiny bit of stress

[archive-of-escapism]

Okay but this literally happened to us last night/last morning

Carrie had a bpd meltdown, hit our head with a book, and then she kept crying and making mimi cry and everything was like agahwudbcbwjejdjxjejejdjcjcjrjrjfjcded badness

And then I just come up out the blue start talking to everyone and makin em feel a bit better and fuck I guess I'm Alive now, I think I branched off of JR maybe cause I feel like we're cousins but idek lol

my DID brain experiencing even a tiny bit of stress

[archive-of-escapism]

Shout out to me who feels triggered for beginning my existence as a 19 year old

This is very specific, but shout out to headmates who lack exomemories and/or those who are confused as to who they are. It can be hard, especially if you’re in a system with mostly people who have exomemories, but you don’t need them to be a real person. You can make all sorts of new memories here with the help of your system and those around you. Some people remember things over time, and some never do–both of these are perfectly normal and okay. You’re not less valid or less real than any other headmate for lacking exomemories. 

[archive-of-escapism]

Shout out to me who feels triggered for beginning my existence as a 19 year old

This is very specific, but shout out to headmates who lack exomemories and/or those who are confused as to who they are. It can be hard, especially if you’re in a system with mostly people who have exomemories, but you don’t need them to be a real person. You can make all sorts of new memories here with the help of your system and those around you. Some people remember things over time, and some never do–both of these are perfectly normal and okay. You’re not less valid or less real than any other headmate for lacking exomemories. 

[archive-of-escapism]

Shout out to me who feels triggered for beginning my existence as a 19 year old

This is very specific, but shout out to headmates who lack exomemories and/or those who are confused as to who they are. It can be hard, especially if you’re in a system with mostly people who have exomemories, but you don’t need them to be a real person. You can make all sorts of new memories here with the help of your system and those around you. Some people remember things over time, and some never do–both of these are perfectly normal and okay. You’re not less valid or less real than any other headmate for lacking exomemories. 

[archive-of-escapism]

Needed this

shout out to alters who self-harm the body. you're not a burden and your system doesn't hate you, they understand your hurt and feel bad. you're not dangerous to the system <3 stay strong

[archive-of-escapism]

Ugh I'm so depressed and blurry and lost and confused like if I think who am I its like I have such a headache and I can only get flashes of things and if I think I can use these things to build myself they get weaker and I get weaker till I can't even draw ugh I just want to feel solid and capable, are coms down today? Where is everyone.