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[Image text: Most survivors are their own greatest critics when it comes to doubting their memories. They have been programmed to distrust them. They hate and fear them and want them to be untrue. They have been invalidated by others their whole lives. To be healing, we must be deeply honest. If an account seems contrived, fear-driven, impossible, etc., we can say "It does not ring true to me." And when reality is very unclear, we may say "Let's see what happens as this unfolds." But when clients overcome tremendous trepidation, and finally share an account of unspeakable horrors, with vivid multisensory details, and matching somatic flashbacks, and matching affect of fear, disgust, rage, and grief, pieces of other memories match, and they both wish it was not true, and long to be believed, and they say "Could this be real?", or "Do you think I am making this up?" we must speak the truth from our heart, and say "It all seems to fit," or "It rings true to me." To say "What matters is what is your truth" is a lie. It is nonempathic. It is dissociogenic. And it leaves them alone in the ritual or laboratory.] Quote by Dr. Ellen Lacter, reprinted in Alison Miller’s book Healing the Unimaginable.

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you dont need to be miserable 24/7 to be disordered or traumatized in case no one’s told you that today

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i hope one day you wake up and feel better about everything

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Wait, so you said that you can learn to trust others by building friendships, but how does one go about doing that? Wouldn't someone I don't know be creeped out or annoyed if I suddenly walked up and started talking to them?

Friendships are built of repeated low-stakes interactions and returned bids for attention with slowly increasing intimacy over time.

It takes a long time to make friends as an adult. People will probably think you're weird if you just walk up and start talking to them as though you are already their friend (people think it's weird when I do this, I try not to do this) but people won't think it's weird if you're someone they've seen a few times who says "hey" and then gradually has more conversations (consisting of more words) with them.

I cheat at forming adult friendships by joining groups where people meet regularly. If you're part of a radio club that meets once a week and you just join up to talk about radios, eventually those will be your radio friends.

If there's a hiking meetup near you and you go regularly, you will eventually have hiking friends.

Deeper friendships are formed with people from those kinds of groups when you do things with them outside of the context of the original interaction; if you go camping with your radio friend, that person is probably more friend than acquaintance. If you go to the movies with a hiking friend who likes the same horror movies as you do, that is deepening the friendship.

In, like 2011 Large Bastard decided he wanted more friends to do stuff with so he started a local radio meetup. These people started as strangers who shared an interest. Now they are people who give each other rides after surgery and help each other move and have started businesses together and have gone on many radio-based camping trips and have worked on each other's cars.

Finding a meetup or starting a meetup is genuinely the cheat-code for making friends.

This is also how making friendships at schools works - you're around a group of people very regularly and eventually you get to know them better and you start figuring out who you get along with and you start spending more time with those people.

If you want to do this in the most fast and dramatic way possible, join a band.

In 2020 I wrote something of a primer on how to turn low-stakes interactions with neighbors and acquaintances into more meaningful relationships; check the notes of this post over the next couple days, I'll dig up the link and share it in a reblog.

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You want me to take what test?? The 16 Personalities Test???? I have more than that.

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Jihyun Yun, from Some Are Always Hungry; “Reversal”

[Text ID: “I so want to survive this. Please lead me whole into another season so I may dare begin again.”]

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re-reading this to feel less insane

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(yearns for a past that does not exist) (yearns for a past that does not exist) (yearns for a past that does not exist) (yearns for a past that does not exist) (yearns for a past that does not exist)

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a sequel to this post

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Things that can happen in DID/OSDD but people don’t talk about them as much:

An alter being co-conscious or influencing you without you knowing.

Being aware of a co-con alter but not knowing who they are.

Having difficulty telling apart your inner experiences. (Was that an alter or was I just feeling differently or was I just daydreaming?)

Having difficulty identifying your own emotions. (I feel “something”)

Knowing how to do something yet feeling like you don’t or shouldn’t know how to do it. (How do I know how to use this phone? I feel like it’s 1998 when I didn’t know what a phone was yet.)

Being in a familiar place/situation yet feeling confused, like it’s unfamiliar. (I’ve lived in this house for 7 years but I feel like this is my first time ever being in it.)

Being confused that your body is smaller/taller than you thought.

Feeling or being unable to do things that you normally can do at other times. (I just couldn’t drive the other day. I don’t know how. I just forgot how to do it.)

Things that happened a few days ago feel like months ago, or things that happened months ago feel like a few days ago.

Experiencing pain, headaches, visual impairment, or other physical symptoms that doctors can’t find a cause for.

Waking up as a different alter than the one who went to bed.

A co-conscious alter being able to influence or take control of certain body parts (like using the arms to hold & comfort you).

Being unable to tell if you’re dreaming or awake.

Feel free to add on!

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I think it needs to become common knowledge that "inability to read social cues" can show up as overcompensating.

You don't know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.

You don't know if someone is irritated with you, so you'll be extra generous and self-effacing.

You don't know how much is expected of you at work so you'll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.

"Hardworking and quiet" should be as much of an autism red flag as "ignores rules and doesn't know when to stop talking". Or why don't we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody's eyebrow twitches, that would be great.