resistance-squad

[resistance-squad]

I know the Degrassi TNG opening is probably considered corny as hell, but I'm gonna be real, I actually appreciate it a lot. During some times in my life where I really struggled to believe that "if I hold out, I know I can make it through," that song gave me something to hold onto.

#🦁

[resistance-squad]

Also, depending on how long you've been working on it, it may just take longer for your body to adapt.

Growing up, I barely drank anything, ever. (Let's just say there was neglect involved, and leave it at that.)

Our bodies naturally process water at different speeds (within certain limits of course) depending on how readily available water seems to be, how much water you drink at once, and so on. So my understanding is that when we're chronically dehydrated, our bodies attempt to adapt to this as best they can.

It's been about a year since I started trying to consistently drink 1000mL of water a day. At first, it was almost impossible -- anything more than a couple of sips tended to make me feel sick, as if my body didn't even know what to do with plain water. So I would just drink as much water as I could handle. But now, it's not very hard to drink the 1000mL.

Also, in the past month or so, I've noticed I finally have started to develop or connect with my sense of thirst. In the past, my brain never, ever registered feeling thirsty, and that made it hard to motivate myself to drink water. Nowadays, if I get caught up in something and forget to drink water for a while, I actually start registering a feeling of thirst, so then it's not just a matter of remembering to do it -- my body will remind me.

So I'm chronically dehydrated and I'm trying to work on that. I've doubled the amount of water I typically drink in a day, and I'm using one of those hydration tracker apps where you put in each glass of water you drink (you type in how many ounces were in each drink and it tracks how many ounces you drink per day).

Turns out even after doubling my daily intake of water, IM STILL DRINKING LESS THAN HALF OF MY DAILY RECCOMENDED INTAKE. And that's at maximum.

How are you people drinking that much water???? I feel like I would need to just constantly be gulping water all day in order to get to where I need to be. Like, I dont feel like I'm physically capable of drinking that much liquid in a day.

If anyone has advice I would greatly appreciate it, I really need to get this sorted out because its causing problems.

-Ace (it/its)

[resistance-squad]

It's validating to hear other people say that their alters didn't start out being able to say "here's who I am and this is what I like and this is what I'm like as a person." I have a suspicion that it's less common that things start out that way, and people just often don't feel comfortable sharing that because it feels too vulnerable (e.g., worrying about getting fakeclaimed). It's only recently that I've started to feel comfortable even being open about just. having no clue who is fronting so much of the time. Because it keeps feeling like, "Half the criteria for the disorder* is being different [people/parts/alters], so how the hell can I not know which one I am?!" (*Technically it's not exactly half, but I'm referring to the criteria that are unique to DID, rather than things like "is not better explained by a different condition or substance use" that are in the criteria for basically everything.)

When we were first diagnosed, most of us didn't start out really knowing where one of us started and another of us began. There were definitely objective patterns that we've been able to trace back since, so I want to stress for the skeptics out there that us being different didn't START with being diagnosed -- just that our ability to RECOGNIZE our differences did. So for example, as our best friend has gotten to know us all, she's been able to point out conversations she's had with us as individuals before we knew about our DID and point out things about our way of speaking, body language, etc.

It's just hard for us to notice those things, because... well, for one, dissociation being what it is. And for two, it's not like we have a lot to compare it to. Each of us only know what it feels like to be ourselves. We don't know how it feels to be each other, so it takes a long time to develop a sense for, "Oh, this is who I am right now." Because all of us think of ourselves as "just me" (not the same "me," but meaning like... most people without DID aren't consciously thinking about who they are 24/7 and neither do we!).

I suspect that this might be partly related to having a bigger system (but I don't know for sure since I don't think my system is that much bigger than average?) and/or switching frequently (if it's usually one person/alter fronting, changes will probably stand out more... but if you normally switch 10+ times a day as seems to be the case for me, variability becomes the norm), but that's just speculation and I'm sure that even if those are often correlations that there would still be exceptions.

To be honest, I don't even know a lot of how this has changed. We've definitely come pretty far in knowing who we are, for those of us who know of ourselves and are known to one another.

I know that tracking switches definitely didn't work for us. At first, trying to figure out who we were tended to trigger rapid switching which would then lead to a migraine. Even now, attempting to track switches usually leads to us getting overwhelmed and dissociating a lot.

A lot of strategies around "ask yourself what you like!" type things also didn't work for us in the past, because... we didn't KNOW what we liked.

We did write down every single name that anyone answered with as potentially being their name. We still have no idea if some of those names actually exist, or were just names that came to mind for someone figuring out who they are, or were even intended to throw us off from getting to know ourselves by some who were not on board with increasing our awareness.

We also looked for certain patterns. Like, "At least one of us definitely likes this kind of music," or, "Some of us definitely have lower pitched voices than others." Later we became able to match those patterns to specific people in the system. Anytime we noticed something about ourselves or someone else pointed out something to us, we wrote it down.

I think also that dissociating less has been a big part of it? We kind of constantly live in a low-level degree of dissociation, but it used to be so bad that even in the moment a lot of us couldn't tell if we enjoyed something or not, because we were just... disconnected from ourselves. When we had free time, we would just do whatever we felt like we "should" do, because we had no idea what we wanted to do. We started working on that years before getting diagnosed with DID, just learning to be a little more "present."

We also kept trying and kept practicing. We took breaks from it when we started to feel overwhelmed, but once we felt like we could handle it again, we would try working at asking ourselves who we are a little more often, trying to notice things about ourselves, trying to watch for signs we switched, etc. A lot of it didn't get very far, but I feel like every time we tried, we were pushing back a little more of those dissociative barriers.

Also related to that, just practicing noticing things like, "Earlier, I said I was ❄ and said this, but now I think I'm ❄ and that doesn't match how I feel... so was I not ❄ then, am I not ❄ now, or did I just change my mind?" and, "I'm feeling this really intense sadness inside of me right now. I don't think it's 'mine,' but I don't know whose it is. Hey, I'm not sure whose sadness I'm feeling right now, but I just want you to know that I'm here for you, as best I know how." I think that even just noticing things like that, or talking with one another even when we don't know exactly who we are or who we're talking to, also probably decreases dissociative barriers.

We also worked with the people in the system who were reluctant about the system increasing awareness and very specifically tried to address their concerns. Sometimes we didn't know if it was our own individual fears or someone in the system we knew or someone in the system we didn't know. But if we were hearing/feeling those concerns come up, we could still speak to the source of those concerns to hear them out.

We also made our peace pretty quickly with the fact that there WILL be times we're mistaken about ourselves. Where one of us thinks we're someone else, or we think one of us likes a certain kind of music but it's actually someone else, etc. And that's okay.

Lastly, once we started to get enough of a sense of who we are that we could sometimes know who's fronting or intentionally switch, we started trying to make time for certain people in the system to try out different hobbies, music, etc. to see if they were the one (or among the ones) who enjoy that. And we found that as some of those details filled in for a couple of people, that seemed to help others in the system with some degree of communication with them follow suit, because it gave them more of a basis for comparison.

DID is super individual so probably not all of these things will apply to anyone else, but I hope that it might give some helpful ideas for at least someone?

I've come to find that there is not a single resource I've been able to find online that talks about how the fuck you figure out who and what your alters are. Like from complete scratch, essentially. Where you just know absolutely nothing and most of your alters don't know anything either, they don't know themselves any more than other parts do, and you have to do so much detective work trying to overanalyze your behaviors, feelings, etc. just to look for patterns. I have yet to meet another system that has had to struggle with this.

It's always advice about internal communication and journaling, but every single one of these relies on you already knowing your alters. What if you literally don't know a single alter of yours? What if your internal communication is practically nonexistent? I find it so frustrating. And they always rely on huge overt differences too, like it feels like every system online trying to give advice expects the reader to already know who their alters are and to already have some kind of communication and to even have HUGE, overt differences.

Like I'm sorry but alter differences are more than just "this alter likes this name and this alter likes these hobbies and this alter likes this set of pronouns"

I'm, like, 2/3 years into still trying to figure things out (I was questioning until in recent months got diagnosed) and I still couldn't really tell you who I am at any given moment. I am just Ethan? I am a guy. I just exist I guess, I am navigating the world. I am here. What specific alter I am is completely up in the air, fuck if I know, fuck if I ever know. I never see people talk about this - I see people talk about not knowing who they are and blurriness, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Literally not knowing any of yourselves at all not even a little bit. Not knowing your name, if you have any, if you're a specific alter different from others, what your "function" is, just literally anything. I don't know how anyone knows this stuff about themselves/their own alters right off the bat or how they were able to figure out this stuff without already having some kind of knowledge about themselves/their system/alters.

#system communication

[resistance-squad]

we’ve made autism into a small insignificant personality trait/identity like being queer and that’s actually so fucking wrong and insulting

37.9% of autistics have an intellectual disability

1/3rd of autistics are completely nonspeaking

most autistics will not be able to hold a job, go to college, or live on their own

autism rarely travels alone and has many medical comorbidities like epilepsy, mitochondrial disorders, and genetic disorders (which are the most common comorbidities - these aren’t rare complications.)

we can have discussions about autism and ableism and how society sees us without spreading misinformation.

autism is a lifelong, often debilitating neurodevelopmental and genetic disorder that affects how one communicates and interacts with the world. it is not “just being socially awkward” or feeling nervous in social situations. it is a neurological disability. start treating it like one.

#psa #autism

[resistance-squad]

Trigger warning for discussion of OCD themes, which can trigger people who suffer from OCD.

This post was made so that it could be reblogged and possibly prompt people to do more research. However, it is not required to reblog this post. Not reblogging this post is morally neutral, no one will be harmed and nothing bad will happen if you choose not to reblog it!

I'm only able to cover a very small amount of information, please do your research and take my words with a grain of salt and do further reading if youre interested, I am not an all-knowing being.

So I know most of y'all you think OCD is just about being really clean and that's not your fault but it's super important that y'all understand that

1. Contamination isn't always about germs.

2. That even when it is about germs what that really looks like.

3. OCD can also present as serious morality or religious issues, harm issues, there is an actual subset of ocd called Hit and Run ocd which is a fear of hitting someone with your car people have actually quit driving because of this, skin picking compulsions, etc. There is so much more than wanting to be clean and tidy all the time. (This does not mean that people with "Just Right" ocd or ocd people have tics and compulsions related to cleaning do not exist. They do exist and they are deserving of compassion and consideration when discussing OCD education and acceptance.)

On top of just germs, people with ocd can fear being contaminated by bigotry(Oh look, it's me!), personalities, radioactivity, soap, newspaper, colors, thoughts, words. Anything really.

Even when it is just being "clean" it can be a lot more complicated than that.

"One unusual belief sufferers have is that very small amounts of contaminants can cover very large areas. For example, they may believe that a drop of blood or urine can somehow be spread to coat entire rooms, or even everything they own." - International OCD Foundation

People with OCD having contamination issues is a stereotype but if we know anything about other stereotypes (Such as the stereotype that gay men are high femme) plenty of people fit the stereotype yet are still valid. I personally didn't develop contamination issues with fecal matter until recently despite being able to trace my ocd symptoms back more than a decade.

Morality and religious OCD are extremely common. Here are some examples of both from OCDLA (souce, source) Which is why a lot of content on Tumblr is harmful to OCD people.

Also, reassurance is actually bad for folks with OCD. Which is extremely difficult but very important to know. I sometimes struggle to not reassure people with OCD, it feels cold and callus to say "I won't reassure you." And it would be to anyone else, but seeking reassurance is a compulsion. This is because of how OCD works. To ask for reassurance is often a compulsion for OCD people, it can and often does become addicting while not being helpful.

Which brings me to my next topic:

Compulsions and tics can be just about anything. They can involve counting, tapping, movements, arranging, checking. There is even "just right" OCD where something have to be repeated several times until it is "correct".

The most effective treatment for OCD is medication and ERP (Exposure and Response prevention) which seeks to stop the cycle at the Obsessive Thought and reduce anxiety and therefore stop compulsions. Which essentually trains you to not have as much of a physical reation to your intrusive thoughts. Which is also why statements like "being disturbed by your intrusive thoughts makes you a good person" are actually harmful and inaccurate.

"Unfortunately, with OCD, your brain tells you that you are in danger a lot, even in situations where you “know” that there is a very small likelihood that something bad might happen. This is one of the cruelest parts of this disorder.

Now consider that your compulsive behaviors are your attempts to keep yourself safe when that alarm goes off. What does that mean you are telling your brain when you engage in these behaviors? You are reinforcing the brain’s idea that you must be in danger. Birthday candles are the same as a blazing fire.

In other words, your compulsive behavior fuels that part of your brain that gives out these many unwarranted alarm signals. The bottom line is that in order to reduce your anxiety and your obsessions, you have to make a decision to stop the compulsive behaviors." - International OCD foundation.

Pure-O OCD also exists, which has more mental than physical conpulsions.

Important final note: Thought crimes are not real. Enforcing that they are actively harms people with OCD and no, you can't just say "unless they cause you distress!" because you can still be a decent person while reacting less and less to your intrusive thoughts as that is literally the goal of most pcd treatments. Thoughts are morally neutral.

#psa #ocd

[resistance-squad]

One of the things that's so weird/hard to explain about DID is not knowing who we are sometimes. But like we ARE whoever we are, just that we sometimes don't recognize ourselves. I guess it's because we only fully know what it feels like to be our individual selves, so we can't always be like, "Oh, I don't feel like [whoever was fronting before] anymore, I feel like [me] now." And then there's the dissociation on top of that.

I feel like it happens less and less as we aren't dissociating as much, so when we front, we're able to be more present in knowing who we are. But some of us don't front that often so we're taking longer than those who front a lot. And it's not like we always notice every switch. (We've tried tracking them, but it's too overwhelming, so we stopped.)

Anyways, the other day I was posting on here a bunch. Except I didn't really know who I was. When I asked myself, I was like, "I dunno, I just feel like me. I guess that means I'm probably ❄?" (This is probably a weird conclusion since all of us "just feel like ourselves," and I know that, but I dunno, I'm still getting used to all this!) Even though in the back of my head I was like, "Huh, if I'm ❄, I'm sure a lot more talkative than usual."

Then later that day ❄ did front, and she looked at our blog and was like, "Wow, who was on our blog today lol?"... except then she saw one of the posts and I'd said I was her in it, so she was like, "It was me???? I feel like I should remember it if that was me... and I'm not usually that chatty... huh. Maybe I was in a chatty mood and then forgot it for non-DID reasons???"

But then today I fronted again and I was like, "Wait a minute. This is me. And those posts were me, too, not ❄. Whoops. That explains a lot!"

Anyway, it's hard not to feel self-conscious about not knowing who we are, but it's also super normal that people CDDs experience that, so... I felt like I wanted to be open about it.

#🦚

[resistance-squad]

I'll stop rambling on here (you can tell I don't get to front much, huh?), but I was just reflecting...

Our former best friend was also a Degrassi fan, so thinking about Degrassi got me remembering our friendship with her.

I don't think I'll ever forgive her for how she treated us. And somehow, I feel like deciding that has given me a sense of closure I was having a hard time getting before, even though it's been practically a year since our falling out with her.

I don't think she's a bad person or anything. I know that we both had our own issues in the friendship. But what I mean about not forgiving her is that even if we ever had the chance to get back in touch, I wouldn't take it. Not in an angry "get back at her" way, but just... "this isn't a connection I would invest my time and energy to try to get back." It's like just moving on and letting go of the feelings I've had about it.

She had repeatedly pushed us to open up to her more when we were having a hard time. And we'd promised her we'd try to do that. So when we were starting to move toward system discovery (but before getting diagnosed), I opened up to her about feeling scared I might have DID and not knowing what that would mean for me, and hoping that fear was just me overthinking things.

A week prior, she'd been saying how glad she was we were friends... but a couple days after we told her about being afraid of having DID, she said she didn't want to be friends anymore. I don't know for sure if that was cause and effect, but that was the only thing that changed, so... probably, yeah. And if so, that's really messed up.

#🦚

[resistance-squad]

it definitely needs to include becky's "transient? adam is homeless?" and of COURSE the iconic "you told me........ to play............. BASKETBALL!!!!!!"

also "actually blue i know what my priority is right now. this taco."

AND can't forget "how do i flirt, hi i'm fiona, do you like bread?" (or whatever the line was) & "where do i do that, lesbianpromdate dot com?"

I met our therapist for the first time this week, and I spent basically the whole time talking about Degrassi (to start to get comfortable with her myself) and when she said she'd seen some of the early seasons I was so excited to reminisce about it.

Me: Do you remember Peter? Her: Peter...? I don't think so. Me: Oh so you probably didn't see "Peter's meth weekend"-- Wait, you should remember Peter. He's the one who recorded Manny's boobs! Her: What?! Me: Yeah! Remember?! "And you can sell this for a million dollars, cuz I'm gonna be famous!" Her: I don't remember any of this!!!

Only true Degrassi fans will remember ig 🤣

#i need to go to bed #ignore the spam ig #🦚

[resistance-squad]

that's it i'm gonna rewatch every single season of degrassi and make a compilation video like those "degrassi out of context" ones but my own favorite weird lines i'm gonna do it i don't care if it's like 20 seasons

(18 if you count just The Next Generation + Next Class, 23 if you also count Junior High and Degrassi High, and ig 24 if you count The Kids of Degrassi Street but I've literally never in my life seen anyone count that so I assume that one is omitted by default)

I met our therapist for the first time this week, and I spent basically the whole time talking about Degrassi (to start to get comfortable with her myself) and when she said she'd seen some of the early seasons I was so excited to reminisce about it.

Me: Do you remember Peter? Her: Peter...? I don't think so. Me: Oh so you probably didn't see "Peter's meth weekend"-- Wait, you should remember Peter. He's the one who recorded Manny's boobs! Her: What?! Me: Yeah! Remember?! "And you can sell this for a million dollars, cuz I'm gonna be famous!" Her: I don't remember any of this!!!

Only true Degrassi fans will remember ig 🤣

#🦚 #it's missing degrassi hours you guys

[resistance-squad]

I met our therapist for the first time this week, and I spent basically the whole time talking about Degrassi (to start to get comfortable with her myself) and when she said she'd seen some of the early seasons I was so excited to reminisce about it.

Me: Do you remember Peter? Her: Peter...? I don't think so. Me: Oh so you probably didn't see "Peter's meth weekend"-- Wait, you should remember Peter. He's the one who recorded Manny's boobs! Her: What?! Me: Yeah! Remember?! "And you can sell this for a million dollars, cuz I'm gonna be famous!" Her: I don't remember any of this!!!

Only true Degrassi fans will remember ig 🤣

#god i miss that show so bad #degrassi #in the hopes someone will come talk about degrassi with me lol #🦚

[resistance-squad]

I'VE HAD THIS EXACT THOUGHT TBH it's nice to hear someone else relate. I feel like we've got some who could be considered fragments, but none of us feel comfortable with the term. (No shade to systems who see it differently ofc.)

So we've realized that we're POTENTIALLY polyfragmented but i cant really think about how many "full" alters versus "fragments" we have because i highkey hate the term fragment. It feels dehumanizing and diminishing :/

#we relate to a lot of pf experiences but #idk if we're pf or not

[resistance-squad]

I wasn’t going to derail the disability pride month post for people with peanut allergies but in relation to that topic

I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.

Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.

Also other parents in the classroom are guilty too. The “not my child not my problem” brain rot means that those lunchboxes are like bombs for airborne exposure allergies

#yes holy shit #i don't understand where this attitude comes from that #allergy accommodations are entitlement #like. not wanting to die from #a completely preventable cause #is not entitlement #in fact i'd go as far as to say that #in many cases #the people not wanting to accommodate it #are being entitled #for wanting to put their food preference over others' LIVES #when they have been made aware someone has an allergy #but are jerks about it

[resistance-squad]

No prob! Yeah, some of the community terms seem useful for understanding things but are actually not super well-defined. I still have questions about container subsystems that I've just accepted at this point I probably will never get an answer to unless it's from my own experience... but on the bright side, researching that led me to learn quite a lot about various types of subsystems, lol.

(And seconding the thing about research. There are tons of studies proving it exists, which is great, but so little on everything else about it...)

Can someone please explain what layers and side systems are bc i dont understand 😣 i plain just cant find a definition for what a layer in a system is and no definition of side systen makes sense to me. "A system but to the side" or "a separate system" like if you all share a physical body/brain youre inherently part of the same (overarching) system. I dont get it

[resistance-squad]

From my understanding, a "layer" is basically a way that alters can be grouped together. I think it's common that there are less dissociative barriers within a layer, compared to an alter from one layer trying to communicate with an alter from another layer. So for example, someone who experienced multiple types of abuse may have one layer for one type of abuse, and another layer for a different type of abuse, so that alters who carry memories of the one don't have to also cope with memories of the other and/or to keep certain traumatic memories even further from alters who aren't ready to know about them. For some systems, the layers may be represented as different areas of the inner world, with some or all alters finding it difficult or even impossible to move between the layers (so if I'm in Layer A, I may experience it as impossible for me to go to Layer B and/or a "main area" of the inner world), as a way to sort of symbolize the high dissociative barriers between the groups.

And my understanding is that a "side system" is a similar concept, but with much higher, more rigid dissociative barriers between the side system and the rest of the system. Even though they are technically all part of the same overarching system, the groups of alters may function so separately that they see themselves as though they were separate systems (to the extent any of them are even aware of the other group). I've heard that the term side system is exclusive to programming survivors, for whom afaik the side system was intentionally created to keep alters aware of the abuse as separate as possible from alters who are unaware of it.

I think that instead of looking at it as the person claiming they're literally separate systems, maybe it would help to think of them as different types of subsystems? I feel like usually when people say just "subsystem," they're talking about "container subsystems," but I know layers are a type of subsystem so I assume side systems are too, technically.

Can someone please explain what layers and side systems are bc i dont understand 😣 i plain just cant find a definition for what a layer in a system is and no definition of side systen makes sense to me. "A system but to the side" or "a separate system" like if you all share a physical body/brain youre inherently part of the same (overarching) system. I dont get it

[resistance-squad]

[image description: a tweet by user @indigenousAI saying

“fun fact: as a DV survivor i cannot register to vote because doing so makes my address public. anyone who is fleeing or hiding from an abuser is automatically disenfranchised from the political process and this is a feature, not a bug”]

#psa

[resistance-squad]

I interpret "take executive control of the individual's consciousness and functioning" as referring to fronting. I do think it's a bit of a simplification since it doesn't account for things like passive influence or co-fronting, though.

So I'm ❄, the host. (We use emojis as kind of a nickname on here to protect our privacy.) When I'm fronting, I have executive/motor control (I think those two mean roughly the same thing), which means I'm the one who is controlling our body. So we'd be using my body language patterns, if we go on a walk I'm the one moving our legs, etc. Then if 🐅 switches in, she's the one who has executive/motor control. So our body language will change (I tend to be more reserved, whereas she's more comfortable taking up space) and she's the one in control of our body. If I was reading a book for fun and she's not interested in it, she might stop reading and go play a video game she likes. Then if one of the littles switch in, our body language would change again (they usually have more child-like body language) and they might go play with our Barbies, which isn't something 🐅 would choose to do for fun in a million years. In all of these cases, the one fronting is the one controlling our body.

To me, "control of the individual's consciousness" is partly why switches often go unnoticed prior to a system learning what signs to look for. So for an actual example, one evening 🦚 was fronting and listening to some new music while scrolling through Tumblr, but then 🐅 switched in because she saw something on Tumblr that caught her attention. But the way our thoughts went was like, "This music is great. I'm definitely going to buy this album. This is probably my new favorite song. -brief pause- What the hell is this terrible music? I hate this, it sounds awful. ...Wait a minute. Just a minute ago I was enjoying it--ohhhh, I'm not 🦚 anymore. I'm 🐅. That's why." When she switched in, it wasn't like, "Ok, those were 🦚's thoughts and now these are my thoughts." It's more like... our thoughts are parallel sets of train tracks, and our primary inner monologue jumped from 🦚's train track to 🐅's train track.

Each of us experience ourselves as just... ourselves, like, when I'm fronting, I'm not usually consciously thinking, "I am ❄." I'm just "me." And when 🌲 fronts, she doesn't consciously think, "I am 🌲." She also, to herself, is just "me." She is a different "me" than I am, and I'm a different "me" than she is. Just like how if we're talking to a group of friends, each friend would use "me" to describe themselves, but because they're separate physical people, we can clearly see that "when [friend name] says 'me,' she means herself -- not [other friend], not me as in myself, but her own self."

But I do feel like "control of the individual's consciousness" is kind of a confusing way to put it, because we experience ourselves as separate consciousnesses -- otherwise, co-consciousness wouldn't even make sense. But I take that line as referring to the fact that if one of us is fronting, that's whose thoughts we as a whole are primarily experiencing at the time.

Past that, I'm guessing you mean something like, "What's the difference between 'a [separate] personality state with its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment' and 'related alterations in sensation, perception, affect, cognition, memory, motor control, and behavior,' vs 'an individual personality state or person without DID changing their mind or having different emotions'?"

I think to me, the key piece is that it's a pattern, and it's a constellation of these things all happening together.

So for example, right now, I'm still ❄. I get cold easily and don't tolerate it well, so I often wear a sweater. I'm not that comfortable taking up space, so I often hold myself in a way that is sort of reserved. I hate exercising, or really anything that makes me feel my body, because I find that extremely overwhelming and uncomfortable. I get easily overstimulated by noise, so I actually don't listen to music that often. I have very little memory of our childhood. I tend to be prone to anxiety, overwhelm, and insecurity, and I'd say my emotional baseline is feeling a little bit anxious. I enjoy magical girl shows, sometimes reading, journaling and writing nonfiction, and looking at nice art and pictures on social media.

Say that 🦁 were to switch in. She actually kind of likes the cold (so long as it isn't "can't feel our fingers" level cold), so she'd probably take our sweater off, since she wouldn't feel like she needs it. She's pretty comfortable in her/our own skin, so as long as she feels safe in a situation, she holds herself like someone who is at ease. She also doesn't like exercising, but for her it's more about finding it boring. She LOVES music, and will sometimes switch in specifically to listen to music she likes, which is primarily symphonic metal, alt rock, and emotional songs I think (I'm not that great with genre names). She remembers some stuff from childhood, but most of her memories are from high school, and then there's a period of several years she has complete amnesia for because she was dormant. Her emotional baseline these days is pretty content, but in the past she carried a lot of our emotional pain and her emotional baseline was a pretty low mood. She loves listening to music, writing (poetry, fiction, fanfiction), and creating stories in The Sims.

What songs 🦁 will most gravitate toward, her body language, and of course how she feels emotionally, will be impacted by her emotions at any given time. So if she's happy, she might prefer more energetic symphonic metal songs or slightly inspirational alt rock, whereas if she's sad, she might only feel like listening to sad emotional music. That said, no matter how she feels, she's not going to suddenly enjoy pop music, hate poetry, love exercising, etc.

And how we express our emotions will differ too. So for example, when I feel frustrated, I tend to shut down, get tearful, really struggle to find any words to communicate the issue, and try to talk myself out of my frustration so as not to make waves. But when 🐅 gets frustrated, she'll be assertive and talk to the other person about it directly. That isn't to say that I could never, ever be assertive (I'm working on that), or that 🐅 could never, ever find herself unsure how exactly to voice her frustration (we're all human, after all)... but there's still a pattern, and we also view it differently. So like when I'm frustrated, I always tend to internalize it and tell myself that the situation is my fault and/or that I shouldn't be frustrated by it. But when 🐅 is frustrated, she's pretty good at seeing what is vs isn't our responsibility and knowing that she has a right to her emotions. My hope is that someday I'll be able to view it like she does, because that's actually super healthy and I admire that about her, and maybe someday it will come as naturally to me as it does to her... but I'm sure we still wouldn't experience it exactly, 100% the same, just that the differences would become more subtle.

As for exactly what an alter is... for me, the biggest thing is that their sense of self is different from my sense of self, but I don't think that's very helpful to say, since that's super subjective and even now it's not like I always notice right away whether something I had done/said/experienced felt like it was "me" or not. So to me, it's about having a separate sense of self, and then there are also things (behavior, memory, emotional baseline, preferences, etc.) that are usually going to be different between us that can also serve as context clues.

All that said, I'm only speaking to my own experiences with this. We are often co-conscious, but rarely co-fronting. I'd imagine it's a lot less clear-cut for systems who have higher rates of co-fronting, like I've heard it's common for some polyfragmented systems to have fragments co-front together in groups. (As for the difference between an alter and a fragment, I don't know. I've read a variety of things about pf and fragments and still can't quite grasp what they mean by "not a full alter.") I also can't speak to how systems who have a shell alter experience this, as I've heard it's like other alters front through the shell, but since that isn't my own experience, I don't know exactly what that feels like as far as consciousness and executive control and stuff. This blog has an FAQ that includes a brief summary of what shell alters are, but trigger warning for mentions of RAMCOA (particularly programming).

I hope that helps as a starting place. I don't know of any other links or anything like that off the top of my head.

I've always been confused about the definition/explanation of what an alter is/personality state/etc. And what things like "take conscious control" mean and "executive control."

Each personality state includes its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment. At least two distinct personality states recurrently take executive control of the individual’s consciousness and functioning in interacting with others or with the environment, such as in the performance of specific aspects of daily life such as parenting, or work, or in response to specific situations (e.g., those that are perceived as threatening). Changes in personality state are accompanied by related alterations in sensation, perception, affect, cognition, memory, motor control, and behaviour.

Like I have never understood what this stuff means lmfao. does anyone know?? and also i specifically ask for outside sources (even if other social media posts to continue bouncing off of) to be able to look more into understanding this stuff deeper, if that makes sense??

[resistance-squad]

To me, system accountability means that if one of us does something harmful, we as a whole are responsible for 1) apologizing and making repairs as appropriate, 2) figuring out why it happened if we can, and 3) trying to address it to the best of our ability.

So for example, some of us get short-tempered when we're stressed or triggered, so say one of us snapped at a friend, as has happened a couple times. Ideally, whoever snapped at our friend would recognize that in the moment and apologize, but sometimes they just can't think of anything outside of the need to protect ourselves. So then once we switch, whoever fronts next will reach out to our friend, apologize, and see how she's doing. We also let her know that we're trying to help whoever it was find ways to keep that from happening again, so that she knows we're all taking responsibility -- especially when she knows she's talking to a different system member than the one who snapped at her, since we don't want it to come across like "oh I'm not responsible for this at all since that wasn't me."

We also encourage the one who snapped at our friend to apologize herself the next time she talks to her, too, even if it wasn't a big deal at all to our friend. That feels like doing right by our friend, and it helps whoever it was build the skill of apologizing, and it also gives them a chance to process it between the two of them if there's anything unresolved around it. So I guess that for us, there's a place for both system accountability AND individual accountability.

As far as responsibility goes... we find it's not super helpful to think of it as being any individual in the system's "fault" or similar things that make us feel judged, but instead to look at it as that one of us made a mistake and the rest of us are here to support them. So for example, it might look like helping them learn new skills to navigate similar situations. Or it might look like a protector keeping an eye on them and switching in if they start to get stressed or irritable (though of course this takes a system having a lot of control over their switching). Or it might look like letting a friend know that while you (as a whole) are working on it, some of you find a particular subject really triggering, and asking that the friend check in if you're ok to talk about it before getting into that kind of conversation. Whatever our plan is, we're all responsible for doing our best to stick to it.

At the end of the day, if one of us does something, it affects all of us. And while we experience ourselves as separate people, we also are one person all together. On the one hand, it can feel unfair to be held responsible for something you had no control over... but it also isn't fair to people around us to just throw our hands in the air and be like, "Well, I had no control over it!" and leave it at that. I think of it being sort of like... I have ADHD, so I often am late to things. It's not my fault that my brain has executive dysfunction. I use strategies, but they don't always work; I lose track of time, underestimate how long it will take to get ready, forget something important and have to go back, etc. But at the same time, I understand that it has an impact on people to keep them waiting, so to be fair to them, it's right that I be accountable for that. Or similarly, say a friend comes over who has a toddler, and the toddler breaks something at my house. It isn't really the friend's fault, but most likely my friend would be the one taking responsibility (such as for asking the toddler to apologize and, if relevant, reminding the kid not to throw things or run inside the house or whatever). They can't control the toddler, but still are responsible for them as the parent.

That's how we see it.

I'm curious to open up this discussion, so:

What does "system accountability" mean to you?

I have my own feelings I just want to open up a discussion post