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#actuallyDID
snorlax-and-co · 3 days
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Our therapist shared something today: at a DID conference she attended last year (at the Bowlby centre) they were told that it can take at least 7 years in therapy for DID clients to get to a point where they can start to tolerate trauma processing. It made some of us feel better about the speed of our progress so I just thought I'd share that in case it reassures anyone else.
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sysmedsaresexist · 3 days
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Sunflowers
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reimeichan · 3 days
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I'm having so much fun looking at where I am in my healing journey and seeing all the weird quirks of the others expressing themselves through me. I can tell that the way I laugh is just like the way Purple does it, or that my newfound sarcasm and bluntness is an artifact from Green. And it's so cool to see elements of myself peaking out in the others too, like when Purple gets into a long rambly explanation or when Green offers support to those close to us. We still feel like pretty distinct identities and still experience time loss and amnesia between parts, so I suspect we still got a ways to go (plus we have specific things from our past that we still want to work through), but the blending and blurring of lines has helped me better accept that those little bits and pieces of the others in my system are also a part of me, and I think that's really neat. Maybe someday it really will feel pretty arbitrary to say which alter is fronting and which bits of my self and identity can be attributed to which alter, and that's exciting for me. I like feeling like these other parts are a part of me and I'm a part of them.
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unstablemotions · 17 days
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Hey, you! You who suspect you might have PTSD, DID or another trauma disorder, but you think you didn't experience trauma "bad enough" to have developed a mental disorder from it? Let me suggest looking at it differently:
"If there's smoke, there's fire"
Do you experience symptoms of PTSD, such as hypervigilance, trouble sleeping, flashbacks, memory problems, dissociation, ect? Then yes, it was "bad enough". Maybe you don't remember anything "really bad" happening or you don't "feel like" it affects you, but listen to your body. The body remembers and the body doesn't care if you think it is "stupid" or "weak" to have a panic attack when someone touches you or that you still have nightmares about that thing you saw when you were 4 years old
Trauma isn't what happened. Trauma is the reaction to what happened. So what I'm trying to say is that if the reason you think you can't have PTSD/DID/OSDD/ect is because you didn't go through anything horrific enough for that, then maybe forget about what happened to you for a moment and just look at the evidence your body and mind are showing. And then, most importantly, be compassionate with yourself. You're going through a lot and it's gonna be okay in the end. Take it easy, okay? <3
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the-sunroom-system · 16 days
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i think an issue with the obsession with parts in DID spaces is how much it made us overcomplicate ourselves and not treat our parts the way they deserve
a triggered part would come to front, and all we could focus on was "who are you?" then feel like we're faking DID when we didn't get an answer
instead of offering that part support and compassion like they needed, they'd be shut down for not being able to come out with an identity in their triggered state of mind
like they somehow had to earn the right to exist by first stating a name and intention
they are a part. maybe they have a name. maybe they dont. a lot of our parts are mere fragments. and thats ok. nothing is required for them to be allowed a space to exist. they don't have to be mapped out to have the right to simply be.
for so long, our focus was on "do i really have did? am i faking? do i have alters or is it just cptsd? am i faking this disorder for validation of my trauma? am i the host or this alter? am i anyone at all?"
when really we needed to focus on "what do i need right now? what do we need right now? how can we calm down and find a middle ground together? how can i offer this scared and angry part of me the support they need?"
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chemicalcarousel · 7 months
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It's fucking funny when you start to notice the "tells" of certain alters, such as speech patterns, posture, voice pitch, accent, hand gestures, ect.
Like "wait a minute... why am I fucking man spreading like a fucking clown.... oh.... oh it's him."
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subsystems · 1 year
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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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pricklymuffinzzzzz · 3 months
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Y’all should’ve known u had DID or OSDD when u related 2 inside out that fucking much 0-0 TELL ME THIS ISNT AT LEAST A FEW MEMBERS IN A SYSTEM
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when the dissociative identity disorder dissociates your identity
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kbo-system · 7 months
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time to play my favorite game: am i In A Mood or am i Not Me?
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e-november · 6 months
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Hypervigilance is a common symptom of many mental health disorders and social conditions. It is a physiological response of constant alertness to the threats around you and from yourself. I've had a hard time coping with this symptom in general, as it would warp all my relationships, all my perceptions of myself, others and the world. On top of all of this, I felt it was providing me safety from the actual threats I've experienced and feared experiencing; I couldn't be further from the truth. Here are a few ways you can experience hypervigilance:
You might have phobic reflexes. Every unexpected or unpredictable sensory information is perceived as a threat (a sigh, loud walking, cars or people behind you, quick movements from others, etc.). You may jump, or be extremely started and irritable. Other times, you may have extreme emotional reactions or intense dissociation. Phobic reflexes are generally responses to sensory triggers.
Your body may rarely feel relaxed. A lot of stiffness, pain and discomfort can come from keeping your body at a high stress level. At long-term, you may end up developing chronic illnesses as your body is overwhelmed with the constant arousal of fight/flight/freeze/fawn responses.
You struggle doing any task that requires your full attention or a lack of alertness to your surroundings (paperwork, sleeping, reading, etc.). Your ability to function cognitively may be affected by hypervigilance as a whole, which means you'll experience cognitive rigidity, processing disinhibition and other executive dysfunctions. (Note: these are generally partially reversible when recovering from PTSD, GAD, OCD or other disorders with hypervigilant patterns or when you are no longer in a social context which requires this level of conscience of your surroundings).
You may overanalyze what people say or what you think in order to avoid any threat. The latter is particularly common in people with OCD or with trauma around philosophical concepts. You may perceive yourself as one step away from losing control, and may expect others to lose control as well. Generally, the feeling of loss of control resides in hypervigilance itself than actually acting against your values.
You may use escapism a lot, and develop addictions, behavioral or not. This reduces the sense of being constantly threatened temporarily, but increases the hypervigilance on the long-term and worsens the issue. These are a few of the signs you experience hypervigilance as a core coping mechanism ruling your reactions to your current social context as well as the disorders you might deal with. Trauma is the common denominator of this mechanism, although PTSD and C-PTSD isn't implied by default. Since hypervigilance is your body being in constant alertness, in order to reduce it, you must reduce the physiological stress then work on the mental components of hypervigilance at the same time. I will update this blog later with a few ways you could reduce hypervigilance.
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snorlax-and-co · 3 months
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xenodelic · 2 years
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There is so much shame that comes with having amnesia and other memory issues.
As someone that has multiple conditions that cause memory loss (DID, TBI, ADHD, etc) we can't even begin to describe the shame and guilt that is conditioned into people who are """forgetful""".
Having memory issues does not make you a bad person. It doesn't mean you are uncaring, lazy, or immature.
Memory is simply one of the many things that people can struggle with. It has nothing to do with who you are as a person. We are conditioned to think otherwise because being "forgetful" makes people less productive to a capitalist society. Society is arranged to make life a living hell for people with memory issues. This is an aspect of structural ableism. People in power do not want people like us to exist because we are less useful to them.
Dont get me wrong - it can absolutely hurt when someone you care about forgets something that's important to you. You're not wrong for feeling upset that someone missed an important date, event, detail, etc. That makes sense and feeling that way is not inherently ableist.
All we ask for is for compassion to be extended to people who struggle with memory. We ask for people to stop assigning moral value to how effective someone's memory is. We desire for social structures to accommodate people of all cognitive functions, not just those who are most productive to a capitalist machine.
And if you are someone with memory issues, know you do not need to be ashamed. We've been conditioned to hold negative beliefs about ourselves and our struggles for somebody else's benefit. Guilt and shame will not resolve our struggles. You are worthy and valuable as you are.
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reimeichan · 12 hours
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God it's so weird to look back through my life and be able to pinpoint exact moments that a specific alter was fronting. Back then we didn't even know we had DID (for the most part) yet this disorder has colored my life for almost as long as I've been alive.
When I was in high school, one of the elective classes I took was orchestra. I was super passionate about it; I would regularly stay after school to help the other orchestras in my school during rehearsal, which was basically unheard of at my school. I was known for loving not just playing the viola but also caring a lot about the group as a whole, taking time to help anyone struggling with specific parts of a piece or even to help set up the room for practice or the stage for performances. I took viola and orchestra very seriously.
But also.... I had a silly, playful side to me. Most anyone who knew me outside of orchestra knew this about me, but my director sure did not. So when it came time for the annual region-wide audition for the "top orchestra of the region" (region being a collection of several school districts), I was expected to audition like I had all the previous years. And, well, I suppose the me that was there on the day of the audition had other plans. Instead of playing the excerpts like she was asked to, she instead, in order: played a C major scale (the easiest scale to play on a viola), played a singular D major chord (but like, REALLY BADLY out of tune), and, the kicker: instead if playing the excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 Movement 4, she played a part from *Movement 2* of the same symphony, AKA a piece our high school had played in front of every music educator in the state. So, yknow, it was obvious which school I'd come from.
When word got around to our director what had occurred, he was pissed beyond belief. He brought me into his office, and I could tell he was just absolutely dumbfounded and perplexed. He stated how I was "the last person [he] expected to pull something like that". I remember shrugging and kinda bluntly saying something rude back while feeling like he was making a big deal out of nothing, which would have been incredibly out of character for me as well as I adored that director- and I'm realizing now that the version of me who was in his office that day was neither the version of me who usually played in the orchestra, nor was that the version of me who pranked the audition process.
And like... it's wild to me that I can so clearly tell which parts of me were present for each of those moments. The one who's usually in orchestra? That's Gray (aka me), the goody two-shoes. The prankster was obviously Purple. And the one who had to deal with a disappointed director was Green. But at the time none of us were even consciously fronting or switching for any of that, it all happened so quickly and suddenly that it felt really disjointed. Hell, for years afterwards I'd still ask myself what possessed me to be an obvious prankster, or to snap back at my director like that. Well, I guess now I know I probably was possessed in some way (heh).
Just, yeah. Some rambling thoughts of the now I guess.
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unstablemotions · 5 months
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Every book about PTSD will repeatedly mention how your personality will change after the traumatic event. How this is an indicator that you have the disorder. How this is a universal experience for everyone who suffers from post traumatic stress.
But I never got to have a life before trauma. That person was killed before they were alive. All that remains is a broken shell from where a child was ripped out with violent teeth.
I didn't change from my trauma, because I never existed before it began.
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BTW if you think calming corners, sensory rooms, and other forms of dedicated spaces to handling overload, anxiety, or intense emotions in your house is something only for kids - or even worse - only neurodivergent kids, you are largely denying yourself a very helpful resource based on social norms.
Having a space dedicated to being safe and with easy access to things to help lower overstimulation and calm intense internal experiences is something that everyone can benefit from having
Not just kids
Not just neurodivergent kids
Not just neurodivergent adults
Not just mentally ill adults
Everyone - even the hypothetical person with no mental illness or physical disability
There is nothing "immature" about having spaces organized to make your difficult times easier to handle and I think everyone should consider dedicating maybe even just a shelf or corner in their place to having an abundance of self care resources
Self care is not a limited resource and not something that you have to be "bad enough to have"
If you think its a good thing for parents to provide their kids with rooms / spaces dedicated to different ways they can self regulate, then you should agree that if you are also dealing with any levels of difficulty self regulating, that it should be a good idea and good thing to provide yourslef with rooms / spaces dedicated to ways to help you self regulate
Children and adults both have emotions and life experiences that are hard to regulate / handle and both need ways to relax and calm down
Self care, sensory rooms, and coping / calming corners are resources that can help both children and adults with those difficult moments
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