Unkindness of Ravens

25 - healing with cPTSD, DID, and cluster B - pro-recovery

[hazedxg0]

Daily routine:

Spend too much time looking at online DID communities

See dozens upon dozens of posts where people are spreading blatant misinformation about DID that could be corrected by doing the most basic amount of research

See all the replies from people believing it without a second thought seemingly with no idea it's blatantly incorrect

Remember that this community does not take kindly to correction no matter how nice you are about it or how many sources you provide

Close your computer while being overtaken by the overwhelming feeling that humanity is doomed and the problem is too widespread to fix

[cataplat]

cooking with trauma

[the-io-collective]

this is your friendly reminder that system accountability is like. basic shit. i don't give a fuck that it was another part that said or did that shitty thing. you don't just brush off the person who is telling you what happened. you don't say "that part's just like that."

if you care about these people in your life, you figure out what happened and own up to it. you make an effort to be a safe person for them to be around. having a CDD isn't a free pass to be a dickhead.

[anunkindnessofravenz]

I miss how creative I was as a child sometimes. It was the only thing I had. I escaped into my art. During episodes, sometimes my creativity resurfaces, and I have a frantic need to write and draw and get all the dirt out of me that I can to make room for my feelings. But mostly I am numb and there is nothing to clean out. Sometimes I want to be more unwell, because I'm never well so I could at least make something that will be left behind.

[anunkindnessofravenz]

"Your alter isn't a persecutor; persecutors wouldn't do that" "That's not a protector because mine protect like this" "That's not a caretaker that's a soother" "I think the alter in your system is actually a verbal protector and not an emotional protector" "You shouldn't use the term persecutor" Actually none of these have super defined meanings and are just archetypical labels to refer to roles alters tend to take on so people can call alters whatever personally works and makes sense for them and what the alter relates to/is comfortable with. Use roles to describe things within your experience to the extent that it's useful for you, and please don't police my terminology if my personal experience with DID varies to the point that our definitions don't align because obviously sometimes it's going to

[finalgirlabigailhobbs]

at least there are pansies and fairies and faggots and dykes and transsexuals on this earth. thank god.

[anunkindnessofravenz]

Oh I am crashing out again

[anunkindnessofravenz]

Reminder that most people who are at the point that they're posting about their CDD have gotten past a point of awareness that can take years and have often been in treatment for a while, and often aren't posting about the vague confusing hard-to-word aspects of the disorder or posting about alters they don't know about because they don't know about them so they can't. I've been diagnosed for years and I still meet alters who split way before I was ever aware of my DID and that's a pretty normal timeframe. If you've been in treatment or aware of your system for like, a year, it's incredibly normal and I would say actually average to not know much about how your system works

Edit: I also think some of this is an effect of viewing DID as Alter Disorder, which results in people not talking about identity confusion, depersonalization and derealization, memory problems, etc, and not sharing things about their CDD until they're aware enough of alters to share that information. Which also you aren't obligated to talk about any mental health issues you don't want to share but also it would be nice if the community would focus on those aspects more as a whole sometimes

[dogrotpdf]

how’s that house that raised you?

[powerrangersystem]

[anunkindnessofravenz]

Idk if this is like a hot take but you can ask people to stop doing certain things without lumping a group of people together like a hivemind and wording it as if everyone in a particular demographic is doing the shitty thing you want to call out, especially if that demographic is already stigmatized and oppressed in some way

Idk if this makes sense I can certainly think of examples if this is too vague

[hazedxg0]

You know, just because you have DID (or any other disorder for that matter) doesn't mean you have to educate people about it online, especially if you're not actually familiar with the scientific literature yourself.

Talk as much as you want about your own personal experience with DID. But you can't just assume you know the science of how the disorder works just because you have it. So much misinformation gets spread from people with DID who just assume what's true and what's not based on their own personal experience with no scientific input, and they end up being horrifically wrong.

And since DID is an extreme dissociative disorder that is built on amnesia, confusion, substitute beliefs, cognitive distortions and blocking out reality, it's extremely easy for you to perceive things in a way that is completely contradictory to the research. It doesn't mean you're faking, but it doesn't mean what you're saying is true or healthy either.

It's honestly kind of shocking to see how many educational DID accounts on all kinds of social media clearly do not even understand the fundamentals of DID, and yet are so confidently educating on it (completely incorrectly).

You can share your experiences without trying to educate. And if you're trying to educate, but your information doesn't come from an actual scientific source, maybe just don't.

[hazedxg0]

It's funny when DID denialists pull the "well if it develops in childhood, why don't more children get diagnosed with DID?" thing. Because if you think about it for literally two seconds you'll come up with plenty of reasons.

In like 95% of cases, DID forms from abuse in the household. Parents who are abusing their child (or are complacent in the abuse of their child) are not going to take their kid to a therapist for the trauma they caused them.

Dissociation solidifies and alters develop complexity over time. Adolescents are known to have a more fluid and subtle presentation of DID, and that's the case even more so for children because their disorder has only just formed or is still forming.

The whole point of DID is to be covert, especially when you are still experiencing trauma (as is almost always the case with children with DID)

Children have been known to perceive their alters as imaginary friends or personified mood states. How often do you suspect a serious mental disorder when a child has imaginary friends or emotions?

Children in general have trouble properly reporting their symptoms, which is a known challenge in pediatric psychiatry.

Professionals don't really tend to diagnose anything beyond autism, ADHD, learning disorders, depression and anxiety in children below a certain age.

It takes adults around seven years of psychiatric treatment to be diagnosed with DID. In what world would it be faster for children?

The legal and psychiatric systems constantly fail the traumatized children they are supposed to protect. Why would this area be any different?

[million-with-a-b]

Remembering that instead of justifying my boundaries to strangers/arguing with brick walls I can just block people!

[anunkindnessofravenz]

"Destigmatize mental illness!" and then they talk shit about people struggling with addiction

[jingerpi]

people seemingly make out dissociative amnesia out to be like what you'd experience passing out and staying asleep for 9 solid hours but in my experience it's far more like one of those nights where you're really struggling to sleep.

you wake up a few times halfway through the night you wander off to the bathroom before making it back and quickly falling back asleep. you hear some words and you think they're your partner but you might be imagining it. there's a loud banging noise but god knows where it's coming from. someone asks you about classes tomorrow but you don't remember if they really did or if you just imagined it. you go to the bathroom again only to realize once you're there that you never got up out of bed.

you wake up a few hours later and get on with your day. well aware of the time that passed but you're really not sure which bits were dreams or not, and if you don't think about it actively it'll probably fade from your memory before you realize. doesn't mean you don't remember some things or didn't notice the time pass, it's just really really messy

[cock-holliday]

“Ugh this prominent women in the Lesbian movement turned out to be a bisexual” “ugh this famous lesbian transitioned into a man” “ugh this queer romance writer turns out to be ace” “ugh this cis feminist author ended up being nonbinary” “ugh this writer on masculinity transitioned into a woman”

Oh no! We might have to recognize liberation as an interconnected intersectional struggle! Ahhh!!! >.<