CDD & Complex Trauma Blog @aurorae-system - Tumblr Blog

intro post~

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Basic info:

Default/Collective pronouns: he/they

Body age: over 21

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BOUNDARIES/OTHER INFO:

#intro #we edit this a lot for a number of reasons #if it looks different or something has disappeared #well thats why

kimthemangoguy

boxedsprouts

hello . ive expanded my horizons recently into physical media . here is a little book I made

the-critter-collective

The axe forgets but the tree remembers. Unless you have did. Then the tree remembers but only in the form of blurry snapshots of the axe and a distant trauma holder who won't explain why they fucking hate the axe.

reimeichan

Switching doesn't typically feel like I'm being taken over or whatever. Usually it's a subtle thing, like a slight energy shift, or a mood change, or even something I'm not at all aware of internally but I noticed my posture change or my facial muscles adjust. I once described it to my partner as being like my mindset changed, except with the change it felt like I struggled to understand or connect with what I was thinking or feeling or doing or saying previously. Sometimes it even feels like I'm putting on a character when I switch, as if I'm acting in a play, or maybe even I'm just having to put on something akin to "customer service voice". Or like, maybe I still feel exactly the same internally but I can tell that outwardly I'm acting differently somehow. I've experienced both what I call external switching, where I am outwardly acting and/or speaking differently, and internal switching, where how I'm thinking and feeling are different, and sometimes I may have externally switched without the internal switch or vice-versa. Switching for me doesn't always present the same way and trying to describe something so intangible and abstract is difficult. I wish it was easier for me to explain my experiences to the people around me so that they can better understand what I'm going through and maybe even relate to what I'm saying, and... idk, maybe show that DID isn't all that scary? Or maybe I'm hoping if I'm able to explain my experiences better then maybe others may have a better understanding of what they're going through as well? Something along those lines I guess.

#oh damn... very relatable #external vs internal switching distinction is so on point

oursystemblog

Comic 7

Don't even worry about it

faesaint

DID sucks because in the morning you think "maybe I'm actually normal and I should stop overanalyzing my experiences and just enjoy life" and in the evening you get possessed by the ghost of yourself from 2018

lemonade-luvr

DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT I FEEL LIKE IM GOING INSANE.

iif you can send this to me i would be . so grateful.

springtrapping

Hi! Here it is. Was on the hunt for this myself a while ago -- the original poster has long since deactivated.

carnage-cathedral

being a system is annoying sometimes because you'll be like "this doesn't matter now :) that's a problem that only past me has :)" and then past you shows up like

clever-and-unique-name

ANPs are unreliable narrators. "Apparently Normal Part"? Come on, even their title sounds sketchy af.

sae-something

Why is dissociation of the personality maintained over time, even after the traumatizing event(s) are over?

I decided to make a post about it based on this core concept from Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation (Steele, K., Boon, S., & van der Hart, O., 2016).

Reading and rereading this core concept helps me a lot. Often it feels like DID/OSDD can only develop as a reaction to explicit and horrific abuse, even though I rationally know that’s not true. As someone who has never been intentionally abused, but instead experienced (mostly) attachment trauma and emotionally unavailable parents, it is sometimes hard to ‘find my space’ in a community where many people have, sadly, been through the most terrible kinds of abuse. I hope this post can help others too, in whichever way.

The breaking points they mention can be abuse in all shapes and sizes, this can be natural disasters or other circumstances, this can be medical or other trauma - but it can also be attachment trauma. An absolute lack of safety and consistency. The latter often is inherent to, for example, neglect of physical abuse, but can also stand on its own. Or as the authors write: “Overwhelming negative emotions (e.g. terror, shame, and rage, along with shut-down reactions), physical pain, and negative thoughts (e.g. ‘I am unlovable’) precipitate a breaking point, a sort of psychological and physiological circuit breaker that has been tripped.”

Breaking points can happen to both children and adults, but because children have immature regulatory systems and a developmentally limited integrative capacity, children generally reach these breaking points much quicker than adults. When the breaking points are severe and/or enduring, and the child has immature brain structures and no or limited cognitive and emotional skills, they can cause dissociation, a division of personality. If you don’t learn these skills as a child, you cannot ‘repair’ the division of personality by yourself afterwards.

You can’t expand the integrative capacity to integrate the Bad Stuff™ because all children are reliant on caretakers. However, at the same time these caretakers may be the cause of the breaking point or at least not saving you from what’s causing the breaking point. This discrepancy between needing them for literal survival but also the complete unreliability or even danger maintains the dissociation. There needs to be a division between these experiences, because for a child’s brain and in a child’s world, these two things (need safety vs. danger) in one person cannot co-exist.

But then, why doesn’t your brain automatically integrate all these experiences once you’re out of the traumatizing situations?

No, the unsolvable conflict remains: realizing what happened and (often) needing to maintain contact with families (who possibly were predators, or maybe weren’t but still didn’t ‘save’ child-you). This ongoing dilemma causes avoidance. Avoidance of your own thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories related to the traumatizing past. This avoidance, this phobia of dealing with inner experiences is a big part of what maintains the dissociation of personality.

(The phobia of inner experience is part of a broader set of trauma-related phobias, on which I will (try to) write another post sometime soon-ish.)

puppydeathfarts

Switching isn’t random.

I’m working my way through Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation and came across this:

The book goes on to list some reasons-

to manage closeness or distance in a relationship in the present;

in response to internal conflicts about being in therapy, or about different opinions with regard to the therapist and attachment to him or her;

in response to inner conflict about the topic that is being discussed at that moment;

to receive something from the therapist that is not otherwise acceptable to the person (e.g., patient switches to a child part to receive nurturing);

to express what might otherwise be unacceptable to the person (e.g, patient switches to an angry part to express anger towards the therapist);

to avoid confrontation by the therapist about inappropriate behavior (e.g, patient switches to a scared child part in order to avoid dealing with an episode of cutting or shoplifting);

to avoid the current work of therapy, including to distract the therapist;

in response to particular sensations, movements, and postures that “pull” the patient into a particular part;

in response to reactivated traumatic memories or to a trigger related to traumatic memories; and

in response to the activity of parts internally-for instance, threats against talking about a certain subject.

It’s a really interesting chapter with case examples and guidance on the appropriate responses to switching in therapy. The lingering thought I have right now though, is… why did I (or another part who’s leaning in) think switching was random? Hmm. Thinking of documenting our overt switches to see if I can determine the reasons and any patterns.