Everything Stays True

This blog is mainly about being a DID system. ANP/host’s name is Anni, and our body is over 18. Profile pic is from Stitches by David Small. .... Tags we use: #the voices™️ [for system posts], #Good Parenting™️ (sarcastically), #to show trauma therapist, #shitpost, #great parenting you got there, #reminder

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About confidently-conflicting:

✨Not Very Active✨

A blog focusing on being a DID system, and therapy, and relatable things. Main tags can be found in the bio. All posts are okay to reblog unless otherwise stated in some of the first tags.

You can find semi-popular vent posts some alters made about trauma on here from some number of years ago. I don’t agree with the posts anymore. I’m tired. If you reblog them, I hope things get better for you. I really mean that.

We can’t, and won’t, give professional advice about personal situations.

If you’re looking for a DID journal, this isn’t that blog

We check asks on here even less frequently than we post, so if you send an ask, we’ll get to it, uhhhh, eventually, hopefully, maybe.

No endogenic systems, please. Listing other DNI things is useless. We’ll block you if we want to.

Neither “parts” or "alters" or “people” feel quite right. We mostly use “parts” or “one of us” or “someone” though.

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I also very rarely post about my DID at all lol which is why I'm confused about the block.

You and me both, anon, lol. (To both not posting about DID much, and being confused about the block.)

If you really want to talk about it, if you send me your URL I might remember why. I just... honestly have no idea.

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Ex mutual anon here. No, it wasn't recent. It's been quite a long time. I just never got the courage to ask. I don't know anything about your twin other than that you have one.

That's very fair!

I'm just, also confused? I don't know who you are, or why I would have blocked you.

I feel we're at a stalemate here.

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If we used to be mutuals and then you blocked me from your main but not this blog, would I be able to have an explanation as to why I was blocked if I messaged you privately? Asking because we seemed to be on okay terms and then you blocked me out of nowhere and tbh I'm just confused

Did me blocking you happen recently?

If you're the person I think you are, and I'm assuming you are— I did block you on purpose recently, but I didn't mean harm by it. It looks like you're going through it pretty regularly, and honestly, that's hard to see. So that's why.

A not-you-specific answer: in general by now, I'm tired of therapy, and DID culture (especially sysblr), and rapid switching, and trauma dumping, and therapy speak, and that so many people's DID blogs are so focused on alters and switching and trauma memories and all that stuff. It's just too much, you know?

I'm trying to be happy about being alive, frankly, and a lot of blogs posting a lot about their trauma in detail on here aren't doing that. Not that you have to, I just, it's hard to see someone struggling all the time. It's so hard to see someone struggling all the time.

I hope things get easier for you. I really do.

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There's been a new-old part around for like, a month or so?

She's a teenager, a little bit younger than her memories (because DID), and very emotional.

Based on her memories, I'm pretty sure she was (also) a co-host with me, in high school, though she didn't un-blur from the vague "teen parts who kinda remember all this stuff" until a couple weeks ago.

She likes being around, and the rest of us like having her around, but at the same time, she doesn't realize how triggered she is, so it's physically (and emotionally) hard for us.

She's time-stuck in a way that's harder than the other hosts we've had; reality really doesn't feel as real as her own memories, which feels.... troubling and complicated to the rest of us (and normal to her).

There's so much to say, and much of it is the same thing over and over.

Thinking of emailing our therapist about her, but I don't really know what to say, or how to ask for help about this whole thing.

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With every big family drama that happens, there's some part who feels the need to text secondhand sources, confirming who knows what, trying to ask if everyone knows the same story. Feeling anxious and overwhelmed, but needed.

Then, later, we feel very sad about it all.

Not knowing all the details of a story is very difficult for us.

My brother dropped out of college, suddenly, has gotten his job back (a couple weeks ago, my dad asked him to quit, so he could focus on school), and is moving this summer.

Somehow, though we rarely see him or have quality conversations, this feels like a big loss (like every other big drama).

And you know what? I'm so, so tired of finding out everyone's information about everything. I genuinely don't have the energy to "care about all this family drama bullshit", as someone said in therapy.

This is all to say: when my twin texted me asking if I knew that S. quit college and was moving to Arizona, I said yes, but that I didn't know much about it, and that I wouldn't ask about it until someone told me more.

Also, I'm barely talking to almost entirely avoiding her these days— a mix of: "her going into ED treatment brought up a lot of hard feelings for us" and "knowing what was going on with her (via her recovery sideblog or video calls during the holidays with my parents) all felt overwhelming and like too much information (but also like she was being so casual about everything? In a way where I personally felt like I was being overly dramatic about it?)" and "I don't know how to ask what our relationship is" and "not talking to her doesn't feel much different than talking to her, just [us being] slightly less confused." So. I don't know.

I should probably tell her some of that, at least— I did text her kind of apologizing and saying we don't know when we'll be available to be emotionally available with her.

But mostly, we're leaving it alone until we can figure out more of what we'd like/need from her.

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In therapy yesterday, I we talked for the whole time about my twin, how her being in treatment feels difficult and "frustrating" for me.

My therapist seemed to be playing devil's advocate, so to speak— saying a lot of stuff about how eating disorders can be lifelong mental illnesses too, that my twin could also be struggling with feeling like her feelings are blocked or stuck (which happened to us for probably the first 15 minutes of session, in trying to talk about all this), that someone being emotionally immature and/or unable to be vulnerable "doesn't mean they're a bad person"...

Towards the end of session, she said this:

"It's worth asking yourself if you're avoiding doing family therapy with her because, A: it brings up a lot of hard feelings and conversations and history between the two of you and with your family, or B: if it's because you genuinely don't think there will be progress or that it'll better your relationship with her, and it'll be a wasted effort. You should think about that."

Which.... for one, I don't think that we can really separate the situations like that. Like, sure, I've probably played a part in our relationship too, especially lately with not responding much.

But also, I had thought that her moving away was when we were going to try to be closer, and it doesn't feel like our relationship has changed at all, which I did say towards the end of session. (My twin seems to be doing a lot better overall and is happier, so I'm happy for her about that, but it hasn't actually affected our relationship much or let her be more open with me, I guess...?)

I do think we said at least one thing that our therapist seemed to take into consideration in the sense of possibly changing her view of the situation— that [my twin] seems to be protective/closed off/avoidant/etc "on purpose", and to hear her talk, she seems to have great relationships with her friends and enjoy seeing them and talking regularly. (i.e. that it feels like she's like this "on purpose" with me because we are family.)

Laura did say that we don't owe my twin a relationship, especially not because we're family, that "you can have empathy for someone struggling, and that if someone's behavior is 'hurting us' then you can not want to be in a relationship with them."

IDK. We felt like we really needed to post about this earlier, and also had a panic attack and "felt really bad but I don't know how" (about the quote she said) for roughly 2 hours at work today, before we grounded ourselves and tried to not think about it.

I don't feel as bad about this right now, and it feels okay to post about. But I still feel like our therapist thinks we're wrong or 'missing something' somehow.

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Therapy yesterday was hard. Not bad, but a lot to process.

Talked a lot about our relationship with my twin, grieving her/wanting to be close and vulnerable with her and feeling like that's not possible, and how different we are. She said we hadn't talked about that part of it before.

We wrote a long thing about our relationship with [my twin] right after therapy last week, so I think showing that to our therapist helped give her a lot of perspective.

"It's ironic," we said, laughing, "She was always far away and leaving, and I'm over here dissociating the whole time!"

"You were far away in different ways, too," she said.

At the end, we talked about our recent conversation with our childhood best friend— the one who abruptly stopped being friends with us during 🐦's time. Long story short, it wasn't our fault that she stopped being friends with us; there was something else going on that she really freaked out about, and just needed to Not.

🐦 fronted for most of the conversation, once we got past the initial conversation.

"My best friend was a bird," 🐦 said, "and that means something."

"It does," our therapist said. "It sounds pretty lonely."

(She said we should come back to that later.)

"I feel lost," said 🐦, "there are so many memories and I'm stuck in them."

Had a very hard time after therapy yesterday. We did make dinner and that went well enough, but it felt like I didn't know how to feel less dissociated or how to make moving easier. TKMW was concerned, and I said I was okay because, well, nothing "was wrong" so to speak (therapy hadn't been triggering, etc).

It took a very long time to get back to 'normal' levels of functioning last night.

It feels like we need(ed) to post this. It feels very important.

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There’s a quote in Fangirl, at the way end of the book, where Levi says to Cath, “You’re like a happy starfish that got its arm back”, about her being friends with her twin again.

That’s how we feel about her. That talking to her has that !!!! feeling. It feels familiar, like home (in a good way).

(Ironically, talking to my siblings doesn’t feel like that. It’s okay, and it’s fine, and not triggering for the most part. But it doesn’t feel exciting, or connecting in the same way.)

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I really want to talk to her. I’m planning on it.

I want to hear what her side was, to hear what was going on with her then.

It’s been haunting me for years.

I do think she’ll answer my questions. She knows that we ‘have parts’ who ‘feel differently than Anni’ (roughly) and that we don’t remember a lot of our childhood (though, arguably, she was there for it, more than I was).

I do feel like I need to talk to her. I’ll do my best to be respectful about it.

I just…. a lot of my grief from that year was exacerbated (or caused?) by ‘losing’ her*, and feeling abandoned.

I’m not entirely sure what she’ll say, or what to expect. But on some level, I’m not sure why she’s choosing us— why she’s doing it now, how she could/does want to listen to me, etc. So, yeah.

I think on some level I need to know that she wants to be there for me, too— not just Anni— even if, to her, I’m fleeting, or seem a lot like Anni, or am bringing up the past unnecessarily, or what have you.

To Anni and whoever else was around, the last time we talked to her in person (a couple weeks ago), her listening felt safe and like home. So I need to know that she’ll hear me out too. That she’s (metaphorically) not trying to kick me out.

*To be fair, it did feel like she didn’t want to be friends with me, and ‘left me’ (my words), and then we (our collective system and her) stopped talking for a long time

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We’re doing pretty well right now, I think. (Despite feeling tired upon waking up and wanting to sleep more almost every day, and trying not to worry about autism unmasking and burnout…)

Things with Mom are good right now: she genuinely does seem very excited about the wedding, and is happy to see us when we come over. (Which, from another angle, makes us feel like we made up going through trauma, but… yeah. At least things are good right now even though it’s complicated?)

That vague thing (see vague post on main blog) is helping, I think. (Honestly, if you looked at enough of our posts on the main blog, you could probably figure it out.)

We have 2 toothbrushes now, because we kept losing or forgetting one at work. TKMW was like “why don’t you just buy 2 and have one for work?” because they’re really smart.

And, maybe most importantly on a personal level, we’ve been taking time— at least every couple of days— for the littles to play games they used to, and “not have to do stuff [responsibilities].” It feels soothing, and safe, and “I don’t have to think about it.”

We had a moment the other day, before therapy (our therapist was gone last week, so it was 2 weeks since we saw her) where we were like “I don’t even know if I have DID anymore.” And then someone else thought about it and responded like, “Mmmm, that’s not what that part in therapy felt like. 👀”

We’re trying to respect our own limits better and recover after social things. It’s a really busy week this week, so we’ll see how it goes. (Edit: work today definitely wasn’t as bad as we worried it would be, so that’s nice!)

We’re also trying to write and post our bookstagram reviews, and to read somewhat regularly, so both of those things are nice.

Also, if someone is having a really hard time or posts a vent post, we don’t immediately try to help them or read the post like we used to. Just having that internal boundary of “this isn’t my thing” has been really helpful.

Really, technically, if “having DID” is what’s shown on sysblr— (we’ve all seen the posts) where it’s hell and you’re constantly triggered and having panic attacks and flashbacks and losing your mind— then no, we don’t do that on the level we used to.

But I do think we still do have DID, even though it’s quieter than it used to be. (Our goal is definitely functional multiplicity, and I don’t think anyone specifically wants to fuse or seems interested in that.)

Like my therapist says, our communication is a lot better now, and we’ve worked really hard on it! Besides, with us, our DID has mostly been (as a good friend put it, about their own parts) “just vibes.”

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Autism burnout

I’m so burnt out. I talked about it a lot in therapy this last week, how I need to get or ask for or give myself more support/accomodations, how we’re ‘able to’ keep functioning and talking at work and stuff, but… man, I just feel like I need a break. Like I need a vacation or an honest-to-god weekend where I don’t have to do anything. I’ve felt like that for a long time, but currently it’s worse than normal.

I’ve thought “thank fuck it’s Friday” for the last… 3 days, at least, and none of those days have been Friday or going into the weekend. (The only reason I remembered today is Thursday is because my coworker, who has some problem processing information/doesn’t always understand the processes of things, doesn’t work on Thursdays, so it’s generally more chill for me than other days.)

I feel bad for not replying to friends who are replying to my messages or posts I send. “Isn’t that why you send them, because you want a response? Don’t you want to talk about things with people?” Someone says.

I feel bad for starting conversations and then immediately leaving because I just can’t.

I feel like a bad friend for not being able to: do it, to reply, to hold conversations, to finish what I was going to say, to feel like I have any space for other people’s hard times or emotions or change in plans. (Is this where the ‘aut’ part of autism comes in? Other than obviously, not engaging with people much, or in the same ways as most people do.)

Meanwhile, even as we’re aware we’re burnt out and need to just not talk to people, when someone sends us a post or replies or something, there’s a younger seeming part who’s like “that’s my friend! I want to be a good friend to them and reply!! I want to make them happy!!” and seems to override the We Can’t Keep Doing This(TM) memo.

TKMW is gone this weekend— work trip— and so we’ve been spending a lot of time on (what I guess you would call) special interests… a lot of Club Penguin, and Animal Crossing. It feels really good, and enjoyable, and it’s definitely feeling like it’s ‘filling some void’ or somewhat healing… but it feels like we’re not able to stop, almost, even when we want to.

We were hoping and planning to read a lot this weekend— 4 library books because we always check too many out lol—- but it feels like that’s too much brainspace and ‘new information’ to process too.

Some things are making us happy: Club Penguin, and our partner saying nice things, and seeing weird signs, and taking pictures of the sky… but it feels like just sparks or partial energy, it’s not enough to refill much of anything for a long time.

And, we miss TKMW a lot and miss cuddling them and are trying to not think about it too much because then we get really sad and lonely.

Posting this here because it feels too “negative” and “vulnerable” for main. (Also inspired by a friend using their more private sideblog more— YKWYA.) Also posting this here because it feels much easier/less emotionally painful than writing or drawing about it on paper.

If you’re reading this and you’ve tried to talk to me recently, I’m… sorry about all this. [gestures] hopefully I can reply, but I don’t know how much energy it’ll take or when I’ll be able to. Considering offloading (not deleting) tumblr so we don’t feel tempted to reply to people’s messages. If we do (offload tumblr for the time being), we still love you and appreciate you being nice to us. I guess we’ll write more when more changes, but this is where things are, and probably will be for a while.

God, I need to figure out a change. Unmasking more or stimming more or talking less or something. And I know I need to do those things, but it doesn’t feel like I even can…! I don’t know how to! I already don’t have energy and already don’t like changes and everything just feels so hard!!!

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21 and 28?

Thanks for asking!

21. When you feel safe sharing about your parts with someone, which part is the “easiest” to introduce/explain about?

This is a good question! I think we normally explain our caretaker or our former-co-host/teen part, though I’m blanking on specifics right now. But if it’s someone we’re not planning on going in-depth with about it, we’ll say something like “You know how you have an inner child who has different needs and who you can feel internally, but most of the time they’re not around? It’s like that for me, except I have *a lot* of those, and some other ‘parts’ that are different ages too.”

28. How long have you known about your parts? Comparing since then to now, what all’s changed?

God, it’s been almost…. 9 or 10 years now? Jeez, that’s a long time! A lot of things have changed!!

In that time, we’ve been through… let’s see, by the numbers: 4 therapists, many group therapy programs, a couple divorced parents lol, 4 different houses while we were living with my parents (counting both of my parents’ separate houses as separate), a lot of different queer labels, OH there was a while in high school where we were Really Into™️ different (Eastern) religions (and then that just “went away somehow”), a few ‘failed’ jobs, losing several people we used to be really close to, complicated relationships with both of my siblings, a lot of working on internal communication and figuring out our own boundaries and traumas….

I feel very lucky that we’re with our partner and they do love us and we live together, because we definitely would have gotten worse (so to speak) if we had continued living at home and been unable to be listened to/communicate effectively with— for lack of a better word— my parents, who definitely (unintentionally) traumatized and emotionally neglected us.

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5, 11, 18? *hands you a coffee and warm pastry* <3

*hands you a fancy mocha to your temperature of choice* <3

5. With close(and safe) relationships, is it important to you to disclose about your parts? How much involvement are you comfortable with, if at all?

Ah, Chimera asking the hard questions. 😂 Y’know, in the past, this would have had a lot of different answers. I think depending on the person we’re talking to… with the family friends we basically word-vomited to when we were Going Through It™️ (in the middle of our most traumatic years happening), we’d like to tell them about it as, I guess, an explanation/apology, like “hey, this is why I was so Fucking Weird all the time at those ages”, and in general I’d like people we talk to somewhat regularly to know about it, in the sense of “hey, this is a thing I have and it impacts my daily life and please don’t be weird about it”! But I don’t think most people need to know the details. It wouldn’t really make sense to overexplain to people (as we used to), because probably 90% of the time we’re blurry or [multiple people are typing/arguing] anyway.

18. Are there any reoccurring themes or symbolism in your system? Would you like to share about it?

I don’t think this was how the question was meant to be interpreted, but almost all of us really like books, and somewhat spiritually (and *also* dissociatively) believe in our dreams and use rocks as grounding things.

I don’t think there’s any broad symbolism spread across the board. A couple of us have specific Things™️ that we relate to, but unless someone is really close with us or knows a lot of our history, we don’t talk about them much.

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3, 11, & 16💜

Answering these after a while of not responding because, well, DID. I could’ve sworn we answered them like, a couple times, and then got stressed about not having answered them… (this goes for the other two DID asks too 🥰) thank you for asking, Fable! :)

3. How do you figure out who you are in the moment?

This is a good question, and one that’s taken a while (over time) to figure out! The first things that came to mind were what we call “urges”, and what music is stuck in our head, or alternatively, the music it feels like we Need To™️ listen to. Our urges are often needing to contact someone from a long time ago (the person varies) “just to say hi” (???), or missing old books/games/technology etc. that we don’t have access to anymore. But, if it’s someone who’s around more or more easily accessible, then it’s easier to say “Hey, we can’t do this/they wouldn’t know why we’re talking to them randomly”, or even connect the dots to who it is.

Sometimes whoever’s out will change our Animal Crossing Pocket Camp outfit to “feel like me”, but IRL we don’t change style of dress/accessories or anything based on who’s here. (Not to mention that we don’t just carry changes of clothes on us.)

11. Is there any sort of internal organization or structure for your parts? How set-in-place is it?

TBFH I don’t really know… like, we have our ‘host’ and our main caretaker and like, 3 others who are around somewhat-often/can be triggered out if we try to talk to each other, and then everyone else just. Doesn’t exist?? Like obviously they do, but AFAIK there isn’t any ‘organization’ or ‘system’ (ha) in place to like, separate us, because everyone is pretty separated already. Like Very™️ compartmentalized but then also pretty blobby/void-ish. You know?

16. Is there anything about your disorder that has a physical effect on you? (Like headache/sleepiness with switching, chronic illness as a result of trauma, ect)

We tend to get a headache when switching, or if one of us reacts to something really strongly. We mostly only get tired if we’re pretty blurry, or if a lot of us are talking/fighting internally, or after therapy (where we rapid-switch a lot, comparatively). Which, honestly, is a lot of the time, at least being blurry. Or sometimes, as came up in a conversation with @ravenpuffluxembourg recently, we’ll feel really tired if there’s a dissociative barrier or something we’re “not supposed to think about”, but I think we’re less conscious of that happening because it’s so… internal.

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Shoutout to me for being one of the most “fleshed out” alters we fucking have, she even said so. Do I win something for that?

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You know that meme where it’s like, the ice skater is winning simply because the other people have crashed and fallen? Or the thing where it’s like #1 Participator because you’re the only one who did anything at all?

That’s how all of this is feeling. Like I’m ‘winning’ by just…. Showing up and being polite and somewhat kind to my dad. And I don’t like it.

I can tell he’s really sad about my siblings’ behavior, too. The last time I saw him, and my younger brother basically left the dinner early, he talked about how sad he was that my twin seemed “distant” over the holidays, and wondered if he’d “done something wrong.” (In the past, when we were mad at him too, we would have been passive aggressive about it. But we told him the truth, that she had seemed distant and sort of weird towards me too, and I don’t think he necessarily did anything wrong.) (We texted her about it later, and she basically was defensive about the whole thing.)

I’ve written about it on here, and talked about it with my partner, and in therapy. I know what our various feelings about it are.

But I still feel like the feelings are just simmering. And I don’t know where to put it, or what to ‘do’ about it.

Maybe it’ll just keep feeling like this until I opt out of… I don’t know what. My siblings being shitty towards him?

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Also? TBH, it’s a lot easier to not be outwardly angry or passive aggressive or sarcastic when we’re around him. Sure, we could do that, and ruin our own day most of the time we’re around family, but we’re fucking tired. It’s mostly not worth the effort.

Is it a mix of autism masking, and people pleasing, and putting on a good face, and trying to make eye contact and find positive things to talk about and recent pictures to show him, and using opposite to emotion? Does it take a lot of energy? Absolutely.

But at the end of the day, we’re at least somewhat proud of ourselves, that we’re the only one of his kids not making my dad’s day that much worse by being an asshole about it.

Added on: ALSO it’s his birthday tomorrow, and we’re sending him a card (belatedly) and we tried to write something heartfelt and genuine in it. And we’re going to text him happy birthday tomorrow. I know even doing that much (those two things) will mean a lot to him. Which is so sad, honestly.