Title me, Coward

New Vent Blog for system members

[kingoftalkingbeasts]

here's to self discovery

[yourlocallux]

Weight is a reoccuring topic for us even though we're like, rationally aware that we are a healthy weight it just doesn't match our inner appearance for most of us. We might have some dysmorphia but it balances out.

we agree on one thing at least.

-b

[moodybluesdarkarts]

Well I can't have blades for arms so we'll settle for no breasts any day mate

[clever-and-unique-name]

DID/OSDD Casually Explained: Masterpost

Here is a list of all my Casual Explanations about DID/OSDD. Please note that these are specific to the experiences of DID/OSDD and should not be attributed to anything else.

My casual explanations are a combination of academic research, personal experience, and community feedback. I am not a professional. I’m simply a person with dissociated parts, one of whom enjoys doing research. A lot.

If you would like to repost my work elsewhere, please include a link back to this post so others can see my sources!

DID/OSDD Casually Explained posts:

What Causes DID/OSDD?

How Alters/Parts are Experienced Internally

Parts In Control

Elaboration of Parts

What Is Integration?

Splits in Established Systems

Substitute Beliefs

One Person’s Experience of Having Dissociated Parts

Parts and Memories

Understanding Dissociated Parts:

Part 1: Belief and Appearance

Part 2: All About Introjects

Main Sources:

Books:

The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization by Onno van der Hart

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, and Onno van der Hart

Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, and Onno van der Hart

Treating Adult Survivors of Childhood Emotional Abuse and Neglect: Component-Based Psychotherapy by Hopper, Grossman, Spinazzola, and Zucker

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation by Janina Fisher

Helpful Links:

The Treatment of Structural Dissociation in Chronically Traumatized Patients by Janina Fisher (pdf)

International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (2011): Guidelines for Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder in Adults, Third Revision

Trauma-related Structural Dissociation of the Personality by Ellert Nijenhuis, Onno van der Hart, & Kathy Steele

PODS (Positive Outcomes for Dissociative Survivors)

DIS-SOS

[chimerid]

things I didn't realize were signs of covert DID

a lot of "signs of plurality" lists focus heavily on introjection and alter communication, two things that we have very little of. we wanted to lay out some experiences we had prior to syscovery with a focus on memory loss, identity confusion, dissociation, and unconscious masking since these are what we experience most. we hope this helps someone.

this is not an exhaustive list and identifying with it does not guarantee anything nor does not identifying with it mean you are not plural. we are one system and these are our experiences, which have heavy overlap with our other comorbid conditions. you know yourself/ves best, use your own judgement when reading.

feeling as though i was never a child even when my body was, that i was always an "old soul"

feeling as though i never stopped being a child, that my body aged without me

feeling as though it is my first day on earth and nothing has existed before the present moment

experiencing all of the above so strongly at different times that i cannot imagine feeling any other way

"i don't hear voices, i just have multiple overlapping trains of thought all reacting to and arguing with one another. probably the ADHD"

feeling upset as a kid that my imaginary friends didn't act the way i wanted, or that they didn't like me

remembering my childhood in third person, as though watching a movie of my own life

feeling as though i am having lines fed to me when talking about myself

remembering times that i was upset, but with the inciting incident cut out. being unable to understand why i felt the way i did

feeling as though the "real" me died a long time ago and i took their place

being talented at acting and lying. feeling like i have spent my whole life acting, as though "i" am a character i put on for other people

being afraid of voicing opinions because i know they might change suddenly, being upset when someone tells me a supposed opinion of mine that i no longer remember or agree with

knowing when i am supposed to have an opinion on something but not knowing what it is, having to make up my own opinions based on what i think "i" would most likely say

"what did you do today" i don't know "how do you feel" i don't know "what do you want" i don't know "did you have work yesterday" ...probably?

feeling like my body sometimes says things that my mind does not remember/agree with, or that i'm surprised to hear the things i'm saying

reflexively lying about things i didn't do because i assume i must have forgotten about it

being freaked out when someone touches my stuff without telling me, because i assume i moved it and forgot entirely. being afraid of how quick i can forget things

having excellent memory as a young child and terrible memory as an adult

"face blindness" where i can tell that people look familiar but feel like i have never met them, being unable to put faces in context

feeling like i have never actually met my own friends and loved ones

"i don't have amnesia, i can objectively tell you what happened. even when i do forget, i can usually put it together through context clues."

"it can't have been that bad, i barely remember it and don't feel upset when i think about it"

"i can't have DID, nothing bad has ever happened to me"

no name ever feels right longterm

creating alt accounts due to a desire to "pretend" to be someone else

lacking a solid sense of identity, feeling like a hollow husk of a person who occasionally experiences moments of clarity and wants to be treated as someone other than the "me" i present to the world

"i've never had a switch, i just have an inconsistent sense of identity"

"i've never had a switch, i have always felt exactly the way i do right now"

feeling like my mind is being pulled in several different directions, especially when i'm upset. being unable to act because different "parts" of me want different things

feeling jealousy when seeing other systems be open about their plurality. feeling like it's something you're not supposed to talk about

feeling guilty for being happiest when i'm "faking" plurality

feeling drawn to stories about possession, secret identities, or doppelgangers

all of the above being such routine experiences that i never even thought to question them

[moodybluesdarkarts]

All things I thought were simply apart of life mind you ✌️

[rt0no]

[mentholmutt]

[classifiedcove]

So often we'll start talking about smth that happened that whoever is fronting at the time has no recollection of and it's like. who is up here who is saying this

[moodybluesdarkarts]

The amount of times I must remind myself that this disorder(s) is typically covert and the whole brain is used (lol 10% of my brain used, nah that's literally where we would be stored)

So yeah, of course you're going to have access to some stuff because one, it's designed to not be noticed (you have the neural pathways, that's where information is stored, that is where you would also be stored thank you-) so you can also just check physical storage (me literally trying to recall a memory let me remember please brain 🙏) and even though it didn't happened to "you", it still happened to *you*??

So some things are just universal (I guess) because of course, no one is supposed to notice and it's almost automatic if you're used to masking as each other or think (remember more like it lol) for a second that you all exist in literally one brain -_- (note to selves hehe)

(I definitely still have access to stuff that I didn't experience myself, but it makes more sense to me that I could still remember it if need be or just because it's one brain in one body!? This helps stop me from thinking wait huh and accidentally forcing a switch just to better recall something lol) <- not fun -_-

[the-plague-artist]

I’m both trans and a therian, my body can’t do nothing right.

[scoutology]

#crysobbing

[inchwormcircus]

it’s pride moth

[secretscorner]

what do you want us to do, draw gay plural comics ??

[moodybluesdarkarts]

I mean 👀

[free-my-mindd]

[stjohnstarling]

Genre media since the 1980s has become so painfully self-conscious.

[stjohnstarling]

tbh I think part of the appeal of anime to a lot of people is that it isn't full of this cringing embarrassment of the nature of what it is. It isn't constantly making fun of itself or apologizing for its existence, it's just straightforwardly doing the thing it's doing.

[mirrorfalls]

To amend a little: I think most anime do engage in jokes of that nature at least once in a while, but the whole delivery is different. When anime wants to make fun of something it has a whole grab-bag of neon signs - sweatdrops, dot eyes, chibi figures etc. - to tell you This Is A Joke and something to put in a separate box from the “real” story. I can understand why a lot of people would find that annoying and immersion-breaking, but at the same time if all your levity comes with the exact same framing and delivery as the Serious moments, there’s a heavier risk of it leaking in and slowly corroding the whole thing from the inside.

[moodybluesdarkarts]

Honestly knowing that some of my mannerisms come from anime, it makes sense to me that I would appreciate both its sincerity and tongue and cheek style approach to comedy and really anything in itself with the genre and media.

[the-bior-plurality]

being a horny alter in system that's touch starved to the point of being overwhelmed with a little touch is really annoying because everyone else will be like "friends would be nice in theory, maybe we could even hold hands or lightly push each other's shoulders" and you'll be like i want someone to put their full weight on me while fucking me stupid style

[moodybluesdarkarts]

Oh man, I feel this on a deeply emotional level (in theory) but also on a disgusting "get away from me" level in practice :'D👍

Hey, this inspired a slightly deeply personal post underneath 👇

When you want the "full weight while you fuck me crazy style" sex but (ONLY) with the knowledge and intimacy that they actually love you and care about you BUT you are also both touch starved and touch repulsed from years of abuse that your nervous system fluctuates between too much and too little, wanting more, craving it and never wanting anyone ever to touch you ever again!

Then all of you start to battle for the right to have sex but never fully getting into it because you hate how your body looks and feels and sounds and tastes and you especially HATE how others look at you and treat you but you can't help but want it now because that's how you were raised. It's what I want damn it, it's what I need but it's what I hate-

So now all your friends think you don't like casual intimate contact with them like hugs or just standing a little too close but it's not that, you just swing between never wanting you to let me go again, please touch me (I get so horny at the slightest touch and that scares me) and if you stand too close I will swing at you and beat you to death (don't you ever touch me I will never be a toy again) and that scares me too

So you just kinda accept that ok I will just wait until I feel safe enough before trying simple contact again because I really shouldn't get so damn horny from a slightly longer than average hug but also why are you standing too close back off :'D (please don't let go)

[the-covey-collective]

BLACK SYSTEMS WE LOVE YOUUUU!!!

[moodybluesdarkarts]

Huh??! What?! Who the hell is yelling at me??

[drv3ch5]

how it feels trying to hold back the mean alters from saying mean shit

[moodybluesdarkarts]

I am going INSANE, we would literally feel so much better if we could just EXPRESS ourselves god DAMNIT-

[inchwormcircus]

If you are genuinely a system you are traumagenic systems can only be formed by trauma

(I've been informed this ask was /nm but my point still stands)

in my opinion DID and plurality is heavily under-studied so who the hell knows if endogenic plurality is possible or not and fighting over it and gatekeeping resources over discourse stances isnt gonna help

I was in trans discourse spaces in 2019 and its the exact same rhetoric here- the people who believe it's medical vs the people who believe its personal identity (its somewhere in the middle and fighting over "fakers" isn't gonna get us more acceptance- we need to lift each other up not push each other down)

[moodybluesdarkarts]

I personally think of it like this:

People talk to themselves. Thinking out loud, quiet thoughts to themselves, notes to self, a near constant need for communication.

Just because I know MY problems come from trauma doesn't mean I don't notice the way that EVERYONE talks to themselves, in one way or another.

Or has to work through thoughts by separating themselves into pieces and parts. Planning for possible discussions, revisiting conversations, empathy itself is like putting yourself into someone else's shoes. Having a dialogue (a discussion between two or more parties) makes sense, makes it easier to understand yourself, like it's hard wired into human biology, how would I know "myselves" without something or someone to bounce off of; even if that someone is "me".

It came built into your brain with your freaking Xbox. It's arguing semantics on an issue that ultimately doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of life.

Even if life didn't get me a shit ball and I wasn't stuck like this, I would still probably go to myself for help because I have to help "her" anyway. I would still probably have this internal dialogue because it just makes sense to me, to everyone on some level or another.

And if so many people, when under any distress, have themselves split to better handle the problem (life), then maybe it ain't an "origin" issue. Maybe it's a human feature.

[oursystemblog]

[moodybluesdarkarts]

There is a fond part of me that understands why so many others feel this disconnect

Comes with the territory of course

But when your body, which houses you, homes you, binds you, traps you, is constantly used for someone's enjoyment, pleasure and pain-

I began to come to have a sort of kinship with myself, with this, with my body

Because it's still mine

I have to take care of MY body

Because no one else will or would or has or should now-

It's mine

My body with all its many flaws and problems and tricks and trades

Without it I would not exist

With it I am caged and trapped and bound and scared-

But I will make us both free because despite everything

It's still me

She kept me safe when I couldn't and tried to live when I didn't

It's just as much mine as it isn't and I will fight everyday to love it the way it should have been loved and care for it the way it did me, even when we both didn't want too

It's my animal, it's my cage, it's my freedom, it's my body

And I will learn to love it and fight like hell to care for it before I ever let it be used again

Because I'm not a toy and either is she

And we are in this together now and forever