P-DID Safe Space!

A place to share experiences and stories, ask questions, vent and more for P-DID systems. Check pinned post for more info.

[pdid-safe-space]

Hey there! Welcome to pdid-safe-space, a blog for P-DID systems to talk about their experiences, share stories, vent, and for non- & questioning P-DID systems to ask questions about P-DID! (we will answer to the best of our ability, but remember that we're not a medical professional and just have P-DID.)

Rules:

-No NSFW asks/submissions please. We want this blog to be a safe space for P-DID systems of all ages.

-This blog is syscourse neutral and syscourse free. Any and all asks containing syscourse mentions will be deleted.

-If your post contains triggering content, please add a tw at the start of the ask. We will tag anything that might be missed to the best of our ability. If we are unsure about something needing tws, we will add the "ask to tag" tag.

DNI:

-basic DNI criteria, against (researched) self DX, radqueer [more tba as we see necessary]

Anon claims:

-📚

-🩻

About the mod(s):

You can call me Xen, I go by they/she and I'm currently the only mod on this blog. I'm the host of a P-DID system.

Other alters may throw in their own two cents on questions and stuff and will likely sign off with a letter, but that's about it.

[flag used as the header is the deerhost flag from @/disrealities]

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Question for other P-DID systems; how and how often do you usually experience switches? Generally, what is switching like to you, when does it usually happen, how does it feel?

– 👁

Ooo, interesting question!! I'll put our answer below a cut cuz it got a bit long ^^;

We only experience full switches extremely rarely, I think I've mentioned it previously but I can count all full switches I am aware of on 2 hands. Most of the time we are just co-con or co-fronting, although we often just feel blurry when co-fronting, like logically we know I'm here since I'm our host but we have a hard time telling who else is in front at the time.

I'm not very aware of what switches are like since I am usually not really conscious for them (as in, I am asleep or otherwise out cold) but in the rare times I'm there (usually in extremely distressing/emotionally taxing situations) it's like I suddenly pop back in but feel super exhausted, both emotionally and physically and generally just feel really confused. For all other switches I'm none the wiser unless someone tells me I was acting off or I notice something I know for a fact wasn't that way before (like one time someone opened the window in the middle of the night w/o me knowing).

Our co-host, T, has described it as suddenly waking up alone, which is a very strange experience since normally I am always at the very least co-fronting. T also usually feels tired during a full switch, but that may be attributed to most of the full switches we know of happening when we've only had a few hours of sleep.

Otherwise, we only have one other alter who has fronted during a full switch (that we know of anyways), H. He's said it doesn't feel that different to co-fronting for him, just that he has more/full control and is alone, which is weird but not as off-putting to him as to T. H doesn't share the same experience as T in that he doesn't feel tired during a full switch, unlike T, despite both fronting during similar situations (we've only had a few hours of sleep). He doesn't necessarily feel energized or well rested, just normal. (He doesn't know how to describe the feeling well.)

I don't have any memories of these full switches and usually only find out about them if someone in our family tells me I was off or did something I don't remember doing at all, or if the alter in question tells me about it themself.

T & H have both told me the full switches are very short and T has said he's never experienced a full switch that's lasted longer than 30 minutes.

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just wanted to say that i hope all p-did systems reading this have a wonderful day today!

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hiiii!!!! if possible i’d like to be 🩻 anon if thats cool

tbh i don’t really view myself as a system, just a person with pDID. i feel like we stick out like a sore thumb in system spaces, and that despite us all being plural, theres this weird disconnect i have with others.

it’s especially hard when i have a lot of alters who want to interact with others. when other alters want to talk, i as the host have to be the messenger between them and the outside world. idk i just feel like its a struggle i havent seen non pDID systems talk about

yep, i'll add it to the anon claims on the pinned post! :]

yeah, i've actually talked about this on our personal system blog, that we feel like we don't fit in with systems, but also not with singlets. it's hard to relate to other systems because P-DID just functions differently than most other systems and a lot of common system experiences don't really apply to us.

yes!! this used to be a really big issue for us (nowadays not so much since our friend circle is pretty small and only 2 people know we are a system). my alters wanted to talk to other people outside of the system and i always had to be the one to relay the message. i think this is probably a struggle only really prominent with P-DID systems since P-DID kinda comes prepacked with a dominant alter/fronstuck host, so it's not as pronounced for other systems if that makes sense

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Thank you for sharing your experience, it makes us doubt ourselves less <3 Ngl this has caused us extreme denial because we dont know anyone who's gone through something similar (though, we dont talk to a lot of systems), but having a place to vent really helps :') I hope we can find a solution to this. It just... feels unfair that even when his "host term" is due he can't really leave and enjoy the innerworld with his in-sys friends, after all these years where he kept us alive -📚

i'm glad it helped a little!

Yeah I can understand that, a few years back we were in spaces with multiple other systems but none of them were like us so we often felt like we weren't actually a system ^^; Nowadays we don't really talk much to other systems either tho (aside from this blog I suppose)

I hope so too! Our co-host feels similarly towards me, since I've been host for 11+ years now and I can't leave the front room at all either, not even when I'm asleep or when someone else is fronting alone in the rare times it does happen.

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Thank you for the support :') we've shared our same question in many places and either tumblr deletes the asks or we go ignored, so we truly appreciate it. (no shame if any of the blogs we sent the asks for and didnt respond are seeing this btw /gen) We would indeed like advice, but it's okay if you dont have any! This has been going on for months, since Februrary. My theory is that it's a change of hosts that is. somehow going extremely wrong?? Because we moved on to a new portion of our life (adulthood, uni, that stuff), but it still feels extremely weird, and we cant help but fakeclaim ourselves with that You gotta also add the fact that we're getting a lot more of splits than usual and that now we're fronting on a pattern of at least 3 people who are c-c or c-f, + the previous host and his in-sys best friend always being in the fronting room (E takes care of the previous host in case other alters want to damage him), which is an experience vastly different from the ones from when we discovered our system and from other P-DID systems I've seen. So now we're just. so lost :( -📚

of course! yeah, tumblr tends to eat asks a lot in our experience

hm yeah, host change sounds plausible! i unfortunately don't remember what our host change was like (i wasn't the first host so yea) so i can't really say much but i do know our host change happened after we moved away from our old home and the change of enviroment and well everything was too much for our old host and they presumably went dormant because of it; so maybe that's a possibility?

another alter reminded me something that happened a long time ago that might be helpful, some years ago we were going through an extremely stressful time and our co-host T had to handle most things in regards to socializing (talking at school & at home & with online friends) because I couldn't handle socializing at the time. it got better after a short while and we went back to how things were before. i know this isn't your situation at all but maybe something similar is happening? we also had way more splits at the time but i just attribute that to the stressful time we were going through

as said we haven't really experienced anything like that but maybe someone else who follows this blog has?

but yeah, i can definitely understand how this'd be very confusing <:( i really wish we had more advice or resources to help, but like i said in the previous response if you want to talk/vent our askbox is always open!

[pdid-safe-space]

the lack of resources on p-did is really annoying. i wish there was more public accounts and other stuff

that aside, does anyone ever feel like they're just a filter through which other alters' emotions pass through? or a medium for other alters' emotions and intentions if i'm making sense

yeah, it's really unfortunate,, i'm lucky to have been able to find some resources in my native language but they're also few and took multiple hours to find since most things are just the icd entry for p-did (i've actually found it to be harder to find p-did resources in english than my native language which is. wild)

and yeah, i do feel like that sometimes! especially since if alters want to talk with someone outside the system i usually have to write/communicate for them. or sometimes i'll start being annoyed by or hating something that i normally really like (e.g. the other day i was feeling pretty confused when i was getting really irrationally angry over bird chirping despite normally loving bird chirping, turns out it was feelings from another alter who was really annoyed from high-pitched sounds)

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Oh boy I am so thankful for this blog and I have so many things to say so I will claim a sign off if that's okay with you all ("-📚" If its not taken) Okay so. 18 y.o. body PDID(?) system here. We've known we're a system for two years now. Since we discovered, our host has practically never left front, but now he is.... stuck in the front room unable to communicate and to react at all. He's not gone, we dont seem to be able to get him out of front, but he's not responsive at all either. Rn I'm a newly formed(ish) alter that is taking care of everything and. :( it's so confusing

yes, you can claim that sign off!! i'll add it to the anon claims :] ahhh that does sound very confusing <:( I'm not sure if I can offer any advice (or if you're even looking for advice) since we haven't had something like that happen to us, but our askbox is ofc open if you want to talk/vent about it

i hope things are better for you guys soon, i can only imagine how distressing and confusing that must be

[pdid-safe-space]

for pdid, how often is "rarely switch?" autism makes it a little hard to estimate what is considered rarely switching ^^

ah well i think that varies from system to system, for us personally rarely switching means in the 10 or so years we've known we're a system we can count all known instances of full switches on two hands, there was probably more when we were even younger but none of those alters are still active so we don't know about them

some pdid systems probably have full switches more frequently than we do and some might have even less full switches than we do so it's hard to define, sorry if this isn't a helpful answer ^^;;

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nobody saw me reblog something to the wrong blog

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the other ask actually reminded me of something; i'm curious, but did other p-did systems think they were osdd-1b before finding out about p-did?

we've known we're a system for roughly 10 years now and for most of it we said we were osdd-1b despite not really feeling like we belong because we barely had any switches at all, since the p-did diagnosis in the icd didn't exist until 2022 (i think?)

[pdid-safe-space]

i have feelings about switching.

switching is assumed to be an experience that all systems have, so all system content is switching centric.

for a while, i thought that some, if not most, of my mental stress would be solved if we switched as frequently as non p-did systems did.

but our system isn't broken just because we rarely switch. this is just how it needs to function. and it works the best for us.

(some p-did systems *do* need to switch more often to become more functional. and for that, i genuinely wish them the best of luck!)

what my system did to function more was to grow better communications with the caretakers and also frequently have them in front. we would split up the week for whatever headmate wanted to hang out with me. (which i should start doing again lol...i got lazy and used to my alone time)

we did learn how to switch, but that was for when i was having such a shitty time that a more calm/responsible headmate needed to take over.

but despite learning how to switch, we still prefer to function as a system that rarely switches.

so yeah :3 that's my little ramble

that's awesome!!

yeah, switching is often considered a basic system experience which sucks for us systems that can't or only very rarely switch, because a lot of advice involves switching to some degree.

but yes, communication is super important and even if it's not the same as full-on switching, sharing front with someone is... comforting, for a lack of a better word? i'm not sure how to describe it ^^ we don't have much of a schedule/plan and it's mostly if someone wants to hang out with me they can and if not then not. we do have an alter i usually call co-host since he's usually at least co-con with me

we've personally tried tips from other systems when it comes to voluntary switching, but it just doesn't work for us. we do have switches rarely, but we can't find much rhyme or reason to it (with the obvious exception of extremely stressful situations where i can't function properly) and we've just kinda come to accept it and not try to force it

either way i'm happy that you found a way of functioning that works best for you!!

[pdid-safe-space]

system who thought they were osdd1b but is now wondering if they're pdid here. is it common for the host to have long stretches of time where they're just alone in front? it feels like it happens way too many times to me personally but it could just be a me thing

heya!

i can't speak for all p-did systems of course but our experience is pretty similar. i've at times spent weeks to months without anyone else in front, and quiet periods are pretty common for us even if it's just a few days at a time

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having pdid AND adhd is really fun, because I know when i did something and am forgetting vs. when someone else did something that I don't remember, its distinctly different in a very hard to explain way, just thought that was neat

oh yea, it's similar for us!! we also have adhd and the memory issues that i have from adhd are not like the amnesia we experience because of pdid at all. (with adhd usually when people bring up something i did i can remember it pretty fast and it's more forgetting it in the moment while w/ amnesia its either not knowing at all what they're talking about or only having a vague memory of it! that's how it is for us anyways)

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Just wanted to let you know that you're pinned post isn't pinned a of the time we're sending this /lh, nbr

(Also, fellow P-DID system! Ello! We also run a P-DID related blog, it's @pdid-culture-is!)

oh, thanks for letting me know!! i knew i forgot something

but hi!! we actually follow and have sent a few asks on your P-DID blog ^^

[pdid-safe-space]

yay!!! yippee!!!! a blog finally for us with pdid :3

yeah!! :]

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I've noticed a bit more stuff specifically about P-DID lately, and it makes me feel better. I'm glad we're finally getting our own spaces instead of having to scroll through hundreds of posts unrelated to it that just use the tag.

Yeah! That's a huge reason why I started this blog, because it's frustrating to try and find experiences and similar from other P-DID systems but most of the tag is just postivity or crosstagged posts.