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@serafawnforest
── . ⸙ Forest of Serafawn 𖧧 𐔌 aka serafawn 𖠰
❀ ﹑ Forest. adult. she/her. ❀ ﹑ Person with a Complex Dissociative Disorder, making sense of my experiences through the community !
꒰ ✉︎ ꒱ Even if I’m a stranger, I care about you. I’m happy you exist. Please stay safe. ♡
If I die, remember that I begged you and asked you for a small donation or to share my post. I will not forgive anyone who sees this post and does not support me with a single word or a small donation and ignores me.
I'm writing this post with tears in my eyes from the intense pain I'm experiencing. I've suffered from severe pain and multiple fainting spells this past two week due to my severe anemia and my inability to afford all the medications I need because of their high cost. All I wish for is to never faint again, so I hope you will stand by me and help me buy my medications quickly. Please donate.
Worse still, I was injured when our house was bombed while we were inside. I was hit by shrapnel that is still embedded in my body, and I need urgent surgery to remove it. Throughout this time, I have been suffering from constant pain. My surgery is very expensive, and I don't have enough money for it. Now I can't sleep because of the intense pain, and I can't afford my medications and painkillers to stop the pain because of their high price.
I need your help to stop my pain and save myself as quickly as possible. Please, I don't want to die. Please help me raise the money for my medication and surgery as soon as possible. Please stand by me. Please donate.
Please help my friend Fadel. He has survived bombing, shelling, and gunfire in this horrible war. He is in a lot of pain and really needs relief.
Thank you so much to everyone who asked about me during my absence from Tumblr since the day before yesterday. I've been experiencing fainting spells and loss of consciousness for the past two days.
My health is very poor, and I can barely write this reblog to tell you that I desperately need your help right now. Please help me so I can buy my medication as soon as possible and raise the funds for my travel and surgery. Please donate
please donate and share to help fadel!!
Instances of when schizospectrality and complex dissociation influence eachother
A few come to mind on my own experience. Feel free to add your own.
On ipseity disturbances in particular:
It is well known in PTSD that watching a traumatic event or knowing somebody going through a traumatic event can be traumatizing itself. When the line between the self and the other is blurred, as they are in schizospec disorders, watching something traumatic happen to someone else can feel the same as watching it happen to you. Social disconnection, such as feeling like a passive observer in life, which are also common in schizospec disorders, can increase this; when you are a passive observer in the things that already happen to you, what is the difference between something happening to someone else?
There is also the fact that the minimal self, which what the disturbance in 'ipseity disturbance' is, well, disturbing, is understood as the 'fundamental' or 'building block' to the narrative self, which is the part which is disturbed in trauma. The foundations themselves are shaky, and it is easy to see how that can lead to the narrative self being easier to fragment. The tendency for rumination on what one's self is and various topics that ipseity disturbances frequently lead to more opportunities for traumatically instilled beliefs to fester; when one is constantly hyperreflecting on the nature of oneself in relation to the world, there are just more chances for the "conclusions" or realizations from introspecting to end up being trauma-related. When interaction is a game that constantly leads to being related back to oneself in an attempt to understand oneself, trauma-related beliefs may end up being more frequently reinforced or triggered as well.
There is also that hyperreflectivity may aim itself towards trauma. It is common in complex dissociation to have a pressured sense "I must figure out everything that happened to me," and prodding dissociative barriers in this way when not ready can lead to a worsening of that dissociative structure. In terms of answering the question "What is my self, what does that mean?", when trauma forms the basic lines of what divides and defines the differend selves, the pressure to figure it all out can increase, leading to more rumination.
On social experiences:
Keep in mind all the previous on ipseity as a constant weight in the background of all of this.
In socialization, schizospectrals are frequently othered, isolated, or ostracized for their experiences, or the vague sense that something is off or that you are "crazy." Isolation itself worsens schizospectral symptoms in general, but it can also worsen dissociation; if you are alone, and you already generally find more comfort in your internal world than the external world, you have more time to draw inward and continue relying on dissociative mechanisms to survive. This can influence complex dissociation both positively and negatively: I find I am drawn to spend more time with my alters, and thus that increases integration and communication, which has even led to fusion before. Negatively speaking, the overreliance on dissociative coping mechanisms eventually weakens other coping mechanisms, which can give rise to a more complex system structure, reinforce the need for certain pre-existing dissociative structures and make them harder to dismantle and integrate later when they are no longer needed, and the nature of being constantly alone or other itself can become a key part of trauma and thus system structure.
The increased paranoia and guardedness around socialization can become a chicken-and-egg situation for trauma and schizospectrality. Somebody with complex dissociation has faced severe trauma to know it is possible and remain so hypervigilant in day-to-day life; this can feed into delusions and the constant pressure of double bookkeeping delusions to remain functional can cause several problems. When you live in two worlds simultaneously - the world where your paranoias are true and the world of shared reality you assimilate into - you are using a form of dissociation as a coping mechanism. You are sorting yourself and the world into two different experiences - having to constantly do this can create new alters in itself to hold psychotic experiences or chance system structure. Alters who are unable to doublebookkeep consistently may be more dysfunctional, may not be allowed to socialize and thus increase their feelings of otherness or isolation, and alters who are able to double bookkeep consistently may begin to strain more under the constant stress.
Internal confusion between what is psychotic and what is dissociative:
In the minute to minute experience of life, when you hear a voice, you're just hearing a voice. To recognize an alter and distinguish it from random psychotic noise requires a level of knowledge and/or integration with the alter or fragment that spoke. How do you know who to aim for to integrate, how do you know what can be ignored?
There is a nature of self-gaslighting when living with psychosis. You learn to not trust your senses and to double-check with others, which can compound trauma as it leads to being vulnerable to the gaslighting of others. Self-doubt and denial is a core feature of complex dissociation already (denial is a form of mental flight and can serve to maintain dissociative barriers between parts), and in cases of complex trauma in general there is a sense that you are your only advocate already. When you cannot trust yourself, it is just harder to foster trust between your different selves. Doubt and suspicion drives alters further apart, but doubt and suspicion are core mechanisms to surviving with psychosis.
Ignoring dissociative parts as "just psychosis" for long enough can have drastic consequences: the last thing a traumatized part wants when coming forth with trauma is to be dismissed. Mentally pushing away a part like that is a method of increasing dissociation - thus, mistaking parts and psychosis can have drastic consequences on system functioning. Alters can and will develop further on their own without actively communicating towards other parts; in my case, I have pushed away an entire layer of my system as just psychosis for years, and only recently reconciled with them: what would have remained at most 1-10 parts is now sitting at a firm 30-ish with three subsystem divisions and an alter who has 8 fragments within themselves to manage. It had also had the effect of pushing them into psychosis: many of them face delusional misidentifications that the other part of our system projected onto them. One layer believed we were hallucinating these things, and thus the other layer begun to believe they truly were those things, which delusionally strengthened the substitute beliefs that the other layer formed with as adaptations.
Furthermore, there being evidence for the capacity for others to harm you also leads to confirmation bias as evidence towards delusions. When I saw my first psychiatrist, when I had expressed constant fears of being sexually assaulted the first question asked was "Have you experienced that before?" (and I have) - it's another chicken-and-the-egg situation. But also, when the knowledge of what severe harm can come your way is more expansive like it is in a complex trauma survivor, more out-there or bizarre experiences can feel more likely. When you go day to day as a psychotic you learn a baseline level of psychosis to cope with, and as psychosis gets worse, that baseline can increase; things that are bizarre become more neutral. These two feelings can work together to make even "obviously" bizarre delusions feel more likely to be real. You have already gone through so much in consensus reality, thus the upper limit on what is factually possible to happen to you further becomes blurry with when it extends into the impossible. (There is an extensive discussion here on how OEA often uses the idea that it is too bizarre or impossible to possibly be real to create self-doubt in survivors and to get away with further abuse, and how TBMC in particular can mimick psychosis to an even larger extent than complex dissociation in general is already conflated with psychosis. But I am not an OEA survivor, and that is not my discussion to begin.)
Again, these are just a few mechanisms I've noticed in my own experience; I'm sure there's more thought to be put into each, and more that I haven't thought about. I'd like to further think about certain kinds of parts and how they form due to and around psychosis (especially delusional misidentifications and how they overlap with introjects and/or nonhuman alters), but I don't have that figured out to the extent that I feel comfortable writing about it for others to read, for instance. And again-again, feel free to add your own.
I can't help but mourn
it’s so difficult being constantly confused about every aspect of your reality because dissociation creates an endless fog around everything
who do i want to be? (2022)
A lot of people have been emphasizing recently that DID, and other CDDs, are dissociative disorders, and not trauma disorders. This is true, though I also wanted to add the addition: complex dissociative disorders are also not "the most extreme" trauma disorders, as many people believe.
Complex Dissociative Disorders describe disorders which have a severe, complex dissociative response to trauma. This describes a specific pattern of trauma responses, which is often related to needing an escape from a situation that is experienced as inescapable.
This is no different to other disorders which originate in trauma, such as Personality Disorders.
Personality Disorders are usually* developed due to childhood trauma. Similarly to a CDD, they are specific patterns of recognized trauma responses. Most, for example, have a recognized pattern of relationships with themselves, others and the world, as informed by trauma. Narcissistic Personality Disorder, for example, is often rooted in the belief someone is worthless or will not have their needs met by caretakers, and causes narcissistic patterns to be ingrained into coping mechanisms, as a trauma response.
None of these exist on a spectrum from least to most severe trauma, they are all just recognizable patterns of trauma responses.
*There are exceptions to this. Such as Schizotypal being recognized in some people without trauma, who have a family member with a Schizspec disorder. Generally this is true, however. There is also an implied note here about bias in medicine and diagnoses in general being a social construct.
Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation on understanding the nature of dissociated parts (pp.165-167)
Core concepts from this section:
“Personality, identity, and self are not actual things. They are terms that give a broad and condensed impression of who we are to others and to ourselves. We do not have a self like we have a brain or a heart. Instead, our minds construct a continually evolving story about who we are; this is what we call our ‘self.’ Patients with dissociative disorders subjectively experience their selves and personalities as fragmented, and often as outside of their voluntary control and awareness. Normally, our sense of self is continually updated as we learn from and reflect upon both new and old experiences. Dissociative patients seem unable to sufficiently engage in this natural revision, leaving them with relatively rigid and divided selves.”
[scrolling through old posts on my blog] I would not fucking say that
Hiya, saw your post about diagnosis in USA. Does it mean you're not from US? I am not asking you to say where exactly from and you don't have to respond at all if you don't feel comfy of course. Sorry in advaaance! Have a nice day.
It's okay to ask! I live in England :) Many of my friends are from the US though, so I often get second-hand information about the medical system there, haha
🍄 : what's one thing your system can agree on? 🪄 : how do you pick clothing? 🌱 : do you have collective hobbies? 🐚 : what's something odd about your system you'd like to share?
Hi Anon! I hope you’re having a wonderful day! ❣️
🍄 This is quite a tricky question! I’d say there are a lot of smaller opinions we agree with, even though the reason can often be different, haha. I’d say a major agreement we all have is belief in the importance of relationships, companionship, being close to people. These are very central to our world! Though, admittedly some are more or less anxious and treat those relationships differently. The underlying agreement they’re the most important aspect of life is very collective!
🪄 Usually clothing is dependent on who is active the most in social scenarios! Most of my parts are aligned with femininity in some capacity, and the most active are very classic ‘pretty, elegant but still casual’ feminine, meaning that my wardrobe is almost entirely dresses, though varying in specific preferences. This mostly ensures that the most social alters won’t feel uncomfortable in public, since they are more likely to be in those scenarios! There are some clothing items which make certain active alters very, very unconfident in themselves, so those are avoided unless necessary. When I have more money, it would be nice to expand my wardrobe to accommodate for more preferences though, since I’d have more freedom to compromise and find alternatives which match less parts less represented in their style, but also aren’t distressing to others. Examples might be having clothing for more alternative parts that is still punk/grunge/etc but includes skirts or soft features, so potential switches will still mean parts feel relatively happy in that outfit!
🌱 Art! I have created art most days since I was very little, so it’s something most parts of myself enjoy. This is mostly digital art, or traditional doodles, though some have preferred more handcrafted hobbies, like clay or jewellery making!
🐚 Honestly I’m not sure what might be considered odd, haha. A lot of parts have deer, rabbit and dog themes, though, which is a fun fact! Maybee it’s odd that we don’t really have an elaborate headspace? It’s something that is only really used actively!
Inspired by this sys-port dating poll, I wanted to talk about my experiences with dating collectively, alongside individual parts’ experiences with that, since I don’t see both discussed together often :)
Currently, I’m in a relationship! All parts of myself are in a relationship with my lovely girlfriend, and a lot of the time, we don’t really identify ourselves separately, though my girlfriend wants to know all parts of myself, and love them fully too. With some parts, who do identify themselves, my girlfriend tries to talk to them individually, and understand how those parts feel, or think and respond to information. Our girlfriend has also recognised patterns of parts, or consistent behaviors between them, often ones I wasn’t aware of, even despite not often identifying ourselves. Though mostly, they accept and embrace all parts as they exist.
Different parts do experience different feelings in response to the relationship though, despite everyone processing our girlfriend as our girlfriend and someone we love, and have a strong, important connection with. Protective parts often include our girlfriend in their protection, though they also feel more anxious with vulnerability or presenting themselves intimately. Persecutors, emotion holders or trauma holders often feel more safe to express those aspects, and will go to our girlfriend before anyone else. Littles will see them as a safe person to exist with, be vulnerable or small with. Some fragments don’t register themselves as more elaborated identities, with capacity to be present in relationships due to being stuck in their limited capacity, however, they still feel safest with our girlfriend, and reach out to them, sharing or letting themselves be fragile. The responses vary, though the feeling of “this person is someone I love” is consistent throughout all parts of myself, even those who experience themselves more disconnected from the concept of romantic relationships.
been a while so here's a new ask game for pwCDDs!! feel free to send me asks from this. non-disordered systems this is not for u.
feel free to tag ur answers with #asks by io, I'd love to see them!
☀️ : what is your prefered communication method? 🫀 : what does dating look like for you? ⭐️ : how do you decide who does and doesn't get to know about your CDD? 🪐 : do you treat your CDD more like a medical condition or something inherent to your identity? 🍄 : what's one thing your system can agree on? 👁️ : if you have a collective name / system name, how did you choose it? ☁️ : how does your CDD influence your gender presentation? 🪄 : how do you pick clothing? 🌱 : do you have collective hobbies? 🪡 : what's one common piece of CDD advice you feel doesn't work for. you? 🐚 : what's something odd about your system you'd like to share? 👑 : what is something you want to work on in recovery for this year?
DID/OSDD/overall CDD ask game bc i love answering questions and am in a silly mood :))
This is like, half serious stuff, half silly goofy stuff so if ur using this ofc answer questions at ur own discretion. Also the use of the word "you" can be the collective or individual "you"! Answer how you want
👁 Was discovery a sudden or gradual thing for you? (eg. did it feel like everything came to light all at once, or did you slowly but surely notice and piece things together?)
🌕 Did you have any awareness of other alters before discovery? if so, how did you view them (e.g. "moods", ocs, imaginary friends, etc.)
🫧 Who fronts the most in day-to-day life? Do you have a host, a "main cast", everyone switching/fronting equally, etc.?
🍎 Does anyone have any very passionate/specific food/drink preferences (love or hate)?
☂️ Are you more overt or covert? Are there any alters who break this norm (are exceptionally good/bad at masking)?
🎭 What term(s) do you use for alters? (eg. alters, parts, identities, people, headmates, etc.) Feel free to share reasoning!
🎊 Is there a prominent gender among alters? How do you present your gender(s)?
🍃 How frequently do you switch? Is this frequency comfortable/manageable for you?
☁️ Do you have day-to-day amnesia? If yes, what does that feel/look like for you?
🌈 Any happy/"success" stories from opening up to people/reaching out for support you'd like to share?
🎲 Do you have any collective hobbies (activities everybody/almost everybody enjoys doing)?
💥 Do you have any physical symptoms related to dissociation/switching/etc.?
☄️ What symptom/aspect of the disorder is hardest to deal with in day-to-day life/something that's more irritating/difficult/complicated for you?
🌼 What symptom/aspect of this disorder actually doesn't bother you/is actually helpful/you're grateful for?
💡 What's one thing that you do to help ground yourself?
⭐️ Are you usually aware of who's fronting? How do you figure out who's fronting when you don't know/can't tell?
🦉 Is there anything you wish you could make everybody instantly know/understand about CDD's?
👓 Are there any characters you feel really "seen" by (whether they're meant to be a representation of a CDD or not)?
🎸 Are there any songs/albums/artists that you feel "seen" by (whether they're meant to be a representation of a CDD or not)?
note: this ask game is made and intended for those w DID/OSDD/p-DID/etc. please only use this if this applies to you :))
About dissociation in childhood, from Treating Adult Survivors of Childhood Emotional Abuse and Neglect (pp. 148-150)
