Solstice System

Dx’ed DID System of 7+. Blog is excerpts from our journal and small “in the moment” posts meant to spread awareness of what the life of someone with DID is like. Alter bios in links.

[solsticesystem]

1. Maaaaan idc if you reblog my venting posts but sometimes it does weird me out when it’s done in the frame of “#relatable”. I really don’t want to be “related to” when I’m feeling caught up in my mental disorder. Especially when most my life all I’ve ever felt is alone. Where are all the people who find me “#relatable” irl? Or is it that once you see how I struggle in person it becomes too much for you to handle?

[solsticesystem]

?. I don’t know what to do anymore

[solsticesystem]

?. 99% of the time I don’t know who I am and I think social media has morphed the way people expect or glamorize DID to look. I don’t usually distinctly know who I am.

[solsticesystem]

Hello! I'm the host of a system, we don't really want to reveal our system name but I just want to say you all seem really cool and I hope you all have a great day! :)

1. Thank you!! ❤️

[solsticesystem]

5. Wish my brain would stop catastrophizing about how I can die at any moment and everything I’ve done in life has amounted to nothing HAHAHA

[solsticesystem]

1. Really struggling with my gender these days. I am set on getting top surgery but going on testosterone doesn’t seem completely desirable. Maybe I’ll change my mind on that in the future. I wish I could just alter my appearance any way I want.

[solsticesystem]

1. Sorry recently I’ve only been answering asks and not posting regular stuff. My mental health has been very poor, and I’ve become ashamed of many things. I’m finding it hard to even post.

[solsticesystem]

What are ego states in structural dissociation theory? Are those aspects of personalities that never integrated into one or are those a personality splitting into several personality states? I'm new and confused 

1. Honestly think it’s hilarious that because I have this disorder people think I know every little bit about the psychology of it. I just got DID I don’t know all the logistics of how it truly works, and I’m unsure if the scientific community knows fully either. I’ll give your question my best try though!

From what I know going through psychotherapy and being a member of this community: the neurotypical mind typically has one ego state. This is what makes most people a “singlet”. However, when you have DID those ego states are separate, as your identity was not given the full chance to form in childhood. Ego states become alters. This isn’t just for DID, OSDD also has this effect and the separate ego states can be anything from fragments, to to dissociated personality states, to full fledged alters. Some people with dissociative disorders pursue integration to “integrate” said ego states back into one. Integration is something we’ve been working on personally.

I’m not a psychologist, I’m just a patient of one. If any of you guys are in the psych field pls chime in.

[solsticesystem]

you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but i read that DID can be comorbid with psychosis. i wonder what is that like to have and do you know anyone living it? apologize for the bad english. hope you have a lovely day otherwise :)

5. I have been diagnosed with psychosis before when I was younger but I’m unsure if that was just a misdiagnosis of my DID… From what I know, the big thing that psychosis has that would make it most apparent is its hallucinations. Because so many of the symptoms are shared with psychosis and other disorders like DID, I think the big tell would be visual hallucinations. Otherwise, I’m not too knowledgeable on the topic. I’d recommend seeing a specialist if this is something you’re concerned you’re experiencing. Always open to answering questions but can’t speak on things I don’t completely know.

If any of you guys have psychosis and DID co-occurring, please chime in.

[midsommar-ensemble]

I'm not sure if it's comorbid with psychosis as a whole but I'm 100% sure it can be comorbid with psychotic symptoms, especially hallucinations. PTSD is also a contributing factor to this I think! Our irl system friends are not psychotic but do have symptoms, mostly hallucinations. I've also read that dissociative disorders are often misdiagnosed as psychotic disorders so it's a tricky one to figure out on both a professional and personal level.

Gonna preface this by saying the following is our experience, and may not line up with every schizophrenic or psychotic person!

We're a schizophrenic system on medication, which almost completely stops a majority of our symptoms, especially the distressing ones. When we're off those meds, it's very clear that we're not with it. It's stressful and comes with insomnia and an inability to function on some levels. The major defining characteristics for us are hallucinations (of all kinds), delusions, becoming irrational in thinking (including paranoia), and hyperactivity - these can differ for other people but are common symptoms.

We can separate our other disorders from our psychosis due to its nature - unmedicated schizophrenia tends to be consistent in symptoms outside of psychotic episodes or the comedown from those (which tends to be a period in which symptoms lessen), but it can flare up with distress of any kind. Luckily we're on medication, so it's extremely easy to separate psychosis symptoms from symptoms caused by other things such as anxiety, C-PTSD, BPD, or DID. It's definitely harder without medication and we have been on it for so long I couldn't offer explanations on how to differentiate - my one suggestion would be seeing if your symptoms change at all during different situations - like if any hallucinations change depending on what causes the flare up or the distress.

Hallucinations can come in lots of forms and can effect all five of your senses. The most common and known are visual and auditory. Our auditory hallucinations are really hard to distinguish from alters speaking in co-con, however they are usually in the same voice and say similar things - a common thing for voices to say is to do with paranoia, i.e. telling you what to or what not to do for x reason. They can also be odd sounds or sometimes even sounds that might make sense. They tend to be hard to distinguish from real life which is a big indicator of psychosis. You CAN be aware of psychosis and hallucinations! It's just very common to be unable to distinguish it from reality, and that's a recurring sign for all symptoms like delusions, paranoia, and other hallucinations. Again you CAN be aware of these not being real, it's just very common not to be especially at first!

Hallucinations of all kinds can also occur during PTSD breakdowns and especially in flashbacks and this is pretty common! We get tactile hallucinations of hands in some flashbacks which is a good way for us to tell whether it's psychosis or not.

We tend to get really hyper when we're off our meds, and we can't think straight. Our brain just sort of works in its own way and it gets a bit irrational. Paranoia can flare up and we tend to do just,, really stupid things, and we have weird delusions (shoutout to the time we cried because we weren't a worm... yeahhh) and it's just generally odd. It's like a state of being high!

I'm gonna end this here because my head it getting a bit jumbled but if anyone has questions feel free to hit us up. Our schizophrenia set in alongside the break of our C-PTSD so we've been figuring things out and working with it for a while and we know quite a bit from specialists, experience, and research. I hope this was informational!

Also to end this on a fun note, when we went in for our diagnosis our host had the genius idea of telling the specialist that he was the Crab Lord and that he buries crabs that wash up on shore because they're his people. Madi's such a fucking experience

[solsticesystem]

you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but i read that DID can be comorbid with psychosis. i wonder what is that like to have and do you know anyone living it? apologize for the bad english. hope you have a lovely day otherwise :)

5. I have been diagnosed with psychosis before when I was younger but I’m unsure if that was just a misdiagnosis of my DID… From what I know, the big thing that psychosis has that would make it most apparent is its hallucinations. Because so many of the symptoms are shared with psychosis and other disorders like DID, I think the big tell would be visual hallucinations. Otherwise, I’m not too knowledgeable on the topic. I’d recommend seeing a specialist if this is something you’re concerned you’re experiencing. Always open to answering questions but can’t speak on things I don’t completely know.

If any of you guys have psychosis and DID co-occurring, please chime in.

[the-moonchild-system]

Chiming in as we also suffer from psychosis. For us personally, there are some alters who suffer psychosis more than other, presumably due to trauma that we've experienced. Since I've known for a long time that I have others in my head with me, it's always been pretty easy to differentiate what's a hallucination and what's just DID stuff. Our psychosis really only starts acting up or really effecting us in times of high stress. What's interesting to me (idk if this happens in other systems with psychosis or not, this is only my experience I can speak on) when I'm experiencing delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, ect. my protector or caretaker will often chime in to point out that what I'm experiencing isn't real and help me through it until the episode is over. It's not fun or easy to live with, but you kinda just work through it as best as you can.

[solsticesystem]

5. You guys can’t see it but we have 969 followers lol. Sorry stupid joke :P

[solsticesystem]

you don't have to answer this if you don't want to but i read that DID can be comorbid with psychosis. i wonder what is that like to have and do you know anyone living it? apologize for the bad english. hope you have a lovely day otherwise :)

5. I have been diagnosed with psychosis before when I was younger but I’m unsure if that was just a misdiagnosis of my DID… From what I know, the big thing that psychosis has that would make it most apparent is its hallucinations. Because so many of the symptoms are shared with psychosis and other disorders like DID, I think the big tell would be visual hallucinations. Otherwise, I’m not too knowledgeable on the topic. I’d recommend seeing a specialist if this is something you’re concerned you’re experiencing. Always open to answering questions but can’t speak on things I don’t completely know.

If any of you guys have psychosis and DID co-occurring, please chime in.

[solsticesystem]

im schizoaffective and have did, so to the last anon: in my own experience most of the time psychotic hallucinations are shared, but i cant say its All the time

1. You have quite the unique experience then, I wish you luck with dealing with it. Not much advice I can offer for the visual hallucinations. Used to get them bad on certain medications while in inpatient, but luckily it wasn’t permanent. It is “interesting” that your hallucinations are shared. Feel free to share more if you’d like, my asks are always open.

[solsticesystem]

If an alter hallucinate can you see their hallucinations through confronting and/or coconsciousness

1. Tough question. We don’t really have hallucinations that aren’t related to our DID. Auditory hallucinations are often caused by my other Headmates, and we haven’t experienced any visual hallucinations since being taken off medication. If you’re experiencing serious hallucinations while having DID, you might have a co-occurring disorder.

[dees-headquarters]

I think it’s important to talk about other aspects of DID. I’ve seen a few posts like this and wanted to say my piece, I know I never do but It’s not a game and it’s not fun. I personally find it very distressing at times. I know I talk about The Girls a lot but that’s on here. T has said many times that I’m Phobic of the others and I AM, but that’s pretty common for people with DID. It’s a process and it’s a long one. You don’t just wake up and accept everything and everyone with no problem. The parts I tend to talk about the most are parts that don’t seem to have much trauma. They’re easier to connect with, in a way, because they don’t remind me of anything. They’re basically ANP’s too. I barely talk about other parts, apart from posts about a therapy sessions. This disorder isn’t an easy one to live with, especially when you’re in therapy, because you’re facing things you’ve spent your whole life avoiding, or literally have no knowledge of. You’re going against how you’ve lived your whole life. There are parts that might be full of rage, shame, pain and guilt. There might be parts full of all the things you deem as “weak” and you now have to face them with compassion. There might be parts who only cry, whilst you don’t. There might be parts who are in a constant state of flashbacks, like they are stuck in time and it’s your job to find out what they need to help them. It’s not all memes and laughs. There are times when it can be, but working on this disorder means working through trauma. That’s not fun. It’s flashbacks and nightmares. Hypervigilance and panic attacks. It sucks and that’s not even All of it. Yes you can have good times with this disorder and different parts of you, but this disorder isn’t a game.

[solsticesystem]

1, 5. I can’t tell if I’m depressed or not.

[solsticesystem]

1. I don’t deserve it. Please, God, tell me that I don’t deserve it.