almost home
sheepfilms
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
roma★
Andulka
macklin celebrini has autism
titsay
Kaledo Art
Monterey Bay Aquarium
cherry valley forever
#extradirty
NASA
Show & Tell
Origami Around
shark vs the universe
Janaina Medeiros
we're not kids anymore.
KIROKAZE
seen from Iraq
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@sunvoids
🔲Welcome🔳
Personal side blog for my thoughts and such should I find it helpful.
Occassionally I draw comics to channel those thoughts, and you'll find them linked below. More will likely appear over time whenever I end up drawing more comics to express my feelings and experiences as a person with DID. Listed in chronological order
◼COMICS◻
1 - the questions, and the start of answers (consists of 2 comics, 2 years apart)
2 - repeating questions and another answer
3 - The Fawn
Hey i’m a fashion design student so i have tons and tons of pdfs and docs with basic sewing techniques, pattern how-tos, and resources for fabric and trims. I’ve compiled it all into a shareable folder for anyone who wants to look into sewing and making their own clothing. I’ll be adding to this folder whenever i come across new resources
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16uhmMb8kE4P_vOSycr6XSa9zpmDijZSd?usp=sharing
Updated just now with new hand sewing resources (mainly buttonholes) and textbook pdfs on fashion history, fashion illustration, and thinking through designs!
OP I owe you my life
OP you are the greatest person currently in my life. You beautiful, thoughtful creature.
Bugaboo Pocket is a delightful digital pet game where you raise bugs and impact the world's ecology. Launching on Steam April 2nd!
Bugaboo Pocket released today on Steam! (Will be out on switch later 2025).
I’ve been excited about this game now for over a year! If you loved tamagatchi’s as a kid, you’ll love this game! You get to raise your very own digital pet insects, dress them up, and decorate their homes! 🐛
@basyacriptid
The Collective You
[one system's brief advice about accepting the idea of the collective you]
One of the best pieces of system advice started from a tumblr post and was elaborated by my DID specialist. I can't find the original tumblr post that started it, so I'm making a little post of my own <3 Share the knowledge. and also hope that someone can link the original post lol.
When I was REALLY going through it™ with my first diagnosis w/ DID, and a lack of integration, all of my alters felt like separate individuals, some of us feeling as distanced as a coworker or a stranger altogether. We were just getting a grasp on internal communication between all of our subsystems, and it was rough. We felt so entirely differentiated that we were our own people trapped in one body. While I don't really care about what language you use, all alters in CDDs are a part of one person [there's only one body and brain]- the collective you.
So obvs, I'm scrolling tumblr like the chronically online doomscroller that I am, and I see this post that goes along the line of not knowing who you are, but knowing you are 'you', regardless of who you are [referring to alters]. And it said something like "we're all me enough to pick up our meds"- something like that. iirc it was a half light hearted, half advice post, but that was really good advice for me. I kind of internalized it after I processed it in therapy. It's actually why I have started to love parts language lately tbh.
After further processing this idea in therapy, Identity Confusion stopped mattering in the grand scheme of things. I focused less on worrying about who I was, and just focused on the fact that I'm me. Just like the post I saw- We are all me. The example of all being me enough to pick up my medications just applied, like, everywhere. Even when it came down to the smallest things- with coping with other symptoms too.
Oh? I don't like coffee right now? I guess I should switch to something else. [differentiated alters]
Oh? I have barely any drawing skills right now? Okay, really sucks but I can work on something else and come back to it later. [skill variance between alters]
Oh? I have to go to a doctor's appointment? I know I'll forget that- Gotta write a list, and put it up on the board so I remember. [day to day amnesia]
You know what happened? My dissociation got better! Not immediately or entirely, obviously, and my memory [re amnesia] still sucks, but that's part of the disorder- plus other disorders that I have. This idea of the collective you is something that I think is really beneficial to all CDD systems, especially during the mid to later stages of recovery.
I, admittedly, credit most of my healing to conversations I have had with my DID specialist. Especially since, without her, I wouldn't have been able to process this idea of the collective me further, but the conversation wouldn't have been started if I hadn't seen that post on tumblr. This was a budding concept with us due to the separation we had. It helped with integration. GRANTED... Not every alter got the memo, obviously, but It's something that I'm still working on. Of course, being me comes with the prerequisite that I am a person with DID, and that I am made up of multiple parts.
Now for the piece of advice I got from my therapist- Though it requires a certain level of knowledge of your own system, such as a list of alters and some identifying info [fav drinks, fav colors, those type of things]. Look at the list of your alters wherever it may be. Just whatever you use for logging your system members. Look for the commonalities between alters. There will be at least some commonalities.
For example; A good 45% of us like bunnies, 45% like cats, and 10% have a liking for other kinds of animals. Using this information, I can pretty much deduce that 1. the collective me loves animals and 2. the collective me likes cats and bunnies especially.
Another example; I looked through our simplyplural, which has a favorite color thing [in ours at least]. By looking through the list, I figured out 1. wow I like literally all colors- my fav color is rainbows and 2. I especially like pink and light blue.
More examples; the list.. THE LIST... I looked through it and saw that a good 90% of us like MONSTER ENERGY DRINKS- of varying flavors, but the common denominator was Ultra Strawberry Dreams, but all of us like [or tolerate] water as a preferred drink. From there I can come to the conclusion that I prefer water over anything else and that I have a problem with monster [being light hearted but I genuinely do].
I hope you get the idea I'm going for. I used this process for nearly every aspect of our collective identity, though some had to genuinely be voted on, such as our LGBTQIA+ labels [offline, we just call ourself queer, but that's.. aside the point LMAO].
Obviously, there are going to be outliers- Having DID comes with the fun [/s] aspect of alters being differentiated from each other in some capacity. Example for the monster energy one- We have a handful of alters that HATE energy drinks- even just fizzy drinks in general. There's one guy who will only drink Black Coffee and water- nothing else. He's the guy who is always hiding away our monsters in the way back of the fridge, but guess what!! He's me!! The part of me that doesn't want me to ruin my health over energy drinks. The part of me that knows I deserve better than my unhealthy habits.
Getting to know the collective you is just like learning about your system! It is not inherently different than figuring out what an alters dislikes or likes are. The idea of The Collective You shouldn't feel scary or anxiety inducing- if it is, you may want to confront those feelings with a therapist if you have access to one. Every CDD system is the collective [or, well, system] of one fragmented individual- That is a studied and objective fact. I wanted to give advice from one recovering system to another.
No, this will not work for everyone, every system is different, but I'm hoping this post finds the right audience in knowing that it's worth a shot to try this!
one of the most important things about dissociative identity disorder and generally being a system that i wish people would understand is that it truly isn’t as cut and dry as it may seem for member count.
you’ll see people who say they have “six alters” and then immediately assume it’s six fully fleshed out equal individuals with no confusion or fuzziness regarding identity. that’s simply not true in a majority of cases, as i have seen.
most systems still VERY much deal with confusion regarding potential splits, go through dissociative episodes where they’re unsure of who they are, sometimes feel no attachment towards any identities, feel like they might have split and then suddenly that person is gone, unsure if alters they haven’t heard from often have gone dormant, not sure how to react when alters do come out of dormancy, etc.
it’s not a fun feeling and it’s genuinely unfair in certain situations to force systems to list every single alter to you with full certainty, as if it will never change. because it will. for so many different reasons, systems will grow, they will shrink, they will fuse, they will develop. you can’t expect the person with the dissociative disorder and lack of core identity to be able to keep up a perfected list of forever, it’s simply impossible. you may have alters who stick with you, but that doesn’t mean changes won’t happen.
and systems who may be reading this — please don’t feel bad. you are not a hassle, you are not a headache, and you are not an inconvenience for simply coping with something like this. it’s out of your control and the only thing you can do is continue to cope to find ways to help yourself retrain from these reactions. please don’t allow yourself to be harmed by others who don’t understand what you are going through. there are people who will accept and love you for who you are, all of you.
past, present, and future.
Dissociative realities, meeting again and again...
Growing up, I never knew anything to be real. I lived in a foggy dream, reality seeming to be an abstract concept that I did not ever experience. It kept me safe and distant; if nothing is real, neither am I, neither is the horror I was living through. If it's all fake, then, nothing could hurt me - if even "I" do not exist, nothing mattered much at all.
My survival was pathologized a variety of things; diagnosed anything from Schizophrenic to Bipolar, finally Dissociative Identity Disorder. It didn't matter much what the doctors called it. They gave me pills for what they called a disconnect from reality, took my blood on a regular schedule within their all-too-white hospital walls, myself spending my days staring out at the world from behind thick glass while I stood on top of a plastic anti-suicide chair. All I could see from there was a parking lot, and yet I yearned for it; we were not allowed even short trips to the outside world.
How was I meant to be connected to a reality I was kept from? I could not understand it, and it only reinforced what I already knew; this reality was not my own, it was not one I belonged to. It was not my home.
I was born an artist, and so I found my most vivid realities somewhere in the space between my hands and my work. Here is where I found fragments of my own story, viewing reenactments through the eyes of others who never shared my name. I expressed it all through gory, twisted, horrifying tales. I did not know a happy ending, and so neither did my creations.
How ironic it was, that I knew these creations so intimately, the details of their selves down to their dominant hand, all the while with no concept of myself. Who are you? What do you like? What do you dislike? What does being alive mean to you? Questions I could answer in an instant for my art, but would struggle for a single word for myself. I was never good at introductions.
And yet, I was found introducing myself over and over, each time sure it must be the first time. My friends, too, introduced themselves back to me, although they knew this had happened many times before. This is something I will always be immensely grateful for.
I whispered, "I don't know you. I'm scared. Who are you? Who am I?" and my friends would reply in gentle tones, reassuring me, sitting as close as I would allow them. As I grew older, I met many others like me; others with DID, others who could not remember themselves nor others.
We found each other in a dance, meeting each other over and over again. You're my best friend, you're a stranger; I hold so much love for you I can barely contain it, I don't know you at all; We have so many memories together, I just met you today.
Over time, something shifted in me. I don't know you, and yet I know you are familiar, you are safety and I love you. I don't know you, and yet I have this sense we have known each other a very long time. I don't know you, and yet all I want is to be close to you, to talk to you until both our voices are hoarse. A deep knowledge grew in me, one which cut through my dissociation - an understanding that you are my best friend, you are my lover, you are a precious somebody to me even when I have lost the details, even when I have lost your name. I know you on a level I cannot put words to, and I love you.
This understanding then expanded to myself, to the individual fragments and pieces of me so long dissociated and unknown to each other. A love encompassed my whole being, and I could finally begin to know myself. I met myself over and over, much in the same way I had met those outside of me again and again. I began to understand, each of those inside of me is someone I have known before and will continue to know again, these someones are myself. I began to see their faces in my artwork, in old photos, in stories others have told me, and then even in my own memories.
Through loving others, I learned to love myself. Through love, I have found a reality which is not only my own, one to belong to; it is one shared with many others, it is community, it is everything to me. The love of those precious to me became my own.
I WASN’T A BAD DOG
I WAS A SCARED DOG
“Especially as clients stabilize, the survival contributions of fight and flight parts must be enthusiastically acknowledged. They must be treated like war veterans: the therapist or client might not believe that the war was necessary or useful, but these parts fought hard for a worthy cause: the survival of the client. So therapist and client together must honor their service. The submit and freeze parts often benefit from being honored, too. Although their service consisted of avoidance strategies (freezing, becoming mute, serving others, pleasing and self-sacrificing, floating up to the ceiling), they too were essential to the client’s survival and adaptation. Without them, most childhood survivors of neglect and abuse might have reacted in ways that threatened the abuser(s) and evoked far worse punishment. Often, the attach part won moments of support from grandparents, teachers, the mothers of friends, neighbors–moments that provided hope, role models, even the belief that they could be loved. Even though these parts still get triggered and continue to drive trauma-related symptoms, the therapist must emphasize, “How is this part still trying to help?” “What is this part worried about?” “How is this an attempt at a solution?””
— from Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher
Yo I just saw the tag #didresolution and I really like it and I think that might be one of the best tags to use with that said, I think we really should coordinate a bit and create a new space for specifically discussion on DID in later stages of recovery, full integration, and what not. So..
DID / OSDD blogs share for larger reach ^^
People who would want to use a DID tag for people in later stages of recovery, what tag do you prefer?
#didresolution
#full integration
#late stage DID recovery
Other
Results
probably my most vulnerable post ever. my story deserves to be told.
[This is a continuation of this comic]
🔷 Complimentary Colors 🔶
system ask game! send the corresponding emoji(s) & the person who reblogged this may answer the question. :-)
🥀 - do you keep track of your alter count? how do you do so?
🫀 - do you have non-human alters? what species are they?
🍄 - when did you realise you had a complex dissociative disorder?
📻 - do you experience amnesia?
🥩 - who was the most recent split?
🦴 - do you have an innerworld? what does it look like?
🦷 - what’s a fun fact about the current fronter(s)?
💀 - is your system more overt or covert?
🍷 - does your music taste differ from alter to alter? how?
🦇 - do you have any friends with CDDs?
📺 - are you “heavy” with any type of alter? (e.g. little-heavy, introject-heavy, etc.)
this is for traumagenic systems! thank you.
Someone send me all of these but in like clusters of different anons / asks so I can answer them all but at different times so I can pace it out
DID is simultaneously the most subtle, ambiguous disorder while also being the most intense, all-encompassing, extremely-personal-because-it-affects-fundamental-perceptions-like-memory-and-identity-at-all-hours-of-the-day disorder of all time.
idk which cdd I have but I’ve just been saying did bc I’ve read things abt how certain presentations of alters/my system that I relate to r apparently more common/known in did (according to the haunted self). and the fact that even if I don’t have amnesia in daily life I may have it in the past. oh shit wait. can amnesia count as like of your other alters n not knowing them like having heavy barriers? n like denial and forgetting about it? is that a type of amnesia? does it matter if I say it’s did over osdd? honestly on that topic,, do u think theres any other reason to specifically suspect did instead of osdd1? maybe that’s a silly question bc everyone is different I’m just thinking about how did is apparently more complex than osdd? so maybe there are some differences other than “well did has amnesia and diffrendiayrd eleboratrd parts while osdd may not” I’m sorry if this sounds messy I’m tired but thinking out loud lol
can amnesia count as like of your other alters n not knowing them like having heavy barriers? n like denial and forgetting about it? is that a type of amnesia?
I think you'll have to be more specific about what you're trying to ask here, cause I'm not sure I understand what you mean unfortunately
does it matter if I say it’s did over osdd?
I'm not sure what you mean, why would it? I ended up rambling a lot in this post, oops.
At the end of the day, an OSDD diagnosis depends on the person who is diagnosing you; OSDD isn't its own separate, unique disorder with specific, unique criteria to meet, separate from DID.
Plenty of people get diagnosed with OSDD when they actually fit the criteria for DID better; or diagnosed with OSDD only to then be later diagnosed with DID. I personally haven't seen or heard about people experiencing the opposite way around (first diagnosed with DID, then changed to OSDD), but I'm sure it probably has happened at some point, but the fact I haven't heard about it is probably saying something.
You don't get diagnosed with OSDD because you meet specific criteria for OSDD - you get diagnosed with OSDD because you DON'T meet the specific criteria for any of the other pre-existing dissociative disorders. It's "BECAUSE you don't meet the criteria for THESE other dissociative disorders that you get diagnosed with OSDD" not "you meet the criteria for OSDD, so you have OSDD." There isn't criteria to meet in the first place! Do you meet the full criteria to be diagnosed with another dissociative disorder? If not, then you get diagnosed with OSDD, and there can be many reasons for this.
This is literally all of the "criteria" you have to meet to be diagnosed with OSDD in the DSM-5, followed by EXAMPLES of reasons why the person was diagnosed with OSDD over any other dissociative disorder. The key word is EXAMPLES - this isn't criteria for a diagnosis of OSDD! Just examples.
Sometimes it's because the system doesn't experience amnesia and they truly don't experience amnesia, but "not experiencing amnesia" is not a specific OSDD criteria that you have to meet, it's just a specific reason why a clinician would give as to why the person doesn't meet the criteria for any other dissociative disorder.
OSDD IS:
A diagnosis that means that you do not meet the full criteria for any of the pre-existing dissociative disorder, such as DID, depersonalization/derealization disorder, etc.
A diagnosis that is often unique to each individual who gets diagnosed with this condition (because there are many reasons why someone might be diagnosed with OSDD and sometimes those reasons are highly specific)
OSDD is NOT:
A specific, unique, separate disorder
A disorder that is "less severe" or "less complex" than DID
A "less severe" "version" of DID
"DID with missing criteria"
"DID, but not quite DID"
A disorder that gets diagnosed when your amnesia "isn't bad/severe enough"
A disorder that gets diagnosed when your amnesia is minimal
A disorder that gets diagnosed when your alters aren't distinct enough
A disorder that gets diagnosed when you don't have it that bad
A disorder that gets diagnosed if you don't struggle "bad enough" or if you're "not that affected" by your symptoms
A disorder that gets diagnosed if you experience your alters as "moods/mood states/brain states/etc." or if you experience that "same stream of consciousness" no matter what alter is fronting, etc. etc.
I feel like people forget as well that OSDD is not just "DID but with missing criteria" it means that you don't meet the criteria for ANY OTHER DISSOCIATIVE DISORDER. It doesn't mean that you're "basically a DID system, but with criteria missing." So when it comes to OSDD, it's important to remember that it specific includes all other dissociative disorders, not just DID. It's specifically saying that you don't meet the diagnostic criteria of ANY OTHER dissociative disorder, not just DID.
All of this is why it's confusing to me when people (not @ the anon) try to put hard distinctions between DID and OSDD-1, or when people try to lay out some kind of key distinctions between the two?
I also have a lot of other problems when it comes to the way people try to differentiate OSDD from DID.
"OSDD means no amnesia":
How are you certain you don't experience amnesia? If you definitely know for a fact that you don't experience amnesia, I'm so curious how people know, how they figure it out. 'Cause amnesia is so fucking tricky and you can be so unaware of amnesia, it genuinely hides itself in.. A genuinely horrifying way.
What does it mean to truly not experience any kind of amnesia to meet the criteria for DID? I've always wondered this, mostly because my amnesia is quite severe (I'm very unaware of it, but I know it's quite severe, much more severe than I think) and I have no idea what it would be like, feel like, or look like to be a system without any amnesia at all whatsoever, and how you know you don't experience it and to then confirm in some way that you really don't experience amnesia. So I wonder what a system with OSDD without amnesia looks like/feels like. And how they know for sure they don't experience amnesia.
Because dissociative amnesia from DID includes a wide, wide, wide variety of experiences that are oftentimes really difficult to be aware of, in order for a diagnosis of OSDD-1 to depend on how much amnesia you experience or whether or not the person experiences amnesia, we would need to have a clearly outlined explanation of what amnesia is for BOTH disorders, what experiences "count" as amnesia/how "much" amnesia "counts for BOTH disorder, and I just don't think that kind of thing is really.. Possible. In order to claim that OSDD means that you don't meet the amnesia criteria for DID, we would need to understand what that amnesia criteria even IS for DID. And unfortunately amnesia is incredibly difficult to even notice sometimes and sometimes people will go years not knowing they have amnesia until an alter comes forward with traumatic memories that other alters don't remember. We'd need to know what really Counts as amnesia when it comes to DID, and if certain experiences count and others don't, why and why not?
"OSDD means minimal amnesia" is also included under this and it's something that really annoys me and is just not true. OSDD does not mean you experience "minimal" amnesia. How much amnesia you experience, how often your amnesia affects you, whether or not your amnesia feels like teleportation or not, whether or not your amnesia is something that largely affects your life or only affects it sometimes - these things have nothing to do with whether or not you have OSDD over DID. I want this idea to die already.
"OSDD means your alters aren't elaborated enough to be fully individual people":
I have so much to say about this.
I hate this! I hate this so much! It's spreading misinformation about OSDD AND DID and this belief has been used CONSTANTLY to discredit people's experiences. This belief has made people doubt that I have DID; it has made people try to push OSDD as a label for me over DID even though it has never felt fitting for me, and it has been used to discredit so many other people I've known too.
Repeat after me: your alters not being separate individuals with their own names, ages, distinct personalities, etc. DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE OSDD. THIS IS A NORMAL EXPERIENCE FOR DID SYSTEMS AND IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE OSDD INSTEAD OF DID. IT DOESN'T MEAN YOU AREN'T A SYSTEM AT ALL. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOU HAVE IT "LESS BAD" THAN OTHER SYSTEMS. IT DOESN'T MEAN THAT YOUR ALTERS ARE NOT AND CANNOT BE THEIR OWN PEOPLE.
And on that note. This kind of thing has also always greatly confused me because the concept/idea of alter elaboration is a muddy way and well who is the one measuring this? Alter elaboration, I think, is not a linear spectrum where one end is "not elaborated at all" and the opposite end is "totally separate person." If OSDD means "less elaborated alters", I question what that means and who is measuring it - how will we measure alter elaboration in an accurate way in order to properly assess whether or not someone's alters are "elaborated enough" for a DID diagnosis?
Do you see why this is confusing and makes no sense to me?
If we are to say that OSDD is diagnosed PURELY based off of the fact that the person's alters are not elaborated enough for a DID diagnosis, we need to ask:
WHAT is alter elaboration? We need to define alter elaboration and know and understand what it is.
HOW do we measure alter elaboration? After we know what it is, we need to be able to "measure" it. How do you measure such a vague and fuzzy concept as "alter elaboration"?
HOW MUCH elaboration is 'required' to meet a DID diagnosis over an OSDD diagnosis?
And finally:
WHY?
WHY do we consider (xyz) experiences to be more elaborated than other experiences?
WHY are we measuring alter elaboration in this way - are there other ways to measure alter elaboration, and if so, is there any specific reason why we went this one way to measure it, rather than any other ways? Is that a good reason? A valid reason? Why? How do we know? Is it accurate and helpful and useful for differentiating DID from OSDD?
WHY are these things considered to be more elaboration over these things?
Because alter elaboration is a confusing, jumbled, muddy mess.
Some alters will have distinct body language, but they don't know they're an alter or anything like that, so they have no name or specific, unique personality, it might just seem like the individual person just has different body language when that alter fronts. Is that elaborated enough? Why, or why not?
What about a system with alters who have their own unique names and personalities, but otherwise have minimal differences - mostly share the same beliefs, feelings, opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. Are they elaborated enough to meet DID criteria? Why or why not?
If we are to assume that "OSDD means alters who aren't elaborated enough for a DID diagnosis" where the most elaborated alters means that two or more alters have unique and distinctly different voices, body language, names, personalities, etc. - the most overt system you can think of - then millions upon millions of people would have their diagnosis completely changed.
It would also mean many OSDD systems would get diagnosed with DID instead. A lot of the OSDD systems I've met fall on the more "overt" end of the spectrum where their alters are quite distinct with their own unique senses of self, names, personalities, etc. I've met more OSDD systems who match the stereotypes than I have DID systems - both diagnosed and self-diagnosed.
Everything I explained in this post is why when people try to ask me about the difference between DID and OSDD, I don't know what to tell you other than "it just means you don't meet the criteria for any other dissociative disorder."
I think about all of these things a lot because the way people treat DID and OSDD as if they're distinct, separate, unique disorders greatly confuses me and I myself don't understand the huge differences between OSDD-1 and DID, other than what I've read in the DSM-5 and other knowledge I've picked up. I would love to read more about OSDD, but it's near impossible to ever come across anything about OSDD specifically.
I think a lot about the concept of "alter elaboration" and how such a thing would be measured; why some experiences might be considered more elaborated than others; how the entire concept of it is greatly subjective and greatly dependent on your environment and how others perceive you - sometimes a highly elaborated alter might not be considered highly elaborated to one person, but be considered highly elaborated to another person.
I would like to make a few things clear as well:
I'm not saying that OSDD systems don't have their own unique, separate, and distinct experiences that other systems may not relate to.
OSDD as a diagnosis includes more than just OSDD systems, OSDD-1.
I'm not saying that OSDD is a pointless, useless diagnosis, or that people with OSDD are just "DID systems who don't realize" or "DID systems who think they have OSDD" or any other combination of similar phrasing. It's incredibly frustrating when people try to assert OSDD as a label onto me and I'd never want to do the same for OSDD systems the other way around (try to assert the DID label onto them when they don't feel it fits, try to convince them that they have DID and not OSDD, etc.).
a sequel to this post
The wildest part about being a system and having known you are a system for a while (6+ years for us) HAS to be seeing people who are just figuring it out fall into holes that you've long left behind.
Like. Yeah. We also thought we needed to keep tabs on everyone to increase communication. In the end it became too unwieldy. Especially since DID evolves with what you experience all the time.
Microlabels are cool and I fully support anyone who uses them, but figuring out what to call every single structure in your system isn't for us anymore.
Another thing we notice is people who try their best to know who is fronting at all given times. A lot of that comes naturally to us nowadays, but it's also... OK not to know. Especially if you're not focusing on anything system related at the time.
I guess a lot of this boils down to, it's okay not to care. It's okay to go with the flow of things and figure out at your own pace. Identity is fluid, especially if you have a dissociative disorder. You don't HAVE to have everything figured out 100% of the time.
It's okay to take it slow. It's okay to not know. It's okay to just exist for a bit. It's okay to live and experience things beyond being a system.
To all the people who are just starting to comprehend this. You do not need to know and label exactly what is happening in your head all the time. Fuck, we sure don't. And we're happier for it.
It's okay to just be you.
not going to jinx it due to having a slightly better day today, but for several weeks maybe like 2 months even, the amount or consistency of suicidal thoughts have been more than usual (I say as if my usual idle amount of those thoughts running in the background constantly is normal)
I'd say it's not ""that bad"" despite at times losing interest or energy to keep up with things that are important to me or other parts like appearance, hygiene, drawing, exercise, and talking to friends
out of those mentioned things, the loss of care in appearance sticks out more to me as a concern things were not great (though I'm somewhat better in that regard currently) because a big part of whatever I'm wearing is in accordance to which parts are present in a way of those parts feeling like they're actually here, or to have something on like an accessory to say to non-present parts "I'm thinking about you and you're loved"
So dressing "sloppy" with no identifying clothes that really belongs to any specific part is just.. uncomfortable. no one's around, nobody cares, I don't feel whole in any way.
In an attempt to combat this and just generally the suicidal thoughts, I've spent time sewing stuff. First started out with wanting to make a long sleeved turtleneck for one part with thicker fabric for more warmth, and I've made a few more as I've gotten the hang of it. All while I've not had a good grasp on who's around really, but I'm doing it anyway because I'm making things for other parts.
If I can't find purpose or point for doing things for myself (a blurry icky smoothie), I try to do it for other parts and hope they come around soon enough before I might be convinced I did something wrong and they won't come back.
There's a lot of things different parts want to do, and I can only hope those things keep me going alongside irl factors than ending up doing something damaging in desperation it'll change things
If anything, I guess it's validating that me bringing up having suicidal thoughts in group therapy got taken serious and I got contact info if needed. that's a new one
