Our Writing

Collective name is Sunny | they/them We’re a system. This is our writing blog for us to just get our feelings out. Constructive criticism and feedback are appreciated, but don’t be mean for the sake of being mean.

[systemwritingpieces]

Intro

Hello! You can collectively call us Sunny! We use they/them pronouns collectively.

We are a DID system who wanted a space to share our emotions and thoughts, as well as just a general place to practice our writing. There probably won’t really be alter intros on this blog, you mainly get to know alters through their writing. Sometimes we will sign off, particularly if it’s a system-related or alter-specific piece, but other times we won’t. It depends on what the particular alter wants. Sometimes, they just want to be anonymous. If there’s no sign off, don’t be pushy and pressure them to say who they are.

We’re just a writing blog. We will ignore anything related to discourse of any kind. This blog is not for that.

Just don’t be weird. Don’t make everyone uncomfortable by being weird. If you’re questioning whether what you’re about to say is weird, don’t say it. It’s probably weird.

We always appreciate genuine feedback and constructive criticism, but don’t be rude for the sake of being rude please.

DNI: Racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, antisemetic, Islamophobic, discourse of any kind, any ableism

[systemwritingpieces]

who you are

your words were never yours, were they?

neither were your actions, right?

you’re still not completely yourself, are you?

do you even know yourself anymore?

you lost yourself years ago.

that day you spoke to him,

trusted him to tell you the truth.

you trusted him, obeyed him,

you did everything he said.

what else did you know?

you lost yourself that first day,

that cool october afternoon

in that choir classroom

when you first felt that hand on you.

you didn’t know what to do.

you froze in the spot,

all bark and no bite.

isn’t that right, little boy?

you lost yourself

when you started yelling back.

she’d yelled at you every night

and you were just so sick of it.

tired of being silent.

you stopped taking it,

you yelled back.

you lost yourself the day you yelled at him,

the only one who cared for you,

all because you were told to.

you did as you were told,

and you were so, so tired

so angry,

and the way you treated him?

you really are a monster.

you lost yourself

when you lost everyone else,

everything else,

when all you feel are hands on your body

and all you can do is scream.

you were just a kid.

you were shattered to pieces,

and rebuilt and remade

into something else.

this isn’t what you’re supposed to be.

you’re an amalgamation

of everyone who hurt you

and everything you went through.

you are your mother.

you are your puppeteer

and you are the puppet.

you’re a frozen deer in headlights

afraid to fight

afraid to move under their touch.

you are that little boy screaming to be heard,

crying for attention,

crying for help.

nobody listened.

who do you want to be?

you must’ve had dreams,

a long time ago.

they weren’t this.

no child wants to be this.

what were those dreams?

can you remember them now?

you’re not out of time,

but do you know how to be

something other than this?

you don’t.

you’re still controlled even now,

you still feel their hands on you,

you still hear their voices.

years later, miles away,

you still do what you were told.

you still obey.

you don’t even realize it anymore.

they’re in the music you listen to,

in the face you see in the mirror,

in the way you freeze when men approach you.

your eyes glow

with the anger and pain they forced on you.

you lost yourself.

they can’t even bring themselves

to say your name anymore.

can you say your own name?

you can’t?

how tragic.

this isn’t who you are,

this broken and remade monster,

silent and screaming all at the same time.

who do you want to be?

[systemwritingpieces]

8/23/23

august 23, 2023

where am I?

this isn’t my bed or my house. those people are not my family. that’s not me in the mirror.

the first thing i did this morning was run at soccer practice. nobody even warned me. everything hurts and i’m so tired. i don’t want to do this, but something tells me that’s not up to me.

nobody will tell me anything. all i know is i’m in a “system” and i’m an “alter” replacing the “host”. what does any of that even mean? i asked more questions, but nobody will answer me.

i googled what a system was, but it didn’t really help much. i still don’t know who i’m supposed to be or where i am. i miss my family and my house and my bed.

i read journaling might help, but i don’t know what that’s supposed to do. i won’t remember anything. i see people that this old host texted a lot. maybe i’ll ask them about it. whatever i’m supposed to do, i should at least try to do it right.

i just want to go home. maybe if i do everything right, i’ll get to go home.

[systemwritingpieces]

9/18/23

september 18th, 2023

he’s the only one who understands me.

he’s the only one who listens, the only one who doesn’t look at me like something is wrong. he knows me. i don’t have anyone else. i only have him.

that’s what he says at least.

the rest of them are out to get me. the rest of them don’t get me like he does. the rest of them want me gone, they just want her back. they’re hurting me, he says. they’re hurting me to drive me away, to bring her back. they’ll never see me for who i am, and they’ll never treat me like i deserve to be treated. only he will. that’s why i should go with him, he says.

he says i should cut them off. i dont know about that. i think if i did that, she’d be mad when she gets back. he tells me i shouldn’t care what she thinks. she’s not here, he says. she’ll probably never come back. i should do what’s right for me, not her. he says even if she came back, she wouldn’t be mad. she would understand. i still don’t know, but he tells me he knows her better. he’s right. i don’t know her at all. but, to cut everyone off without asking her…

he says if i don’t cut them off i should at least hurt them back. i’m still not sure. i don’t want to hurt anyone, but he tells me they deserve it. they hurt me, so they deserve it.

he’s right. he always is. he knows best. he knows them better than i do. i haven’t even been here a month, he says. he’s been here for years. he knows them, he knows her. he knows what’s right.

i want to ask someone else. i want to ask the protectors, the memory holders, the gatekeepers, but they’re out to get me, too. i can’t even trust the people in my own system. i can’t trust anyone but him.

he’s right. they deserve it. they hurt me, so they deserve it.

you must think i’m horrible, but you don’t what they did. i mean, to be fair, i don’t remember all of it, but he remembers better than i do. i’ve only been here a month, anyway. he’s always been there. anything i don’t remember, or don’t know, he tells me. the things he tells me are awful. the things about our friends, the things about those soccer girls, even the things about my system and my family. they’re all awful. he’s the only good one. he says i made the right choice choosing to put him first. he still wants me to cut the rest of them off, and i want to, but i can’t. i have to stay until she comes back, even if i don’t want to.

it’s not as bad as it sounds. even through all of it, i’ll still have him.

someone told me he was bad. someone told me he wanted to hurt me, he was doing this to keep me away, he was doing this to hurt me. but, if he wanted to hurt me, i’d be able to tell. i’m smart enough to see through it. i’m mature enough, too. just because i’m a kid, just because i’m a new split doesn’t mean i’m naive. they just want to keep us apart.

at least, that’s what he tells me.

[systemwritingpieces]

the taste of summer

it’s already been over a month since summer ended, but i can still remember what it tasted like.

i can still remember it tasted like sunshine and warmth. it tasted like freedom.

it tasted like ramen, the good kind from that place across the street, but also the instant kind at 9pm after karate.

it tasted like mango refreshers and pomegranate juices, like the cold chicken soup i drank in the hot walmart parking lot, like the laughter as too many of us piled into a too small car.

it tasted like that chocolate ice cream i’d finished, only fifteen minutes into the three hours we spent talking at that picnic table. it tasted like the fruit and spice of fourth of july, like smores, like homemade pizza, like potato chips and diet coke we ate and drank while we played board games. it tasted like that chlorinated pool water that splashed in my mouth as i shrieked, trying to dodge splashes. it tasted like popcorn at the movies and sushi at the mall, mexican food and coffee at the house. it tasted like the fresh june breeze and sweltering july heat and stale august air.

i used to like the taste of autumn better. i used to prefer halloween candy to s’mores, apple cider and pumpkin spice to mango and pomegranate and strawberries, busy, crisp air to lazy warmth. i used to hate the heat and haze, wish for the season of sweaters and jeans rather than shorts and tank tops. i used to love that smell every year when you started school again, that october breeze that rustled the golden leaves, that november chill and the distsnt smell of winter in the air, but now?

all i wish for is one more taste of summer.

[systemwritingpieces]

The Power of a Name

What’s in a name?

Names are everything. It’s the first thing people learn about you. It’s how they distinguish you from others. It’s how they know that you’re you. When you name your child, you choose something for its meaning or its history. You don’t just name your child something that doesn’t matter to you.

Every name has meaning. My name has meaning. Jamie comes from James, but I was never called James. It means replacement. It’s a meaning that suits me quite well, but I didn’t know that when I chose it. All I knew when I chose Jamie was that I didn’t want to be called by my real name anymore, and I liked Jamie fine. It was unassuming enough, and I’d be able to remember it when people asked me.

A name is a curse. It tells people more about you than you’d ever like them to know. It sets their expectations, makes you a display of mistakes and history. You tell them your name, and you don’t get a chance to show who you are before you’re looked down on for it. They judge you for what your name is. It doesn’t matter that you didn’t choose it.

I didn’t choose my true name, but that didn’t matter. My name was a curse. It was a burden, and I didn’t want to carry it any longer. I erased my real name from everything and changed everything about myself to hide who I used to be. I took on a new persona, a new identity, because who I used to be isn’t who I wanted people to see. My name said everything about me.

My existence is a burden. I wasn’t supposed to exist. She doesn’t know how or why I do. My name said everything about me, but said even more about her because of the simple fact that I existed and what that reflected for her, so I stopped existing. I threw him away and took on a new form, for my own sake and hers. I couldn’t bear the looks they gave me, or the way they ridiculed her for my existence. She never said it, but I knew she hated me for it, because my existence made her look bad.

I took on a new existence. Everything about me is an act. My name, my accent, my personality, my energy. I don’t even know who I really am anymore. I don’t even know how old I am. Does it even matter? When I get to be myself, it’s Jamie, not me, but after being Jamie for so many years, are we really separate?

I don’t get to complain. I had a choice and I chose Jamie, and I threw away who I was and built myself up from the ground. Who cares who I really am anyway? Nobody liked me then, everyone looked down on me and made fun of her, but when I tell them I am Jamie, they don’t care. They don’t judge. They give me a chance. It was better for everyone that I made this choice. It was better for me, and better for her.

Nobody knows who I used to be. That person is long forgotten, and it will stay that way. I erased it entirely. Even she has forgotten me, and I’m fine with that. I am Jamie, and to them, I always have been. To them, my curse never existed. My name is Jamie, and it always was.

[systemwritingpieces]

Dormant

Dormancy is one of those things.

It’s just a part of a system’s life. It’s part of the cycle. Alters are created when they’re needed, and when they’re not anymore, they disappear. Sometimes they fuse, but other times, they go dormant. It’s not a death, they can’t die, but it feels like they die.

Dormant alters can always come back, whether it’s two weeks or ten years. But, after enough time, you stop hoping. You stop watching the door, waiting for her to walk through it and smile at you and run over to hug you. You stop hoping to see her face again. When she disappeared, you somehow knew deep down she wasn’t going to return.

Dormancy just happens, but you didn’t think it could happen to her. One day she was here, the next she was gone, and that leaves you. That leaves you alone, and you’re not really alone because you’re never alone, but it feels like you are because she’s not here anymore.

She’s everywhere, and you can’t escape her. The perfumes you own smell like her, so you stopped wearing perfume. Everyone calls you by her name, so you changed it. Every time you open your mouth you hear her voice, so you stopped speaking. When you look in the mirror her face looks back at you, so you stopped looking in the mirror. None of it is ever enough.

Her perfume is ingrained in the clothes you wear. Her face haunts you in every picture in that house. You hear her voice echo, echo, echoing in every recording. All you want to do is burn the clothes, break the picture frames and tear up the pictures, smash the phone on the ground so you won’t be haunted by her anymore. You read notebooks full of her words, her poetry and her thoughts and it was all just pain and suffering and sorrow for her, and you should’ve known that. You should’ve known and you should’ve helped her. It’s all your fault. The weight of the words crushes you, each sentence feels like a shot to the heart but you keep reading because you deserve it for what you did.

There’s nothing you can do now. You just have to move forward, and you try so hard to forget and move on, but everything around you, everything about you, is hers and it haunts you.

[systemwritingpieces]

Hers/Mine

Everything is hers. Every morning, I wake up in her bed in her room and put on her clothes and her jewelry. I say good morning to her parents and eat her breakfast. I feed her cat. I drive her brother to her school in her car. I introduce myself with her name and talk to her friends and sit in her seat in her classes. I do her homework and play her character in the musical she wanted to be in. I look in the mirror and see her face looking back at me.

Will any of it ever be mine? Will I ever drive my car or feed my cat? Am I doomed to wake up every morning in a bed I don’t own, put on clothes I’d never wear and go to a school I don’t belong to? Will I forever be stuck talking to people who don’t know me, who don’t know my name and don’t see that I’m not her, don’t see that none of this is mine and all of it is hers? Will I always be stuck living in a costume, pretending to be someone I’m not? Will they always call me by her name? Will I always look in the mirror and see her face? Will I ever claim any of it? Will I ever be her?

I don’t know what scares me more: the thought that I’ll never be her, never consider us one and the same, never consider anything mine and everything hers, or the thought that I will, that I’ll become her and lose my name, my face, my identity.

[systemwritingpieces]

Sometimes when I get angry at you,

I forget things.

I forget

that you were by my side

when I died.

I forget

that you told me

you thought I was your best friend.

I forget

that you cried

over my body

and wouldn’t let them

take it away

from you.

Did you ever mean

a word you said?

Or did you lie to me even in death?

After you lay me to rest

did you remember my name?

Did it fade with my final breath?