#actually did

[deitywaylin]

(It's a mug that says "There is no 'I' in 'team'... but there are 6 'I's in 'Dissociative Identity Disorder'.)

[co-fronting]

Something that always bothers me in mental health spaces is the fear of relating too much to each-other across the lines of different disorders. Too many times I've met people who are not dissociative systems, but have dissociative experiences (such as from BPD), and they trip over themselves saying "no no, I mean, I don't REALLY understand what you go through, my thing is totally different," and it makes me a little upset. Disorders are just clusters of symptoms packaged together in a certain way, that's why the names and criteria often change across DSM and ICD editions, and viewing them as entirely exclusive clubs where only they could possibly understand anything about each other isn't a particularly healthy way of seeing it. The lines between disorder labels are blurrier than you think. You are not being a bad person or overstepping for relating to symptoms of a disorder, or people with a disorder, without having their specific label. Very rarely (if ever, frankly) is there a symptom that can only occur in one disorder, or even one type of disorder. Psychosis can occur in countless circumstances. Dissociation and identity compartmentalization can occur in countless circumstances. It's better to focus more on your specific symptoms and building community with your fellow neurodivergent people, using the resources that help you regardless of if they were specifically made for your diagnosis, over worrying about whether or not you're "allowed" to relate to something or experience something similarly to someone else.

[meadowchewtoy]

sniffs you sniffs you sniffs you sniffs you

[hazedxg0]

It really does say a lot about how romanticized and theatricized alters are online when people go into denial or feel isolated for displaying the most textbook DID/OSDD symptoms.

Not knowing who's fronting, not knowing how many alters you have, not knowing when you switch, not knowing alters' names or why they formed, alters not having names, having no internal world or a very vague one, having no internal communication, struggling with external communication, experiencing alters as different overlapping states of self instead of separate people, hell even just experiencing amnesia.

These are all extremely common symptoms of DID/OSDD, especially when you're untreated or early in treatment. And yet they're all common reasons for why people feel like they don't belong in this community, because the reality of this disorder somehow doesn't conform to the online expectation.

How bad is the state of CDD awareness, even among those who proclaim to have it, that the most common manifestations of DID/OSDD are so underdiscussed that the majority of people with these conditions cannot find understanding even in a community meant for their disorder? When anything that doesn't play into the "alters are separate people and friends in your head" narrative is ignored and erased?

[fleshfictive]

NOT supportive to your system friends:

- "can you make [alter] front?"

- always asking who's fronting

- getting upset when they can't remember something

VERY supportive to your system friends:

- giving them money

- "here's $50 for you"

- relinquishing your money to them

- offering them money

[interstellarsystem]

Nonhuman expressions of affection are great. Purring. Exposing weak points as a show of trust. Head bonks. Preening and chewing. Nuzzling. Biting. Intertwining tails. Feeding each other. Little chuffs, chatters, beeps and squeaks. Fluffing up of feathers, fur or other things. Dancing to impress. Cleaning their fur, scales, feathers or skin. Sharing body heat. Ears pointing toward those you care about to show your full attention is on them. Slow blinking.

[starryk1sses]

I hate delayed amnesia so much. I’ll go through a whole day thinking I’m “fine” and fully present, and then hours later it hits me like—wait… I don’t remember anything from today. It feels like my whole day just slips through my fingers.

I’d like to think I’m staying relatively co-conscious with our other alters/fragments, but then once they leave, I lose nearly—if not all—of the memory afterward. It’s so disorienting.

[gor3sigil]

DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT RARE DID IS NOT-