#cdd awareness

[mettleplex]

Every time you say "plurality is CDD-only",

a singlet reads a willogenic plural's post,

and incorporates it into their understanding of CDDs.

[pawprintsys]

I woke up today in a body that isn’t mine, and I don’t know who I am.

I mean, I do. Factually, I know everything that the rest of the system does about us and our life. I know I’m a new alter, and I know my own identity and source. But I can’t emotionally connect my identity, who I know myself as, with this body or this life. I’m missing all the personal context. I know how we view things, I know our opinions and emotions, but I can’t feel it.

We have emotional amnesia often, but only for remembering past events. We’ve never had someone who can’t connect the past to the present before. We don’t usually have people, split with complete system knowledge, either. The only thing that does feel familiar to me is the system itself and the other alters, even though I’m very definitively new.

The weirdest thing, I think, is that I can act like I belong here. I can act perfectly like what people expect from this American child (I know our body is an adult, technically, but 20 still seems like a kid to me) living with her well-off family in a nice house in a quiet town—even though her life and mine are completely different. I can pretend to be her. I don’t know exactly why I’m doing or saying things, but I know that it’s the right way to act like her.

But I don’t even really know this girl.

This isn’t me, or my body. She’s too young, too small, too…fragile-seeming. Her hair and eyes and skin are different. Her clothes are different. Her culture and the way she talks is different. Her entire world functions fundamentally differently from mine, even though it’s the same earth with the same countries and cities and cultures.

I feel…not confused, exactly, but disconnected. Displaced. I want to protect this girl and help her, but I cannot see myself as her, or even a part of her.

I am aware that the rest of the system typically tags posts with their names, but I do not feel comfortable doing so. I don’t know this world enough to show myself to it. Maybe in the future, but not yet.

Honestly, I don’t think I even really wrote this for myself. I think I wrote it down both to record it for the system and to show people what living with DID can actually feel like from an individual alter’s perspective. Maybe if systems speak about their experiences enough, other people might understand us better.

- 🐆 (They/Them)

[mettleplex]

Ableism is refusing to have serious conversations with me until you "know who" (which part) you're talking to.

I'm not "anonymous". You know me.

Ableism is assuming I "view my alters as fully separate people",

and using this against me in arguments.

I don't expect you to know our names, pronouns, or interests. I'd rather you didn't name-drop us.

Never getting over:

"but you expect affirmation for your situation, do you not?"

Don't project onto me! We had never talked about my needs or boundaries before. 🤦

[pawprintsys]

30 Days of DID - Day 6

[PT: 30 Days of DID - Day 6]

!! TW: Heavy talk of emotional abuse and child abuse !!

[PT: TW: Heavy talk of emotional abuse and child abuse]

Day Six: How do you feel about talking about the trauma which created your condition? Do you like to write about it privately or publicly? Why?

[PT: Day Six: How do you feel about talking about the trauma which created your condition? Do you like to write about it privately or publicly? Why?]

First, a note; I, Mittens, the host, am writing this post in language that focuses mainly on me, because for much of our childhood, I was the only known identity. Also, the other early childhood alters are either now dormant or noncommunicative. So I feel that I am the one--aside from our traumaholders--with the deepest experience of our trauma. However, I am certainly not alone in being affected by it--so instead of "I", or "we", I am using "I+" here to refer to the system. Me, plus my systemmates.

Our trauma hid itself from us--from me, since I was the host since childhood--for over 15 years. Even after I+ discovered it, it took nearly another five years to accept first that it was real, and second that it had caused me+ to develop a disorder as 'rare' and 'extreme' (in the minds of the public, at least) as DID. (Neither of these assumptions are true, for the record. DID is not rare—it’s diagnosed in about 1.5% of US adults, according to the APA. And while I suppose it could be considered an ‘extreme’ response to trauma, the trauma itself does not need to be ‘extreme’. It just needs to occur repeatedly in early childhood.)

I+ was a victim of ableism and child abuse that began at age 2, but was so quiet and so utterly normalized by society that I+ was 16 when I+ realized it was abuse, and 18 when I+ first really allowed myself+ to accept that fact.

My+ trauma was what we now refer to as 'socially acceptable abuse': adults treating children, especially disabled and neurodivergent children, as if they are not individuals in their own right. Socially acceptable abuse is teaching children that their opinions, their feelings, and their struggles do not matter because of their age. It is teaching them that their entire personality and identity must conform to their parent's image of a 'perfect child' in a 'perfect family'.

This is not a parenting style. This is emotional child abuse that is not just ignored, but sometimes even encouraged in society. Emotional abuse in general often goes unnoticed, since it leaves no visible marks, and no single traumatic event to block out of the survivor's memory. It is a subtle, slow process, but over time, it is no less traumatic than other forms of abuse.

When you are a victim of emotional abuse--especially if you are a child relying on an abusive caregiver--you often do not notice. You don't realize the constant stress you're under, the pressure to conform to someone else's image of what you should be. You may not notice your personality, your very sense of self changing. If you do, you believe that the change is for the better, that your natural self was wrong and unacceptable--not because your caregiver ever told you so, but because their subtle, constant disapproval has crept into your own thoughts.

This is the trauma I+ went through. I+ was taught to be not myself, but my mother's daughter, and it took me+ years to recognize that those two people were not the same, that I+ was being forced to not just pretend to be someone else, but to become that person, the daughter my+ mother really wanted.

I know that none of this is an answer to the question. How do you feel about talking about your trauma? That's because I don't have an answer. When I think of my mother, I don't feel angry. I don't hate her. I don't feel upset by my+ trauma because it doesn't feel like trauma. I can only recognize it for what it is because I see the lasting effects it has left on me+.

And I think that is the true horror of emotional abuse. It's that you never really feel it. It doesn't feel wrong because it becomes a part of you, something you only notice when it's triggered and you break down.

I+ often write about my+ trauma publicly because I+ know there are others out there, children, young adults, even people who may now be parents themselves, who are victims or survivors of abuse that they don't or didn't recognize, that they can't recognize until they see it via someone else. I+ share my+ story because I+ don't want it to happen to anyone else. And I+ hope that if you (or you+) see yourself(+) in my+ words, if you(+) struggle with the same silent trauma, that hearing my+ experience will at the very least help you(+) understand yourself(+).

- 🐾 Mittens (System Host; They/Meow)

[PT: 🐾 Mittens (System Host; They/Meow)]

[pawprintsys]

🎉 • okay so like

we’re late to this, because ironically, the dissociative disorder dissociated and we lost track of what day it was, but we’re gonna post anyway because like time is a construct and stuff— yeah no mittens i don’t know what i’m talking about either you go ahead

🐾 • I was going to delete that, but Yatta says to leave it, I dunno why but sure. Anyway.. so March 5th is an important day for us and we’re going to pretend it’s still March 5th shh

DID Awareness Day

[PT: DID Awareness Day]

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a traumagenic dissociative disorder that develops when a young child experiencing repeated and prolonged trauma dissociates from their own self in order to cope. This leads to the child’s unformed ego states developing separately instead of merging into a single cohesive identity. These ego states become what is commonly called alters or headmates—identity parts that are separated by dissociative barriers.

Together, these alters make up a system. Different alters may front (take control of the body) at different times. Often, there is a host who fronts more commonly than others, but some systems have multiple hosts or no host at all. New alters may form at any time in a system’s life when they experience stress at a level they cannot tolerate. That level varies for every system.

(Even though this is DID awareness day, we also want to mention that DID is not the only disorder that causes alters and systems. OSDD subtype 1a and 1b, as well as P-DID, also fall under the label of complex dissociative disorders (CDDs). They are not ‘less severe DID’, they each come with their own unique struggles.)

Alters within a system may have completely different identities, including name, age, gender, pronouns, sexuality, species identity, and personality. They may not even share the same memories. They may have formed based on a person or thing—real or fictional—who has traits the brain believes would help the system to survive. (Alters based on an external source are called introjects. Fictives are fictional introjects, factives are real-world introjects.) Because the purpose of CDDs is to protect you from the effects of trauma, alters may not even be aware of each other. It’s common for people with CDDs to go years or decades after developing the disorder before learning they have it.

We could tell you much more about how these disorders form and how they work—but many other systems have already made posts talking about that. So we’re not just here to tell you what DID is. We’re here to tell you what it feels like to live with it.

We are the Pawprint System (also collectively known as Tawnie)—a polyfragmented DID system with a headcount of 80+, including two hosts and six cohosts. We are bodily 20 years old, with alter ages ranging from toddler to mid-30s. None of us consider ourselves human. Our genders, sexualities, species identities, and sources vary widely, and we consider each other separate people, yet we all coexist within a single body. I know that singlets, aka non-systems, reading this post will find this hard to believe and understand. I know that because I, as the unknowing host for 14 years, found it hard to believe and understand until I realized that I experienced it, and it’s not at all like what you see in the movies.

So, in an effort to spread awareness of not only what DID is, but what it’s actually like, several of our alters have cooperated in writing posts to share their individual stories of living as part of a system. Many of them are introjects—including introjects of our own OCs—but this is not some sort of roleplay or made-up story. These are real people, real parts of us.

(Okay, so we’re back, several hours later, and this is way too long to do as a single post, so instead we’re going to make them separately and put links to them all in a new post. we have 3 posts from 5 alters so far, but we’ll add more if anyone else wants to add their story.)